[0:00]What's up everybody? We're currently in a undisclosed car, heading to an undisclosed location. We got Abdul El-Sayed and Summer Lee here and their entire teams are here as well. What up?! We're heading to Michigan State University first, right? Michigan State. Michigan State, first, we're going to be doing some speeches, there's going to be a rally. It's indoor or outdoor? Indoor. Indoor. Hopefully. [LAUGHS] Thank God. As is custom, I of course did not prepare a speech for this occasion. So, I apologize ahead of time, but it is my great honor to be standing alongside incredible candidates and incredible politicians like Abdul El-Sayed and Summer Lee on this glorious, beautiful day in Michigan.
[0:50]It seems, contrary to what a lot of my naysayers have been focused on for the past three weeks of Donald Trump's insane rambling and bombing campaigns. This event has not been canceled at all.
[1:14]And I want to talk about that a little bit, because this morning, Donald Trump, the fascist tyrant himself, came out and said unbelievably violent things. He talked about genociding an entire population.
[1:36]And he was so callous and so careless with the words that he was using, but even worse, for the past 38 days now, he's also been unbelievably violent. And a lot of prominent Democrats spent the last two weeks instead of developing the appropriate response to Donald Trump's mania, chose to repeat what corporate donors and foreign lobbyists and big donors had told themselves, including but not limited to, Abdul El-Sayed's opponents, Mallory McMorrow and Haley Stevens.
[2:18]And that's exactly what's wrong with politics in this day and age, and that's precisely the reason why all of you came in and wanted to hear responsive politics and responsive politicians speak for once. Politicians that put your interests above the interests of corporate donations. Politicians that are bold, politicians that are fighters, that will represent your interests rather than the interests of faceless, lifeless corporations that pollute our waters, that consistently extract all of the value that you put out.
[3:02]A lot of these college campus stops that I do, people constantly ask me, Hasan, everything is is is so chaotic right now. How do you pay attention to to what's going on and and how do you not feel so nihilistic? Especially because in the current duopoly that we have, one party is obviously representing tyranny. We know that, right? They are the fascist Republican Party and the other party is supposed to be a counterbalance, a force against the the awful politics, the repulsive, morally repugnant politics that Republicans represent. And yet the Democrats are kind of so, how do you not feel nihilistic? And I tell them, you have to hold on to little positive, uh, little positive changes that you make both in your life that will have reverberating outcomes that will lead to a sea change. That positive change could potentially be playing a formative role in electing someone like Zohran Mamdani in New York. Have you guys heard of that guy?
[4:15]The positive change in your life could be convincing one of your parents, one of your boomer parents, that might have had a lifetime of propaganda incepted in their consciousness and have a totally ridiculous view of the relationship that we have with the state of Israel. Making that change, as many of you have, going out and protesting and demanding that change take place, has actually led to a sea change in attitude. And that's precisely the reason why when a lot of people reach out to me over the course of the last two weeks and they said, "Hey man, I'm really sorry that this is happening, uh, you know, I hope you know, you get through it." I told them, fuck them.
[5:11]For the last two and a half years, they smeared people like myself and people like yourselves and said that we were radical, said that we were wrong. And yet, we persevered and we understood the violence that was taking place. It was not that big of a sacrifice, especially in compared in comparison to the sacrifice that the Palestinian people have have.
[5:49]And the the smear campaigns that started shortly after October 7 were obviously a lot more consequential, a lot more successful back then. But now, I easily say fuck them because I'm no longer alone. Neither are you.
[6:13]That's how politics change that you should hold close to your chest, and that's exactly the attitude, that's exactly the steadfastness that you can bring to every conversation, to every step that we take in the right direction. And sometimes it's going to be electing a fighter that will stand alongside you and represent your interests rather than the interest of corporate donors.
[8:59]What's up MSU? Right. We might be in a lecture hall, but I'm going to say it right now. Guys, this ain't a lecture. We're not here for a lecture. So I need you all to get your energy up because right here, we're here to send a warning. We're going to start with that one. I'm Summer Lee. I am proud to be here with fired up students and educators and citizens and human beings who are here to say that we're done with the status quo.
[9:28]We're done accepting that this is the way that our politics just has to be.
[9:54]If you're like me, you woke up this morning and your president tweeted out that we were about to eradicate an entire people. And let me be clear. He didn't just tweet that out. He tweeted that out in the middle of his third illegal war. He tweeted that out in the midst of another genocide. So when our president says stuff like that, we can't take it lightly. So when I say that right now, we cannot afford to be on the sidelines. Young people, students, Michiganders, Michiganders, right? Michiganders, I know, and I know what comes with it. Guys, I have been in Congress for three and a half years.
[10:36]At no point in my life did I ever believe that anybody would send somebody to Congress who just says what we mean, somebody who come from a working-class, poor, black background, from the Mon Valley of Western Pennsylvania, where our people built steel and we built the country. And we are the type of people who they want to send in Congress, so when I say that I know what's possible, I want to I want to say that we're about to go. I'm gonna dive in deeper too, right? Because from the midst of Congress, I never in my life thought that we would be in a position right now to determine what is the future of the world. Guys, we are in the midst of a moment where we have to decide whether or not we're gonna let some mother folks who are fighting hard right now, fighting hard to keep you discouraged, hard to keep you feeling apathetic, hard to keep you feeling like your voice doesn't matter. They want that because right now they have insidious plans for you. Right now, they are open about the country that they're building, who they're building it for and who they're trying to put out. And if we don't think that right now is our responsibility to say that I'm gonna fight as hard as a Republican, I will fight as hard as Madon, I will fight as hard as the people who don't love their neighbor, it's our moment to stand, put up or shut up.
[12:09]So I I don't take it lightly. I understand what we're up against right now. Young people, especially you guys, I understand what we're up against right now. I understand what it feels like to feel like there is no political home for you. Feels like anytime you come into politics there's somebody to tell you that you ain't doing it right. You don't vote right. You don't protest right. You're not coming the right way. I know what it feels like to live through financial crises and global crises in the midst of our taxpayer dollars going to genocide. I understand, I understand how uh nerve-wracking, how annoying, how how discouraging it is to feel like nothing that we do will possibly make a change. But I need you to understand that we cannot stay there. We don't have enough time to stay in that place. Right now, we need to get skinned in the game. Right now, we have to find incredible cabinets, people, incredible human beings who care and to to fix, to build our future with us, like Abdul, who will go to the Senate and say that no, Donald Trump don't need to come to ask us for permission for a war or for a genocide. He needs to come for his impeachment.
[13:17]We need, we need that.
[13:24]Listen, we need and we can have people like Abdul who can say that affordability is not a hope, but that people in Michigan and Pennsylvania and everywhere else, deserve to be able to afford their grocery, especially why another while another billionaire buys another yacht.
[14:10]That's not, that's not the country that we are going to settle for. So right now I'm here to tell you that yeah, things have been bleak and it's by design. There are people who didn't want you to be here today. I don't know if you guys noticed, but I saw that even the DOJ didn't want you to be here today. The DOJ didn't want you to be here today. Establishment politicians didn't want you to be here today. People who have a vested interest, who are invested in our oppression, people who are invested in your college being too expensive, they're invested in your medications being too expensive, they're invested in another war after another war after another war and they are begging you to stay home. And I am begging you to reject that. I'm begging you to keep coming. Right now, don't just stand here today. Don't just say that we will send an Abdul to Congress, but we need you to say that we will flip this script completely. That we have a responsibility, guys. And not just the responsibility, we have in this room the power. This is the most powerful room in America right now.
[15:55]Guys, this is the most powerful room in America because you don't need to wait for a corporate donor to tell you how you should love upon each other. You're the most powerful room in America because you know, because you know that those folks are fighting on a ticking time bomb. This hate, the politics of hate and division they want you to to to hate your Jewish neighbor or your your Muslim neighbor or your black neighbor. They need you to feel like the other is your enemy and not the money. They need you to believe that the many don't have as big of a say as the money, but we know that and I'm telling you that right now Congress don't look like we need it to look. But the time when Congress looks like this room, when Congress looks like our movement, when Congress looks like people who have rented, not just owned houses, people who have lived through poisoned air and poisoned water, that time is coming because we are taking the time to build it. So right now I'm saying that there is a partner in this room who can come and help us to build the America that you deserve, but he cannot do it alone. He will not be able to do it alone, so guys, have a vested interest in your future. Have a vested interest in the movement that we're building. Know that right now history will write about us and it will say, did you stay on the sidelines or did you get your hands dirty?
[17:27]History is going to ask you if you looked at the options in front of you and you said, there's no reason for me to show up, but if you saw a real one standing before you, somebody who has skin in this game and you said, I will step out for them. I'll not just come to the rally, but I'm gonna go to my classmates and I'm going to let them know that we have a fight ahead of us, but we are about that fight right now. If you guys are ready for that, then I promise you that what they have in store for us, they ain't ready for you. You're not ready for you. So, I come here and even though I started by telling you all the things that we're up against, I come here even though I've been in Congress for three and a half years. I'm telling you that I feel more powerful and more encouraged than I've ever felt. And I hope that right now, you feel more powerful and more encouraged than you ever felt, because the only people who can stop us right now are us. And the only thing that's standing between us having a fighter in the Senate or another status quo down or another do-nothing Republican, is whether or not y'all get up and you fight for what you deserve. So I'm proud to be here with my brother Abdul right now. I'm proud to build not just a a Congress, a Senate, a labor movement, a a a civil movement that meets this very moment. It will take each of us doing each of the things. So whatever it is that your move is, if you aren't registered to vote right now, then let's still do that. And let's talk to three, four people in our lives. When you're done with this, let's call our family and let them know that Abdul is here and he's fighting for Medicare for all. He's gonna get money out of our politics with me and I'll build. Uh if you are organizing and doing your activism, know that you're in a time honor position and that is important too. If if you're if you're working or you're protesting or you're boycotting, know that that all works, each and every one. Guys, there's room for each and every one of us, but right now it's the time to say that this is our country and nobody is gonna build it if we don't do it for ourselves. So thank you all so much MSU.
