Sherrod Brown says Trump fell short on a bi-partisan agenda in second ‘State of the Union’

On his weekly Wednesday call with Ohio media, Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown said he was hopeful President Donald Trump’s second State of the Union speech would be unifying.

Sen. Brown says President Donald
Trump missed the mark on a
bi-partisan agenda.

“If he had focused instead of attacking immigrants on things we could work together on, like infrastructure or the cost of prescription drugs, we could make major progress,” he told media on the call. 

“Unfortunately we are not (unified). The White House looks like a retreat for drug companies,” said the three-term senator who will decide in March whether he’ll jump into the Democratic race for president next year.

Brown said the president could have provided more details to congress on rebuilding streets but missed the mark.

Sen. Brown’s guest on the call today was Jim Obergefell – the plaintiff in the landmark 2015 marriage equality case Obergefell v. Hodges. Obergefell and Brown stated their agreement in opposing President Trump’s nominees to serve on the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals. Those nominees, Chad Readler and Eric Murphy, are expected to be voted on by the Senate Judiciary Committee Thursday, despite Brown’s objections to both nominees.

Readler and Murphy have proven too extreme for Ohio, with combined records of working to roll back healthcare protections, to strip Ohioans’ of their voting rights, to deny Ohioans their right to marry the person they love, and to eliminate reforms to hold Ohio charter schools accountable, information from the Senator’s office in advance of the call noted.

“Their nominations to a federal bench would serve special interests, including big tobacco, at the expense of the rights of citizens,” Brown said, adding that he opposed both nominees when they were first announced by President Trump last year and continues to oppose their nominations today.

Brown’s office will outlining “the harmful and radical records of the respective nominees.”

Brown described Obergefell as one of "my civil rights heroes." Asked how well he sleeps at night since the landmark marriage equality decision just four years ago, Obergefell said he looks over his should wondering how secure it is. His hope is that Chief Justice Roberts, who was against marriage equality before, will support the precedent decision.

“(I) have a bit of comfort that the chief justice will be on the side of maintaining marriage equality.”

Asked by this reporter what his suggestion is to new Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine to find funds to fix Ohio’s rundown roads and bridges, now that former Gov. Kasich has left the state broke when it comes to infrastructure funding, Brown said DeWine should reestablish the local government fund, a source of funds that had flowed to local governments for many decades until Gov. Kasich confiscated those funds as he sought to replenish Ohio’s emergency fund.following The Great Recession.

Sen. Brown said GM president Mary Bara had told him and Sen. Portman that she “was taking care of people.” Brown seemed less than impressed with news that 950 Lordstown plan workers had accepted transfers to other GM locations.  

“Workers feel betrayed by the president and GM,” he said, adding that he and others continue to talk with GM about bringing a new auto product to the endangered auto manufacturing plant.

“They (GM) realize their brand is damaged by the way they’ve treated this Northeast Ohio community.” He added, “Maybe an electric vehicle should come to Lordstown.” Bara, he said, thinks it would be too expensive to bring another SUV line to the plant.

Meanwhile, with another shutdown of the federal government looming, Brown said his number one priority is to keep government running.

And who can make that happen? “(Mitch) McConnell is the key,” Brown said.

Democrats are unified, so it's up to some Republican senators to join Democrats to override Trump's threats to again shutdown the national government, after the last episode that lasted about a month and cost between $3-10 billion dollars.