Hoyer Discusses President Trump's State of the Union Address on CNBC
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Press Release
For Immediate Release:
January 31, 2018
Contact Info:
Mariel Saez 202-225-3130
WASHINGTON, DC - House Democratic Whip Steny H. Hoyer (MD) joined CNBC's Squawk Box this morning to discuss President Trump’s State of the Union address last night. Below are excerpts from the interview and a link to the video:
“I don't think any of us thought on our side of the aisle that it was a very bipartisan speech. One of the problems was that it started out pretty smoothly, but it then got pretty hard-lined as he went into a number of the issues that he discussed and, of course, criticisms of previous administrations... We also think he made some pretty glaring misrepresentations about why the economy is where it is. For instance, on jobs, as you know, there were more jobs created in 2016 than there were in 2017. There may be reasons for that, but the fact of the matter is this President was advantaged by inheriting a growing economy, an economy that [saw] the stock market increase 300% between the end of the Bush Administration and the end of the Obama Administration, so we were disappointed with the speech. [President Trump] says America's stronger. I'm not sure that's the case. He said we could be proud. We're certainly proud of being Americans, but when you look at the respect that America’s held in around the world, you see a very sharp decline, a very sharp decline in the confidence that America is the leader of the free world. All of those, I think, lead us to being less confident as a nation in many respects, and I think that the President's unpopularity, or lack of popularity, if you want to say it that way, reflects Americans being disconcerted about how he's leading this country."
"[Democrats] believe we need to invest in infrastructure so I think there's not disagreement on that. The issue is where you get the resources. [The President called for] another $1.5 trillion. There was nothing in the speech that said how that was going to be raised, how that was going to be gotten, so that we could invest in the infrastructure the President proposed. I certainly want to see the details of that. The Democrats want to see the details of that. What we don't want to see is an increasing exacerbation of the deep, deep hole that we're creating for our debt with the $1.5 trillion from the tax cut, $1.5 trillion in infrastructure and other programs the President mentioned, and his very substantial increase in defense, but there are no ways that the President has indicated that we're going to be able to pay for that. Therefore, future generations, apparently, are just going to be pushed deeper, deeper, deeper into debt. That’s not good for our country. It's certainly not good for future generations.
"I think you're going to see [Democrats] win a lot, a lot of moderate seats around the country — moderate seats being seats that can go Republican or can go Democrat, swing seats. We see it throughout the country in many, many areas of the country, the opportunity to take back seats that we've held or seats that Republicans are losing. So I think you're going to see a balancing, but I also think you're going to see a continuing unity on things that we think need to be done — investment in jobs, investment in infrastructure, maintenance of health care for all Americans’ access, which has been undermined substantially by this Administration and by the tax bill, where some 13 million people are going to lose health insurance as a result of premiums going up very substantially. I think you will see a lot of the moderate districts won by Democrats."
“I don't think any of us thought on our side of the aisle that it was a very bipartisan speech. One of the problems was that it started out pretty smoothly, but it then got pretty hard-lined as he went into a number of the issues that he discussed and, of course, criticisms of previous administrations... We also think he made some pretty glaring misrepresentations about why the economy is where it is. For instance, on jobs, as you know, there were more jobs created in 2016 than there were in 2017. There may be reasons for that, but the fact of the matter is this President was advantaged by inheriting a growing economy, an economy that [saw] the stock market increase 300% between the end of the Bush Administration and the end of the Obama Administration, so we were disappointed with the speech. [President Trump] says America's stronger. I'm not sure that's the case. He said we could be proud. We're certainly proud of being Americans, but when you look at the respect that America’s held in around the world, you see a very sharp decline, a very sharp decline in the confidence that America is the leader of the free world. All of those, I think, lead us to being less confident as a nation in many respects, and I think that the President's unpopularity, or lack of popularity, if you want to say it that way, reflects Americans being disconcerted about how he's leading this country."
"[Democrats] believe we need to invest in infrastructure so I think there's not disagreement on that. The issue is where you get the resources. [The President called for] another $1.5 trillion. There was nothing in the speech that said how that was going to be raised, how that was going to be gotten, so that we could invest in the infrastructure the President proposed. I certainly want to see the details of that. The Democrats want to see the details of that. What we don't want to see is an increasing exacerbation of the deep, deep hole that we're creating for our debt with the $1.5 trillion from the tax cut, $1.5 trillion in infrastructure and other programs the President mentioned, and his very substantial increase in defense, but there are no ways that the President has indicated that we're going to be able to pay for that. Therefore, future generations, apparently, are just going to be pushed deeper, deeper, deeper into debt. That’s not good for our country. It's certainly not good for future generations.
"I think you're going to see [Democrats] win a lot, a lot of moderate seats around the country — moderate seats being seats that can go Republican or can go Democrat, swing seats. We see it throughout the country in many, many areas of the country, the opportunity to take back seats that we've held or seats that Republicans are losing. So I think you're going to see a balancing, but I also think you're going to see a continuing unity on things that we think need to be done — investment in jobs, investment in infrastructure, maintenance of health care for all Americans’ access, which has been undermined substantially by this Administration and by the tax bill, where some 13 million people are going to lose health insurance as a result of premiums going up very substantially. I think you will see a lot of the moderate districts won by Democrats."