Where We Go From Here (Pete Buttgieg)

Hey, it’s Pete. I know a lot of us were frustrated and disappointed to see Congress pass the so-called beautiful bill and Donald Trump sign it, giving himself and his fellow billionaires a tax cut, paying for it by cutting health care off for millions of Americans and blowing up the deficit while they did it.

This bill is full of destructive measures that will make life in America worse. It will make America sicker, literally, with thousands of people expected to die sooner because of the loss of health care. It’ll make America hungrier, literally, by cutting food aid that goes to worthy Americans who need the help, all in order to make sure that the wealthiest get a tax break that they don’t need and that many of them weren’t even asking for.

Seeing something like that, seeing Congress and the president break their promises and ignore the American people, is enough to make us question the basics of our democratic republic. But I think it’s really important at a moment like this to understand that that’s not the end, it’s the beginning.

It is too late to stop President Trump from signing that bill, but it’s not too late to change what happens next. Many of the worst provisions of this law don’t take effect for one or two or three years, which means it’s not too late to elect leaders who will do something different. We can still change these policies. With the right leadership, we can make sure that the wealthy do pay their fair share and we can save the lives of the Americans who are going to lose their health insurance in the next few years if this bill is not changed.

We can also change what happens politically, making sure there’s actually a price to be paid for breaking your promises. It’s not just Donald Trump who signed this bill or Vice President J.D. Vance who broke the tie in the Senate so that this unpopular bill could pass. The Senate being evenly divided, the vice president votes in the affirmative, the bill as amended is passed. It’s my member of Congress and so many members of Congress around this country who promised not to cut healthcare and then turned around and did it anyway.

I think I’ll be very, very direct to look your viewers in the eye and say, unfortunately, the other party, that would be the Democrats, have chosen to try to scare constituents that your benefits—Medicaid—is going to be cut. That is not true. I’ve been very clear in this and that I will not support any proposal that cuts benefits or reduces services for Medicare or Medicaid.

How much would you like to see cut from Medicaid? Well, there is zero—zero—mention of cutting Medicaid. Maybe your member of Congress did that or your senators.

Now’s the chance to make sure that there is a consequence to that, a political price to pay for facing down the American people, increasing all of our costs through a higher deficit and taking away healthcare from people who need it. We can make sure that that isn’t something you can just do and not pay a political price, but only if we step up.

And that’s not something that just happens a few days before November next year. It needs to be happening now, every single day. A million things are going to happen between now and next year’s elections. We need to make sure every single day the American people are reminded of what happened and politicians are being held responsible.

That’s not up to anyone in Washington’s halls of power. It’s up to us. We decide what happens next. I’m going to be out there doing my part and I hope you will too.