In his first address to Congress of his second term on Tuesday night, President Donald Trump took a partisan victory lap.
The president praised his administration’s dramatic changes to foreign and domestic policy during his first 45 days in office. Republican members of Congress cheered Trump, while Democrats held up small black signs reading “false” or “Musk steals.” U.S. Representative Al Green of Texas was ejected for protesting during the nearly 100-minute speech.
Tina Smith, a Minnesota senator, dissented, as did the Democratic caucus. On Wednesday, she joined Morning Edition host Cathy Wurzer to discuss her reaction to the president’s address.
Which of the president’s ‘swift and unrelenting’ actions concerns you right now?
“One of the reasons that I invited my guest Kate Severson to join me at the president’s address was because of the chaotic actions that Elon Musk and DOGE have taken to fire so many Minnesotans,” Smith told the audience. Severson, a Voyageurs National Park ranger, was fired by Musk’s Department of Governmental Efficiency last month.
“This is the kind of, I think, unaccountable actions that the administration is taking that is, I know, bad for Minnesota, bad for Voyageurs National Park.”
Smith stated that similar concerns prompted many of her colleagues to invite other recently laid-off employees as guests last night.
Trump’s speech didn’t mention a potential government shutdown next week. How likely is that?
“Typically these State of the Union or joint addresses are talking about the work that the executive branch and the legislative branch would do together to govern the country, and there was really none of that in President Trump’s speech,” Smith told CNN.
The senator expressed concern about Congress’s ability to keep the federal government funded.
“We are barely a week away from a deadline, and we await the next actions from the U.S. House of Representatives,” she told reporters. Smith hopes to reach a compromise in the meantime, “because the shutdown would be terrible, bad for Minnesota, and bad for the country.”
What does a compromise look like?
According to Congressional leaders, Smith believes they are close to finalizing the financial figures to fund the government for the next six months.
“And there’s going to be things in there that we don’t like, but way better than having us go into a shutdown, which would honestly give Elon Musk and Donald Trump, huge power to do whatever they want with the federal government.”
Some analysts felt that Democrats are having a tough time coalescing around a message of dissent. What’s your take on that?
Smith responded that she had previously attended seven or eight such Congressional addresses and that the “sense of theater” was always present, with members of the opposing party refraining from applause.
“I don’t recall any Republicans giving Joe Biden much credence when he gave his last speech last year,” she told me. “It’s sort of par for the course.”
“The number of, just lies and misstatements that President Trump reeled out last night was really unprecedented,” Smith said, citing Michigan U.S. Sen. Elissa Slotkin’s response on behalf of Democrats.
“She really laid out such a just excellent description of what Democrats want to do to lower costs for Americans, to make sure that we protect our national defense and to, I think, reclaim some of the common ground that should really be the way we think about leading this country forward.”
