00:00It's good to be with you here. We're in Wheeling, West Virginia, and it's so fascinating that this is part of what you call your Fighting the Oligarchy Tour, because this is a state where Donald Trump got 70 percent.
00:15Really? No, not tonight.
00:17Well, yeah, and this was an auditorium that was packed. It was at capacity.
00:23Still, what makes you think that your message tonight is going to resonate in such a red state?
00:29Well, among other things, when I ran for president, I think here in West Virginia, we won every single county.
00:36Look, this is a working class state. It's one of the poorest states in the country.
00:40People are hurting, and they want candidates to come before them to stand up for the working class and take on the oligarchs who have so much economic and political power.
00:52So I think the message will resonate here. I think it will resonate in many red states throughout the country, because at the end of the day, 60 percent of our people live in paycheck to paycheck.
01:05They don't want to see tax breaks for billionaires. They don't want to see the rich get richer.
01:10They want health care as a human right. They want to raise the minimum wage to a living wage.
01:14They want to be able to live in housing that they can afford.
01:18One of the things that you talked about here, as you've been talking about since even before it passed, is what the president calls his big, beautiful bill.
01:26Cuts to Medicaid, other programs.
01:28Twenty-five percent of West Virginians receive Medicaid.
01:32Fifteen percent rely on food stamps.
01:36And yet, as I mentioned, West Virginians overwhelmingly voted for Donald Trump.
01:40How do you square that circle?
01:42Well, that's a longer story that has to do with the failure of the Democratic Party in general to speak to the needs of the working class.
01:49This used to be, decades ago, one of the strongest Democratic states in the country.
01:52Now it's a strong Republican state, because I think in many ways, Democratic Party has turned its back on what was its base.
01:59But I think our job and the reason I'm here and the reason we go to red states all over the country is to make it clear that there are some of us who are prepared to stand up for the working class.
02:12And if we become, if we stand together, if we're united, if we don't let Trump divide us up, there is no stopping what we can do as a nation in terms of improving life for ordinary people.
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