Cory on Uniting Americans and Defeating Donald Trump
Remarks as Prepared for Delivery at National Press Club in Washington, DC
Hello everyone. I want to thank the National Press Club for having me here today, and for your tireless work.
I also want to recognize that so much of the work you do as members of the press doesn’t ever make it onto the page or onto TV, but in your defense of the truth, in your insistence on fact, in your commitment to telling the stories that need to be told as they need to be told, you do a great service to our democracy.
I believe that inherent to our freedom and to the health of our democracy is fearless journalism, and especially at times of moral challenge, a press who unflinchingly and unfailingly tells the truth to the American people, no matter how ugly or inconvenient.
Which is why I thought the best way to show my gratitude is by critiquing two pieces of journalism as a jumping off point.
Yesterday, both the New York Times and Washington Post painted a picture of a Democratic Party in a state of high anxiety. As Vice President Biden’s campaign shows growing signs of weakness, people are fretting about the current frontrunners, trying to convince Senator Sherrod Brown or Secretary Clinton or Michael Bloomberg that there is something to be gained from having 20 Democrats running for President instead of today’s 19.
And look, I get it — I am anxious to get Donald Trump out of office. The community I go home to cannot take four more years of this President. To me, this election is about as serious and as personal as it gets.
But this is the most historically diverse Democratic field in history — I felt such pride being on a debate stage last week alongside this incrediblly talented, diverse field — a Black woman, a gay man, more women than have ever stood on a presidential debate stage at the same time. There was even a billionaire up there.
Democrats don’t need more candidates to enter this primary. We have great candidates already.
We need the right candidate to emerge from this primary to unite our party and defeat Donald Trump.
And I’m confident I’m that candidate. Here’s why.
What makes Democrats successful — what makes us different than who we’re trying to defeat — is that we’re the party that represents people. All people. Black people. LGBTQ people, Latinx people, Native American people, women; working people and middle class people; people with disabilities — we are the party of civil rights, the party of voting rights, the right to abortion access, the right to quality health care.
At our best, we’re the party that understands that diverse coalitions of people are the only thing that has ever made real, lasting change in our country.
We’re the party that doesn’t just stand against hatred and bigotry and racism when it is convenient—we strive to stand for equality, and for justice, for all people, in everything we do.
At our best, we’re the party that is inclusive. While Republicans will try to continue to pit progressive Democrats against moderate ones — we know that while we may disagree on how to do certain things, we will always agree on why: to make people’s lives better and create a more just society.
We know that we need each other, we’re not perfect, leaders of our party have made mistakes, big ones. I know I have. But Democrats’ difference is that we recognize them, we take accountability. We are honest with ourselves because we know that’s the only way that things will be any different in the future.
That’s what makes us different as a party, that’s what makes us strong.
We didn’t win a Senate seat in Alabama or flip the House in 2018 by emulating the Republican Party. We didn’t elect Barack Obama twice because he ran away from his values, but because he embodied them. Candidates who show the best of who we are as a party are the ones who build winning campaigns.
So to those Democrats who are looking for an alternative right now — I want to make the case today very directly: look no further.
I can, and have, excited a diverse coalition of voters. I can, and have, united progressives and moderates.
And I will not divide this party and drag others down for the sake of a short-term polling boost — we need to keep the long-view in mind: not just winning a primary, but beating Trump. And then, bringing this country together to move us forward and make the promise of America more real for more people.
The Democratic Party is a diverse party. We have been since 1936, when Franklin Delano Roosevelt got 71 percent of the Black vote — including my own grandfather who switched from Republican to Democrat — because he believed in the bold vision FDR had for our country during a time of crisis.
In a party and a country that is only becoming more diverse, the ability to build multi-racial, multi-ethnic coalitions is not a nice-to-have — it’s a job requirement.
I’m the only person in this race who has demonstrated time and time again, with only my own name on the ballot, an ability to turn out the vote and win in a heavily Black electorate.
Starting with my first run for Newark City Council over 20 years ago, when I went door to door, standing in laundromats and at bus stops talking to voters — I won because we energized and engaged Democratic voters.
In 2013, I ran in a special election for a Senate seat. Instead of adding my race to the slate of regularly scheduled state elections, the Republican governor spent taxpayer money to hold my election on a random Wednesday in October — weeks before the general election.
And here’s why he may have done that: Black voters in my race accounted for 13 percent of the electorate. In his own general election competition just a few weeks later, Black voters accounted for just 9.7 percent of the electorate.
Let me say that again: my election on an unprecedented, random Wednesday in October got a significantly higher turnout of African Americans than his gubernatorial election that had many competitive races on the ballot.
And I have spent my entire career working in a majority black and brown community, taking on the most difficult challenges — from a broken criminal justice system to a broken health care system — and producing results for my neighbors.
What we need to understand right now as a party is that every successful struggle for justice in America — not to mention every winning Democratic coalition in modern times — has included the active participation and engagement of Black people.
In fact, in recent elections, African American women are engaged more and vote at higher rates than the national average.
This is our present, and this is our history.
That’s how we brought down segregation in Birmingham, marched from Selma to Montgomery and got the Voting Rights Act passed into law 54 years ago this summer.
Heck, that’s how we overcame the longest filibuster in Senate history.
That’s also how Democrats won in 2008 and 2012 and 2018.
And that’s how we win next year.
I hear a lot of Democrats talking about winning back the Midwest. Yes, I believe we as a party have to reach out to those voters who took a chance on Trump in 2016.
But we also win back the Midwest by turning out Black voters in Milwaukee and Detroit and Philadelphia who didn’t vote at all.
We win back the Midwest by empowering and energizing Muslim voters in Dearborn, Michigan.
We flip Georgia by inspiring Black voters in Dekalb and Asian American voters in Gwinnett.
We turn Texas blue by turning out Harris County, Tarrant County and Fort Bend County and energizing and exciting Asian American voters.
We win by engaging Latinx voters, and especially young Latinx voters across the country.
And we expand the map by using every resource at our disposal to combat voter suppression — 2016 wasn’t just the first presidential election after the first Black president, it was the first presidential election since 1965 where we didn’t have the full protection of the Voting Rights Act in place.
And let’s not make any mistake: it is precisely that diverse coalition of Democrats who will ultimately decide which Democrat will win this primary and go up against Donald Trump next year, and it is precisely that coalition we will need to beat Trump next year.
When my grandfather became a Democrat, he had lived through the terror of the Jim Crow South, he had made it through the Great Depression. And he became a Democrat because of the policies the Democratic Party stood for, but most importantly, because of who the Democratic Party fought for.
Because this was, and is the party of inclusion. It’s the party of people, all of the people. Factory workers and farm workers, the party of immigrants and descendants of slaves. It’s the party that believes in the dignity of work, and being there for people who are struggling. It is the party that believes that by bringing these folks together, in common cause and a greater common purpose, we can create a country where justice and opportunity are real for everyone.
I am here because of this legacy — heck we are all here because of this legacy. I was told I couldn’t pay these blessings back, I had to pay it forward — and thus, I’ve spent my career working to live up to this legacy — to deliver real results for people who are struggling.
In this campaign and in the Senate, I’ve put forward some of the most progressive plans and pieces of legislation on everything from criminal justice reform — legalizing marijuana and expunging records — to a federal jobs guarantee pilot program to get jobs to communities that need them.
I am proud to have been the first person in this race to put forward a comprehensive plan to create a national gun licensing system in America. I’m the only candidate who has committed to granting clemency to close to 17,000 non-violent drug offenders when I am elected.
And I’ve worked across the aisle to actually get things done — in Newark, I was the chief executive of our city during the Great Recession, which for a community that is already struggling, is like a depression.
I didn’t just talk about the injustice of people not being able to get a good job, or to buy fresh fruits and vegetables — I worked with both Democrats and Republicans to get investments into my city, to create jobs, build affordable housing and get grocery stores into food deserts. After 60 years of decline, Newark started growing again.
When I came down to Washington, where people told me that politics are broken, I got things done. I brought people together from across the country and across the aisle to get a bipartisan criminal justice reform bill passed into law that has already liberated thousands of people who should never have been in prison that long in the first place.
It’s not about compromising on values or settling for a squishy middle ground. It’s about getting things done for people who need help, and who need it urgently.
It’s about setting and keeping your north star, and pursuing solutions wherever you may find them, whomever’s idea they are, and regardless of the politics.
I’m running to represent the totality of our party — the values we fight for and the principles we believe in — and because the lines that divide us in our party, and in our country, are nowhere near as strong as the ties that bind us.
And I’m running to be the leader of our party, and our country because I believe we need a revival of civic grace in America.
Now people think this is the part where I start talking about love and unity as if I am talking about something that’s easy, or weak.
We can never confuse being strong within being cruel, being tough with being mean.
We don’t beat Donald Trump by being like Donald Trump.
The challenge of this election is to energize and excite and ignite people to believe in us as Democrats. We don’t do that by tearing each other down.
It’s one thing to have disagreements on ideas and policy, but it’s another if we start attacking the character and the values and even the sincerity of the candidates who are all working towards the same goal of beating Donald Trump and moving our country forward.
Those kinds of things make it harder for us to win as Democrats.
Particularly when all we’re doing is giving Donald Trump and his allies soundbites for their attack ads.
It makes it harder for us to win when we pit one wing of our party against another. When we exaggerate our differences with one another to score points.
It makes it harder for us to win when we forget who we’re fighting for is far more important than who we’re fighting against in this primary.
Tearing your fellow Democrats down may get you a temporary boost in the polls — but it’s not doing anything to help us choose the nominee who will beat Donald Trump, and could weaken our ultimate nominee.
We can’t pit our supporters against each other with binary litmus tests — that’s literally what Donald Trump and the Russians want. They want us to tear each other down.
We must be able to build multi-racial, multi-ethnic coalitions and unite progressive voters and moderate ones with a shared purpose.
That’s what it will take to win next spring and then to beat Donald Trump in the fall. I’m prepared to do that, I’m building a campaign to do that, and I’m the only one in this race who has proven I can do that.
But I want to be very clear — I’m running for president to do more than beat Donald Trump — because for communities like mine that’s the floor, not the ceiling.
It’s not enough.
I’m running for president to get a national gun licensing system passed into law that will save lives — because for all of the communities whose names we know — like Charleston and Pittsburgh, Las Vegas, El Paso — there are countless street corners and living rooms where the epidemic of gun violence remains unchecked.
I’m running for president to clean up the toxic water, soil and air that is poisoning our kids and to ensure that the United States is leading the globe in tackling the threat of climate change.
I’m running for president to end child poverty as we know it in America, because I believe that in the richest country on Earth no child should be falling behind in school because they can’t concentrate because they’re so hungry and no family should be living in poverty.
I’m running for President to ensure that work has dignity, to fight for the rights of all workers — fast food workers, domestic workers and home health workers — to organize and to earn a living wage with good benefits.
I’m running for president to overhaul our broken criminal justice system, to end the school to prison pipeline and to reinvest in the communities that have been hollowed out by the War on Drugs.
I’m running to be the leader of our party and the leader of our country who will unite Americans in common purpose to take on our toughest challenges, heal our country and make justice and opportunity real for everyone.
