Hoyer Discusses Affordability, Tariffs, Jobs Numbers Ahead of President Trump's State of the Union Address
WASHINGTON, DC – Congressman Steny H. Hoyer (MD-05) spoke to Fox5's Tom Fitzgerald prior to President Donald Trump's State of the Union Address. Below are a video and excerpts of the interview:
Click here to watch a video of his interview.
On His Expectations for Trump’s State of the Union Address and Jobs Numbers
“Donald Trump talks all the time. So, it's not an unusual thing for him to have large audiences on the news every night. But he apparently is going to talk [for] a long time. I don't know how much substance this is going to be, but I – and he's going to claim a lot of victories that he has not had. For instance, on jobs, he said he was going to put people back to work. We created 1.3 million jobs, in the last year of the Trump – excuse me, of the Biden presidency…. we created 1.3 million jobs; he's done 350,000 jobs in this first year.”
On the Republican Affordability Crisis
"We need to address affordability. We tried to address it. We tried to say, ‘We need to make sure people's health care is affordable.’ And we want to subsidize those who are at the lower end so that they can have health care. That's essential for them and their families. We've tried to say, ‘Look, we need to lower the costs by not having these tariffs that are a tax on consumers big time.’ $288 billion worth of tariff revenue. Who paid that? The American people.”
On His Decision to Attend the State of the Union Address
“Now, I'm going to be there because I'm an elected leader. I want to hear what he has to say as the President of the United States. And very frankly, I'm going to be pretty stone-faced because I don't expect to hear the kinds of things that are necessary to get this country where it needs to be.”