New York City Mayor Zoran Mondani celebrates his 100th day by highlighting universal child care, $34 million in tenant settlements, and record-low murder rates under his Democratic Socialist administration. He plans five city-owned grocery stores to curb food prices, a trash containerization campaign to eliminate black bags, and bus speed increases of up to 20%. Mondani cites Daniel Webster Hone and Bernie Sanders as models for public goods delivery while urging the repair of international alliances damaged by President Trump. Rev. Al Sharpton joins to praise Kamala Harris's election record, condemn the Gaza-Iran war's inflationary impact, and criticize congressional fecklessness, concluding that rebuilding global trust through partnership is essential against isolationism. [Automatically generated summary]
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A City That Works For All00:15:25
America marks 250 years, and C-SPAN is there to commemorate every moment.
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Remarks now from New York City Mayor Zoran Mondani as he marks his 100th day in office.
36 minutes.
Remarks now from New York City Mayor Zoran Mondani as he marks his 100th day in office.
It's just over half an hour.
Good evening, my fellow New Yorkers.
What a privilege it is to look out onto a room full of friends old and new of the incredible city workers who drive our buses, teach our children, and tend to our parks.
A room, a room full of New Yorkers.
I want to thank every elected official here, whether at the city, state, or federal level.
I want to thank every labor leader, faith leader, organizer, and activist who shapes the communities that make our city what it is.
To put it simply, I want to thank everyone for being here.
It is a Sunday night in New York City.
And while some prepare for the week ahead, for many, the workday has only just begun.
Tonight, in the northern reaches of the Bronx, an MTA train operator is guiding a two-train out of Wakefield.
Before that train reaches its final stop in Flatbush, it will drop off New York City Health and Hospitals nurses at 135th Street, NYCHA maintenance workers at 96th Street, CUNY staff at Franklin Avenue Medgar Evers College.
From the power control center at 53rd Street, engineers will manage its path through a vast network of signals.
And at every stop, at every hour of the night, the people of New York City will get off the subway and go to work.
This city does not run by accident.
New York City is the greatest city in the world because of the millions of people who labor tirelessly each and every day to make it so.
What an immense honor it is to be your mayor, to not simply lead you, but to learn from you.
A hundred and two days ago, we stood together on the steps of City Hall, bracing ourselves against the bitter cold.
102 days ago, we stood together at the dawn of a new era.
The world watched, wondering if change could really come.
Across the five boroughs, New Yorkers waited to see if a city hall powered by the people could truly govern for the people.
There were cynics then, just as there are cynics now.
Some said that once the hard work began, we would forget the movement of working people that rewrote what was possible in this city.
Others warned that the left could debate, but could never deliver.
Socialists might be able to win a campaign, they said, but we could never advance an agenda.
Far more wanted to believe, but didn't know how.
Because for too long, City Hall had not just failed to meet expectations, it had lowered them.
After years of broken promises, no one in this city could be blamed for doubting that government held either the ability or the ambition to upend the status quo.
Yet, as I said on that freezing January afternoon to more than 8.5 million New Yorkers, we will make no apology for what we believe.
I was elected as a Democratic socialist, and I will govern as a Democratic Socialist.
Tonight, I want to talk about what we've done, not to congratulate ourselves, but as a reminder of what is possible.
With what we've accomplished in 14 weeks, imagine what we can do together in four years.
We began with a promise, universal child care.
And by day eight, we delivered it.
Thanks to historic $1.2 billion partnership with Governor Kathy Hochul and the organizing of more than 100,000 New Yorkers during the campaign, we will not only make 3K truly universal, we will deliver free child care for two-year-olds for the first time in New York City history.
We will begin with 2,000 children this fall, 12,000 next year, and cover every single two-year-old by the end of four years.
Tens of thousands of families will no longer have to choose between having a child and affording to live in our city.
That is the change government can deliver.
I think of Mallory, a young mother spending $2,000 a month on childcare.
She dreamed of having another kid, but she couldn't afford it.
When we announced universal childcare, she said it finally felt possible.
When young parents save more than $20,000 per year per child, that is the change government can deliver.
When children get a better start, when parents can keep their jobs, when billions of dollars in workforce productivity return to our economy, that is the change government can deliver.
And we didn't stop there.
We're taking on the biggest driver of the affordability crisis in our city, housing.
We are going after the bad landlords who violate our laws and mistreat their tenants.
Since January 1st, we have won more than $34 million in settlements, judgments, and repairs for tenants.
Delivered improvements to 6,070 apartments so far and issued 195,829 violations.
New York City will no longer tolerate exploitation as a business model.
We have held rental rip-off hearings across the five boroughs and heard from more than 1,600 New Yorkers because the same tenants who have been overlooked by our politics will now be at the heart of our policies.
As we protect the tenants of today, we must also build for tomorrow.
That is why we have cut red tape and accelerated the construction of thousands of new units of housing.
Homes that are not only affordable enough to rent, but many that will be affordable enough to buy as well.
And I know there are many New Yorkers who care about the work of the Rent Guidelines Board.
I am one of them.
Rents are too high across New York City.
And government can do more to address that.
I am proud of the six new members I appointed to that independent board, and I look forward to the decision they will come to in just a few short months.
No longer will city government be afraid of its own shadow.
If anyone should be afraid, it is those who take advantage of working people.
Over these past 102 days, as we launched a sweeping worker and consumer protection agenda, we have made clear that solidarity is not just a slogan, it is a practice.
When NISNA workers, when NISNA nurses went on strike, I was proud to join them on the picket line.
And those nurses didn't back down until they won the better wages and safe working conditions they deserved.
We will stand with workers who have so often stood alone.
We have returned more than $9.3 million to workers, consumers, and small businesses, nearly $100,000 every single day we've been in office.
We've expanded protected time off for more than 4 million workers, reinstated nearly 10,000 wrongly deactivated delivery workers, and issued nearly 60,000 compliance warnings across our city.
And throughout it all, we have taken on the junk fees and subscription traps that afflict far too many New Yorkers.
No longer can someone charge you a hidden fee for the hotel you book or make it impossible to cancel a gym membership.
As we set the global standard for protecting consumers, we will also ensure that New York City remains the global center of business.
We want to build the strongest economy that our five boroughs have ever seen.
And we are on our way.
New York City continues to lead office recovery nationwide.
Venture capital investment in our city reached $11.1 billion in the first quarter of this year, the strongest quarter in five years.
Labor force participation is at an all-time high.
And yet we know that if we want our city to continue to grow, we must deliver the conditions for exactly that.
Public safety is at the top of the list.
Make no mistake, our approach to public safety is working.
Since we took office, murders have hit record lows.
There has not been a murder on Staten Island in more than 180 days.
Crime in our city is down.
The NYPD has taken more than 1,000 guns off of our streets since January 1st.
Together with the crisis management system, we are on pace to deliver the lowest levels of shooting in our city's recorded history.
And there is always more to be done.
Our administration will approach public safety with a whole-of-government approach.
That is why on day 78, we were proud to announce the creation of New York City's first ever Office of Community Safety.
It will devise new approaches to the gun violence and mental health crises that stretch across our city.
This commitment to safety extends to making our city safer and smoother for the New Yorkers who navigate our streets.
On the third day of our administration, we announced that we would install protected bike lanes along the entirety of McGinnis Boulevard.
One of the most dangerous roads in New York City, protecting the thousands of New Yorkers who use it every single day.
We took action to lower speed limits across thousands of school zones citywide.
438 children have been killed in traffic crashes in our city since 2000.
We will not accept this as normal.
And as we prepare for the World Cup, we are delivering major street upgrades, including a redesign of 9th Avenue and expanded bike lanes and pedestrian spaces across downtown Manhattan.
Throughout every day of this work, we have contended with a historic budget deficit larger than even that of the Great Recession.
Unlike those who came before us, we will budget with transparency and accountability.
As we have responded to this crisis, I have thought often of the Margaret Shatcher quote: The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.
If anything, my friends, it seems that you eventually need a socialist to clean up the mess.
On January 1st, I told New Yorkers that City Hall would hold a singular purpose, to make this city belong to more of its people than it did the day before.
For 102 days, we have endeavored to do exactly that, delivering both public goods and public excellence.
Buses will run faster on Fordham Road.
Children play in a new recreation center in East Flatbush, honoring the legacy of Shirley Chisholm.
Childcare centers are opening in western Queens and Staten Island and the South Bronx.
That is the change that government can deliver.
And it is the change that democratic socialism can deliver.
I know there are many who use socialist as a dirty word, something to be ashamed of.
They can try all they want, but we will not be ashamed of using government to fight for the many, not simply the few.
We will not be ashamed of adding more heat pumps to NYCHA buildings in the Rockaways or building more supportive housing in Harlem or standing steadfast alongside our trans neighbors.
We will not be ashamed of investing in youth mental health clinics or working to close Rikers or fighting for immigrants targeted by ICE.
To any New Yorker, whether you're under attack from the federal government's cruelty or suffocating under the affordability crisis, we will stand beside you.
Because government is a series of choices, and socialism is the choice to fight for every New Yorker.
Socialism As The Right Choice00:10:21
To extend democracy from the ballot box to the rest of our lives.
We are hardly the first socialists to embrace good governance.
110 years ago, the city of Milwaukee elected a mayor named Daniel Webster Hone.
Hone was considered young for the job, only 35 years old when he took office.
I know.
Crazy, right?
More importantly, Hone made no apologies for being a socialist.
Mayor Hone knew then what we know now: the worth of an ideology can only be judged by its delivery.
As Emil Seidol, the socialist mayor who came before Hone once said, their entire governing philosophy was simple.
Go after it and get it.
Under Mayor Hone, Milwaukee built the greatest public park system in the nation and weathered the Great Depression better than almost any other American city.
Under Mayor Hone, Milwaukee purged corruption and graft, built the first municipally sponsored public housing development in the nation, and transformed the city's sewage disposal system.
He believed, just as we do, that to deliver this great society, we should tax the rich.
Today, we know these leaders as the sewer socialists.
But for years, Milwaukeeans knew them simply as leaders who delivered.
It's time we bring that to New York City.
And yes, that means you too, Yannis.
Come join the Knicks next year as we defend our title.
In all seriousness, as I've said time and again, there is no problem too big, no task too small.
Universal child care was a problem deemed too big to take on.
Standing up for workers against corporations was a problem too big to take on.
Building more homes, lowering crime to historic levels, and defending tenants against bad landlords, these were problems too big to take on.
But here's the truth.
Nothing is too big for New York City to take on.
And over the past 14 weeks, we have proved that there is no task too small either.
Because if government can't do the small things, how could you ever trust it to do the big ones?
How can we promise to transform our city if we can't pave your street?
And that's why since January 1st, New York City has filled more than 102,000 potholes, including 22,800 in just three days alone.
From Pelham to Tompkinsville, Bay Ridge to Inwood, city workers have ficked roads at a rate not seen in more than a decade.
They filled them as the sun came up.
They filled them at midnight.
They filled them at all hours of the day.
And that's not all.
By the end of this fiscal year, the Department of Transportation will repave 1,150 lane miles of our streets, enough to stretch from New York City to Miami.
Daniel.
This is pothole politics.
Our 2026 answer to sewer socialism.
Where government is not too busy, not too self-important, not too mired in paperwork to fix the problems of this city, no matter their size.
On day six, when we paved the bump at the base of the Williamsburg Bridge, that was pothole politics.
On day 65, when we rolled out our plan to take down thousands of feet of scaffolding that have darkened city streets for years, that was pothole politics.
On day 90, when we announced more than $100 million to replace and modernize more than 6,700 catch basins, that too was pothole politics.
Honestly, that one might have been sewer socialism.
And when our city was blanketed by winter storms, when mountains of snow piled up on our streets, we brought pothole politics to emergency response.
Sanitation workers melted 783 million pounds of snow.
Spread 1 billion pounds of salt and cleared 135,000 crosswalks, 34,000 bus stops, and 29,000 fire hydrants.
We will lower costs, repave the road, shovel snow from the street, and return dignity to working people's lives.
And to the cynics, you know what?
We're going to fill your potholes too.
Because when socialists make promises, we go after it and get it.
So let us look forward to the next promises we will keep.
This evening, I am proud to make three transformative announcements.
First, we're going to make it easier for New Yorkers to put food on the table.
Since the pandemic, grocery prices have gone up and they haven't come back down.
We feel it every single time we go to the store.
Between 2013 and 2023, grocery prices increased in New York City by nearly 66%.
Significantly higher than the national average.
During our campaign, we promised New Yorkers that we would create a network of five city-owned grocery stores, one in each borough.
Today, we make good on that promise.
I am proud to announce that we will open every single one of these stores by the end of our first term.
And the first one will open next year.
Stores where prices are fair, where workers are treated with dignity, and where New Yorkers can actually afford to shop.
At our stores, eggs will be cheaper.
Bread will be cheaper.
Grocery shopping will no longer be an unsolvable equation.
One of those stores will be at La Marqueta in El Barrio.
The same market that Fiero LaGuardia opened in 1936.
So working people then could save money on fruits and vegetables.
We will continue his legacy.
We are building a brand new store on city-owned land currently sitting empty in East Harlem.
A neighborhood where nearly 40% of households received public assistance or SNAP in the past year.
Now, some will insist that city-owned businesses do not work, that government cannot keep up with corporations.
My answer to them is simple.
I look forward to the competition.
May the most affordable grocery store win.
When I think of the change that government can deliver, I think too of the leadership of Mayor Bernie Sanders of Burlington, Vermont.
And while I am truly sorry that he can't be here with us today.
Oh my God!
It's not Bernie Sanders!
You know, thank you.
You know, I have been on platforms with hundreds and hundreds of mayors and all kinds of public officials.
This is the first time I was ever introduced by someone who talked proudly about democratic socialism, and it feels great.
I just want to say a few words, and I want to congratulate the mayor and his team for our fantastic first hundred days.
And I want to tell all of you and the mayor that what you guys are doing here in New York City is important not only to the people here.
What you are doing and what the mayor is doing is providing hope and inspiration not only to people all across our country, but honestly, all across the world.
Radical Ideas For Working People00:03:39
It is no secret, no secret, that here in America and around the world, a lot of people are giving up on democracy.
They're saying, I vote, all I see is the rich get richer and I get poorer.
Why do I want to vote?
Why do I need democracy?
Well, what you guys are doing here is telling the world that we can have a government that works for all of us, not just the oligarchs.
And today's announcement by the mayor of a new city-run, new city-run grocery stores is just another example of government working for the people.
You know, I know that the mayor has been criticized.
Some say this is a radical idea.
I'll tell you what is a radical idea.
Giving tax breaks to billionaires, throwing people off health care.
That's radical.
What's radical is starting a terrible war.
That's radical.
But providing affordable food to working families, that's not radical.
It's exactly the right thing to do.
And what the mayor and all of you are doing by establishing these city-run grocery stores is not only going to help working people afford the food that they need, it's doing something else.
I am the chairman or the former chairman of the Health Education Labor Committee.
And what we have worked on and understand that one of the reasons that working class people die at a significantly younger age than the elderly has to do with diet.
Working people, low-income people, cannot afford the decent quality food that their kids and the whole family need.
And the result of that is all across this country, we have tens of millions of people dealing with obesity, and we have a crisis, an epidemic in diabetes.
We've got a crisis, an epidemic, in diabetes.
So when we talk about making decent quality food affordable to all people, it's not only the right thing to do, in the end of the day, it's going to save money.
Making sure our kids eat healthy food is not a radical idea.
It's what every government should be doing.
So Mr. Mayor, thank you all.
Thank you for what you're doing.
Thank all of you for staying up and fighting for justice.
Let's go forward together.
Thank you and for all you have done for working people.
Services Delivered Equally To All00:07:32
Bernie's eight years as mayor were defined by a tireless commitment to improving his city.
He fixed a crumbling downtown.
He delivered city services equally, not just to the wealthier areas.
And he used a budget surplus to repair streets.
One day, Bernie, you'll have to tell me what a budget surplus actually feels like.
The sewer socialists used government to build a better Milwaukee.
Bernie Sanders used government to build a better Burlington.
We will use government to build a better New York City.
That, my friends, is pothole politics.
And we will pursue it as we tackle one of the most persistent challenges that faces our city.
One that affects every New Yorker no matter where they live.
The same word that many correctly use to describe my jump shot, trash.
Trash bags clutter our streets and our sidewalks.
Rats and vermin never have to look far for their next meal.
In the wealthiest city in the wealthiest nation in the history of the world, no one should have to live surrounded by garbage.
And for a brief moment, it seemed like we wouldn't.
In 2024, voters overwhelmingly supported moving forward with trash containerization.
Empire bins were rolled out in Harlem.
They were promised in Brooklyn.
And then, as so many New Yorkers have come to expect from government, the momentum stalled.
No date was given by which it would be completed.
No funds set aside to make it real.
The promise was empty.
The only thing that should be empty in New York City are our sidewalks of trash.
So we are going to put a lid on it.
Tonight, I am proud to announce that we are launching an ambitious campaign of trash containerization across the five boroughs.
We will containerize all trash at all residential properties.
There will be at least one fully containerized community district in each borough by the end of next year.
We will begin aggressively rolling out new containers to store that trash and new trucks to pick it up.
And we will accomplish full citywide containerization by the end of 2031.
So New York City, say goodbye to black bags and say hello to the bins.
Sidewalks will be clean.
Rats will go hungry.
Trash won't know what hid it.
New Yorkers deserve a government that does not shy away from the daily challenges we face.
One that tackles the issues before us.
That commitment to delivering change is what guides the third and final announcement I am so proud to make tonight.
We will speed up buses for more than one million New Yorkers across New York City.
Already, over these first 102 days, we have delivered for hundreds of thousands of bus riders.
We kicked off street redesign projects on Madison Avenue in Manhattan, on Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn, and we improved crosstown bus service in the Bronx because, yes, even Yankees fans deserve better public transit.
But in a city where every minute counts, where time is money, it is unacceptable that some buses run as slow as five miles an hour.
That is why on the campaign I promised to make buses faster, and it's why tonight I am so excited to share that we will cut down commutes by up to six minutes each way.
Now six minutes is a lot of time.
It's enough to spend a little longer at breakfast with your family, take a shower before work, or listen to the seminal classic Four Minutes by Madonna featuring Justin Timberlake and Timberland one and a half times.
It's a great song.
Together with Governor Hokul, we will speed up buses by up to 20% along 45 priority corridors.
We will significantly increase the number of bus stops that are fully accessible.
We will construct new world-class rapid bus routes for 100,000 New Yorkers who live more than a half mile away from a subway or rail stop.
And when we talk about who rides the bus, we are talking about New Yorkers who have too often been overlooked in our politics.
Disproportionately working class black, brown, outer borough riders, the very New Yorkers who have been told to make do riding the slowest buses in America.
No longer.
This will be led by a partnership between the Department of Transportation and the MTA, the first of its kind in a decade.
Government will work together to work better for New Yorkers.
We made a promise to New Yorkers to make buses fast and free.
Tonight, we're delivering the fast and we're excited to keep working with Albany to deliver the free.
When I began speaking tonight, a two-train had just set out on a three-borough journey from Wakefield 241st Street.
It rattled through the Bronx, racing the setting sun.
Beneath the steel tracks, street vendors sold Bidia and Fuchschka.
Students did homework on their stoop, and taxi drivers picked up passengers.
That train went underground beneath the Harlem River.
Overhead, city workers piloted ferries and tugboats riding the waves.
It sped below churches where the sound of neighbors singing in a single voice had echoed only a few hours prior.
Now, as we stand together, it is arriving at 125th Street.
The New Yorkers on that train are thinking not of the many worlds they just rode through or the miracle that is New York City.
They are thinking about whether they will make rent by the first of the month, whether they'll have enough to ever buy a home, whether they can raise a family in the city that they love.
And they're thinking about whether their train will arrive on time, whether government will provide the services it has promised.
For too long, as New Yorkers have asked these questions, City Hall has not raised its hand to help.
The people of our city have been left to fend for themselves.
We hold a mighty responsibility, not just to govern with honesty and integrity, not just to deliver relentless improvement.
We have the responsibility of proving that government is worthy of the people it serves.
Our best days lie before us, New York.
The work is there to be done.
Together, let's go after it and get it.
Thank you.
History Made By Kamala Harris00:05:35
C-SPAN is as unbiased as you can get.
You are so fair.
I don't know how anybody can say otherwise.
You guys do the most important work for everyone in this country.
I love C-SPAN because I get to hear all the voices.
You bring these divergent viewpoints and you present both sides of an issue and you allow people to make up their own minds.
I absolutely love C-SPAN.
I love to hear both sides.
I've watched C-SPAN every morning and it is unbiased.
And you bring in factual information for the callers to understand where they are in their comments.
This is probably the only place that we can hear honest opinion of Americans across the country.
You guys at C-SPAN are doing such a wonderful job of allowing free exchange of ideas without a lot of interruptions.
Thank you, C-SPAN, for being a light in the dark.
Today, former U.S. Senator Mitt Romney speaks about the state of democracy and governance in the United States as part of the John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum.
From Harvard University's Institute of Politics, watch it live at 6 p.m. Eastern on C-SPAN, C-SPAN Now, our free mobile app, and C-SPAN.org.
And then at 7.30 p.m. Eastern, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi sits down for a conversation on American politics as she retires from Congress after 20 terms.
She'll chat with former CNN Washington Bureau Chief Frank Cesno.
From George Washington University, watch that conversation live on C-SPAN, C-SPAN Now, our free mobile app, and online at c-span.org.
Current and former Democratic officials recently addressed the possibility of running for president in 2028, including former Vice President and Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris, former Biden administration Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigiech, Kentucky Governor Andy Bashir, and Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro.
They all spoke at the recent National Action Network convention in New York City.
Let me, before we go on, several years ago, I went to San Francisco and met a lady that was running for district attorney.
They said that she could not win.
She ran anyway and won.
Then I got to know her when she ran for the state attorney general in California.
And a friend of ours, Paula Walker, said, you got to help, Rev. They told me, you wasting your time.
She's not going to win statewide.
She ran and she won.
Then there's a Senate seat opened up and she decided to run for the U.S. Senate.
And they said, well, you know, that's going to be next to impossible.
Especially with her background.
She had fought criminal justice cases, fought against some of the profiling.
And it added a lot of strength because her having been a prosecutor, they couldn't say she was anti-police or anti-whatever.
And she got it from both sides.
Attacks, unfairness.
She ran though and went to the U.S. Senate.
She was the one that helped to introduce the George Floyd Justice and Policing Act in the U.S. Senate.
She was the one that would debate the other side.
And then when we ended up with President Biden stepping back, there's some that said we need a primary.
And we said we already had it.
When we voted for Biden, we voted for Harris, which meant that if something happened with Biden, she was supposed to get it.
But she was so used to people doubting, she took it with ease.
We got angry.
She was calming us down.
And she had to calm me down now because we are in trouble and we should have listened and come out in the numbers that we should have come out with.
Make no mistake about it.
I have no idea what she's going to decide to do with her future, but I know what she's done with her past.
She's the first woman in the history of this country to be the vice president of the United States.
She's the first black woman to have the nomination of a major party.
And she is the second largest vote getter.
She got more votes than Barack Obama, than Bill Clinton.
She got more votes than anyone in American history.
Whatever she decides to do, she's made her point in history.
Now we need her to help us, whatever she decides to change history around.
Bring you the former vice president of the United States, the honorable Kamala Harris.
Strengthening Our Global Relationships00:15:12
Good morning.
Good morning.
Oh, it's so good.
I think they're happy to see you.
Oh, it's good to be back.
It's good to be back.
Thank you all, everyone.
And good morning, and thank you for all the work everyone here does and for taking the time this morning for us to all get together.
And, Rev, thank you for your long-standing leadership, for your friendship, for being an advisor, for being an inspiration, especially in the most difficult times.
I thank you for that.
I thank you.
I thank you for being here.
Thank you.
First gentleman is with us too.
Doug, stand up, Doug.
Let me go right into some of the things that I really wanted to talk to you about.
All right.
Today, even with the tenuous ceasefire, the war is no longer contained.
It's become a regional war in terms of Iran.
And we get mixed signals from the president, which is not strange to me, that one day we're going to stop, one day we're going to start, one day it's not a war, one day it is.
And on Easter Sunday, using all kinds of profanity and attacking a religion or mocking it.
I mean, from the first strikes, you have been about your opposition to this war and to this engagement.
And as you see it now, explain to me why there's such a danger on a global level, which I believe was the basis that you had opposed this engagement from the beginning and had said that.
And it seems like, not that you wanted to be right, that you have been right because we're losing lives on all sides and we don't even know why.
That's right.
Well, you are correct, Rev. From the beginning, I have been unequivocally opposed to this war of choice that Trump has entered.
Let us understand, first of all, this president is the first president of the United States since World War II who does not believe in the alliances that we have with friendly nations,
does not believe in the strength of them, the recognition of the history with them, and the importance that that relationship bears on our standing around the world, our influence around the world, not to mention our national security.
This is the first president of the United States post-World War II who has not considered the United States of America to have a responsibility to be a standard bearer around international rules and norms such as sovereignty and territorial integrity.
Look what he did as it relates and what he has been doing as it relates to Ukraine.
And why is this important?
Because America's strength in the context of the globe and the world relies on a number of things.
Yes, it relies on the fact that we have the most lethal fighting force in the world, our military.
And it relies on what we call our soft power, which is the importance that we have placed in being a participant with other democracies around holding up international rules and norms such as human rights, such as the importance of respecting relationships.
Foreign policy is a lot like your friendships in your personal life.
The strength of the friendship is going to be based on some mutual recognition of the history of the friendship, what you've been through together.
It's going to rely on trust, which is a reciprocal relationship.
You give and you receive trust.
It's a back and forth.
Friendships rely on consistency.
Do I follow through on what I say, what I've said?
Well, none of this can be counted on when it comes to Donald Trump.
None of it.
It is, yes, evidence of his lack of character, but it is harmful to the people of America, not to mention people in allied nations around the world.
So he enters into this war, a war of choice.
Remember, the man said, the man said he got rid of their nuclear arsenal.
Obliterated it, he said.
You know how he likes to use those kind of words?
Obliterated it.
Which is not an ambiguous term.
That means you took it out.
Well, evidently he didn't do that.
He is causing U.S. service members, 13 to have lost their lives, hundreds, it is estimated, of others to be injured, some very seriously, putting U.S. service members at risk.
Abandoning alliances.
He's been pointing fingers at NATO, right?
So understand what that is.
Those are friends of ours that we have had, and that bond formed mostly out of what happened in the 1930s, again post-World War II.
Under our administration, we expanded NATO.
We brought two more countries in.
He's now pointing fingers at these friends of ours who don't want to go along with his war of choice.
And I mention all of this to say two things in particular, which keeps me up at night, frankly, as your former Vice President of the United States.
And it is this.
America has increasingly, under Donald Trump, become more unreliable as a partner to our friends.
And America has increasingly, second point, lost influence.
So when we otherwise could say, you know, in X country, we're concerned about human rights violations.
Even if it did not directly affect our national security, we had some level of authority to speak about these things in a way that we had earned the ability of people to listen and pay attention and maybe try to do better.
We have become more unreliable under this man and we are losing influence.
And my concern is not only just the fact of it, but it's going to take a while and some serious work, way beyond the end of this man's term, to regain whatever we had.
I will tell you, Rev, though, what gives me some sense of optimism includes this.
As Vice President of the United States, I met with over 150 world leaders, presidents, prime ministers, chancellors, and kings.
Many of them multiple times and formed relationships.
I have traveled the globe many times over.
And I will share with the friends here one thing that I realized is that the relationship that we have with allied nations, yes, can be forged and reinforced by the leaders, but I will tell you, the true strength of those relationships is the people of those nations feeling some level of identity and connection with the people of our country.
And that includes the people in this room.
Because I will tell you, in meeting with so many foreign leaders, the first foreign leader that I invited to my home as vice president was then Chancellor, German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
I had her over for breakfast.
And we sat down.
It was called a bilateral meeting.
We sat down and we talked about everything.
It was before Russia invaded Ukraine.
We talked about Russia and China and a number of things.
And then she leaned over to me and she said, please tell me what's going on in your country with voting.
Because she was very concerned about the erosion that she was reading about and hearing about in the United States around obstruction of voting rights.
I bring it back to Nan because here's the point there.
She was fully aware of the leaders and the activists and the heroes that we honor who fought for voting rights.
She knew of the struggle.
She knew of the work it requires and she knew what was at stake.
And I will tell the folks here that, again, part of the relationship that we will ever have with the people of other nations will be because of folks like the folks in this room who are always fighting for the ideals of America, always fighting for what we know to be true commitment to freedom, to justice, to liberty, and to equality.
So there we go.
Let me ask you this.
And I'm sure you remember, many out there remember, President Trump said on day one he was going to deal with inflation and make America affordable again and to bring down the prices of groceries.
It's safe to say these things didn't happen.
So, I mean, what do you make of this?
I know, you know, I'm the preacher, but you practice better than me.
I'd be up in the middle of the night saying, I told you so.
But how do you, on a serious side, deal with the fact that we are dealing at a time this war exacerbates it, what's going on with the streets of Homoza, all exacerbates it.
And we're paying for this.
This is not just some foreign affair issue somewhere else.
That's right.
The American citizens, black, white, red, blue, don't matter, are paying for this war.
And the American citizens will always pay for war.
So that is true.
First of all, just to answer the first question, and I heard friends in the room say he lied.
He lied.
He told the American people on day one he was going to bring down prices and costs.
And he lied.
I will say this, however.
You know, when you look at the numbers in terms of that election, one-third voted for him.
One-third voted for us.
And one-third did not vote.
And I do believe there is a healthy number of the folks that voted for him that believed him and voted based on that very important issue, which is: can they afford to get through life with dignity and being able to take care of their family?
It's without any question, I would say, the number one issue for most people in our country.
And you look at it, though, what he has done is instead of taking care of the average everyday folk in America around their need for affordability, he'd been taking care of his rich friends and his own family.
You look at what's been happening: the cost of gas, the cost of food, unemployment, inflation have gone up since he has been president.
And then now he has, you know, he says what he's thinking.
I mean, here's the thing: we don't have to kind of like, what does he mean when he says that?
That's the one problem we don't have.
So he just said the other day the government shouldn't be responsible for affordable child care.
That's what he said.
This is the same man who pretended that he's a family first president.
They're asking for at least $200 billion.
I heard today the number may be as high as $400 billion, $200 to $400 billion for this war.
Meanwhile, they've cut Medicaid, premium prices for health care have gone up, SNAP benefits, WIC, everybody in this room knows what WIC stands for: women, infants, and children.
SNAP benefits, which are intended and were created to feed hungry children, hungry seniors, people who have the right to expect that their government wants to alleviate their suffering.
Human Nature And Political Cronies00:08:06
So he again has shown his character on issues like this.
And his character is he is telling the American people he doesn't care about you.
But I would caution us to understand it's not only about him.
At some point he will be termed out of office.
And understand it's not just about the individual, it's about the apparatus, if you will.
I would prefer to just talk about the cronies who are allowing this to happen.
Members of Congress, Rev, I'm going to use the F word, who are feckless.
It's an appropriate F word.
Who don't, and I served, as you mentioned, Rev, in the United States Senate for four years.
I know a number of these folks.
And I know that so many of them know what's wrong with this.
I know they know it.
But they don't have the courage to stand up.
They want to walk around with their flag pinned, having their staff run around and chase them like they're royalty.
They don't want to give up those jobs.
And they know it's wrong.
The other thing I've come to, you know, I know we're all spending a lot of time thinking about how could people be this way.
I've come to the realization that, you know, some people are purely transactional.
By that, I mean they're in it for what they can get out of it.
And whoever is harmed in the process, so be it.
They're not burdened with doing what is morally right, what is principled, what is value-based.
They're in it for what they can get out of it.
And the second point I've come to realize, sadly, is that I do think it is part of the frailty of human nature for some, which is the need to just be next to power, no matter what it does.
And these are the things that we're seeing.
Come from people who are otherwise powerful and have taken an oath to represent the people in their best interest.
So this is what we're seeing happen.
I think we need to be, you know, we need to understand it's bigger than him.
We have midterms coming up.
And anyone who is facilitating this, either by their silence or actively, needs to be held accountable.
One of the things you said that I want to go back to quickly is the standing in the international community that has been severely damaged by this president.
And how can that even be restored?
It's going to take years.
He's broken commitments, promises.
He's in many ways excoriated some of the allies.
How do you rebuild a global kind of image of where the United States was that he's torn up in a year and a half?
You're right.
One, we're going to have to, it's going to take, I think it's going to take more than one election to do.
Okay.
y'all know I don't allow disruptions at my convention.
Y'all know how quiet and laid back I am.
What do y'all think, y'all?
So I'll say this back to your question, right?
And I thank everybody here.
You know, it will be about what it's going to take to repair and revive relationships.
But there's another piece to this that is equally problematic, which is, you know, that saying, nature abhors a vacuum, right?
I mean, back to the point about relationships.
The other thing about relationships we know in our personal life, you have to be present.
You have to be there.
So the other thing the man has done is he cut USAID, which was a commitment that we made and funded over many years that the United States of America, we still didn't fund it enough, by the way, but we did fund it.
Aid that we would give to nations in need, whether it be because they were dealing with a health epidemic, you know, for years it was HIV AIDS, cholera, hunger, and through USAID, we would give aid and assistance to nations in need.
And by the way, that was not pure benevolence.
There was also an understanding when you do that, you earn the credibility to then talk about some other things.
So it's not like it's purely selfless to do it.
It's not like, you know, what they would have you say, oh, American tax dollars shouldn't be going to this.
America benefits from that.
Our national security benefits from it, if you want to understand, right?
There's multiple purposes.
Well, he cut that.
So we're not giving that level of aid.
But the other thing, nature abhors a vacuum.
When you are not present in these relationships, other people will fill the void.
So see China.
I mean, somebody asked me the other day, what's your take on China's connection to all this?
And I jokingly, half jokingly said, well, China's just sitting back eating the popcorn.
But what they're also doing is filling the void.
When I was vice president, I was very intentional.
And one of the things I'm very proud of is I was doing the work of attempting to change the narrative around the relationship between the United States of America and the continent of Africa.
Because, you know, we have historically, when we have worked on the relationship, it's been about aid.
But my point was it needs to be about partnership, right?
Understand that on the continent, the median age, I think, now is about 19 years old.
The prediction is that by the year 2050, one in four people occupying Mother Earth will be on the continent of Africa.
Which presents either a wonderful opportunity for partnership and investment, understanding this population of people.