00:00Donald Trump is the most successful, corrupt leader in the history of the world.
00:09And, you know, many, many years ago I served in Iraq and Saddam Hussein would like spit out his tea
00:15at the amount of money that Donald Trump has stolen from his own people.
00:20And the reason why we focus so hard on flipping the House and flipping the Senate is because then we
00:26can do three things.
00:27Number one, actually pass laws and legislation that help people put more money in their pockets, help them raise their
00:34kids in a way that they feel proud of.
00:37Number two, it allows us to hold people accountable who have stolen taxpayer dollars.
00:45And then number three, another important one, it's not as sexy, but it allows us to, frankly, Trump-proof the
00:53government
00:53so that no other person can ever do what this president has done in office.
00:58I wanted to make the point of coming to Macomb County when I finally finished our term in Washington and
01:05flew back this morning.
01:06I wanted to come to Macomb because I would not be a U.S. senator without Macomb County.
01:16You all have always been the county, honestly, that decides more elections in the state of Michigan and sometimes more
01:23elections than the entire country.
01:26People know the name Macomb County, like even when they don't live in the state of Michigan, you all are
01:32the deciders in many of our elections.
01:34And I only won because we did a couple of clicks better here and a couple other places in the
01:40country.
01:40So thank you for giving me the opportunity to serve the state that I love.
01:48I want to also recognize that we are in the House of Labor.
01:53And let me just say, first of all, thank you to the Carpenters and Millwrights for hosting us here today,
01:58for giving us the venue.
02:03But in an era where character and loyalty is in short supply, there is nothing that we remember more as
02:12candidates and then as elected officials.
02:14The people who were loyal and who fought for us, we will be loyal and fight for you.
02:20That is, there is nothing more important than fighting for the working people and fighting for the American middle class
02:28because Michigan invented it, right?
02:30We invented the concept that you could work on the line at an auto plant and afford the car you
02:36were building.
02:37We invented that and now that American dream is under existential threat.
02:43That is the fight of our time, right?
02:46The times have come for us.
02:48Now, it is true.
02:49As Abdul said, we don't agree on everything.
02:52And that's okay, right?
02:55Isn't that okay?
02:56Don't we teach our kids that they can have differences and debate?
03:01We're going to have those debates.
03:03Hell, we were driving on the car on the way here, we were debating things.
03:07There are going to be sporty debates sometimes, but we agree on the things that are really important, which is
03:14putting a check and balance on this man in the White House who is trying to tell us that this
03:27man is trying to tell us that America is over, right?
03:32He's actually not trying to say we're going to make America great again.
03:36He's accepted that we're not great.
03:38We never were great.
03:39We're mediocre, and he's just going to get his.
03:41He wants his cut of the money as the Titanic goes down.
03:45That's in his brain.
03:46And I refuse to accept that vision of America.
03:50I refuse to accept that we are anything other than what our founding fathers wrote we could be.
03:58Refuse.
03:59So the things that Abdul and I agree on are those really important things on putting checks and balances on
04:06this man and on the people who salute him and believe in him more than they believe in the U
04:11.S. Constitution.
04:13Period.
04:15Period.
04:18Now, I will tell you, right, because I know there's lots of media here, that lots of people like to
04:23say, well, there's a whole debate.
04:25We have to have this fight over moderate versus progressive or young versus old.
04:30And I want to tell you, being your senator for over 18 months, sitting in those rooms, that debate of
04:36moderate versus progressive is not the real debate.
04:40The real debate among Democrats right now is fight versus flight.
04:45It is, do you believe that in order to have the country we believe in, we've got to fight for
04:50it?
04:52Or do you believe that, you know, if you just wait, Alyssa, and I've had someone tell me this, just
04:57Alyssa, politics is a long game, it's cyclical.
05:00If you just wait, you know, we don't have any good tools right now.
05:04Now, if you just wait, like, people will come back to us and it'll all be okay, okay?
05:09I know, it sounds crazy, but that is what people have told me.
05:13And all I can tell you is, in that divide between fight and flight, I am on team fight and
05:18I need someone with me who is on team fight.
05:31Now, I think it is really exciting to think about what our Senate delegation will be when Abdul gets elected,
05:39okay?
05:40I want you to think about that, right?
05:42We talk about a new generation of leaders who thinks differently and works harder and never forgets that they are
05:48public servants.
05:49But I will tell you, one of the most fun things, when I thought about, like, the places we have
05:54in common, there is, we would be the youngest single combined years, youngest delegation in the U.S. Senate.
06:04You know?
06:07The youngest delegation.
06:09We would be the only Senate delegation in U.S. history who has never taken corporate PAC money.
06:22And we would be the only Senate delegation we think in American history to have ever beaten the same dude
06:30to get the same job.
06:33So, thank you, Macomb County.
06:35Thank you to all our partners in labor.
06:38Thank you to everyone coming out.
06:39And I think we're ready to take care of some questions.
06:43Thank you, everybody.
06:52All right, y'all.
06:54All right, y'all.
06:54We got some questions.
06:56All right.
06:57First one in the House of Labor.
06:59Yes, sir.
06:59Thank you, Dr. El-Sayed.
07:01You are in our building, and we're very proud to have you.
07:05You and Senator Alyssa Slotkin are going to be together in Washington.
07:10Can you give us a plan to what you're going to do to support our brothers and sisters in the
07:15UAW and all the different trades?
07:16What plan do you guys have?
07:18Start with you, Dr. El-Sayed, please.
07:21Well, thank you so much.
07:22And I really appreciate this.
07:23And once again, we are in a house that labor built.
07:27But how many houses in Macomb County are there that labor built?
07:32And we understand that when laborers build things, yes, they build our infrastructure.
07:36Yes, they build our cars.
07:37Yes, they build our education.
07:39Yes, they build our health care.
07:40But they also build a middle-class life for whole communities in places like Michigan, in places like Macomb County.
07:50I happened to grow up in one of those union houses.
07:53My dad is a union member.
07:54I was a union member.
07:55And I'm a proud second-generation union member.
07:57But there are assaults being launched against labor every single day by the very corporations who buy off too much
08:06of our politics.
08:07So the single most important thing that we can do is to normalize and enable union organizing in every sector
08:13of American life by finally passing that PRO Act.
08:19Beyond that, we've got to fight for prevailing wage on work sites.
08:24We've got to address the ways that corporations have gamed our broken immigration system to undercut the value of labor.
08:32We've got to decide that we are going to show up for laborers in every sector.
08:37I've had the privilege of getting to walk four nurses' union strikes, two UAW strikes, and a number of events
08:50hosted by the trade unions.
08:53And what I'll tell you is that I want to always walk with my union sisters and brothers.
09:00But I also want to make it so that we don't have to walk as much because they understand that
09:06their senators got their back.
09:08And the last thing I'll say is we've got to make a union normal.
09:13What I mean by that is we've got to say it ten toes down from a whole chest.
09:17Union yesterday, union today, union tomorrow.
09:20Unions built the middle class.
09:21They can do it again if we're willing to invest in our unions.
09:29Well, look, I'll just say very quickly to add to that.
09:33There has been a lot in recent years of talk about how Donald Trump and the Republican Party somehow now
09:42claims that they are the party of the working people.
09:47And I think the most important thing that we can do from the U.S. Senate is call them on
09:53their BS on this.
09:55There is talking the talk when you need to win an election, and there is walking the walk when you
10:02get in office.
10:02And what they have specifically done to gut labor, to gut the opportunity to mediate when there's a problem between
10:12labor and the companies,
10:14what they have done to penalize organizations that are using union labor and gut all the provisions that said if
10:21you're going to get a federal contract, you've got to use union labor,
10:24we have to call them on what they have clearly done to cut back on union support.
10:31And we cannot let them in any realm claim that just because they say they want the working man's vote,
10:40they somehow are doing the right thing.
10:43And I think an action plan, should we be so lucky as to flip the House and flip the Senate?
10:53We have the ability to wipe that whiteboard clean and said, what do we need to support the strongest labor
11:01movement we can get across the country?
11:03And I think that we are well-placed to do that.
