A Sad Moment in American History

00:00:00 - Thanks everybody for joining me to discuss a very very serious issue.

00:00:05 - Yesterday we witnessed an extremely sad moment in American history

00:00:12 - We saw the president of the United States aligning himself with the dictator of Russia, Vladimir Putin to undermine the independence of Ukraine and its democracy

00:00:23 - Let's be clear: Trump is showing us that he sees one of the world's most brutal dictators as his friend and our long-time democratic allies in Europe as his enemies

00:00:38 - He wants a world that is safe for authoritarians and oligarchs, but is extremely dangerous for democracies.

00:00:47 - It will not surprise you when I tell you that Trump is lying, as he so often does

00:00:53 - yesterday Trump said that Ukraine started the war, that's not true

00:00:58 - Russia invaded Ukraine twice, first in 2014, then again in 2022 right now Russia occupies about 20 percent of Ukraine

00:01:09 - Since Putin's horrific invasion over one million people have been killed or injured

00:01:16 - Every single day Russia continues to rain down hundreds of missiles and drones on Ukrainian cities

00:01:24 - Putin's forces have massacred civilians and kidnapped thousands of Ukrainian children bring them back to Russian re-education, camps

00:01:33 - These atrocities led the International Criminal Court to issue an arrest warrant for Putin in 2023 as a war criminal, a war Criminal

00:01:46 - Further, Trump called Ukrainian President Zelensky a dictator that's not true either

00:01:53 - Zelensky won 75% of the vote in free elections

00:01:56 - in fact, his approval rating is higher than Trump's

00:01:59 - In the midst of the brutal war in brutal war Ukraine's parliament continues to function and free and unfettered political debate, takes place

00:02:11 - Trump claimed that our European allies had done little to support Ukraine in its fight against Putin's invasion

00:02:18 - He said the United States has contributed three times more than Europe, but that's another lie.

00:02:24 - In fact, Europe has provided more aid to Ukraine than the United States

00:02:29 - But it's not just that Trump is lying again, that's not new.

00:02:35 - It's what this all reveals about where he wants to take our country and in fact, the entire world.

00:02:42 - Trump is cozying up to Vladimir Putin So who is Putin, and what kind of world does he want to build?

00:02:52 - Putin is a dictator. who crushed Russia's movement toward democracy after the end of the Cold War

00:03:01 - Russia holds sham elections every six years where Putin wins 90 percent of the vote and the authorities don't even try to hide their ballot-stuffing

00:03:13 - There is no freedom of speech or free media in Putin's Russia

00:03:19 - Protects are violently suppressed, tens of thousands of people are in prison for protesting Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

00:03:30 - Political dissidents are harassed or thrown into jail

00:03:33 - The bravest, people like Alexei Navalny, are killed outright.

00:03:39 - Hundreds of thousands of Russians have fled Putin's brutal regime since his invasion of Ukraine

00:03:48 - But Putin has maintained control in his country, by offering Russia's oligarchs a simple deal

00:03:57 - If you give me absolute power I'll let you steal as much as you want from the Russian people.

00:04:06 - And that's why in a country where many are struggling economically, Russia's oligarchs have stashed trillions of dollars in offshore tax accounts.

00:04:19 - That's the Russian leader that Trump admires, That is the Russian oligarchy that he supports.

00:04:28 - But that is not the perspective of the American people.

00:04:32 - We know, and we're proud of the fact that the United States of America is the longest-standing democracy in the world

00:04:42 - We know that many hundreds of thousands of brave Americans, over the years, had fought and died to defend democracy.

00:04:52 - We also know that our allies in the world are those countries that believe in democracy, not authoritarianism.

00:05:01 - In this critical moment in our history

00:05:04 - I hope that every American, regardless of political perspective, will stand tall and say: YES to democracy, NO to oligarchy, and NO to authoritarianism.

00:05:19 - Thank you very much