WASHINGTON—Workers, progressives, and their allies are saying that President Trump’s State of the Union speech dealt with none of the issues important to the majority of the American people and instead was a divisive, racist and bellicose diatribe full of lies on the one hand and promises on the other that his administration will continue to serve the ultra-rich who bankrolled his campaign.
The speech was full of misinformation. High on that list were false claims about inflation dropping rapidly, grocery prices dropping, the price of fuel at the pump being under $2 on average rather than the $3 or more it actually is, and false numbers about job creation. And his lies about the economy said nothing about the thousands of dollars more people are paying if they want to keep their health care.
All those key indicators, as most Americans know, are worse now than they were a year ago. Trump said nothing about how AI under the control of his billionaire backers could result in the loss of 100 million jobs over the next ten years, according to reports from Democrats on the Senate Labor Committee.
The president’s speech was intended to soften the horrific poll results he has been experiencing lately. Among independents, for example, his negative ratings are in the high 70s. This is especially worrisome for Republicans since the midterm primary elections begin next week.
Trump pushed his foreign military adventurism, something a majority of Americans say they oppose. He bragged that 80 million barrels of oil are coming into the U.S. from Venezuela where he recently kidnapped the nation’s president. He says he will control what will happen to that oil and the money made from its sale. He will go down in history as having made billions in profits for himself from foreign deals. He also bragged about how he could attack Iran at any time, another plan opposed by a large majority of Americans.
The president described his attacks on immigrants as partly responsible for ushering in a “Golden Age” for America. His immigration policies are yet another area where majorities oppose his policies.
Trump bragged about “ending DEI once and for all in America,” another so-called “win” that many argue does nothing to address the issues important to the vast majority of Americans.
On tariffs, he attacked the Supreme Court for standing up for the separation of powers and falsely claimed that the countries of the world were paying the tariffs, not the American people, through higher prices. The tariffs, of course, are taxes on the people of the U.S. Most independent analysts say that the average American household has lost $1,700 dollars since Trump imposed his tariffs. Labor and its allies, including many lawmakers and consumer groups, are demanding that the Treasury Department return that money to the people.
In recent weeks, scientists and advocates have warned that the climate crisis is getting worse, yet Trump boasted during his speech that he did away with the “Green New Scam” by ending regulations on big polluters. He called Democrats who supported the Green New Deal “rotten liars” as he condemned them for not standing up and applauding his remarks about killing regulations designed to protect the environment. He restated his allegiance to fossil fuel bosses by claiming he kept his promise to “drill, baby, drill.”
Doubling down on his plan to have the GOP carve out an electorate designed to bring it victory in elections, he called for an immediate end to mail-in voting.
The event was, more than any other State of the Union message in history, marked by the large number of lawmakers and usual attendees who did not show up. Instead, they rallied with MoveOn and labor union members on the National Mall. Still others held a press conference in downtown D.C., or watched from their offices, or just stayed home. By means of all those venues, supporters of peoples movements, labor unions, progressive lawmakers, and civil rights activists laid out proposals for pro-working-class programs that Trump, in his speech, completely ignored.
This resulted in the U.S. House chamber being filled with Republican Trump allies, who showed their loyalty to their leader with constant standing ovations and applause throughout the president’s speech. The GOP’s meek following of Trump on almost all of his issues and blatant displays of bigotry have made the party a place of choice to which right-wing extremists, racists, and even neo-Nazis have been gravitating.
The Democratic Party’s women’s caucus, on the other hand, showed up, dressed in white, like the suffragettes of over a century ago. They focused their energy on protesting Trump’s active lobbying for the GOP-pushed SAVE Act, a massive voter repression bill. Independent analysts say it could disenfranchise at least 21 million women, therefore electing not just candidates opposed to women’s rights but opposed to working-class issues as a whole.
The onerous requirements of not just proof of citizenship but also of original birth certificates and passports, for example, could make it impossible for married women to vote because of name changes after marriage.
Trump’s excuse for the SAVE Act, which he pushed in his speech, was his accusation of “massive voter fraud” in Democratic-run big cities and among non-citizen voters in 2020. An accusation which has been proven false by fact-checkers. Many political analysts note that, for Trump and his close backers, the passage of the SAVE America Act is seen as the only possible way for Republicans to win the upcoming Midterm elections.
Several Democrats invited victims of sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein to attend, but Trump completely ignored them. Just hours before his speech, it was revealed that the FBI deleted from the Epstein files charges by a woman they interviewed who alleged that Trump raped and physically assaulted her when she was 13 years old.
Rep. Ilhan Omar, DFL-Minn., and the entire Somali community in Minneapolis were attacked in a racist diatribe by Trump, who referred to them as “Somali pirates” and said they had brought a “culture of violence and theft” into the United States.
The president continued his allegations of fraud against the entire Minnesota delegation instead of acknowledging the violence and viciousness of his ICE assault on the state. There was no mention of the murder of two U.S. citizens by ICE and Border Patrol agents— union member Alex Pretti, RN, a Government Employees member, and author and observer Renee Nicole Good—during “Operation Metro Surge.”
Partisan tension over the murders, pitting Trump against the Democrats, leaves ICE, the Border Patrol, and its other agencies, along with their boss, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, without a permanent funding bill for the fiscal year ending September 30. But the department got a huge infusion of funds from the same measure, which contained Trump’s big tax cut for the rich.
Pushback against Trump’s rhetoric
The AFL-CIO’s initial reaction to Trump’s record-breaking hour-and-48-minute address was a series of tweets on BlueSky, led by “a bingo game of all the things the labor movement WISHES we’d hear about” in Trump’s speech. They didn’t.
“State of the Union BINGO: Union edition,” the light-blue-and-white board proclaimed, “Workers will be watching.” Their bingo squares included:
“Rein in CEO pay. Create clean energy jobs. Make it easier to form a union. Fully fund the NLRB. Fix the pay gap. Dismantle DOGE. Strengthen the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Fix the affordability crisis. Restore the ACA tax credits. Raise the minimum wage. Make TPS (temporary protected status) permanent. Workers over billionaires.”
“Working people are tired of living in an economy that benefits billionaires and giant corporations, while they survive paycheck-to-paycheck. The way to start balancing the scales? Solidarity and a union contract!” another AFL-CIO BlueSky tweet said.
“President Trump’s big, ugly bill did NOTHING to help working people or make life more affordable. It cut Medicaid, SNAP food assistance, and our essential services to give tax breaks to billionaires and giant corporations. Tax cuts for the wealthy never lowered anyone’s rent.”
The federation also went to bat for migrant workers. Trump again blamed the migrants for crime and illegal voting, though facts contradict him.
“1 in 5 workers in America is an immigrant,” the AFL-CIO posted. “Our diversity makes our jobs, our unions, and our country strong. Trying to divide us based on where we are born is a dirty trick that only helps the billionaire bosses.”
Campaigning for migrants was the top theme of the first half of three hours of criticism by lawmakers and constituents at the “People’s State of the Union” outside the Capitol. MoveOn and others organized it. AFT was a co-sponsor.
“These are not normal times, and we have to stop behaving normally,” Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., leading off the outdoor session, declared. “This state of the union is in crisis from a president who wants to become a despot, while millions of people are losing their health care.”
Trump “is disappearing legal immigrants, tear-gassing elementary schools” in the ICE sweeps in big cities such as D.C., Los Angeles, Chicago, and the Twin Cities. “And he’s killing citizens,” said Murphy.
“Families are being hunted down by ICE,” added Rep. Summer Lee, D-Pa., a former Democratic Socialist and spokesperson—in a prerecorded response—for the Working Families Party. “Families are being torn apart by a government” which also caters to “the rich and the powerful and the well-connected…We are all being squeezed by the same rigged system.”
Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., who also boycotted Trump’s speech, added: “Our democracy is not on automatic pilot, so we have to stand up and save it.” Including, Van Hollen said, from the “private ICE army” of “the most corrupt president in history.”
“We must get in the way of Donald Trump’s march to fascism,” he urged.
The federation didn’t let its readers forget that Trump’s so-called “Big Beautiful Bill” threw millions of people off of health care. Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., has promised a vote—but only that—on a Democratic proposal to restore Affordable Care Act tax credits to help cover health care costs. It hasn’t occurred yet. Trump has claimed that the ACA is “the unaffordable care act.”
Jill Gordick, whom Rep. Greg Casar, D-Texas, a former union organizer, introduced outside, said the lack of the ACA tax credits makes health care unaffordable for her. With them, her premium was $75 a month. Without them, it’s $800.
“For an hour or two or three or four, a man who’s made $4 billion by being president is going to tell you the economy is strong,” said Gasar. “Strong for whom?” Gasar predicted Trump would propose another tax cut for the rich. He didn’t, yet. Trump praised his own past tax cuts, approved by Republicans, instead.
“Nobody should applaud policies that throw people off their health insurance or bankrupt them with medical bills. Good, affordable health care is a basic human right,” the AFL-CIO added. “Unlike the permanent tax breaks given to billionaires, Trump’s ‘No Tax on Tips’ policy ends in 2028—and the savings don’t come close to covering the higher health care costs we’ll pay from that big, ugly bill.” Trump touted his BBB law’s elimination of taxes on overtime pay, tips, and Social Security.
“The DOGE/Project 2025 cuts forced 300,000 federal workers out of their jobs, created chaos for struggling families, and jeopardized the services we rely on…DOGE has been devastating for America’s workers,” the Fed said. The workers’ union, the Government Employees (AFGE), had no immediate comments.
Trump included in his speech what the AFL-CIO describes as a racist “fever dream” of an America that is primarily white and Christian nationalist. He described how such people “crossed the continent, conquered the wilderness and tamed nature to create the nation whose 250th anniversary is being celebrated this year.” He did not mention the slaughtering of Native Americans or the theft of half of Mexico in the process. Nor was any deference given to the millions of immigrants and to the enslaved people who were so critical in laying the foundations for the country we have today.
Trump also pledged he’d preserve Social Security and Medicare, something his “Big Beautiful Bill” last July 4 did not do. It cut Medicare by $500 billion over the next decade and Medicaid by almost double that. The federation called him on that line.
“Speaking of Social Security…How has President Trump threatened Social Security? Let us count the ways,” the federation posted. “Customer service deteriorated by key measures as the agency enacted sweeping cuts in Trump’s second term, internal data and interviews show,” it said, linking to a long Washington Post story that morning.
The first paragraph of the story began by saying Trump began his second term with “a hostile takeover” of the Social Security Administration.
Teachers/ AFT President Randi Weingarten also tweeted comments on BlueSky, saying her union’s own survey puts the lie to Trump’s claims about a roaring economy. Instead, things are so bad for many of its members that AFT had to establish a special help division. But her third tweet reminded readers of a big AFT win over Trump.
“While the rich get richer, our members are drowning in debt,” Weingarten, a New York City civics teacher, wrote. “The AFT launched the ‘Fight for Affordability’ campaign to provide resources, financial foundations, and a pathway to fight back against this affordability crisis. Get the tools you need right now at aft.org/affordability.”
“Sadly, could the president be any more out of touch with Americans’ lived experiences?” she asked. “74% of AFT members we surveyed report living month to month, paycheck to paycheck, and more than 35% report being unable to afford to cover all of their monthly bills.”
“But just FYI—Trump claims he ended DEI,” she said, referring to diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives in government and in the private sector. “But literally last month we won our lawsuit, preventing him from cutting civil rights laws, including the commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion in schools.”
The Service Employees, at least initially, posted a video of an older, bearded worker summarizing Trump’s negative impact. SEIU posted “three predictions from a working class guy,” a gray-haired man with a beard, with its own comment:
“Working Class Guy is calling it. During tonight’s #SOTU: No unity. Division is the strategy. While we’re distracted, the real fight gets buried: Healthcare gutted. Workers & unions attacked. Billions handed to billionaires. Real Talk: Working people are getting priced out of our own lives.”
The labor-backed Economic Policy Institute’s detailed analysis homed in on how Trump’s policies further enrich the rich while driving the rest of us into poverty.
“The Trump administration’s macroeconomic agenda harms affordability and raises inequality,” EPI analyst Josh Bivens wrote. Trump-GOP policies “raise recession risks and will quickly erode the economy’s ability to supply goods and services without inflation. That’s the worst blow to affordability for typical families.”
“The greatest future damage will come from slowing growth…and raising inequality. Trump’s economic policies will cause incomes and wages for typical families to grow more slowly, and this will lead to a less affordable life for many.” But first comes the recession risk, “by slowing growth in spending by households, businesses, and governments.”
After all, as even the administration admits, consumer demand drives the economy.
And in an understatement, Bivens added consumer demand could also slump due to Trump’s firing of federal workers and eliminating their services and protections for everyone, his “mass deportations of migrants”—who keep farms, restaurants, and the building trades going—and his “chaos in trade policy.”
“Finally, the 2025 Republican-led tax cuts favor the rich, while the spending cuts in the same Republican mega-bill will sharply lower incomes for the bottom half of U.S. households in coming years,” EPI’s Bivens said. “This combination will lead to a very large spike in inequality.” Incomes for all but the rich, he predicted, will be “significantly lower than they would have been under a different policy regime.”
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