President Donald Trump delivered his second State of the Union address Tuesday night and it was full of headline grabbing one-liners.
During his nearly 90-minute speech, Trump raised fears about illegal immigration. He said people of color are doing better economically on his watch, and he called for political unity.
“We must reject the politics of revenge, resistance and retribution, and embrace the boundless potential of cooperation, compromise and the common good,” said Trump, who makes it a habit of attacking Democrats, and even members of his own cabinet on Twitter.
He also gave a shout-out to people of color, saying their financial fortunes have improved under his leadership.
“Wages are rising at the fastest pace in decades,” he said. “African-American, Hispanic-American and
Asian-American unemployment have all reached their lowest levels ever recorded.”
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He then turned to illegal immigration and the nation’s “dangerous southern border.”
“Human traffickers and sex traffickers take advantage of the wide open areas between our ports of entry to smuggle thousands of young girls and women into the United States and to sell them into prostitution and modern-day slavery,” POTUS stated.
He raised more fears by saying MS-13 gang members are pouring across the border.
“The savage gang, MS-13, now operates in 20 different American states, and they almost all come through our southern border,” Trump said, adding that he’s not giving up on his border wall.
“I’ll get it built,” he vowed.
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Former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams delivered the Democratic response and shredded Trump’s speech.
Abrams, the first African-American woman to give a SOTU rebuttal, bashed Trump for his comments on immigration.
“This administration chooses to cage children and keep families apart,” she said. “America is made stronger by the presence of immigrants, not walls.”
She also called for the country to come together and denounce racism.
“We fought Jim Crow with the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act, yet we continue to confront racism from our past and in our present,” Abrams said. “We must hold everyone from the very highest offices to our own families accountable for racist words and deeds – and call racism what it is, wrong.”
