Hands Off Protest in Washington, D.C.

Tens of thousands gathered for the "Hands Off!" protest at the National Mall in Washington, D.C. Read the transcript here.

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Denise Bright Dove Dunkley (00:04):

Greetings everyone. [Nanticoke 00:00:11] I am glad you all came. My name is Denise Bright Dove Dunkley. I am Nanticoke, from the Lenni-Lenape nation, turtle clan. When I describe and envision my ancestral homelands without colonial borders, I say that I'm from the southernmost tide waters of Lenapehoking, the land of Lenape, and that land spreads throughout most of Delaware, parts of Pennsylvania and Maryland and all of New Jersey, and into New York. We are gathered today within the ancestral homelands of my relatives the Piscataway people. I am humbled to speak here, and I acknowledge the responsibility of kinship. I want to thank the Piscataway nation for their unwavering stewardship of this territory, and I ask you all to do the same.

(01:27)
Indigenous people have occupied, governed, traded, thrived, and endured within our original territory since time immemorial. It is our inherent sovereign right to continue to do so. But acknowledging our existence is only one step. Good allies also amplify and elevate the voices of those they are helping. We are in a time of uncertainty. Indigenous, Black, and Brown are in dire need of assistance. In fact, solidarity is critical for our collective futures. We all know too well, what happens to the land happens to the people. As we struggle to fight for life and beauty in this world, and for the earth itself, each of us must decide where our moral compass leads us.

(02:37)
Will you remember the Piscataway nation when you leave here today? Will you honor the earth? Will you think about the people whose lands you stand on? Will you stand up for your neighbor? Will you be a good relative and think about the responsibilities of kinship? Will you remember our more-than-human relatives? Those who suffer from the greed of humanity. Our four-legged, our winged ones, the creepy crawlies. Our soil, our waterways, and our air. What about the rights of nature? A special prayer to all of my relatives who are suffering. My thoughts and prayers are with Palestine, and whatever else you can shout out, I want to hear it. Who needs our help?

Crowd (03:41):

[inaudible 00:03:45]

Denise Bright Dove Dunkley (03:55):

[Nanticoke 00:03:51] creator, help and watch over us. Thank you. Thank you.

Commentator (04:10):

[inaudible 00:04:10] that was beautiful.

Yara Allen (04:14):

Good afternoon. I'm Yara Allen, and I'm out here because I want you to lift your voices as high as you can lift them, and we're going to bring back an old song to invite the ancestors who did this before us. Are we ready? I need you to clap along if you can.

(04:35)
Ain't going to let nobody turn me around. Turn me around around.

Crowd (04:41):

Ain't going to let.

Yara Allen (04:44):

Ain't going to let nobody.

Crowd (04:46):

Turn me around.

Yara Allen (04:49):

I'm going to keep on walking. Keep on talking. Marching up to freedom way.

(04:56)
Ain't going to let nobody.

Crowd (04:56):

Turn me around.

Yara Allen (04:56):

No.

Crowd (04:56):

Turn me around.

Yara Allen (04:56):

No, no, no, ain't going to let nobody.

Crowd (04:56):

Turn me around.

Yara Allen (04:56):

I'm going to.

Crowd (04:56):

Keep on walking.

Yara Allen (04:56):

That's it.

Crowd (04:56):

Keep on talking, marching up to freedom way.

Yara Allen (04:56):

Yeah, ain't going to let this president.

Crowd (04:56):

Turn me around.

Yara Allen (04:56):

No.

Crowd (04:56):

Turn me around.

Yara Allen (05:20):

No, no, no, ain't going to let this president.

Crowd (05:25):

Turn me around.

Yara Allen (05:34):

I'm going to keep on walking. Keep on talking. Marching up to freedom way.

(05:43)
Ain't going to let racist politics.

Crowd (05:46):

Turn me around.

Yara Allen (05:48):

No.

Crowd (05:49):

Turn me around.

Yara Allen (05:50):

No no no no no no no, ain't going to let racist politics.

Crowd (05:55):

Turn me around.

Yara Allen (05:57):

I'm going to.

Crowd (05:58):

Keep on walking, keep on talking, marching up to freedom way.

Yara Allen (06:04):

That's it, one more time.

(06:06)
Yeah, ain't going to let nobody.

Crowd (06:06):

Turn me around.

Yara Allen (06:06):

No.

Crowd (06:06):

Turn me around.

Yara Allen (06:06):

No, no no, ain't going to let nobody.

Crowd (06:06):

Turn me around.

Yara Allen (06:22):

I'm going to keep on… Can we keep doing that?

(06:23)
Keep on talk, I'm going to keep on walking, keep on talking, keep on walking, keep on talking, marching up to freedom way.

(06:44)
Come on and give it up for Reverend Dr. William J. Barber II.

William J. Barber II (07:54):

[inaudible 00:07:48]

(07:54)
Forward together. Not one step back. 57 years ago on April the 3rd, Reverend Dr. King said the night before he died, "Nothing would be more tragic than for us to turn back now. God help us not to turn back from the vision of our constitution. That is to establish justice, to promote the general welfare, to provide for the common defense, and to ensure domestic tranquility."

(08:21)
When Trump and Musk and Johnson and their minions are signing unconstitutional executive orders, unconstitutionally firing people, trying to pass an unjust budget and wrongfully raising tariffs that will not only hurt Wall Street, but backstreet and side streets and side roads? When they are doing this, we must say every day, we will stand up in truth and raise our voices and votes and declare, "Take your hands off of our democracy." Where foolish budget plans could remove 36 million people from healthcare and millions more and low-wage children from school lunch, and refuse to raise the living wage for 14 million low-wage working American people, from 7.25 to 17 dollars an hour, we must pray for God to give the courage to stand and say, "Take your hands off Medicaid. Take your hands off our voting rights. Take your hand off our living wages. Take your hand off our public education. Take your hands off of our lives."

(09:49)
When greedy technocrats with a supremacy philosophy want to rule the country, we with moral vigor and righteous indignation must stand up and say no. We cannot be at ease in America. History is pushing us, the present is demanding us, and the future is calling us. I said in 2018 that every age must have a movement of people that will build a moral fusion mass movement that stands together. That stands together because issues before us are not about left versus right, or Republican versus Democrat, but about right versus wrong, and justice versus injustice. And with the help of the divine, we must unite more and more, declaring that we are Black, we are white, we are Latino, we are Asian, we are Native, we are young, we are old, we are North, we are South, we are East, we are West, we are gay, we are straight, we are trans, we are America and we ain't going nowhere.

(11:08)
God give us the strength. We will not allow a budget that goes after the policies that lift the poor and low-wage workers of this nation. We will not accept the attacks on federal workers. We will not accept them, not now, not ever. And we will prayerfully, with no equivocation, no capitulation, no weakness, declare with all that is holy and divine, we cannot, we must not bow. We must reclaim our government. We must pledge ourselves to the work of the third reconstruction of America. We must lift every voice and sing together. We must lead with love and repent of the apathy that has too often slipped in. We cannot bow. Finally, they are afraid of you. Trump and Musk, who want to want to be dictators and want to be kings and lords, they are afraid of the power of love and truth and justice. They are afraid of your unity and your diversity. Well, let's keep them afraid until they change. My friends, this is way bigger than just a party issue. This is an outright battle for civilization, and [inaudible 00:12:40] your power to come together. And they are betting that we will be afraid of them, but this is the time that we must increase, intensify, and embolden our agitation for what is right.

(12:56)
We must declare that the only way a wannabe king can be king is if we bow, but bowing down is not an option. Our knees aren't meant for bowing. We are not going to bow to power-drunk neo-fascist extremists. We only bow to God. And so we must stand tall when they attack everyday people with mean, hurtful policies. We must stand tall and say, "Take your hands off of our lives." So stand up to the [inaudible 00:13:42] the people to stand tall, we must mobilize our righteous bodies and our voices and our hearts by the millions. We must stand tall, because bowing down is not an option.

(13:59)
It might take mass call-ins, but stand tall. It might take mass sit-ins, but stand tall. It might take nonviolent civil disobedience and they might arrest us, but stand tall. It might take mass pray-ins, but stand tall. It might take class action lawsuits, but stand tall. It might take having a labor strike day on election day so that working people can vote, but stand tall.

(14:34)
Stand tall in every precinct. Stand tall in every voting district. Stand tall in every city. Stand tall in every state. Stand tall in truth. Stand tall in love. Stand tall in justice. Stand tall and demand that they take their hands off our democracy, and the God of the universe will be with us. Stand tall. Bowing down? Say it with me. Bowing down?

Crowd (15:09):

Bowing down.

William J. Barber II (15:09):

Bowing down?

Crowd (15:10):

Bowing down.

William J. Barber II (15:12):

Bowing down?

Crowd (15:14):

Bowing down.

William J. Barber II (15:16):

Is not an option.

Crowd (15:17):

Is not an option!

William J. Barber II (15:18):

Stand!

Crowd (15:18):

Stand!

William J. Barber II (15:18):

Stand!

Crowd (15:18):

Stand!

William J. Barber II (15:18):

Stand!

Crowd (15:18):

Stand!

William J. Barber II (15:18):

Stand!

Crowd (15:18):

Stand!

William J. Barber II (15:18):

Stand!

Crowd (15:18):

Stand!

William J. Barber II (15:18):

Stand!

Crowd (15:20):

Stand tall! Stand tall! Stand tall! Stand tall! Stand tall!

Announcer (16:02):

Washington, D.C., please welcome Congressman Jamie Raskin.

Jamie Raskin (16:15):

Wow. Hello indivisible! Hello America! Anybody here from Maryland, the free state, the birthplace of Frederick Douglass, the proud home of people who work at USAID and FDA and NOAA, the National Weather Service, and the National Institutes for Health, the NIH? The crown jewel of bioscience, where despite all the purges and all the firings, they're working every day to cure cystic fibrosis, multiple sclerosis, breast cancer, and that most deadly disease of our time, malignant narcissistic personality disorder! Let the scientists do their jobs! They might even find a cure for that baffling worm-in-brain disease. The great thing about science is it's true whether or not the Secretary of Health and Human Services believes in it. Let's all say with Maryland, hands off science!

Crowd (17:48):

Hands off science!

Jamie Raskin (17:52):

Anybody here from Virginia, the birthplace of James Madison, who wrote us the First Amendment? It separated church and state for the first time in human history. It gave us the right to speak freely, to publish freely, to worship freely, to assemble freely, and to petition government for a redress of grievances. As Dr. King said, we've got the right to protest for what is right without being arrested, deported, or fired. We got the right to read the books we want, including Nineteen Eighty-Four and The Handmaid's Tale, even if they now belong in the nonfiction section. We've even got the right to call the president deranged for crashing our economy, destroying six trillion dollars of wealth, and turning my 401(k) into a 201(k). And the press has the right to call the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of Mexico.

(19:24)
Madison's constitution gave us the two most beautiful words in the English language, due process. Let's stand with Madison and Virginia and Thomas Jefferson and all the people of the Commonwealth of Virginia, and let's say hands off the Bill of Rights!

Crowd (19:45):

Hands off the Bill of Rights!

Jamie Raskin (19:50):

Hello to the 713,000 tax-paying patriotic citizens of Washington, D.C! Your officers, like Michael Fanone, joined the Capitol Police on January 6th 2021 to defend Congress against the worst insurrectionary and mob violence of American history brought down on the Capitol, which wounded, hospitalized, and injured more than a hundred and forty of our police officers. These were mobsters who turned the flag of America into a weapon of war against our police, and now Donald Trump says he wants to set up a fund to compensate them. Mr. Trump, if there's going to be a fund to compensate people for January 6th, we're going to compensate the police officers and their families. We're going to back the men and women of the blue, not the planners of the coup.

(20:59)
Meantime, the people of D.C. have a valid bona fide political grievance, not an imaginary one. They've not stormed the capitol or tried to overturn an election or hang the vice president. They petitioned for statehood like 37 states before them. They did it the right way. So we say to Donald Trump and Elon Musk, hands off Greenland! That's an independent country. Hands off Canada! That's an independent country. Hands off Panama! That's an independent country. Statehood for Washington, D.C. And let's say with the people of Washington, free D.C.!

Crowd (21:56):

Free D.C.! Free D.C.! Free D.C.! Free D.C.!

Jamie Raskin (21:56):

I want to say a special hello to people across America, but especially the people of Wisconsin. They showed America that organized people who want nothing but freedom can defeat organized billionaires who want nothing but power. Here in America, Mr. Musk, justice is not for sale, and we don't raffle off state supreme court judgeships for million dollar prizes. Stop trying to buy our votes, stop ripping off our government, and stop stealing our data!

(22:45)
My friends, we're in the fight of our lives, but I want to tell you this. We are winning now. We are winning every day. We are winning in court, where 39 judges appointed by five Republican and Democratic presidents have issued 56 preliminary injunctions and TROs against this lawlessness. [inaudible 00:23:18] judges like Judge Boasberg, the chief judge of the D.C. district. Yesterday, he ordered the return of Kilmar Garcia, a legal resident of the United States married to a US citizen. They sent him to a dictator's prison in El Salvador. The administration was forced to admit that his deportation was without due process and was, quote, "an administrative error."

(23:53)
But get this. Then Trump said well, c'est la vie, Mr. Garcia would have to stay in that torture facility because the US no longer had custody over him. But Judge Boesberg told him that if you've got the means to unlawfully deport someone, you find the means to bring them back.

Crowd (24:13):

Bring him back! Bring him back! Bring him back! Bring him back! Bring him back! Bring him back! Bring him back! Bring him back! Bring him back! Bring him back! Bring him back!

Jamie Raskin (24:34):

So now they're calling Judge Boasberg a radical left rogue judge. The problem is, he was appointed to the bench first by President Bush. He was Justice Kavanaugh's roommate at Yale. He's known as a pillar of the legal establishment. They say though, well, the number of courts striking down Trump's policies is completely unprecedented. Well, so what? That's only because the number of his illegal actions are completely unprecedented. The judges are doing their jobs. They're doing their jobs. Let's tell MAGA what democratic movements all over the world tell the dictators of the world. Hands off the courts! Hands off the courts!

Crowd (25:37):

Hands off the courts! Hands off the courts! Hands off the courts! Hands off the courts!

Jamie Raskin (25:39):

But you know, Trump's even trying to ban law firms and lawyers who represent Democrats from federal buildings and federal employment, and to revoke their security clearances. Wait! He's shaken down law firms for hundreds of millions of dollars in pro bono work for his pro malum causes. Some firms have buckled under these threats, but hundreds of firms, led by WilmerHale and Jenner and Block, and thousands of lawyers, led by Rachel Cohen, are standing strong for the rule of law, and the courts are rejecting these attacks on the right to counsel and free speech.

(26:21)
We're winning in the states! We're winning in the counties! We're winning in the cities and towns! We're winning in the churches! And not just with the great Reverend Barber, we're winning across the country! No moral person wants an economy-crashing dictator who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.

(26:46)
We're winning in the universities, which know the difference between transgender mice and transgenic mice, and they know the difference between academic freedom and political tyranny. We're winning with veterans across America, who know which side we were fighting on in World War II, and when they see Nazis marching down the boulevard, they don't see very fine people on both sides of the street.

(27:26)
We're winning with people in armed services, who know that Donald Trump is turning our best friends in the world, like Germany and the UK and France and Canada and Mexico, into enemies by the way he's treating them, and he's turning the enemies of American democracy, like Vladimir Putin and Viktor Orban and Xi and Erdoğan into their bosom buddies!

(27:52)
We're starting to win with the business community, which knows there's no prosperity with stupid trade wars against the whole world. There's no prosperity with stock market collapse and mass unemployment. There's no future with presidents who have the politics of Mussolini and the economics of Herbert Hoover.

(28:22)
But now look. Elon Musk and the Silicon Valley billionaire mafia believe that high-IQ tech supermen, obsessed with eugenics and impregnating as many women as possible, are destined to govern the rest of us. In other words, they're going to rule in their vision. They believe democracy is doomed, and they believe regime change is upon us if they can only seize control of our payment systems, our data, and our computers. Their guru Curtis Yarvin, AKA Mencius Moldbug, says American democracy is a failed experiment. He praises slavery and its positive effects for the African-American community. He told the New York Times that the American people have to get over our irrational fear of dictatorship.

(29:27)
On January 20th, the the day when Donald Trump did not put his hand on the Bible, even his own Bible, available online to true believers for the low, low price of 59.90? On that day, when he swore to support our constitution, we saw what a dictatorship of autocrats and plutocrats and kleptocrats and theocrats looks like. It's a twice-impeached, multiply-bankrupted very stable genius standing in front of oligarchs Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, and Jeff Bezos, standing in front a cabinet of billionaires and Putin-followers who make war plans over the public Signal app even while they're literally sitting in the Kremlin.

(30:21)
But I want to tell you something. Moldbug and Vance and Musk, they may have access to artificial intelligence, but they've got no access to human intelligence. These founders of the Dark Enlightenment, as they call themselves, are no match for the founders of the actual Enlightenment like Madison and Jefferson and Ben Franklin and Tom Paine, much less the leaders who took down slavery and built reconstruction, like Abraham Lincoln and Harriet Tubman

Jamie Raskin (31:00):

… and Thaddeus Stevens and Frederick Douglass, if they think they're going to overthrow the heroes of American democracy, they don't know who they're dealing with. Our founders wrote a constitution that does not begin with we, the dictators. The preamble says, we the people. We the, who?

Crowd (31:30):

People.

Jamie Raskin (31:33):

Did you say the corporations?

Crowd (31:37):

No.

Jamie Raskin (31:37):

We the people, in order to form a more perfect…

Crowd (31:41):

Union.

Jamie Raskin (31:41):

Did you say a more perfect government?

Crowd (31:43):

No.

Jamie Raskin (31:44):

We the people, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare and secure to ourselves and our posterity, the blessings of liberty, do hereby ordain and establish the constitution of these United States of America. That's our preamble.

(32:13)
And then the very next sentence is, all legislative power is vested in the Congress of the United States of America. And it lays out all the powers of Congress, the power to regulate commerce domestically and internationally, which means it's Congress that controls tariffs, not the president, not Elon Musk. Their tariffs are not only imbecilic, they're illegal, they're unconstitutional. And we're going to turn this around. Congress has the power of the purse to raise money and spend money. An appropriations act is a federal law, like a law banning assault on federal officers. It's not a budgetary negotiation. It's not a suggestion to the executive branch. If we say spend money on childhood education or cancer research, you spend that money.

(33:19)
Congress is the lawmaking branch, the predominant branch as Madison put it. And don't buy any of this fifth grade propaganda about three co-equal branches. First of all, co-equals not even a word. It's like extremely unique. But secondly, read Article Two of the Constitution about the president after all those pages about Congress, four short paragraphs, the most important one, Section Four, which is all about how you impeach a president for treason, bribery, and other high crimes and misdemeanors. If we're co-equal, how come we can impeach him and he can't impeach us? What's the core function of the president, my friends? And teach your children to take care that the laws are faithfully executed, not twisted, not distorted, not maligned, not trashed. Take care that the laws are faithfully executed. All we say to Donald Trump is, do your job. And when he doesn't, that's what Article Three is all about. Marbury versus Madison says, it's emphatically the province and the duty of the judicial department to say what the law is. That's what judicial review is. But that's a short-term solution, my friends. The real backstop to this authoritarianism is it has always been, and it always will be, the people. Even with all their gerrymandering and all their voter suppression, even with all their billions in dark money, the people must, the people will organize to defeat them and take back the Congress next year.

(35:24)
We'll be heard in the town halls, in the union halls, and the church halls, in the state capitals, and in the capital city, online and in line at the post office, which we're going to save at social events and at the Social Security offices that they're trying to close down. And if anybody was slow to wake up to this authoritarian takeover, nobody's sleeping now and nothing is going to stop the forces of democracy and freedom in America. No oligarch, no proligarch, no autocrat, no theocrat, no kleptocrat, no monarch from Moscow or Mar-a-Lago is going to turn us around.

(36:12)
Fascism will not be the end of human history. Human history will be the end of fascism. The deranged cult of MAGA will not destroy the economy built by free labor, free ideas and free markets The Economist magazine called six months ago, the envy of the world, the envy of the world. My friends, we are not only the liberals who believe in liberty. We are not only the progressives who believe in progress. We are the conservatives who will defend the land, the air, the water, the climate system, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, the Affordable Care Act, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the National Labor Relations Act, the Fair Labor Standards Act, the Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act, everything that their party of nihilists and authoritarians wants to tear down in the next few weeks, we are going to conserve and defend for future generations of Americans.

(37:40)
We invite all Americans to join us to join the party of democracy and freedom in solidarity. An injury to one is an injury to all a victory for any one of us is a victory for all. And I leave you with the words of two great democracy patriots, hold them close to your heart. One, the great Frederick Douglass, born a half an hour away at the Wye River plantation into slavery. He escaped from slavery to become our great freedom fighter during the Civil War and reconstruction. And Douglass said, if there's no struggle, there's no progress. And the struggle may be physical, it may be moral, it may be moral and physical, but there must be struggle, power concedes nothing without a demand, it never has and it never will. A message to you from Frederick Douglass and the people of Maryland.

(38:37)
My friends, I leave you finally with the words of the great Tom Paine, who my son Tommy was named after. And Tom Paine got here in 1774, two years before the revolution, he fell in love with the promise of our land. He said, if these people live up to their promise and their ideals, the land will become an asylum to humanity, he said. Not an insane asylum, mind you, a place of refuge for people seeking freedom from political and religious discrimination from all over the world. And he wrote the pamphlet that ignited our revolution, Common Sense by which he meant the sense we all have in common when we're willing to reason together without myth and dogma and what we would call propaganda and disinformation.

(39:29)
But 1776 was a tough year, and the country was split. There were some people running around saying, you can't beat the kings and the queens. You can't beat the autocrats and the monarchs. You can't separate church and state. For all of history people who've lived under thugs and dictators and kleptocrats like Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump. But half of the people said, no, let's try something different. Let's pledge to ourselves, our sacred honor, our fortunes, our lives to build something different. And so Paine wanted to write a pamphlet to give people hope during the darkest hours. And he wrote this beautiful pamphlet called The American Crisis. I just want to quote a little passage to you. I'm going to update the language so it doesn't offend modern sensibilities, and Nancy Pelosi told me I had to do that. And she said it wouldn't offend Tom Paine because he was a feminist and that he was, he was fighting for women's voting rights in the 18th century. But Paine said, these are the times that try men and women's souls, the summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will shrink at this moment from the service of their cause and their country. But everyone that stands with us now will win the love and the favor and affection of every man and every woman for all time. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered, but we have this saving consolation, the more difficult the struggle the more glorious in the end will be our victory. Let's make that victory ours.

(41:12)
Thank you, Indivisible. Thank you, America.

Speaker 1 (41:23):

Please welcome Congressman Maxwell Frost.

Congressman Maxwell Frost (41:31):

Hello. How's everybody doing? This is about the fight for everything and everyone. When I say everything, say everyone. Everything.

Crowd (41:41):

Everyone.

Congressman Maxwell Frost (41:41):

Everything.

Crowd (41:41):

Everyone.

Congressman Maxwell Frost (41:43):

Everything.

Crowd (41:44):

Everyone.

Congressman Maxwell Frost (41:45):

It is so damn good to see this crowd. Y'all, we all know that we are living in some dark times. We see the foundations of our society, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, the very safety nets that people have fought for, for generations to ensure that our country lives up to its promise are being targeted by the billionaires and the oligarchs and the corporations. This insidious rise of authoritarianism is fueled by corrupt billionaires and mega corporations who believe that they have the right to control every aspect of our lives, our healthcare to our schools, to our thoughts, to our very speech under the false banner of patriotism and freedom and a false banner of patriotism.

(42:43)
They would have us believe that if we gave them all the control, everything would be great. But breaking news, they've had the control and look at where we're at right now. Massive wealth inequality in this country where most of our people live paycheck to paycheck. And it isn't a new problem for generations, the billionaires and oligarchs have kept all this wealth and left us with the crumbs. But we say no more.

Crowd (43:11):

No more.

Congressman Maxwell Frost (43:13):

In this moment we all have a choice to make as elected officials. We can't live in the world of what we can't do, but we have to live in the world of what we can and must do. I'll tell you, I had some friends come up to me and say, Maxwell, you should think about running for Congress four years ago. I said, hell no. You're crazy. The craziest thing is I didn't have all the power at the time. I didn't have all the money. I experienced homelessness during my campaign. And as many of you know, even after I was elected, I couldn't find a place to live in DC because the housing costs were too high. But the craziest thing is we won. We didn't have all the power. When we woke up and saw it was Twitter at this time, when we woke up and saw on Twitter that a Black man, George Floyd had been lynched in broad daylight, we didn't have all the power, but we still took to the streets to say that Black lives matter. They didn't have all the power when a gunman walked into Marjory Stoneman Douglas in Parkland, Florida and murdered 17 students, children and teachers. But the students rose up, demanded that we end gun violence, and the world didn't just watch the world marched to end gun violence.

(44:46)
I say this because a lot of times when you don't have all the power that you want, you use all the power that you got. And that's what we have to do in this moment. We need to use everything in our toolbox. We can't afford to brush aside any part of our movement. We need mutual aid. We need protests. We need direct action. We need a legislative strategy. We need to be in the courts litigating, because I promise you, our opposition are not leaving any tools in their toolbox. They're using everything they have. And it's insane because there is such international solidarity in the right-wing fascist movement. January 6th here, January 8th in Brazil, funded by a lot of the same people and organized by a lot of the same people.

(45:46)
But here's the thing, their movement is run by fear trying to push us against one another. They would have our people believe that the reasons we can't afford rent, the reason we can't afford healthcare, the reason we can't afford groceries is because of other people in our own communities. Yes, we know that this system is rigged and the status quo doesn't work for Americans. But it's not rigged against the billionaires, it's rigged for the billionaires and for the corporations. They are the ones hoarding so much wealth we can't even imagine what it is. They're the ones cutting essential programs that help working families while giving themselves massive tax breaks that benefits nobody but themselves. They tell us that immigrants are stealing our jobs, but they're the ones shipping jobs overseas and hiring corporate lawyers to go in union bust. They're the ones that are screwing us over on the jobs.

(46:53)
They tell us that trans people are a threat to our children, but they're the ones dismantling public education. They're the ones denying the climate crisis. They're the ones poisoning our planet. They're the ones doing nothing about the national public health emergency of gun violence. And they want us to believe that they're the patriots of free speech. But they're the ones kidnapping and disappearing college students across this country that are just fighting for peace to ensure that innocent people don't die.

(47:37)
The message is simple. And I've been traveling the country. I went to Michigan with my good friend, Senator Chris Murphy, to a Republican district, and the message is simple. We're in this situation not because of our neighbors. I promise you, your bank account looks a lot more like your trans neighbors or your immigrant neighbors and nothing like Elon Musk's. In fact, we're all closer to being on the streets than having a bank account that looks like his. How do you think he got to where he's at? I have people who come up to me and say, Maxwell, why would they be stealing? Elon Musk is already the richest person in the world. He has enough money. The question is, how do you think he became the richest person in the world?

(48:26)
Elon doesn't like me. If you told me five years ago that the richest man on earth would be tweeting about me, I mean, it goes to show Elon's a great example that money can't buy you happiness and money can't buy you a Wisconsin Supreme Court seat either. But I'll tell you, our way out of this is not to back down, is not to be silent, is not to be divided. Throughout human history, authoritarians they're never satisfied with the power that they have. And so they test the bounds, they push the limits, they break the law, and then they look at the public to see if they're quiet or if they're loud. If we are quiet, if elected officials are quiet, then we are complicit. And we cannot be complicit in the tearing apart of Medicaid, of Social Security, of food stamps, of nutritional assistance, of the things that we've fought for and earned.

(49:38)
This is why Democrats in the House and across the country, we can't be, and we are not the minority party. We must be the opposition in this moment. And then in less than two years we will become the majority. And I'll tell you this, Elon Musk was on the news the other day saying, well, if the Democrats win, it's just going to be subpoenas and investigations. It's the one thing he's right about. You're damn right there's going to be subpoenas. You're damn right there's going to be investigations. Because when you steal from the people, expect the people to rise up at the ballot box and on the streets.

(50:28)
Look, I'll end with this. I'm not going to be the one to sit here and say everything is going to be okay. Because to be honest, there's going to be a lot of people, and there's already a lot of people who are not okay, who are suffering from this authoritarian right wing regime that is trying to have a billionaire takeover of our government. But the good thing is we are not alone. Not just in this moment and in this crowd, but I mean we're not alone in the grand mosaic of humanity and timeline of justice. We stand alongside the water protectors, the freedom fighters, the anti-war warriors, the labor organizers and movements of working people throughout human history that have seen the world through the eyes of the most vulnerable and said, we are all together, we are not divided, and we are not apart.

(51:25)
And it's not going to be easy. And I know this coming from a movement, I got involved in politics when I was 15 years old because I didn't want to get shot in school. I was a part of movement for 10 years and still a part of the gun violence prevention movement. That the time when the most people give a about our issue is coupled when there's the most death and chaos. A movement, when the country is paying attention to us, this is what's going on right now. I always tell people the testament of an organizer is what you do when nobody's paying attention. But the testament of a movement is what you do when the world is watching and the world is watching our country right now. There will be times when we feel discouraged. There will be times where we feel disappointed. But when those feelings overcome, you think about this moment, think about our people, think about our stories, and think about the people who came before us.

(52:30)
In my mind, I always think about the amazing Angela Davis when she said, I am no longer accepting what I cannot change. I am changing what I cannot accept. So to the people, can you accept cuts to Social Security?

Crowd (52:49):

No.

Congressman Maxwell Frost (52:49):

Can you accept cuts to Medicare and Medicaid?

Crowd (52:52):

No.

Congressman Maxwell Frost (52:52):

Can we accept the rise of right-wing authoritarians in this country?

Crowd (52:57):

No.

Congressman Maxwell Frost (52:57):

Can we accept them banning the books in our libraries?

Crowd (53:00):

No.

Congressman Maxwell Frost (53:01):

Can we accept them trying to ethically cleanse our people from the land?

Crowd (53:06):

No.

Congressman Maxwell Frost (53:06):

Can we accept kids being mowed down in their schools?

Crowd (53:11):

No.

Congressman Maxwell Frost (53:11):

Well, it sounds like we have a lot of damn work to do. God bless you all. Let's continue to fight and we will win. Thank you.

Speaker 1 (53:25):

Please welcome, MoveOn Executive Director, Rahna Epting.

Rahna Epting (53:30):

Hello, DC.

Crowd (53:34):

Hello.

Rahna Epting (53:38):

I'm Rahna, and I'm with MoveOn. Who's a MoveOn member? Raise your hand. That's right. Because at MoveOn we believe in the power of the people. We believe in the power of collective action, and that's what today is all about.

(53:56)
Look, we know Trump and Musk and the Republicans have been launching an all out flood the zone strategy to overwhelm us with attacks on Social Security, Medicaid, and other critical services and benefits that we've earned, on attacks on our rights and our freedoms. They want us, they want us to feel helpless. They want us to be hopeless. They want us to feel alone in our concerns. Are we alone?

Crowd (54:31):

No.

Rahna Epting (54:31):

Are we helpless?

Crowd (54:33):

No.

Rahna Epting (54:33):

Hell no. Are we hopeless?

Crowd (54:35):

No.

Rahna Epting (54:36):

No. Because when we come together, we are powerful. And thank you for being here today.

(54:46)
Look, Trump and Musk, they're doing everything to consolidate their power. You know that. They're firing tens of thousands of federal employees. They're threatening to get rid of more. They're trying to eliminate the Department of Education, leaving students, parents and teachers out in the cold in favor of making their billionaire backers richer and richer. And now they're attempting to silence our neighbors in the workforce all across the country by taking away their voice on the job. Are we going to stand for that?

Crowd (55:15):

No.

Rahna Epting (55:18):

But as we know, the working people united will never be divided, will never be defeated. And you're about to hear from some incredible leaders of unions here today. We'll be joined alongside with working people who've been directly affected at the hands of Trump and Musk. They're not just fighting for their members, they're fighting for all of us folks. So please give a big hearty welcome to the stage AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler, NEA President Becky Pringle, National Nurses United President Cathy Kennedy, NFFE President Randy Erwin and AFGE President Everett Kelley, along with their members.

Liz Shuler (56:04):

Yeah. Wow. What a beautiful sight. Thank you so much. I'm Liz Shuler, president of the AFL-CIO: America's Unions, and I'm so honored to be here with all of you and with all of our labor activists and leaders here to bring the voice of not just our 63 unions and nearly 15 million workers, but of every working person in this country.

(56:41)
So listen, this administration, they want us to think that these cuts are about a bunch of bureaucrats. That these cuts don't matter to workers and families across the country. Well, I'm up here today next to workers who are the human face of what is going on, the people who make our lives better, who serve our communities, and whose lives have been turned upside down by this administration.

(57:16)
People like Shanice Mandel, who's standing right here next to me, an Air Force veteran, someone who served this country and then went to work for the federal government, the Office of Personnel Management, a proud AFGE Union member. She made sure people got their healthcare until this administration fired her. Does that make sense to anyone here?

Crowd (57:50):

No.

Liz Shuler (57:50):

Listen, ever since this election I keep hearing about how divided working people are. But the people I talk to every day, teachers, nurses, construction workers, engineers, sanitation workers, people with every kind of job and every kind of background, what I hear is the exact opposite. We could not be more united in what matters to us. And I see it. I see it. I have not met one person, I've not met one person who says, yes, it makes sense for a CEO to make 268 times what I make while I live paycheck to paycheck. I have not met one person who says, yes, Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos need more tax breaks, and that money should come from my mom's Medicare or Social Security. I have not met one person who says, yes, please let an unelected billionaire take a chainsaw to the jobs that my community counts on, the jobs that keep my food safe, that make my water clean. Get rid of the workers who care for our veterans, our heroes when they come back from serving our country. It makes no sense.

(59:22)
So to every working person here and everyone watching, I don't care if you're a Democrat or Republican and independent, do you want common sense from your government?

Crowd (59:34):

Yes.

Liz Shuler (59:35):

Are you sick and tired of a government that is not of by and for the people, but of by and for the billionaires?

Crowd (59:44):

Yes.

Liz Shuler (59:44):

Are you ready to do something about it?

Crowd (59:48):

Yes.

Liz Shuler (59:48):

That's what I thought. They have billions of dollars, but what we saw on Tuesday night in Wisconsin gives me hope. Because our votes are not for sale. Our values are not for sale. And our rights and our freedoms are not for sale. So are you ready to fight?

Crowd (01:00:12):

Yeah.

Liz Shuler (01:00:14):

You ready to win?

Crowd (01:00:16):

Yeah.

Liz Shuler (01:00:16):

I'd love to have Shanice say a few words about her experience and then I'll introduce our next speaker.

Shanice (01:00:23):

Thanks everyone for coming out. I just want to thank you all and let you know that I'm happy that you're in the fight with us. I may not get my job back, but I'm going to fight for the employees that are still there because they deserve it as well. And I'm going to make sure that everyone knows what's going on because when we fight, we win.

Liz Shuler (01:00:58):

[inaudible 01:00:55].

(01:00:58)
And now it's my joy to introduce an absolute fighter for our nation's kids. Someone who protects not only our educators, our students, but all working people in this country. The president of the National Education Association, Becky Pringle.

Becky Pringle (01:01:26):

The view from up here is magnificent. Of all the civil rights for which this world has fought and died for 5,000 years, the right to learn is the most fundamental. The freedom to learn

Becky Pringle (01:02:00):

… has been bought by bitter sacrifice. So whatever you might think about the curtailment of other civil rights, you must fight to the last ditch to keep open the right to learn. Those words spoken by W.E.B Du Bois over a century ago are still true today. I am Becky Pringle and I am most proud of having taught eighth graders the wonders of science for 31 years. And I am honored to be the president of this nation's largest labor union, the National Education Association. I am joined here on stage by teachers [inaudible 01:03:17] and education support staff, and we are joined by the 3,000,000 people who have dedicated their lives to teaching and nurturing, counseling and feeding, driving and taking care of this nation's 50,000,000 students. And we're all here to say, "Hands off our public schools." The NEA has called out Donald Trump and Elon Musk and WWE czar, you can't make this stuff up. Linda McMahon's brazen attempts, they're brazen attempts to undermine public education in America.

(01:04:22)
Their devastating, dangerous, and disrespectful mass firing of half, half of our public servants in the Department of Education. We all know that that will hurt all students in all rural and all urban and all suburban schools across this country. We know that class sizes will soar and arts and music and after school programs will be diminished. Job training programs will disappear. Higher education will be further out of reach for most Americans and our most vulnerable children, our children with disabilities will be left adrift without desperately needed special education services and the civil rights of our students will be eroded. Yeah, what is? That's why the NEA and our partners sued them. Hands off, Donald Trump.

Audience (01:05:45):

Hands off.

Becky Pringle (01:05:45):

Hands off, Elon Musk.

Audience (01:05:45):

Hands off, Elon Musk.

Becky Pringle (01:05:49):

Hands off, Linda McMahon.

Audience (01:05:50):

Hands off.

Becky Pringle (01:05:52):

I just left Kentucky where we were celebrating their success. 120 counties, every one of them voted no to vouchers. They said loudly and clearly, "We love our public schools. Hands off our schools."

Everett Kelley (01:06:16):

Yeah.

Audience (01:06:16):

Hands off our schools.

Becky Pringle (01:06:16):

Hands off our schools. Hands off our schools.

Audience (01:06:16):

Hands off our schools.

Becky Pringle (01:06:16):

Hands off our schools.

Audience (01:06:16):

Hands off our schools.

Becky Pringle (01:06:31):

And after that victory, now they're worried that federal vouchers will take all of the funds out of our schools and give them to private schools. And who will be left to [inaudible 01:06:48] in those gaps for our babies? Educators all over this country who bear that burden every day. And those federal workers in the Department of Education where we saw them being fired, we heard from them. Anthony, a veteran, a veteran who told us, "I put my life on the line. I was willing to die for this country all to be thrown out like trash by this administration." Donald Trump and Elon Musk are trying to roll back six decades of civil rights progress. They're peddling their private school voucher schemes to put money in the pockets of already obscenely rich billionaires and take away money from the 90% of the students who learn in our public schools and we know it's a scheme. We've already seen when states go to vouchers, academics decline. State budgets are slashed and public education, PowerSchools, lose vital funding.

(01:08:06)
Now you might say, "Becky, why are they doing this?" Yeah, I thought you had said that. Well, you know it fits right into any authoritarian's plan to strip away the freedom to teach and the freedom to learn. Because oligarchs know that to maintain a democracy, you have to have an educated society. Now, the Trump, Musk administration can't have that. They don't want people who are critical thinkers asking hard questions. People reading, they don't want that.

Everett Kelley (01:08:51):

That's right.

Becky Pringle (01:08:53):

Discerning the truth. They want us divided and swimming in chaos and confusion so we won't come together and expose their plan for what it is. That we won't focus on creating that beautiful vision of every public school having the resources to create a safe and welcoming and inclusive and joyful learning environment, where every student, everyone can live into their brilliance. " I am deliberate and afraid of nothing." Let those powerful words of Audre Lorde fuel our courage and resolve. Deliberate and unafraid, we will demand that every student has what they need and what they deserve. Deliberate and unafraid, we will fight for every educator to be respected and compensated for what they do for this country. Deliberate and unafraid, we will continue to fight for education justice and economic justice and social justice, until this country lives into the promise and the poetry of our Constitution. We, the people. Say it with me. We, the people. We, the people. We, the people, all of us deserve that right to life, liberty and the pursuit of justice.

(01:10:52)
So we will continue to demand that you keep your hands off our schools. Keep your hands off our rights and we won't stop. We, the people won't stop because our children, our babies are depending on us. They're depending on us to be worthy of them and now from the National Nurses United, give it up for Cathy Kennedy.

Cathy Kennedy (01:11:33):

Thank you so much. Well, hello everybody.

Audience (01:11:36):

[inaudible 01:11:38].

Cathy Kennedy (01:11:38):

My name is Cathy Kennedy and I'm a registered nurse and president of National Nurses United. And yeah, union nurses have long fought for Medicare for all because we know that healthcare is a human right. And we know that health is not just about medical treatment, it's also about the world that we live in and the support systems we all rely on. Those include Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, the Department of Health and Human Services and the Veterans Affairs Administration. Yes, this current administration wants to weaken and privatize those programs that have helped millions of people stay alive, housed and cared for. And without these programs, vulnerable seniors, low-income families, people with disabilities and veterans will suffer. Yes, and while they're attacking the social programs, they're also stripping away protected union rights from federal workers, including our VA nurses, 15,000 of them.

Audience (01:12:57):

No.

Cathy Kennedy (01:12:58):

No. Yes, they're trying to break our solidarity so that we can't hold them accountable. But guess what? We're not going to let that happen.

Audience (01:13:09):

No, no.

Cathy Kennedy (01:13:09):

The current administration wants a society where wealthful and powerful get richer, while the rest of us struggle. They say that people should be responsible for themselves, while they're handing out billions of tax breaks, subsidies and bailouts to giant corporations. What do you say? No way.

Audience (01:13:31):

No.

Cathy Kennedy (01:13:32):

No way. So let's be very clear, our nation's public programs were created for reason. During times of struggle like the Great Depression, the World Wars and Vietnam, when seniors were dying in poverty, veterans were left without care and millions of Americans lacked the basic services to live. Do we want that?

Audience (01:13:56):

No.

Cathy Kennedy (01:13:58):

Absolutely not. This administration knows, they know very well that these are very popular programs for voters, so they can't get rid of them overnight. So what do they do? They sneak in the night and they have a plan to turn these public programs into money making systems for private corporations.

Audience (01:14:14):

[inaudible 01:14:16].

Cathy Kennedy (01:14:17):

Yeah, how do they justify doing this? First they have to break the system, right? Slash funding, fire staff, change policy until the program no longer functions properly, and then private corporations swoop in offering to fix it for a profit. Are we going to let that happen?

Audience (01:14:42):

No.

Cathy Kennedy (01:14:42):

Are we here to tell them hands off?

Audience (01:14:44):

Hands off.

Cathy Kennedy (01:14:45):

We must stand up for a society that values people over profit, right?

Audience (01:14:50):

Right.

Cathy Kennedy (01:14:52):

Our seniors, our communities, our patients, our veterans, we all depend on this so hands off our public services.

Audience (01:15:03):

Hands off.

Cathy Kennedy (01:15:04):

Hands off our union rights.

Audience (01:15:05):

Hands off.

Cathy Kennedy (01:15:05):

Hands off.

Audience (01:15:07):

Hands off.

Cathy Kennedy (01:15:09):

All right, so I am so happy and so thrilled to see all of you today. And now I would like to turn it over to another president of the National Federation of Federal Employees, President Randy Erwin.

Randy Erwin (01:15:26):

Good afternoon, everybody. The energy is incredible. Thank you for coming out. I'm Randy Erwin. I'm the National President of the National Federation of Federal Employees. We represent 110,000 federal workers nationwide. Our members are doing incredible work caring for our veterans, keeping our military ready, caring for our public lands, and just 100s of other essential services so important to the American people. I know there's got to be some federal employees here. Thank you federal employees for all you do. Thank you. So as you know, the Trump administration is absolutely destroying public services in this country right now. That's right. They claim to be making government more efficient. That is a joke, people. That is a cruel joke. They're doing the exact opposite. What they're doing is a recipe for disaster, not a recipe for efficiency.

Everett Kelley (01:16:41):

That's right.

Randy Erwin (01:16:42):

Now this administration has fired or bullied into resignation, 275,000 federal workers providing essential services and that's just the tip of the iceberg. Let me ask you a question. Are you okay with Trump eliminating essential services?

Audience (01:17:06):

No.

Randy Erwin (01:17:06):

Hell, no.

Audience (01:17:09):

Hell, no.

Randy Erwin (01:17:10):

Hell, no.

Audience (01:17:10):

Hell, no.

Randy Erwin (01:17:12):

Now, never forget, never forget this fact, 30% of the federal workforce are veterans. The biggest employer of veterans nationwide by a wide margin. You can't separate federal employees from veterans because there's so many veterans in the federal government. If you're doing it to federal employees, you're doing it to veterans, okay? He's laid off 275,000, that means almost 100,000 veterans now are jobless because of what this president is doing.

Audience (01:17:50):

Boo.

Randy Erwin (01:17:51):

Boo. Concurrently, they're decimating the Department of Veterans Affairs. They're laying off 83,000 people that care for veterans. This is a one-two punch to the face of our veterans. Are you okay with that?

Audience (01:18:05):

No.

Randy Erwin (01:18:05):

Hell, no.

Audience (01:18:05):

Hell, no.

Randy Erwin (01:18:06):

Hell, no.

Audience (01:18:09):

Hell, no.

Randy Erwin (01:18:13):

Shame on Trump. Okay, shame on Trump. Shame on Trump.

Audience (01:18:20):

Shame on Trump.

Randy Erwin (01:18:21):

Shame on Trump. Shame on Trump, and I'll make a point about this.

Audience (01:18:23):

Shame on Trump.

Randy Erwin (01:18:24):

This is an important point about the veterans. You could stand with DOGE and Trump and Elon Musk or you could stand for veterans. You cannot stand for both. Okay, now, make no mistake, the cuts to essential services, okay, the cuts that we're seeing to the workforce are decimating public services. Unquestionably putting the American people in danger, okay? We've seen cuts to nuclear regulators that they went back on. They told air traffic controllers to quit and then went back on it. We represent wildland firefighters, they're not hiring enough of them. Communities are going to burn. It's scary. Okay, examples all over government. Okay, let me ask you a question. Are you okay with Trump undermining public safety?

Audience (01:19:17):

No.

Randy Erwin (01:19:19):

Hell, no.

Audience (01:19:19):

Hell, no.

Randy Erwin (01:19:19):

Hell, no.

Audience (01:19:19):

Hell, no.

Randy Erwin (01:19:22):

And in the last 10 days, Trump signed an executive order attempting to unilaterally and unlawfully end collective bargaining for over 1,000,000 federal employees. We've never seen anything like that in this country, folks. Never seen anything like it. It is the biggest assault on collective bargaining that we have ever seen in this country, a critical First Amendment right protected by the Constitution. Are you okay with that?

Audience (01:19:53):

Hell, no.

Randy Erwin (01:19:55):

Hell, no.

Audience (01:19:56):

Hell, no.

Randy Erwin (01:19:56):

Hell, no.

Audience (01:19:56):

Hell, no.

Randy Erwin (01:20:00):

This administration is the worst.

Audience (01:20:01):

[inaudible 01:20:05].

Randy Erwin (01:20:05):

They sold us on America First, but they're making America worse. We are the ones that have to stop them. I'm so proud of everybody here. Don't stop. We never stop fighting for this country. And now it is my distinct honor to welcome to the podium, my good friend, an incredible labor leader, Dr. Everett Kelley, president of AFGE.

Everett Kelley (01:20:39):

[inaudible 01:20:37]. Good evening. How everybody feel?

Audience (01:20:43):

[inaudible 01:20:45].

Everett Kelley (01:20:45):

Are you excited?

Audience (01:20:45):

Yes.

Everett Kelley (01:20:45):

Let me hear you say, "I'm excited."

Audience (01:20:46):

Yeah.

Everett Kelley (01:20:50):

Brothers, sisters, allies, on behalf of the 820,000 federal and DC government workers, we represent AFGE. I want to begin by saying thank you. Thank you for showing up today. Listen, everybody, look at your neighbor on your left side and say thank you. Come on, I don't hear you. Everybody look at your neighbor on your right side and say thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you for your unwavering solidarity. Thank you for supporting the patriotic American civil service that my union represents. Thank you for standing for the services we provide to the American people, not some day, but every single day. And thank you for showing our members that you have their back. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Now, I can't begin by telling you how much it means to me to every AFGE member and to every fellow employee across the nation to see this crowd here today. I can't begin to tell you how important it is for not just the workers, but for our nation. Because we're not here today just as union members or federal employees, we are here today as defenders of democracy.

(01:22:21)
We're here today as champions of justice. We're here as protectors of our freedom and the American way of life. That's why we're here. And brothers and sisters, let me tell you this, the AFGE is here standing on principles. Say, "Principles." Because today our nation is at a crossroad. In recent days, we witnessed unprecedented attacks on our democracy, on the rule of law, on American veterans, on American workers, on our civil servants, on our government, on our communities, on our union, and on the very freedom guaranteed to us by our Constitution. What do we say? We say no.

Audience (01:23:11):

No.

Everett Kelley (01:23:13):

Now just last week, the president issued an unprecedented executive order and the union of over 1,000,000 American workers who served their country every single day, a third of whom are veterans themselves and that is an attack on AFGE. But let me tell you something, it's not just an attack on AFGE, but it's an attack on all of us because if he is able to deny our members their rights under the law, guess what? He won't stop there because you're next. He'll deny your rights and that's their hope. That's their plan, but they thought it was easy. They thought we were easy targets. But let me tell you something about union members and veterans, we will not be intimidated. I'm a veteran myself. I'm an army veteran. We will not be silenced. We will not bow down. We'll stand up and say, "Hands off our union."

Audience (01:24:23):

Hands off our union.

Everett Kelley (01:24:25):

We'll stand up and say, "Hands off our contract."

Audience (01:24:37):

Hands off our contract.

Everett Kelley (01:24:41):

We'll stand up and say, "Hands off our democracy."

Audience (01:24:41):

Hands off our democracy.

Everett Kelley (01:24:41):

Hands off our freedom.

Audience (01:24:41):

Hands off our freedom.

Everett Kelley (01:24:41):

And we'll stand up and speak truth to power.

Audience (01:24:42):

Truth to power.

Everett Kelley (01:24:45):

Let me just tell somebody that might be listening, that AFGE and the labor force, 15,000,000 of us, we're going nowhere. We're going to stand our ground. We're not going to stand by and let you dismantle the agencies that are protecting American workers against greedy billionaires, and corporations. Hands off.

Audience (01:25:15):

Hands off.

Everett Kelley (01:25:17):

Let them hear you.

Audience (01:25:18):

Hands off.

Everett Kelley (01:25:18):

Let them hear you.

Audience (01:25:18):

Hands off.

Everett Kelley (01:25:22):

We ain't going to let them dismantle Social Security and steal the money that America have contributed toward their retirement their entire life.

Audience (01:25:30):

Hands off.

Everett Kelley (01:25:32):

What do we say?

Audience (01:25:33):

Hands off.

Everett Kelley (01:25:34):

We aren't going to let you cut 80,000 workers from the VA and take away our veteran benefits. What do you say?

Audience (01:25:42):

Hands off.

Everett Kelley (01:25:43):

We aren't going to let them gut the agency that keep us safe from the pollution and diseases. What do we say?

Audience (01:25:49):

Hands off.

Everett Kelley (01:25:52):

Brothers and sisters, we know the actions of Elon Musk and Trump and their DOGE millionaire buddies aren't about efficiency or national security. That's just an excuse they use. Now, they call it the Department of Government Efficiency. Let me tell you what I call it. I mean let me tell you what I call it and I want to see if you agree with me. I call it the Department of Government Evil because it's evil to disrupt 9,000,000 lives that are veterans for the power grab. It's just evil. It's evil to destroy the very system that ensures clean water and clean food. It's just plain evil. Now this is what they want, they want power, plain and simple. They want it and they don't want you to have it. That shock and awe campaign was meant to silence our voice and weaken our resolve and put regular Americans under the boot heels of unelected billionaires, destroying the American experiment and freedom and democracy that's two and a half centuries old. And that's why AFGE has been in the courts, in the media and Congress, and here with you on the street.

(01:27:20)
And not only are we in the court, but we're kicking their behind while we're in the court. And we're going to continue to kick their behind because we're going to stand up for every wronged or federal employee there is. We're going to continue to fight back. So here's the question, are we going to let it happen?

Audience (01:27:43):

No.

Everett Kelley (01:27:43):

The people gathered here today, all across America, this country is not going to let it happen. But let me be clear, this is not a marathon. This is a marathon, not a sprint. Today isn't the end of this movement. It's the beginning and we've got to leave here, these events all around the country and continue to organize. We have to continue to raise awareness. Continue to recruit more people to our cause. As a union, as a movement, and as a nation, we are facing some hard challenges. Challenges like we've never faced before. But let me tell you something, there's still no challenge too big for us to overcome if we work together. To every federal employee watching today, know this, AFGE and all the folk out here across the country have your back. Let me hear you tell them, "We have your back." And we will speak truth to power. We will not be intimidated. We will not be silenced. We're here to fight. We intend to win because we stand on principles. Together, we'll stand strong against all attacks. Let me hear you say, "Together."

Audience (01:29:21):

Together.

Everett Kelley (01:29:22):

And together we'll protect the rights and the freedom of every American because we've got the power. You know, we have power. The power is in we. Say, "We."

Audience (01:29:35):

We.

Everett Kelley (01:29:35):

We.

Audience (01:29:35):

We.

Everett Kelley (01:29:35):

We.

Audience (01:29:38):

We.

Everett Kelley (01:29:39):

We will stand.

Audience (01:29:41):

We will stand.

Everett Kelley (01:29:41):

We will fight.

Audience (01:29:42):

We will fight.

Everett Kelley (01:29:44):

We'll fight for righteousness.

Audience (01:29:45):

[inaudible 01:29:47].

Everett Kelley (01:29:47):

We'll fight for justice.

Audience (01:29:48):

We'll fight for justice.

Everett Kelley (01:29:50):

Say, "We got the power."

Audience (01:29:52):

We got the power.

Everett Kelley (01:29:54):

We got the power.

Audience (01:29:54):

We got the power.

Everett Kelley (01:29:55):

So brothers and sisters, stay strong.

Audience (01:29:56):

Stay strong.

Everett Kelley (01:29:58):

Keep the faith. Hold on just a little while longer. Don't ever give up. Do not despair. Fight on. March on. Pray on. I heard a scripture say that, "Weeping may endure for the night, but joy comes in the morning." The joy is coming. Joy is coming. Say, "Joy." Say, "Joy."

Audience (01:30:26):

Joy.

Everett Kelley (01:30:27):

Say, "Joy."

Audience (01:30:27):

Joy.

Everett Kelley (01:30:27):

Joy-

Audience (01:30:29):

Joy.

Everett Kelley (01:30:30):

… is coming. Don't give up.

Randy Erwin (01:30:50):

That's it. That's it. You closed it out [inaudible 01:30:52].

Speaker 2 (01:31:23):

Please welcome executive director, Rachel Carmona.

Rachel Carmona (01:31:33):

Hello, everybody. Where I'm standing, you can't even see the edge of the signs. Shout out to everyone who came out here today. I'm having short people problems with this microphone. Let me hear you say hands off if you have been to a march, a protest, an action, a call this year. Hands off.

Audience (01:31:59):

Hands off.

Rachel Carmona (01:31:59):

Hands off.

Audience (01:31:59):

Hands off.

Rachel Carmona (01:32:02):

Hands off.

Audience (01:32:04):

Hands off.

Rachel Carmona (01:32:06):

I want to say thank you to the Hands Off Coalition 50501 Movement and all the other partners who have been here throwing down since January and every week. Give them a shout. If you got here on a bus, if you use the bathroom, if you're safe, that is because organizers made it that way. And guess what? We're all organizers now. Shout out. This is the third national mobilization this year, and there have been thousands of these centralized actions all across the country in the streets from Enid, Oklahoma, New York, LA, and here in D.C. I'm telling you, all I can see is a whole bunch of people who are here to say, "No, we will not go back." Hands off all of our communities. Hands off immigrants. Hands off immigrants.

Speaker 3 (01:33:02):

[inaudible 01:33:01] over here.

(01:33:05)
We are exercising today the people's veto on Musk, Trump, Zuck and the Broligarch writ large, who want a country ruled by bullies to benefit billionaires, and they don't care what or who they bulldoze to make it happen. But here's the thing. We are the majority. We are the what?

Crowd (01:33:23):

Majority.

Speaker 3 (01:33:23):

The what?

Crowd (01:33:23):

Majority.

Speaker 3 (01:33:27):

Workers, students, parents, teachers, activists, women and feminists. Are there feminists in the crowd today?

Crowd (01:33:39):

Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:33:39):

I didn't hear you. Are there feminists in the crowd today?

Crowd (01:33:42):

Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:33:47):

We are the backbone of this country, not the elites. And they're scared that a movement this large can threaten their power and they should be. That's right, shout out.

(01:33:58)
Because despite all the nonsense that they've gotten up to this year, and there has been a lot of nonsense, my friends, we are still here and our numbers are growing. They want us to fell powerless, but we have people power and people power is the best power and we have the energy to keep up. We can't just outnumber them. We have to outlast them and we have to out organize them. And you know what? I know that's asking a lot. We have to push past our fatigue and our fear. We have to push past the criticism of our opposition and sometimes even our friends and that's difficult. But Black feminist author Barbara Smith often reminds me that it's called the struggle because it's hard and I don't see people scared of hard work here today.

(01:34:48)
That's who we are. We're regular people who just stepped up when there's work to be done. There is no cavalry that is coming to save us. That's the bad part. The good part is we are here to save us and we are enough. And I believe that we will win. I believe.

Crowd (01:35:10):

We will win.

Speaker 3 (01:35:10):

I believe.

Crowd (01:35:10):

We will win.

Speaker 3 (01:35:10):

I believe.

Crowd (01:35:10):

We will win.

Speaker 3 (01:35:11):

Will y'all try something with me? If you've had moments where you felt hopeless, ready to quit, tired, didn't know what to do, give me heart in the air hands. I want you to look around and see all the people who think like you, who feel like you, ad I want you to see all those people who are going to fill those hearts back up when you are tired because we have to keep going and we will be the ones who save us.

(01:35:41)
The truth is that the strength of our movement is not measured by easy wins, but by the hard days that we show up anyway. So that's what I need us all to do. You did the hard part here. Look around. Look at this crowd, if you can even see, all we have to do is keep showing up. Movements are built with shoe leather. They're built with hard work, sweat and tears, stuffing envelopes. You never know when your thing, your action is going to make history. So we have to work hard. We have to work together, and that actually is what people power is and that is how we win. Whose streets?

Crowd (01:36:20):

Our streets.

Speaker 3 (01:36:22):

Whose streets?

Crowd (01:36:22):

Our Streets.

Speaker 3 (01:36:24):

Thank you so much from Women's March. We'll see you in the streets.

Crowd (01:36:26):

[inaudible 01:36:45]

Announcer (01:37:09):

Please welcome executive director Greisa Martinez Rosas from United We Dream.

Greisa Martinez Rosas (01:37:20):

What up my people? [Spanish 01:37:25] My name is Greisa Martinez Rosas. I am an immigrant, I am undocumented, unafraid, queer and unashamed. I lead the organization, the most beautiful organization called United We Dream Action. We are the nation's largest network of immigrant young people fighting for queer rights, immigrant rights and the rights of everyday working-class people. So y'all look so beautiful. I wish you could be in this place and there's so many of you. I want you to take a moment to say hi-fives to your neighbor. Y'all have been here for a while. Say, "Hey, what's up, neighbor? We're doing this. We got this."

(01:38:29)
Yes, I'm here today because this fight is about all of us, not just the people standing here in this podium, but this fight about you, about the people that you love, about the people that you miss, those we lost and those that we are waiting for, our babies. We are facing a national flashpoint. There's a creepy cult of billionaires, creepy billionaires that have bought their way into our government. They're so creepy that they think that they can declare power to make their own rules without accountability. They're so creepy that they think that they can do it without oversight. They're so creepy that they can do it without consequences.

(01:39:22)
But this country is not theirs to buy. This country is theirs to buy. This country is ours. It's the everyday people. Immigrants, queer and trans people, immigrant workers and families and our allies. Every single one of us sees ICE snatching our people off the street, throwing students, moms, dads, friends, into mass detention camps here in abroad from student activists demanding an end to genocide like [inaudible 01:40:06] and Rumeysa Ozturkto organizers like Jeanette Vizguerra and hard-working people like Hilmar, a father from Maryland who was deported to the mega prisons in El Salvador.

(01:40:20)
These kidnappings, they are proof that they are coming after all of us, all of us, whether we have papers or not. And I'm here to deliver a message. I'm Greisa Martinez Rosas, I'm the daughter of Luis and Elia Martinez, immigrants that did the most bravest thing to decide to make this country our home. If they were to snatch me or disappear me at any time. I want you to know that I love this country. That within its borders or outside of it, I will fight to defend the vision of our people. That within its borders or outside of it we will not stop speaking out against what's happening in our communities. I want you to know if I'm disappeared, that I know that you'll show up for me and the millions of undocumented people here in the U.S. Am I right? Am I right?

Crowd (01:41:22):

Yeah.

Greisa Martinez Rosas (01:41:22):

I don't tell you this to be scared because I'm undocumented and unafraid. I'm telling you because this is the reality and we have to be honest with one another. And I tell you this because all of us have to turn the rage that we are feeling into the power to the transformations and to the miracles that we deserve. So do you want power?

Crowd (01:41:54):

Yeah.

Greisa Martinez Rosas (01:41:54):

All right repeat after me. "Power."

Crowd (01:41:54):

Power.

Greisa Martinez Rosas (01:41:54):

"Transformation."

Crowd (01:41:54):

Transformation.

Greisa Martinez Rosas (01:41:54):

"Miracles."

Crowd (01:41:54):

Miracles.

Greisa Martinez Rosas (01:41:54):

"I want it."

Crowd (01:41:54):

I want it.

Greisa Martinez Rosas (01:41:54):

"I need it."

Crowd (01:41:54):

I need it.

Greisa Martinez Rosas (01:41:54):

"I gots to have it."

Crowd (01:41:54):

I gots to have it.

Greisa Martinez Rosas (01:42:09):

I don't know. We're here. I know you've been here for a while, but I need to feel the ground shaking around me. Are you ready?

Crowd (01:42:16):

Yeah.