"RAMPANT CORRUPTION!" Van Hollen BLAST Trump For Darkening America's History

Donald Trump trying to trash our Constitution with all the people all over America who refused to be silenced, but who stood up. People had no King's 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, won House races, but also governor's races, state legislative races, local races. Trump's policies have been fired, but 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. for the business as usual, and that's why I decided to run for the Senate Majority Leader position. I'm happy to take any questions. Yes. Do you think this at all undermines the united front that Democrats were showcasing this election cycle? I mean, sweeping election results that Tuesday, do you think this is going against that? Actually, I think this is completely in support of that because these are candidates that listened 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 A little democracy. In the United States, Senate caucus is a good thing. Have you had a conversation with Senator Shumer? Yes, I did discuss this with Senator. What do you think you could share? 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. Does this close the door on the 2020 that you've been picking the tires on? Yes, I'm no longer pursuing that. I believe that He keeps it. the size and scale of these majorities 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 on the center. Senator, if you lost the election, would you be running for the White House? Yes, no, I said I'm no longer pursuing that. If you were no longer, if you were not speaking, would you be considered running? Majority leader? Yeah, sorry, majority leader. No, no, I'm no longer pursuing that. Senator, Senator, what's an example of a specific bill that you would put on the floor that you think leadership would be? 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 Health 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. Senator, would you? Senator Schumer is in his mid-70s and has spent his entire career in elected office. You're in your late 60s and you spent your entire career on elected office. You ran the Democratic Campaign Committee a few years ago in a tough cycle. You've been involved in leadership. You were newly 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. 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 were. Fresh off of listening to the American people, that their ideas in front of the 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 a 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 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. 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 free 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. He 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 governs. And 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 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 one of the new members, Peggy Flanagan, just announced her support for me today. So that's two new members, as you well know, the majority of the new members, fresh off 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. Would you support me on the press? You should. Who should run in 2028? The Trumps or the Democrats? Yep, the 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. Let's go. Democrats should run and compete everywhere. We just won in... Mississippi was called, by the way, I also saw that Senator-elect Scott Collin just tweeted out and sent out a message saying, nobody in Washington, I stepped up and answered the call. So here's what we need to do, there are a lot of seats that are up in 2028, where we Senators win, Senator-elect win, so what that demonstrates is that we need to be competing everywhere and listening to the American people as we do it, as this is classed. Do you think Chuck Schumer has any credit for the success Democrats have had in this 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 DC which is exactly what Scott Colon was saying today because he was hearing people in Washington take credit for his The reality is that Washington spent very little money and very late in his campaign. Take Annie Andrews in South Carolina. Washington came in very late. So I want to 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 had no King's 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, won House races, but also governor's races, state legislative races, local races. So the notion that this was somehow a Washington engineer victory is delusion. This was the power of the people, and in many cases, the power of the people over the super pats, the many over the money. And that was what was so heartwarming about this new class of senators. 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 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. 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. Subscribe to One India and never miss an update. Download the One India app now.