Rep. O’Halleran: State of the Union was unimpressive

Rep. Tom O’Halleran says he wished President Donald Trump would’ve talked about recipients of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals more in his State of the Union address, but he is hopeful that the president will continue to emphasize bipartisan plans.

“He wanted to talk about bipartisanship and bring people together,” O’Halleran, who was present in D.C. for the speech, says. “Hopefully he’ll develop a leadership technique to bring us together as not only a Congress but to unify our nation.”

Many took Trump’s attempt to reach across the aisle as a sign of bipartisanship in the future, but O’Halleran says it only felt that way because of the issues that were covered. No one will argue about have a better economy, supporting our veterans and helping the drug problem, O’Halleran says, but “everything was light on detail,” and no real solutions were offered.

One topic that is difficult to get both parties to come to a mutual agreement is how to deal with immigration and DACA students. O’Halleran says he didn’t hear the president mention the words Dreamers once in his speech. The former Chicago policeman says he wanted the president to “clearly identify what his program is” when it comes to immigration and Dreamers.

There were multiple points in the speech where Trump laid out his accomplishments including an improved economy.

“Since 2010 the unemployment rate has been consistently going down… For any one person to take credit for that when we all know that the tax cut just occurred,” O’Halleran says.