“This president's speech matters a lot less than the speeches of just about any other president because they're detached from his reality. He talks one way and does another,” Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said. | AP Photo Schumer tries to throw cold water on Trump's rave reviews

President Donald Trump can say whatever he wants in speeches, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said Wednesday morning, but it is his actions and the manner in which he governs that will ultimately shape what Americans think of him.

Trump’s address before a joint session of Congress Tuesday night, a State of the Union-type event, has been generally well-received for its optimistic tone, a stark contrast from the darker language he has used in the past. But Schumer said the president’s remarks will ultimately amount to little because they do not match the way he has governed.


“This president's speech matters a lot less than the speeches of just about any other president because they're detached from his reality. He talks one way and does another,” Schumer (D-N.Y.) said on CNN’s “New Day” Wednesday morning, adding on ABC’s “Good Morning America” that Trump “talks to the working folks of America, they were his main constituency, but the way he's governed has been totally with the hard right special interests against the working people.”

While Trump billed himself in his remarks as a promise-keeper, Schumer said the new administration has thus far failed to keep up its end of the bargain with voters. The Senate minority leader said Trump has yet to respond to an infrastructure proposal assembled by the Democrats despite the fact that the president made rebuilding America’s roads, bridges, tunnels and airports a major part of his campaign platform. And Trump has yet to officially label China as a currency manipulator, Schumer noted, a campaign promise that could be kept with the stroke of a pen.

And far from draining the swamp, Trump’s campaign-trail terminology for fighting Washington corruption, Schumer said the president has populated his cabinet “with bankers, billionaires, people with huge conflicts of interest, denizens of the swamp.”

“So, you know, you can give a speech but what the American people want is action and his actions are totally, totally detached from the speech,” Schumer said. “The speech will go away today, and his actions will be there, that's why he had such a rough 40 days… The next six months will be even more difficult than the past 40 days.”