The representative of Oakland lateefah Simon responds to President Trump Address at Congress

While the majority of Democrats took place Tuesday evening by President Donald Trump at the Congress, the progressive democrats, including the representative of Oakland, Oakland lateefah Simon (D-12), came out as a sign of protest, with Simon later defending progressive values ​​in a refutation for the party of the working families.

In her speech, the deputy for the first mandate described a program that defined the country’s problems as a division between the Americans of the working class and the “ultra-rich”, saying that the Trump administration and its rich supporters were trying to divide the public on sex, sexuality and race to prevent the government from responding to the needs of the general pebbles of Americans. Instead, she said she wanted to build a designed government and by the working class.

“Let’s be real. Donald Trump and Elon Musk and others never had to give the grocery store to the grocery store, “said Simon during his speech. “They try to make us blame each other. But diversity is not the reason why families cannot afford housing, and immigration is not the reason why you pay more for your prescription drugs. Billionaires and CEOs do not care who you are.

Since 2019, the Families of Workers’ Party – a progressive organization aligned with Democrats – has asked progressives to respond to the state of the Union on its behalf. With his speech on Tuesday evening, Simon joins people like the representative of Massachusetts Ayanna Pressley, the former representative of New York Jamaal Bowman and the representative of Michigan Rashida Tlaib who deplored the policy of Make America Great Again.

Simon believes that the actions of the Trump administration in the last month have already harmed his district to interrupt the payments to schools for young people with disabilities to finance the clinics of veterans.

In an interview with Bay Area News Group, Simon said she wanted to be a voice for working class progressives while the Trump administration dismantles the federal workforce, disrupts protections for the LGBT community and seeks to expel millions of immigrants illegally living in the country.

In her speech on Tuesday evening, Simon linked the challenges that she was confronted as a legally blind woman who lost her husband because of the cancer with challenges the American is confronted.

“This is an opportunity to tell the collective history of workers,” Simon told Bay Area News Group. “I was elected by a highly progressive district. This word – progressive – was a word Boogeyman, but for me, it means appearing with total integrity and defending what workers’ families need. »»

Simon said these needs were contrasting strongly with the vision exposed by Trump since returning to the Oval Office. The president’s speech on Tuesday evening targeted democrats and “unlocking” as obstructing his program to revise the federal government and revitalize the economy.

“Six weeks ago, I stood under the dome of this Capitol and proclaimed the dawn of the golden age of America,” said Trump. “From that moment, this was only quick and implacable actions to inaugurate the largest and most successful era in the history of our country.”

These actions have included a rapid reduction in the size of the federal bureaucracy through mass dismissals and reduced budgets, the signing of new prices against China, Canada and Mexico, and the pursuit of a distinctly “America First” strategy in foreign affairs while promoting ideas for control of Greenland and Panama.

Simon is concerned about the seizure of power by the executive power.

“We are in an unprecedented constitutional crisis,” Simon told Bay Area News Group, reflecting on the role of the Congress under the Trump administration. “Exverting the executive branch was extraordinary, interrupted federal agencies without conditionality levers, no preview of whom and why they cut. It’s crazy.

Simon is committed to bringing resources back to his district and protecting voters who could be vulnerable to budget cuts by the Government Ministry of Elon Musk. These oblique bars in government financing, she said, could affect scientists’ efforts to create a remedy against sickle cell aneader, a blood cell disorder that causes anemia, at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. She linked these cups to medical research to her late husband, Kevin Weston, who died of cancer in 2014 of an aggressive leukemia form.

Speaking for the party of workers’ families was not a break with Congress Democrats, according to Simon, who said that she would follow the leader of the Democratic minority Hakeem Jeffries and the wider strategy to fight the Trump’s agenda while the party is looking for a new message after its electoral defeat in 2024.

“Mr. Jeffries clearly said not to let someone keep you away from your house … Although I am very uncomfortable to listen to lies and attacks against disabled people and the LGBT community and our black and brown communities … (Jeffries) encouraged Democrats to be there and do our job.”

But Simon and many progressive democrats left the Congress Chambers to protest against Trump’s speech as he reprimanded the Democrats and announced his achievements. Simon’s own speech on Tuesday evening highlighted the importance of listening to the public and the union of organizations aligned by Democrat.

“If I am in the room with people who agree with me 90% of the time, then I know that I need a bigger room,” said Simon during his speech. “Let’s create a larger piece. Let’s build this piece and create a nation that finally works for all of us. »»