Obama Torches Trump in Comeback Speech

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Speaker 6 He's back. Former President Obama is breaking his silence.
And in an incredible surprise speech, he's destroying Donald Trump for Trump's attack on our voting rights.

Speaker 6 Former President Obama just gave a speech in front of a group made up of Texas state Democratic legislators.

Speaker 6 And former President Obama talked about how the United States was once the envy of the world when it came to voting rights.

Speaker 6 And how it was authoritarian regimes, dictatorships across the world that would rig their elections, and how the rest of the world used to look to the United States as a shining example of the way democracy is supposed to work until Donald Trump destroyed it.

Speaker 6 Let's see what former President Obama said. Let's play it.

Speaker 9 You've got countries all around the world where the elections are fixed, and whoever's in charge suppresses and makes it hard for the opposition to compete.

Speaker 9 And we used to

Speaker 9 be a shining example to those countries. And people would aspire

Speaker 9 to the kind of true democracy that America has.

Speaker 9 And we need to

Speaker 9 get back to that. Because that's not just a Democratic or a Republican idea.
That's an American idea. That's what we're fighting for.

Speaker 6 In addition, former President Obama also talked about how it is so critical right now to stand up for voting rights as Republicans realize that their ideas are failing, that Americans don't like their ideas, so they have to rig the game, play this clip.

Speaker 9 The problem that we've been seeing, not just recently, but this goes back a while,

Speaker 9 is that the Republicans increasingly recognize their ideas won't sell.

Speaker 6 Now, let me show you a longer portion of President Obama's speech before these Texas Democratic legislators play this clip.

Speaker 9 But I am more grateful to you and the rest of the delegation for your sacrifice and what you've done.

Speaker 9 And

Speaker 9 it is important for you to understand

Speaker 9 that

Speaker 9 highlighting what is happening in Texas has galvanized and mobilized folks across the country.

Speaker 9 So

Speaker 9 I think in these kinds of battles, there's a tendency sometimes to

Speaker 9 be frustrated because the game is a little fixed in Texas.

Speaker 9 You know, legislative maps have been drawn in ways that

Speaker 9 entrench one party rather than creating an even playing field. And so sometimes there might have been a temptation to just kind of sit back and let it happen.

Speaker 9 And I think to thanks to the leadership of people like you,

Speaker 9 the leadership of leader Wu,

Speaker 9 all of the members who have

Speaker 9 taken this stand,

Speaker 9 we're slowly waking people up to

Speaker 9 the realities of what's happening right now.

Speaker 9 And let me just say a little bit about this, and then I'll turn it over to Attorney General Holder.

Speaker 9 Both he and I

Speaker 9 believe that

Speaker 9 the right way to do democracy is not to have the people who are already in office select who's going to vote for them, but have the people of America vote and select who's going to represent them.

Speaker 9 That's right. Yeah.

Speaker 9 And

Speaker 9 it would be our preference that that was done in a non-biased way,

Speaker 9 that an independent commission or some sort of neutral

Speaker 9 approach was taken so that Democrats and Republicans compete fairly, the lines aren't drawn to advantage one party or another,

Speaker 9 and

Speaker 9 the people decide

Speaker 9 based on their ideas.

Speaker 9 The problem that we've been seeing, not just recently, but this goes back a while,

Speaker 9 is that the Republicans increasingly recognize their ideas won't sell.

Speaker 9 So we've got to

Speaker 9 fix the game a little bit.

Speaker 9 And

Speaker 9 by drawing maps that splinter

Speaker 9 Democratic voting blocks, by packing in Democrats into one district so that they don't have influence in other districts, all those things can have

Speaker 9 an impact of weakening the impact of Democratic votes and strengthening and increasing

Speaker 9 the influence of Republican voters. And that's not fair.
That's not how democracy is supposed to work.

Speaker 9 The thing that we've also come to recognize, though, and I think Eric,

Speaker 9 who's been working on this redistricting issue for almost a decade now, has what we all recognize is we can't let a systematic assault on democracy just happen and stand by.

Speaker 9 And so, with

Speaker 9 because of your actions, because of your

Speaker 9 courage,

Speaker 9 what you've seen is

Speaker 9 California responding, other states looking at what they can do to offset this mid-decade gerrymandering that is highly irregular and is not

Speaker 9 what we should be doing

Speaker 9 to balance out

Speaker 9 the maps for this upcoming election.

Speaker 9 And

Speaker 9 my hope

Speaker 9 is that rather than have a race to the bottom where every district is predetermined based on how it's drawn, that over time,

Speaker 9 the American people, ideally with the help of the courts,

Speaker 9 realizes that

Speaker 9 there's a better way.

Speaker 9 And I think that will happen, but it requires civic education. It requires mobilization.
It requires activation of the sort that you have just described and that you guys are representative of.

Speaker 9 You're setting an example for what all of us have to do.

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Speaker 9 Because,

Speaker 9 and I'll close with this.

Speaker 9 I think there's been a tendency, you know, I was born in 1961.

Speaker 9 And just looking at the room there,

Speaker 9 that means I might be the oldest person up in here, except for Eric Holder, who's the old, he's really old, even though he looks good.

Speaker 9 But when I think about 1961,

Speaker 9 you know, the Voting Rights Act hadn't yet passed.

Speaker 9 Civil Rights Act hadn't yet passed. March on Washington happened when I was a baby, a toddler.

Speaker 9 And so

Speaker 9 because of the struggles and the fights,

Speaker 9 and because of

Speaker 9 the courts recognizing they had a role to play in strengthening rather than weakening democracy,

Speaker 9 Our democracy got systematically stronger during my lifetime and most of the life, the lifetimes of most of the people who are in that conference room that you guys are sitting in.

Speaker 9 The problem is, I think there's a tendency to take it for granted.

Speaker 9 And I think we became a little bit complacent over the years. We assumed that things would continue to get better, that our democracy would become more inclusive.

Speaker 9 that it would become more fair, that we'd make it easier for people to vote rather than harder for people to vote, that the votes would be counted rather than suppressed.

Speaker 9 And

Speaker 9 what we forgot is that history doesn't always move in a straight line, and it's not always two steps forward and another two steps forward. Sometimes it's two steps forward and a step back.

Speaker 9 And we're in a moment right now where not just gerrymandering, but efforts of voter suppression, efforts at questioning the results of elections,

Speaker 9 efforts at

Speaker 9 the executive branch unilaterally doing things that

Speaker 9 bypass Congress and the people's representatives,

Speaker 9 militarization of cities,

Speaker 9 politicization of our justice departments and

Speaker 9 our military.

Speaker 9 Those are trend lines that remind us

Speaker 9 that this precious democracy that we've got is not a given. It's not self-executing.
It requires us to fight for it.

Speaker 9 It requires us to stand up for it.

Speaker 9 And

Speaker 9 so,

Speaker 9 as tired as y'all may be

Speaker 9 and missing home and

Speaker 9 ready to

Speaker 9 get a change of clothes because you didn't pack enough and all that,

Speaker 9 I want all of you to be returning, feeling invigorated and know that you have helped to lead

Speaker 9 what is going to be a

Speaker 9 long struggle. It's not going to be resolved right away.

Speaker 9 And it's going to require ultimately the American people understanding the states and

Speaker 9 realizing that we cannot take our freedoms and our democracy for granted.

Speaker 9 You've helped set the tone for that, and I'm grateful for it.

Speaker 6 And here is the incredible way that Obama closes this speech. Let's play it.

Speaker 9 And maybe one last thing I want to point out: because obviously

Speaker 9 we're talking to Democrats,

Speaker 9 but

Speaker 9 the stakes that are involved right now

Speaker 9 actually impact Republicans as well. Yeah,

Speaker 9 the Republican Party

Speaker 9 started

Speaker 9 as

Speaker 9 a party that

Speaker 9 was the party of Lincoln.

Speaker 9 Illinois,

Speaker 9 Republicanism was about expanding

Speaker 9 and protecting

Speaker 9 the Union and democracy and perfecting.

Speaker 9 And

Speaker 9 when I got to Washington, when I was in the state legislature like all of you,

Speaker 9 there were differences between Democrats and Republicans, but there was still the capacity to work together.

Speaker 9 And when I got to the Senate,

Speaker 9 there were Republicans who I disagreed with on certain issues, but there was an agreement on the rules. and decorum and conduct, that there were some things that were bigger than

Speaker 9 And I think there are still a bunch of Republicans out there, voters, as well as some of your colleagues, some people in Washington,

Speaker 9 who would like to see a return to

Speaker 9 a sense of fairness

Speaker 9 and a sense of independence,

Speaker 9 where

Speaker 9 a Republican legislature, just like a Democratic legislator, could listen to their district and the people they represent and

Speaker 9 sometimes break with the White House and sometimes do things based on their conscience and not

Speaker 9 try to fix the rules or rig the rules in ways that just shove through

Speaker 9 the agenda of a narrow faction.

Speaker 9 And

Speaker 9 when we have fair voting rights and we have fair maps

Speaker 9 and we're fairly competing,

Speaker 9 that's good for everybody, not just one side.

Speaker 9 And that's what we should be aspiring to over the long term,

Speaker 9 is a situation in which there are rules

Speaker 9 that are fair for everybody. and then we compete just like a basketball game we started off talking about george girbin

Speaker 9 We wouldn't want to be in a game where

Speaker 9 if one team gets down, suddenly they get to change the rules.

Speaker 9 Suddenly, their baskets count for four points and yours only count for two.

Speaker 9 You won't want to be in a basketball game where

Speaker 9 the other team starts to lose, and suddenly they want to fire the ref

Speaker 9 and put in their own cousin

Speaker 9 to referee the game.

Speaker 9 And so

Speaker 9 the beauty of our democracy, just like

Speaker 9 any other

Speaker 9 system we build,

Speaker 9 is when

Speaker 9 we protect the integrity of the process.

Speaker 9 And that's what's at stake here is the integrity of the process.

Speaker 9 And

Speaker 9 when you have a process that has integrity, when when you have a democracy that has integrity,

Speaker 9 then sometimes you may lose an issue. Sometimes you may lose a vote.
Sometimes

Speaker 9 the other side wins an election.

Speaker 9 And they may do some things that you don't like, but you know because it's fair, if you can persuade the people next time,

Speaker 9 then you can take the country in a better direction. That's what we need.

Speaker 9 That's what this country stands for. That's why it's been the envy of the world.

Speaker 9 You've got countries all around the world where the elections are fixed. And whoever's in charge suppresses and makes it hard for the opposition to compete.

Speaker 9 And we used to

Speaker 9 be a shining example to those countries. And people would aspire

Speaker 9 to the kind of... true democracy that America had.

Speaker 9 And we need to

Speaker 9 get get back to that because that's not just a Democratic or a Republican idea. That's an American idea.
That's what we're fighting for. All right.

Speaker 9 I love y'all.

Speaker 6 Okay. Powerful words there by former President Obama.
Tell me what you think. I'd like to see more speeches by him, if I'm being honest.

Speaker 6 I'd like to see him out there more because every time he speaks, it's so on point. It's so inspiring.
Let me know what you think. Leave comments below.
Thanks for watching. Hit subscribe.

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