President Donald Trump's bold and attacking inaugural speech was "populist" merely to "cover up a hard-right agenda," Sen. Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said Sunday.
"I'm worried he's using populist rhetoric to cover up a hard-right agenda," Sen. Schumer told CNN's "State of the Union" host Jake Tapper.
The American people were duped by Trump's campaign, Schumer suggested to Tapper.
"If you look at his cabinet appointments, so many of them are not populist but hard right," Schumer said. ". . . So, I am really troubled at this populist rhetoric is covering up a hard-right agenda, which is way, way out of touch with what the American people want and even what Trump campaigned on."
Schumer claimed President Trump's words do not match his actions, telling the Senate on Inauguration Day after Trump signed his first executive orders: "It only took an hour for those populist words delivered on the steps of the Capitol to ring hollow — actions always speak louder than words."