HARTFORD, CT — Four of Connecticut’s top elected officials issued a grim warning Tuesday about the trajectory of the country under former President Donald Trump’s return to office, calling his first 100 days “devastating” and likening the national moment to a full-blown constitutional breakdown.
Attorney General William Tong opened the press briefing with alarm.
“The scale of the devastation and the destruction in just 100 days is unprecedented,” he said. “It has been devastating for our state. For people, for families. For real people, for neighbors and friends, for our communities and our cities.”
He said the Trump administration’s actions have eroded civil liberties at a pace he called shocking.
We live in a country, right now, where I never thought we would see it,” Tong said. “People are picked up randomly off the street and subject to extraordinary rendition.” He emphasized the severity of the practice by spelling it out. “Remember that word? Extraordinary rendition? Kidnapping. People taken off American streets, Connecticut streets.”
Treasurer Erick Russell focused his remarks on what he said were broken promises made to struggling voters.
“Many people who supported this president did so because they were struggling,” he said. “And they were pitched a vision of economic prosperity and affordability. And what we have seen over the past 100 days has been the exact opposite.”
Russell criticized the administration’s tariff policy, calling it reckless and burdensome. He said the policy amounted to a disguised tax.
“Haphazard on and off tariffs” have become “ultimately a tax on working families, increasing the cost of things that they rely on.”
Still, he said public sentiment was shifting. “People are starting to pick up the game,” Russell said. “People are picking up on this con that’s being perpetrated by, frankly, the biggest con artist that we’ve had in this country.”
Governor Ned Lamont turned his focus to college campuses and what he described as an atmosphere of fear among students.
“Those kids are scared,” Lamont said. “One day their visas are canceled, the next day they’re coming back. … That’s sending the wrong signal around the world. This is not who we are.”
Lamont said schools across Connecticut have reported that vulnerable student populations no longer feel protected.
“Every day I hear that our trans kids, our Hispanic kids, don’t feel safe coming back to our schools,” he said. “And every day, each of us standing here together working arm in arm want you to know: We want you here in this state. We want you in our schools.”
Comptroller Sean Scanlon echoed the tone of urgency but maintained that hope was still viable. “We still have a democracy even though that democracy is under assault,” he said.
Not long after the event, House Republican Leader Vincent Candelora of North Branford issued a statement dismissing the Democrats’ claims. “Connecticut Democrats have some nerve,” he wrote. “The same party that’s turned our state into one of the most unaffordable places to live had the gall to hold another scary press conference with manufactured outrage about affordability and fiscal responsibility…”
Candelora cited a recent controversy involving a departing state college chancellor’s salary as an example of what he called hypocrisy. “Just one day after it was revealed that the departing CSCU chancellor will keep his bloated salary for what sounds like a no-show job. And they defended that. That’s not just hypocrisy; it’s political theater at its most insulting…. If they want to talk about ‘con artists,’ they’d better start by looking in the mirror.”
U.S. Rep. Joe Courtney also responded later Tuesday. In a March 31 floor speech, he said, “President Trump has signed over 100 executive orders. Not one has lowered costs.” He noted that “inflation is up. Consumer confidence has tanked.” Courtney said Trump had failed to protect federal safety net programs and had not kept promises to stop fraud and abuse.
Courtney also claimed Trump had not taken action to reduce gas prices, grocery bills, or housing costs, saying Americans now view his economic leadership unfavorably.
