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Michigan Gov's Democrat Response to SOTU Focuses on Voters' Health Care and Pocket Books

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Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer used the Democratic Party's response to President Donald Trump's State of the Union address to quickly swivel her party's main focus from impeachment to working-class voters' worries, saying her party is set on easing health care costs and other pocketbook concerns.

In her 11-minute address, Whitmer only mentioned Trump's impeachment trial near the end of her speech Tuesday night. 

She also threw in a few references to his tweets saying, "Bullying people on Twitter doesn't fix bridges — it burns them."

Most of her address, however, was spent on her party's efforts on health care and some people's struggles to pay their bills. These are the issues that Democrats focused on in the 2018 election and helped win her party control of the House.

Democrats won House control in 2018 by lambasting efforts by Trump and congressional Republicans to repeal President Barack Obama's health care law. Democrats say they will concentrate on health care in this year's campaign as well, including opposing an administration-backed federal lawsuit aimed at declaring Obama's statute unconstitutional.

"It's pretty simple. Democrats are trying to make your health care better. Republicans in Washington are trying to take it away," Whitmer surmised. 

Whitmer tried to show how Democrats across the country are taking action to help increase school funding and minimum wage hikes.

She also summed up some of the more controversial topics her party has been promoting to voters for the last several years in just a few sentences -- alluding to gun control, unions, college payment, environmental controls, the LGBT agenda, abortion, and more.

"Democrats want safe schools. We want everyone to have a path to a good life, whether it's through a union apprenticeship, a community college, a four-year university -- without drowning in debt. We want your water to be clean. We want you to love who you love, and to live authentically, as your true selves. We want women to have autonomy over their own bodies. We want our country welcoming and everyone's vote counted," the Michigan governor said.

In Democrats' Spanish-language response, freshman Texas Rep. Veronica Escobar focused on health care and workers' struggles to get by.

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About The Author

Steve Warren is a senior multimedia producer for CBN News. Warren has worked in the news departments of television stations and cable networks across the country. In addition, he also worked as a producer-director in television production and on-air promotion. A Civil War historian, he authored the book The Second Battle of Cabin Creek: Brilliant Victory. It was the companion book to the television documentary titled Last Raid at Cabin Creek currently streaming on Amazon Prime. He holds an M.A. in Journalism from the University of Oklahoma and a B.A. in Communication from the University of