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For Immediate Release
January, 31 2018, 02:30pm EDT
Contact:
Scott McLarty, Green Party Media Director, 202-904-7614, scott@gp.org
Green Party Rebuttal to President Trump's 2018 State of the Union Address
Green Party leaders responded to President Trump's 2018 State of the Union address on Tuesday, Jan. 30, with sharp criticism of his statements on energy in light of the climate crisis, plans for more nuclear weapons, health care, immigration, and other administration policies.
WASHINGTON
Green Party leaders responded to President Trump's 2018 State of the Union address on Tuesday, Jan. 30, with sharp criticism of his statements on energy in light of the climate crisis, plans for more nuclear weapons, health care, immigration, and other administration policies.
Green rebuttals to Mr. Trump's speech and to reactions from both Democratic and Republican parties can be read below. The rebuttals advocate alternative ideas like the Green New Deal, Single-Payer health care, and global nuclear disarmament.
The Green Party aired a simulcast of the president's speech on GreenStream, the party's livestream channel, with post-speech comments and Q&A by Jill Stein and Ajamu Baraka, the 2016 Green presidential and vice-presidential candidates respectively. Craig Seeman (Green Party of New York) was technical producer for the broadcast. The comments and Q&A can be viewed here.
Video responses by Green Party leaders and candidates to the State of the Union are posted on here. Greens also live-tweeted on the party's Twitter page during the speech.
Green Party rebuttals to President Trump's State of the Union:
Climate Change
ExxonMobil's $50 billion investment in the U.S., praised by Mr. Trump in his speech, comes at a time when drastic measures are needed to reduce consumption of fossil fuels and the power of oil companies.
In November 2017, more than 15,000 scientists from 184 countries warned that humanity is facing "widespread misery and catastrophic biodiversity loss... Soon it will be too late to shift course away from our failing trajectory." The scientists sounded an alarm on greenhouse gas emissions, temperature change, ocean dead zones, and depleted freshwater resources, vertebrate species, and total forest cover.
During the State of the Union, the president boasted of expanded fossil fuel use (especially "clean coal" -- which doesn't exist) and reduced corporate regulation, in line with the reckless and anti-scientific skepticism of the Republican Party despite recent predictions of more extreme effects.
Meanwhile, the Democratic Party acknowledges the threat of climate change but has refused to endorse steps necessary against the crisis. President Obama blocked international agreements to reduce CO2 emissions from being legally binding and the 2016 Democratic platform rejected carbon taxes and excluded limits on drilling and fracking.
Greens have proposed a way to avert a global climate catastrophe, convert to a 100% clean, renewable energy by 2030, ensure financial stability, address human needs, and provide millions of new jobs in clean, renewable energy technology, retrofitting homes and buildings for energy efficiency, expanded mass transportation for a sharp reduction in care traffic, and other measures.
This plan is called the Green New Deal.
Global warming went unmentioned in Mr. Trump's speech and in Rep. Joe Kennedy's response on behalf of Democrats. The Green Party remains the only political party that takes the crisis seriously.
Health care
President Trump promised to reduce the price of prescription drugs, but GOP reforms will only worsen the Affordable Care Act's defects. Both major parties remain loyal to generous for-profit insurance, pharmaceutical, and other health lobbies.
The Green Party calls for Single-Payer national health care (Improved Medicare For All), the only solution that will make medical care universal, drastically reduce costs, and save Americans from financial ruin over a medical emergency. Greens call for health care to be recognized as a human right, not a commodity.
Military spending, nuclear arms, and foreign policy
President Trump's call for more nuclear weaponry is further evidence of his loyalty to Pentagon generals and dedication to military imperialism, the permanent wartime economy, and grossly bloated U.S. military budgets -- nearly $700 billion in the proposed Fiscal 2018 National Defense Authorization Act, which has bipartisan support.
The Green Party calls deep cuts in military funding (except for veterans's services) with redirection of such to money to human needs; global nuclear disarmament; closing of Guantanamo Bay and U.S. bases around the world; diplomacy and adherence to international law to resolve international conflict; a halt to U.S. aid for countries that violate human rights, including Israel for its brutal apartheid system and Saudi Arabia in its continuing assault on Yemen; and an end to Mr. Trump's insults and reckless threats aimed at North Korea, Iran, and other nations.
Greens see a glimmer of hope in current negotiations between North and South Korea undertaken independently of the Trump Administration.
Greens are equally concerned over Democrats' revival of the Cold War, with McCarthyite allegations against those who engage in political dissent (some directed at Jill Stein and the Green Party) and an embrace of neocon foreign policies. This mentality has resulted in tacit approval among many liberals for corporate censorship of ideas on the Internet.
The Green Party calls for a new peace movement that recognizes the belligerence of both the Democratic and Republican parties. See also commentary by Ajamu Baraka, 2016 Green vice-presidential nominee and founder of Black Alliance for Peace.
Immigration
Greens called President Trump's focus on gang violence committed by a small number of immigrants a slanderous and racist attempt to stoke fear and hatred. In reality, undocumented immigrants are statistically more law-abiding than the general U.S. population.
Republican enthusiasm for criminalizing and deporting immigrants -- bolstered by Democratic compromises during the recent government shutdown -- have been used to justify the president's repeal of DACA and barring of refugees seeking asylum, many fleeing countries like Honduras where bipartisan U.S. support for brutally repressive governments led them to seek shelter in the U.S.
The Green Party calls for human rights for immigrants, an end to Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids and deportations of immigrants, preservation of DACA, and a welcome to those fleeing violence and poverty.
Post-hurricane aid for Puerto Rico and other damaged areas
In the wake of hurricanes that have inflicted devastation on Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, Texas, and other areas, the Trump Administration has been slow to provide funds, fresh water, medicine, food, shelter, electrical power, and other kinds of relief. President Trump was silent about Puerto Rico during his State of the Union address.
On Monday, it was announced that FEMA would stop sending food and water to Puerto Rico. According to reports from Puerto Rico, many people still depend on FEMA rations.The Green Party calls this decision premature.
The Green Party continues to support independence, self-determination, and self-government for Puerto Rico and cancellation of the island's massive debt. Greens noted that the storms are evidence of increasing climate stability as average global temperatues continue to rise.
Real Resistance
Greens said that those who reduce The Resistance to "Restore Democrats to Power" are offering no resistance at all.
The Democratic Party, competing with the GOP for checks from the One Percent, has abandoned working people across the U.S. Both parties pretend that economic recoveries and prosperity for the corporate sector and the rich mean good news for everyone. In reality, wages have stagnated. Financial security and protections for working people continue to shrink.
Placing corporate-money Democrats back in public office will be an invitation for future GOP victories, with the possibility of Republicans even worse than Trump.
Real resistance means changing the dangerous direction of the U.S., which can only begin to happen by opening the political field to more than the Two Parties of War and Wall Street.
Donald Trump won the 2016 election because voters who didn't want Hillary Clinton prevailed over voters who didn't want Mr. Trump. In other words -- more than any other reason -- we got President Trump because of the two-party election dynamic.
The Green Party has an alternative vision for the future of America, for working people, and for Planet Earth. That vision can become a reality when millions of Americans declare their independence from the two neoliberal parties and business as usual.
See also:
Green Party marks Dr. King's birthday, 50th anniversary of Poor People's Campaign
Press release: Green Party of the United States, January 15, 2018
Video: Statement on Dr. King's birthday by Deanna Dee Taylor
Green Party Women's Caucus urges passage of HR bill upholding human rights for children
Press release: Green Party of the United States, January 3, 2018
Green Party: Democrats and Republicans have launched an evidence-free McCarthyite campaign to discredit Jill Stein and Greens
Press release: Green Party of the United States, December 20, 2017
Green Party leaders speak out against the Republican tax bill
Press release: Green Party of the United States, December 13, 2017
MORE INFORMATION
Green Party of the United States https://www.gp.org
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@GreenPartyUS
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News Center
Ballot Access
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The Green Party of the United States is a grassroots national party. We're the party for "We The People," the health of our planet, and future generations instead of the One Percent.
(202) 319-7191LATEST NEWS
'I've Never Seen Anything Like It': Trump Policies Leave US Farmers in Dire Straits
"It's a five-alarm fire," one Kentucky soybean farmer said, describing the harmful effects of the president's tariffs.
Sep 16, 2025
As anticipated, US President Donald Trump's economic and immigration policies are harming American farmers' ability to earn a living—and testing the loyalty of one of the president's staunchest bases of support, according to reports published this week.
After Trump slapped 30% tariffs on Chinese imports in May, Beijing retaliated with measures including stopping all purchases of US soybeans. Before the trade war, a quarter of the soybeans—the nation's number one export crop—produced in the United States were exported to China. Trump's tariffs mean American soybean growers can't compete with countries like Brazil, the world's leading producer and exporter of the staple crop and itself the target of a 50% US tariff.
"We depend on the Chinese market. The reason we depend so much on this market is China consumes 61% of soybeans produced worldwide," Kentucky farmer Caleb Ragland, who is president of the American Soybean Association, told News Nation on Monday. "Right now, we have zero sold for this crop that’s starting to be harvested right now.”
Ragland continued:
It’s a five-alarm fire for our industry that 25% of our total sales is currently missing. And right now we are not competitive with Brazil due to the retaliatory tariffs that are in place. Our prices are about 20% higher, and that means that the Chinese are going elsewhere because they can find a better value.
And the American soybean farmers and their families are suffering. They are 500,000 of us that produce soybeans, and we desperately need markets, and we need opportunity and a leveled playing field.
“There’s an artificial barrier that is built with these tariffs that makes us not be competitive," Ragland added.
Tennessee Soybean Promotion Council executive director Stefan Maupin likened the tariffs to "death by a thousand cuts."
“We’re in a significant and desperate situation where... none of the crops that farmers grow right now return a profit,” Maupin told the Tennessee Lookout Monday. “They don’t even break even.”
Alan Meadows, a fifth-generation soybean farmer in Lauderdale County, Tennessee, said that “this has been a really tough year for us."
“It started off really good," Meadows said. "We were in the field in late March, which is early for us. But then the wheels came off, so to speak, pretty quick.”
It started with devastating flooding in April, followed by a drier-than-usual summer. Higher supply costs due to inflation and Trump's tariffs exacerbated the dire situation.
“So much of what has happened and what’s going on here is totally out of our control,” Meadows said. “We just want a free, fair, and open market where we can sell our goods... as competitively as anybody else around the world. And we do feel that we produce a superior product here in the United States, and we just need to have the markets.”
Farmers are desperate for help from the federal government. However, Congress has not passed a new Farm Bill—legislation authorizing funding for agriculture and food programs—since 2018, without which "we do not have a workable safety net program when things like this happen in our economy," according to Maupin.
Maupin added that farmers “have done everything right, they’ve managed their finances well, they have put in a good crop... but they cannot change the weather, they cannot change the economy, they cannot change the markets."
"The weather is in the control of a higher power," he added, "and the economy and the markets are in control of Washington, DC."
It's not just soybean farmers who are hurting. Tim Maxwell, a 65-year-old Iowa grain and hog farmer, told the BBC Sunday that "our yields, crops, and weather are pretty good—but our [interest from] markets right now is on a low."
Despite his troubles, Maxwell remains supportive of Trump, saying that he is "going to be patient," adding, "I believe in our president."
However, there is a limit to Maxwell's patience with Trump.
"We're giving him the chance to follow through with the tariffs, but there had better be results," he said. "I think we need to be seeing something in 18 months or less. We understand risk—and it had better pay off."
It's also not just Trump's economic policies that are putting farmers in a squeeze. The president's anti-immigrant crackdown has left many farmers without the labor they need to operate.
“The whole thing is screwed up,” John Painter, a Pennsylvania organic dairy farmer and three-time Trump voter, told Politico Monday. “We need people to do the jobs Americans are too spoiled to do.”
As Politico noted:
The US agricultural workforce fell by 155,000—about 7%—between March and July, according to an analysis of Bureau of Labor Statistics data. That tracks with Pew Research Center data that shows total immigrant labor fell by 750,000 from January through July. The labor shortage piles onto an ongoing economic crisis for farmers exacerbated by dwindling export markets that could leave them with crop surpluses.
“People don’t understand that if we don’t get more labor, our cows don’t get milked and our crops don’t get picked,” said Tim Wood, another Pennsylvania dairy farmer and a member of the state's Farm Bureau board of directors.
Charlie Porter, who heads the Pennsylvania Farm Bureau’s Ag Labor and Safety Committee, told Politico that “it’s a shame you have hard-working people who need labor, and a group of people who are willing to work, and they have to look over their shoulder like they’re criminals—they're not."
Painter also said that he is "very disappointed" by Trump's immigration policies.
“It’s not right, what they’re doing,” he said of the administration. “All of us, if we look back in history, including the president, we have somebody that came to this country for the American dream.”
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Leaked Chats Show Alleged Kirk Killer 'Doesn't Fit Into Any Tidy Narrative'
"He wasn't a Groyper. He also wasn't Antifa," said journalist Ken Klippenstein, who obtained Tyler Robinson's Discord messages and spoke with a childhood friend of the 22-year-old suspect.
Sep 16, 2025
Independent journalist Ken Klippenstein on Tuesday challenged conflicting narratives circulating about Tyler Robinson by obtaining online chats and speaking with a childhood friend of the 22-year-old man accused of assassinating far-right activist Charlie Kirk.
Republican US President Donald Trump "and company portray the alleged Utah shooter as left-wing and liberals portray him as right-wing," Klippenstein wrote. "The federal conclusion will inevitably be that he was a so-called nihilist violent extremist (NVE); meanwhile, the crackdown has already begun, as I reported yesterday. The country is practically ready to go to war."
While Kirk's fatal shooting last week during a Turning Point USA event at Utah Valley University has been widely condemned as political violence, the unnamed childhood friend told Klippenstein: “I think the main thing that’s caused so much confusion is that he was always generally apolitical for the most part... That's the big thing, he just never really talked politics, which is why it's so frustrating.”
“Everyone who knew him liked him and he was always nice, a little quiet and kept to himself mostly but wasn't a recluse,” the friend said, describing Robinson as a fan of the outdoors, video games—including Helldivers 2, the apparent source of some inscriptions on bullet casings found by authorities—and guns.
“Obviously he's okay with gay and trans people having a right to exist, but also believes in the Second Amendment,” according to the friend, who said that Robinson is bisexual and his family didn't know he was in a relationship with his transgender roommate.
Republican Utah Governor Spencer Cox and Federal Bureau of Investigation Deputy Director Dan Bongino have publicly identified his roommate and romantic partner as Lance Twiggs—and said that Twiggs is cooperating with authorities and did not know of Robinson's alleged plan to kill Kirk.
Robinson—who ultimately ended authorities' manhunt for the shooter by turning himself in—appeared virtually for his first court hearing on Tuesday. He faces multiple charges, including aggravated murder, and prosecutors are seeking the death penalty.
As Newsweek reported Tuesday, prosecutors have allegedly obtained text messages in which Robinson admits to Twiggs that he killed Kirk and discusses having to leave behind a rifle, later retrieved by authorities. Robinson reportedly told his parents that he targeted the Turning Point USA leader because "there is too much evil and the guy spreads too much hate."
In the wake of Kirk's death, many of his critics have also acknowledged his incendiary commentary on a range of topics. Right-wing figures and officials, including key members of President Donald Trump's administration, have responded by launching what Congressman Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) called “the biggest assault on the First Amendment in our country’s modern history.”
As Klippenstein wrote:
The federal government, the Washington crowd, and corporate media (based in Washington and New York) see the country in wholly partisan terms, Republican versus Democrat, Red versus Blue, old media versus social media, liberal versus conservative, right versus left, straight versus gay, and on and on. Charlie Kirk’s assassination (in Utah!) should remind us of the actual diversity of the nation, and of the cost of polarization that demonizes the other side.
No one in Robinson’s group is cheering or justifying the murder in any of the messages I reviewed. They’re just struggling to understand what their friend did. But Washington has become obsessed with the Discord chat, convinced it’s some kind of headquarters for the murder and cauldron of radicalization and conspiracy. Today FBI Director [Kash] Patel vowed to investigate “anyone and everyone in that Discord chat.”
What I see is a bunch of young people shocked, horrified, and searching for answers, like the rest of the country.
At least one person on Capitol Hill quickly took note of the reporting. Sharing it on the social media platform X, Congressman Sean Casten (D-Ill.) said: "This is very interesting. The more that comes out the more this doesn't fit into any tidy narrative other than a young man who made a bad choice with a gun."
Other journalists praised Klippenstein on X, saying: "Hey look it's real journalism," and "At the moment Ken Klippenstein has done the best reporting I've seen anywhere on Tyler Robinson."
Journalist Roger Sollenberger wrote: "This is the most valuable and insightful reporting yet on Tyler Robinson—citing current actual friends and messages from a Discord group he was in. And it underscores how stupid and irresponsible the rush has been to assign him to a political aisle."
Appearing before the US Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, Patel said the FBI is interviewing more than 20 people who were part of a Discord group with Robinson.
Responding on X, Klippenstein said: "The members of Tyler Robinson's Discord are just as shocked and traumatized by what happened as anyone. That the FBI is treating them like conspirators is so cruel it's stomach-turning."
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Hiding Behind Kirk, Team Trump Launches 'Biggest Assault on the First Amendment' in Modern US History
"This is the time where every American must stand proudly for free speech and our freedoms," said Rep. Ro Khanna.
Sep 16, 2025
US President Donald Trump and his administration have been signaling that they are planning to use the murder of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk as a justification to launch a broad campaign targeting their political opponents.
Trump adviser Stephen Miller on Monday singled out left-wing organizations that he baselessly alleged were promoting violence in the United States and he said that the full weight of the federal government would soon come down on them.
"We are going to use every resource we have at the Department of Justice, Homeland Security, and throughout this government to identify, disrupt, dismantle, and destroy these networks and make America safe again for the American people," said Miller.
Shortly after this, Attorney General Pam Bondi appeared on the podcast hosted by Miller's wife, Katie Miller, and vowed that the Justice Department would "go after" people who engage in "hate speech" against conservatives.
"There's free speech and then there's hate speech, and there is no place, especially now, especially after what happened to Charlie, in our society," Bondi said. "We will absolutely target you, go after you, if you are targeting anyone with hate speech."
While many prominent conservatives denounced Bondi's remarks and reiterated that hate speech is protected by the First Amendment of the United States Constitution, Trump himself appeared to give her views his endorsement.
When asked by ABC News reporter Jonathan Karl about Bondi's comments on Tuesday, the president signaled that he would favor prosecuting journalists on "hate speech" charges.
"We'll probably go after people like you because you treat me so unfairly," Trump said in response to Karl's question. "You have a lot of hate in your heart."
Trump then pointed to the $16 million defamation settlement he agreed to with Disney after ABC News host George Stephanopoulos said on air last year that Trump had been found liable for raping journalist E. Jean Carroll, when in fact the jury had technically only found Trump liable for sexually abusing her.
"ABC paid me $16 million recently for a form of hate speech," Trump said. "Your company paid me $16 million for a former a hate speech, right? So maybe they'll have to go after you."
These development have caused widespread alarm among some Democratic politicians.
Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) posted a video on social media in which he warned that Trump and his administration were engaging in "the biggest assault on the First Amendment in our country's modern history."
He then pointed to statements made by Vice President JD Vance, Stephen Miller, and Bondi, and he encouraged his supporters to be willing to confront dangers to American liberty.
"This is the time where every American must stand proudly for free speech and our freedoms," he said.
Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.), after posting the video of Trump threatening to "go after" ABC News' Karl, argued that Trump's actions made it impossible for him to vote in favor of continuing to fund the federal government.
"How can we fund this?" he asked. "I am being asked this week to fund a government that locks up a reporter Trump doesn’t like. This isn’t a close call folks."
Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), who has become the target of a censure resolution by Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) amid false claims that she did not condemn the Kirk assassination, hit back at Republicans for being hypocrites on free speech.
"Nancy Mace is trying to censure me over comments I never said," she said. "Her [resolution] does not contain a single quote from me because she couldn’t find any. Unlike her, I have routinely condemned political violence, no matter the political ideology. This is all an attempt to push a false story so she can fundraise and boost her run for governor."
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