Randi Weingarten

I am so glad to be with you.

Thank you, Vin.

And I am so, again, I'm so sorry about the passing of your mom.

And I don't even have a copy with me.

I normally use it, lift it up, have a copy of it.

I'll see if I can get it before the end of this session.

I wrote it for two reasons.

I wrote it as a warning.

I think that in the last several weeks, as we've seen the Trump administration disappear people, this last couple of days, there was a teacher in Chicago who

who was just taken by ICE, but the disappearing of people by these mass men, this indictment of enemies, the militarization of streets, all of this...

is what happens in countries that are not democratic.

Millions of people on the street basically protesting and saying, no kings, Prop 50 just passing in California.

I mean, so I wrote it when I wrote it a year ago.

I was warning about the backsliding of democracy and issues around or descriptions of fascistic behavior.

I had hoped we would never get to this point, but that was number one.

And I watched in the election leading up to November 2024,

You know, when people like General Milley and General Kelly attempted to warn the country about what happens when there's democratic backsliding, what happens in governments that are fascistic or authoritarian or, you know, believe in the rule of one, not the rule of law, what happens in terms of the erosion of freedom...

I didn't actually, I had hoped we'd never get to, you know, a point that is so scary as to right now.

So that was number one.

Number two, I wrote, because you know me, you know me quite well, Vin, which is for every problem, we have to be out there with a solution.