Arizona Democrats have mixed reactions to State of the Union address
Feb 5, 2019, 10:16 PM | Updated: Feb 6, 2019, 2:03 pm
PHOENIX — Democrats in Arizona had a variety of reactions to President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address Tuesday night.
Rep. Tom O’Halleran told KTAR News 92.3 FM that he’s hoping that Trump’s bipartisan statements become reality.
“There’s parts of any speech that you’re going to like and other parts that you don’t like,” he said.
“I liked the discussion of bipartisanship … but I also want to see action and not just words.”
Rep. Greg Stanton told KTAR News 92.3 FM that he felt the speech was “needlessly divisive” and failed to deliver a message of bipartisan unity.
“He should have sought bipartisan solutions to important policy issues and instead he just did the opposite,” he said.
“There was no mention of DACA, or the Dreamers, no mention of comprehensive immigration reform, and so I thought the president really missed the mark tonight.”
Rep. Raul Grijalva said in a video posted online he had hoped to see real effort in “making some attempt toward unifying this country. … Instead, we got a State of the Union that was a rehash of campaign slogans and rhetoric.”
He added the president misrepresented the situation at the border. “What he said was untrue.”
U.S. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona said in a statement that there are many things Americans can agree on.
“We must cut red tape for our businesses, grow jobs for the American people, and work together to bridge manufactured partisan divides and put our country first,” she said.
However, she called out the president for his remarks on trade.
“I will continue to stand up for Arizona against this unnecessary trade war that’s hurting our economy. I’ll keep working with anyone to get results for Arizona families.”
Chris Herstam, Democratic policy consultant, told KTAR News 92.3 FM that he was taken aback by some of Trump’s remarks.
“President Trump delivered a bizarre State of the Union address in the very early stages of his remarks, when he made the point that the only thing that stood in the way our booming economy was partisan investigations of him,” Herstam said.
“I don’t think a president has ever said something like that in the State of the Union message. To criticize an FBI, Department of Justice investigation of he and his investigation in the State of the Union address was the headline, really, and continued to show that Donald Trump is one of a kind.”
Arizona’s Morning News will react to President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address starting at 5 a.m. Wednesday.
KTAR News 92.3 FM’s Ashley Flood and Kevin Fleischman contributed to this report.
