00:00Obviously, the priorities are a little different for the folks who are in charge right now.
00:06I heard my successor saying he's going to stop the scourge of push-to-start buttons on our cars.
00:13So if you drive over a pothole on a bridge that's broken down, paying four bucks a gallon for gas,
00:18at least you can do it with an old-fashioned key in the ignition, if you like that.
00:23We're supposed to be impressed that they are picking a fight with Canada
00:27and trying to rename one of the Great Lakes.
00:33We can do so much better than that, and this November, we will.
00:47I've been greetings to my family, Chasten and our five-year-old twins up north in Traverse City.
00:56As anybody with kids that age knows, we're now into the stage where we get a lot of questions.
01:02A lot of questions.
01:04Some of them I can handle.
01:05Is a pineapple bigger than a grapefruit?
01:08That's one that came in not too long ago.
01:10Nailed it.
01:12Is Taylor Swift real?
01:16Yes, she is.
01:19Here's the one that came in.
01:20Papa, can I call you bruh from now on?
01:25The answer was no.
01:30Sometimes they catch me off guard with a question I'm not quite sure how I'm supposed to answer.
01:34Like, Papa, do the good guys always win?
01:39I wasn't sure what to say.
01:42And I know they're going to be asking more and more questions about the world that they live in.
01:47And there's a lot of things going on in this country right now that I don't want to have to
01:50explain to my children.
01:53Especially when it comes to our politics.
01:56Every morning there's some new frustration at home connected to some new outrage coming out of Washington.
02:04You check the news and there's another kind of food that you've got to think twice about getting in case
02:09it's not safe to eat.
02:11Which might have something to do with how they cut the food safety inspectors at the FDA and the Department
02:15of Agriculture.
02:20You drive by the gas station and you notice the prices are up again.
02:25In fact, gas and diesel just hit the highest prices ever recorded for a Labor Day weekend in this country.
02:33Which obviously has a lot to do with the war on Iran that none of us asked for around here.
02:40Or you come out of Target or Kroger, wherever you do your shopping, and everything is more expensive.
02:46As a direct result of the economic policies of this administration.
02:51And you ask yourself, does this have something to do with how out of touch these guys are?
02:57Or worse.
02:58Because you tell me how an honest politician would get $2 billion richer in one year while holding public office
03:07like this president did.
03:08Something doesn't sound right about that.
03:13But for everything that we're fighting over right now, the biggest outrage of all to me
03:19is that there are so many things we actually agree on as Americans, and they can't get it done.
03:28Politics is nasty and divisive, but most people are not.
03:34Most people agree on the big things.
03:37Most people agree that one job ought to be enough, and the wages you get from a hard day's work
03:43ought to be all that you need to thrive in this country.
03:51Most people can agree that quality health care ought to be a guarantee and not a privilege for the few.
04:03Most of us can agree that the wealthiest economy in the world ought to have the best public schools in
04:09the entire world.
04:17Most Americans agree that the flag belongs to all of us, whatever your politics,
04:22and that God does not belong to a political party in the United States of America.
04:35And most of us agree that the wealthiest individuals and the biggest corporations in this country
04:40ought to pay at least the same share in taxes as a schoolteacher and a firefighter
04:46and a nurse in the United States of America.
04:49It's common sense.
04:51And it is not too much to ask.
04:56And yet, dealing with all of that is not anywhere near the top of the to-do list in today's
05:01Washington or Columbus.
05:03Why is that?
05:04Because a broken system has broken the connection between what most people actually want
05:10and what the people in charge actually do.
05:14More and more corporate dark money is flooding into our system, drowning the rest of us out.
05:20And meanwhile, politicians slice and dice our districts and states into a way that protects their own power,
05:27while throwing up roadblocks to make voting seem like it's not even worth the trouble.
05:32But we know better than that.
05:33We will all be voting, no matter how hard they make it.
05:44See, this strategy of theirs is giving away the game.
05:47It's showing they already know that their priorities are not the priorities of the people.
05:52So they have given up even trying to persuade you as a voter.
05:57Instead of persuading the voters, they're going to rearrange the voters with gerrymandering,
06:02overwhelm the voters with money, and suppress the voters with new restrictions.
06:07That's what you do when you don't have a winning message, and we can do so much better than that.
06:18And yeah, that means we've got to fix our politics.
06:21I know in political speeches, you're supposed to stick to the kitchen table.
06:25But I'm here to tell you that the political system we have keeps kicking the legs out from under the
06:31kitchen table.
06:31We've got to work on both at the same time.
06:38And in order for anything to get better, we have to put up leaders who know who they work for.
06:45And that is Amy Acton, your next governor here in Ohio.
06:57Amy had the guts and the talent to go from literally living in a tent in Youngstown at the age
07:03of 12
07:04all the way to medical school, and then gave back in public service,
07:08leading public health in this state during the worst health crisis in a century.
07:19She doesn't have to use her imagination to understand what families are up against in this state.
07:25She knows firsthand why people are squeezed, and she knows what needs to change in Columbus.
07:32She knows that a governor ought to focus on bringing down costs
07:35and cleaning up the corruption that is dragging down life in this state and in this country.
07:41Amy knows what the American dream is about because she earned it,
07:46which couldn't be more different from Vivek Ramaswamy, who also wants to be her next governor.
07:54She's running against a guy who became fabulously wealthy by pushing paper and money around
08:00for an Alzheimer's drug that didn't even work.
08:05Investors who trusted him lost millions of dollars, but somehow he became a multimillionaire.
08:10And he has sided again and again with the people who are cutting taxes for the richest Americans like him
08:17while they're cutting lifelines for everybody else in this state.
08:22I want to know, why does Vivek Ramaswamy think it's okay that there are 50,000 more hungry children in
08:29Ohio
08:30when they cut the food stamps?
08:33I want to hear him defend why 110,000 of your neighbors have already lost their health insurance
08:39because of the changes to the health care law, and another 350,000 could be kicked off too.
08:44He ought to have to come here, look you in the eye, and explain that.
08:55And I know J.D. Vance is kind of from around this neighborhood too.
09:03You know, I caught just a little bit of his speech from the last time he was out here.
09:07He stood with a straight face, I'm not making this up,
09:10and said it was becoming easier to buy a home these days.
09:16Makes me wonder what planet he is living on, let alone what housing market he's living in.
09:23I'm sure it got easier for him to find a new place.
09:26I heard about this $9 million estate he's moving into out over the ridge past the Washington, D.C. suburbs,
09:32but here in Ohio, nearly half of renters are paying more than they can afford.
09:38Mortgage rates are up while housing construction has slowed down,
09:42not by accident, but the direct result of the Trump-Vance administration.
09:47Manufacturing jobs are down since they took power.
09:49The economy is slowing down instead of speeding up.
09:52Interest rates are way too high, and they are making it all worse,
09:55and I'm here to tell you, it doesn't have to be this way.
10:03We don't have to put up with this.
10:05We don't have to put up with these policies, or these politicians, or the system that has created them.
10:11We can chase out corruption and make sure we've got leaders who actually respond to the people.
10:18We could even see a day when you look at what your elected leaders are doing,
10:22and actually start to feel your blood pressure go down a little bit instead of up through the roof.
10:27Wouldn't that be nice?
10:29It is not too much to ask.
10:34It's not too much to ask, but it won't happen on its own.
10:37That means using the power of citizens, the same power of organizing that drove the greatest achievements of the labor
10:44movement
10:45that we celebrate this and every Labor Day.
10:47To use our power not only to stop what's going wrong, but to support what is right.
10:53Not only in the name of what we are trying to block, but in the service of what it is
10:57we're trying to build.
10:58That's what we can be doing with that organizing power.
11:07Hundred years ago, and more labor leaders saw that a better everyday life was possible, and then they made it
11:12happen.
11:13We have a chance to make that happen in our time.
11:16Because I know that someday our kids are going to come to us, and they're going to ask questions like,
11:20Hey, Papa, what was it like back in the 2020s?
11:26Because from what I'm learning about, it was pretty wacky back then.
11:30So what were you doing back in the 2020s when it seemed like the American dream was slipping away?
11:37Back when the wealthy helped themselves to more and more power,
11:40and people in power were helping themselves to more and more wealth.
11:44Back when our freedoms were being erased one by one by one,
11:47and the future didn't look like it could measure up.
11:49What were you doing?
11:51And what I want to be able to tell them is that we were part of the story of what
11:54turned that around
11:55so that you can live a better life, and ask me about what that was like.
11:58Are you ready to do that?
12:01Are you ready to knock on doors?
12:03Are you ready to talk to your neighbor, and your fellow members, and everybody else who we can get through
12:10to?
12:11You do that, and we're going to be celebrating in this November into that future, and I can't wait.
