Tina Smith will skip State of the Union, but Minnesota Democratic colleagues will go

WASHINGTON — Minnesota Democrats Ilhan Omar, Amy Klobuchar, Angie Craig and Betty McCollum are all attending President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address, saying it’s important to follow decorum even though they think federal policy continues to hurt the state and the country as a whole.

Sen. Tina Smith, who is not running for re-election, said she will skip the address on Tuesday, Feb. 24.

Omar, a House member who represents Minneapolis, said she has attended every State of the Union since she joined Congress in 2019 and looks forward to bringing guests, including Aliya Rahman, a constituent violently dragged from her car by ICE agents in January.

“I would say this is our House,” Omar said at a news conference on Feb. 24. “And we’re not leaving it because we have someone coming who we do not agree with.”

She and McCollum, a House member who represents St. Paul and eastern suburbs, say it’s important for Trump to see how Operation Metro Surge, the immigration crackdown in the Twin Cities, has affected people.

“President Trump surged into Minnesota hoping to make Minnesota be the poster child for the numbers of thousands of people he wanted detained every day,” McCollum said. “It all went wrong for him. And the brutality was all recorded.”

Trump and the Department of Homeland Security have said the crackdown was effective and that ICE and Customs and Border Protection officers followed protocol. When operations were violent, they said, it was the suspects or protesters who were impeding operations or resisting arrest.

Craig, who is running for the Senate, acknowledged that her district is pretty much split in thirds between Democrats, Republicans and independents.

Smith said she has attended State of the Union addresses by Trump and does not feel she needs to again.

“His speeches are full of lies, and he uses the occasion to pillory his perceived political enemies and pander to his billionaire donors,” she said.

Smith joins several other Democratic members of Congress skipping the State of the Union with plans to attend the “People’s State of the Union” rally on the National Mall.

McCollum joked that Trump had promised a “very long speech,” and that her colleagues may have “good reasons” for not attending the nationally televised address.