00:00I'm here because I trust Abdul.
00:16There's a lot that happens in Washington. Everybody can get out and talk.
00:20There's a lot that happens in Washington, in fact, most of it behind closed doors.
00:24Who's going to step up and say, no, you can't have my vote unless you fix this part?
00:31Who's going to stand up and say, but that group is going to get left behind if you do this?
00:39And here, well, they don't have any money, they don't have any sway here, they don't have any power here.
00:43Who's going to say, but that's not why I'm here?
00:47I'm here so all our kids get an opportunity.
00:50I trust a man who puts glasses on little kids who need them.
01:04I trust a man who buys up bad medical debt and cancels it out.
01:12So the people who can't pay actually can kind of get their finances straightened out.
01:22I trust a man who doesn't take any corporate PAC money and owes nothing to nobody but the people of
01:33Michigan.
01:38I trust a man who will be the next senator from the great state of Michigan.
02:00How are we doing, Roy?
02:05Can we give it up for our incredible senator from the great state of Massachusetts, Elizabeth Warren?
02:12Your next secretary of state, Norlin Gilchrist?
02:19Your state senator, Mallory McCauley?
02:26The president of Planned Parenthood, Alexis McGill Johnson?
02:34Once and future member of the State Board of Education, Tiffany Tilly?
02:42And your mayor, Michael Fournier?
02:47And I'm at New York City, and I'm running for United States Senate.
02:55All right, y'all.
02:56You know how we do.
02:58Money out of?
03:00Out of this.
03:02I was a little slow.
03:03Try again.
03:04Money out of.
03:05Out of this.
03:06Money in your world.
03:07Money in your world.
03:08Medicare for world.
03:09All.
03:10I am so grateful to be in Royal Oak.
03:13Thank you all so much for showing up.
03:21Let me just start with the obvious.
03:23I've got an 11-letter first name that's got sounds that come out of parts of people's throats they don't
03:27know they have.
03:28I'm not supposed to run for office.
03:30But I'm running because it just shouldn't be this hard.
03:33Shouldn't be this hard to afford a second bag of groceries.
03:35Shouldn't be this hard to pay your rent.
03:37Shouldn't be this hard to fill up your tank.
03:39And it shouldn't be this hard to see a doctor in the richest most powerful country in the world.
03:43Yeah.
03:43Shouldn't be this hard.
03:47To pay your taxes.
03:48And know that that money is going to be spent on you and your kids.
03:51Instead of dropping bombs on somebody else and their kids.
03:53It shouldn't be this hard.
04:00This campaign was born in my heart the day that this administration froze federal funds.
04:07Y'all remember that.
04:08I'm sitting in my office trying to figure out how to get another round of week checks out to put
04:12food on the table for moms and babies.
04:14How to make sure that our community health centers don't get shut down when I get a notification on my
04:20phone.
04:20That after his two terms in the U.S. Senate.
04:23Our U.S. Senator Gary Peters is retiring and not seeking re-election.
04:28Now to ask myself where is the fight for the public's health now.
04:31If I were to be elected I'd be the first Democratic doctor elected to the United States Senate since 1969.
04:41First ever public health official elected to the United States Senate.
04:45And if you like me are wondering why it is that we have to dodge lettuce and blueberries and apparently
04:51meat now.
04:52And why the HHS secretary literally takes his grandkids swimming in Schitt's Creek.
04:58I think we all could agree we probably need a public health senator right about now.
05:06But this is not my first rodeo.
05:09I ran for governor back in 2018.
05:13I was 32 years old, never run for office in my life.
05:16I said I'm gonna go big or go home.
05:18I went big.
05:20I went home.
05:24But I said something in that race that's only proven more true.
05:28That Donald Trump is not himself the disease of our politics.
05:32Donald Trump is simply the worst symptom of the disease of our politics.
05:35The disease is the system that allows billionaires, special interests,
05:40billionaires, interests, corporations, all of them together to buy and sell politicians to rig the system against us.
05:47It's why we pay more for all we have to buy, get paid less for the work we do,
05:51watch as our tax dollars get misappropriated to buy bombs and tanks for other people's countries
05:55instead of to build schools and provide health care here in our own.
06:00So we're on a campaign to do three things and you already already know what they are.
06:04We want money out of?
06:06Money in Europe?
06:07Medicare for it?
06:09And that campaign has taken us now to 125 different cities, 700 plus public events.
06:15It didn't matter if you saw us in a living room in Lansing or a church in Detroit or a
06:22VFW hall in Escanaba.
06:23It didn't matter if you saw me on a podcast or saw me getting a colonoscopy live on CNN.
06:34I was saying the same thing.
06:37I was talking about the fact that in the state that built the union movement,
06:43where unions built the middle class, built the 40 hour work week, built the fact that our kids go to
06:47school instead of going to work, unions can do it again.
06:51We deserve a union in every sector of American life.
06:56Talking about why we need to fund our public schools and public education.
07:02Talking about why every single person in this country deserves the right to free healthcare in this country without having
07:12to worry about falling into debt.
07:16Talking about keeping our money here, to build schools here, an opportunity here rather than sending it somewhere else.
07:24Saying the same thing.
07:26Now, when we kicked off this campaign, we knew that the corporations and the special interests were going to spend
07:31some money against us.
07:32But we were young and dumb.
07:34I said, you know what?
07:35They're going to spend $20 million to beat us.
07:3920 turned into 40, which turned into $70 million in the primary alone.
07:44Set a record for the amount of money spent against any candidate in a primary in American history.
07:50They outspent us 11 to 1.
07:52But guess what?
07:53They might as well have set their money on fire because we beat them anyway.
07:59Because if you've got to choose between the money and the many, pick the many.
08:06Because for as much as they're trying to change this, we remain a government of the people, by the people,
08:11and for the people, and the people who have their say.
08:18We find ourselves now on the eve of the crest of this movement.
08:25Tomorrow, every last vote will have been registered.
08:29And the people will have had their say.
08:33You'd think that in an era where you can barely afford your gas or your groceries, you'd think that if
08:40you were a party running right now, you might want to talk about bringing down the price of gas or
08:44groceries.
08:46You'd think that while people are struggling to see a doctor, people might want to talk a little bit about
08:50what their plan is to help you see a doctor.
08:53But that is not what Mike Rogers or Donald Trump or J.D. Vance want to talk about.
08:57Mike Rogers, for his part, doesn't really want to talk about much.
09:01For the young folks in the room, Mike Rogers is an NPC.
09:07For the folks who didn't understand the joke, an NPC is a non-playing character, which is a reference to
09:12video games.
09:13In video games, you can only control some of the characters. The other ones are just programmed to do what
09:17they're going to do.
09:18Mike Rogers is one of those characters who's programmed to do what he's going to do.
09:22He doesn't really have a mind of his own.
09:25He doesn't really have anything to say.
09:27He's just going to do what he's going to do.
09:31And for their part, Donald Trump and J.D. Vance can't seem to keep my name out their mouth.
09:39I don't know that Donald Trump actually knows what my name is.
09:44He's either Abdul or Mohammed.
09:53The reality of it is that I don't really need him to know my name. He could just go ahead
09:57and call me Senator after tomorrow.
10:06But here's the thing about it.
10:09The reason they keep pointing to my name and my faith is because they're trying to distract you.
10:14And in MAGA terms, whenever they're trying to distract you, it's because they're picking your pocket.
10:20Here's the thing about it. My name and my faith aren't the reason you can't afford your gas.
10:25Not the reason you can't afford your groceries.
10:27They're not the reason you can't see a doctor.
10:29If you're seeing a doctor, they might actually have my name and my faith.
10:35It is their policies that are doing that.
10:37It is their illegal, unjustifiable, unethical and immoral war in Iran that is raising the price of our gas and
10:43our groceries.
10:46It is their insane and absurd tariff war with Canada that is raising the price of everything else.
10:54It is their big ugly bill that is keeping folks from being able to see a doctor raising our premiums
11:01and our deductibles and making it harder to find a doctor who can see us.
11:04It is their policies that are doing all of it.
11:08And they won't talk about their policies.
11:10So instead they point to me and my name and my faith.
11:12Here's the thing.
11:15They think that by pointing to my name, you all are going to decide to vote because of those things.
11:24And it bothers me when they say I can't win because of my name, not because of me.
11:28I've been a guy named Abdul in Michigan my whole life.
11:31There is nothing they have said about me that I have not heard many, many times before.
11:35But when you have a name like mine, you get to see the broad spectrum of the way that people
11:39react to you.
11:41There's always a small number of people who are small minded with very big mouths.
11:47And they claim to speak on behalf of everybody else.
11:49But then you see that everybody else, everybody else takes the difference in your name or how you pray as
11:56an invitation for a conversation.
11:59See, Michiganders are open minded.
12:01We're big hearted.
12:02We're less interested in how you pray than what you pray for.
12:07We pray for the same things.
12:09We pray for peace.
12:13We pray for opportunity for our kids.
12:16We pray that those kids grow up in an America befitting of them.
12:19We pray for the lions on Sunday.
12:22It's a good Sunday.
12:24Somebody prayed really hard.
12:30Michiganders are this mix of open minded, big hearted, gritty and earnest.
12:37We're gritty in the sense that we work hard.
12:39We know what hard work looks like.
12:41We're not afraid of it.
12:42But we're earnest in the sense that we give the best and we expect the best.
12:46We have every conversation in good faith.
12:49We just don't want to be exploited by a billionaire from New York or a millionaire from Florida.
12:55And the reason it bothers me when they say I can't win because of my name is not because they're
13:00talking about me.
13:01You know what they're talking about.
13:02They're talking about you.
13:05And I just think that they don't know you like I know you.
13:09I've had the privilege now to meet Michiganders in their living rooms, in their backyards, in their union halls, in
13:19their churches and synagogues.
13:20And I have seen nothing but grace and kindness and love and warmth.
13:27That's the Michigan I took a bet on when I launched this campaign way back in April of 2025.
13:33And Michigan has shown me nothing short of that.
13:37And so it bothers me when they indict you like that.
13:40Because I have come to understand who we all are together.
13:45And there's a thing about the lesson of unions in this state.
13:50It's a powerful lesson.
13:52See, whether your family came north in the Great Migration or came here via immigration or you've been here since
13:57before the Revolutionary War like my grandparents have.
14:02They're the best.
14:06There is something central about the union experience that brought people here in search of one good job that could
14:15be enough for a family.
14:16And the lesson of unions is the lesson of solidarity.
14:20The ability to come together, to build together what we cannot have alone.
14:23So you can have nice things, we just have to have them together.
14:28And unions have taught us that.
14:30That you reach across the divides, not despite but because of your differences.
14:37Recognizing that the only way to cover our own individual weakness is through our collective strength.
14:44And I believe that we have the opportunity to breach those divides.
14:48Divides of geography, of race, of sexual orientation, gender identity, of faith.
14:53To build together what we only can have together.
14:57That's what this campaign has been about from the very beginning.
15:01And while they think that somehow their intimidation tactics and their division is going to pull us apart.
15:08They don't know us like we know us.
15:10Royal Oak, when they come for us, we won't back down.
15:19When they come for our union rights, we won't back down.
15:27When they come for our health care, we won't back down.
15:33When they come for our public schools, we won't back down.
15:38When they come for our reproductive rights, we won't back down.
15:43When they come for our neighbors via ICE, we won't back down.
15:48When they come for our voting rights, we won't back down.
15:52When they come for any of us, we won't back down.
15:58We won't back down tomorrow, and we will not back down for the next six years, because
16:03Royal Oak, this is our democracy, and we intend to use it.
16:06My name is Apple OSN, and I look forward to serving you as your next United States Senator.
16:11Thank you so much.
