elections. this is just under 50 minutes. >> thank you for the kind introduction and the commitment to making sure that our representatives are there to make sure they are improving the lives of people all across this

great state so thank you for that. i will tell you what and i think some of you are here, did jim clyburn put on a party? holy smokes. i got to tell you. the fish is one thing. but the sense of excitement down here is really something and i think for many of you paying tribute to the patron saint of the palmetto state in jim clyburn is something that was a privilege for me. i tell people that when i first got to congress i did not know my ask for my elbow so it's a common affliction in the house so as you well know but democrats do something a little different. there was a cure and that was jim clyburn. he took me and many of my colleagues when we got there and showed us how to be good public servants, showed us how to be good members of congress, not just showing us how things work

but showing us how you conduct yourself and i always remind this to people. as a brand-new congressman it was like learning music from beethoven. someone who had done it. someone who had the gravitas could teach it but someone who knew and demonstrated it. his superpower is his moral compass and i will tell you this. it is wherever he goes is where our party should go. it is where his moral compass takes us is where we should end up. so again a huge thank you and i will never get the privilege of being able to serve in congress but the privilege of serving alongside someone like jim clyburn and there were days when i would have to think they were going to throw me out because i didn't belong there. i would sit between jim clyburn and john lewis and listen to them talk about how we got to where we got. that is pretty special.

thank you. veterans? thank you for the service you give to this country and continue to give. union members, thank you for standing up for the middle class. special shout out to my fellow public school teachers. thank you. and to all the party leadership, you are the true leaders of the democratic party. when i get asked who are the leaders of the democratic party, i am looking at them here today and that is the way it is supposed to be so thank you for

all you do. honored to be with you all. and the real reason is because all of you could be anywhere else. it is summer already. i was saying that i don't know how to respond to this because it is still a little bit wintry in minnesota and i come down here and it is warm. you could be anywhere. the midterms are not for 500 days but you come here for the simple reason that you love this country. that is why you are here today. that is the reason. and that is the reason i am here and i just need to say this to you all. i could not have been prouder to have been on the ticket last fall with someone as talented and as accomplished as vice president kamala harris. we know it and america knows it that we are far better off

because of her grace, her courage and her patriotic leadership. and i would love to turn on the tv and see her instead of what we see every day. since that election i have been doing a lot of thinking and a lot of traveling. i spent a lot of time on the road. i was in west virginia, nebraska, ohio, texas. i know you're all thinking it. those are strong democratic strongholds, each and every one of those. but i went to those places because those are places where there are republican members of congress in states that voted for donald trump and i went there to listen to people and i want to tell you they are really pissed off about what is going on in washington. recently it's been the talk about the big and beautiful bill.

i used to teach fourth grade and i was going to say it sounds like a fourth-grader grader came up with it but that would be insulting to my fourth-graders. trumpet and republicans are trying to ram this monstrosity through congress before any of us figure out what is really in it. you know what is in it. a record-setting shift of wealth to the rich from all the rest of us. if you are young couple raising a child with a disability, getting your health care through medicaid, you could be one of 15 million that are going to lose your health care. if you are a single mom working, relying on snap, this bill would kick you and your kids off and nearly 11 million of our fellow americans off is vital lifeline. if you're a young guy holding down a job making solar panels like we are doing in minnesota, your gig could be one of the

700,000 jobs this bill will kill alone. so while working people get the shaft who benefits? we will see if somebody in here -- if you make $4 million a year , you get a $400,000 tax break. and if you and your spouse are worth over $30 million you get to pass that wealth down to your children tax-free. but if you make less than $50,000 a year the best you are going to get out of this is about $300. less than a decent set of tires. but it is a little something i will give you that but it will not make up for what you are going to lose and having to pay to go to the doctor or the grocery store. to put it plainly, the rich are going to feast and the rest of us will be lucky if we get scraps. 13 million kids will be kicked off free school lunch. those kids get to go to school

hungry. and all but two republicans voted for this big and beautiful pile of bullshit. all but two. when they voted for it, right before 3 a.m. every heist needs the cover of darkness to get through as you know. when trump and the republicans are not sacrificing our livelihoods at the altar of tax cuts for the rich they are finding plenty of other ways to screw us over and make life hell. talk to my mom ordered the roughly one and five south carolinians who rely on social security as their major retirement income and they are terrified. you have some 19-year-old dweeb rooting around in government systems and messing everything up and if they flipped a wrong switch my mom, your relatives,

people that depend on social security do not get a paycheck which means they don't pay for the heat in their home or their groceries. but i want to give elon musk a little bit of credit. somebody said do you think he does anything right? this week he did. he finally quit and found government waste. isn't it funny that they want to drug test snap recipients but not that dude? i am just saying. and i know this one will really depress you on a beautiful saturday morning when you are here. this has only been going on for four months. four months. but the story of trump's second term has already cleared all of us. everything this guy does has two motivations. it is either cruelty or corruption. very simple with this guy. he is not a complicated guy.

ripping your health care away is the cruelty. cutting taxes for his billionaire buddies is the corruption. tariffs blowing up all of our budgets and destroying small businesses is the cruelty, a free jet from qatar is the corruption. disappearing people off the streets is the cruelty and selling white house access to crypto bro is the corruption. and they did not even get a decent steak out of that deal either. i find my joy in small things. i find the joy in small things. but don't forget for a minute, and all of you know this, he did not do it alone. all of those republicans in congress are fully complicit in this. and here's the thing that really gets me. the ones who trick the press into calling them moderates.

they get susan collins on tv and she is always deeply concerned about things. well do something than instead of being deeply concerned because there is nothing moderate about caving to donald trump every single time he asks. every single time. which brings us to why you are here on a beautiful saturday morning giving of your time. you could be doing things for yourself, things for your family, thinking about your card but you are not. you are only not just thinking about yourself but thinking about others, neighbors. you are thinking about people you do not even know and you are thinking about those who are less fortunate who cannot be here because they are working three jobs just to put food on the table for their kids. and you know what the payoff at the end is? we will make them pay for everything they are doing in the midterms.

this is the place where i have to say we have to be honest with ourselves. we are in this mess. we know who trump is. we are in this mess too because we lost our way. we lost our wave it is a party. and this dude is the last guy i want to tell us lost our way. but i will tell you what. none of us can afford to shy away now from asking the hard questions and doing the things we need to do to fix it so that we win elections. when we lose elections, people's lives are put at risk. this is not a game, this is not our team wins but people's lives at stake. so here's what i have come to terms with. the party, my party, the party that was there to live my family

up when my dad dies and my mom has two kids staying at home, the democratic party that was the party of the working class, we lost a big chunk of the working class in this last election and the thing that bothers me to no end and drives me to do something about it, we did not just lose the working class but lost the working class to a billionaire who gives tax cuts to other billionaires. this last election, you could hear the primal scream of people. working-class folks were in pain. they were yelling from the top of their lungs do something. the system is not fair. you cannot own a home, i cannot get health care, i am worried about my kids in gun violence and for all of the boneheaded, self-serving, despicable crab that donald trump does, he knows how to sniff out a problem and

he puts on a show pretending he cares about those people. look. i hear a version of this everywhere i go. you have heard this. i don't really like trump and i don't know if he is right. i don't even know if what he is doing will make a difference but he is willing to shake things up and give it a try you hear it. what about us, then? we have no shortage of good ideas and we talk about it all the time. you heard some of the things we did in minnesota but will be get into power we have not been able to get this stuff done, at least not the stuff that people actually care about and feel in their lives. you know this is true. some of you have knocked your fingers until they were bloody on doors and called people. it is terrible to pick up the phone and call somebody cold and say i'm going or whatever they do.

you have been there and have done the work. but they don't see it transferring and you have to keep going back and asking. the other day i saw this. i read about a democrat down in georgia. they asked this woman a simple question. describe the democratic party this woman is a democrat and she said a deer in the headlights. she said it's like they see the car coming but they just stand there and get run over by the thing anyway that is a review of our party by someone who actually likes us it is a damming indictment but i think it is on the money. the problem is not just an existential threat politically. it is not about winning elections. it is about what is demanded of us morally because we are fighting for working people? that is the dna of the democratic party, working for

working people. our party used to have the courage to do big and bold things. we are the people and the people who have sat in these chairs before you who built social security from scratch. we are the people who secured personal freedoms and who rescue the economy every time the republicans crashed it. like two or three times we have had to do this. and you know we will have to do it again. we also used to have the competency to get the basic stuff done. like helping you find meaningful work, living in safe, secure neighborhoods and sending your kids to good schools until somehow we strayed away from the northstar but now while trump and the republicans are showing the working class what they truly look like we have an opportunity to be there champions again.

i think it is pretty simple. we just have to show them that we have the guts to fight for them, that we truly believe it, that we will fight for the working class. all of you are saying we brought this guy all the way down here to tell us that? you're thinking that is what we have to do. but i will make the case that i think it's been missing and i want to be specific here at a national level at a national level of who we are and what is our party brand. i think governors have an opportunity now as much as anyone to make a difference and i would make the case that is why you need to elect one. there's a program with your tax dollars that you can feed hungry children in the summer with those summer -- the summer nutrition program and you have

governors saying we don't want that money and we don't want to expand. or you can expand medicaid coverage. don't want to expand medicaid coverage. in minnesota, i think we have a different plan. we talk about this a lot. in minnesota we are not the democratic party. we are the democratic farmer labor party. we are two parties that came together. there is a reason for that. we know who we work for in minnesota. we also know that those are people, whether it's labor or agriculture or middle-class people that you need to get the job done. so i was just mentioning to some of your senators this morning and we were talking together, you think of minnesota as being a blue state? we are a purple state from 1990 to 2010 we didn't have a democratic governor. it was all republicans. when i got elected in 2018, that was the first time in our

state's history we ever had back to back democratic governors. we had never done it before. and when we took full power in 2022 where we had the house and the senate and the governors office we had a one seat majority. one seat in the senate. and what i said it will me all got together the day after the election was we don't win these elections to bank that political capital so that we can run and win again. we burn this capital as fast as we can to improve people's lives. every bit of it. and i said we get everything done and we can go home and do something else and set up here and argue about politics all the time because i don't know about you. i enjoy being here but i wouldn't mind mowing my yard or golfing or doing something else but it requires us to be here so i said let's get to work in the

first thing we did was we created the nation's biggest child tax credit, cutting childhood poverty by a third and making minnesota have the lowest childhood poverty rate in the country. in minnesota, if you or someone in your family gets sick or you have a child or you need to have something done you get 12 full weeks of paid family and medical leave for the work to do that. and i taught school for a couple decades and i will tell you what the saddest thing in the world was was to see a kid, and put a number in the machine and see they had no money in their lunch account so i minnesota we don't ask you to fill out any paperwork. every kid he walked through the door gets free lunch every single day. and we are tired of corporations having all the decisions about this so we expanded the nation's

largest and most aggressive expansion of labor rights and union organizing in the country we invested in manufacturing and we are home to the per capita highest number of fortune 500 pennies and have the longest longevity of new company startups of any place in the country. we made the largest investments in our public schools and we are now at a 30 year low of driving down violent crime across our state. so you get a tax credit, their kids can go to school with teachers being paid a fair wage. you can get health care coverage. if you get sick, you get paid leave. your kids don't get shot dead in the classroom. and all of those things happened because we went from being in the minority to being in the majority by one vote and had a governor who was willing to sign those things into law and guess what happened?

the minority to being in the majority by one vote, and we had a governor who was willing to sign those things into law and guess what happened? people saw their lives improve, more money in their pocket, the middle class being in charge, and labor unions expanded. those were things that the working class cared about. and guess what? if you do those things, they'll vote for you the next time. they will come back and do the work. so every day we're proving what's possible is instead of trump's cruelty and and corruption. we focus on courage and competency. have the courage to vote for those things. have the courage to stand up and do what's right. have the courage to not worry about if you get reelected as long as it improves someone's life and get the things done. embrace the big things, sweat the little things, and we're not afraid.

i'm not afraid to reach across and work with republicans. but i'm also not afraid to stand up and say there's no way in hell that we are compromising on basic human rights and basic personal freedoms. so now we're one of the friendliest states to start a business in. so democrats, get this, you can stand up for working people. you can stand up for labor unions. you can stand up for fair wage. you can stand up for the idea that health care is a human right, but you can also be because all of those things make businesses healthier, make the economy healthier, make businesses grow. we're the party of business. we're the party of the economy, worthy a part of me. the party that grows personal wealth. and i'll tell you what, we're also one of the freest states in the country where you make your decisions. we trust you. we're known to have nanny state that tells you what to read and who you sleep with and whatever else you do. those are your decisions. those are your decisions. and in the surveys that come out, there's two that i'm really proud of. we were recently ranked the best place to have a child in the country, from healthcare to the

things that we have, and i'll tell you what, this one. we dropped to 2nd in this category, and we got a little more work to do, but i think this matters. when they rate all the 50 states, minnesota ranks 2nd in happiness. we are the 2nd happiest state. and it's cold as hell too, and we're still happy. no such thing as bad weather, just bad clothing. the reason i'll settle for second is hawaii's first, so they're, they're happy as heck. look, i left a public school classroom at age 41 to run for public office. for that very simple reason, all of you are here to fight for working families just like my own. now there's those that doubted us, but i'll tell you what. i ran in a district, by the way. i didn't know this. i'm glad i didn't know it. there had only been one other

democrat since 1892 in that congressional district. i know, and you know how it goes. you see this. oh, we can't put money in south carolina. that's a red state. and i said last night, and i'll say it today, it doesn't look very red to me. it looks pretty blue. it's pretty bloom. said we couldn't win because we didn't have any experience. you're going to watch candidates come up here and say, i don't know, but i'm running for office, and they'll tell you their name and they're going to do it. support them, help them out. what are we going to do? you ever see these races where we don't even run anybody? look, we got them in minnesota, trust me, we got these people who i don't know how they get elected, but, but i don't know south carolina. this nancy mace thing is really something. but just think about it. in 500 days we work hard. we get somebody up here. she's got to answer for the damage she's done to people and and then you won't see her on tv anymore again and you'll see

someone else. and to the teachers out here, i'm going to encourage you this. you have to listen to people tell you that, you know, oh, i don't know, you're overpaid, you only work 9 months out of the year, you know this, right? one of the reasons i ran for office too was i was sick and tired of people beating up on public servants like our police and like our firefighters and like our teachers and like our nurses. look, none of us expected to get rich doing those jobs but we didn't take a damn oath of poverty to do it, so you pay them. you pay them and guess what happens when you do that? you get really good people who can afford to buy a house and raise their family, and they serve the rest of us. and the thing is, is for all of you out there, and i'm speaking to you public school teachers, this is the one thing i learned when they told us we weren't going to do this. just don't ever underestimate a public school teacher. they're pretty damn tough. they're a pretty damn tough group of folks. so look, it's a bit old school in this, and i'm doing some soul

searching, and i was the guy who was there during this last one, but i'm convinced there's an appetite out there for this style of governing. this idea of competency, this idea of compassion, this idea of being able to get things done. when you poll people, they love our policies, but they can't love those policies if we don't enact them. and if we don't elect democrats, we don't get a chance to do it. so this is not a chicken and the egg type of thing. you need to elect people who are in it for the right reasons, who want to improve people's lives, who are willing to do the work and build the coalition behind them with a strong party unit, strong county units, strong democratic infrastructure to get those folks' work. and look, the thing we have to do is we have to get we have to get past this thing. that i saw recently that apparently the democrats got together and hired a bunch of people, and they went into with the hotel to discuss how we could best message to people. how we could come up with the calibrate our words that we're

using. that's how we got into this damn mess. that's because we're really cautious and look, i know all of you in here. we say stuff like, oh, you know, we have because we believe it and we're we're kind people and compassionate. we have to fight food insecurity. you're right, but just say we have to fight kids going hungry in the richest country in the world. just tell, tell people where they're at. and and don't be afraid and stay away from the poll tested things that are out there because what republicans what republicans understood was they identified the problem with people and they got people thinking that they were with them like donald trump. what the hell does he know about somebody in south carolina struggling to make ends meet?

almost nothing, but people believe that. because what i have to think about is we've got to have people know that we're actually listening to them, that we're actually hearing what they're saying, and then i'm just going to say this because it seems so simple and i don't see it. we've got to show the guts that we're willing to. i feel like there's folks that aren't willing to say the things necessary because they might be worried they might not get reelected if they say that. i'm not going to say that, and i don't think any of us can. i'm getting called out on this because i called donald trump a wannabe dictator. it's because he is. it's because he is. oh, the governor's being mean and the governor is speaking out on that. well, maybe it's time for us to be a little meaner. maybe it's time for us to be a

little more fierce. because we have to ferociously push back on this, and again i'll speak to my teacher colleagues in here. the thing that bothers a teacher more than anything is to watch a bully, to watch this bully, and to stop it. and when it's a child, you talk to them and you tell them why bullying's wrong. but when it's adult like donald trump, you bully the out of him back. you push back. you make sure they know it's not there because at heart, at heart. this is a weak, cruel man that takes it out and punches down on people. what they don't want to do is stand toe to toe and punch back with someone who's calling them out for what they do, who's being there. and for democrats, here's what we need to know. you need to embrace this.

we win hearts and minds. we win the issues. if you go ask people if they want children to eat, they'll say yes. if you go ask people if they want smart things to make sure our children aren't shot in schools, they'll say yes. if they say, do you want us to pay our public servants a decent wage, they will say yes. we win the hearts and minds. they win power. and when they take power, they move with it and exercise it. so i'll tell you what, we have got to have and understand an unshakable responsibility that we have to make sure that come hell or high water, everyone in this country can afford a decent life, enjoy a secure and dignified retirement. women can still get reproductive care. and no one no one regardless of their status goes without due process and the rights to rule of law. for those who tell us, for those who tell us we get distracted with these issues, i've seen

politicians, democratic politicians say, well, we can't get distracted with this issue of them scooping folks up and sending them to el salvador because we've got to talk about the economy. can we not do two things at once? can we not stand on basic rule of law and human dignity and the foundations of this country and also say tariffs are stupid as hell and they're hurting us. they're hurting. we can do that. we can educate our children and invest in good schools and also talk about they shouldn't be being shot dead with weapons in those schools. it shouldn't be there. we can do that. and i don't care if you're in south carolina or new york city. you can't be supportive of kids being shot dead in schools. that's a unified position. so look, we've allowed ourselves, and i think it's fine because we are this. we're defined as anti-trump. you damn right. you're damn right. we are anti-trump, but we also have to spend the time letting voters know what we stand for.

and once we stand for those things, if you truly stand for them, then you actually have to get it done. you've got to build government with a bold vision that's actually delivering on those policies, because i'm guessing in here. it would be pretty popular if you said, and if you, you put it to the ballot and ask south carolinians, do you think we should have paid family medical leave in south carolina? i think they would say yes. i think they would say yes. you know when they would really say yes. when someone in their family got cancer and they were able to care for them and get them through that, then they would say yes. when they don't have to choose between taking care of a sick child and losing their job or losing the pay that keeps the roof over their heads, those are basic things. and when you do those things, guess what happens? the economy grows and people find themselves more secure in life, and we have a better, more equal, more just country. and then the side effect of that is people no longer wonder what the democratic party stands for. the democratic party stands for taking care of my family.

the democratic party stands for doing things that improve people's lives. and so now all of a sudden, and i'll say this too. you've got a whole bunch of young people and my son is one of them. by the way, i'm really proud of this. this feels like my greatest accomplishment. my son gus is graduating on tuesday. that is my proudest moment. but but gus tells me a lot of young men, you might have seen this, a lot of young white men did not vote for this ticket, and they're wondering what we'll do with them. my son says, dad, most of them don't know about the policies and stuff, and if they do, they probably agree with you. they just think the other side, it's cooler to belong to this. they just think it sounds tough to belong to this, or they feel like you're at least going to them and talking to them. instead of having people they don't know up there with you. and so this idea, and i've said

this a lot of time, people want to belong to something. they want to be with other people. most of us, sometimes other people bug us and we want to be alone. we know that. but i know this as a teacher. i was involved, yeah, coaching sports, but i was also involved with helping with the musicals, and i was also involved helping with the speech program and also that, and i did those things that i liked them. but providing a place for a young person to feel like they're part of is really important, and i would argue that's true in a society where we have become more divided, less personal, where people look down at their phones and text, and i'm not dogging on technology, but i'm saying i think it's made us more

isolated. i think it's made people lonelier. i think that's especially true with a lot of men. they want to belong to something. donald trump knows that. it may not be a football team, but he provides them a uniform, that damn red cap. he provides a common language that they talk about. he provides them something that they belong. now we know in healthy organizations you don't need to demonize someone else, but since he's only offering anger and animosity and belittling others, he still offers something. we as a democratic party have to

offer a place that is, yes, welcoming. but we i can't imagine. people don't go to his rallies to listen to his dumb that he's saying. i don't believe that. i think they go to those rallies to be next to people who think like them. i think they go next to those rallies to feel like they're part of something. i bet you they go to those rallies to talk about their kids to one another and talk about what's going on in their lives, and in a society that seems more divisive, that political party or that movement that he has, i would argue a compassionate, kind place where everybody's involved is a place they should be too. but damn it, we should be able to have some fun and be joyful. we should be able to gather in these places. we should make them feel like they matter. so look, we've got the guts and we need to have it to push back on the bullies and the greed and punch them right where it needs to be done to telling our policies are better, our policies improve your lives, and what you're doing is cruel and corrupt, and it cannot stand. we need to say that. we need to bust down systems and again this is my take on this. what donald trump has taught me

is i've been in this now elected office for 20 years, and there's issues that i have worked on for 20 years, and they're like, well, it takes a little time to get this done. people have been born and gotten old. and yes, i'm proud. in 2010, i voted for the aca to improve health care to everyone. i voted for obamacare. and i went in front of town halls and defended that vote, and i heard people tell me, you're going to lose your job over that vote, and i said, sounds pretty good to me. if people are going to get healthcare, i'll go back to teaching school and coaching football because that's worth it. that's worth it. donald trump figured out was it shouldn't take 20 years. so i'm just cautioning everybody, when we win and we will, we're going to win the virginia governor's race come this november. we're going to win new jersey. we're going to take back the house of representatives. but i'll tell you what. and the people in this room are probably the most impatient. when we get back and win that election in 208. we damn sure better not say, you know, i think we're going to tweak some of these things around health care to make it easier for you to talk to your insurance companies. really, you think you better maybe deal with that? you think maybe we better be bold? you think maybe we better make real changes in people's lives because because here's the deal.

i think it's unconstitutional, and the courts will determine if it's illegal, but what trump learned from his first term to this one is if you say you're going to get things done and actually do it, even if it's not the right thing, people still give you credit for getting something done. they give you credit for doing it. now it's destructive as hell on their side. think how powerful a tool that will be if we move with the same speed that he's moving to give everybody health care. to improve our education system, to address the climate crisis, to defend, to defend human rights both here and abroad. imagine how powerful that is. so look, here's the time. here's the time for all of us. donald trump is the existential threat that we knew was coming. it is going to be, i'm not going to whistle past the graveyard. it is going to be a challenging

few years here. but it starts this november. actually it starts this saturday as us starting to organize. donald trump ran for president for 4 years after he got beat in 2020. the republican party ran for 4 years. their school board members ran for 4 years. all of those things were happening. and what i know about our party is we know how to work. we're people with grit and resilience. we know how to get things done. we're used to getting the shaft. we're used to being on the short end of things. it's who we are. but when we do that and when we know what we have, this is a moment. this is a moment not just to win an election. this is a moment to transform

back to the democratic party. when i was growing up, i didn't, many of you, if you're my gray hairs in here know this. my family wasn't overly political. they weren't overly political, and we were in a small town, but there was no question for me as a 17 or 18 year old, if i got asked what's the democratic party? oh, that's the unions and that's the folks that work for working people. that's who they are. well, who are the republicans? that's the country club and the rich people. that's who they are. and it was pretty clear. and then you started to figure out. this social security thing is a good idea. who came up with that? democrats. this gi bill and pell grants to make college more affordable, who came up with that? democrats. this idea that you should trust women to make their own health care decisions, who came up with that? democrats. you knew that this is our opportunity and for the

leadership that's in this room, let's define who we are. let's define it with a fierce defense of those who can't defend themselves against a bully. let's let's fiercely push back everywhere we can. and then let's decide. we're not retreating from that fight. we won't retreat from that fight, but we can simultaneously decide to let people know the issues we were told not to touch because they're too big and they're too bold. it was those big bold things that solidified democratic control for decades. it was those big bold ideas that let us win elections, but that was the means to the end. it was those big bold ideas that were enacted by the democratic party. that improved the lives of millions of americans. it was those big bold ideas that

gained our reputation around the world that the united states was the good guys who stood with people who were less fortunate. it was the united states who stood up to places like russia, like north korea, instead of voting with them. that's our opportunity. this is an opportunity to do the things that we need to do. now i look, some of you in here saying, oh my god, we've been through this. we ran elections. look, losing an election is an opportunity to reflect. it is an opportunity to reflect, but it damn sure better be an opportunity to fight a little harder coming back the next time. that's all i would say. so i'll cop to this. i am an eternal optimist, but i came about it legitimately. i supervised the lunchroom for almost two decades. you don't survive that gig if you're not an optimist. you do not survive it. but i know, and i think it's just perfect as i see this.

some of you, uh, some of you heard me talk about this a lot. i think the most powerful word, my wife says is the most powerful word in the universe is hope, is the hope for it, and the motto of this great state, while i breathe, i hope, while i breathe, i hope. i'll take that one step further. hope is the energy that gets us believing in a better tomorrow, but as my wife, my wife gwen says though, she says, but hope is not a damn plan. we can't hope that donald trump quits acting like he is. we can't hope that we win an election. we can't hope that these people aren't as cruel as we think they are. we can't hope that people get the health care that they so desperately need. we have to plan for it, and that's what brings you here today. your giving of your time, your treasure, your talent to build what's necessary, and i'll tell you this those things we accomplished in minnesota wouldn't have happened without restructuring our entire democratic party, putting the power back in the county units, putting the power back in the state units. and it wouldn't have happened without some soul searching because i'll end with this. i don't want you to believe, you know, oh my god, everything is

like heaven in minnesota, you know, no, no, because last weekend was the 5 year anniversary. of the murder of george floyd on the streets in minneapolis. we always like to think of ourselves that we're on the right side of that civil war. but i want to be very clear with this. i had a woman a few years ago when we were talking about racism, intolerance, structural, structural barriers that were put in place to hold people back, and this woman was sitting with me in duluth, minnesota, about as far north as you can get up on lake superior, and she, she came from arkansas and she said, yeah, arkansas is racist. she says, but in minnesota the racism's quieter, but it's meaner. and i think the acknowledgement of this, we know we've got work to do. that's why we're a group of people that believes it's important to teach our history,

our true history, to every one of our children. and a great state and a great country can acknowledge where we've got it wrong. but once we start to do that and in the 5 years since george floyd, whether it was getting rid of some of the techniques in policing, are coming to the grips that our police can't be asked to solve all of our problems in the middle of a crisis, while we brag a lot that minnesota has some of the highest graduation rates and achievements. it starts a little different when you disaggregate that data and you start to see the gap between black and white students is as big as any place in the country.

so we took those things on. we didn't admire the problem by calling it out. we tackled it and just this couple weeks ago we announced we had closed that graduation rate to the greatest amount that we had between black and white students in state history. now i tell you this for all of you in here, i don't believe you get patted on the back for doing what you're supposed to do. so we as a democratic party, i know those will say, oh, you focus too much on this diversity and this equity and this inclusion. we focus on it because it's foundational to everything we do. we focus on it that closing that gap is not only morally the right thing to do. our future depends on us closing that gap. our future depends on. the leadership in this country, in minnesota, in minnesota alone, 80% of our workforce will come from communities of color over the next 75 years, even if you have no moral courage in your body at all. if you want to see us survive economically, you damn sure

better start investing in black communities and making sure they're healthy and educated. so to all of you, the works in front of us. it's not going to be easy. we're facing a pretty unprecedented time in our history. but what comes with that is the privilege. we get to be part of that fight when the story is written of what happened during this time period, they will scarcely believe that this country chose donald trump over kamala harris, but they did. but the real story that will be written is how did we respond after that election. how did we respond to the challenges? and it starts with an individual and it gets bigger and bigger. so here we are in one of the reddest states according to that stupid map that you'll find. with a room full of people who care about their neighbors, a room full of people who's willing to take the good, the bad, the ugly, the warts, and the highest achievements we've had as a country and recognize that this towards a more perfect union is still going on. we're not there, but each and every one of us gets a chance to do something about it. so on behalf of my family and my children. and my future grandchildren,

let's hope. thank you all. thank you for caring enough about this country. thank you for taking time out of your lives. thank you for showing this, and i will leave you with this. that in states that are either purple or blue, nothing inspires us more. than to see progressive democrats fighting in the reddest counties in the places that are most because that takes courage. that's where change happens, and that's where south carolina will make a difference. thank you all for having me. keep up the fight. we'll see you soon. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2025] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accu