Donald Trump told Fox News during his interview yesterday “All I can do is speak from the heart.” Which is pretty frightening when you consider his speech last night to Congress. Joe Scarborough said “Trump speech marks a shift in tone” but a shift in tone was all it was.
Not only was it filled with the same tired old lies he’s been spouting since the campaign, but words without actions are meaningless. Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) released a statement pointing to Trump’s ample verbiage but a lack of willingness to actually do anything:
“President Trump’s speech had an air of unreality because what he said tonight was so different than how he has governed in the first 40 days. He’s proposed nothing on trade or infrastructure, which might help working families; and his budget seems to cut education and medical research, which he talked about improving. The President is simply using populists rhetoric to cloak his hard right, anti-middle class agenda. The American people don’t want words, they want actions that help them.”
Schumer sent this pointed tweet last night in response to Trump’s joint address:
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More populist talk, but the American ppl want action & the President has enacted hard right policies. #JointAddress #JointSession
— Chuck Schumer (@SenSchumer) March 1, 2017
Appearing this morning on CNN’s New Day, Schumer doubled down on this line of thought and said that Trump’s speech was detached from his own reality, because “He talks one way but does another.”
Watch courtesy of CNN:
.@SenSchumer slams President Trump following primetime speech: "He talks one way but does another" https://t.co/LrAxzeOQ7Y
— New Day (@NewDay) March 1, 2017
“His speeches are populist…aimed at working America. His actions help the special interests and make it harder for the middle class and those trying to get to be in the middle class to get there.”
Trump has, as Schumer said earlier in the broadcast, “abandoned working people.” Schumer told “CBS This Morning” that “Actions speak louder than words.”
Tom Perez told Alisyn Camerota this morning that “I judge a person by their actions.” On that score, Schumer and Perez are right: all Trump’s actions give the lie to his claims to support the middle class and Trump is far from the populist he pretended to be last night.
Hrafnkell Haraldsson, a social liberal with leanings toward centrist politics has degrees in history and philosophy. His interests include, besides history and philosophy, human rights issues, freedom of choice, religion, and the precarious dichotomy of freedom of speech and intolerance. He brings a slightly different perspective to his writing, being that he is neither a follower of an Abrahamic faith nor an atheist but a polytheist, a modern-day Heathen who follows the customs and traditions of his Norse ancestors. He maintains his own blog, A Heathen’s Day, which deals with Heathen and Pagan matters, and Mos Maiorum Foundation www.mosmaiorum.org, dedicated to ethnic religion. He has also contributed to NewsJunkiePost, GodsOwnParty and Pagan+Politics.
