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BERNIE BLASTS TRUMP'S 100 MINUTE DIATRIBE  
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Bernie Sanders
March 4, 2025
sanders.senate.gov
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_ "Let us never forget. Real change only occurs when ordinary people
stand up against oppression and injustice – and fight back." _

, New Labor Forum

 

_WASHINGTON, March 4 – Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) today delivered
remarks following President Trump’s address to a joint session of
Congress. Over 91,000 viewers watched in real time on his social media
platforms._

_Sanders’ remarks, as prepared for delivery, are below and can be
watched _here [[link removed]]_._

Hello everybody. Thanks for joining.

As most Americans know, we are living in a pivotal moment in American
history – facing unprecedented challenges. How we respond to this
moment will impact not only OUR lives, but the lives of our kids and
grandchildren and, in terms of climate change, the very health and
well-being of our planet.

As you heard tonight, President Trump has been very effective in
creating what I would call a “parallel universe” for his
supporters – a set of ideas that either have NO basis in reality or,
in the great scheme of things, are nowhere near the most important
concerns of the American people.

And one way that he does that is through the concept of the BIG LIE.
Say something that is grossly false, say it over and over again, and
have right-wing social media blast it out endless times, until people
actually believe it.

And then, rather than address the real issues facing the American
people, we find ourselves wasting endless amounts of time discussing
Trump’s absurdities.

Just a few examples:

Trump has claimed that the 2020 election was stolen from him and that
he won by a landslide. A lie.

Trump has claimed that the January 6th insurrection was a day of love.
A lie.

Trump has claimed that millions of undocumented people vote in
American elections. A lie.

Trump has claimed that climate change is a hoax originating in China.
A lie.

Trump has claimed that Ukraine started the horrific war with Russia. A
lie.

And tonight, Trump claimed that millions of dead people between the
ages of 100 and 360 were collecting Social Security checks. That is an
outrageous lie intended to lay the groundwork for cuts to Social
Security and dismantling the most successful and popular government
program in history.

Let’s be clear: Well over 99% of Social Security checks are going
out to people who earned those checks – 70 million people. Nobody
who is 150 years old or 200 years old or 300 years old is receiving
Social Security checks.

And on and on it goes.

Now, the purpose of all of this lying is not just to push his hateful
right-wing ideology. It is not just to try to divide us up. It’s
more than that.

It’s a masterful effort to deflect attention away from the most
important issues facing the people of our country, issues that Trump
and his billionaire friends do not want to address because it’s not
in their financial interests to do so.

Trump gave his “State of the Union” speech tonight. But that
speech had very little to say ABOUT the state of the union – about
what is REALLY going on in our country – especially for working
families.

Trump spoke for 90 minutes and he almost completely ignored the issues
that are keeping working people up at night – as they worry about
how their families are going to survive in these tough times.

And I’ll tell you exactly WHY Trump had very little to say about the
REAL crises facing the working class of this country.

Think back 6 weeks ago when Trump was inaugurated for his second term
as President – just 6 weeks ago. Standing right behind him were the
three wealthiest men in the country – Mr. Musk, Mr. Bezos and Mr.
Zuckerberg. And standing behind THEM were 13 other billionaires who
Trump had nominated to head major government agencies. Many of these
same billionaires – including Musk – were there tonight.

In other words, it is there for all to see. They’re not hiding it.
The Trump administration IS a government of the billionaire class, by
the billionaire class and for the billionaire class.

Notwithstanding some of their rhetoric, this is a government that
could care less about the working families of this country.

My friends. We are no longer MOVING TOWARD oligarchy. We are LIVING IN
an oligarchy.

Now, let’s take a moment and try to escape from Trump’s parallel
universe. Let’s do something really radical.

Let’s actually take a hard look at the problems that Americans are
facing.

Today, 60% of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck. Unlike Trump,
I grew up in a family that lived paycheck to paycheck. And I know
something about that reality.

It means that every day millions of Americans worry about how
they’re going to pay their rent. Pay for childcare. Pay for a
doctor’s visit when they get sick.

They worry about what happens when their car breaks down and they
can’t afford the thousand bucks it costs to get it fixed, and what
happens when they can’t get to work because they don’t have a car.
They worry about how they can afford to buy healthy food for their
children when the price of food is off the charts.

Funny. I did not hear one word from Trump tonight about the economic
reality facing 60% of our people, or the enormous stress that they are
living under.

But that’s not all.

Today in America, everyone knows that our healthcare system is broken,
it is dysfunctional and it is outrageously expensive. We remain the
only wealthy nation on earth not to guarantee healthcare for all.

Mr. President: You really want to Make America Great Again? Then make
sure that every American, regardless of income, can go to a doctor or
a hospital and not worry about how they’re going to pay the bills.

President Trump: Health care is a human right. I didn’t hear one
word from you about that.

Nor did I hear you say why we pay, by far, the highest prices in the
world for prescription drugs – sometimes 10 times more than the
people in other countries – and why one out of four Americans are
unable to afford the prescriptions that their doctors prescribe.

Mr. President: We have nearly 800,000 Americans who are homeless. Over
20 million of our people spend more than 50% of their limited income
on housing. We have a major housing crisis in America – everyone
knows it. And in your speech tonight, you didn’t even mention it.

Today in America, we have more income and wealth inequality than we
have ever had. The three richest people in America, the folks Trump
invited to stand behind him at his inauguration, now own more wealth
than the bottom half of our society – 170 million Americans. Did you
hear one word from the President on that enormously important issue
which gets to the very fabric of our society?

And here’s something else the President forgot to discuss. Not only
is our life expectancy 4 years lower than other wealthy countries, the
bottom 50% in this country live, on average, 7 years shorter lives
than the top 1%. In other words, being poor or working class in this
country is a death sentence. Did you hear any discussion tonight as to
why so many of our people are living shorter lives than they should?

During his speech tonight, Trump did not have one word to say about
how we are going to address the planetary crisis of climate change.
The last 10 years have been the warmest ever recorded, and extreme
weather disturbances and natural disasters have been taking place all
over the world – from California to India, across Europe to North
Carolina. And yet, not surprisingly, Trump had nothing to say about
climate change.

And let’s be clear. Not only did Trump fail to talk about some of
the most important issues facing the working class of America, but
“the SOLUTIONS” he proposed would only make a bad situation even
worse.

Yes, I did hear Trump talk tonight about some tax breaks for working
families in terms of not taxing tips, not taxing Social Security and
not taxing overtime. Fine. But that’s chump change compared to the
benefits he’s going to give the 1%, and doesn’t tell the whole
story about his tax policies.

According to a recent study by the Institute on Taxation and Economic
Policy, if all of Trump’s so-called “America First” policies are
enacted, including his tariffs, the bottom 95% of Americans will see
their taxes go up, while the richest 5% in our country will see their
taxes go down. WAY DOWN.

Tonight, Trump urged Congress to pass his “big, beautiful” budget.

Do you know what’s really in it?

This budget would cut Medicaid by $880 billion. According to one
estimate, it means that up to 36 million Americans, including millions
of children, would be thrown off the health insurance they have.

It means that nursing homes that receive two-thirds of their funding
from Medicaid would either have to shut down, lay off workers or
significantly scale back the services they provide seniors.

It would be a devastating blow for the 32 million Americans who get
their health care at community health centers.

And, it’s not just Medicaid. Trump’s budget would cut nutrition
assistance by at least $230 billion. Can you imagine? The billionaire
class, people who can support their families for the next ten
generations, people who live in incredible opulence, people who own
their own jet planes, private islands and space ships, trying to get
tax breaks by taking food out of the mouths of low-income kids. That
truly is disgusting.

What we are seeing is the Robin Hood principle in reverse – taking
from the poor and giving to the rich.

And here is something else Trump has been doing.

For the past several weeks, he and Elon Musk have been throwing
hundreds of thousands of federal employees off their jobs. Now, I know
some of you are saying, “That’s too bad, but that’s the federal
government, not me.”

But I want you to think about this: If they can arbitrarily throw
federal workers out on the street today, what do you think that Musk
and his fellow billionaires will be doing tomorrow when Artificial
Intelligence and robotics explode in this country?

Do you think they’ll give a damn about you and your families? No.
You’ll be out on the street as well.

But it is not only absurd domestic policies that we’ve got to fight.

For the first time in our 250-year history we have a president who is
turning his back on democracy and allying us with authoritarianism.
No. We must not abandon the people of Ukraine who were invaded by the
Russian dictator, Vladimir Putin. We must always stand for democracy,
not dictatorship.

Let me be very clear. Regardless of where Trump is taking this
country, here’s where I think Americans want to go:

They want us to end a corrupt campaign finance system, which allows a
handful of billionaires to buy elections. It is beyond crazy that
someone like Elon Musk can contribute over $270 million to help get
Trump elected and then gets to run the government.

It is absurd that any Member of Congress who stands up to
Netanyahu’s brutal war in Gaza can expect to be opposed by millions
of dollars in campaign contributions from AIPAC.

They want us to end the disastrous Citizens United Supreme Court
decision and move to the public funding of elections. Democracy is
supposed to be about one person, one vote – not billionaires buying
the political candidates of their choice.

No. We should not be giving tax breaks to billionaires. We must demand
that they pay their fair share of taxes.

We must raise the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour to a living
wage of at least $17 an hour.

We must make it easier for workers to join trade unions, grow the
union movement and prevent corporations from violating labor laws with
impunity by passing the PRO Act – legislation I will be introducing
tomorrow.

No, we’re not going to cut Social Security. Quite the contrary, we
must expand Social Security benefits and extend its solvency for the
next 75 years by scrapping the cap that allows a billionaire to pay
the same amount into Social Security as a truck driver.

Instead of making massive cuts to Medicaid, we must join every other
major country on earth in guaranteeing healthcare to all of our people
through a Medicare for All, single-payer program.

We must also take on the greed of the pharmaceutical industry and
reduce prescription drug prices by 50%.

At a time of a terrible housing crisis in every area of our country,
we must build at least 4 million units of low-income and affordable
housing, stop corporate landlords from jacking up rent prices and
establish a cap on rent.

In a competitive global economy, we need the best educated workforce
in the world. All of our young people must have the ability to get a
higher education by making public colleges, trade schools and
universities tuition-free and canceling student debt.

Yes. We can create millions of good-paying jobs by combating climate
change and moving our energy system away from fossil fuels and into
sustainable energy.

I heard a lot of talk about freedom tonight. Well, in a free society,
we must absolutely guarantee that it is the women of America who
control their own bodies, not the local, state or federal governments.

Now, I know there are a lot of people out there who are feeling angry
and frustrated at what’s going on here in Washington, DC. And some
of you may feel a bit hopeless.

So let me say this.

At this particular moment in history, despair is not an option. Giving
up is not acceptable. And none of us have the privilege of hiding
under the covers. The stakes are just too high.

Let us never forget. Real change only occurs when ordinary people
stand up against oppression and injustice – and fight back.

That is the history of the founding of our nation when brave men and
women took on the mighty British empire. It is the history of the
abolitionist movement, the labor movement, the civil rights movement,
the women’s movement, the environmental movement and the gay rights
movement.

Yes, the oligarchs ARE enormously powerful. They have endless amounts
of money. They control our economy. They own much of the media. They
have enormous influence over our political system.

But, from the bottom of my heart, I am convinced that they can be
beaten.

If we stand together and not let them divide us up by the color of our
skin or where we were born or our religion or sexual orientation; if
we bring our people together around an agenda that works for the many
and not the few – there is nothing in the world that can stop us.

We can win. We will win. Let’s go forward together.

* Bernie Sanders
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* SOTU rebuttal
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