In the weeks since President Trump’s inauguration, Democratic Massachusetts U.S. Senator Ed Markey has remained an outspoken critic of the Republican. From excoriating Trump’s push to slash spending to fund tax cuts weighted toward the wealthy to describing him as a dictator, Markey has called for Massachusetts to be the launch pad of a new effort to resist autocracy and oligarchy in the U.S. To that end, he’s holding a “No Kings In America! Rally for Democracy" at the Colonial Theatre in Pittsfield Sunday. Markey spoke with WAMC Wednesday about Trump’s joint address to Congress Tuesday, as well has the president’s efforts to scapegoat the country’s minute population of transgender Americans.
MARKEY: Donald Trump did not mention his intention to cut Medicaid healthcare for 2.1 million people in Massachusetts alone. He did not talk about his plan to cut the funding for the Affordable Care Act, healthcare for 730,000 people in Massachusetts. He did not talk about his goal to abolish the Department of Education, which provides funding for Title I, which is for poor families, blue collar families across the country, for their schools and funding for disabled children in the schools of Massachusetts and around the country, all to find the money for the tax break for millionaires and billionaires. He just forgot to talk about the central goal of his administration and what Elon Musk is doing. So, from my perspective, he was hiding the ball. He was pretending to give a State of the Union address, when all it was just a rehash of his campaign speech. Right now, he's engaged in a systematic attempt to undermine the Department of Education, the Department of Health, the EPA, all of the agencies that provide services to the people of Massachusetts and across the nation.
WAMC: How can Democrats best oppose the Trump administration given your concerns about the policies he laid out during the joint address?
Number one, we have to fight on the floor of Congress, in the House and Senate, against his cuts, against his tax breaks for the rich. We have to take him to court. Our Attorney General in Massachusetts is doing a good job of seeking to have a restraint on the actions of Musk and Trump, and we ultimately have to organize. We have to create a national movement which will resist and ultimately reverse what Trump is attempting to achieve with all of his cuts. So, we have a real challenge, but Massachusetts has always been up for it and working hand in glove with our whole delegation, with [Congressman] Richie Neal and with [Senator] Elizabeth Warren, in order to be the resistance to stop what Trump and Musk are trying to perpetrate.
On Sunday, you're going to appear in Pittsfield for the “No Kings In America! Rally For Democracy.” Tell us about the event- What are you hoping to express to folks here in Berkshire County on Sunday?
Well, I've spoken several times at the Four Freedoms rally, and I think it's critical to just understand this revolutionary spirit that has always come out of Western Mass, always come out of the Berkshires. It's a special place, and it channels this sense that we have to have a freedom to be healthy, a freedom from climate change, a freedom from gun violence, a freedom from all of these threats that are being posed by the Trump administration. And so, I'm looking forward, once again, to visiting with the Berkshire patriots who gather to celebrate the freedoms that all Americans are entitled to,
I wanted to turn to the issue of trans rights in America. It's a tiny portion of the population that's received an extreme amount of attention from the Trump administration and the Republican Party, and we've seen efforts from the second Trump term to crack down on the civil rights of the trans community. What has to happen at this point to protect the freedoms and liberties of that community in the face of the scapegoating?
Well, I have introduced the trans bill of rights into the United States Senate. Trans rights are human rights, and obviously Massachusetts is intending to protect the trans community. They deserve to live free from discrimination and fear. I stand with the transgender community, but what the president seeks to do is to demonize the transgender community, to take attention away from his heartless, cruel cuts to healthcare coverage for everyone, educational benefits for everyone, clean air and clean water and clean lands, protections that are going to be removed for everyone. That's his goal. Slashing veterans’ benefits, that's his goal. And so, he's trying to hide that ball. You're not going to hear him talk about any of that as part of his agenda. He'll have a veteran stand up in the gallery to be singled out, but he won't mention the fact that he wants to cut veterans benefits, cut the funding for the VA. He'll have a young man get up who is in recovery from cancer, but he won't talk about the fact that he wants to cut NIH funding to find a cure for cancer, and so it's our job to make sure that we penetrate this veil of distraction that he creates in order to talk about the real issues that are central to everyone's family at their kitchen table.
