[upbeat music]
- Hi, I'm Congressman Mark Pocan
running for reelection
to Wisconsin's 2nd Congressional District.
It's been an honor to serve the people of the 2nd District
for the last 12 years.
The district comprises all of Dane County,
all of Green County, Lafayette County,
Iowa County, a good chunk of Sauk County,
about half of Rock County,
and very honored to be able to represent
the people of South Central
and Southwestern Wisconsin in Congress.
This has been an incredibly unproductive Congress
with the Republican majority.
We've gone through a record number of Speaker votes,
19 votes, to get our second Speaker of the session.
But we're on record to have
the fewest bills passed since 1860.
It's been a challenging Congress, no question,
but we need to do more.
And the way we do more
is by changing some of the faces in Congress,
and then we're hoping to do that throughout the country.
Republican control with Kevin McCarthy,
originally as Speaker, changing rules that allowed
just any single member in the majority party
to screw up the entire process
has been anything but productive.
We need to get more of our budget bills done,
we need to get a farm bill done.
We need to get just so many more things
for the American people.
And unfortunately, the Republicans in Congress
have been unable to get even the most basic things done.
Here's what I wanna do.
I wanna make sure that,
one, we hopefully flip the majority
and make Hakeem Jeffries our next Speaker.
With that, we can actually pass legislation
that'll help people.
And we can avoid all the bad ideas
that are in Project 2025
that Donald Trump and about 140 of his former staff,
cabinet secretaries, ambassadors,
campaign staff, and others helped write
the terrible ideas that are in Project 2025
and make sure that we're doing things
for the American people.
You know, Project 2025
has a huge authoritarian takeover
of things like reproductive health.
Literally monitoring the pregnancy
of every single woman in this country.
It would also end abortion, essentially, as we know it.
It goes after certain forms of fertilization, et cetera.
Secondly, it attacks the middle class.
It wants to get rid of overtime pay.
It wants to attack things like the Affordable Care Act
that so many people, tens of millions of people,
have for access for health care.
But also, don't forget, that saved us--
So if you have a preexisting condition,
you can still get health care.
And it would also raise taxes
on couples making less than $120,000 a year
and, of course, reduce taxes for the wealthiest.
And finally, it would attack Social Security
and Medicare as we know it.
And we need to protect those institutions.
I'm fighting against those bad ideas
that the Republicans and Donald Trump are advocating for.
But what I wanna do is get things done
that help the American people.
I'm looking at the agenda Kamala Harris
and Tammy Baldwin and other Democrats
are putting forward to make sure
that we're doing more to help every family have opportunity.
We wanna reduce costs by going after the mega mergers
in the food industry and gasoline
that are artificially price gouging
and keeping prices way too high.
We wanna do more to make health care
more accessible and affordable.
We wanna do more to help people with childcare
because that's such an expensive part of their daily costs.
And we wanna really address things like climate change.
We wanna make sure we have fair taxation,
2025, all the tax bills come before Congress,
and so very much more.
I'm looking forward to doing that in Congress.
I'm looking forward to fighting for those values
that I think people of the 2nd District have.
And I would really appreciate the opportunity
to serve everyone in Congress again.
And I just want to make sure I'm saying I ask for your vote.
And I really appreciate your time today.