--- title: Bernie Sanders Responds to Donald Trump's State of the Union description: Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders offered a rebuttal to President Trump's State of the Union address in a speech live-streamed on social media canonical: https://time.com/5126159/bernie-sanders-sotu-response/ author: Eli Meixler article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2018-01-31T05:16:53.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-10-12T08:48:32.515Z article:section: Politics og:title: Read Bernie Sanders' Rebuttal to Trump's State of the Union og:description: Sanders said that wealthy Americans "have never had it so good" og:url: https://time.com/5126159/bernie-sanders-sotu-response/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt631b81fc5039f8bb/6988fa0ee76ad24288630d4c/rtx4fiw6.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 3454 og:image:height: 1943 og:image:alt: Senator Bernie Sanders arrives at Democratic Party caucus meeting og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Read Bernie Sanders' Rebuttal to Trump's State of the Union twitter:description: Sanders said that wealthy Americans "have never had it so good" twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt631b81fc5039f8bb/6988fa0ee76ad24288630d4c/rtx4fiw6.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Read Bernie Sanders' Rebuttal to President Trump's State of the Union Address > Sponsored content. 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It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, twice a week. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3/newsletters?i=bc3d8e49-270b-485d-838f-918d3fbb4f9b&cr=time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3-v1) ## Video: Bernie Sanders' Rebuttal to President Trump's State of the Union Address [Watch (HLS stream): Bernie Sanders' Rebuttal to President Trump's State of the Union Address](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/N95WxnJW.m3u8) (4:19)  _Published 2018-01-31. Vermont Senator and former Democratic primary presidential candidate Bernie Sanders live-streamed his rebuttal to President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address Tuesday night._ by [Eli Meixler](https://time.com/author/eli/) ## Eli Meixler Jan 31, 2018 5:16 AM UTC Vermont Senator and former Democratic primary presidential candidate Bernie Sanders live-streamed his rebuttal to President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address Tuesday night. by [Eli Meixler](https://time.com/author/eli/) ## Eli Meixler Jan 31, 2018 5:16 AM UTC Vermont Senator and former Democratic primary presidential candidate Bernie Sanders live-streamed his rebuttal to President Donald Trump’s[ State of the Union address](http://time.com/5123973/trump-state-of-the-union-livestream/) Tuesday night. In an [address streamed ](https://www.facebook.com/senatorsanders/)on Facebook, [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2ibkHGRyaQ), and Twitter, Sen. Sanders delivered an alternative to the official [Democratic rebuttal from Congressman Joe Kennedy](http://time.com/5123254/joe-kennedy-iii-state-of-the-union-what-to-know/) and a Spanish-language rebuttal from Virginia Delegate Elizabeth Guzman. Sanders opened his speech by addressing President Trump’s early economic record, criticizing Republicans’ “so-called ‘tax reform bill’,” and arguing that wealthy Americans have “never had it so good” while “millions of American workers are working two or three jobs just to keep their heads above water.” “In my view, that’s wrong,” Sanders said, adding, “the taxpayers of this country should not be providing corporate welfare to the wealthiest families in this country.” Sanders also took note of issues that Trump’s State of the Union did not address, including climate change, campaign finance, voter suppression, and college debt and argued that many Americans hold “a very different vision for the future of our country” than the one offered by Trump and Congressional Republicans. “But the truth is that there is a lot of good news out there as well,” Sanders said, referring to the Women’s March among other demonstrations that have called for social, economic, and racial justice. “In an unprecedented way, we are witnessing a revitalization of American democracy with more and more people standing up and fighting back,” he said. Read Sanders’ full speech below: --- > “” --- ## Transcript [00:00] President Trump talked tonight about the strength of [00:03] our accounting. Well, on that point, he's right. Official [00:07] unemployment today is 4. 1 %, which is the lowest [00:12] it has been in years, and the stock market in recent [00:16] months has soared. That's the good news. But what [00:20] President Trump failed to mention is that his first [00:24] year in office marked the lowest level of job [00:28] creation since 2010. Since March of last [00:32] year, the three richest people in America [00:37] So, their wealth increase by more than sixty eight [00:42] billion dollars, three people a sixty eight [00:46] billion dollar increase in wealth. Meanwhile [00:51] the average work saw an increase of four cents an [00:55] hour. Last year he supported legislation that would've [01:00] thrown up to 32 million people off of the health care [01:04] they had while at the same time substantially raising [01:08] premiums for older americans, the [01:12] reality is that although we are able to [ UNKNOWN ] [01:15] back Trump's effort to repeal the affordable care act. [01:18] 3 million fewer Americans have health insurance today [01:23] than before Trump took office. As you all recall during [01:27] his campaign, Trump promised not cut Social Security, [01:31] Medicare or Medicaid, that is what he promised. As [01:35] President, however, he supported a Republican [01:37] budget resolution They're propose slashing medicate [01:41] by one trillion dollars. And cutting medicare by five [01:45] hundred billion for the president Trump's own budget [01:49] called for cutting social security disability insurance by [01:52] sixty four billion dollars. Trump's spoke about how [01:56] other countries. Drugs cost far less. Yet [02:00] he has done nothing to allow Americans to purchase [02:03] less expensive prescription drugs from aboard or to [02:07] require Medicare to negotiate drug prices which Which [02:11] he promised he would do when he ran for president. [02:14] As president, the tax reform legislation Trump signed [02:17] into law a few weeks ago provides 83 % [02:21] of the benefits to the top 1 %, drives up the deficit [02:26] by $ 1. 7 trillion. And raises taxes [02:30] on 92 million middle class families by the [02:34] end of the decade. As president, not only has Trump [02:38] not taken on Wall Street, he has appointed more [02:42] Wall Street billionaires to his administration than any [02:46] president in history. And now on behalf of Wall Street, [02:51] he is trying to repeal the modest provisions of the [02:54] Dodd- Frank legislation which provide consumer [02:57] protections against Wall Street thievery. Trump talked [03:01] about DACA and immigration. But what he did not [03:05] tell the American people Is that he precipitated this [03:10] crisis in September by repealing President Obama's [03:14] executive order protecting the Dreamers. We [03:19] need to seriously address the issue of immigration, [03:24] but that does not mean dividing families. And [03:28] reducing legal immigration by 25 to 50 %. [03:34] It surely does not mean forcing the tax payers of our [03:37] country to spend $ 25 billion on [03:42] a wall that candidate Trump promised us that [03:46] Mexico would pay for. And it definitely doesn't [03:50] mean, a racist immigration policy, that excludes [03:55] people color from around the world. Instead of [03:58] spending 1. 5 trillion over ten years, rebuilding our [04:02] crumbling roads and bridges, what Trump want's to [04:06] do is to encourage states to sell Their [04:11] infrastructure, to war street, to wealthy campaign [04:15] contributors. 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