Sen. Van Hollen says he's not running for president in 2028

Here we go. Hello, everybody. It's good to be here. I'll just make a short statement and then welcome any of your questions. On Election Day, the American people spoke loudly and clearly. They rejected Donald Trump's corruption. They rejected his wars. They rejected his cruelty, and they rejected his complete indifference to their economic pain. But as I said inside, we should be very clear. That does not mean the Democrats have been fully hired. Trump's policies have been fired. We are still in a position where we need to take advantage of this opportunity. So that does mean closing the trust deficit, which is what we talked about inside. And I don't think you can close the trust deficit by simply returning to the status quo. or to business as usual and that's why I decided to run for the Senate Majority Leader position. I'm happy to take any questions, maybe something, yes. Do you think this at all undermines the united front the Democrats were showcasing this? Election cycle? I mean, sweeping election results, Red Tuesday. Do you think this is going against that? Actually, I think this is completely in support of that because these are candidates that listen to the American people. And they rejected the old labels of progressive or moderate and ran on economic populism. The idea that we have an economy that's rigged against working people. And that that rigged economy is fueled by political corruption. That's what they ran on. And they ran on openness, and they ran on protecting our democracy. And so I think a little democracy in the United States Senate caucus is a good thing. Have you had a conversation with Senator Schumer? Yes, I did discuss this with Senator Schumer. We understand that this will be a competition. I think it's important to give Senate Democrats a choice. That's what we just gave voters all over the country, a choice. They chose change, and I think that... The Democratic Caucus needs to be open to new ideas, a different way of governing, and a different way of conducting and approaching politics. Joe Biden in COVID-19 context. Hi, Senator. Does this close the door on the 2028 bid that you've been taking the tires on? Yes, I'm no longer pursuing that. I believe that the size and scale of these majorities This provides an opportunity for... The United States Senate to answer the call of the American people. I think this is a really important moment for our country and that we can't go back to business as usual in the United States Senate. We need to listen to the American people and the candidates who are coming in right now. That's what they stood for. They stood for the change that the American people want. So we need to put them front and center. If you lose your leadership election, would you be your bid for the White House? Yes, no, I said I'm no longer pursuing that. If you were not speaker, would you reconsider running? Majority leader? Yeah, sorry, majority leader. No, no, I'm no longer pursuing that. Senator, what's an example of a specific bill that you would vote for? What's an example of a specific bill, for example, that Senator Schumer wouldn't bring to the floor that you would? So I'll get to that specific question in a moment, but first I should say that my view is that we need to open up the entire Senate. Too often you have measures that are very popular with the American people or with American workers that are undermined by poison pills or special riders. To be specific, back in 2023, we had a piece of legislation that helped empower working people, helped empower unions. It was called the PRO Act. It came out of the HELP Committee. The Labor Committee never got a vote on the Senate floor. It should have gotten a vote on the Senate floor. And it's an example of a piece of legislation that we should have passed a long time ago. There was an opportunity in 2023, but never got a vote. Thank you very much. Senator Schumer is in his mid-70s and spent his entire career in elected office. You're in your late 60s and you've spent your entire career in elected office. You ran the Democratic Campaign Committee a few years ago in a tough cycle. You've been involved in leadership. You were nearly House Speaker. How do you shake up the status quo? So I've been somebody who has had a record of running against the establishment as an underdog. That was true in my days in the state legislature when I took on the president of the state legislature. It's true when I took on the establishment candidate in my first congressional race. I ran against a member of the Kennedy family. All the establishment was with him. And then, absolutely, I took those skills and I chaired the DCCC, chaired the DSCC. But what has never changed about me is I still believe that we can support the underdog. And right now, American workers and the American people have essentially been eclipsed by powerful special interests. in the United States Senate, and I have always, always run against powerful special interests. And in my view, at the end of the day, this is about answering the call of the American people, because what I'm very afraid of is that their calls to end political corruption, their calls to end a rigged economic system, will require that we organize the Senate in a different way, that we make sure that our new members who are Fresh off of listening to the American people, that their ideas in front and center, their ideas are very popular. If you look at what they ran on, things like having a minimum wage that's a livable wage, making sure that we hold AI accountable, making sure that none of us pay one dime to help build data centers, making sure that we end this war and end this war now. And right now, under our current leadership, We have a situation where they're not willing to use the most important power we have to end the war, which is to defund it. So my view is that we need to be listening to these individuals and I have a record of really taking on these powerful special interests and I look forward to giving the opportunity to our new members to carry the torch on these issues because they ran on issues that are very popular with the American people. I'll tell you who they're not popular with. Washington lobbyists and corporate special interests. I mean, think of the issues we're going to be talking about. Regulating AI, making sure that consumers don't pay for data centers, having a minimum wage that's a livable wage, and very importantly, taking on a broken healthcare system. So we all agree we need to reverse the damage. It was done by the Trump administration and their so-called big, beautiful bill. It was beautiful for billionaires. It sucked for everybody else. But that just gets us back to the pre-Trump situation. We need to fix a broken health care system. It has right now become a money-making system. It puts profits over patients. And I can tell you there will be an army of lobbyists and special interests trying to prevent us from making sure every American... has access to affordable health care. So I'm looking forward to those fights, and that's the way we're going to go forward. And you completely rule out 2028? I'm not running in 2028. Do you support abolishing the filibuster? So I believe we... My personal opinion is that we need democracy in the United States Senate. And that means allowing, ultimately, a majority of senators to answer the call of the American people. So that means 51 votes. So my personal view has been all along that the filibuster is an anti-democratic, small d, provisions. It's not in our Constitution. It was put in there by senators to enhance their power over the power of the people. So my view is we need to have a system where you have lots of debate, lots of debate, But at the end of the day, A majority, reflecting the will of the people, should be able to hold a vote on an important measure. That's my personal view. This is an issue that I think we need to talk to the caucus about, and I think it's going to be very important on certain measures, especially democracy protection measures, that we find a way to make sure that the American people's will. So these candidates have been talking about the power of the people, the power of democracy over the power of money. So we need to have that conversation. So this is very much in flux, I mean I can tell you that, let me be clear, I'm the underdog in this race. The majority leader has lots of powers of incumbency to try to, you know, Make deals or agreements with people that's actually part of the problem with the process, but I can tell you that A lot of my colleagues want to see a whole different approach to governing in the United States Senate and in the Senate Democratic Caucus. So the bottom line, I'm not going to put out a number, I just heard a couple more. One of the new members, Peggy Flanagan, just announced her support for me today. So that's two new members, as you well know, a majority of the new members, fresh off the The campaign trail, fresh off listening to their constituents, have said they will not support the current majority leader for re-election. And they are answering the call of the American people for change, and I think the whole caucus should answer that call. We should learn the Korean language. Who should run in 2028, in terms of candidates? Yep, Democrats. What kind of Democrats should run? So, here's my view. And this election affirms a view I've had for a very long time. Democrats should run and compete everywhere. We just won in Mississippi, it was called. By the way, I also saw that Senator-elect Scott Cullum just tweeted out or sent out a message saying, Nobody in Washington recruited me. I stepped up and answered the call of America. So here's what we need to do. There are a lot of seats that are up in 2028 where we just had Senators win. Senator elect win. So what that demonstrates is that we need to be competing everywhere and And... listening to the American people as we do it, as this class did. Do you think Chuck Schumer will receive any credit for the success Democrats have had in the election cycle? So look, I think our whole caucus pulled together to support Candidates, I know many of my colleagues did. I know I personally did. I respect the work of the DSCC. I chaired the DSCC at one time. But we should be very clear. This was a victory for the American people from the country to Washington. This was not orchestrated by Washington, D.C., which is exactly what Scott Colomew was saying today because he was hearing people in Washington. Take credit for his victory. The reality is that Washington spent very little money and very late in his campaign. Take Annie Andrews in South Carolina. The Washington came in very late. So I'm gonna tell you something. What gave me hope over the last two years during this very dark chapter in our history with Donald Trump trying to trash our constitution, were all the people all over America who refused to be silenced. But who stood up. People I know Kings Days. People in Minneapolis who went out to protect their neighbors. It's that energy that came to the polls on Election Day and asked for change. This was not orchestrated by Washington. This was a wave election. I mean, we didn't just win Senate races, win House races, but also governor's races, state legislative races. Local races, so the notion that this was somehow a Washington-engineered victory is delusional. This was the power of the people, and in many cases, the power of the people over the super PACs, the many over the money, and that was what was so heartwarming about this new class of senators. Senator Ben Sasse, I'm sorry, everybody. Yesterday, Senator, like Jay Talarico said yesterday. That Democrats should work with the president to try to accomplish as much legislation as possible. What are your thoughts about that? Because your comments inside seem to maybe contradict that sort of tenor. Yeah, so what I've said very clearly is that we need to answer the call of the American people. And our great new senators laid out platforms which, no matter where they were from in the country, Red states or blue states or purple states, they had strikingly similar platforms of economic populism. So what I say is that, no, we shouldn't wait to hear what President Trump may or may not do. We should answer the call of the American people. We should pass the legislation that these individuals campaigned on and listen to the American people. So, if Donald Trump wants to sign one of these bills that will help working people and unrig our system and get corruption out of our politics, yes, of course, I would welcome that. But I don't think we should make our decisions in the United States Senate based on what Donald Trump may or may not do. If he signs it, great. If he vetoes a bill for working people and shows once again that he stands on the side of his billionaire buddies. Then the American people will see that. So it'd be great if the president, for example, signed a bill to have a minimum wage that's a livable wage. So of course we would like the president to support these initiatives backing the American people. But we can't essentially say we're not going to move forward on this idea because he says he might veto it. Thank you all very, very much. Thank you. Thank you.