'Reign of terror': Black Catholic congressman responds to Trump's Congress address

Democratic Rep. Adriano Espaillat of New York called the Trump administration’s first six weeks in office a “reign of terror” during remarks given in response to the president’s joint address to Congress Tuesday night in Washington.

“This night and for the last 45 days, we've seen a president who acts more like a king than like a president,” the Black Catholic legislator said in a livestreamed speech.

Espaillat, a formerly undocumented immigrant who serves as chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, was one of several Democratic lawmakers who skipped Trump's address, delivered in the Capitol at the invitation of House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana.

Espaillat gave his party’s Spanish-language response at the Borinquen Health Center in East Harlem, shortly after the main remarks from Sen. Elissa Slotkin, a freshman legislator from Michigan.

The two Democrats are seen as ascendant figures in the Democratic Party, which faces sustained political crises related to the GOP’s attacks on immigrants, DEI, certain government spending, and federal checks and balances. 

The party also sustained major losses in the November elections—losing both chambers of Congress and all seven swing states in the presidential election. 

A rare bright spot was Slotkin, a former CIA official who defeated Republican Mike Rogers in a tight race for Michigan’s junior Senate seat. Espaillat—who won his fifth term as the representative for New York’s 13th district—was thereafter elected as the first Black chair in the history of the CHC.

“I came to this country as a child in 1964 and I grew up in Washington Heights in New York City,” he said during his address on Tuesday. 

“It doesn't matter if your family has been here 500 years or five, we are all here to fight for the American dream.”

The Trump White House has deported roughly more than 40,000 undocumented persons and arrested more than 23,000 since the start of the new presidency, according to federal data. Thousands more remain in detention centers. Among the thousands who have been detained are some U.S. citizens.

“Last week I joined House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries to denounce the case of my neighbor, an American citizen who was detained by ICE despite carrying federal ID,” said Espaillat.

“What happened to my neighbor can happen to us all: to citizens, to immigrants, to our friends and family. We want a new immigration law that secures the border, protects dreamers, protects the farmworkers who pick our crops and keeps our families united—immigrant families that strive to be part of our nation's prosperity.”

Though he did not speak during the Spanish-language response, media professional Octavio Blanco was described by Espaillat as his “special guest” for Trump’s joint address in Washington. Blanco, a CNN editor turned IRS official, was fired from the agency last month amid widespread federal cuts led by Trump confidante Elon Musk and his new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

Espaillat described the mass layoffs as a ruse supporting Trump’s plan to cut taxes for billionaires—which the New York congressman framed as part of a larger “Republican betrayal.”

“We won't let a tinpot king and his court of jesters dismantle the democracy we've all built over 250 years.”

Briana Jansky is a freelance writer, author, blogger, and host of the Geeks For Jesus podcast.