The progressive representative from Pennsylvania will speak truth to Trump’s power tonight.
Summer Lee (D-PA) participates in a public forum on the violent use of force by Department of Homeland Security agents, at the Dirksen Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill on February 3, 2026.
(Aaron Schwartz / Getty Images)
President Donald Trump will deliver his annual State of the Union address Tuesday night, and the vast majority of Americans already know how it will go, because we’ve seen it all, and heard it all, before. Trump will try to stick to his script. He will fail. He will say outrageous, irresponsible, and dangerous things. He will drive even more wedges of division into a nation that is already divided because of his decade-long assault on the basic premises of the American experiment. The only real question is how quickly and how completely the speech will go off the rails.
What may distinguish this year’s address is the desperation Trump feels about how dramatically his approval ratings have tanked. A new American Research Group survey finds 62 percent of voters disapprove of how he is handling his job. A new CNN/SSRS poll puts the disapproval number at 63 percent. If that weren’t enough, results from special elections across the country suggest that independent voters are swinging toward Democratic candidates. Stock markets are in turmoil. Americans are in open revolt against the data centers that are the most easily targeted face of the tech-bro AI grift that the White House has so enthusiastically endorsed. International relations are in crisis, and wars that the people absolutely do not want appear to be looming on Trump’s horizon. And then there’s the devastating blow that the normally Trump-friendly Supreme Court dealt to the tariffs at the heart of the president’s miserable excuse for an economic plan.
Amid all of this turmoil and decline, Americans could be excused for looking away from the State of the Union. But this is not a time for apathy. This is a time for clarity, and US Representative Summer Lee (D-PA) intends to provide it.
In one of several responses to the SOTU address—including an official Democratic rebuttal from newly elected Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger—Lee says she plans to use her remarks on behalf of the Working Families Party to go to the heart of the matters facing this country.
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Well aware of the violent chaos that resulted from the administration’s decision to surge masked and armed ICE agents into Minneapolis, Chicago, and other cities, and equally aware of threats from the administration and its allies to employ even more chaotic strategies as the 2026 election season proceeds, Lee, a progressive member of the US House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform and the Committee on Education and the Workforce, says that mounting concerns about Trump’s autocratic approach “can’t go unaddressed because we are in a moment of authoritarianism.”
“I think that the way some of our American exceptionalism works, it kind of shields us from really reconciling with what we’re actually dealing with in real time,” says Lee. “I think that there are still a lot of people here [in Washington], a lot of people in our governing bodies, who are hesitant to acknowledge this moment—to acknowledge his governance as an act of authoritarianism, which it is. I think that any response to Trump, any response to the state of the nation that doesn’t acknowledge this, falls short. It does a disservice to Americans who deserve honesty right now.”
Lee relishes the chance to deliver that honesty in her speech. “I think we can all agree that these are really scary times,” she says. “Even before we get to what ICE has been doing in Chicago and Minnesota, the things that [Trump] has been doing are scary to those who have paid attention.” She points to “The cuts at the NIH.… The cuts to USAID, at a time where diplomacy is so important. What does it mean for the United States to no longer have allies who trust our nation? Really, all those things have created a dangerous situation for the United States, and that’s before we even get into the physical acts of violence that he’s inflicted on Americans, on people who are who have come to America to seek refuge. So, yes, absolutely, absolutely we have to address it.”
But Democratic elected officials cannot just discuss the crisis once a year, on the night of the State of the Union, says Lee. “Those of us who are in office, who are in Congress, the statehouses, we have to address that every single day because, if we’re ignoring what we’re dealing with, then how can we actually counter it? How can we navigate our country through it?”
That’s one of the reasons the Pennsylvanian — who on Tuesday night will also attend a People’s State of the Union event featuring almost two dozen fellow Democratic members of Congress—is excited to be speaking for the Working Families Party. The WFP works closely with many Democrats, but it is also aligned with unions and grassroots movements that seek to pull the party to the left.
Lee likes the determination with which the WFP raises issues that challenge both parties, along with the emphasis it places on striving for economic, social, and racial justice.
“Whatever it is that Trump is going to say about the State of the Union, it is going to be filled with disinformation. It is going to be delusional in the sense that it is not going to take into account what the lived realities are for so many people in this country—just like his policies,” says Lee. “I think that people right now are looking for [representatives] who can call it what it is, who are going to be clear and articulating what we actually want to see —what direction we want to see our country going in—and I think that this is a good opportunity to do that, to state it plainly.”
Lee will be speaking amid great concern about Trump’s talk of attacking Iran. She is prepared to declare that “the president, the executive branch, does not have the constitutional authority to unilaterally declare war. That is still reserved to the Congress.” She is equally unequivocal in warning about the threat Trump and his allies pose to democracy.
“When Donald Trump says something, I believe him,” says Lee. “He’s always been stress-testing the system—seeing what he can get away with. And in the earlier days…he was stepping a toe over the line in a way that was maybe not as egregious. But every single time he’s done it, he’s doing it to see how far he can actually push the line, until you can’t see that line anymore.”
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Lee will be calling out Trump on Tuesday night. But she argues that the threats we face extend beyond one man. The president has exposed flaws in the system, says Lee, who reminds us, “When you can see the fissures in your democracy, your democracy is already failing.”
To address that vulnerability, says Lee, there must be a “stronger opposition” that is prepared to absolutely defend democracy, to boldly oppose wars and speak truth to power in a louder and clearer voice. Tonight, that is precisely what Summer Lee is prepared to do.
Readers can view Lee’s response to Trump here.
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