“WE ARE NOT ENEMIES!” Mary Peltola Fires Back At Trump’s Divisive Political Rhetoric

The message that you get from a lot of these political ads and the political rhetoric is that half of us should be enemies with the other half. There is this idea that half of America are our enemy. No one in America, no American, no Alaskan is my enemy. This is a loud mic. All right. Um... I am so excited to be here. We just got back from Juneau where we had another wonderful rally. But this, you guys, I have never been part of a campaign that has felt this good. I have never felt an election cycle that has felt this good. And it's to a person. I look out in the crowd here. I'm filled with public servants, filled with people who have been working at various levels of government, helping us make our community better. I'm looking out across this room and seeing people who have put up hundreds of yard signs for me, people who have knocked hundreds of doors, people who have... People who have made hundreds of phone calls. I see this across the room and this room makes me so proud because the diversity in here is noticeable. We have every kind of Alaskan in this room. Yes. You know, usually when we have political events, it's mostly people my age and retired, right? Because we're dialed in. Well, this cycle, we have this whole other demographic that has joined us. We have small children. Yes, we have teenagers. We have young adults. Everybody is involved in this race. I had a little boy at AFN say, you're Mary Peltola. You're real. And then he said, you're playing against Dan Sullivan, aren't you? I said, yes, I am. And I'm going to beat him. And I say that with all of the joy that I have in me, it's just overflowing. When I see people coming out to rallies on a Friday, is this a Friday? Yeah, on a Friday night, on a Friday night when it's stormy, you guys need to be battening down your hatches. We've got a windstorm out here. And here you are celebrating the massive accomplishments of this entire campaign. It makes me so happy. How many people in here have already voted? Yes, that makes me so happy, but get people out there who have not voted, who don't have a plan to vote, who are so turned off by the smear campaign and the garbage and, you know, the accusations, the hollow accusations. And so they're not paying attention. And it's really up to us to remind people why we need to get out and vote. We've got to get out and vote. This is a very close race, and it's going to come down to who shows up. And seeing this room of 300 people, we had to get more staff down here to help with parking. And that is a great sign as far as I'm concerned. Yes, should have got a shuttle. We know for next time. No, and I've been telling this the last couple of stops I've made. I don't know how many of you have ever watched Parks and Recreation. Leslie Knope is my spirit animal. So Leslie Knope, you know, one of the first episodes, she's like so jazzed. And just a picture of her, and she's like, I'm so glad there's so many of you. This is so exciting. Thank you for coming out. Thank you for caring about Pawnee. And then it zooms out, and there's three people. You know, that's why we didn't have a shuttle because we're kind of used to that. That's our muscle memory. But this is completely different. This is completely different. And it's completely different because these are really serious times. Alaskans have very serious issues that we're facing now at the end of October and we know we are going to be facing for the rest of this winter. We have got to get our arms around this Congress. We have to have a Congress that wants to work for us to make our lives easier and not harder. I love that I almost tripped over a drum, you know, so, I mean, these events are so great, we have live music, bands actually want to come out and be part of this, it's amazing, but bands know this is serious times, I mean, everybody knows, we are stretched too thin, we have a Congress, half millionaires and billionaires, who are only interested in making their friends even richer, these are, The level of wealth is unimaginable of the people, and it's never going to be enough. They're just going to keep taking from us. One of the most concerning issues, I mean, yes, we are very, very focused on the price of gas, the price of stove oil, the price of groceries, the price of transportation. Everything is going up and up and up. But one of the things we don't talk enough about in this campaign is Social Security. Yes. Social Security is a contract that was made with Americans decades ago. And we believe in this contract. We want this contract to endure because so many Alaskans, their whole retirement depends. The foundation of it is social security. This affects every single one of our families. My father-in-law, he calls me like three times a week. Don't forget to talk about social security. He is obsessed with social security because that is his retirement. I am obsessed with social security. Whoever wins this Senate seat, For the next six years will be the number one issue, in my opinion, is preserving and protecting Social Security. And, you know, one of the things that's been bothering me the last couple of days, as with a bunch of people, but I am so deeply offended by these accusations about having any involvement with anyone else's candidacy. Of course, I want fewer candidates in the primary. Of course, I want fewer candidates in the primary. I'm not out soliciting more competition. In 2022, I was in a field of 48 and I still beat Santa Claus and Sarah Palin. I know we can beat Dan Sullivan because every step of the way, even before I got in this race, my poll numbers were higher than his. Yes. Every step of this race, I've had more name recognition than Dan Sullivan. How is that even possible? No, I do not need any help winning this race except by all of you in this room and the massive amounts of support we have across the state from Utqiagvik to Metlakatla. We have so much support. There are people knocking doors in every small community. There are people getting other people out to vote, providing rides. You know, really reminding your kids and their friends, I want to acknowledge, speaking of kids, I have two of mine here tonight, Conrad and Van Capster. They both did, I was going to say hard time, but it was good time. They both have served in the Coast Guard very honorably. They were both aviation electronic technicians. This is the Alaskan ethos, is helping other people, helping your neighbors, helping make things better, leaning in on search and rescues, and one of the biggest concerns I have with where we are right now, not only are we pretending that our adversaries are our allies and our Our allies are our adversaries. But we're also, you know, the message that you get from a lot of these political ads and the political rhetoric is that half of us should be enemies with the other half. There is this idea that we, you know, half of America are our enemy. No one in America, no American, no Alaskan is my enemy. We are so blessed in Alaska because over 60% of Alaskans are independent, nonpartisan, undeclared. Yes. Smart. Yes. Yes. Yes. All of us who belong, who have a political affiliation, we don't want to hear that partisan rhetoric. We want to know how you're going to make our lives better. We want to know that you care about us. I care about Alaska. I care about the children in Alaska. I care about the elders in Alaska. I care about the working class in Alaska, the working families. I know we have somebody from Nome in here because I can hear a walrus. My favorite crowd call. Thank you. No, I'm just here to say I am so proud of Alaska. I'm so proud of Alaskans. I'm so proud of our open primary, where every Alaskan has a say in who's going to be on that ballot. Yes. No on two. No on two. We just have four more days and we can do it. We can handle the attack ads. We can handle the smear campaigns. We can handle the weather. We can handle this. We have got this election. We know we can do this. We know we're gonna win. We just have to make sure everybody turns out. It's gonna be, this is a battle of numbers. Whose supporters are getting out and voting? And I just have every confidence in the world That this is. Alaska will prevail. Alaska will prevail. Just makes me so happy. I'm so proud to be standing up here in front of all of you, my friends, my neighbors, people I've known for decades, lifelong friends. This is what Alaska means to me. I'm going to die here, right? I want to be proud of the accomplishments over my lifetime. I want to have, you know, just I'm just Friends and neighbors all over, like, just, and we all know we're all related. We're all connected. Everybody in Alaska is connected. Yes. Amen. Before I hand the microphone over to Josie to talk more about how we can best get out and vote and what needs to be done here, she's one of our exceptional organizers, I just really, really want you to know how thankful I am for everything that you have done to a person. Even coming to a rally that says something on every single event that I've had, whether it's been a canvas launch or a fundraiser or a rally, so many more people come than we've ever seen participate wall to wall, shoulder to shoulder. Here we are in an airplane hangar and it's packed. This makes me so proud. And this, yes, thank you. This is you. I'm so proud of the team that I have. I'm so proud of just everybody who's been involved. And the list just goes on and on. But now I want Josie to come up here and tell us more about what we need to hear on getting us across the finish line and finishing strong. I love you. Thank you. Subscribe to One India and never miss an update. Download the One India app now.