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“Disorder, tension, hostility.”
That’s how California Attorney General Xavier Becerra described the State of the Union Tuesday during the Democrats’ Spanish-language rebuttal to President Donald Trump’s speech.
California’s top law enforcement officer gave a scathing review of the Trump administration during his 20-minute rebuttal, accusing the president of infecting the White House with “criminality, collusion, and obstruction of justice.”
“There are dark clouds following Donald Trump around,” Becerra said in his speech, which aired during a prime-time slot on the Spanish-language networks Univision and Telemundo.
He also blasted the president’s immigration policies.
“President Trump also has an extravagant obsession with the border wall that nobody wants,” he said.
Becerra then assured his audience that Latino voters like them have helped turn things around, helping elect more Democrats to Congress. “Because of your votes, now [Trump] has to learn to govern in a democracy.”
A former member of Congress who represented Los Angeles, Becerra has been one of the most visible figures in the Trump resistance. As attorney general, he’s sued the administration more than 40 times — challenging everything from the Muslim ban to family separation practices to the weakening of fuel-economy standards.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer tapped Becerra to deliver the traditional Spanish-language rebuttal last month. The tradition began in 2011, when then-Florida Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen gave a translated version of the Republicans’ reply to then-President Barack Obama’s address. Sen. Marco Rubio, a Florida Republican, gave both the English and Spanish responses two years later.