Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ayanna Pressley Boycott Trump’s State of the Union

The progressive first-term Democrats refuse to “normalize Trump’s lawless conduct.”

J. Scott Applewhite/AP

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Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.), two of the most prominent progressive Democrats in Congress, announced Tuesday that they would protest President Donald Trump by refusing to attend his State of the Union address.

“After much deliberation, I have decided that I will not use my presence at a state ceremony to normalize Trump’s lawless conduct & subversion of the Constitution,” Ocasio-Cortez tweeted. “None of this is normal, and I will not legitimize it.”

Trump will address the nation Tuesday night amid a Senate impeachment trial against him, as former president Bill Clinton did in 1999. The Republican-majority Senate will most likely vote to acquit Trump on Wednesday.

Minutes earlier, Pressley also tweeted that she would not attend the State of the Union. They join several other Democrats boycotting the address, including Reps. Earl Blumenauer of Oregon, Steve Cohen of Tennessee, and Frederica Wilson of Florida.

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DONALD TRUMP & DEMOCRACY

Mother Jones was founded to do things differently in the aftermath of a political crisis: Watergate. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after, and go deep on, stories others don’t. And we’re a nonprofit newsroom because we knew corporations and billionaires would never fund the journalism we do. Our reporting makes a difference in policies and people’s lives changed.

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Please help with a donation today if you can—even just a few bucks helps. Not ready to donate but interested in our work? Sign up for our Daily newsletter to stay well-informed—and see what makes our people-powered, not profit-driven, journalism special.

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