Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, delivering Democrats’ official response to President Trump Tuesday night, said he spread ’dishonesty and division’ and complained he’s done little more than “bullying people on twitter.”
With an eye clearly on this year’s elections, Ms. Whitmer blasted the president for “hurting” Rust Belt states like hers — states that delivered the 2016 election to Mr. Trump.
And she chided Senate Republicans, blaming them for blocking a mass of partisan bills that have emerged from the House, but are not moving in the GOP-led Senate.
Ms. Whitmer also gave passing mention to impeachment, prodding senators to vote to oust Mr. Trump in the final showdown votes on Wednesday.
“The truth matters. Facts matter. And no one should be above the law,” she said. “It’s not what those senators say – tomorrow, it’s what they do that matters.”
Mr. Trump ignored the impeachment spectacle in his own remarks from the House chamber.
But for Democrats it was a consuming passion.
A number of Democrats boycotted Mr. Trump’s speech, saying that to attend would have been to treat his presidency as normal. Several other Democrats crowed that they walked out in the middle of the speech.
“It’s all fake,” said one of those walkouts, Rep. Tim Ryan of Ohio.
Democrats’ Spanish-language response, delivered by Rep. Veronica Escobar of Texas, also honed in on impeachment.
“We know that President Trump violated his oath by asking for foreign interference, jeopardizing the integrity of our elections, putting our national security at risk, and then attempting to cover up his wrongdoing,” she will say. “This is a tragic moment, and Congress must defend our republic.”
Ms. Whitmer, in her remarks, told Americans she understood they may be “weary of today’s politics,” blaming the “dishonesty and division of the last few years.”
But she said the antidote is in the states, where she said Democratic governors are working on bread-and-butter issues such as fixing roads, expanding Medicaid and hiking teachers’ pay.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
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