Today, Representative Jerrold Nadler (NY-12) released the following statement on his decision to not attend President Trump's State of the Union address:

This year, I will not be attending President Trump’s State of the Union address.  
  
The State of the Union should be a moment of truth and accountability. Instead, President Trump will use this platform, as he has so many others, to spread falsehoods, inflame hatred, and deepen division in our country. I will not sit in that chamber and lend credibility to rhetoric designed to divide Americans, undermine democratic institutions, and distract from policies that harm working people. 
 
I refuse to lend legitimacy to an administration that is stripping healthcare from millions of Americans in order to finance tax cuts for billionaires and pour billions of dollars into expanding mass detention and deportation. 
  
Republicans’ Big Ugly Bill delivered the largest transfer of wealth from low-income families to the ultra-rich in our nation’s history, slashing incomes for the bottom sixty percent of earners while adding $4 trillion to the deficit, the largest increase ever passed by Congress. It stripped healthcare from over 17 million people, including 1.5 million New Yorkers, as part of $1 trillion in Medicaid cuts nationwide. At the same time, the richest 0.1% will have an average annual tax cut of over $300,000, while the bottom 20% of families will see their taxes rise. 
  
Meanwhile, Donald Trump has spent $170 billion making Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE) into an agency that acts like the American Gestapo. The Trump Administration has launched a brutal and reckless campaign to strike fear in immigrant communities across the country and ICE is on the front lines, using aggressive and violent tactics that too often end in tragedy. Masked federal agents are arresting U.S. citizens, pulling people out of their homes, tearing children away from their parents, and shooting our own citizens dead in the street.  
   
The State of the Union is meant to reflect a commitment to strengthening our country, bringing Americans together, and upholding the Constitution. Until this administration changes course, I will stand in solidarity with those harmed by its policies and continue fighting for a government that serves the people, not the powerful. 
  
New Yorkers and the American people deserve better. And I will never stop fighting to deliver for them.