Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) defended the members of his party who refused to stand after President Donald Trump asked them to stand if they believed native citizens should be prioritized over illegal immigrants at his State of the Union address.
Trump baited Democrats into a public relations blunder during his address by asking them to stand if they agreed that American citizens should take priority over illegal immigrants. All Republicans stood up and cheered, while almost no Democrats did. The president voiced his apparent surprise in the moment.
“Isn’t that a shame? You should be ashamed of yourself, not standing up,” he said.
Trump bashed Democrats for sitting during other sections of the address as well, including when he discussed transgender issues and introduced the mother of the murdered Iryna Zarutska.
“These people are crazy, I’m telling you. They’re crazy,” he said after the transgender section of the address.
“How do you not stand? How do you not stand?” Trump said during the Zarutska section.
Schumer defended the behavior of his fellow Democrats, focusing on the immigration question and pivoting toward criticism of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
“No other police department in America run by Americans has done what ICE has done,” Schumer told CNN. “So, yes, we want to protect Americans. He’s not doing it. And that’s why the American people are against what ICE is doing. So it was legitimate and right not to stand.”
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Republicans quickly picked up on the Democrats’ refusal to stand for Trump’s illegal immigration question, positing it as a decisive moment.
“The immortal visual of the entire Democrat party—upon explicit repeated invitation—refusing to stand for the core moral principle that US government owes its allegiance to US citizens and not foreign criminal invaders, is the most shocking image in the history of the US Congress,” deputy chief of staff for policy and homeland security adviser Stephen Miller said in a post on X.