Kansas

The following is the full transcript of President Obama’s remarks in Osawatomie, Kan., Tuesday as provided by the White House.

THE PRESIDENT: Well, I want to start by thanking a few folks who’ve joined us today. We’ve got the mayor of Osawatomie, Phil Dudley is here. (Applause.) We have your superintendent Gary French in the house. (Applause.) And we have the principal of Osawatomie High, Doug Chisam. (Applause.) And I have brought your former governor, who is doing now an outstanding job as Secretary of Health and Human Services — Kathleen Sebelius is in the house. (Applause.) We love Kathleen.

Well, it is great to be back in the state of Tex — (laughter) — state of Kansas. I was giving Bill Self a hard time, he was here a while back. As many of you know, I have roots here. (Applause.) I’m sure you’re all familiar with the Obamas of Osawatomie. (Laughter.) Actually, I like to say that I got my name from my father, but I got my accent — and my values — from my mother. (Applause.) She was born in Wichita. (Applause.) Her mother grew up in Augusta. Her father was from El Dorado. So my Kansas roots run deep.

My grandparents served during World War II. He was a soldier in Patton’s Army; she was a worker on a bomber assembly line. And together, they shared the optimism of a nation that triumphed over the Great Depression and over fascism. They believed in an America where hard work paid off, and responsibility was rewarded, and anyone could make it if they tried — no matter who you were, no matter where you came from, no matter how you started out. (Applause.)

And these values gave rise to the largest middle class and the strongest economy that the world has ever known. It was here in America that the most productive workers, the most innovative companies turned out the best products on Earth. And you know what? Every American shared in that pride and in that success — from those in the executive suites to those in middle management to those on the factory floor. (Applause.) So you could have some confidence that if you gave it your all, you’d take enough home to raise your family and send your kids to school and have your health care covered, put a little away for retirement. Today, we’re still home to the world’s most productive workers. We’re still home to the world’s most innovative companies. But for most Americans, the basic bargain that made this country great has eroded. Long before the recession hit, hard work stopped paying off for too many people. Fewer and fewer of the folks who contributed to the success of our economy actually benefited from that success. Those at the very top grew wealthier from their incomes and their investments — wealthier than ever before. But everybody else struggled with costs that were growing and paychecks that weren’t — and too many families found themselves racking up more and more debt just to keep up.

Now, for many years, credit cards and home equity loans papered over this harsh reality. But in 2008, the house of cards collapsed. We all know the story by now: Mortgages sold to people who couldn’t afford them, or even sometimes understand them. Banks and investors allowed to keep packaging the risk and selling it off. Huge bets — and huge bonuses — made with other people’s money on the line. Regulators who were supposed to warn us about the dangers of all this, but looked the other way or didn’t have the authority to look at all.

It was wrong. It combined the breathtaking greed of a few with irresponsibility all across the system. And it plunged our economy and the world into a crisis from which we’re still fighting to recover. It claimed the jobs and the homes and the basic security of millions of people — innocent, hardworking Americans who had met their responsibilities but were still left holding the bag.

And ever since, there’s been a raging debate over the best way to restore growth and prosperity, restore balance, restore fairness. Throughout the country, it’s sparked protests and political movements — from the tea party to the people who’ve been occupying the streets of New York and other cities. It’s left Washington in a near-constant state of gridlock. It’s been the topic of heated and sometimes colorful discussion among the men and women running for president. (Laughter.)

But, Osawatomie, this is not just another political debate. This is the defining issue of our time. This is a make-or-break moment for the middle class, and for all those who are fighting to get into the middle class. Because what’s at stake is whether this will be a country where working people can earn enough to raise a family, build a modest savings, own a home, secure their retirement.

Now, in the midst of this debate, there are some who seem to be suffering from a kind of collective amnesia. After all that’s happened, after the worst economic crisis, the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, they want to return to the same practices that got us into this mess. In fact, they want to go back to the same policies that stacked the deck against middle-class Americans for way too many years. And their philosophy is simple: We are better off when everybody is left to fend for themselves and play by their own rules.

I am here to say they are wrong. (Applause.) I’m here in Kansas to reaffirm my deep conviction that we’re greater together than we are on our own. I believe that this country succeeds when everyone gets a fair shot, when everyone does their fair share, when everyone plays by the same rules. (Applause.) These aren’t Democratic values or Republican values. These aren’t 1 percent values or 99 percent values. They’re American values. And we have to reclaim them. (Applause.)

You see, this isn’t the first time America has faced this choice. At the turn of the last century, when a nation of farmers was transitioning to become the world’s industrial giant, we had to decide: Would we settle for a country where most of the new railroads and factories were being controlled by a few giant monopolies that kept prices high and wages low? Would we allow our citizens and even our children to work ungodly hours in conditions that were unsafe and unsanitary? Would we restrict education to the privileged few? Because there were people who thought massive inequality and exploitation of people was just the price you pay for progress.

Theodore Roosevelt disagreed. He was the Republican son of a wealthy family. He praised what the titans of industry had done to create jobs and grow the economy. He believed then what we know is true today, that the free market is the greatest force for economic progress in human history. It’s led to a prosperity and a standard of living unmatched by the rest of the world.

But Roosevelt also knew that the free market has never been a free license to take whatever you can from whomever you can. (Applause.) He understood the free market only works when there are rules of the road that ensure competition is fair and open and honest. And so he busted up monopolies, forcing those companies to compete for consumers with better services and better prices. And today, they still must. He fought to make sure businesses couldn’t profit by exploiting children or selling food or medicine that wasn’t safe. And today, they still can’t.
And in 1910, Teddy Roosevelt came here to Osawatomie and he laid out his vision for what he called a New Nationalism. “Our country,” he said, “…means nothing unless it means the triumph of a real democracy…of an economic system under which each man shall be guaranteed the opportunity to show the best that there is in him.” (Applause.)

Now, for this, Roosevelt was called a radical. He was called a socialist — (laughter) — even a communist. But today, we are a richer nation and a stronger democracy because of what he fought for in his last campaign: an eight-hour work day and a minimum wage for women — (applause) — insurance for the unemployed and for the elderly, and those with disabilities; political reform and a progressive income tax. (Applause.)

Today, over 100 years later, our economy has gone through another transformation. Over the last few decades, huge advances in technology have allowed businesses to do more with less, and it’s made it easier for them to set up shop and hire workers anywhere they want in the world. And many of you know firsthand the painful disruptions this has caused for a lot of Americans.
Factories where people thought they would retire suddenly picked up and went overseas, where workers were cheaper. Steel mills that needed 100 — or 1,000 employees are now able to do the same work with 100 employees, so layoffs too often became permanent, not just a temporary part of the business cycle. And these changes didn’t just affect blue-collar workers. If you were a bank teller or a phone operator or a travel agent, you saw many in your profession replaced by ATMs and the Internet.

Today, even higher-skilled jobs, like accountants and middle management can be outsourced to countries like China or India. And if you’re somebody whose job can be done cheaper by a computer or someone in another country, you don’t have a lot of leverage with your employer when it comes to asking for better wages or better benefits, especially since fewer Americans today are part of a union.

Now, just as there was in Teddy Roosevelt’s time, there is a certain crowd in Washington who, for the last few decades, have said, let’s respond to this economic challenge with the same old tune. “The market will take care of everything,” they tell us. If we just cut more regulations and cut more taxes — especially for the wealthy — our economy will grow stronger. Sure, they say, there will be winners and losers. But if the winners do really well, then jobs and prosperity will eventually trickle down to everybody else. And, they argue, even if prosperity doesn’t trickle down, well, that’s the price of liberty.

Now, it’s a simple theory. And we have to admit, it’s one that speaks to our rugged individualism and our healthy skepticism of too much government. That’s in America’s DNA. And that theory fits well on a bumper sticker. (Laughter.) But here’s the problem: It doesn’t work. It has never worked. (Applause.) It didn’t work when it was tried in the decade before the Great Depression. It’s not what led to the incredible postwar booms of the ‘50s and ‘60s. And it didn’t work when we tried it during the last decade. (Applause.) I mean, understand, it’s not as if we haven’t tried this theory.

Remember in those years, in 2001 and 2003, Congress passed two of the most expensive tax cuts for the wealthy in history. And what did it get us? The slowest job growth in half a century. Massive deficits that have made it much harder to pay for the investments that built this country and provided the basic security that helped millions of Americans reach and stay in the middle class — things like education and infrastructure, science and technology, Medicare and Social Security.

Remember that in those same years, thanks to some of the same folks who are now running Congress, we had weak regulation, we had little oversight, and what did it get us? Insurance companies that jacked up people’s premiums with impunity and denied care to patients who were sick, mortgage lenders that tricked families into buying homes they couldn’t afford, a financial sector where irresponsibility and lack of basic oversight nearly destroyed our entire economy.

We simply cannot return to this brand of “you’re on your own” economics if we’re serious about rebuilding the middle class in this country. (Applause.) We know that it doesn’t result in a strong economy. It results in an economy that invests too little in its people and in its future. We know it doesn’t result in a prosperity that trickles down. It results in a prosperity that’s enjoyed by fewer and fewer of our citizens.

Look at the statistics. In the last few decades, the average income of the top 1 percent has gone up by more than 250 percent to $1.2 million per year. I’m not talking about millionaires, people who have a million dollars. I’m saying people who make a million dollars every single year. For the top one hundredth of 1 percent, the average income is now $27 million per year. The typical CEO who used to earn about 30 times more than his or her worker now earns 110 times more. And yet, over the last decade the incomes of most Americans have actually fallen by about 6 percent.

Now, this kind of inequality — a level that we haven’t seen since the Great Depression — hurts us all. When middle-class families can no longer afford to buy the goods and services that businesses are selling, when people are slipping out of the middle class, it drags down the entire economy from top to bottom. America was built on the idea of broad-based prosperity, of strong consumers all across the country. That’s why a CEO like Henry Ford made it his mission to pay his workers enough so that they could buy the cars he made. It’s also why a recent study showed that countries with less inequality tend to have stronger and steadier economic growth over the long run.

Inequality also distorts our democracy. It gives an outsized voice to the few who can afford high-priced lobbyists and unlimited campaign contributions, and it runs the risk of selling out our democracy to the highest bidder. (Applause.) It leaves everyone else rightly suspicious that the system in Washington is rigged against them, that our elected representatives aren’t looking out for the interests of most Americans.

But there’s an even more fundamental issue at stake. This kind of gaping inequality gives lie to the promise that’s at the very heart of America: that this is a place where you can make it if you try. We tell people — we tell our kids — that in this country, even if you’re born with nothing, work hard and you can get into the middle class. We tell them that your children will have a chance to do even better than you do. That’s why immigrants from around the world historically have flocked to our shores.

And yet, over the last few decades, the rungs on the ladder of opportunity have grown farther and farther apart, and the middle class has shrunk. You know, a few years after World War II, a child who was born into poverty had a slightly better than 50-50 chance of becoming middle class as an adult. By 1980, that chance had fallen to around 40 percent. And if the trend of rising inequality over the last few decades continues, it’s estimated that a child born today will only have a one-in-three chance of making it to the middle class — 33 percent.

It’s heartbreaking enough that there are millions of working families in this country who are now forced to take their children to food banks for a decent meal. But the idea that those children might not have a chance to climb out of that situation and back into the middle class, no matter how hard they work? That’s inexcusable. It is wrong. (Applause.) It flies in the face of everything that we stand for. (Applause.)

Now, fortunately, that’s not a future that we have to accept, because there’s another view about how we build a strong middle class in this country — a view that’s truer to our history, a vision that’s been embraced in the past by people of both parties for more than 200 years.

It’s not a view that we should somehow turn back technology or put up walls around America. It’s not a view that says we should punish profit or success or pretend that government knows how to fix all of society’s problems. It is a view that says in America we are greater together — when everyone engages in fair play and everybody gets a fair shot and everybody does their fair share. (Applause.)

So what does that mean for restoring middle-class security in today’s economy? Well, it starts by making sure that everyone in America gets a fair shot at success. The truth is we’ll never be able to compete with other countries when it comes to who’s best at letting their businesses pay the lowest wages, who’s best at busting unions, who’s best at letting companies pollute as much as they want. That’s a race to the bottom that we can’t win, and we shouldn’t want to win that race. (Applause.) Those countries don’t have a strong middle class. They don’t have our standard of living.

The race we want to win, the race we can win is a race to the top — the race for good jobs that pay well and offer middle-class security. Businesses will create those jobs in countries with the highest-skilled, highest-educated workers, the most advanced transportation and communication, the strongest commitment to research and technology.

The world is shifting to an innovation economy and nobody does innovation better than America. Nobody does it better. (Applause.) No one has better colleges. Nobody has better universities. Nobody has a greater diversity of talent and ingenuity. No one’s workers or entrepreneurs are more driven or more daring. The things that have always been our strengths match up perfectly with the demands of the moment.

But we need to meet the moment. We’ve got to up our game. We need to remember that we can only do that together. It starts by making education a national mission — a national mission. (Applause.) Government and businesses, parents and citizens. In this economy, a higher education is the surest route to the middle class. The unemployment rate for Americans with a college degree or more is about half the national average. And their incomes are twice as high as those who don’t have a high school diploma. Which means we shouldn’t be laying off good teachers right now — we should be hiring them. (Applause.) We shouldn’t be expecting less of our schools –- we should be demanding more. (Applause.) We shouldn’t be making it harder to afford college — we should be a country where everyone has a chance to go and doesn’t rack up $100,000 of debt just because they went. (Applause.)

In today’s innovation economy, we also need a world-class commitment to science and research, the next generation of high-tech manufacturing. Our factories and our workers shouldn’t be idle. We should be giving people the chance to get new skills and training at community colleges so they can learn how to make wind turbines and semiconductors and high-powered batteries. And by the way, if we don’t have an economy that’s built on bubbles and financial speculation, our best and brightest won’t all gravitate towards careers in banking and finance. (Applause.) Because if we want an economy that’s built to last, we need more of those young people in science and engineering. (Applause.) This country should not be known for bad debt and phony profits. We should be known for creating and selling products all around the world that are stamped with three proud words: Made in America. (Applause.)

Today, manufacturers and other companies are setting up shop in the places with the best infrastructure to ship their products, move their workers, communicate with the rest of the world. And that’s why the over 1 million construction workers who lost their jobs when the housing market collapsed, they shouldn’t be sitting at home with nothing to do. They should be rebuilding our roads and our bridges, laying down faster railroads and broadband, modernizing our schools — (applause) — all the things other countries are already doing to attract good jobs and businesses to their shores.

Yes, business, and not government, will always be the primary generator of good jobs with incomes that lift people into the middle class and keep them there. But as a nation, we’ve always come together, through our government, to help create the conditions where both workers and businesses can succeed. (Applause.) And historically, that hasn’t been a partisan idea. Franklin Roosevelt worked with Democrats and Republicans to give veterans of World War II — including my grandfather, Stanley Dunham — the chance to go to college on the G.I. Bill. It was a Republican President, Dwight Eisenhower, a proud son of Kansas — (applause) — who started the Interstate Highway System, and doubled down on science and research to stay ahead of the Soviets.

Of course, those productive investments cost money. They’re not free. And so we’ve also paid for these investments by asking everybody to do their fair share. Look, if we had unlimited resources, no one would ever have to pay any taxes and we would never have to cut any spending. But we don’t have unlimited resources. And so we have to set priorities. If we want a strong middle class, then our tax code must reflect our values. We have to make choices.

Today that choice is very clear. To reduce our deficit, I’ve already signed nearly $1 trillion of spending cuts into law and I’ve proposed trillions more, including reforms that would lower the cost of Medicare and Medicaid. (Applause.)

But in order to structurally close the deficit, get our fiscal house in order, we have to decide what our priorities are. Now, most immediately, short term, we need to extend a payroll tax cut that’s set to expire at the end of this month. (Applause.) If we don’t do that, 160 million Americans, including most of the people here, will see their taxes go up by an average of $1,000 starting in January and it would badly weaken our recovery. That’s the short term.

In the long term, we have to rethink our tax system more fundamentally. We have to ask ourselves: Do we want to make the investments we need in things like education and research and high-tech manufacturing — all those things that helped make us an economic superpower? Or do we want to keep in place the tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans in our country? Because we can’t afford to do both. That is not politics. That’s just math. (Laughter and applause.)

Now, so far, most of my Republican friends in Washington have refused under any circumstance to ask the wealthiest Americans to go to the same tax rate they were paying when Bill Clinton was president. So let’s just do a trip down memory lane here.

Keep in mind, when President Clinton first proposed these tax increases, folks in Congress predicted they would kill jobs and lead to another recession. Instead, our economy created nearly 23 million jobs and we eliminated the deficit. (Applause.) Today, the wealthiest Americans are paying the lowest taxes in over half a century. This isn’t like in the early ‘50s, when the top tax rate was over 90 percent. This isn’t even like the early ‘80s, when the top tax rate was about 70 percent. Under President Clinton, the top rate was only about 39 percent. Today, thanks to loopholes and shelters, a quarter of all millionaires now pay lower tax rates than millions of you, millions of middle-class families. Some billionaires have a tax rate as low as 1 percent. One percent.

That is the height of unfairness. It is wrong. (Applause.) It’s wrong that in the United States of America, a teacher or a nurse or a construction worker, maybe earns $50,000 a year, should pay a higher tax rate than somebody raking in $50 million. (Applause.) It’s wrong for Warren Buffett’s secretary to pay a higher tax rate than Warren Buffett. (Applause.) And by the way, Warren Buffett agrees with me. (Laughter.) So do most Americans — Democrats, independents and Republicans. And I know that many of our wealthiest citizens would agree to contribute a little more if it meant reducing the deficit and strengthening the economy that made their success possible.

This isn’t about class warfare. This is about the nation’s welfare. It’s about making choices that benefit not just the people who’ve done fantastically well over the last few decades, but that benefits the middle class, and those fighting to get into the middle class, and the economy as a whole.

Finally, a strong middle class can only exist in an economy where everyone plays by the same rules, from Wall Street to Main Street. (Applause.) As infuriating as it was for all of us, we rescued our major banks from collapse, not only because a full-blown financial meltdown would have sent us into a second Depression, but because we need a strong, healthy financial sector in this country.

But part of the deal was that we wouldn’t go back to business as usual. And that’s why last year we put in place new rules of the road that refocus the financial sector on what should be their core purpose: getting capital to the entrepreneurs with the best ideas, and financing millions of families who want to buy a home or send their kids to college.

Now, we’re not all the way there yet, and the banks are fighting us every inch of the way. But already, some of these reforms are being implemented.

If you’re a big bank or risky financial institution, you now have to write out a “living will” that details exactly how you’ll pay the bills if you fail, so that taxpayers are never again on the hook for Wall Street’s mistakes. (Applause.) There are also limits on the size of banks and new abilities for regulators to dismantle a firm that is going under. The new law bans banks from making risky bets with their customers’ deposits, and it takes away big bonuses and paydays from failed CEOs, while giving shareholders a say on executive salaries.

This is the law that we passed. We are in the process of implementing it now. All of this is being put in place as we speak. Now, unless you’re a financial institution whose business model is built on breaking the law, cheating consumers and making risky bets that could damage the entire economy, you should have nothing to fear from these new rules.

Some of you may know, my grandmother worked as a banker for most of her life — worked her way up, started as a secretary, ended up being a vice president of a bank. And I know from her, and I know from all the people that I’ve come in contact with, that the vast majority of bankers and financial service professionals, they want to do right by their customers. They want to have rules in place that don’t put them at a disadvantage for doing the right thing. And yet, Republicans in Congress are fighting as hard as they can to make sure that these rules aren’t enforced.

I’ll give you a specific example. For the first time in history, the reforms that we passed put in place a consumer watchdog who is charged with protecting everyday Americans from being taken advantage of by mortgage lenders or payday lenders or debt collectors. And the man we nominated for the post, Richard Cordray, is a former attorney general of Ohio who has the support of most attorney generals, both Democrat and Republican, throughout the country. Nobody claims he’s not qualified.

But the Republicans in the Senate refuse to confirm him for the job; they refuse to let him do his job. Why? Does anybody here think that the problem that led to our financial crisis was too much oversight of mortgage lenders or debt collectors?

AUDIENCE: No!

THE PRESIDENT: Of course not. Every day we go without a consumer watchdog is another day when a student, or a senior citizen, or a member of our Armed Forces — because they are very vulnerable to some of this stuff — could be tricked into a loan that they can’t afford — something that happens all the time. And the fact is that financial institutions have plenty of lobbyists looking out for their interests. Consumers deserve to have someone whose job it is to look out for them. (Applause.) And I intend to make sure they do. (Applause.) And I want you to hear me, Kansas: I will veto any effort to delay or defund or dismantle the new rules that we put in place. (Applause.)

We shouldn’t be weakening oversight and accountability. We should be strengthening oversight and accountability. I’ll give you another example. Too often, we’ve seen Wall Street firms violating major anti-fraud laws because the penalties are too weak and there’s no price for being a repeat offender. No more. I’ll be calling for legislation that makes those penalties count so that firms don’t see punishment for breaking the law as just the price of doing business. (Applause.)

The fact is this crisis has left a huge deficit of trust between Main Street and Wall Street. And major banks that were rescued by the taxpayers have an obligation to go the extra mile in helping to close that deficit of trust. At minimum, they should be remedying past mortgage abuses that led to the financial crisis. They should be working to keep responsible homeowners in their home. We’re going to keep pushing them to provide more time for unemployed homeowners to look for work without having to worry about immediately losing their house.

The big banks should increase access to refinancing opportunities to borrowers who haven’t yet benefited from historically low interest rates. And the big banks should recognize that precisely because these steps are in the interest of middle-class families and the broader economy, it will also be in the banks’ own long-term financial interest. What will be good for consumers over the long term will be good for the banks. (Applause.)

Investing in things like education that give everybody a chance to succeed. A tax code that makes sure everybody pays their fair share. And laws that make sure everybody follows the rules. That’s what will transform our economy. That’s what will grow our middle class again. In the end, rebuilding this economy based on fair play, a fair shot, and a fair share will require all of us to see that we have a stake in each other’s success. And it will require all of us to take some responsibility.

It will require parents to get more involved in their children’s education. It will require students to study harder. (Applause.) It will require some workers to start studying all over again. It will require greater responsibility from homeowners not to take out mortgages they can’t afford. They need to remember that if something seems too good to be true, it probably is.

It will require those of us in public service to make government more efficient and more effective, more consumer-friendly, more responsive to people’s needs. That’s why we’re cutting programs that we don’t need to pay for those we do. (Applause.) That’s why we’ve made hundreds of regulatory reforms that will save businesses billions of dollars. That’s why we’re not just throwing money at education, we’re challenging schools to come up with the most innovative reforms and the best results.
And it will require American business leaders to understand that their obligations don’t just end with their shareholders. Andy Grove, the legendary former CEO of Intel, put it best. He said, “There is another obligation I feel personally, given that everything I’ve achieved in my career, and a lot of what Intel has achieved…were made possible by a climate of democracy, an economic climate and investment climate provided by the United States.”

This broader obligation can take many forms. At a time when the cost of hiring workers in China is rising rapidly, it should mean more CEOs deciding that it’s time to bring jobs back to the United States — (applause) — not just because it’s good for business, but because it’s good for the country that made their business and their personal success possible. (Applause.)

I think about the Big Three auto companies who, during recent negotiations, agreed to create more jobs and cars here in America, and then decided to give bonuses not just to their executives, but to all their employees, so that everyone was invested in the company’s success. (Applause.)

I think about a company based in Warroad, Minnesota. It’s called Marvin Windows and Doors. During the recession, Marvin’s competitors closed dozens of plants, let hundreds of workers go. But Marvin’s did not lay off a single one of their 4,000 or so employees — not one. In fact, they’ve only laid off workers once in over a hundred years. Mr. Marvin’s grandfather even kept his eight employees during the Great Depression.

Now, at Marvin’s when times get tough, the workers agree to give up some perks and some pay, and so do the owners. As one owner said, “You can’t grow if you’re cutting your lifeblood — and that’s the skills and experience your workforce delivers.” (Applause.) For the CEO of Marvin’s, it’s about the community. He said, “These are people we went to school with. We go to church with them. We see them in the same restaurants. Indeed, a lot of us have married local girls and boys. We could be anywhere, but we are in Warroad.”

That’s how America was built. That’s why we’re the greatest nation on Earth. That’s what our greatest companies understand. Our success has never just been about survival of the fittest. It’s about building a nation where we’re all better off. We pull together. We pitch in. We do our part. We believe that hard work will pay off, that responsibility will be rewarded, and that our children will inherit a nation where those values live on. (Applause.)

And it is that belief that rallied thousands of Americans to Osawatomie — (applause) — maybe even some of your ancestors — on a rain-soaked day more than a century ago. By train, by wagon, on buggy, bicycle, on foot, they came to hear the vision of a man who loved this country and was determined to perfect it.

“We are all Americans,” Teddy Roosevelt told them that day. “Our common interests are as broad as the continent.” In the final years of his life, Roosevelt took that same message all across this country, from tiny Osawatomie to the heart of New York City, believing that no matter where he went, no matter who he was talking to, everybody would benefit from a country in which everyone gets a fair chance. (Applause.)

And well into our third century as a nation, we have grown and we’ve changed in many ways since Roosevelt’s time. The world is faster and the playing field is larger and the challenges are more complex. But what hasn’t changed — what can never change — are the values that got us this far. We still have a stake in each other’s success. We still believe that this should be a place where you can make it if you try. And we still believe, in the words of the man who called for a New Nationalism all those years ago, “The fundamental rule of our national life,” he said, “the rule which underlies all others — is that, on the whole, and in the long run, we shall go up or down together.” And I believe America is on the way up. (Applause.)

Thank you. God bless you. God bless the United States of America.

For most of President Trump’s second term, Republicans have bent to his will. But in two Midwestern states, Trump’s plan to maintain control of the U.S. House in next year’s election by having Republicans redraw congressional districts has hit a roadblock.

Despite weeks of campaigning by the White House, Republicans in Indiana and Kansas say their party doesn’t have enough votes to pass new, more GOP-friendly maps. It’s made the two states outliers in the rush to redistrict — places where Republican-majority legislatures are unwilling or unable to heed Trump’s call and help preserve the party’s control on Capitol Hill.

Lawmakers in the two states still may be persuaded, and the White House push, which has included an Oval Office meeting for Indiana lawmakers and two trips to Indianapolis by Vice President JD Vance, is expected to continue. But for now, it’s a rare setback for the president and his efforts to maintain a compliant GOP-held Congress after the 2026 midterms.

Typically, states redraw the boundaries of their congressional districts every 10 years, based on census data. But because midterm elections typically tend to favor the party not in power — and the GOP holds a razor-thin majority in the House — Trump is pressuring Republicans to devise new maps that favor their candidates.

Democrats need to gain only three seats to flip House control, and the fight has become a bruising back-and-forth.

With new maps of their own, multiple Democratic states including California are moving to counter any gains made by Republicans. The latest, Virginia, is expected to take up the issue in a special session starting Monday.

Opposition to gerrymandering has long been a liberal cause, but Democratic states are now calling for redistricting in response to Trump’s latest effort, which they characterize as an unprecedented power grab.

Indiana

Indiana, whose U.S. House delegation has seven Republicans and two Democrats, was one of the first states on which the Trump administration focused its redistricting efforts this summer.

But a spokesperson for state Senate Leader Rodric Bray’s office said Thursday that the chamber lacks the votes to redraw Indiana’s congressional districts. With only 10 Democrats in the 50-member Senate, that means more than a dozen of the 40 Republicans oppose the idea.

Bray’s office did not respond to requests for an interview.

The holdouts may come from a few schools of thought. New political lines, if poorly executed, could make solidly Republican districts more competitive. Others say they believe it is simply wrong to stack the deck.

“We are being asked to create a new culture in which it would be normal for a political party to select new voters, not once a decade — but any time it fears the consequences of an approaching election,” state Sen. Spencer Deery, a Republican, said in a statement in August.

Deery’s office did not respond to a request for an interview and said the statement stands.

A common GOP argument in favor of new maps is that Democratic-run states such as Massachusetts have no Republican representatives, while Illinois has used redistricting for partisan advantage — a process known as gerrymandering.

“For decades, Democrat states have gerrymandered in the dark of the night,” Republican state Sen. Chris Garten said on social media. “We can no longer sit idly by as our country is stolen from us.”

Republican Lt. Gov. Micah Beckwith, who would vote to break a tie in the state Senate if needed, recently called on lawmakers to forge ahead with redistricting and criticized the holdouts as not sufficiently conservative.

“For years, it has been said accurately that the Indiana Senate is where conservative ideas from the House go to die,” Beckwith said in a social media post.

Indiana is staunchly conservative, but its Republicans tend to foster a deliberate temperance. And the state voted for Barack Obama in 2008.

“Hoosiers, it’s very tough to to predict us, other than to say we’re very cautious,” former GOP state lawmaker Mike Murphy said. “We’re not into trends.”

The party divide reflects a certain independent streak held by voters in Indiana and Kansas and a willingness by some to break ranks.

Writing in the Washington Post last week, former Gov. Mitch Daniels, a Republican, urged Indiana lawmakers to resist the push to gerrymander. “Someone has to lead in climbing out of the mudhole,” he said.

“Hoosiers, like most Americans, place a high value on fairness and react badly to its naked violation,” he wrote.

Kansas

In Kansas, Republican legislative leaders are trying to bypass the Democratic governor and force a special session for only the second time in the state’s 164-year history. Gov. Laura Kelly opposes mid-decade redistricting and has suggested it could be unconstitutional.

The Kansas Constitution allows GOP lawmakers to force a special session with a petition signed by two-thirds of both chambers — also the supermajorities needed to override Kelly’s expected veto of a new map. Republicans hold four more seats than the two-thirds majority in both the state Senate and House. In either, a defection of five Republicans would sink the effort.

Weeks after state Senate President Ty Masterson announced the push for a special session, GOP leaders were struggling to get the last few signatures needed.

Among the holdouts is Rep. Mark Schreiber, who represents a district southwest of Topeka. He told the Associated Press that he “did not sign a petition to call a special session, and I have no plans to sign one.” Schreiber said he believes redistricting should be used only to reflect shifts in population after the once-every-10-year census.

“Redistricting by either party in midcycle should not be done,” he said.

Republicans would probably target U.S. Rep. Sharice Davids, the Democrat representing the mostly Kansas City-area 3rd Congressional District, which includes Johnson County, the state’s most populous. The suburban county accounts for more than 85% of the vote and has trended to the left since 2016.

Kansas has a sizable number of moderate Republicans, and 29% of the state’s 2 million voters are registered as politically unaffiliated. Both groups are prominent in Johnson County.

Republican legislators previously tried to hurt Davids’ chances of reelection when redrawing the district, but she won in 2022 and 2024 by more than 10 percentage points.

“They tried it once and couldn’t get it done,” said Jack Shearer, an 82-year-old registered Republican from suburban Kansas City.

But a mid-decade redistricting has support among some Republicans in the county. State Sen. Doug Shane, whose district includes part of the county, said he believes his constituents would be amenable to splitting it.

“Splitting counties is not unprecedented and occurs in a number of congressional districts around the country,” he said in an email.

Volmert and Hanna write for the Associated Press. Volmert reported from Lansing, Mich., and Hanna from Topeka, Kan. AP writer Heather Hollingsworth in Lenexa, Kan., contributed to this report.

The public release of a Young Republican group chat that included racist language, jokes about rape and flippant commentary on gas chambers prompted bipartisan calls for those involved to be removed from or resign their positions.

The Young Republican National Federation, the GOP’s political organization for Republicans between 18 and 40, called for those involved to step down from the organization. The group described the exchanges, first reported by Politico, as “unbecoming of any Republican.”

Republican Vice President JD Vance, however, has weighed in several times to speak out against what he characterized as “pearl clutching” over the leaked messages.

Politico obtained months of exchanges from a Telegram conversation between leaders and members of the Young Republican National Federation and some of its affiliates in New York, Kansas, Arizona and Vermont.

Here’s a rundown of reaction to the inflammatory group chat, in which the operatives and officials involved openly worried that their comments might be leaked, even as they continued their conversation:

Vance

After Politico’s initial report Tuesday, Vance posted on X a screen grab from 2022 text messages in which Jay Jones, the Democratic candidate in Virginia’s attorney general race, suggested that a prominent Republican get “two bullets to the head.”

“This is far worse than anything said in a college group chat, and the guy who said it could become the AG of Virginia,” Vance wrote Tuesday. “I refuse to join the pearl clutching when powerful people call for political violence.”

Jones has taken “full responsibility” for his comments and offered a public apology to Todd Gilbert, who then was speaker of Virginia’s House of Delegates.

Vance reiterated his initial sentiment Wednesday on “ The Charlie Kirk Show ” podcast, saying when asked about the reporting that a “person seriously wishing for political violence and political assassination is 1,000 times worse than what a bunch of young people, a bunch of kids say in a group chat, however offensive it might be.”

Vance, 41, said he grew up in a different era where “most of what I, the stupid things that I did as a teenager and as a young adult, they’re not on the internet.”

The father of three said he would caution his own children, “especially my boys, don’t put things on the internet, like, be careful with what you post. If you put something in a group chat, assume that some scumbag is going to leak it in an effort to try to cause you harm or cause your family harm.”

“I really don’t want to us to grow up in a country where a kid telling a stupid joke, telling a very offensive, stupid joke is cause to ruin their lives,” Vance said.

Republicans

Other Republicans demanded more immediate intervention. Republican legislative leaders in Vermont, along with Gov. Phil Scott — also a Republican — called for the resignation of state Sen. Sam Douglass, revealed to be a participant in the chat. A joint statement from the GOP lawmakers termed the comments “unacceptable and deeply disturbing.”

Saying she was “absolutely appalled to learn about the alleged comments made by leaders of the New York State Young Republicans,” Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York called for those involved to step down from their positions. Danedri Herbert, chair of the Kansas GOP, said the remarks “do not reflect the beliefs of Republicans and certainly not of Kansas Republicans at large.”

In a statement posted to X on Tuesday, the Young Republican National Federation said it was “appalled” by the reported messages and calling for those involved to resign from their positions within the organization. Young Republican leaders said the behavior was “disgraceful, unbecoming of any Republican, and stands in direct opposition to the values our movement represents.”

Democrats

Democrats have been more uniform in their condemnation. On Wednesday, California Gov. Gavin Newsom wrote to House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer asking for an investigation into the “vile and offensive text messages,” which he called “the definition of conduct that can create a hostile and discriminatory environment that violates civil rights laws.”

Speaking on the Senate floor, Senate Democratic leader Charles E. Schumer of New York on Tuesday described the chat as “revolting,” calling for Republicans including President Trump and Vance to “condemn these comments swiftly and unequivocally.”

Asked about the reporting, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul called the exchanges “vile” and called for consequences for those involved.

“Kick them out of the party. Take away their official roles. Stop using them as campaign advisers,” Hochul said. “There needs to be consequences. This bulls—- has to stop.”

Kinnard writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Michelle L. Price contributed to this report.

New tight end Evan Engram has stepped up big and new running back JK Dobbins is a guy they believe in. He’s currently fifth in the NFL for rushing yards (402) and tied-fourth for rushing touchdowns (four).

I love that head coach Sean Payton has “RUN IT!” at the top of his playcall sheet., external

That shows how the Broncos are a team that wants to run first, because you can do a lot off the back of that. It slows down the pass rush and keeps you in favourable down and distances.

It’s also helped quarterback Bo Nix, who came into the league as the 12th overall draft pick last year, throwing 29 touchdown passes – second only to Justin Herbert for the rookie record (31 in 2020).

Josh Allen and Herbert have the arm strength to throw anywhere, but they don’t move in the same way as Nix. He has incredible arm talent, which is different, and he is so athletic.

His strengths are his mobility, being able to throw on the run, and finding different arm angles to make the pass when he rolls out of the pocket, the bootlegs. He can throw that layered pass across the middle or over the corner.

For a young quarterback, at 25, he’s got a lot of poise in the pocket and isn’t really fazed by the blitz. He tries to avoid a sack as much as possible and is able to throw under pressure. He has a high football IQ and is very decisive.

When you constantly run the ball it eats up the clock and forces the defence to be on the field for longer, and when you’ve got an athletic quarterback the defence has to cover the field vertically and horizontally. It can be exhausting.

Nix has bitten back at Payton on the sideline sometimes and I think the coach likes that attitude, that he’s such a competitor. I think it’s fun for him to have a young quarterback who’s kind of like play-dough. He can really build something up the way he wants to build it. I think it’s a special experience for him.

Payton has won a Super Bowl and now passed Bill Parcells for career NFL wins (173 – tied 14th overall). He’s seen it all. I think the success Denver are having on offence is mostly down to his leadership, his play-calling, his situational awareness – and the combination with Nix helps make him what he is.

You wouldn’t want a better guy in your ear, to help you through some of the tougher situations and build confidence.

I believe in Denver’s defence, in Bo Nix’s tenacity and composure. But are they good enough to go against an elite team at its best? Because that was not a Super Bowl performance by the Eagles last Sunday.

Right now, I don’t think the Broncos are incredible. They’re working above average, which is a good place to be in their division. All they need to do is maintain this trajectory.

They’re really good at leaning into their strength, which is running the ball, and that’s exactly what they should do against the New York Jets at Tottenham. It’s going to be the JK Dobbins show, essentially.

The Jets have allowed 140 rushing yards per game (sixth worst in the league), five rushing touchdowns this season (10th worst), and they’re the only team yet to win a game.

Since the NFL began tracking turnovers in 1933, the Jets are also the first team to be without a single takeaway through five games, which is kind of shocking when you think that their new coach Aaron Glenn was defensive co-ordinator at the Detroit Lions.

Michelle Cooper scored in the 59th minute and the Kansas City Current extended their unbeaten run to 16 straight matches with a 1-0 victory over Angel City on Monday night at BMO Stadium.

It was a league record 19th overall win for the first-place Current, who have already clinched a playoff spot and the NWSL Shield. It was also Kansas City’s 10th win on the road.

The loss snapped a three-game unbeaten streak at home for Angel City (6-11-6).

After a scoreless first half, Jun Endo had one of Angel City’s best chances in the 48th minute, but her shot from distance hit the post.

Cooper broke through just moments after being subbed in, scoring on her first touch off a pass from Haley Hopkins from out in front of the goal.

Kansas City goalkeeper Lorena had her 13th shutout.

Temwa Chawinga, who leads the Golden Boot race with 14 goals, did not play for the Current because of a knee injury.

Both the Orlando Pride and the Washington Spirit had 18 wins last year, the previous league high. The Current are 19-2-2 with three games left in the regular season.

Joseph Paintsil had a hat trick by halftime and the Galaxy cruised to a 4-1 victory over Sporting Kansas City on Saturday night.

Paintsil scored goals in the fourth, 25th, and 43rd minutes for his first hat trick and the fastest in club history. Paintsil has nine goals this season. Defender Mauricio Cuevas notched two assists for a career-best five this season.

Diego Fagúndez used assists from Paintsil — his fifth — and Gabriel Pec to score his fifth goal and cap the scoring for the Galaxy (5-17-9) in the 60th minute. Pec assisted on Paintsil’s final goal and has eight this season. Fagúndez picked up his third assist on Paintsil’s first netter.

Dejan Joveljić scored in the 28th minute for Sporting KC (7-19-6). It was his 18th goal of the season after scoring 15 times for the Galaxy last season in their championship run.

Novak Micovic saved five shots for the Galaxy.

John Pulskamp had five saves for Sporting KC.

Shapi Suleymanov will miss the next match for Sporting KC after he subbed in in the 70th minute and was tagged with a red card in the 83rd.

Sporting KC travels to play Minnesota United on Saturday. The Galaxy travel to play FC Dallas on Saturday.

It’s week two of the NFL season and after two thrilling games won by the Buffalo Bills and Pittsburgh Steelers last week, we now have a Super Bowl rematch. The NFL just knows how to create these match-ups.

The Kansas City Chiefs host the Philadelphia Eagles on Sunday and this is going to be very interesting because it’s definitely a revenge game. The Eagles beat the Chiefs 40-22 in the Super Bowl and nullified them till late in the third quarter.

I think the biggest difference between the two teams is their roster. You look at the Eagles, they have Jalen Hurts, Saquon Barkley, AJ Brown. You can keep listing all these great players, and I just don’t know who the Chiefs have any more. It’s Patrick Mahomes… then what is that supporting cast?

Rashee Rice is suspended for their first six games and Xavier Worthy suffered a shoulder injury as he and Travis Kelce ran into each other in last week’s defeat by the Los Angeles Chargers in Brazil.

That leaves Hollywood Brown and JuJu Smith-Schuster as the main receivers, which puts a lot of pressure on because the Chiefs’ run game has not been terrific at all.

The Chargers game was very much the Mahomes show. At one point, he had more carries than anybody else on the field. He put his body on the line multiple times – those hits add up, and you don’t want to see your superstar quarterback risking his health so early in the season.

Mahomes had six scrambles and the Chiefs only ran it 11 other times. Isiah Pacheco and Kareem Hunt combined for 41 yards with 10 of those carries, and that’s just not sustainable.

After the Eagles, the Chiefs face the New York Giants and then the Baltimore Ravens so, realistically, they could have a 1-3 record after four weeks.

Baltimore is a huge game and with the Ravens losing to the Bills last week, they’re going to have a lot to prove as well, to show that they want to be on top.

The Eagles have a tough run defence, and the Giants have a good defence too, so I think that will be telling, to see how the Chiefs are able to run the ball. These two games stacked together, the Chiefs almost have to think about how they are going to prepare themselves to ensure they’re firing on all cylinders for the Ravens.

Last year, the Chiefs won so many one-score games, and they’re going to have to be much better to do that again. They may be out for revenge against the Eagles but I don’t think they have it in them… yet.

Rashee Rice is a huge part of their offensive scheme and, without Worthy, they don’t have any deep threat either so, I hate to say it, but I really struggle to see what they’ll be able to do. I don’t see what their answers are right now.

In the off-season, the Chiefs lost Joe Thuney, who was huge for them on defence, but they did draft a left tackle in the first round, Josh Simmons, to help protect Mahomes more, and brought in another offensive tackle in Jaylon Moore, so they are doing the right things to create strength on the offensive line.

They need to because the AFC West is the toughest it’s been in a long time – none of it is given this year. The Chargers beat the Chiefs, the Las Vegas Raiders have got better and Bo Nix has only got stronger with the Denver Broncos.

I still think the Chiefs will make the play-offs but if they carry on like this, I would be concerned.

ATLANTA — President Trump and other Republicans have long criticized states that take weeks to count their ballots after election day. This year has seen a flurry of activity to address it.

Part of Trump’s executive order on elections, signed in March but held up by lawsuits, takes aim at one of the main reasons for late vote counts: Many states allow mailed ballots to be counted even if they arrive after election day.

The U.S. Supreme Court last month said it would consider whether a challenge in Illinois can proceed in a case that is among several Republican-backed lawsuits seeking to impose an election day deadline for mail ballots.

At least three states — Kansas, North Dakota and Utah — passed legislation this year that eliminated a grace period for receiving mailed ballots, saying they now need to be in by election day.

Even in California, where weekslong vote counting is a frequent source of frustration and a target of Republican criticism, a bill attempting to speed up the process is moving through the Democratic-controlled Legislature.

Order asserts federal law prohibits counting late ballots

The ballot deadline section of Trump’s wide-ranging executive order relies on an interpretation of federal law that establishes election day for federal elections. He argues this means all ballots must be received by that date.

“This is like allowing persons who arrive 3 days after Election Day, perhaps after a winner has been declared, to vote in person at a former voting precinct, which would be absurd,” the executive order states.

It follows a pattern for the president, who has repeatedly questioned the legitimacy of such ballots even though there is no evidence they are the source of widespread fraud. The issue is tied closely to his complaints about how long it takes to count ballots, his desire for results on election night and his false claims that overnight “dumps” of vote counts point to a rigged election in 2020, when he lost to Democrat Joe Biden.

But ballots received after election day, in addition to being signed and dated by the voter, must be postmarked by the U.S. Postal Service indicating they were completed and dropped off on or before the final day of voting.

Accepting late-arriving ballots has not been a partisan issue historically. States as different as California and Mississippi allow them, while Colorado and Indiana do not.

“There is nothing unreliable or insecure about a ballot that comes back after election day,” said Steve Simon, the chief election official in Minnesota, which has an election day deadline.

In his executive order, most of which is paused by the courts, Trump directs the attorney general to “take all necessary action” to enforce federal law against states that include late-arriving ballots in their final counts for federal elections. He also directs the U.S. Election Assistance Commission to condition federal funding on compliance.

Trump’s rhetoric motivates Republican states

Republicans in five states have passed legislation since the 2020 election moving the mail ballot deadline to election day, according to the Voting Rights Lab, which tracks election legislation.

Earlier this year, GOP lawmakers in Kansas ended the state’s practice of accepting mail ballots up to three days after election day, a change that will take effect for next year’s midterms. Problems with mail delivery had prompted Kansas to add the grace period in 2017.

Kansas state Sen. Mike Thompson, a Republican who chairs the committee that handles election legislation, compared the grace period to giving a football team extra chances to score after the game clock expires.

“We need this uniform end to the election just so that we know that all voters are operating on the same time frame,” he said.

A history of complaints in California

California has long been a source of complaints about the amount of time it takes for ballots to be counted and winners declared.

“The rest of the country shouldn’t have to wait on California to know the results of the elections,” U.S. Rep. Bryan Steil, a Wisconsin Republican who chairs the Committee on House Administration, said during an April hearing.

He said California’s “lax election laws” were to blame for the delays.

The nation’s most populous state has the largest number of registered voters in the country, some 22.9 million, which is roughly equivalent to the number of voters in Florida and Georgia combined.

California also has embraced universal mail voting, which means every registered voter automatically receives a ballot in the mail for each election. The deadline for election offices to receive completed ballots is seven days after election day as long as they are postmarked by election day.

A survey of some 35,000 Los Angeles County voters during last fall’s election found that 40% waited until election day to return their ballot.

Election officials say the exhaustive process for reviewing and counting mail ballots combined with a large percentage of voters waiting until the last minute makes it impossible for all results to be available on election night.

California Democrats consider changes to speed the count

Under state law, election officials in California have 30 days to count ballots, conduct a post-election review and certify the results.

Dean Logan, Los Angeles County’s chief election official, told Congress in May that his team counted nearly 97% of the 3.8 million ballots cast within a week of election day in 2024. Jesse Salinas, president of the state clerks’ association, said his staff in Yolo County, near Sacramento, already works 16-hour days, seven days a week before and after an election.

Assemblyman Marc Berman (D-Menlo Park) introduced legislation that would keep the state’s 30-day certification period but require county election officials to finish counting most ballots within 13 days after the election. They would be required to notify the state if they weren’t going to meet that deadline and give a reason.

“I don’t think that we can stick our heads in the sand and pretend like these conspiracies aren’t out there and that this lack of confidence doesn’t exist, in particular among Republican voters in California,” said Berman. “There are certain good government things that we can do to strengthen our election system.”

He acknowledged that many counties already meet the 13-day deadline in his bill, which awaits consideration in the state Senate.

“My hope is that this will strengthen people’s confidence in their election system and their democracy by having some of those benchmarks and just making it very clear for folks when different results will be available,” Berman said.

Cassidy writes for the Associated Press. AP writer John Hanna in Topeka, Kansas, contributed to this report.

Denis Bouanga had a goal and two assists, Eddie Segura scored his first goal since 2020 and LAFC extended its MLS unbeaten streak to nine games with a 3-1 win over Sporting Kansas City on Sunday night at BMO Stadium.

Bouanga converted from the penalty spot in the 59th to give LAFC (7-4-5), which had 56% possession and outshot Kansas City 21-5, a 2-1 lead.

Dejan Joveljic scored a goal for the fourth consecutive game when he ran onto a through ball played ahead by Manu García, and scored from near the penalty spot to make it 1-0 in the 39th minute.

The 25-year-old Joveljic, who scored 15 goals and had six assists last season, is tied for third in MLS with 10 goals this season, including five in the past four games.

Segura slipped a header — off a corner kick played into the center of the area by Bouanga — inside the back post in first-half stoppage time to make it 1-1 at halftime.

Olivier Giroud capped the scoring in the third minute of stoppage time, the 38-year-old’s second consecutive game with a goal.

John Pulskamp had four saves for Kansas City (4-9-4).

Hugo Lloris stopped one shot for LAFC.