The Center for American Progress (CAP) hosts its 2026 IDEAS Conference

Added: 2026-05-24

[00:00:02]Good morning everyone. How you doing?

[00:00:07]We are excited to host thinkers, activists, leaders, Americans from across the country to this year's ideas conference and to welcome the thousands of people online tuning in. We are thrilled to have next generation leaders from every part of our country, all offering new ideas on the path forward.

[00:00:32]But as we look to the future, we cannot ignore the present.

[00:00:38]The truth is, we are meeting at a dark moment in our nation's history with rampant corruption, division, and a sense of misery for the middle class. Consider just the last few weeks. Partisan justices of the Supreme Court working to wipe out black political power in the South. Trump's Treasury Department settling an $1.8 billion slush fund with their po boss Donald Trump and his political allies. A slush fund that you and I are paying for.

[00:01:18]Trump's war with Iran driving gas prices up to five dollars across the country on top of the pain of tariffs. Inflation outstripping wages for the first time in years.

[00:01:34]The good news is the American people are waking up and realizing finally that the Trump administration is failing and failing them. His decisions and his decisions alone are making life less affordable for all of Americans, including the working-class people who he got to vote for them. These are policy failures.

[00:02:02]Still, to escape the cycle of polarization, I believe we need to address not only Trump's current failings, but his rise.

[00:02:14]In 2010, at the height of the Great Recession, about 60% of Americans agreed that they could improve their standard of living in the future. In 2024, that number was just 25%.

[00:02:31]That is a high level of pessimism for the future. And I believe pessimism begets fear. And when people are fearful, it is much easier to hate.

[00:02:43]to forcefully challenge the polarization we are living through. I believe we need to confront that pessimism and fear. The fact is Americans feel stuck because they are more stuck. It is harder to move up. Kids born in the 1940s had n a 90% chance of doing better than their parents. Kids born in the 1980s, it's just a coin flip. And it's less today than even then. It's no wonder that today only a quarter of Americans feel like the American dream is real, less than any point in modern American history.

[00:03:25]So my friends, I believe it is crucial that we criticize Trump's policies for the harms that he's doing, but it is not enough.

[00:03:37]The country is demanding a vision of how the future will be better than the past for all of us. Restoration is not sufficient.

[00:03:48]We cannot just go back to days gone by.

[00:03:52]We cannot tinker.

[00:03:55]It is time for transformation with ideas that meet the scale of the problem with an ambition that meets the scale of people's desperation.

[00:04:06]forging a new social contract in the country where hard work pays. Where striving one of us, every single one of us can go as far as our talents take us. Where we believe our children will be better off than we are. A vision that offers hope.

[00:04:28]An agenda that tackles what is failing and makes it work again for all of us.

[00:04:35]My friends, I believe we can use this dark moment as a springboard to a better, stronger, fairer country, but we will not do that with circular firing squads. Although we know how to do that well, we will be do we will do it by building a big resilient broad majority in the country. A big tent where we stretch ourselves to welcome converts just as we celebrate stalwarts. An army big enough to not just win the next battle, but win the war to end the politics of hate. I believe our country is worth fighting for. I think this is the fight of our lives. And I do believe that when we offer better ideas, we will win. And I am so thrilled that at today's CAP Ideas Conference, we will have new leaders discussing those very ideas to make our world and country better. Thank you for all Thank you all for being here.

[00:05:46]We're excited.

[00:05:51]Speaking of fighting, I am thrilled to uh to have our first major speaker of the day, Senator Ruben Ggo, who has a fighter in so many ways. He deployed to the Iraq war as a Marine fighting in infantry men of a Marine a Marine infantry men in 2005 with a unit that took some of the heaviest casualties of that war. He knows America must always have a plan to win the fight and to help our soldiers when they get home. With troops once again in conflict that the president can't explain to Congress or the country, that mission could not be more urgent. So, please give a big welcome to Senator Ruben Ggo, who will discuss his views on national security and a vision for the future. Senator Ggo.

[00:06:53]Thank you, Ner, for the introduction and thank you Center for American Progress for bringing us together. I'm here today because right now UNC our country is in danger.

[00:07:04]Will this president continue to drag America into another endless Middle East war while families struggle to pay for groceries, gas, rent, mortgage? and where are the voices that are standing for them right now.

[00:07:17]We're serious about solving the problems of the world and problems facing Americans and we have to deal with a simple truth. We have to fight for the country that we want.

[00:07:29]As a Marine, I deployed to Iraq and I've lived the idea firsthand that foreign policy starts at home. Our standing in the world is only as strong as the economy and the values that we show in this country. When we engage abroad, it must be with a clear plan, a moral compass, and a deep respect for working Americans who pay the price when things go wrong, either with their livelihoods or with their taxes. Whether it's the cost of gasoline or the life of a young Marine, the stakes of our leadership are measured in the kitchens and the living rooms of places like Phoenix in Tucson, not just Washington DC and Alexandria.

[00:08:08]Right now, Americans are getting squeezed from every direction.

[00:08:12]When you look at the price of gas right now at $5 a gallon in Arizona alone, the soaring cost of groceries and housing, these just aren't abstract data points.

[00:08:21]These are the direct consequences of a war of choice in Iran. This is a war that wasn't planned, wasn't authorized, and is not making us safer. Trump got his war, and working families got stuck with the bill. Every day consumers are paying price, paying the price at the pump. In Arizona, if you can't afford to fill that gas tank, that means you can't go to work. You can't go to school. You can't truly live the American dream.

[00:08:50]This administration has not thought any of this through.

[00:08:54]They left our oil reserves low and failed to even work with our allies to prepare for the calamity that came. They thought this would be easy, which is exactly what I heard before I went to Iraq. Let me tell you, it wasn't easy.

[00:09:09]They thought Iran won't push back. And tragically, they're deeply wrong. This war, this war of choice is costing us a billion dollar a day. $1 billion a day.

[00:09:22]And think what we could be doing with that money right now. not just building ballrooms, but think how we could be finding our schools, supporting our veterans, and trying to take care of those that are just trying to make it every day.

[00:09:37]For me, this feels like déja vu. Trump and his lackis are more than happy to send 18-year-old boys and girls to war, just like they did to me and my brothers 21 years ago. And now, when the president comes to Congress asking for more money, he's not even asking for support for our veterans that are still hurting. Now he's still asking for money for his insurrectionists buddies and to build a stupid ballroom.

[00:10:01]It's disgraceful. It's disgraceful that we have veterans that are still lacking and yet he doesn't fight for them. The guys I serve with in Ohio, New Mexico and Arizona and even the Arizonans back home, they tell me right now they're hurting. They tell me they're just not making it and they're not making enough and that their communities, their families are truly suffering.

[00:10:22]What do we hear from this administration? Trump. The Republicans are cutting Medicaid for the poorest of Americans and kicking families off food stamps when grocery prices are jumping through the roof. And to add insult to injury, it's not just a matter of funding priorities. He's taxing all them at the same time. He's raising tariffs that cost the average American family $1,200 a year. The average American family cannot take more than a $700 fluctuation in a year. And where is this president at for them? Unfortunately, the mess in the Middle East is not the only mess this president is about to create. You've all seen the news. Trump is laying the groundwork now for his next endeavor, invading Cuba.

[00:11:06]For what? He's not responding to some kind of new threat. He's manufacturing one and using it to build a case, a case, an illegal case with war in Cuba.

[00:11:18]Here's my solution to all this. It's quite complicated, so you have to really pay attention. Don't start stupid wars.

[00:11:31]End this war in Iran as fast as possible. Stop the unauthorized strikes off Colombia and Venezuela. And make this administration answer for every dollar they have miss, misallocated, and misdirected. And then we can actually start moving into a place where the American family is thought of first and not last. Yes, America first. Does that sound familiar? We can build that country that we want. Now, I see on Twitter all the time, well, if you're against the war in Iran, why do you support the war in Ukraine? Let me be clear. The Ukrainian people are fighting for their independence, and it's in our strategic interest to make sure that they win, that Europe wins, and that we all win and defeat Russia. I am proud to have spent 10 years the Armed Services Committee and I'll soon be heading actually to the Black Sea Conference in Odessa, Ukraine later this month. I want to see firsthand what is stopping Putin on the Black Sea. What Ukraine's fight can teach us about the future of warfare. And my message to Ukrainians, to Americans, and to our allies, Ukraine can win this war, and Ukraine must win this war. If we turn our backs on them now, it will be a moral strain stain on this country, something that we will regret for generations to come. And perhaps more importantly, our allies will never forget it or forgive us. It is more than just a moral obligation. It is a strategic masterclass if we succeed. And the Ukrainians are showing us the future of warfare now, creating better systems when they knew they could not engage in a bullet forbullet war.

[00:13:06]They've essentially destroyed 26% of the Russia's Russians Black Sea fleet. And how do they do it? Not with a$1 13 billion aircraft carrier, but with lowc cost baby Navy drones that cost less than $20,000.

[00:13:19]They are providing and proving what we need to know and that we don't need to spend tens of billions of dollars on outdated legacy systems that are sitting ducks in a modern conflict and only will cost our taxpayers more and more.

[00:13:32]Ukraine is showing us a future of warfare and they are meeting the moment one drone at a time. We need to learn these lessons for our own defense. If we haven't seen what happened in Iran already, we need to move from deterrence by punishment, waiting for invasion, then reacting to deterrence by denial so that our neighbors, our enemies think again of invading either Ukraine, the Baltics, or Taiwan. We need to align our industrial base with our allies to ensure we produce cheap, scalable missions that actually win modern conflicts. And we can't keep building the weapons of the last century while adversaries are innovating and fighting the future wars.

[00:14:10]Coming out of the Trump summit, one thing is not negotiable. America does not trade away Taiwan's security for photo op or cheap words. We must we must uphold our long-standing commitments to Taiwan, continue our arm sales, and strengthens Taiwan's self-defense capabilities. And the commitment is not only because Taiwan produces chips that our economy depends on. It's because if we abandon Taiwan, the world will abandon us. America's asymmetric advantage in the world is that we have friends. We have allies. We have friends and allies that will go to war with us.

[00:14:45]China has customers and they have clients. They have vassal states. We have allies that have fought with us and will continue to fight with us. But not if we abandon Taiwan, Ukraine, and NATO.

[00:14:57]When this president even discusses military action against any NATO country, we are making China stronger.

[00:15:04]When we treat our partners as secondary partners and allies, instead of friends, we are making China stronger. And if we create a vacuum by undermining our friends, China will fill it. from Kuwait to South Korea to South America to everywhere else in the world. We are seeing this happen right now in our own backyard. If our allies in the Indoacific or Latin America stop trusting us, they will find friends in Beijing. And we cannot push Latin America anywhere further towards China.

[00:15:34]We must look at our relationship with the Western Hemisphere through the prism of true alliances, economic collaboration, and friendship. We need a prosperous Latin America and a prosperous European Union to stand up to China's sheer mass and capital markets.

[00:15:49]The America first attitude is actually going to make us America last. We cannot meet China's sheer capital and market alone. But if we stand with our allies and combine our populations, our buying power, our economies, and our moral directions together, then we actually have a fighting chance for that future.

[00:16:07]But alone, we can never meet the demand.

[00:16:10]Not now or in the future.

[00:16:13]Principal leadership means having the humility to admit when a war is a mistake. If that had been if that had occurred 20 years ago, there would have been thousands and thousands of men and women that would be alive right now, including my best friend. It means that we have to we also have the courage to stand by our allies when the stakes are real. And it means being honest with the American people about the costs of our choices. Leadership means building an economy that works for the person driving to work in Phoenix as much as it is for that person that commutes in Washington DC. And it it means that we assure that the American dream stays alive for everyone, not just the elite few. It is about building the country that we want. And we need to be realistic about the dangers. But we are also optimistic about our future. And if we lead with our values and our allies, that future is a great future. Thank you so much. Enjoy the conference.

[00:17:24]The cost of living has gone crazy. It's gotten harder for people to live. The Center for American Progress Action Fund is lifting up voices of everyday Americans being squeezed by the high cost of living and holding Republicans accountable for the pain that they cause.

[00:17:40]>> Across the nation, CAP Action is doing the work of finding and sharing these stories. I'm talking about farmers, teachers, bus drivers, and steel workers. The people who are bearing the heaviest weight of our society, yet are being pulled further and further away from the American dream. Now I'm looking at $1,500 a month of an increase for my monthly premium if these tax credits expire.

[00:18:04]>> Everything is expensive right now. I'm feeling crushed by my electrical bill.

[00:18:08]More farmers than ever in Iowa um are going bankrupt.

[00:18:12]>> It takes one emergency and I am on the street, you know, like all of these things are just kind of hanging over my head. It's one slip up and that's it.

[00:18:20]>> And once these stories get out, they spread everywhere. That's because the testimony of your neighbor is much more powerful than any other secondhand source. These storytellers are our neighbors.

[00:18:33]>> I benefited from the ACA tax credits, as you all have heard. Then, as a part of Trump's agenda, I now pay just short of $10,000. Affordability looks very different today.

[00:18:46]>> So, I was just wondering what your thoughts are and plans might be.

[00:18:50]>> Thank you. I'm not going to talk to you.

[00:18:52]Many Americans are still struggling to afford basic necessities, struggling to make ends meet.

[00:18:57]>> Many of us do have to work two jobs.

[00:18:59]>> The video shows Central High School teacher John Havchek walking alongside Van Orton inside the capital and asking, quote, >> "What are you going to do to bring costs down for constituents like me?" Just like its sister organization, the Center for American Progress is leaving no stone unturned to expose all the ways that the Trump administration and those who have supported its policies have made life more expensive for all Americans. Whether it's the war in Iran, Trump's tariffs, congressional Republicans big, beautiful bill, SNAP cuts, the ACA subsidies, and so much more. CAP has kept the drum beat going.

[00:19:39]>> But we know that it's not enough to fight back against bad ideas. We have to offer solutions to tangibly improve people's lives, something for people to be for, something for people to vote for. And that's exactly what we're doing here at CAP, authoring bold plans to lower costs for all Americans.

[00:19:58]>> Cities and towns sign what's called an affordability contract. We will help them finance the building of affordable housing if they take down the barriers to building that are making buildings so expensive. CAP and CAP action are driving the conversation in communities by blending policy research, earned media, digital engagement and storytelling. Through this dynamic approach, we are changing hearts and minds.

[00:20:32]Please welcome MS Now's Katherine Rampel and panelists, Representative Greg Casar of Texas, Representative Maxwell Frost of Florida, Representative Lauren Underwood of Illinois.

[00:20:58]Thanks everyone. We're going to get right into the big topic of this year's election and of course the main topic that Americans care about which is affordability and what exactly our lawmakers and other policy makers can do about it. So, I want to start with Congressman Khazar. As the chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, you all recently released a uh new affordability agenda that deals with the costs of groceries, housing, child care, uh healthare. I'm sure there's something I'm leaving out there. However, pardon gas, all sorts of goodies.

[00:21:39]However, even if Democrats sweep the House this midterms and maybe even take the Senate, you will still have to contend with a Republican in the White House, President Donald Trump, who can veto legislation. So, my question for you is, what on the agenda do you think you can actually get signed into law in the next year? Is this mostly a messaging bill or excuse me, a messaging agenda about what you would like to get done or are there concrete things that you think you could peel off either Republican support in the legislature and or uh the support of a president so that people's lives and access to an affordable lifestyle can actually change next year?

[00:22:24]>> Thank you for the question. Good morning everyone. Uh so the progressive caucus put out a list of 10 proposals to lower the cost of everything from housing to child care, gas, utilities, to stop price gouging, to increase your wages and benefits. And when we went out and tested the support for the progressive caucus's ideas, we found not only overwhelming support amongst Democrats and independents and voters in swing districts, but amongst Republicans.

[00:22:54]where actually not a single one of the ideas that we can talk about here in a moment hold at less than twothird support amongst Republican voters. And so I when I I believe just like leader Jeff believes that we will retake the House through the work that we do over the next few months and then there will be um a lot of accountability work that Democrats rightly need to do against the Trump administration. But if all we do is accountability, but don't also do affordability work, show voters not only that we're against Trump, voters already know that, but also show people what we're for, regain people's trust as the party of workingclass people, then I think we'll have failed. And so I think that we should push forward bold ideas like and new ideas that will interest voters like Roana's windfall profits tax on the gas companies that are making a killing right now. Instead of just providing people a small amount of relief, we should tax the enormous profits that the oil companies are making by jacking up prices right now.

[00:24:02]Send a rebate check back to Americans.

[00:24:04]And at $100 a barrel of oil, uh, this proposal would send everybody about a $400 rebate. We should pass that out of the House if we retake the Senate, push to get that out of the Senate, and then either win Donald Trump's signature because it's supported just as heavily by Republican voters as Democratic voters. Or he can veto it. And if he does, then it shows voters that Democrats were fighting to lower their costs and that Donald Trump stopped it.

[00:24:32]And then those contenders running for president in the next election cycle have a foundation of ideas to say, "Donald Trump blocked that bill that would have lowered your utility costs by $500 a year. Donald Trump blocked that bill that would have lowered your grocery prices and I would have signed it." And I think that that is the kind of aggressive posture that Democrats need to take to not only be an anti-Trump party, but a pro-workass party.

[00:24:57]>> And to clarify, do you think that the windfall profits tax piece of this would be the one that would most likely to have real real benefit I mean well most likely >> I don't get paid enough to be a good Donald Trump predictor >> fair >> um um but I think that we should not lower our ambitions as a house majority as whatever we can get uh the Donald Trump world to think we can do. I think that we actually have to make sure that voters understand that we really care about their pocketbooks. I hear about it all the time when I've I've done over half a district dozen town halls in Republican held districts and I ask people that voted for Vice President Harris to lower their hands not ask me a question for a second and for people that voted for Trump or chose not to vote to ask me a question. And I hear time and time and time again that maybe they voted for Trump, but they're already sick of him, but they want to know what Democrats will do so that people don't have to check their bank account before they go to the grocery store. People say, "I pull 712s, means working over 70 hours a week, but still can't afford my childare. We should pass uh the bill that was Mikey Cheryl's bill. now is AOCC's bill that would guarantee $10 a day childare to virtually every single family and tax the ultra rich. To do it, we should uh pass my bill that would update our overtime laws for the first time in 90 years to have overtime, pay double time so that people can make a little bit more money and maybe work a little bit fewer hours so they can actually spend time with their kids. And when we talk about ideas like that, I think we can build the kind of big tent coalition necessary to not just win a midterm on anti-Trump sentiment, but actually bring the Democratic party back in line with the vast majority of our natural base.

[00:26:54]Congressman Frost, the largest monthly expense for most households is housing, which has become a huge burden, not just on the blue coasts, the liberal coasts, but basically nationwide at this point.

[00:27:10]And there's lots of evidence that since 2006, more or less, we have underbuilt housing across this country. that as younger people have moved out of their parents' homes and formed their own families, there's just not enough housing for them to buy. What can we do?

[00:27:29]And and and in fact, as I'm sure you know, uh a lot of members of Gen Z think that home ownership is out of their reach forever. So, what can we do to ensure that there is enough housing for everyone?

[00:27:44]>> This is really important. I think to what Greg was saying, we would have failed if we do not as a Democratic majority move forward a comprehensive housing package um that will address this from A to Z. And part of the problem with this whole discussion in housing is everybody has one idea and they think that idea is the thing that's going to solve the problem. This is just not true. Um this is a a difficult problem for the federal government to tackle, but I think we can tackle it. Um and it's going to take everything. We have to ensure that we build more housing. Of course, there's a lot of things that we can do as a government to incentivize cities and towns and municipalities to get rid of exclusionary zoning, get rid of parking minimum, these different things that we need to do to make sure that we have more inventory. But that alone is not enough. We also have to ensure that we pass uh good consumer protection laws to protect tenants, which is something that's really near and dear to me. I live in Florida, which has some of the worst tenant protections in the nation.

[00:28:39]While I was running for Congress, when the rent hike moratorum was lifted uh during COVID, I got priced out of my apartment. I was homeless for two months. I literally spent all my money in my bank account on an Airbnb for a month and I was like, "Future Max will figure it out." A month passed. Future Max did not figure it out. And uh and then I was homeless for for a while during my campaign. Then I said, "Well, at least if I win my race for Congress, I will never have to deal with this again." I get elected to Congress and as a congressman elect, I get denied to every apartment complex I applied to here in DC because my credit score was poor because during my campaign I ran ran up a ton of debt. And so I and there was nothing to help protect me or help me get into housing. In fact, when I moved to DC, I took out a loan to be able to pay the first last and deposit um to get a place here. And even with the money in my bank, even though my dad would say if you had to take a loan out, you didn't have the money. But even with the money in my bank, um I couldn't get a place to live. I was told no. I I was told no to having the high honor of paying the high rent. And so I just think there's a lot we need to do. And then home ownership is such an important part of this, especially for young people, but really everybody. I've been doing a lot of town halls across Florida and in my district on housing specifically, which is the number one issue I hear about when I go knock doors anywhere in my state.

[00:29:57]And we have a homeowners insurance crisis in the state of Florida and really across the country that is pricing out seniors and homes that they've lived in their entire lives pretty much, but they're on a fixed income and they're having to put their home up for sale. And young people who are saying not only is it a figment or something they feel like it can never happen. It's just like out of the realm of possibility. And this leads to a bigger problem. Usually the largest asset a working person will own is what?

[00:30:24]Their house.

[00:30:26]We are we have an ownership crisis in this country that deeply impacts working people and especially young people. Not to put my tinfoil hat on, but it's everything. It's it's housing and we're moving. If current trends continue, most people will the vast majority of people will not own their home. They'll rent forever and the rents can continue to go up or down. We don't own the music we listen to anymore. We don't own the movies we watch anymore. If trends continue, most people won't own the car that they drive. And actually, if trends continue, most people won't own the phone that they have in their pocket.

[00:30:57]You won't own a damn thing. And I think the the the home ownership crisis indicative of something much bigger going on where just a few people will have the keys to everything in our country, which means when somebody needs to be bailed out, who gets bailed out?

[00:31:10]The people who own everything. And that is an existential problem for working people in the rest of this country. It's not that we don't want people to do well, we want everybody to do well. But it's kind of hard to do that in this country when you can't even own the roof over your head. Um, and so, um, I think there's a lot we can do as a nation.

[00:31:25]Something a lot of people aren't talking about is manufactured housing. I just released a bill on this, which right now in Florida, about a fourth of the manufactured housing communities have been purchased by private equity. In case you don't know, the way it works, you essentially own the the house you live in, the manufactured home, but you don't own the land that the home is on.

[00:31:45]And what's going on is these communities are being bought usually from mom and pop companies across the country and having their rents jacked up, their lot rents jacked up by a lot. In fact, there's a community in my district who saw it go up by double. And now they're putting the taxes of the land on the renters as well. And so, and manufactured housing for a lot of seniors and a lot of veterans is the last safe haven for home ownership, affordable home ownership in the country. And so I put forth a bill um that essentially will help us make it so that way folks who live in these communities can own the land that their house is on top of as well. But it's like things like this that piece together I think can create a comprehensive housing bill to help us with this crisis. But the era of the federal government saying that's a state and local issue is over. There's a lot that we can do to help solve the housing crisis. I'm wondering actually if you could talk a little bit more about creating incentives for states and localities to allow more building in part because of something that you just said that for many Americans their single most valuable asset is in their home. So that means when housing prices fall or rents fall which is necessary for people who are trying to get into a home that also means that somebody's nest egg gets less valuable. Right?

[00:33:03]That's part of the reason why it is so difficult to build in a lot of communities in America because people don't necessarily want their house their home value to decrease because that's their retirement. And so that leads to a lot of friction against building new homes because the supply of new homes again will benefit people who are trying to get into housing but may hurt the people who already own their homes. So, how do you change that dynamic so that you don't have sort of that almost natural nimiest impulse for people to not want more housing lest it devalue what is their retirement plan?

[00:33:44]>> I and I I've had this conversation a lot in my roundts when we talk about housing and it people come from different places if they would consider themselves a nimi, right? Um, I got to tell you, for a lot of the more working families I speak to who have been able to get into home ownership, even though they've been able to get into it, most of them, not most of them, but a lot of them are what you would consider house poor, right?

[00:34:07]Where they have gotten into a situation where mortgage, insurance, um, taxes, everything that you have to pay, most of them are paying PMI because they couldn't afford the deposit on their, uh, on their home. um uh are in a place where they just don't have that kind of money. So they they do want of course their home value to go up. Anyone wants that, but I think people see what's going on in their communities and they understand the fact that the home prices are so high and most of them are the sticker shock is is so recent for them.

[00:34:38]They just purchased their home maybe a year ago or maybe they purchased it 10 years ago and they too realize that the price of their home was way too high.

[00:34:46]And I think there's a lot of things that we can do to help with that. But this notion that we have to pit homeowners against tenants or homeowners against potential homeowners, I think is is false. And I don't see it in my community. And I also don't see it when I travel the country and talk with people about housing prices because I hear many of the same complaints from people regardless of what situation they're in.

[00:35:08]Congressman Underwood, you've worked throughout your career on healthcare and including in the implementation of the Affordable Care Act.

[00:35:18]Historically, Democrats, I think, have focused their firepower when it comes to health care on expanding insurance, on making sure more people are covered.

[00:35:31]There are obviously a lot of frustrations now about the cost of health care even among those who are insured, who have insurance plans. What can be done to make health care affordable to make healthcare more affordable for those who have coverage as the promise of the Affordable Care Act uh indicated?

[00:35:53]Well, I think that this is by far one of the most salient issues in this moment.

[00:35:59]Uh because everyone needs health care.

[00:36:01]You need to be able to see a provider, fill a prescription, get a procedure when you need one, right? And so this is something that's top of mind for so many folks. And yet you have Donald Trump and the Republicans in charge passing their big ugly bill taking a trillion dollars out of Medicaid. So we have about six months until we reach this point where the American people are really going to be feeling that acutely of folks being kicked off of their coverage. So it's not about at that level affordable.

[00:36:28]That's do you have healthcare or not?

[00:36:30]Yes or no. Um we have a real crisis right now because they refused to extend the ACA tax credits, the extremely popular ACA tax credits. uh that was based on my bill, the Healthcare Affordability Act, which drove down the uninsured rate to the lowest levels in US history. But Donald Trump told the Republicans, "Don't waste time on extending them." And now 20% of enrolles have been kicked off their plans because they can't afford to see their premium double, triple, quadruple. Right? So, some of the stuff is just real basic, like extend the ACA tax credits, like an overwhelming majority of the House of Representatives voted to do in January of this year after we stood together and forced a discharge petition and a floor vote on the House. Right? We got 17 Republicans to stand with us, but the Senate refused to take it up. Right?

[00:37:23]This solution is right there for us in our grasp. um obviously making sure that we can take action quickly in a Democratic majority to block these Medicaid cuts from going into effect, the 500 billion dollars that's slated to come out of Medicare. But then you have all kind of stuff that we need to do on prescription drugs, improving access to primary care visits, improving access for people who uh just need to be able to use the health care that they have.

[00:37:51]We know that there are tremendous barriers to people being able to manage their chronic illnesses uh to being able to actually improve their health care status. And then we have this whole issue of uh health equity where we have these entrenched um um disparities that we see among communities of color, rural communities, low-income communities, etc. Right? And so all of that will require our intention and our investment. I think at the end of the day if we only focus on cost then we are not always improving our health care system. If we only focus on cost we are not always improving folks health status. And I think that when we have a Robert Kennedy as the secretary of health and human services serving as the biggest source of misinformation and the largest threat to public health in our country. We have to have a wide angle lens when it comes to tackling the multifaceted healthcare issues that we face. Just right now today, we got an Ebola outbreak with an American who's been confirmed and nothing out of HHS. Right now today, you got the Hunter virus and folks freaking out and nothing. We can't get access to reliable data, right? Like I guess my point is this. Yes, we have to lower costs to win this election. We have to have a plan. I think we have a plan. People understand it. It's not that complicated. We're the party that believes you deserve healthcare.

[00:39:23]They're the party that believes actually no.

[00:39:27]Nope. Sorry. It's that simple, right? It doesn't have to be more complicated than that. But I think in order to actually make improvements, we have to tackle the wide range of issues.

[00:39:37]>> Well, can you give a little bit of color to that? So, what are some examples of things that Democrats should be focusing on, should be pitching to voters as we head into the midterms? Uh, I take your point about expanding or or re-upping those uh um enhanced premium tax credits and rolling back some of the Medicaid cuts. Beyond those two things, which are about undoing Trump damage, are there other specific points that you think are pretty salient to voters? Sure. That could address costs, let's say.

[00:40:11]>> Okay. Well, you know, you need to have a place to go and so let's make sure that our rural hospitals are in good shape. I represent a suburban and rural community outside of Chicago where already in the last year since the big ugly bill has been into effect, we've seen unit closures, pedes closures, ICUs closures.

[00:40:30]Um, and those facilities need a cash infusion. They need some help staying open. I have a bill prioritizing our rural hospitals act. Easy. we could get that moving in the farm bill, guys. It doesn't even mean hello. Let's be smart in how we move our bills. Um I think that we have the the Department of Health uh Department of Education is trying to roll back access to student loans for our healthcare workers, right?

[00:40:55]So, we're going to have fewer providers.

[00:40:57]If you have if you don't have access to, let's say, a nurse practitioner in your community and there is no physician, what are you supposed to do? We need to expand our healthcare workforce so that people can actually go in. That's how we drive down costs. We need more workers in every community in every zip code. We are trying to overturn this uh really devastating regulation coming from the Department of Education on prescription drugs. I mean everything from inhalers to um insulin to you know anything to manage a chronic illness. I have a bill, the Chronic Copay, Chronic Condition Copay Elimination Act.

[00:41:37]Okay? Like, there's solutions. It doesn't have to explode the deficit or anything like that. We just have to care to solve the problem. Um, but I think that in terms of messaging for the election, we keep it real tight and real simple. Fix our broken healthare system.

[00:41:54]It don't have to be more complicated than that. It really doesn't. And I would really encourage us to really focus on winning. so that people can get the healthcare that they deserve.

[00:42:09]>> Congressman Kazar, Democrats have to this date made a relatively compelling case that part of the ail affordability crisis falls at the feet of Donald Trump's economic agenda, particularly his tariffs.

[00:42:25]And if you look at estimates from places like the Yale Budget Lab, they suggest that the tariffs in the past year raised the costs for America typical American household by at least $700. Something in that wheelhouse.

[00:42:40]I noticed that in your plan for an affordability for the progressive affordability agenda, there was nothing about tariffs.

[00:42:47]So my question to you is given that Democrats have isolated one of the core problems as being about this trade policy if Democrats retake the House and the Senate. Do you think Trump's tariff should be on the chopping block?

[00:43:03]>> Yes. I mean I think that we absolutely will and should undo the reckless tariff policy from Trump. But if all we do, if we get pushed to say all we're gonna do is undo his Medicaid cuts, all we do is undo his tariffs, um then I think we are going to wind up in a real problem because there are forces within the party arguing essentially Democrats stay boring. That what we want is just for everybody to notice how bad Trump is, for us to not be too noticed, and then things will go our way. that may turn out to work in a midterm election, but if we follow the Constitution, Trump won't be on the ballot again. And if we don't regain the trust of working people, and if people don't know what we're for, then I'm worried that Josh Holly or JD Vance or Tucker Carlson or whoever could beat us next. And that's just not acceptable because it's already been way too hard on the country to deal with a year and a half of this. Imagine 12 years of this kind of a White House.

[00:44:08]So if we want to rew regain people's trust, they have to know that yes, we're going to repeal the horrible Trump policies. We're going to hold them accountable for their criminal and corrupt actions, but also that we're willing to take on villains in the AI industry that are price gouging you. We have a bill in the new affordability agenda to ban surveillance pricing where, for example, the other day JetBlue basically admitted to someone that they were buy a plane ticket to get to a funeral. JetBlue had data on the person and they suddenly had a ticket price nearly $300 higher. We should just ban that and take on those.

[00:44:45]>> Sorry to interrupt. JetBlue has actually since said that they do not use any personal data >> that they should support the bill if they think that nobody should be allowed to do that. Um, of course they said that. Um, Instacart got caught doing the exact same thing. We should be willing to take on the utility companies that Democrats and Republicans alike hate because our utility costs for these for-profit utilities. Some people's bills have gone up 50% just in the last few years. Donald Trump became president villainizing immigrants, saying that the bad guys were LGBT youth. And I think Democrats need to be willing to take on villains ourselves, whether it's in big oil or in big pharma or these big utility companies, so that people notice us, so that people know who we are. And in my view, those ideas actually unite the party. Whether you are moderate or progressive, these ideas are very, very popular across the country. They divide the lobbyists. They might us get us uninvited from some dinners, but I would rather get an uninvited from some dinners and win the damn election.

[00:45:55]Just before we move on from tariffs for a second, the constitution article one says that Congress has power over international commerce and uh sets and lays taxes. Do you think to your point about future presidents may try to abuse their power in similar ways that should Democrats retake the Senate and the House, they should try to curb the limits on all presidents ability to set tariff policy without the consent of of Congress because over the years Congress has essentially delegated away a lot of its constitutional authority here. Yeah, we need um we need definitely need structural reform to make our policies stick and to make sure that voters voices are heard. And so uh of course we should rein in uh the justices, the Supreme Court, the folks that continue to let Trump have this runaway power. um because I don't think that um we will have succeeded in the next trifecta if we get there um if we pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, if we pass these bills to lower your housing costs or increase healthare and the Supreme Court just tells us no. Um so I think that in this moment where a right-wing Supreme Court is so eroding voters rights so eroding the Constitution, we have to be willing to say that we need to take on the Supreme Court. make sure that voters uh concerns and voices are heard so that we actually restore abortion rights, so that we actually restore civil rights, and so that we actually can show people we made their lives cheaper uh and less expensive.

[00:47:36]That's what FDR um had to to try to do or at least threaten to do. And what I hear from folks all the time is that they would vote for the Democratic Party of FDR and LBJ of the New Deal and the Fair Labor Standards Act and building unions across the country and defeating fascism around the world. and the Voting Rights Act and the Civil Rights Act and the creation of Medicare and Medicaid and Head Start. That's the kind of Democratic party we need to be and that means being willing to take on an outofc control executive as well as the Supreme Court.

[00:48:04]>> Well, part of the reason part of the reason I asked specifically about the executive rather than the Supreme Court is that Donald Trump also abused his I would argue abused his tariff authority in his first term.

[00:48:18]Democrats were very critical of those tariffs. Then when his successor, President Biden, came into office, he kept almost all of those tariffs in place. Uh maybe swapped some of them out for different kinds of trade restrictions.

[00:48:30]>> Yeah. Look, I believe that we need to restore the Constitution and that's part of why I think justices need to actually hold the executive to the to the law.

[00:48:40]We've seen a huge double standard here by the Supreme Court. That's the reason I went there. I would caution us. Of course, we should take on Donald Trump and the crazy way he's used the tariffs.

[00:48:49]I mean, it's just I mean, you read what he says on this any given day, it's nuts. But I also don't want us to as progressives, as liberals to be so I' we are we have of course been so shocked by how horrible Trump has abused his authority and for our only response to then be we need an executive who can do very little because what we actually also need is the for the next Democratic president to be able to act aggressively to rebuild everything that Doge tore down to be able to implement policy quickly. It's almost unthinkable today that when LBJ signed uh Medicare into law, he started enrolling millions of seniors one year later, the next July, uh we need an executive that when we pass transformative policy that takes on corporate interests and makes workingclass people believe in our collective power again, that we have a executive that can actually execute that quickly and doesn't have to jump through 10 million hoops.

[00:49:56]Congressman Frost, uh, your colleague just now or a few minutes ago mentioned AI and a lot of the anxiety around AI.

[00:50:04]As I'm sure our audience knows, it's graduation season. People are graduating from high school, graduating from college. There is a lot of angst out there about the job market. And if you look at the unemployment rate for young workers, whether college graduate or not, it is ticking up. It is rising. And some of that angst has to do with the advent of this new technology that it may displace a lot of entrylevel type jobs.

[00:50:36]To what extent do you think AIdriven job displacement is similar or different from other kinds of mass disment? we've seen in the past. I'm thinking things like trade uh other kinds of automation and how does that imply policy makers should respond to it if it is similar or if it is different? Is it is it the same set of tools essentially that we've used before for these other kinds of seismic shifts or is it something different?

[00:51:08]>> I I I mean there's similarities and differences. I mean, one of the big differences is the fact that the difference between this and automation is that this is going to be cheaper to implement and happen more quickly than it did with automation. So, there's less time for us as a government to be able to respond to helping our constituents, working people. And taking a step back, I think part of the issue that we have in Congress is number one, most people don't know anything about tech. Okay?

[00:51:35]And that creates a big issue because we have to legislate common sense guard rails now because if we don't do that, there will be an emergency that then pushes us to have to advocate for something more radical essentially that will have that much more opposition. And this whole thing happened with social media. I always talk to people about social media decades ago. Congress buries its head in the sand. In fact, in many cases, makes the situation worse for the average person. Now, we're having an emergency with social media, keeping our children safe online, our data being used against us, this and that. And like the big idea people come up with is like, let's ban Tik Tok.

[00:52:16]Like, that's going to solve the problem.

[00:52:19]And it didn't. And in fact, in many cases, the whole that whole thing made it worse. I'm really worried that when it comes down to technology, Congress does the same thing over and over again.

[00:52:28]And it's really important. And I like that I see more people running on this because we need folks who are willing to step into it, experts themselves, because what ends up happening is that industry writes the bill. We want common sense guard rails. And this is what I hear from people across the country when I travel. You see the college graduations. My University of Central Florida, UCF, where my district is, um, was had one of those viral videos of someone saying AI is the next industrial revolution. And every student in the audience booed. It's because and that's coming from a real place guys. Right now it is you it's always been hard to be a young person. Yes. Right now it is uniquely difficult and the numbers prove this to us. For college graduates, it is the worst time ever in this country's history after you've done everything you were told to do. You got all the debt you were told to acrue. You were told that if you acrew this debt, you'll be able to get a good paying job and pay it off and you'll be fine. It is the worst time to find work for college graduates in the history of our country. It's right now. And so they see this, they see the rise of AI, they see everything.

[00:53:31]And people are rightfully nervous and concerned that they won't be able to be an adult that's able to feed themselves and have a roof over their head. And so I think it's important that Congress does something and I am concerned about it. Of course, we know that like every technology, there are things where we're going to have societal benefits from it and there's things that are not going to be a benefit to our society. I guess where where I'm coming from is the things that a lot of these companies already say they believe in, let's hold them to it and making sure we pass common sense guard rails to protect workers and protect workingclass people as we go into this. We know technology far outpaces government in Congress. And this is another problem. We have to modernize government because we can't keep up ourselves. We have no in we don't have the in-house capabilities to be able to keep up with the private sector. And that's part of the reason why we're always far behind. So, let's pass common sense guard rails to hold everyone to what they say they believe.

[00:54:28]Anyway, um and I think that'll that's really important in keeping our constituents in mind.

[00:54:32]>> I do want to push back on one thing.

[00:54:34]It's not the worst time in history to have been a college graduate. I mean, college young college graduates, I think their unemployment rate is like 5.6% or something like that. It was definitely higher during financial >> crisis. But you have to take you have to take in the totality of circumstances going on in our country right now. Not just finding employment, but the wages.

[00:54:51]Have they kept up with inflation, housing, the cost of food, healthare, all the things we're talking about right now? So, yeah, marginally the numbers might be up or down on employment, but the quality of the job, how much it pays you, and what that pay is able to get you is very difficult for young people right now. Um, and I see it not just in the numbers, all my friends, people my age, my girlfriend, my my my best friends, the people in my life who are struggling with this right now. But so you said common sense reforms. I think everybody agrees common sense is a good thing. I don't think anybody is like against common sense. Well, >> you'd be surprised.

[00:55:29]>> Yeah, >> there's a lot of pe There's a lot of people against common sense.

[00:55:32]>> There's a lot of money and not following >> Well, but again to my question, what does that mean in terms of protections for workers or or how should policy makers be thinking about this? Is it is it just about again the same kinds of tools we've had in the past, unemployment insurance, other kinds of safety net programs? Is there something specific?

[00:55:54]>> Yeah. And I wonder too in the affordable affordab did we have anything on AI?

[00:55:57]>> We we we had an anti-pric gouging provision, but frankly, uh I think that if you listen to the CEOs of these AI companies, they're talking about 20% unemployment. Sure, it would be nice if if it turns out not that way, but when you hear Elon Musk saying humans won't be needed for mo most work, when you hear what Bill Gates has to say about this, I think we should be um planning aggressively that this isn't just the invention of the steam engine. You're talking about taking away uh a foundational part of what makes us a society, which is people having the dignity of work. So I think we aggressively should be thinking about taxing AI as a method of making sure we have sort of a works progress administration of the future. We should be making sure the government ensures that we are not going up into depression levels of unemployment. I think we need an expansion of collective bargaining so that workers have the power um to negotiate um as AI is being integrated um into our society because the the idea of just a big expansive social safety net program. But 20% of people aren't working. I think that is uh to me that sounds dystopic and something the Democratic party should be strongly against.

[00:57:13]>> And and something else I think is important too on the AI conversation. I I recently went to uh Los Angeles to speak with a bunch of songwriters about this. There's a lot of anxiety in the creative economy. And in many ways, I think actually starting the conversation where it's the hardest, talking about um how the rise of this is hurting creatives. Um what does it mean to create something? What does it mean to be compensated for something? How can we even how do we use the technology to figure out if the song you wrote was used in an AI model to write this other song, this and that? I think solving those questions are actually important.

[00:57:47]Even though it might not feel pertinent to most of society, these are the hardest questions to answer in my opinion as it relates to AI and emerging technology. When you're able to answer those hard questions, it it makes it easier to to work backwards from that if that makes sense.

[00:58:00]>> Um, I'm going to take a question or two from the audience. I have more of my own, but the first question is for everyone. What will you do to accelerate the pace of implementation of solutions such as things as getting more housing built, solving for universal healthcare, removal of Citizens United, a more progressive tax system? Basically, how will you move fast to solve problems?

[00:58:20]Congressman Congresswoman Underwood, start with you.

[00:58:22]>> Well, as Democrats, we like to be right.

[00:58:24]Okay. We like to debate each other all day. We have symposiums. We have dinners. We write we write binders full of policy white papers to assert our opinion on why our idea is the best. We got to get rid of that and work with the urgency that we have seen on display from Donald Trump and the Republicans in charge. We have to get rid of the ego and be willing to just get it done and try to fix it later. Okay? I'm not saying we have to hurt people, but I'm saying like we cannot spend all of our time and screw around with our majority fighting with each other. And when we have an idea that can get a majority vote, we need to put it on the floor and move forward. That's number one. Number two, we got to get rid of the filibuster. I don't want to hear it. But but but but no, it's got to go. If we are serious about saving this country, our democracy, and advancing an affordability agenda, that filibuster is standing squarely in our path and it's got to go. And I just think in my opinion, in my opinion, we are not functioning in normal times. This is a survival moment. In survival moments, you make different decisions than you would ordinarily make. And um I think we have to be cleareyed about all that is necessary to accomplish and the limited window of time that we will have to get these things done to >> to add on this and this is something I've been thinking a lot about as well.

[00:59:55]A big problem too is the way that Congress writes the legislation and you you'd be I mean just look at our immigration system, right? I mean, it is just peacemeal ideas thrown at something after decade after decade after decade and not some not a group of people sitting down and figuring out how do we make a system that works? How do we create something that works? And my my one concern with moving through big packages is that it ends up being peacemail ideas from different members of Congress who I've had this bill and I've had this idea for a long time and I want to make sure it's in the package that you're moving forward, but it doesn't necessarily fit into a bigger picture. And so to what Lawrence said, that requires us to put our egos aside for a minute and figure out how are we going to pass legislation that of course accomplishes what we want to accomplish.

[01:00:38]Make sure that the executive has what they need to to make the implementation happen, but also possibly punish agencies that don't move as quickly as we want them to move by moving responsibility to other agencies and different things like that. And I think when when we put on the hat of not just what do we want the goal to be, but how quickly do we want it, what do we want the timeline to be as well, that's how Congress is going to be able to write real legislation that doesn't just talk about what we want to have happen, but how fast we want it to happen and attaching, you know, real strings to that. Um, so that way we have real implementation and people feel it.

[01:01:10]Because if people feel the thing we're passing 4 to 8 years later, another president comes in and pulls a rug from, you know, underneath the bill, it it didn't happen, right? It didn't happen.

[01:01:22]We need people to feel that government can work for them um while we're in power.

[01:01:27]>> Sounds like you kind of want a Democratic version of Doge if I'm listening. But sure.

[01:01:31]>> No, but that's the thing. Doge didn't do anything. Like that's the thing with with Republicans and and Donald Trump right now. It's it's the illusion of doing a lot. And of course they're doing horrible things. Number one, their agenda is easier to achieve because it's just destroying things and we want to build things. But number two, like Doge just really didn't do anything. It was a lot of showmanship. And so sort of we want to actually do things and like actually have people feel it in their lives.

[01:01:55]>> All right, Congressman Kazar, last word to you. I uh was a labor organizer in the construction industry before running for office and I think that we need to be able to follow the construction site test which is our ideas. Can we go talk to somebody on a construction site and it makes sense to them and it would help them and they understand it quickly. Our prior child care proposals are like we're going to send block grants to the state and you can apply for a voucher if you hit a certain income level. People are like screw this. They've already you've already lost them. We just need to implement a child care program that makes it so you never pay more than 7% of your income. It's going to be for every single working American. Vast majority of people pay $10 a day.

[01:02:37]Somebody say, "Sign me up for that.

[01:02:39]Let's raise the minimum wage. Let's guarantee everybody two weeks paid vacation." Um like these are the basic things that we should just be able to tell somebody this is for you. It's going to improve your life and we aren't going to go into a five-year rulemaking process so that some other president can take credit for what we did. We want folks to say, "I voted for that Democrat and I saw my life get better after my vote." It's I think that simple.

[01:03:06]>> Well, thanks so much for the for the question from our audience and thank you to our excellent panel. Look forward to talking more with you about all of these great ideas.

[01:04:00]Please welcome Cap's senior vice president.

[01:04:15]Everyone, just a quick word. Uh, Governor Cheryl is on her way down and she'll be here momentarily. Uh, so please uh, you know, uh, keep seated and we'll be back out soon. Thank you. Hope you're enjoying the the conversation so far. Thanks.

[01:05:44]Wow.

[01:06:06]Wow.

[01:07:55]Please welcome Welcome CAP's senior vice president for energy and environment, Trevor Higgins.

[01:08:04]>> Hi everyone, welcome back.

[01:08:08]>> Good morning. My name is Trevor Higgins.

[01:08:10]I lead the energy and environment department here at the Center for American Progress. We're just delighted to have you all here with us today.

[01:08:18]Um today uh our next discussion is called making life affordable in New Jersey and Beyond. And I am delighted to say that we'll be joined by New Jersey Governor Mikey Cheryl who came into office earlier this year with a clear mandate from New Jersey voters to tackle affordability and deliver results.

[01:08:40]Mikey Cheryl is a wife, a mom, a former Navy helicopter pilot, a federal prosecutor, a congresswoman, and now the governor of New Jersey. And she has focused her administration on the question many families across the country are asking right now. Can government still make life better for people? Can it solve affordability challenges when they rear their head? On day one, the governor declared a state of emergency on utility affordability and directed the state to pursue rate relief and to build clean energy and grid infrastructure faster. At a moment when many Americans feel frustrated with current leadership here in Washington DC and worried about rising costs, governors and state leaders are increasingly being asked to show that government can still deliver real results for people. What happens in states like New Jersey shapes the national conversation around affordability, climate, and clean energy, as we all know. In fact, CAP's own recommendations for affordability policy at the federal level, which we just released yesterday for electricity, uh, were inspired by Governor Cheryl's leadership. So, I would like to thank Governor Cheryl for her leadership and for being with us here today. Um so the key components of this plan include rate relief that immediately provide uh for a whole year in New Jersey a rate relief uh stabilization as buys time for the reforms to the utility business models and to make investments in clean energy and grid infrastructure that are needed to fix this problem in the long term.

[01:10:26]So, uh, I think we may be ready for Governor Cheryl. Okay. Excellent. Please join me and welcoming Governor Mikey Cheryl. Thank you.

[01:10:48]Well, good morning. Um, I'm not going to make any news with my first statement.

[01:10:54]Americans are struggling with their bills. Inflation just grew at its highest pace in three years. And we're facing an affordability crisis. Now, I talk a lot about affordability because in New Jersey, I hear a lot about affordability.

[01:11:14]It was the centerpiece of my campaign and certainly my north star in the first 119 days of my administration. Who's counting? Rising energy prices are a critical driver of the cost of living challenge. And since 2021, energy prices have tripled. Electricity and gas prices are not just outpacing inflation. It's the fastest driver of inflation. And our grid is ancient. The majority of our electricity infrastructure was built in the 60s and 70s. And the majority of transmission lines are over 25 years old. Every day there is a growing demand for electricity. In New Jersey, it's been painful for residents and businesses. Last June, utility rates jumped up by 20%.

[01:12:10]The Trump administration has undoubtedly not only set us back, but actively aggravated the situation, killing solar tax credits, killing offshore wind, failing to support grid modernization, an illegal war with Iran that spiked gas prices.

[01:12:30]But here's the hard truth that many in our party don't want to admit. It's not just Republicans. Many Democrats and leadership positions have also failed when it comes to energy policy. In my own state, all the focus has been on clean energy pledges without clear road mapaps. Single sources of renewable energy development without diversification or investment in our existing infrastructure.

[01:13:00]Battery storage initiatives left on the shelf, bowing to the grid operator and the utility companies that favor their shareholders over people. And residents have been left paying the price. not on my watch. I ran for governor last year, promising, just like I learned at the Naval Academy, that I was going to find a way or make one. I committed to putting together an actionable roadmap, bringing the best minds into my administration, looking at what other states were successfully doing and relentlessly focusing on driving down energy costs, and making New Jersey an energy arsenal. In New Jersey, it won't surprise you. People tell you pretty directly and clearly exactly what they think. But I was surprised that the loudest naysayers to my plan were Democrats. Too many Democrats in positions of power love to say no. It can't be done. That will never work. I don't think a governor can do that. That narrow thinking, that lack of imagination and boldness has helped get us where we are today. Of course, there are other factors, but I firmly believe that it's up to government to provide the solutions to our toughest challenges. I'll tell everyone here, and I think it's especially important to say here in DC, we cannot be the party of strongly worded letters. We can't settle for tenure studies.

[01:14:34]Our problems are solvable. We just need to get to work in actually solving them.

[01:14:40]First, short term, we need to provide relief for rateayers and be unafraid to challenge the status quo. We can't put growing energy demand solely on the backs of consumers. It requires standing up to not just naysayers, but pushing grid operators and utilities to do better. medium-term, we need to use our power, build out renewables like solar, make existing technologies like natural gas more efficient, invest in more flexible grids, and pursue multi-state efforts that leverage economies of scale and our interconnected energy grid. And long-term, we need to build the energy sources of the future, nuclear to start.

[01:15:20]How are we doing this in New Jersey?

[01:15:23]Shortterm, I didn't wait even 20 minutes. During my inaugural address, I signed an executive order freezing utility rate hikes. I appointed I appointed New Jerseys first chief operating officer and we build a best-in-class energy team whose entire portfolio is New Jerseyy's energy future. And we're pushing our grid operator PJM and utilities to put reliability and affordability at the forefront for our medium-term. My second executive order, also signed during my inaugural address, directed Trenton to cut through permitting delays, resulting in six new battery storage and solar projects in my first two months.

[01:16:10]These projects had been languishing for months, if not years. I'll continue to rapidly deploy new projects. I directed our board of public utilities to require utilities to report on energy requests from data centers. New Jersey is coordinating with other states to hold PJM accountable and leverage our power.

[01:16:30]And the long term, this is important and a key area we need to address. Good government is good politics. For 50 years, New Jerseyy's had a moratorium on the development of new nuclear power.

[01:16:44]That's ridiculous. It's 44% of our instate generation and 80% of our clean power generation. That moratorum was written in the 70s with outdated requirements that don't make sense in this century. So we got rid of it.

[01:17:01]Nuclear opens the door for new largecale base load electricity that we are going to desperately need with growing energy demands. But when I first mentioned nuclear, I was told why bother? you may be out of office before it even comes online.

[01:17:18]That sort of shortterm thinking is what got us into this in the first place.

[01:17:24]That's why we need to be bold and we need to address AI and data centers.

[01:17:29]That's exactly where the challenges are coming right now. And I will tell you that if we want to innovate into the future in New Jersey, we've seen data centers that power all of Manhattan and the banks there. The back offices have been in Jersey for about 15 years. We know that we can power supercomputers and AI development and innovate for those jobs for our kids. But we're not going to be able to do that effectively if we don't make sure that bad actors aren't usurping all of our resources while leaving our communities to pay the price. So that's why strong leadership and a vision in our state is necessary.

[01:18:10]We have got to ensure we're leading on the future. That's what Democrats can do here. We can make sure that our future looks bright, not just for our communities, but for the children that we want to see getting the great jobs of the future. And that's what I'm asking of all Democrats to do right now. To lead in this moment, to find a way or make one. Thank you so much.