DEMS DEBATE | Ryan excerpts from the first Democratic presidential debate

MIAMI

Democratic Presidential Candidate Tim Ryan made the following arguments at the First Democratic Debate tonight, as noted in a campaign news release:

“I’ve had family members that had to unbolt a machine from the factory floor, put it in a box, and ship it to China. My area where I come from in Northeast Ohio, this issue we’re talking about here, it’s been going on 40 years. This is not a new phenomenon in the United States of America.”

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“The President came and said don’t sell your house to people in Youngstown, Ohio. Under this Administration just in the last two years, we lost 4000 jobs in a General Motors facility that rippled throughout our community. General Motors got a tax cut, General Motors got a bailout. And then they have the audacity to move a new car that they are going to produce to Mexico.”

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“If you go to Guantanamo Bay, there are terrorists that are held that get better health care than those kids that have tried to cross the border in the United States. That needs to stop.”

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“What kind of country are we running here where we have a President of the United States who’s so focused on hate and fear and division, and what has happened now, the end result, is now we’ve got kids literally laying in their own snot, with three week old diapers that haven’t been changed. We’ve got to tell this President, that is not a sign of strength, that is a sign of weakness.

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We need trauma-based care in every school. We need Social and Emotional Learning in every school. Ninety percent of the shooters who do school shootings, come from the school they are in. And 73% of them feel shamed, traumatized or bullied. We need to make sure that these kids feel connected, that means a mental health counselor in every single school in the United States. We need to start playing offense. If our kids are so traumatized that they're getting a gun and going into our schools, we’re doing something wrong too.

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“If you want to beat Mitch McConnell, this better be a working class party if you want to go into Kentucky and take his rear end out. And if you want to take Lindsey Graham out, you got to have a blue collar party that can go into the textile communities in South Carolina. All I’m saying is here, we all address that fundamental problem with our connections to workers, white, black, brown, gay, straight – working class people – none of this is going to get done.”

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“There’s nothing worse than not being heard. Nothing worse than not being seen. And I know that because I’ve represented for 17 years in Congress a forgotten community. They’ve tried to divide us — who’s white, who’s black, who’s gay, who’s straight, who’s a man, who’s a woman — and they ran away with all the gold. Because they divided the working class. It’s time for us to come together. I don’t know how you feel, but I’m ready to play some offense. I come from the middle of industrial America, but these problems are all over our country. There’s a tent city in LA, there’s homeless people and people around our country who can’t afford a home. It’s time for us to get back on track. The teacher in Texas, the nurse in New Hampshire, the waitress in Wisconsin, all of us coming together. Playing offense with an agenda that lifts everybody up. I will only promise you one thing, when I walk into that Oval Office every morning, you will not be forgotten. Your voice will be heard.”