Pres. Trump’s speech? He doesn’t really like people like us

Trump’s speech: President Donald Trump addresses a joint session of Congress at the Capitol in Washington, Tuesday, March 4, 2025. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)

The president? I call him CFDT34 because the First Amendment says I can.

And because it is a statement of fact.

CFDT34 stands for “convicted felon, Donald Trump, 34 counts.

Fact. We shouldn’t forget that. It colors everything he does. He’s not just a wealthy white man who likes to put his brand name on products, and companies like casinos that often fail miserably. (Remember Atlantic City? How do you lose running a casino when you have a built-in edge?)

Now he’s put his brand on our country. Trumpco? It’s going to cost us.

Just remember, he has a criminal mind.  He’s on the grift. Can we the people really trust him?

Judging from Tuesday night’s joint congressional address, he’s also the most longwinded president to address Congress, turning the address into a partisan rally, rather than a speech that could have unified the nation.

And he still wants Greenland. For some reason. Because it’s there?

“I think we’re going to get,” the president said. “One way or the other we’re going to get it.”

Like the US got the Philippines?

He cheered giving tax cuts to the rich, not to people on Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid.

He bragged about cutting government waste, “hundreds of billions” he said was found by Musk’s DOGE team. He didn’t specify and was probably lying.

But yes, we’re all for cutting things that don’t matter. But who defines that?

If it’s Trump, he bragged about the end of “woke-ism” and his cuts to  “diversity, equity and inclusion” programs in the federal government.

That would mean including Filipinos and Asian Americans and people of color.

DEI usually helps people like us. Unless you’re one of his billionaire friends, and then it doesn’t matter.

Trump really doesn’t like us. Unless we’re like him. Rich. And quite possibly, stupid.

Our representative government at work

If you were watching the speech, great. You didn’t have to be there. That’s what our representative government is about.

But right at the beginning of the speech,  one brave representative, stood up for the rest of us.

It was Rep. Al Green (D-Tx). He’s a 77-year old from Houston, an alum of Florida A&M, Howard University, the Tuskeegee Institute and the Thurgood Marshall School of Law.

All Americans have more in common with Green than say with Elon Musk, who got applause and praise during the speech.

For Green standing up, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-LA) banged the gavel and yelled, “Members are directed to uphold and maintain decorum in the House and to cease any further disruptions.”

I wish I could bang the gavel on Trump to maintain decorum and cease further disruptions on America.

Consider the chaos exhibited by CFDT34 in the first six weeks of the presidency.

By CFDT34’s own count, 100 executive orders, 400 executive actions. But they include things like holding up money already appropriated by Congress to help Africa with food and medicine. The courts are now deciding if his actions are  illegal or unconstitutional.

Will the rule of law apply? Or is the president’s powers above all. As CFDT34 says, “He who saves his country violates no laws.”

The founding fathers would kick CFDT34 out for a bad impersonation.

The first six week has also included the wholesale firing of thousands of federal workers , the guts of our working government, that had been put there to serve the people.

Are there ever enough people? Have you tried talking to a federal agency lately about a question about your Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid?

And then there’s the tariffs that Trump announced earlier in the week that started a trade war with our biggest trading partner China, and our two nearest allies, Canada and Mexico. Putting tariffs on goods ranging from 20-25 percent is almost sure to hit everyone buying products like food, cars and gas.

Green’s stand

If you had questions about the first six weeks of CFDT34 as president, Rep. Green stood up for you.

He was promptly removed.

Green said to reporters that as a person of conscience he believes the president “has done things that I think we cannot allow to continue.”

“This whole budget that he has is one that is going to cause Medicaid (called Medi-Cal in California) to be cut, and when he said he had a mandate, it triggered something. It really did. Because he doesn’t have a mandate, and he doesn’t have a mandate to cut health care from poor people.”

Green was there for you. He was considered disruptive and escorted out.

Other members of Congress either didn’t show up, or walked out, including Maxwell Frost (D-FL), and Ayanna Pressley (D-MA).

Rep. Bobby Scott (D-VA), the only member of Congress of Filipino ancestry, attended. But he was not impressed by the speech. After the speech Scott released a statement saying, “(The president) made it abundantly clear what his priorities are and will always be: his own self-interest – and he wants Americans to pay for it.”

People did want to hear about the economy, but the loudest parts of CFDT34’s speech were on all the standard culture issues: wokeism, DEI, anti-trans and anti-immigration rhetoric. The ones that make his base of support hate us.

So does that make CFDT34 the stupidest president in our history (Alienating people of color? Fighting inflation with inflation causing tariffs that attack our ally, Canada?). He could have tried to unite us all. Instead, he continued to advocate views that are ill-advised, sometimes illegal, and even unconstitutional.

In doing so, CFDT34 poses the greatest threat to our democracy.

That’s my opinion.

And yet, the half of the room filled by Republicans like how he is taking the country on a downward slide into autocracy.

One powerful man, in control, whatever he says, goes. Even when he’s wrong. Even when he busts the norms.

After a week like last week, I wanted him to tell the American people directly and honestly about the blowup between him and Zelenskyy. And why America was turning against its allies and in bed with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Why is America not protecting liberty, freedom and democracy and siding with the dictator Putin? What happened to the land of the free?

That’s Trumpco’s vision of “The Golden Age.”

Good for him. But in a 100-minute speech, I didn’t hear him speak honestly about any of our country’s biggest concerns.

Instead, we wake up with more chaos than the day before.

Emil Guillermo is an award-winning journalist, commentator and humorist. He writes for the Inquirer.net’s US Channel. He has written a weekly “Amok” column on Asian American issues since 1995. Find him on YouTube, patreon and substack.