Maryland Leaders React To President's State Of The Union Address
BALTIMORE (WJZ) -- Maryland leaders responded to President Trump's second State of the Union address late Tuesday night.
Congressman Elijah Cummings said that while the president called for both Democrats and Republicans to work together, he has "sown division and demanded that he get exactly what he wants" over the past two years.
Meanwhile, Senator Chris Van Hollen released a statement saying that while the message of the speech was supposed to be one of unity and bitartisan cooperation, most of it was "the same division and dishonesty that sadly has become the hallmark of this presidency."
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Rep. Cummings also said that while he agreed with President Trump that the rising prices of prescription drugs is one of the most important issues Americans face, he claims there has been two years of inaction on the topic.
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Senator Van Hollen also spoke on the matter of health care, claiming people with pre-existing health conditions are suffering because "of the GOP's sabotage of the ACA."
The senator continued on to mention the woman he brought as his guest to the speech. Lila Johnson is a federal contract worker from Maryland who missed a month of pay due to the government shutdown in January.
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"Next week, the economic security of hundreds of thousands of government employees, contractors, and their families will be imperiled again if the President insists on holding them hostage to obtain billions of taxpayer dollars for his misguided border wall," Rep. Cummings said in a statement. "We need to work together to protect our nation through smart border security, not squander it on measures that are ineffective and wasteful."
Both Senator Van Hollen and Rep. Cummings expressed a need for bipartisanship going forward for the sake of the American people.
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