Washington — Many Democratic women in Congress wore bright pink for President Trump’s address to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday in a display of defiance against the president.
Rep. Teresa Leger Fernández of New Mexico, who leads the Democratic Women’s Caucus, told Time magazine that the color signifies “our protest of Trump’s policies which are negatively impacting women and families.”
“Pink is a color of power and protest,” she told the magazine. “It’s time to rev up the opposition and come at Trump loud and clear.”
The 96-member group spoke about their opposition to the president outside the U.S. Capitol prior to the address on Tuesday, where Leger Fernández asserted, “Women cannot afford Trump.”
“He costs us too much in terms of money, health, lives and safety,” she said. “From cradle to old age, this man and the Republican agenda is devastating for America’s women. We want the world to know we stand in protest, we stand in power. We stand in pink and we stand in opposition.”
During Mr. Trump’s first address to a joint session of Congress in 2017, Democratic congresswomen wore white to highlight women’s rights. Last year, when then-President Joe Biden delivered a State of the Union address, caucus members also wore white to bring attention to reproductive rights.
“Our message is clear: women must be able to access the health care they need to control their own lives and futures. That means women, not politicians, should be in charge of whether, when, and how to start or grow their families. That includes access to birth control, access to abortion, and access to IVF,” the group said in a statement in 2024.
Caitlin Yilek is a politics reporter at CBSNews.com, based in Washington, D.C. She previously worked for the Washington Examiner and The Hill, and was a member of the 2022 Paul Miller Washington Reporting Fellowship with the National Press Foundation.
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