Abigail Spanberger on Fighting for Virginians and Americans

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Speaker 1 Visit PrizePicks.com for restrictions and details. So are Republican governors just attacking like their own constituents now who are losing their jobs because of Donald Trump and Elon Musk?

Speaker 1 Let me show you what's going on in Virginia, where their Republican governor Glenn Young is like celebrating the fact that thousands of Virginians are losing their job as a result of Trump and Musk and Doge acts.

Speaker 1 This is what Glenn Young said in his own words. He's cheering on these cuts.
Play this clip.

Speaker 1 Talk about this federal workforce downsizing. What are you doing to prevent these jobs from losing, Virginians from losing jobs in the first place?

Speaker 1 Well, let me just begin with the fact is that I don't believe that the federal government downsizing is wrong.

Speaker 1 And in fact, we need to press forward and drive efficiencies in our federal government. And as a result, in driving those efficiencies, I do expect that some Virginians will lose their jobs.

Speaker 1 I don't know. Is it the whole role of like the governor supposed to be to fight for like your state? I don't know.
It's like in a sports team.

Speaker 1 Could you imagine, like, the coach rooting against the team? You know, I'm the Lakers coach, but I'm really hoping that the New York Knicks win this game. I think that I'd like to see that.

Speaker 1 It'll be more efficient for us. What is going on? Oh, and then Youngkin set up this website, which adds insult to injury.
Virginia has jobs.

Speaker 1 And when you go through this, by the way, I'm not even sure if that's an AI image or people in Europe or what this image even is. But then you look at it

Speaker 1 and it sends you to LinkedIn LinkedIn and indeed and basically says, good luck. All right.
I got to bring in Congresswoman Abigail Spamberger, Democrat who's running for governor in Virginia.

Speaker 1 I look at that as like the craziest, like

Speaker 1 disappointing, crazy. I don't know what you're running for governor of Virginia.
What do you make of it?

Speaker 2 I think the governor of Virginia has a primary job, and that is to stand up for Virginians and to stand up for Virginia.

Speaker 2 And what is just unbelievable unbelievable at this moment is that our governor and our lieutenant governor, who's my opponent in our November 2025 race, are doing neither.

Speaker 2 Excusing the fact that Virginians who work hard, Virginians who serve our country, that they are losing their jobs, have already lost them and are

Speaker 2 fearful that tomorrow might be the day they get that fateful email. It's just outrageous.

Speaker 1 Now, you visited the entire state.

Speaker 1 You visited Democratic areas, republican areas purple areas what are you hearing let's start with in the one is it is it similar all around what are you hearing in the in the red areas when you're traveling there what's going on in the state well every every part every corner of our commonwealth is impacted by these potential layoffs and by the ones that have already occurred.

Speaker 2 We have federal employees across Virginia, certainly very, very centralized in Northern Virginia and in the Hampton Roads region, but across the Commonwealth, everywhere I go, I am hearing either horror stories of people who just got an email one day and the job that they have worked in for years is gone, or they are living in fear that they might get that email.

Speaker 2 And in the story,

Speaker 2 it is the same everywhere I go.

Speaker 2 I had a spouse of an active duty service member approach me at an event in Norfolk, Virginia last weekend, talking about how everyone in his office received this fork in the road email.

Speaker 2 And while he's active duty and a uniformed officer, the worry is that they might cut the entirety of the civilian force. And frankly, it was her worry.

Speaker 2 What's to prevent them from

Speaker 2 axing her husband as well? And the impact of certainly it is on the individuals, it is on people who have devoted their lives to serving our country through all of these various federal roles.

Speaker 2 It's also an impact on Virginia.

Speaker 2 The University of Virginia just came out with a study, and they said a 10% reduction to the federal workforce equates to about 39,000 jobs lost across Virginia and a potential cut of $6 billion with a B, $6 billion in revenue.

Speaker 2 or $6 billion in economic output within our state.

Speaker 2 This is enormous. It's consequential consequential for the individuals, but it's consequential to our economy.

Speaker 2 If you've just lost your job or you're fearful you might lose your job, you're not taking your family out to the movies. You're not

Speaker 2 taking your spouse out for a Valentine's Day dinner.

Speaker 2 You're not replacing the microwave that might be on the fritz. You're not stopping and buying the snacks at the 7-Eleven on your way home.

Speaker 2 The impact is significant and it is felt across the entirety of Virginia.

Speaker 1 Congresswoman, I'm confused because the White House posted this image, victory.

Speaker 1 They are declaring a massive victory because they've asked Google, which Google did, to change the name of the Gulf of Mexico to Gulf of America, which I'm just going to bet.

Speaker 1 that when you go to all the areas in Virginia right now, when they hear about Medicaid being cut, when they hear that their social security may be raided, when they hear about these important agencies and services that they rely on going away.

Speaker 1 I'm going to bet. Is the main issue that they're focused on the Gulf of America? Are they, is this a big celebratory time in the Commonwealth?

Speaker 2 I got to tell you, you guessed this one correctly. Anywhere I travel across Virginia, I have yet to have a single person bring up the Gulf of America to me.

Speaker 2 In addition to the attacks on Virginia and Virginians, I have people bringing to me the fact that the cost at the grocery store is still, still too high.

Speaker 2 The cost of cereal, if you got, I've got three kids at home, elementary schooler, middle schooler, and high schooler, right? The cost of cereal is expensive.

Speaker 2 If you've got kids at home who love cereal or adults like me, right?

Speaker 2 Grocery store prices, high.

Speaker 2 Prices at the pharmacy counter, still a huge portion of people's monthly take-home.

Speaker 2 The housing crisis, whether it's an issue of affordability or just overall lack of supply, education, the desire to have our kids be safe in school, right?

Speaker 2 The issue of recruiting and retaining quality teachers,

Speaker 2 ensuring that our kids continue to do well in school as we kind of come out of this post-pandemic timeframe, the challenges of behavioral health, all of these things, these are the issues that people bring to me.

Speaker 2 I have yet.

Speaker 2 yet to hear anything about the Gulf of America.

Speaker 1 Before becoming a a congresswoman and then running for governor, you were an intelligence officer and you focused on very serious issues at the CIA.

Speaker 1 All issues are serious at the CIA, but you also focused on nuclear proliferation. You focused on terrorism.

Speaker 1 So in the past 48 hours or so, the Trump administration sided with the Access of Evil, Russia, North Korea, Belarus and a few other nations against our allies in refusing to, well, actually just opposing the United Nations resolution condemning Russia's unlawful invasion of Ukraine.

Speaker 1 Donald Trump's continued to praise Putin over and over again, cut out Europe from negotiations and cut out Ukraine from negotiations with Putin and Saudi Arabia. But this is what they're saying.

Speaker 1 Kayleigh McInady, Trump's former press secretary, who's now a host on Fox.

Speaker 1 That's kind of a common theme here, and they become defense secretaries. Apparently, here's what she had to say: she said,

Speaker 1 This is the art of the deal. We're missing the point here.
Play this clip.

Speaker 3 There might be some strategy to that.

Speaker 3 I do think there's a quote method to the madness of buttering up a dictator who very much enjoys that to then find some sort of deal that is friendlier on your terms than maybe it would have been.

Speaker 3 Yes, I think.

Speaker 1 What's your response to that?

Speaker 2 There's no such thing as method to the madness in the national security realm.

Speaker 2 The reality is that

Speaker 2 that vote was a shameful vote. We are the United States of America.
We have been that shining city on a hill. We are

Speaker 2 the beacon of freedom. We are the oldest democracy in the world.

Speaker 2 The fact that we through our vote at the United Nations would side with Russia and North Korea against our ally Ukraine as they fight.

Speaker 2 And they just hit the third anniversary of their fight for their freedom. It is just shameful.

Speaker 2 And it is astounding because for anyone who has come up, not just in the national security space, but anybody who lived through the 80s, right? The Russians, the Soviets before them, they are not.

Speaker 2 the side we want to be taking.

Speaker 2 And for all of our democratic allies across Europe and across Asia to join together in rebuking Russia and standing up for Ukraine and we back away from that,

Speaker 2 like we are denying our own strength. The strength of the United States has always been in our ability to lead.
And whatever She was talking about in that interview, it wasn't, there's no method.

Speaker 2 It's just madness. And it is hurting our own national security.
It is hurting our long-term partnerships with our friends and allies.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 it is, it's just unthinkable, frankly, but it is the reality of where we are in this moment. And

Speaker 2 my hope is that every American who remembers what it means that we are the country that defeated the Nazis, right?

Speaker 2 We are the people who helped lead to the end of the fall of of the Soviet Union and we watched the demise of communism like that is us. And yet here we have in the United Nations,

Speaker 2 we've aligned ourselves with those authoritarian dictatorships.

Speaker 2 It's terrible.

Speaker 1 Now, final question. You're campaigning for governor.
You were a member of Congress and you had to give up that seat as part of running for governor.

Speaker 1 So, you know, you can campaign. You can tell people what your platform is, what you're going to do.
And I'm sure people are asking you on the campaign trail,

Speaker 1 what can we do? And I think people are looking

Speaker 1 for just like, what can we do as people right now? So when they ask you,

Speaker 1 what can we do? What's your message to the people of the Commonwealth and to just Americans in general who feel a little bit powerless right now, but want to take action.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 Well, for Virginians, my message is we have the ability right here on the ground to focus on the issues that matter to community members across the Commonwealth, strengthening our public schools, endeavoring to actually lower costs for Virginians, ensuring that our housing supply is sufficient to meet the demand of all of the people who want to move to our beautiful, wonderful state, keeping our communities safe and protecting our rights.

Speaker 2 Virginia is the only state in the south that hasn't further restricted reproductive rights since the Dobbs decision. And we get to go to the polls in November of 2025.

Speaker 2 And all of those things, it matters to Virginians, certainly because we're the ones who live here, are impacted by the work that I will do as governor.

Speaker 2 But to everybody across the country, I would say our race matters to you as well, because Virginia

Speaker 2 and New Jersey are the only two states that in 2025, this November, we have statewide races. In Virginia, we have the opportunity to flip our governorship.
We currently have a Republican governor.

Speaker 2 We can flip our governorship. We can flip our lieutenant governorship.
We can flip our attorney general.

Speaker 2 And we can expand upon the majority of 51 out of 100 Democrats that we have right now and make that number larger. And when we do that, we will send a message to the rest of the country.

Speaker 2 We will send a message to candidates running across the country in our 2026 midterms that

Speaker 2 we did it in Virginia and you can do it anywhere across the country. We are the bellwether state and when we win here, it is the first domino to fall in ensuring that we win across the country.

Speaker 2 in 2026 in those midterms. And so for anybody who wants to be engaged, for anyone who is feeling depleted or

Speaker 2 just

Speaker 2 so many many feelings at this moment. Like, turn your attention to Virginia.
Support our candidates, whether it's me as the governor candidate or our House of Delegates candidates.

Speaker 2 Sign up to volunteer

Speaker 2 from afar. You can come to Virginia, knock doors for us in the fall.
But we need all the help that we can get because we know that all eyes will be on Virginia

Speaker 2 because we know we're the bellwether.

Speaker 2 And on the ground, I can tell you, Virginians across the Commonwealth are committed to making sure that as the bellwether, we do our job and we signal what is to come. And that is success.

Speaker 2 That is electing strong Democrats and making a real change, not just here in the Commonwealth, but being the precursor to all of that in 26 and 27 and ultimately 28.

Speaker 2 So you can go to my website, which is abigailspanberger.com. You can sign up to volunteer.
You can donate to the campaign. You can get engaged.

Speaker 2 And we are just so happy and and grateful for any and all support that we can have from anywhere across the country. It matters to us in Virginia.

Speaker 2 Certainly it matters to the future of our Commonwealth, but we recognize the role that we play on the greater stage. So

Speaker 2 please, please come join us. We're going to win, but we're going to need every bit of help that we can to flip these seats.

Speaker 1 Congresswoman Abigail Spamberger, thank you so much for joining. We appreciate it.

Speaker 2 Thank you so much.

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