You’ve got the Education Department that’s supposed to give every kid a chance, and that’s run by a billionaire who guts rules designed to protect students from getting ripped off by for profit colleges and stiffs arm students looking for loan relief in the middle of an economic collapse. I mean, the person who runs Medicaid right now is doing their best to kick people off of Medicaid instead of sign them up for Medicaid. Come on. When Joe and Kamala are in charge, they’re not going to surround themselves with hacks and lobbyists, but they’re going to appoint qualified public servants who actually care about looking out for you, for your job, for your family, for your health, for your security, for your planet, and that more than anything is what separates them from their opponents. They actually care about every American, including the ones that don’t agree with them. (23:45) And they’re going to fight for you every day. They care about you and they care about this democracy. They believe in a democracy. The right to vote is sacred and that we shouldn’t be making people wait in line for 10 hours to cast their ballot. We should be making it easier for everybody to vote. They believe that no one, especially the President, is above the law. They understand that protest on behalf of social justice isn’t un-American. That’s the most American thing there is. That’s how this country was founded, protesting injustice. They understand we don’t threaten our political opponents threatening to throw them in jail, just because we disagree with them. They understand that our ability to work together to solve big problems like a pandemic depends more than on just photo-ops. It depends on actually learning the facts and following the science and not just making stuff up whenever it’s convenient. (25:16) Our democracy is not going to work if the people who are supposed to be our leaders lie every day and just make things up. And we’ve just become numb to it. We’ve just become immune to it. Every single day, fact checkers can’t keep up. And, look, this notion of truthfulness and democracy and citizenship, and being responsible, these aren’t Republican or democratic principles, they’re American principles. They’re what most of us grew up learning from our parents and our grandparents. They’re not White or Black or Latino or Asian values, they’re American values, human values, and we need to reclaim them. We have to get those values back at the center of our public life. And we can. But to do it, we’ve got to turn out like never before. We cannot leave any doubt in this election, because you know the President’s already said, “If this is even close, I’m going to just make stuff up.” He’s already started to do it. (26:51) So we can’t have any doubt. We can’t be complacent. I don’t care about the polls. There were a whole bunch of polls last time, didn’t work out, because a whole bunch of folks stayed at home and got lazy and complacent. Not this time, not in this election, not this time. Listen, listen. I understand why a lot of Americans can get frustrated by government and can feel like it doesn’t make a difference. Even supporters of mine, during my eight years, there were times where stuff we wanted to get done didn’t get done and people said, “Well, gosh, if Obama didn’t get it done, then maybe it’s just not going to happen.” Look, government is not going to solve every problem, it’s true. Every elected officials going to make some mistakes. This is a big complicated country and the system’s designed so that change happens slowly. It doesn’t happen overnight. (28:05) And believe me, I’ve got firsthand experience with the way Republicans in Congress abused the rules to make it easy for special interest to stop progress. But we can make things better, and we shouldn’t be making things worse. A president by himself can’t solve every challenge in a global economy. But if we’ve got Joe Biden and Kamala Harris in the White House at a House and Senate that are focused on working people, it can make a difference and get millions of people the help they need. A president by himself can’t eliminate all racial bias in our criminal justice system. But if we’ve got district attorneys and state’s attorneys and sheriffs and police chiefs focused on equality and justice, it can make things better. In Pennsylvania, you’ve just got to flip nine seats in your State House, just five seats in your State Senate, to give Democrats control and new life for policies that’ll make a real difference to working families right now. It can make things better.(29:25) In the end, Pennsylvania, that’s what voting’s about, making things better, not making things perfect, but putting us on track so that a generation from now we can look back and say, “Things got better starting now.” And that’s what voting’s about. Voting’s about using the power we have and pooling it together to get a government that’s more concerned and more responsive and more focused on you and your lives and your children and your grandchildren and future generations. And the fact that we don’t get 100% of …(30:03) … and future generations. And the fact that we don’t get 100% of what we want right away is not a good reason not to vote. It means we’ve got to vote and then get some change and then vote some more and then get some more change, and then keep on voting until we get it right. (30:23) And we will never come close to seeing what it would be like if everybody voted, when I hear people say, “Well, I don’t know, you’re voting don’t make a difference.” We don’t know because usually no more than half the people who could be voting vote. (30:39) We get 50, 55% of people voting. And then people say, “Well, look, not enough change happened.” Well, imagine what would happen if 60% voted? What about 70%? Imagine January 20th, when we swear in a president and a vice president who have a plan to get us out of this mess, who believe in science, and they have a plan to protect this planet for our kids, and who care about working Americans, and they have a plan to help you start getting ahead. (31:15) And who believe in racial equality and gender equality, and believe in not discriminating against people because of their sexual orientation, and are willing to bring us closer to an America where no matter what we look like and where we come from, who we love and what our last name is, if we go out there and we work, we can make it. (31:38) And we’re part of an American family. All of that is possible. All of that is within our reach, if we vote. Because let me tell you something Pennsylvanians, people ask me sometimes, they say, “Man, how have you been able to take these last four years, just watching all this? How do you keep your spirits up?” (32:02) And I tell him, I say, look for all the times, these last four years that we’ve seen our worst impulses revealed, we’ve also seen what our country can be at its best. We’ve seen folks of every age and background who’ve packed city centers and airports in town squares, just so families wouldn’t be separated. (32:26) So another classroom wouldn’t get shot up, so our kids wouldn’t grow up on an uninhabitable planet. We’ve seen Americans more racist, joining together to declare in the face of injustice that black lives matter, no more, but no less, so that no child in this country feels the continuing sting of racism. (32:51) We’ve seen folks, our essential workers, our healthcare workers risking their lives day in day out to save somebody else’s loved ones. We’ve seen people volunteer and contribute to help those who are having an especially difficult time that right now. (33:14) That’s true in Pennsylvania, that’s true all across the country. America is a good and decent place, but we’ve just seen so much noise and nonsense that sometimes it’s hard for us to remember. (33:29) Philadelphia, I’m asking you to remember what this country can be. What it’s like when we treat each other with respect and dignity, what it’s like when our elected officials actually behave responsibly. I’m asking you to believe in Joe’s ability, in Kamala’s ability to lead this country out of these dark times, and help us build it back better, because we can’t abandon those who are hurting right now. We can’t abandon the children who aren’t getting the education they need right now. (34:07) We can’t abandon those protesters who inspired us. We’ve got to channel their activism into action, we can’t just imagine a better future. We’ve got to fight for it. We’ve got to out hustle the other side, we got to outwork the other side, we’ve got to vote like never before and leave no doubt. So make a plan right now, for how you’re going to get involved and vote. Do it as early as you can. Tell your family, tell your friends how they can vote. Don’t stop with Joe and Kamala, make sure you vote all the way down the ticket. (34:47) And if we pour all our efforts into these 13 days, if we vote up and down the ticket, like never before, then we will not only elect Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, we will also leave no doubt about what this country that we love stands for. We will not leave any doubt about who we are as a people, and the values and ideals that we embrace. (35:17) What Lincoln called the better angels of our nature, those are still in us. We see them operating every single day. We see them in neighborhoods, we see them in churches and synagogues and mosques and temples. We see them in people helping out a neighbor. We see them them inside our own families. We see that what is best in us is still there, but we’ve got to give it voice, and we’ve got to do it now. (35:49) So let’s get to work people. Let’s bring this home. I love you, Philadelphia. Honk if you’re fired up, honk if you’re ready to go. Are you fired up? Crowd: (35:59)Yeah. Barack Obama: (36:00)Are you ready to go? Are you fired up? Are you ready to go? Crowd: (36:07)Yeah. (36:07) Let’s go make it happen. I love you Philadelphia. Thank you. I love you. Come on.