Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove walked out of President Donald Trump’s joint address to the nation’s leaders on Tuesday, March 4, saying she had heard enough.
“There is only so much (expletive) that a person can tolerate,” she said in a news release shortly after walking out.
Kamlager-Dove, D-Los Angeles, who represents California’s 37th Congressional District, said she walked out “on behalf of the people” of her Los Angeles-area district.
“It’s painfully clear that the commander-in-choas does not care about this country or the hardworking people who fight every day to support their families and communities,” she said. “If he truly cared, he wouldn’t be firing the people who process disaster relief or send out Social Security checks.”
Rep. Dave Min, D-Irvine, also left the chamber after he said Trump insinuated that vaccines cause autism. The president was talking about an initiative to look at increases in childhood cancers and illnesses.
“I couldn’t sit by and listen to another minute of Trump’s lies,” said Min, who said he’s the father of a son with special needs. “I had to walk out.”
While not officially called the State of the Union, a title reserved for a president’s annual address to Congress during later years of an administration, the address was an opportunity for Trump to lay out his priorities for the year. He took credit for his administration’s “swift and unrelenting action” in reorienting the nation’s economic, immigration and foreign policy Tuesday in an address to Congress and the American people.
In response to Trump saying former President Joe Biden let the price of eggs get out of control, Kamlager-Dove said, “If he genuinely wanted to help Americans make ends meet, his speech would have focused more on how to bring down the cost of eggs and less on his delusional claim of running the best administration in history.”
In his address, Trump pledged to reduce the costs of eggs and energy, but did not go into detail as to how he plans to achieve that.
“Joe Biden especially let the price of eggs get out of control,” he said, “and we are working hard to get it back down.”
Several other Democratic lawmakers also walked out of the House chamber during Trump’s address, including Rep. Jared Huffman, D-San Rafael, and Rep. Mark Takano, D-Riverside.
“I came to tonight’s speech hoping to hear the President explain why he illegally fired veterans from the VA,” Takano said on social media. “Instead, he’s spent the whole time lying and attacking. Enough is enough. I walked out.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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