Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger, seen here in November 2025, gave the Democratic response to President Donald Trump’s State of the Union on Tuesday night. File Photo by Bonnie Cash/UPI | License Photo
President Donald Trump is not working for the American people but enriching himself at their expense, Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger said Tuesday in her Democratic response to his State of the Union address, saying Americans this year have an opportunity “to reject the unacceptable and demand more of their government.”
Before a small audience in Historic Williamsburg, Va., Spanberger asked the American people to question whether Trump was working to make their lives more affordable, safer at home and abroad and whether he was working for them.
“We all know the answer is no,” she said.
Spanberger spoke for about 15 minutes without once stating the president’s name following his record 1-hour, 48-minute address to the joint session of Congress where he championed the U.S. economy while attacking his rivals as he declared that the United States was “back, bigger, better, richer and stronger than ever before.”
To the American people, Spanberger, the first woman elected governor of Virginia, rejected Trump’s assertions, saying he did Tuesday night what he always does: “He lied, he scapegoated and he distracted.”
“He also offered no real solutions to our nation’s pressing challenges — so many of which he is actively making worse,” she said.
“He tries to divide us. He tries to enrage us, to pit us against one another, neighbor against neighbor. And sometimes he succeeds.”
She rejected Trump’s claim that Americans are wealthier under his government, underscoring a Joint Economic Committee report estimating that American families have already paid more than $1,700 in tariff costs since he took office.
Small businesses, farmers and all Americans have suffered from what she called Trump’s “reckless trade policies.”
The tariffs were struck down on Thursday by the Supreme Court in a 6-3 ruling that said Trump exceeded his authority when he imposed them. Despite the ruling, the damage of the tariffs had already been inflicted, Spanberger said, adding that the president plans new tariffs and Republicans are unwilling to assert their authority of the purse.
“They’re making your life harder. They’re making your life more expensive,” she said.
Concerning the question of safety, Spanberger drew attention to Trump’s aggressive anti-immigration policies that saw thousands of masked and armed agents in Minneapolis, where they detained thousands of migrants with American citizens among them.
Spanberger, a former CIA agent, described the operation as Trump deploying poorly trained federal officers into U.S cities to conduct warrantless arrests, with two U.S. citizens being killed in the process.
“And they have done it all with their faces masked from accountability,” she said.
“Every minute spent sowing fear is a minute not spent investigating murders, crimes against children or the criminals defrauding seniors of their life savings.”
The United States’ “broken immigration system” is something to be fixed and not an excuse “for unaccountable agents to terrorize our communities,” she added.
In terms of foreign policy, Spanberger accused Trump of weakening the United States’ standing, saying he has ceded economic and technological strength to Russia and capitulated to China and Russian President Vladimir Putin while seemingly edging the United States closer to war with Iran.
If the American people are not the ones benefiting from his policies, then who is, Spanberger asked before stating it was Trump, his family and friends.
“The scale of the corruption is unprecedented. There’s the cover-up of the Epstein files, the crypto scams, cozying up to foreign princes for airplanes and billionaires for ballrooms, putting his name and face on buildings all over our nation’s capital,” she said.
“This is not what our founders envisioned. Not by a long shot.”
Spanberger was speaking from behind a lectern at the House of Burgesses, the lower house of the colony’s General Assembly, a symbol of self-governance, a government of the people and a rejection of tyranny and monarchical rule.
In her rebuttal to Trump, Spanberger contrasted the ideals of where she stood against those emanating from the White House, stating that the power of government is still with the people.
“In his farewell address, George Washington warned us about the possibility of — quote — ‘cunning, ambitious and unprincipled men’ rising to power. But he also encouraged us — all Americans — to unite in a common cause to move this nation forward,” she said.
“This is our charge once more. And that is what we are seeing across the country. It is deeply American and patriotic to do so.”
As she did not mention Trump by name, she neither mentioned November’s midterm election, but like Trump, it was throughout her speech.
“We the people have the power to make chance, the power to stand up for what is right, the power to demand more of our nation,” she said.
