00:00well thank you so much John and good
00:02evening Granite State
00:06[Applause]
00:08Democrats well now you all know that uh
00:11when I was elected in 2018 I asked
00:14Governor Lynch to come to Chicago to
00:16help me plan for my first year in office
00:20and honestly it turned out to be the
00:22most productive year that any well
00:25firstterm governor has seen in quite a
00:27long time we enshrined reproductive
00:29rights into
00:33law we legalized
00:37cannabis we protected labor
00:41rights we joined the US climate alliance
00:47now and I'm not going to go through the
00:49rest but it is true that we had an awful
00:52lot of fiscal challenges in the state
00:54which now after 25 years of getting 21
00:58credit downgrades for the state of
01:00Illinois we've now had nine credit
01:02upgrades in my first six
01:08years but here's one thing I learned
01:12it's that New Hampshire's Democratic
01:14governors know how to get things
01:19done it's great to be back here in the
01:21Granite State tonight i I want to thank
01:23Chair Ray Buckley thank you Rey you've
01:26been so kind to me personally um yeah i
01:30I want to shout out your amazing
01:32Congresswoman Maggie
01:34[Music]
01:37Goodlander and of course your next
01:39United States Senator Chris
01:45Papus there ought to be some sort of
01:47medal honestly given out to Democrats
01:49willing to serve in that Looney Tune
01:51Republican Congress so God bless the two
01:54of you thank
01:56you Senator Maggie Hassan who had to
01:59step out cuz um she had a pressing
02:02engagement uh a couple of weeks ago I
02:05watched her absolutely
02:08flambeay Donald Trump's US trade
02:11representative at the Senate Finance
02:13Committee did anybody see
02:15that i loved it i loved it poor guy i I
02:19haven't seen it someone look that lost
02:22and alone since well Ronda Santis was
02:25running for
02:28president what an honor it is to be here
02:31again uh with a true New Hampshire
02:36legend Senator Jean Shaheen
02:39[Applause]
02:42now Senator I'm not sure why anybody
02:45would ever want to leave the United
02:48States Senate especially not
02:52now but there are few people in the
02:55country truly who deserve a relaxing and
02:59happy retirement more than you on behalf
03:02of your many enthusiastic supporters all
03:04across this nation thank you thank you
03:07for serving our nation with honor and
03:13[Applause]
03:17integrity so when I was here about eight
03:20months ago at the AFL CIO Labor Day
03:23breakfast I I laid I Yeah where are you
03:27go ahead yell there you are awesome uh I
03:31laid out the bleak situation that we
03:33would find ourselves in if Donald Trump
03:36returned to the White House now well
03:40here we are i gave it to you straight
03:43last year and I'm going to give it to
03:45you straight again
03:47tonight in this fragile moment the
03:50direction of this nation will turn on
03:53who we choose to listen to whose stories
03:57we decide to tell about what is
03:59happening who we elevate and who we
04:02ignore who we find noteworthy and who we
04:05label as just
04:07noise who we listen to will shape the
04:11way we react to events as they unfold
04:15fellow Democrats for far too long we've
04:18been guilty of listening to a bunch of
04:20do nothing political types who would
04:22tell you that America's house is not on
04:25fire even as the flames were licking
04:27their faces today as the blaze reaches
04:31the rafters the pundits and
04:34politicians well the pundits and
04:36politicians whose sering timidity served
04:40as kindle for the arsonists they urge us
04:43now not to reach for a hose
04:47meanwhile if we took care to listen to
04:50the voices of real people we would hear
04:53our neighbors and our
04:55friends standing on the streets
04:58outside screaming for a response one big
05:02enough for a five
05:04alarm so today I want to talk to you
05:06about those
05:07people i want their voices to be what we
05:10hear their stories to be the ones that
05:13we tell
05:15andy Smith andy Smith lives in
05:19Edwardsville which is a small city in
05:21southern Illinois on February 4th of
05:24this year Andy took a homemade sign to a
05:27spot where she figured she would get the
05:29most visibility the intersections of
05:32highways 157 and 143 and on her own she
05:36lifted up her sign and she started
05:39protesting the Trump
05:41administration later yeah
05:47later she told the local paper that on
05:49that first day she felt like a crazy
05:52person standing out there all by herself
05:54and then someone walking her dog saw her
05:58sign stopped and decided to join
06:02her that helped Andy
06:05said the next day February 5th Andy
06:08showed up to protest again and this time
06:11four friends came to join her
06:14well two days later on February 7th the
06:17small but hearty band of Edwardsville
06:19protesters got their first
06:22counterprotester one guy who yelled
06:24obscenities at them but in true
06:27Midwestern fashion that guy later
06:29returned to
06:33apologize andy Smith's protesters now
06:36meet every Friday at 100
06:39p.m last week there were 300 of them
06:51gavin Carpenter is a disabled military
06:54veteran and a maintenance mechanic at
06:57Yusede National
06:58Park every February Yoseite fills with
07:02people waiting to see an event that
07:04happens only once a year the winter sun
07:07lights up a waterfall on the face of the
07:09park's most famous cliff El
07:12Capitan this year on that day Gavin
07:16climbed to the top of the cliff and he
07:19hung an American flag upside
07:22down famously known as a signal of dire
07:26distress
07:28when asked why he did it Gavin pointed
07:31to the cuts that Elon Musk and Doge were
07:34making to his beloved national parks and
07:37he said "We're bringing attention to
07:40what's happening to our parks which are
07:42every American's
07:52properties." Lucy Welch lucy writes the
07:55Daily Snow Report at the Sugar Bush
07:58Resort in Vermont last month JD Vance
08:02went on vacation at
08:06Sugarbush so Lucy decided to write well
08:09a very different kind of snow report
08:13instead of the usual details about
08:15powder conditions and
08:17weather she wrote about what was
08:19happening to the diverse and wonderful
08:21community of veterans and people with
08:24disabilities and LGBTQ plus friends and
08:27immigrant workers and people of color
08:30she wrote "All of these groups are being
08:35targeted undervalued and disrespected by
08:38the current administration."
08:40And she finished her snow report by
08:43writing "I am using my relative platform
08:46as snow reporter to be disruptive i
08:50don't have a whole lot to lose we're
08:52living in a really scary time in a
08:55really serious time what we do and don't
08:59do matters
09:10andy Gavin Lucy those are the names that
09:15we should be paying attention to those
09:18are the stories that I want to share no
09:21pontification no punditry there no
09:23tortured op-eds about party messaging no
09:26hand ringing over which battles to pick
09:30these three Americans acted on an
09:32instinct that we teach our children as
09:35one of their first lessons in life when
09:38you see a danger you yell for help at
09:43the top of your lungs we Democrats we
09:47shouldn't be comfortable ignoring those
09:49cries for help the fact that so many are
09:53speaks to the real reason that we lost
09:55last November
09:57what I find
10:05ironic What I find ironic about the
10:07current conversation surrounding our
10:09party is that the voices flocking to
10:11podcasts and cable news shows to
10:14admonish fellow Democrats for not caring
10:17enough about the struggles of working
10:19families are the same ones who when it
10:22comes to relief of the struggles of real
10:25people have been timid not
10:32bold they didn't want to fight the
10:35health insurance companies and the drug
10:37manufacturers they didn't want to demand
10:39an increase in the minimum wage or
10:41require paid family leave they gave in
10:44to the powerful hedge fund managers and
10:47tech bros whose blind pursuit of profits
10:50is now destroying everything that
10:53matters to middle class families from
10:56home ownership to health care to
10:58veterans
11:01benefits they told us to ignore the fact
11:05that most Americans can't afford a
11:08vacation while they're young or
11:10retirement once they're old here's the
11:14problem with the do nothing crowd now
11:16telling us what to do well they spent
11:19their years watching Republicans
11:22illegitimately pack the Supreme Court
11:25take away voting rights from people of
11:26color systematically chip away at the
11:29constitutional order and all the while
11:32they offered in response a simple
11:35defense of norms and decorum and a blind
11:38hope that one day soon Republicans would
11:41wake up to find their better
11:43angels well that got us exactly where we
11:46are today
11:48so folks the reckoning is
11:58[Applause]
11:59here and now that this culture of
12:02timidity is on full display those same
12:04do nothing Democrats want to blame our
12:07losses on our defense of black people of
12:10trans kids of immigrants instead of
12:13their own lack of guts and gumption
12:17[Applause]
12:24voters didn't turn out for Democrats
12:26last November not because they don't
12:29want us to fight for their values but
12:32because they think we don't want to
12:34fight for the our values we need to
12:37knock off the rust of polltested
12:40language decades of stale
12:43decorum it's obscured our better
12:45instincts we have to abandon the culture
12:48of incrementalism that has led us to
12:51swallow the cruelty and the callousness
12:54with barely a cowardly croak
13:00[Applause]
13:08[Applause]
13:16it's time to fight everywhere and all at
13:19once
13:20[Applause]
13:22now let's start with something that
13:24should well be easy to say it's wrong to
13:28snatch a person off the street and ship
13:31them to a foreign
13:32goolog with no chance to defend
13:35themselves in a court of law
13:45[Applause]
13:50and I want to be clear this is not an
13:52argument about immigration this is an
13:55argument about the Constitution remember
13:58Trump just last week arrested and
14:00deported three children under 8 years
14:04old all US
14:06citizens all of them one of them a
14:09four-year-old with stage four cancer let
14:11that sink
14:13in this country was founded on the idea
14:16of habius corpus it's a fancy legal term
14:20that in plain words means no government
14:23has a right to arbitrarily take your
14:25freedom away from you preserving habius
14:28corpus is not some feverdream of the
14:30left-wing echo chamber it's a
14:32fundamental concept of justice that
14:35people have fought and died for dating
14:37back to the Middle Ages it was in the
14:40Magna Carta it was considered by our
14:42nation's founders to be so vital to our
14:45liberty that they wrote it right into
14:47the constitution thomas Jefferson Thomas
14:51Jefferson called it the essential
14:53principle of government benjamin
14:55Franklin opined that those who would
14:57give up habius corpus for temporary
15:00security deserve neither liberty nor
15:08security and Alexander Hamilton wrote
15:11that the practice of arbitrary
15:13imprisonments has been in all the ages
15:16the favorite and most formidable
15:18instruments of tyranny
15:21franklin Jefferson
15:25Hamilton standing for the idea that the
15:28government doesn't have the right to
15:29kidnap you without due process is
15:32arguably the most effective campaign
15:35slogan in
15:37history it's the OG of political
15:43messaging so I mean what do we think
15:45that Colonel Stark was talking about if
15:47not this when he said live free or die
15:52today it's an immigrant with a tattoo
15:54tomorrow it's a citizen whose Facebook
15:56post annoys Donald
16:03Trump there are plenty of people in this
16:06country who hold opinions that I find
16:08abhorrent but my faith and our
16:11constitution dictate that I fight for
16:14their freedoms as loudly as I defend my
16:16own
16:23and as a Ukrainian American Jew who
16:26built a Holocaust museum whose family
16:29immigrated here as refugees from the
16:31Russian pilgrims let me say this to
16:35Donald Trump stop tearing down the
16:37Constitution in the name of my ancestors
16:42[Applause]
16:59[Applause]
17:00do not claim that your authoritarian
17:03power grabs are about combating
17:05anti-semitism when you destroy social
17:08justice you are disparaging the very
17:10foundation of Judaism when the pendulum
17:13swings back and it always does you will
17:17have contributed to the climate of
17:19retribution that will inevitably follow
17:22so let's dispel another
17:25myth from the MAGA
17:28Republicans we Democrats believe that
17:31undocumented people who are convicted of
17:33violent crimes shouldn't be allowed to
17:35stay in this country convicted of
17:38violent crimes we want public safety
17:40just as much as Republicans do and when
17:43we get back control of the Congress and
17:46we will and when we get the White House
17:48back and we
17:52will Democrats need to make it a
17:54priority to pass real sensible
17:57immigration
18:00[Applause]
18:04reform we need to secure our border we
18:07need to keep and attract hardworking
18:09taxpaying law-abiding people and give
18:12them a path to
18:15[Applause]
18:19citizenship immigration with all its
18:23struggles and its complexities is part
18:26of the secret sauce that makes America
18:29great
18:35always immigrants strengthen our
18:38communities enrich our neighborhoods
18:40renew our passion for America's
18:42greatness enliven our music and our
18:44culture enhance understanding of the
18:47world the success of our economy depends
18:51upon immigrants in fact 46% 46% of
18:56Fortune 500 companies were founded by
18:59immigrants or the children of immigrants
19:06the return on investment for America's
19:09250-year commitment to immigration is
19:12incalculable but because of Donald
19:14Trump's xenophobia we've seen foreign
19:17students already choosing not to attend
19:20our universities and being told to
19:23leave businesses from overseas are
19:26afraid to invest their money here and to
19:28bring their executives to our shores
19:30scientists are choosing to innovate in
19:32European laboratories instead of
19:35American ones already in just 100 days
19:39if the best and the brightest around the
19:41world no longer flock to this shining
19:44city on a hill then the US economy is
19:47likely to
19:49fail but
19:51failure it's starting to look like
19:53that's the point of all this doesn't it
19:56we have a Secretary of Education who
19:59hates teachers and
20:02schools we have a Secretary of
20:04Transportation who hates public
20:06transit we have an attorney general who
20:08hates the
20:11Constitution we have a Secretary of
20:13State the son of naturalized citizens a
20:16family of refugees on a crusade to expel
20:19our country of both
20:22we have a head of the Department of
20:25Government
20:26Efficiency an immigrant granted the
20:29privilege of living and working here a
20:32man who has made hundreds of billions of
20:34dollars after the government rescued his
20:37business for him who is looking to
20:40destroy the American middle class to
20:42fund tax cuts for himself
20:46and we have a president who claims to
20:48love America but who hates our military
20:51so much that he calls them losers and
20:54suckers and who can't be bothered to
20:56delay his golf game to greet the bodies
20:58of four fallen US
21:04soldiers and we have a grand old party
21:08founded by one of our nation's bravest
21:10presidents Abraham Lincoln who today
21:13would be a Democrat I might
21:15add but a grand old party so afraid of
21:19the felon and the fraud that they put
21:21into the White House that they would
21:23sooner watch him destroy our country
21:25than lift a hand to save it
21:28democrats we may have to fix our
21:30messaging and our strategy but our
21:32values are exactly where they ought to
21:34be and we will never join so many
21:37Republicans in the special place in hell
21:39reserved for quizzlings and cowards
21:43[Applause]
21:49[Applause]
21:59it's time for us to be done with
22:01optimism about their motives or their
22:04objectives time to stop wondering if you
22:06can trust the nuclear codes to people
22:08who don't know how to organize a group
22:12chat it's time to stop ignoring the
22:15hypocrisy and wearing a big gold cross
22:17while announcing the defunding of
22:19children's cancer research
22:22and time to stop thinking that we can
22:24reason or negotiate with a madman time
22:28to stop apologizing when we were not
22:31wrong time to stop surrendering when we
22:34need to fight our small businesses don't
22:37deserve to be bankrupted by
22:39unsustainable tariffs our retirees don't
22:43deserve to be left destitute by a Social
22:45Security administration decimated by
22:48Elon Musk our citizens don't deserve to
22:51lose health care coverage because
22:53Republicans want to hand a tax cut to
22:55billionaires our federal workers don't
22:58deserve to have well a 19-year-old doge
23:01bro called big balls destroy their
23:04careers
23:07autistic kids and adults who are loving
23:11contributors to our society don't
23:13deserve to be stigmatized by a weird
23:17Nepo baby who once stashed a dead bear
23:20in the backseat of his
23:21[Applause]
23:35car our military service members don't
23:39deserve to be told by a washedup Fox TV
23:42commentator who drank too much and
23:44committed sexual assault before being
23:46appointed Secretary of Defense that they
23:49can't serve their country simply because
23:51they're black or gay or a
23:58woman and if it sounds like I'm becoming
24:01contemptuous of Donald Trump and the
24:04people that he has elevated it's because
24:07I
24:08am you should be
24:11too they're an affront to every value
24:15this country was founded
24:17upon but there's a way out of this mess
24:20i know because I've been to this movie
24:23before when I was elected governor in
24:262018 it was after four years of a very
24:28destructive Republican chief executive
24:32he had run on the idea of shaking things
24:35up as governor and he promptly started
24:38defunding key government agencies
24:41slashing state benefits and refusing to
24:44pass a state budget illinois's credit
24:46rating took a dive companies fled the
24:49state social service agencies closed and
24:52government services that the poor and
24:54elderly and sick relied upon vanished
24:58does that sound familiar
25:00illinoisans hated it even the ones who
25:03voted for the guy they hated it so much
25:05that well four years later they elected
25:08me and
25:13he but here's the lesson that I learned
25:17when when we emerge from this and we
25:20will emerge from this our democratic
25:23agenda must be bold and our ideas
25:26fearless we must be willing to slay
25:29sacred cows and allow the courage of our
25:32actions to match the immediacy of our
25:34words and we must deliver on that agenda
25:36for working families and for the real
25:38people who truly make America great
25:44[Applause]
25:48listen I I understand the tendency to
25:51give in to despair right now but despair
25:53is an indulgence that we cannot afford
25:55in the times upon which history turns
25:59never before in my life have I called
26:01for mass protests for mobilization for
26:05disruption but I am now
26:08[Applause]
26:21these Republicans cannot know a moment
26:24of
26:25peace they have to understand that we
26:28will fight their cruelty with every
26:30megaphone and microphone that we have we
26:32must castigate them on the soap box and
26:35then punish them at the ballot box
26:38[Applause]
26:51they must feel in their bones that when
26:53we survive this shameful episode of
26:56American history with our democracy
26:59intact because we have no alternative
27:01but to do just that that we will
27:03relegate their portraits to the museum
27:06halls reserved for tyrants and traders
27:09[Applause]
27:14and when the courage of our civic
27:17leaders waivers when they fail to stand
27:20up for our country in its moment of
27:23greatest need then we should remind them
27:25that cowardice always comes at a cost in
27:30the world's most successful republic no
27:34generation of Americans has escaped our
27:36true inheritance the test that we are
27:38given that asks how hard we are willing
27:40to fight to keep our society free it was
27:43selfish to think that ours would be the
27:46first but the fact that we are still
27:49here debating the question tells me our
27:54predecessors never failed this test in
27:56the past often in situations just as
27:59dire as the one in front of us
28:03cowardice can be
28:05contagious but so too can courage and
28:08courage born during times when
28:10complacency beckons like a siren call is
28:14the most important kind of all just as
28:17the hope that we hold on to in the
28:19darkness shines with its own special
28:22light these days I cling to the courage
28:25and the hope demonstrated by Andy and
28:28Gavin and Lucy courage and hope that
28:32risks limbs and livelihoods to go to the
28:35most visible place possible to wave a
28:38sign or to post an upside down flag and
28:41remind everyone that what we do and what
28:45we don't do matters
28:48so tonight I'm telling you what I'm
28:50willing to do and that's fight for our
28:53democracy for our liberty for the
28:56opportunity for all of our people to
28:58live lives that are meaningful and free
29:01and I see around me tonight a room full
29:04of people who are ready to do the same
29:06so I have one question for all of you
29:09granite sters are you ready for the
29:12fight
29:14for real Granite Sters are you ready for
29:16the fight
29:18good night New Hampshire god bless you
29:20and God bless these United States
