Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen was among the many Democrats in Congress who skipped the president’s State of the Union address on Tuesday to hold a competing rally.
Van Hollen addressed those in attendance at the “People’s State of the Union” at the National Mall in Washington, D.C., near the United States Capitol.
The senator vowed to fight what he called Trump’s “march to fascism.”
Van Hollen has been sharply critical of the Trump administration and played a major role in combatting the president’s mass deportation program. In 2025, he flew to El Salvador and got a personal meeting with Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was held in a notorious prison and for months has fought off another deportation.
Speaking out against president’s policies
The Democratic lawmakers said in a press release that they attended the alternate rally to “speak out against President Trump’s attacks on our democracy and our Constitution.”
“We’re going to stand up like the people of Minneapolis, who have taken to the streets, who are blowing the whistle to protect their neighbors and to protect our Constitution and who are getting in the way of the president’s efforts to tear down our country,” Van Hollen said. “We know the state of our union. We know it is under attack from a lawless president who is shredding our Constitution and who is attacking our democracy, a president whose private ICE army executes Americans and then calls the victims domestic terrorists.”
Maryland Rep. April McClain Delaney was among those who had planned to attend the “People’s State of the Union.”
“I have determined that my presence at the State of the Union would not meaningfully serve my constituents in Maryland’s Sixth District,” McClain Delaney stated. “The President’s destructive and lawless actions over the past year have harmed Marylanders–making life less affordable, undermining food security and their access to healthcare, and devastating family farms and small businesses across our region.”
The Maryland lawmakers said they boycotted the president’s State of the Union address over “illegal mass firings” of federal workers; “reckless trade wars” that impacted the state; denying Maryland FEMA funding for historic flooding in Western Maryland; public criticism aimed at Gov. Wes Moore; and immigration policies, including plans to build an ICE detention facility in Washington County.
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