00:00Thank you, Councilman. I appreciate you being here this morning because this really is a crisis for Michiganders, Detroiters.
00:08Seeing that number at the gas pump is the difference between being able to afford the groceries you're going to
00:17buy or not.
00:19It's the difference between being able to pay your car note or pay your rent or not.
00:26And the thing about it is, for most folks, gas prices are the question of whether or not you can
00:31get around or you cannot.
00:32Those are the stakes. And I want folks to understand, when you see that number at the gas tank, yes,
00:38that hits you.
00:39But then the other number that we all got to pay attention to is the price of diesel.
00:44Nearly $6.81 today. That is an insane price.
00:50And you may not pump diesel, but diesel pumps you.
00:54And the way that diesel pumps you is that you've got to pay for the price of everything that gets
00:58shipped to the places that you buy it in.
01:00So when you look at that loaf of bread or you look at that gallon of milk, that loaf of
01:06bread, that gallon of milk is more expensive
01:07because the diesel that it took to get that to you, you are now paying the price of.
01:11And that operates across our entire economy.
01:14So we're getting hit at the gas pump to go buy our groceries, and then we're getting hit at the
01:18grocery store for the groceries that got there.
01:21All because of an insane war that we had no business fighting in the first place.
01:27A war that had no purpose, that had no legal justification, that anybody who had studied could have told you
01:33would end up exactly where we are right now,
01:36in a situation where we cannot afford basic things because of the folly of that war.
01:41Now, Mike Rogers wants you to believe that somehow he was not 100% aligned with Donald Trump on the
01:47war in the first place.
01:48That all of a sudden, he can just change his position and flip-flop and get credit for being against
01:53the war.
01:53Here's the thing about war, is you can't unring the bell.
01:56You can't go backwards and say because you're against the war now that somehow you weren't for it in the
02:01first place.
02:02That you didn't justify us getting here, especially when everybody could have told you that this is a war that
02:07we could not have gotten out of.
02:09And he had the audacity to call it a win-win-win.
02:14Who's winning?
02:16Certainly people pumping gas here are not winning.
02:18People paying inflated prices at the grocery store, they're not winning.
02:25Our federal taxes, going to a war, when we had a $40 trillion debt, that's not winning.
02:32I don't know who's winning.
02:35And now he wants to pretend like he can just turn the page.
02:40When you justify illegal, unjustifiable wars, people pay the price.
02:46And you can't just unring the bell.
02:48So Mike Rogers needs to be held accountable for why he rubber-stamped this war in the first place.
02:54Why he thought this was a win-win-win.
02:56But he won't, because Mike Rogers won't show up.
02:59He had the opportunity to explain it to Michiganders on a debate.
03:04But instead, I debated an empty podium, because Mike Rogers won't show up.
03:09So not only is he wrong and bought off, but he's cowardly and corrupted.
03:15And so, what does that tell you about somebody's character?
03:19Fundamentally, that they'll just change their opinion on something as big as a war when gas prices go up.
03:25Because guess what went down with the gas prices?
03:28His poll numbers.
03:29This is not about principle.
03:30This is about polling.
03:32So, we don't know where Mike Rogers will go tomorrow.
03:35Frankly, we have no idea where Mike Rogers will go on anything, because there's no principle based on what he
03:39operates on.
03:40For him, it's simply about what is politically expedient.
03:43Just remember, this is a guy who spent his time in Congress, cheerleading disastrous trade agreements,
03:53only to pretend now that he's against the very same trade agreements,
03:59because Donald Trump wants to kick off a vanity tariff war in Canada.
04:04This is a guy who spent his time on national television,
04:10telling us about how he opposed the rise of Trump, and that Trump didn't speak for him,
04:13and now telling us that he's running for office, because Donald Trump called him up and told him to do
04:17it.
04:18If we want, in Michigan, a rubber stamp on the disastrous Trump policies, Mike Rogers is it.
04:23But if we want principled leadership that understands that we should not be fighting wars
04:27when we've got kids that we need to take care of in their schools,
04:29when we've got health care we need to provide, when we've got child care that people need,
04:34then I hope that I can earn folks' support.
04:37Because I understood that this war was going to be a disaster from the jump,
04:40and here we are paying the price.
04:42So, with that, I'd be happy to take questions that folks might have.
05:10Look, we have an extremely diverse, very large state.
05:14And, you know, as we look at building the coalition that's going to defeat Mike Rogers,
05:19that's going to bring down our gas prices and, God willing, end this ridiculous war,
05:23we've got to bring as many folks in as we possibly can to take on the challenges that we face.
05:28And even where there had been disagreements in the past,
05:33the things that unite us as Democrats are so much bigger.
05:36And I know that the vice president speaks to a constituency, a community,
05:40that we're really energized by what she's been able to do.
05:42And we're talking about an issue today that is so near and dear to both of us,
05:47an issue that has been the issue of my life's work, which is how do you save babies?
05:52How do you protect kids?
05:53And so we'll be having a roundtable focused on maternal and infant mortality disparities,
05:57what it looks like to empower moms and babies, to provide them the health care they need,
06:02provide them the resources that they need, make sure that our moms and babies are protected.
06:06And that's an issue she's done a lot of work on when she was in the U.S. Senate.
06:08It's an issue I've done a lot of work on, both serving the city of Detroit and Wayne County.
06:12So looking forward to sharing best practices and learning from community leaders
06:16who've been working on this problem for a long time about what we can do
06:19and what they're looking for in the U.S. Senate.
06:22And so these are the kinds of issues that bring us together.
06:24I think her presence here, speaking to communities that were really empowered by her voice
06:29throughout her political career, I think will help us to continue to bring our coalition together
06:34and build the broadest possible coalition to defeat Mike Rogers in November.
06:55I'm focused on 2026.
06:59What we can do is end the stupid war.
07:01I mean, look, at the end of the day, we are in a position right now
07:03where Donald Trump's ego is getting in the way of ending this ridiculous war,
07:07a war we never should have fought in the first place.
07:10We need a War Powers Resolution because it's on Congress to declare war,
07:13not an errant president who's been operating illegally, frankly,
07:18doing war without authorization from Congress.
07:20But there's also things we can do to start taking on the way that the corporations
07:25have been using this moment to spike their own profits, to hold them accountable,
07:29to put limits on how much profit you can use,
07:32how much you can gouge people who are trying to pump their gas.
07:37There's also things we can do around a federal tax holiday,
07:40around gas taxes to make sure that we're providing as much relief as we possibly can.
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