Politics
The Massachusetts senator will skip President Donald Trump’s address to attend a “People’s State of the Union” rally on the National Mall.
Sen. Ed Markey. Eric Lee / The New York Times
Sen. Ed Markey will not attend President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address Tuesday night, opting instead to join a counterprogramming event called the “People’s State of the Union.”
The rally, set for the National Mall near the Capitol, is expected to draw a number of Democratic lawmakers and activists who say they do not want to legitimize Trump’s remarks. The event was organized by the advocacy group MoveOn and progressive media company MeidasTouch.
BREAKING: MeidasTouch and MoveOn are hosting the People’s State of the Union on the National Mall as Democrats boycott Trump’s address.
Hosted by Katie Phang and Joy Reid, the event will feature lawmakers alongside federal workers, immigrants, and Americans impacted by Trump’s… pic.twitter.com/SbZ1UN3m88
— MeidasTouch (@MeidasTouch) February 18, 2026
The program will feature Democratic lawmakers speaking alongside Americans who say they have been harmed by Trump administration policies, including families struggling with health care and housing costs, federal workers who lost their jobs, and immigrants who have faced detention or deportation. Liberal commentators Joy Reid and Katie Phang are slated to host the rally.
In a statement, Markey said he is participating to underscore that political power “belongs to the people.”
“The State of the Union should be a reckoning with reality, but Donald Trump will use it to spin fiction and normalize the gross abuse of power,” he said. “He will claim everything is fine while families struggle to afford health care and housing, immigrant communities live in fear, and his billionaire allies loot the country under the cover of chaos. I will not legitimize those lies.”
Markey said Massachusetts helped launch the American Revolution by refusing to bow to a king — and Trump “does not believe in ‘We the People’ or the democratic union forged here in 1776.”
“If Trump will not honor the American people, then the people should turn off his remarks and turn toward each other — toward their neighbors, their communities, and the real power of this country,” he said.
Along with Markey, Sen. Christopher S. Murphy will be attending the rally after skipping the address last year.
“These aren’t normal times, and we have to stop doing normal things,” he said in an interview with The New York Times.
Sen. Chris Van Hollen attended Trump’s speech last year but walked out before the end. This year, Van Hollen said he won’t be going, the Times reported.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries has encouraged Democratic members either to sit silently through the speech or to boycott it altogether rather than create distractions in the House chamber, according to the Times.
But not all Massachusetts Democrats are sitting it out.
Rep. Seth Moulton, who is challenging Markey in the 2026 Democratic Senate primary, plans to attend Trump’s address. Moulton said he will bring Marcelo Gomes da Silva, a Milford teen who was detained by federal agents last year, as his guest.
Moulton, who stood with Gomes after his release, said that young immigrants like him are emblematic of the nation’s future.
“He is exactly the kind of young person America should be investing in, not locking up,” Moulton said. “If we want to call ourselves a nation of opportunity, we should start by uplifting young people like Marcelo.”
Material from The New York Times News Service was used in this article.
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