Washington, Feb 28
Two Senate and House Democrats predicted on Monday that the speech President Donald Trump will deliver on Tuesday before a joint session of Congress will be simply another display of "populist rhetoric" filled with "empty words".
In a news conference on Monday at the National Press Club in Washington, Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi emphasised that since the January 20 inauguration, "Trump and the Republican Congress will not have lifted a finger to create jobs or raise wages for America's hardworking families," one of the key elements of the mogul's presidential campaign, Efe news reported.
He has, however - Schumer said - created "a swamp cabinet of billionaires and bankers who lack competence and whose views are a betrayal of what Donald Trump advocated for in the campaign."
The Senate minority leader, who represents New York, said that the mogul's message to be presented on Tuesday evening in his first address to the full complement of US lawmakers will once again be directed at workers but he will not fulfil those promises and will continue governing from the "extreme right".
Schumer went on to say that Trump broke his promises to the working class by making it more difficult for them to get mortgages and he has lifted obstacles on the economically privileged classes to obtaining even more benefits.
Meanwhile, Democratic House leader Pelosi, of California, noted that former President Barack Obama in just over his first month in office had signed a law for economic recovery, but Trump and the Republican-controlled Congress have done nothing to create jobs.
The President has put Wall Street first and is undermining US democracy, said Pelosi, referring to the billionaire's attacks on the press.
The House minority leader said that Trump has spent his first five weeks in office pursuing a "bait and switch agenda" that consists of breaking the campaign promises he made to working people.
She also said that the President's security measures in recent weeks have had an opposite effect and will make the US less safe, going on to denounce the fact that he has included his strategy chief, Steve Bannon, as a full-fledged member of the White House National Security Council, thus turning over the National Security Council to "white supremacists", a reference to Bannon's links with the ideology of such groups.
She also denounced the president for calling the press the "enemy of the people" and urged the public to be vigilant in the face of such charges.
Regarding Trump's stance on repealing and replacing Obama's health care reform, Schumer said that Republicans will not be able to overturn it since they are not united on a plan to do so that will not adversely affect the voters in their districts.
Trump himself acknowledged on Monday the issue of health care access and the intended overturning of Obamacare is not as simple as he had thought it would be, although he reiterated that the current system is a "disaster" that has created "chaos".
Trump is scheduled to address Congress on Tuesday at 9 p.m., a traditional speech offered by new presidents in which they publicly lay out their most immediate priorities.
