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Former Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear delivered the Democratic response to President Donald Trump's address to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday. (Feb. 28) AP

President Trump speaks before a joint session of Congress on Feb. 28, 2017.(Photo: Jim Lo Scalzo, European Pressphoto Agency)

WASHINGTON While Republicans repeatedly stood andcheered President Trump's speech on Tuesday night, most Democrats sat stone-faced during the address except whensome laughed as Trump declared that he had begun to "drain the swamp" of Washington corruption.

The only Democrat to frequently stand and applaud was Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, who is seeking re-election next year in a state that Trump won.

Trump did win applause from some Democrats when he promised to rebuild the nation's highways, roads and bridges. That potentially job-creating investment is an issue that could attract rare bipartisan support in Congress, although lawmakers may have trouble agreeing on how to pay for the $1 trillion plan.

Republicans cheered loudest when Trump vowed to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare.However, internal divisions within the Republican caucus about the best way to replace the laware already threatening to make that goal a difficult one.

There was some audible grumbling from Democrats, notably Rep. Luis Gutierrez of Illinoisand others around him, when Trump focused a section of his speech on victims of crime by undocumented immigrants. Gutierrez is a champion of immigrant rights and has criticized Trump for demonizing Latino immigrants.

"The President is lying when he says he supports immigration reform in any meaningful sense.He spent most of his speech denigrating immigrants, tarring our community as criminals, drug-dealers, and killers and we cannot stand for it.He is dressing his mass deportation plans up in nicer language, but hearing every Republican applaud the Presidents hateful words is very disheartening,"Gutierrez said in a statement after the speech.

Read more:

Trump to Congress: 'The time for trivial fights is behind us'

Full text of President Trump's first address to Congress

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There were a handful of empty chairs on the Democratic side of the House chamber, but most Democrats attended the speech.Democrats began walking out of the chamber as soon as Trump was finished speaking. With a few exceptions, they did not stick around to shake his hand.

Mostof the Democratic women from the House including Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. wore white in honor of the women's suffrage movement. They said it was a symbol that they will fight any attempt by Trump to roll back women's rights.

After the speech, Rep. EarlBlumenauer, D-Ore., put out the shortest reaction statement of the night. It said, simply, "Resist." The word has become a rallying cry for liberals who oppose Trump's policies.

Meanwhile, House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., calledthe speech "a home run."

"President Trump delivered a bold, optimistic message to the American people," Ryan said."We now have a government unified around a simple, but important principle: Empowering the people not Washington is the way to build a better future for our country. This is a president who is serious about tackling our biggest challenges and improving peoples lives."

President Trump spoke to Congress about all of his administration's accomplishments so far. We broke down a couple of his claims.

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In his first speech to a joint session of Congress, President Trump emphasized that he will lead the United States, not the world. USA TODAY NETWORK

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During his address to Congress, President Trump called for the repeal and replacement of Obamacare. USA TODAY NETWORK

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President Donald Trump concluded his speech to a joint session of Congress Tuesday night by asking for unity. "The time for small thinking is over. The time for trivial fights is behind us," Trump said. (Feb. 28) AP

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Congress applauded the widow of fallen U.S. Navy Special Operator Ryan Owens for so long that President Trump noted that it may have 'broken a record.' USA TODAY NETWORK

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President Donald Trump is making the case for his tougher immigration rules during his speech. "The current, outdated system depresses wages for our poorest workers, and puts great pressure on taxpayers," Trump said. (Feb. 28) AP

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President Donald Trump touted the accomplishments of his first month in office, saying companies have announced "they will invest billions of dolalrs in the United States and will create tens of thousands of new American jobs." (Feb. 28) AP

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President Trump listed the progress he has made in 'keeping his promises' during his first month in office while addressing Congress for the first time. USA TODAY NETWORK

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President Donald Trump is saying he will keep his promises to the American people while addressing Congress in his first speech as president. (Feb. 28) AP

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During his first address to Congress, President Trump described his campaign as a movement in 2016 that grew into an 'earthquake.' USA TODAY NETWORK

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President Donald Trump kicked off his speech to a joint session of Congress Tuesday night by condemning acts of hate. He also spoke optimistically about the future of the country. (Feb. 28) AP

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Before his first Congressional address, President Trump appeared on Fox News to talk about everything from immigration to government leaks. USA TODAY NETWORK

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Democratic lawmakers from more than 30 states are taking part in a coordinated rebuttal to Trump's agenda. USA TODAY NETWORK

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President Donald Trump will deliver a speech to Congress on Tuesday night. Newslook

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Fact-checking Trump's first address to Congress

Trump: My job is not to represent the world

'Repeal and replace Obamacare': Trump tells Congress

Trump: 'The time for small thinking is over'

Navy SEAL widow gets long ovation during Trump's speech

Trump: 'Positive immigration reform is possible'

Trump touts first month accomplishments

Has Trump kept his promises so far? He thinks so

Trump: Above all else, we'll 'keep our promises'

Trump: Earth shifted beneath our feet in 2016

Trump begins speech 'condemning hate'

President Trump gets honest about grading himself

Dems rebut Trump's agenda with "Week of Action"

Here is what to expect from Donald trump's address to Congress

Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., said Trump's speech was short on details.

"For those Americans looking for a clear and forward-looking agenda, tonight's speech raised more questions than it answered," Warner said. "I believe the President missed an opportunity to begin to reach out beyond his political base to all Americans. And despite his claims to be concerned about our deficit, I am deeply concerned that the Trump agenda will make our nations underlying $20 trillion debt even worse."

Warner said he supports Trump's call to rebuild the nation's highways, roads and bridges.

"If President Trump is willing to work in a bipartisan fashion, we can accomplish that goal," he said. "But it will require sustained focus and bipartisan commitment from the President.

Sen. John Barrasso of Wyoming, chairman of the Senate Republican Policy Committee, praised the optimism of Trump's speech.

"He spoke to all Americans," Barrasso said. "In particular, I commend his emphasis on creating jobs and giving Americans relief from the failed Obamacare law."

But Rep. Mark Sanford, R-S.C., said he was disturbed by Trump's protectionist sentiment about trade and foreign policy. He told reporters that protectionism is a very, very dangerous thing."

"America has benefited mightily from the rest of the world, and as much as we back away from that I think we do ourselves great harm," Sanford said.

Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., the new deputy chairman of the Democratic National Committee, told reporters that Trump's rhetoric doesn't match his actions.

"This is a speech (where) he doesnt have to answer any questions; hes going to say whatever he needs to say to appeal to who he wants to appeal to," Ellison said. "But people are going to judge what he said with what he does, and they dont match up."

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said before the speech that Trump's promises to help middle-class Americans will ring hollow unless he follows them up with action. He said he is worried that Trump'stax reform plan will give big breaks to the wealthy and shift the tax burden to middle-class and working-class families.

"His speech tonight will mean nothing if he continues to do as hes done these first few months since being elected: breaking promises to working people and putting an even greater burden on their backs, while making it even easier to be wealthy and well-connected in America."

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said earlier Tuesday that lawmakers "already know what needs to be done" to help the middle class and will work with Trump to get it done.

"We need to leave Obamacare in the past and replace it with common-sense reforms so we can bring relief to the middle class," McConnell said. "We need to make regulations smarter so we can get the economy moving. We need to make taxes simpler so we can create more jobs."

Contributing: Eliza Collins

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GOP lawmakers cheer Trump's speech as Democrats sit stone-faced

In its official response to President Donald Trump's first joint address to Congress Tuesday night, the Democratic Party placed a bet on convincing voters they'd love Obamacare if they only gave it a chance.

It's new territory for Democrats, who largely ran away from the health care law while Barack Obama was president. To make that case, they turned to former Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear, a relic of the party's Southern, working-class roots.

Opposition parties typically ride the coattails of presidential addresses to push one of their rising stars into the spotlight, even though the platform has had a mixed success rate.

But in party trending liberal, diverse and cosmopolitan, Beshear a 72-year-old Southern white moderate is nobody's idea of the future.

Beshear leaned heavily on shibboleths of traditional America to speak directly to the voters who fled his party for Trump. Beshear invoked football on Friday nights, church on Sundays, farmers, veterans, coal miners, auto workers and even Ronald Reagan.

He called himself a "small town preacher's' kid" with "old-fashion" values, and noted he's an Army veteran.

"I'm a proud Democrat, but first and foremost, I'm a proud Republican, and Democrat, and mostly American," Beshear said near the beginning of the speech, highlighting his embrace of both sides of the political spectrum.

The ex-governor was chosen to highlight a single issue Obamacare and be a less-freighted messenger for it than the former president whose name is forever associated with the law.

Related: 12 Fact Checks From Trump's Address

Under Beshear, uber-red Kentucky became an unlikely poster child for the Affordable Care Act.

Beshear built an effective state insurance exchange in the South even as the law struggled to get off the ground in more Democratic states. One-in-nine Kentuckians are now insured through Obamacare, and the state saw the biggest drop in the uninsured rate of any in the country.

Pointing to that experience and Trump's own campaign rhetoric, Beshear accused the president of "reneging" on his populist promises.

"They would put the insurance companies back in control," Beshear said of Republicans' plan to repeal and replace Obamacare. "Behind these ideas is the belief that the folks at the lower end of the economic ladder just don't deserve health care. That it is somehow their fault that their employer does not offer insurance or that they can't afford to buy expensive health plans."

"You picked a cabinet of insiders and Wall Street billionaires," Beshear continued. "That's not being our champion, that's being Wall Street's champion."

Some Democrats privately expressed befuddlement that Beshear was given the high-profile response gig and not, say, newly elected California Sen. Kamala Harris or liberal icon Sen. Elizabeth Warren.

But Beshear's message was not for the base. Instead, it was a gamble that Democrats can persuade soft Trump supporters who may be having some buyer's remorse six weeks into his administration.

"We chose him because in Kentucky, a very conservative state, ACA has been a big success. Everyone's for it," Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer told MSNBC after the speech. "The governor, coming from the heartland of America, also talked about how Donald Trump is breaking his word to the American people."

Meanwhile, other Democrats and progressives vied for attention in the crowded marketplace of "The Resistance."

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders delivered a straight-to-camera address on Facebook, telling supporters to keep up their calls to Congress and protests in the streets on Obamacare. "The Republicans are now on the defensive," Sanders said.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said Trump "speaks like a populist, but he is selling working people down the river to Wall Street."

Still, Democrats grappled with how to respond to a speech that was undeniably more presidential than any other Trump had given.

"Tonight's speech was a well-scripted, well-rehearsed presentation," said Arizona Rep. Raul Grijalva, a Sanders ally. "But it was also exactly what we know to expect from Donald Trump: the bluster never stops, and the facts never matter. Tonight's speech was no different."

Inside the House chamber during the speech, Democratic women wore white, a color associated with the Suffragette movement, making them conspicuous in wide shots as they sat stoically while Republicans stood and clapped. Others wore blue ribbons to support the American Civil Liberties Union, blue pins in defense of Obamacare, or red question marks to call attention to Trump's refusal to release his tax returns.

There no outbursts from Democrats during the address, but some laughed when Trump said the "time for trivial fights is behind us," and they groaned when the president announced an effort to publicize the crimes of undocumented immigrants.

And some more moderate senators up for reelection next year, like Montana's Jon Tester and Indiana's Sen. Joe Donnelly, clapped when the president called for a swift confirmation of Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court.

But West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, who literally invited a primary challenge days ago and on Tuesday defended a meeting with conservative Breitbart News, was one of the first members of Congress of either party to greet Trump after his speech.

The Democratic National Committee, however, under newly elected chairman Tom Perez, seemed in no mood to play nice. Minutes after Trump started speaking, it sent out a press release titled, "Trump Enables Anti-Jewish Hate Crimes."

Continued here:
Democrats Bet on Buyer's Remorse In Trump Speech Response ...

ANALYSIS/OPINION:

The president opened by celebrating Black History Month. Lady Democrats wore white.

Donald Trump delivered the most finely crafted speech of his political life Tuesday night in what will go down as one of the best speeches delivered to a joint session of Congress in the past two decades.

He hit stirring emotional high notes. And he laid out his vision for his presidency.

Mr. Trump stole the issue of affordable health care from Democrats. He unabashedly owned the fight against illegal immigration.

Obamacare is collapsing and we must act decisively to protect all Americans, he said. Action is not a choice it is a necessity.

In other words, Democrats led by President Obama swindled poor Americans into this disastrous program with their usual host of lies and false promises and now these good people are stranded. But Mr. Trump and Republicans are not going to leave these innocent Americans to dig themselves out of the mess Democrats put them in.

So I am calling on all Democrats and Republicans in the Congress to work with us to save Americans from this imploding Obamacare disaster.

When the camera panned to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi who, inexplicably, is still the Democratic leader in the House she looked like she had been sucking on the bitterest of lemons.

Strategically, it was brilliant. It completely cuts Democrats out of the debate.

And then the presidents salute to Megan Crowley, who is alive today because of the Herculean efforts by her father to find a drug to combat Pompe Disease, sealed the deal.

Mr. Trump then laid out the broad brush parameters of a health-care law he would like to see Republicans hammer out to replace Obamacare.

On illegal immigration, Mr. Trump held firm.

To any in Congress who do not believe we should enforce our laws, I would ask you this question: What would you say to the American family that loses their jobs, their income, or a loved one, because America refused to uphold its laws and defend its borders.

Another question he might have asked those in Congress who do not believe in enforcing immigration laws: If you dont like the immigration laws, why dont you change them? You are the only branch of government that can.

Mr. Trump also deplored the hellfire violence in Chicago and called education the civil rights issue of our time.

The senator from Illinois and other Democrats offered only the most paltry, perfunctory applause.

The entire speech was supremely presidential. But it wasnt without humor. After excoriating both Democrats and Republicans for spending $6 trillion in the Middle East, he said, we could have rebuilt our country twice.

He waited two beats. And maybe even three times if we had people who had the ability to negotiate, Mr. Trump said, dropping into his finest Apprentice tone of voice.

The camera panned to Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who was exchanging perplexed glances with an equally befuddled senator. They didnt get the line. Apparently, Ms. Warren never achieved her merit badge for reading smoke signals.

In the end, Donald Trump so dominated the entire night that Democrats were left nothing but sullen protests.

The ladies wore white, but nobody was exactly sure why.

In a shocking development, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg did not doze off during the hour long address. At least not on national television. She did not show up.

And in another development that absolutely nobody cared about, Rep. Eliot Engel, New York Democrat, announced he would not shake Mr. Trumps hand. It was not clear at press time if Mr. Trump even knows who Eliot Engel is.

There were so many protests on the Democratic side of the aisle, it was hard to keep track. Even the Democrats seemed confused about what they were protesting.

Rep. Joseph Crowley, New York Democrat, wore an giant pin protesting, well, not sure exactly what. It simply featured a large question mark.

In all honesty, that pin could be the partys entire platform in the next election.

Charles Hurt can be reached at churt@washingtontimes.com; follow him on Twitter via @charleshurt.

Original post:
Trump speech leaves Democrats befuddled, in ruins, with ...

New York Times

Health Care Is Front and Center in Democrats' Response to Trump Address New York Times In responding to President Trump's address to Congress on Tuesday, Democrats had to navigate between the expectations of their angry base in America's cities and the need to appeal to a broader array of voters in parts of the country where the ... Here's How Democrats Responded to President Trump's Congress AddressTIME Democrats say Trump already breaking promise to working classUSA TODAY Democrat giving response to Trump speech calls himself a RepublicanNew York Post The Federalist -AOL News -Yahoo Finance all 205 news articles »

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Health Care Is Front and Center in Democrats' Response to Trump Address - New York Times

WASHINGTON Democrats left PresidentDonaldTrumpsfirst address toCongressfeeling less like theyd watched a presidential speech and more like theyd wandered into an alternate universe.

Yes, they are still disappointed 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton was not standing before the assembled lawmakers. But theyve moved beyond the November loss and now find themselves wrestling with a reality that, to put it bluntly, they find bizarre, and even threatening.

It was a surreal experience, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) told The Huffington Post moments after Trumps address. We have a reality show host in the White House masquerading as the president of the United States of America and half the country is still in complete shock.

For freshman Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), a constitutional law professor who won election in November, it was unlike anything hes ever heard.

To me, it actually felt a little bit like The Hunger Games at points. There was something kind of dystopian, science fiction about the experience, he said. I looked up and I saw [former House Speaker] Newt Gingrich and suddenly I felt that I was transported to a different world.

Raskin added that Trumps remarks were toned down compared to the blood and gore and American carnage in the presidents inaugural address.

But the basic Steve Bannon program was still there, he said, referring to Trumps controversial chief strategist.

Pressed on if there was anything they liked in Trumps speech, several Democrats said his call for paid family leavebut nothing else. And the lack of specifics didnt surprise or sadden them.

Depressing? It wasnt. It was almost surreal, Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) said. This is someone who came from the reality show environment. Thats his platform.

Rep. Joe Crowley (D-N.Y.), the House Democratic Caucus Chair, also felt the entire day was surreal.

This president gives me a raison dtre to wake up every morning and say, What has he said today and how can I go after him? Crowley said. Ive got news for him this is not reality TV, this is the real deal.

House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) went into the chamber Tuesday night with little hope that Trump would strike a unifying tone.

One of the things weve learned in the last 15 months dont be surprised by what Donald Trump does, Hoyer told HuffPost. He almost always does what you dont expect, and does what you dont think he ought to be doing.

If anything, Democrats appeared energized. The address Trump gave Tuesday wont quell the unrest that has sprouted up in their states across the country.

Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) emailed a one-word statement after the speech: Resist.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) admitted there were rough days after election, but he appeared eager for the fights that are ahead of Democrats under Trumps presidency.

When Hillary first lost, I was shocked. And I taught my daughters they were shocked too, one of them was working for Hillary and I taught them the old Shirelles song, Mama said thered be days like this, thered be days like this my mama said, Schumer said.

But then he said he had an epiphany-like moment during the first week of Trumps presidency that had Clinton won the election, theyd have fun and get more good things done. But with Trump as president and with me as minority leader, my job was much more important because we were the backstop, just about the only one to Donald Trump, he added. And that steeled me.

Pointing to the debate raging over Trumps plan to repeal the Affordable Care Act as one example, Schumer said, Democrats are succeeding. Were on offense and my prediction is that odds are greater than half that we keep ACA, he said.

We need to be strong in the Senate, and they need to be strong in the streets, Schumer said, and if together, were working together, we can stop this guy and turn America back to where it should be going.

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Democrats On Donald Trump's Address To Congress: It Was 'Surreal' - Huffington Post