You're the single most educated generation in American history—
not a joke.
You're the single most engaged generation in American history.
You're the single most generous generation in American history.
I find no rational reason why assault weapons should be able to be sold, period.
And I promise I'm gonna do it, I'm gonna go right at it again when we get—when they get back in session.
These assault weapons are just that.
They're made for one reason: to kill people.
As, when I was trying to get [gun legislation] passed the first time and got it passed,
hunters in Delaware would say, well, I want—
I said, how many deer are wearing a Kevlar vest?
How many folk, how many folks out there are there—
what purpose is [there] to have a gun that can—a bullet can travel five times the speed of an ordinary bullet?
So what we did was, this time around,
we finally, in the first time in 30 years, got gun legislation passed.
And by the way, for every mass shooting that you read about,
like that happened at her school,
for every single one of those,
there's a mass shooting taking place every day in a neighborhood,
in a neighborhood.
You know, you got 4,000 of these things.
But, I mean—and they never get mentioned.
People walk into a school, but in tough neighborhoods,
there's mass shootings every single day, every single day.
And it's wrong. It's just simply wrong.
There's a lot of unintended consequences, as well, to this Dobbs decision.
And so I, I admire the hell out—heck out of you
for being willing to get together with other students and teach yourself.
I mean, how, how—I'm curious, how'd you do that?
A papaya is a very good representation of a uterus.
And you can practice on the papaya fruit.
But who is teaching the practice?
An outside physician, not really—not a part of our institution, would come in and teach us.
Gotcha. God love you.
On a more personal note,
I had to travel about 600 miles, and leave my family behind,
and spend thousands of dollars to get abortion care
for my own very wanted and very loved pregnancy.
In the wake of Roe, some companies are offering funding and services for trips like this.
Would you support a federal fund for individuals like myself
who need to take time off work, obtain child care—
Absolutely. The answer's absolutely.
We did a couple things to pay for this.
One, I was able to cut the federal debt my first year by $350 billion.
This year, the federal debt is gonna be cut, in the fiscal year, by $1 trillion.
And when we passed the Inflation Reduction Act,
which allows Medicare to negotiate drug prices so they're fair—
we pay the highest drug prices of any country in the world, any major country—
that's gonna create a $30 billion cut over the next 10 years.
And so—I mean, $300 billion.
And so, the point is,
For people of color, the path to true financial security is often paved with advanced degrees,
and yet, the cost of simply getting a bachelor's degree
can be the largest burden we bear financially.
Federal student loan forgiveness will make a big difference,
but it feels like the system itself is broken in some ways.
What can your administration, working with Congress, do to help break this vicious cycle
that is hurting the future of young people seeking an education for a better life?
I used to have a good friend I went to high school with,
and I'd say, 'Bob, do you understand me?'
He said, 'Joe, I not only understand you, I overstand you.'
I overstand.
I got into a private university when I was out of high school.
And even with the financial aid, I couldn't go there.
And I had to work, which was not a problem, to go to the University of Delaware,
which was much, much cheaper.
Now, just in the last 40 years, the four-year university has—
the cost of a four-year university, has tripled,
tripled in the last 40 years, to go to the school to begin with.
Sometimes, [states] try to block you from being able to access certain medicines,
being able to access certain procedures, and so on.
None of that should be available—I mean, you know, no, no state should be able to do that, in my view.
So I feel very, very strongly that,
that you should have every single solitary right,
including, including use of your gender identity bathrooms in public.
You're gonna be driving a, a automobile that is an electric automobile.
And that's because we had, in the backyard out here of the White House,
we had all the three manufacturers come—the three major American manufacturers—
and they all committed that they're gonna go electric by 2035.
That's gonna reduce [exponentially, exponentially,] the impact on the environment.
So there’s a lot of progress being made
because folks like you hollered when you were 8 years old,
and now you're 29, I know, but I'm joking.
But now, you're getting up there.
But this is what we're gonna do, and it's exciting.
This is what I—we're, we're doing it federally—
anybody who has committed a crime should have access to education in prison, in prison.
If they're in there for a drug offense, they should have drug treatment.
And that should not be, if that's the only crime,
it should be mandatory drug treatment, not prison.
We should also be in a situation where anyone who is released from prison
has access to Pell Grants, to education, to public housing,
to all the things that are out there that are available to everybody else.
Because what's the thing we wanna do?
Give people a second chance.