Transcription
Thank you, King Theater. Thank you to an incredible slate of candidates. And thank you to all of you for making it here when you could easily still be in the streets celebrating.
So, first of all, and say it with me as loudly as you can, Nicks in. Nicks in. NICKS IN.
As I look out on this crowd, I see many of the same faces from our rallies last May and June. The same faces I saw as I spoke on a steaming June evening in a freezing November night. And I know that there are some who may ask, is that election not over? It may be. But our work has never been about any one person, anyone office, or anyone election. Our work has been about one movement. A movement to turn the page on the politics of big money and small ideas. A movement to usher in a new era for our city. A movement to make government work for every single New Yorker, not just the wealthy and the well-connected.
I stand here today fulfilling the promise I made to you in the days when we were polling at 1%. The days where our closest competitor was other. We don't hear about him much anymore. The promise was that I would use every tool at my disposal to stand up to corporate greed and bad landlords. To protect our immigrant neighbors, to deliver a city where New Yorkers could afford to do more than struggle. A city, a city where dreams are no longer fantasies of today, but glimpses of tomorrow.
And the truth, my friends, is that I cannot do it alone. The reason I stand here alongside this incredible slate is that if we want to build a movement that endures, if we want to build a movement that wins, we need leaders across our city who are willing to fight with everything they have for working people. We need Claire Valdez, Dar Lisa Avalier, and Brad Lander fighting for us in Congress. We need Abir Kawas, Eli Northrup, Yappa Cyra Tupac, Samantha Katan, and Brian Romero fighting for us in Albany.
And if we want this movement to win, we need you to show up the way you showed up for me. To knock as many doors as you can, even when it's raining, even when it's hot, even when it's hard, even when the Knicks just brought an end to a 53-year weight. Because that's what we have, and that's what our opponents don't. That extra door, that extra text, that extra bit of effort, that second door knock after 15 seconds of not hearing anything. You know what I'm talking about. Fighting the urge to mark not home in vain. Don't do it. Don't do it. Knock again.
Because I know that even though you're tired, even though you've given so much, even though it's frankly unfair to ask you for more, I know that you have it in you. I know it only because I'm reminded every single day when I walk the streets of our city. When I see New Yorkers going to work at every hour and still finding time to dream in that same hour that tomorrow could be more than today. Because if anyone can sustain this movement, if anyone can win these elections, if anyone can shock this country, it is you. You have done it before and on Tuesday we will do it again.
And we need that because as Grahamshy once wrote, the old world is dying and the new world struggles to be born. Now is the time of monsters. These monsters take many forms today. In those who fund television ads that blanket the airwaves with misleading and bad faith attacks about Claire, Brad, and Dari, those who would rather spend far more on political contributions than they would ever be made to pay in taxes. In Apac, for whom the only thing more frightening than democracy being allowed to run its course is an end to genocide and Netanyahu's wars. They move millions in dark money to accomplish a single goal: to preserve their power so that they can turn us against one another instead of our leaders turning towards the moral change we all know to be necessary. In a politics that for too long has asked working people to lower their expectations, to settle for less, to become satisfied with small victories while our wages grow even smaller and our costs grow even larger, to resign ourselves to resignation, to accept the unacceptable. In the wealthiest city, in the wealthiest country in the history of the world, we need not live in fear of monsters any longer.
If a new world is truly to be born, then where else should it be born than right here in New York? Where else should that new world be born than in the city the entire world seeks to emulate? On June 23rd, we will win that new world together. The outcome of these elections will reverberate around our city and around our country and it will send a very clear message. When we win, we will make it clear that our movement is more powerful than their money. When we win, we will make it clear that we understand the urgency of this moment and refuse to delay change for yet another year, for yet another cycle, for yet another generation. And when we win these elections on June 23rd, let it be heard by every member of Congress who believes incumbency is a substitute for action. Let it be heard by every oligarch who thinks that greed can go unchecked, that politicians can be bought, that this city and this country have a price. Let it be heard by every pundit who sees a Muslim last name and tells that candidate to prepare a concession speech. Let it ring in courtrooms that mistake the Voting Rights Act as a suggestion, not the law of the land. And in fact, let it roar in every state where politicians think they can redraw the lines so that black Americans no longer have a say.
Last year, New Yorkers were asked to make a choice. And many were told that it was a choice between a government that could answer the challenges of today and one that could imagine a better tomorrow. They were told it was a choice between a government that clears the streets of snow and one that would hold corporate abusers to account. After all, they told us, "Surely government couldn't both fill potholes and provide universal childare. Surely government couldn't both dare to deliver and dare to dream."
My friends, if these past six months have proved anything, it is that these are false choices. Government can achieve so much more than those who seek to discourage and demoralize that they are willing to admit. Government can fix crumbling streets, bring people together, and transform our city. And those who tell us otherwise are driven by a four-letter word: fear. Fear that maybe things will change. Fear that maybe power will no longer be restricted to back rooms and boardrooms, but extended to the working people being priced out of this city.
Now, this is a moment of more, of asking for more, of expecting more, of delivering more. We won't answer to those who insist we settle for less any longer. Now, people often ask me what I think of the state of the Democratic Party. This slate here today is our answer. The Democratic Party must change. They tend to follow that question with another. Who do you want to run in 2028? Then then they ask, when does the race for 2028 begin? It starts now. It starts on Tuesday. It starts when we reject a politics that believes in polls more than principles. It starts when we realize that politics, one that waits for political convenience, will never feel the urgency to address the people's inconvenience.
Because at the heart of all of these questions that are being asked is who we are and what we are fighting for. These campaigns, these candidates, they answer that question in the way that we must. Because for far too long, our party has seen its job as managing decline instead of delivering material change for working people. It has seen its job as explaining why we cannot instead of showing how we can. And that old way of thinking will lose on Tuesday. And frankly, it will lose in South Carolina and New Hampshire. It will fall short of 270 electoral votes. Because the party of the past will not be what leads us into the future. For we need a Democratic party with backbone. A Democratic party that offers an affirmative agenda without apology. A Democratic party that is not just willing to stand up, but also to stand for something. And a Democratic party that has the ambition to enact a vision worthy of the people it seeks to represent.
Affordability is not magic. It is not something that can be summoned by words. It must be summoned by deeds. We must stand up to corporate greed, build affordable housing, make child care something every family can afford. And as we speak, there are those hoping to divide up the working people of this city to convince us that the problems we face are not a result of their greed, but instead that of our neighbors. They will do whatever it takes to maintain a broken status quo that benefits the privileged few at the expense of the many. And they think that there is no one who will try to stop them. They're wrong. This slate will. And this slate will not just try. This slate will succeed.
Because this slate knows the difference between a party that defends the status quo and the party fighting to transform the status quo. And I want to be honest with all of you. If you want politicians who spend their time telling you about all the things that cannot be done, my friends, you are at the wrong rally, by all means, vote for the other guys. But if you want leaders who wake up every day asking how much more can be done for the working person, then knock doors, make calls, text your friends, bring your neighbors to the polls, and vote.
And when you are at those polls, when you are in that booth and it's just you and your ballot and that incredible pen from the board of elections, it is a sacred moment. It is you alone with democracy. And it is then that every New Yorker answers a question. What the other side wants that question to be is which of your neighbors are you most willing to sell out? What the other side wants that question to be is which leaders of today are you willing to delay until tomorrow. They ask that the tenant of 40 years vote against the tenant of one year, that the divide is between those who have gone through decades of political transformation and those who have joined our movement as soon as they were a voting age. They ask questions that sustain power for those who have it under the guise of rewarding those who struggle under it. I do not believe that is the question you must in fact answer in that booth in the city I know, in the city I love. The question is not when did you arrive. The question is: can you afford to stay?
And yet amidst the greed that drives some of this cost of living crisis, we have something that that crisis does not. Something far stronger. We have a love of our neighbors that can be heard in bodegas and $9 coffee shops alike. A love that is not driven by age or race or status, by a working-class solidarity, and a fundamental understanding that only together can we win that which we deserve. Only together can we win housing that's affordable, wages that recognize our worth, and a government in which there is no task too big and no job too small.
Whether you are a tenant who has been here for four months or 40 years, we have so much more in common with one another than we do with those attacking Claire, Dar Lisa, and Brad. Whether you arrived at JFK, at Port Authority, or your great-grandparents came through Ellis Island, we have so much more in common with one another than those who seek to demonize new arrivals, whether from Kansas or Kenshasa, and divide us. And whether you worship at shul, at a mosque, in a church, a gourd, a temple, or you don't worship at all, we share a belief that our city deserves leaders who lead with hope and not fear. Because no matter where we live, how old we are, what train we take in the morning, or what bagel we order, we are New Yorkers and we want the same things: housing that we can afford, child care that is universal, buses that are fast and free, Medicare for all, time with the people we love, a city that belongs to all of us.
And that's exactly why we need to elect Brad Lander, whose love for his neighbors is only matched by the fight he will bring to Congress. Brad had my back when I needed him most. Had this city's back when Elon Musk tried to rob it of tens of millions of dollars. And he put his own back on the line to protect immigrants who were wrongfully detained by ICE.
That's why we need to elect Assembly Member Claire Valdez, a former UAW organizer and proud Democratic socialist, who is running for Congress to make sure working people in New York and across this country have a seat at the bargaining table. Now, when other Democrats chose to look the other way as Netanyahu committed war crimes, Claire didn't just name the genocide. She organized for a ceasefire. When ICE abducted our neighbors, Claire was arrested protesting them. Wherever there have been struggles in our city for dignity and justice, my friends, say it with me: Claire was there. No one will work harder than Claire to take power from those who abuse it and put it in the hands of those who deserve it.
And that, my friends, is why we need to elect Darisa Abila Shavalier, the daughter of a single mother from a working-class Dominican family. Since she was a teenager, Dari has organized her community and reunited families illegally separated by ICE. That includes her classmate Mahmud Khalil, whose pregnant wife Nur's cries for help were ignored by so many, but not by Dari. Because Dari is exactly who the people of the Bronx and upper Manhattan deserve, representing them in Congress.
New York. I hope you'll forgive me, but I have the Knicks on my mind. And it's not just that every time I watch the Knicks with Dari or with Claire, they won. It's also to say that with just five days left until election day and 30 seconds left on the metaphorical clock, I will leave you with this quote from Captain Clutch himself, Jaylen Brunson: "You are allowed to think about the worst possible scenario, but you got to go out there and do something about it."
So my friends, I must ask you, what are you going to do? How many friends will you text right now? How many doors will you knock? How many neighbors will you bring along? Because I hate to break it to you, but OG Anunobi is not here to save the day. The only hands we can count on are ours. But this is our team. This is our year. So, let's go after it and get it. Thank you, my friend.