Speaker 1: Broadcasting from the Hip Hop Weekly Studios.
Speaker 2: I'd like to welcome you to another episode of Civic Cipher,
Speaker 2: where our mission is to foster allyship empathy and understanding.
Speaker 2: I am your host, ramses Jah, and we are going
Speaker 2: to do something a little different today. We recently were
Speaker 2: able to have a conversation with a mayor of tim Pi, Arizona,
Speaker 2: who is a black man and who felt like it
Speaker 2: was important for us to have a conversation about the
Speaker 2: potential black future under a Kamala Harris administration. This was
Speaker 2: a particular interest to us because black men, if you
Speaker 2: follow the show, have been dealing with a lot of
Speaker 2: forces that we have not dealt with in the past,
Speaker 2: not the least of which is disinformation and misinformation, and
Speaker 2: at present, having an opportunity to elect the first black
Speaker 2: woman to the highest position in the world, you know,
Speaker 2: we felt like the challenges that black men are up
Speaker 2: against are they're they're significant, but the opportunity is also significant.
Speaker 2: And this gentleman, again he is an elected official, he
Speaker 2: was able to offer some insight that we thought would
Speaker 2: be very helpful. And so the format of today's show
Speaker 2: is going to sound a little different. We have recorded
Speaker 2: this conversation and we want to share it with you
Speaker 2: almost in its entirety, but of course, uh, you know,
Speaker 2: time constraints. So if you want the full version, of course,
Speaker 2: you're welcome to check out Civiccipher dot com. But we
Speaker 2: are going to forego a lot of the features that
Speaker 2: we normally hit you with this week because we felt
Speaker 2: that this conversation was just that important. And so, without
Speaker 2: further ado, this is myself, Ramsey's jaw to Ward and
Speaker 2: the mayor of Timpi, Arizona, Corey Woods, right here on
Speaker 2: Civic Cipher.
Speaker 3: You know, one of the things things that Q and
Speaker 3: I brush up against being from Arizona is that we
Speaker 3: are on a national stage, but we're not in a
Speaker 3: city like New York. We're not in a city like
Speaker 3: Los Angeles, and that's good and that's bad. Obviously, there's
Speaker 3: a lot of things that are happening in places like
Speaker 3: Atlanta for the types of conversations that we have on
Speaker 3: this show, so we miss out on some of those things.
Speaker 3: But every so often we get the reality of our situation,
Speaker 3: which is that we live in a swing state. We
Speaker 3: live in a state that really matters in terms of
Speaker 3: shaping the political future. Of this country, and we live
Speaker 3: in a state where we do have our own fair
Speaker 3: share of black excellence, and today we are going to
Speaker 3: celebrate some of that black excellence by having a conversation
Speaker 3: with someone from our own backyard. He goes by the
Speaker 3: name of Corey Woods. Now I'm going to let him
Speaker 3: give himself a proper introduction, but I really want to
Speaker 3: set up the conversation that I think that we're about
Speaker 3: to have for those who are longtime listeners of the show.
Speaker 3: You know that Q and I have had to, along
Speaker 3: with you, our listener, navigate this. You know, the politics
Speaker 3: in this country, and certainly within the last six months,
Speaker 3: so much has changed. We went from being very concerned
Speaker 3: about our future to having some hope and becoming organized
Speaker 3: and galvanizing our support and leveraging our platforms to try
Speaker 3: to create the changes that we want to see in
Speaker 3: the world. And I'd say in the same last six months,
Speaker 3: we've received lots of support from obviously you are listeners,
Speaker 3: but folks that we had never really anticipated being connected with.
Speaker 3: And I think that today will ultimately be a testament
Speaker 3: to that. So back to today's guest, Corey Woods. Around here
Speaker 3: where we live, he's him. He's him, He's the man,
Speaker 3: and he's someone that makes us all very proud. He's
Speaker 3: the mayor of Timp, Arizona. And for those who are
Speaker 3: not familiar with Arizona, Timp is where Arizona State University is.
Speaker 3: Timp is just a magnificent city. And to know that
Speaker 3: the mayor of that city is a black man who
Speaker 3: is someone that we again we can all be proud of,
Speaker 3: is just a feather in our cat for those of
Speaker 3: us that live here today, we want to talk about
Speaker 3: obviously what it means to vote locally and to you know,
Speaker 3: stay engaged in your local politics. We also want to
Speaker 3: have a conversation about the goings on nationally because obviously,
Speaker 3: in the same last six months, we now have Kamala Harris,
Speaker 3: as you know, the person on top of the Democratic ticket,
Speaker 3: and that changes things and there are still some folks
Speaker 3: who are trying to find their place in this elect
Speaker 3: this election season. And my hope is that today's conversation
Speaker 3: will help us kind of sit through the rest of
Speaker 3: the weeds and understand.
Speaker 1: What the wood is.
Speaker 3: So welcome to the show.
Speaker 1: So much for having me, really appreciate being.
Speaker 3: Here, and and again I didn't give enough of your background.
Speaker 1: I established who you are, but.
Speaker 3: Talk to us a bit about kind of your journey
Speaker 3: to becoming the mayor of Tempe.
Speaker 4: Sure, happy to So I moved to Arizona back in
Speaker 4: June of two thousand and three. So I've been here
Speaker 4: for a little over twenty one years, and originally came
Speaker 4: to be a graduate student at Arizota State University. And
Speaker 4: my thought initially was I was going to get a
Speaker 4: master's degree and spend a couple of years here in Tempe,
Speaker 4: and then go somewhere else and get a doctorate. Because
Speaker 4: my thought process was I was going to become a
Speaker 4: college professor. And after about a year and a half
Speaker 4: of being here, I really fell in love with temp
Speaker 4: and I fell in love with the state of Arizona
Speaker 4: in general, and so I made the decision that I
Speaker 4: wanted to stay. I ended up in two thousand and five,
Speaker 4: only two years after arriving, running for the city council
Speaker 4: in Tempe, and that was actually not a successful venture.
Speaker 4: That first time. I was a person who'd been in
Speaker 4: student government my entire life, probably from fifth grade all
Speaker 4: the way through my sophomore year of college, and thought
Speaker 4: to myself, Oh, this is probably very much of the same.
Speaker 4: I mean, I've run a lot of races, much smaller
Speaker 4: races for student government and been very successful, but that
Speaker 4: was the first time I really understood how politics worked
Speaker 4: at a much bigger level. At that point, it was
Speaker 4: a city about one hundred and seventy five thousand people,
Speaker 4: and they had a lot of very deep familial connections
Speaker 4: to people. They had a lot of those folks in
Speaker 4: Tempe had gone to school together, they had gone to
Speaker 4: church together, they babysat one another's kids.
Speaker 1: And here I was.
Speaker 4: I was a twenty six, twenty seven year old guy
Speaker 4: who didn't really have much history in the city other
Speaker 4: than being a grad student at what is the largest
Speaker 4: public university in the entire country, and so didn't win
Speaker 4: that race, but got more involved in the community. I
Speaker 4: had a lot of folks who reached out after I
Speaker 4: didn't win, who said, look, we don't want you to
Speaker 4: think that we didn't like you. We just didn't know you.
Speaker 4: The other people who were running were people who had
Speaker 4: They had been around for a long time, and so
Speaker 4: we just had much more familiarity with them. But we
Speaker 4: would encourage you, if you really want to stay here,
Speaker 4: to get involved. And next thing, you know, from being
Speaker 4: on I wasn't on any boards or commissions or anything
Speaker 4: of that nature. Within about two or three months, all
Speaker 4: of a sudden, I was on five people said, hey,
Speaker 4: I was impressed with what you did, and if you
Speaker 4: were interested in helping people out who were experiencing food insecurity,
Speaker 4: or who were struggling to pay their rent or or
Speaker 4: threatening to have their lights turned off because of insufficient payment.
Speaker 4: You know, there's a board called the Attempee Community Action
Speaker 4: Agency Board and they help people with all that, and
Speaker 4: you could be a really good young voice to be
Speaker 4: part of that group. I talked a lot about youth
Speaker 4: issues and how we can set up our young people
Speaker 4: to be successful moving forward into the future. And so
Speaker 4: people came and said, well, you know, the Boys and
Speaker 4: Girls Club board has a spot for someone like you
Speaker 4: and if you would like to join, you should join.
Speaker 4: And so that kept happening. So gradually I'm now involved
Speaker 4: in all of these things. And about a year later,
Speaker 4: there was a seat that was coming open on the
Speaker 4: City Council in two thousand and eight, and I had
Speaker 4: a number of people who reached out and said, would
Speaker 4: you consider running again? And you know, at that point,
Speaker 4: being a little bit more sophisticated at the ripe age
Speaker 4: of twenty eight, I said, well, look, are you gonna
Speaker 4: support me if I run? Are you just asking? Because
Speaker 4: you know, I mean, sometimes people see traffic accidents on
Speaker 4: the side of the road, and many times people slow
Speaker 4: down to see what's going on, but they don't stop
Speaker 4: to help. They just watch and then they drive away.
Speaker 4: But when enough people said no, I really I want
Speaker 4: to help, you know. I'll help you knock on some
Speaker 4: doors and make some phone calls. I'll write you a
Speaker 4: check myself. We'll open up our home and invite our
Speaker 4: neighbors and our friends and the folks that we go
Speaker 4: to church with. And I said, at that point, you know,
Speaker 4: then you got yourself a candidate. And so I was
Speaker 4: fortunate that at the age of twenty nine, I got
Speaker 4: elected to the city council. I was probably the second
Speaker 4: or third youngest council member to ever win. I was
Speaker 4: the first African American council member to ever win. And
Speaker 4: that surprises people a lot because Tempee's been around since
Speaker 4: eighteen seventy four, and so the notion that that was
Speaker 4: the first time a black person got on the city
Speaker 4: council in two thousand and eight to a lot of
Speaker 4: people was very shocking, but indeed that's what it was.
Speaker 4: And so it was fortunate to serve two terms on council.
Speaker 4: So I was there from twenty eight to twenty sixteen
Speaker 4: and spend a lot of time working on affordable housing
Speaker 4: and economic development and improving transportation infrastructure. And we're one
Speaker 4: of the few cities that doesn't have term limits, so
Speaker 4: I could have run for a third term, but I
Speaker 4: was thirty seven at that point and thought, you know,
Speaker 4: most of my life has been spent at this point
Speaker 4: doing public service work. You also in politics, especially in
Speaker 4: these jobs for the state legislature and city council, you
Speaker 4: don't make any real money. And because people see you
Speaker 4: walking around in a suit and they go, oh, you
Speaker 4: must be making a good living, I'm like, nope. And
Speaker 4: if I'm making a good living, it's because I'm working
Speaker 4: another job that really is my primary job, that allows
Speaker 4: me to keep a roof over my head and have
Speaker 4: a car payment every month. So I thought to myself
Speaker 4: at thirty seven, I'd like to kind of take on
Speaker 4: some new challenges, and to do that, I think it's
Speaker 4: time to probably step away from politics, at least for
Speaker 4: the time being, and that's what I did. In July
Speaker 4: twenty sixteen, I left. But about a year or so
Speaker 4: after I was out, I began to think that maybe
Speaker 4: I want to go back, but maybe I to go
Speaker 4: back in the role of mayor because I'll have a
Speaker 4: little bit more authority and a little bit more frankly
Speaker 4: influence to really drive the agenda for the city of
Speaker 4: ten be as opposed to just having the opportunity to
Speaker 4: vote on a Thursday night. Council members many times have
Speaker 4: the ability we all have one vote per person. I
Speaker 4: have one vote. Every one of my council members is
Speaker 4: one vote. But the mayor is the one who typically
Speaker 4: gets interviewed by the press. They're the ones who people
Speaker 4: tend to come to the most to say what's the
Speaker 4: direction on this project or what's the overall vision and
Speaker 4: the sort of narrative for the city. And I wanted
Speaker 4: the opportunity to present that. So it was fortunate enough
Speaker 4: to run in twenty twenty. I won in March of
Speaker 4: twenty twenty, assumed office in July of twenty twenty, and
Speaker 4: not a very quiet time and the history of this
Speaker 4: country during the middle of the COVID pandemic. Matter of fact,
Speaker 4: I won on March tenth of twenty twenty, and about
Speaker 4: two days later, on the twelfth, was when pretty much
Speaker 4: everything shut down due to the COVID nineteen pandemic. And
Speaker 4: I remember my consult at the time came to me,
Speaker 4: Eric Chalmers, and Eric said to me, you know, well, hey,
Speaker 4: I mean, you were the first black mayor of the
Speaker 4: city of temp We're going to get tons of run
Speaker 4: out of this. They're gonna be talking about this for weeks.
Speaker 4: And two days later, pretty much everyone told people, you know,
Speaker 4: take your laptop and your power cable and go home
Speaker 4: and don't come back until we tell you to come back.
Speaker 4: So I did about one full day of interviews and
Speaker 4: then it was over that I was home with everybody else.
Speaker 1: But it's been it's been a wild ride.
Speaker 4: I mean I was fortunate and I served that you know,
Speaker 4: first four years, and got reelected this past March. I
Speaker 4: was fortunate not to have an opponent in my reelection,
Speaker 4: so I got about ninety five percent of the vote
Speaker 4: and started my second term this past July second. So
Speaker 4: I'm very very new to this second term. But just
Speaker 4: like the first term, I have a very big agenda
Speaker 4: and a lot of things I'd like to accomplish. But
Speaker 4: you know that's a little bit about me. But I'm
Speaker 4: just excited to be here both of you today.
Speaker 5: So TIMP is a really easy place to fall in
Speaker 5: love with. I came to Arizona February of two thousand
Speaker 5: and three. I was supposed to be here for three
Speaker 5: days one years ago, so you know, I had a
Speaker 5: very very similar experience to you. Came and never left.
Speaker 5: You have a very interesting role. You have your constituents
Speaker 5: here and timpe who are you responsible for? You answer
Speaker 5: to who you legislate on behalf of. But the stakes
Speaker 5: of the political process in this country right now are
Speaker 5: very high, and people like yourself and other leaders from
Speaker 5: around the country are doing their job for their city,
Speaker 5: for their state, for the area they represent, but also
Speaker 5: getting involved on a national level to shape these very
Speaker 5: very high stake outcomes that we have facing us.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 5: What are some things that Vice President Harris has done
Speaker 5: or should do in your opinion, to engage with those
Speaker 5: who may have supported her in the past but are
Speaker 5: still trying to figure out how they're going to vote,
Speaker 5: or things that she can do to earn the votes,
Speaker 5: especially for those that look like us black men.
Speaker 4: So one of the main reasons why I'm supporting her
Speaker 4: is the number one issue that I've worked on during
Speaker 4: my now thirteen years of being intellected office in TEMP
Speaker 4: is housing, and of the two candidates running, she is
Speaker 4: the only one, from my perspective, with a very proactive,
Speaker 4: forward thinking plan for how to address the housing crisis
Speaker 4: in this country. We have a real housing affordability crisis
Speaker 4: in this country. We also have a real housing supply
Speaker 4: shortage in this country, and the Vice president's plan is
Speaker 4: talking about finding a way to build three million new
Speaker 4: homes in our country, which are desperately needed. We need
Speaker 4: more affordable and attainable housing for people who truly need it.
Speaker 4: But part of the problem also is the lack of
Speaker 4: housing supply causes the cost or price of the existing
Speaker 4: homes to drive way up. Because if people know, like
Speaker 4: if you live in an apartment complex, which I do,
Speaker 4: we can talk about that a little bit later as
Speaker 4: well lived there for four and a half years, right
Speaker 4: in the heart of downtown TEMP. If there is not
Speaker 4: a lot of apartments or multi family units in your area,
Speaker 4: and your landlord at the company can charge you whatever
Speaker 4: they want to charge you, because their perspective is, well,
Speaker 4: where are.
Speaker 1: You going to go?
Speaker 4: You could threaten them and say I'm going to leave
Speaker 4: and go somewhere down the street, then well, good luck
Speaker 4: trying to go down the street. So the benefit of
Speaker 4: having more units and more competition in the marketplace is
Speaker 4: it has the ability to stabilize the rent someone and
Speaker 4: perhaps bring them down. Matter back to the city of Tempe.
Speaker 4: Over the last six months, we actually saw about a
Speaker 4: three percent decrease in apartment rates in our community, and
Speaker 4: that's largely because we're greenlighting so many more units in
Speaker 4: the affordable, workforce and market rate categories for people who
Speaker 4: need housing. And so when I see the Vice president's
Speaker 4: plan and talking about how do we build three million
Speaker 4: more homes across this country to give people opportunities whether
Speaker 4: they're home ownership or rental, that's really, from my perspective,
Speaker 4: the kind of forward thinking leadership I want out of
Speaker 4: a presidential candidate. When we're talking about a twenty five
Speaker 4: thousand dollars first time home buyers credit for people who
Speaker 4: are looking to purchase on because as we know, a
Speaker 4: lot of younger people have frank give it up on
Speaker 4: the whole dream of home ownership. That was something I mean,
Speaker 4: I'm almost forty six, where you know, that was something
Speaker 4: we still very much believed was within reach. And I
Speaker 4: have owned a home at one point in my adult life.
Speaker 4: But there are a lot of people I know in
Speaker 4: their twenties who've just said, I don't think I'll ever
Speaker 4: own a home when I look at the cost of housing,
Speaker 4: when I look at interest rates, when I look at
Speaker 4: how much I have to pay for rent just on
Speaker 4: a monthly basis, how am I ever supposed to save
Speaker 4: enough money to put aside a ten, fifteen or twenty
Speaker 4: percent down payment so I can actually achieve home ownership
Speaker 4: at some point in my life. So the housing issue
Speaker 4: for me is very critical, and for me, it's probably
Speaker 4: the most important issue that this country faces. And she's
Speaker 4: the only candidate I see who's actually having a real
Speaker 4: conversation with not just the black community but Americans in
Speaker 4: general about how do we not only accreate increase housing affordability,
Speaker 4: but how do we actually put more supply into the
Speaker 4: marketplace so people who want homes have the opportunity to
Speaker 4: do to obtain them.
Speaker 3: You know, there's about you know, housing supply One of
Speaker 3: the things that I learned recently, and you can speak
Speaker 3: to this, perhaps more intelligently than I can, is that
Speaker 3: incentivizing builders to build housing that's affordable is it can
Speaker 3: be challenging because builders have a tendency to want to
Speaker 3: build luxury housing units. They can charge a premium their
Speaker 3: maintenance and whatever the operating costs are minimal or whatever
Speaker 3: their motivations are. I'm sure they're fiscal capitalism.
Speaker 1: Of course, but.
Speaker 3: You know, when it comes to which candidate can actually
Speaker 3: bring about some real change for real.
Speaker 4: People, well, and a luxury housing developer who has a
Speaker 4: history of not renting to people who look like the
Speaker 4: three of us, you know, so that's obviously critically important
Speaker 4: to me. Not only was he many times building housing
Speaker 4: that wasn't attainable for a lot of people in our
Speaker 4: country because of income levels, but even if people like
Speaker 4: you and I or the three of us walked in
Speaker 4: with the cash or with the credit to actually rent,
Speaker 4: we would have likely been turned away for some kind
Speaker 4: of phony reason as to why they didn't want us
Speaker 4: in his apartment complex. So, you know, that kind of
Speaker 4: track record, to me, is very critically important when I'm
Speaker 4: thinking about the character of the person who should be
Speaker 4: sitting in the oval office of the first place. But
Speaker 4: when I look at zoning in general, and I understand
Speaker 4: why zoning exists, but it also has some very troubling
Speaker 4: roots in a lot of ways. I mean, it was
Speaker 4: created sort of back in the nineteen twenties as a
Speaker 4: way sometimes to do rentline, to keep certain people out
Speaker 4: of certain neighborhoods, people who folks thought were undesirable or
Speaker 4: objectionable people. And so, you know, I understand why it
Speaker 4: still exists, and I think the system has been set
Speaker 4: up in such a way that you're always going to
Speaker 4: have some form of zoning in local cities in towns,
Speaker 4: so the elected officials and residents have some ability to
Speaker 4: sort of dictate the course of where things will go.
Speaker 4: But I also don't think that zoning policies should be
Speaker 4: so onerous that it makes it hard to build anything
Speaker 4: other than single family detached houses. And sometimes that is
Speaker 4: still very much to the case. Zoning can be a
Speaker 4: real impediment to developers building anything, or it simply slows
Speaker 4: down the process so much that a lot of people
Speaker 4: simply just throw up their hands and walk away. And
Speaker 4: so I've been very very encouraged by what I've heard
Speaker 4: from Vice President Harris, but also you know, watching the
Speaker 4: Democratic National Convention and hearing former President Obama have that
Speaker 4: conversation and say, look, we have to do we have
Speaker 4: to talk have a real conversation in this country about
Speaker 4: zoning reform so we can try to find ways to
Speaker 4: remove some of the red tape and some of the
Speaker 4: barriers that either preventing additional homes from being built and
Speaker 4: of course therefore preventing people from actually obtaining quality housing
Speaker 4: that they need to survive and raise their kids and
Speaker 4: live a happy, comfortable life. So we have to have
Speaker 4: these conversations. And I only hear one political party really
Speaker 4: having that conversation at a national level, and I only
Speaker 4: hear one candidate, which is Vice Preident Harris, during this
Speaker 4: cycle actually really have a good conversation. And I say
Speaker 4: that because, look, I watch both conventions. I was at
Speaker 4: the Democratic National Convention this year in Chicago, so I
Speaker 4: spent four nights out in Chicago going to all the
Speaker 4: different events and listening to the speakers. But I also
Speaker 4: watched the Republican National Convention on TV because I do
Speaker 4: think it's critically important to understand what both sides are
Speaker 4: saying when we're having very important policy decisions that have
Speaker 4: the ability to determine the future of this country. And
Speaker 4: I didn't hear much conversation about this during the RNC.
Speaker 4: I heard the conversations from, as I said, Vice President
Speaker 4: Harris and former President Barack Obama. They were the ones
Speaker 4: talking about zoning reform. They were the ones talking about
Speaker 4: building more units. They were the ones talking about twenty
Speaker 4: five thousand dollars worth of down payment assistance to first
Speaker 4: time home buyers. And they were the only ones talking
Speaker 4: about giving middle class people a tax cut, not just
Speaker 4: simply the wealthy who don't need it anyway. So that's
Speaker 4: why I'm out here supporting Vice President Harris, and I'm
Speaker 4: going to do everything I can to help get her
Speaker 4: across the finish line on November fifth.
Speaker 5: So there is a spooky term, and spooky is me
Speaker 5: being kind an agenda that is becoming obvious, an obvious
Speaker 5: point of intention between both parties, and that is our
Speaker 5: former president and Project twenty twenty five. I think a
Speaker 5: lot of our country wasn't really paying attention to that.
Speaker 5: And then Ramsen I remember Traji p Henson used her
Speaker 5: time Live on television in front of a camera to
Speaker 5: bring a lot of attention to this. The amount of
Speaker 5: times it was Google skyrocketed after that, and then our
Speaker 5: former president tried to distance himself from something that we
Speaker 5: all know he's very very much aligned with a lot
Speaker 5: of our listeners. However, a lot of our colleagues don't
Speaker 5: have time to go through a nine hundred page document,
Speaker 5: which I'm sure they counted on. Are there some things
Speaker 5: that it out in Project twenty twenty five to you
Speaker 5: that could have very obvious negative impacts on black people,
Speaker 5: people of color, and poor people in this country.
Speaker 4: The first thing I can think about is Project twenty
Speaker 4: twenty five talks about the notion of a national abortion ban,
Speaker 4: which former President Trump and you know, Senator Advance keep
Speaker 4: trying to run away for, even though both of them,
Speaker 4: at various points during their political careers, and not frankly
Speaker 4: even that long ago, are both publicly on record as
Speaker 4: saying that they support national abortion bands. And so that
Speaker 4: is specifically spelled out in Project twenty twenty five as
Speaker 4: one of its main goals and objectives. And my perspective
Speaker 4: has always been you need to let women have the
Speaker 4: you know, they need to have control over their own
Speaker 4: bodies and have the right to make those decisions with
Speaker 4: their own health care provider. But they don't need me
Speaker 4: in the waiting room with them, and they assurely don't
Speaker 4: need the government, and they're making decisions for what's best
Speaker 4: for them and what's best for their families when it
Speaker 4: comes to their own health care and reproductive rights. And
Speaker 4: so that's one of the things in Project twenty twenty five.
Speaker 4: I think that concerns a lot of people. I think
Speaker 4: also when you think about too the notion of repealing
Speaker 4: the Affordable Care Act, or as many people will call it, Obamacare,
Speaker 4: that the Affordable Care Act has frankly saved lives. It
Speaker 4: has helped families by the notion of people being young
Speaker 4: people being able to stay on their parents' insurance until
Speaker 4: they're twenty six years old. The Affordable Care Act is
Speaker 4: also what allows a lot of people to actually take
Speaker 4: the chance to start small businesses, which a lot of
Speaker 4: people on the conservative side say is very critically important
Speaker 4: to them. But many times, if you have a pre
Speaker 4: existing condition, or if you have a family, or just
Speaker 4: even for yourself, say I need to have quality health care.
Speaker 4: So in case I happen to get sick for whatever reason,
Speaker 4: I have some means to go to the doctor or
Speaker 4: get a prescription for an antibiotic. But if I don't
Speaker 4: have access to that, I'm going to probably end up
Speaker 4: just working for a company and not being an entrepreneur,
Speaker 4: because I'll be concerned that if God forbid, I get sick,
Speaker 4: I don't have any means to take care of myself.
Speaker 4: And so the Affordable Care Act, I think has opened
Speaker 4: up an opportunity for a lot of small business people
Speaker 4: and entrepreneurs to really kind of release that power of
Speaker 4: innovation and to really follow their dreams and do the
Speaker 4: things that they are really called to do on this earth.
Speaker 4: But without the Affordable Care Act, you're going to have
Speaker 4: a lot of people that's going to be a real challenge.
Speaker 4: And I thought it was interesting the other night when
Speaker 4: I heard Senator Vance talking about how, you know, Donald
Speaker 4: Trump was trying very hard to save the Affordable Care
Speaker 4: Act and actually under him it got better. I don't
Speaker 4: know where that came from. That is one of the
Speaker 4: wildest things I've heard in quite some time. I Mean,
Speaker 4: he came into office back in early twenty seventeen on
Speaker 4: a pledge that I'm going to repeal the Affordable Care
Speaker 4: Act that he kept, you know, pushing the Republican Congress
Speaker 4: at the time to find ways to get rid of it.
Speaker 1: And they never had a plan to actually take care
Speaker 1: of it.
Speaker 4: And obviously at some point voters caught on and realize
Speaker 4: this was just simply political rhetoric to gin up your base.
Speaker 4: But you never really had any plans to do this.
Speaker 4: And and even now when he's asked about a plan
Speaker 4: for healthcare and public he says, I have the concepts
Speaker 4: of a plan.
Speaker 1: Sir.
Speaker 4: You've been in public life since the year twenty fifteen,
Speaker 4: when you first wrote down that escalator and spewed some
Speaker 4: of the most hateful, bigoted rhetoric that I've ever heard
Speaker 4: in politics. It seems like in nine years you and
Speaker 4: the people around you would have actually come up with
Speaker 4: some kind of a plan. But that goes back to
Speaker 4: the point. Project twenty twenty five is an over nine
Speaker 4: hundred page document that outlines exactly what his plan is
Speaker 4: if he happens to make it back into the White House.
Speaker 4: And I tell people all the time, don't be fooled
Speaker 4: about the notion. I wasn't aware of this. I never
Speaker 4: read it. He probably has never read it. But you know,
Speaker 4: I don't think anyone really mistakes him for being much
Speaker 4: of a policy person at times. But the fact of
Speaker 4: the matter is this was written by his friends and
Speaker 4: his close allies, which he will then utilize to rule
Speaker 4: over this country. I mean that would be like me
Speaker 4: having my brother and my father and all my closest
Speaker 4: friends write a nine hundred page document that they clearly
Speaker 4: didn't write overnight, and they did over a series of months,
Speaker 4: if not years, and for me not to know anything
Speaker 4: about what was actually going on. I think most people
Speaker 4: would find that very hard to believe. And that's why
Speaker 4: when he continuously tries to distance himself from Project twenty
Speaker 4: twenty five, I think a lot of people throw a
Speaker 4: flag on the play. I think they realize that does
Speaker 4: not add up. There is no way that all of
Speaker 4: these people and all of these minds got together to
Speaker 4: craft this very cohesive, comprehensive policy document, only for you
Speaker 4: to say I know nothing about it. So when you
Speaker 4: hear these things about repealing the Affordable Care Act, or
Speaker 4: implementing a national abortion ban, or trying to raise taxes
Speaker 4: on middle class people, this is absolutely what they intend
Speaker 4: to do, and absolutely what he intends to do should
Speaker 4: he make it back to the White House. And I
Speaker 4: think it's our job to ensure that we get the
Speaker 4: word out, talk to our family, talk to our friends,
Speaker 4: and talk to our neighbors to ensure that Donald Trump
Speaker 4: is not elected again and that Vice President Kamala Harris
Speaker 4: becomes the next president of the United States this coming
Speaker 4: January