Actually, it’s Part 3 (Parts 1 & 2 are here):
His prepared remarks below:
BILL O’BRIEN
U.S. SENATE ANNOUNCEMENT SPEECH JULY 23, 2019
I especially want to thank my family who joins me here and my partner and best friend since we were in high school together. Thank you, Roxanne. Our marriage has been a blessing from God. I want to thank everyone for coming here today.
In this room I see a lot of leaders. I see friends, old and new. Thank you for all of those who have endorsed me as we, together, begin this journey.
In this room and joining our effort across New Hampshire are a lot of dedicated people. People who want to make New Hampshire great. People who want to keep our nation great. We are the people who know that to protect our future, and continue to make our state and nation great, we must – we will – hold true to the principles of our Founders. These guiding principles and ideas have made New Hampshire the great state it is today and have made our nation the greatest nation in the world.
This is important because those principles are under attack.
The very foundation of our nation is under attack. It is assaulted daily by those who would turn away from the promise of America – economic freedom, constitutional liberty, and a citizen government – to a nation of socialism where big government snuffs out free enterprise, suffocates freedom, and treats people as subjects, not citizens.
It’s dangerous. It’s destructive. And we can’t – we won’t – let it happen to America.
I’ve seen it. I’ve seen it firsthand.
It is no accident that we are gathered here, in a building dedicated to our great Veterans. I selected this location weeks ago because it is the foundation of my story. It’s why I’m here.
You see, many of you may not know my story. I grew up as the son of the Greatest Generation. My father answered the call of Pearl Harbor and sacrificed his time for this nation and gave this country his career as an Army officer in a large war, World War II, and in the years – and two wars – that followed. I was born on one of our nation’s military bases. My youth was spent moving from military base to base as my father – as all in my family – served the nation. And, as a young boy and then a young man, I found myself in Germany.
It was there in Germany, not long after World War II, I experienced firsthand the continued aftermath of the war and choices nations had made. Germany, under the Nazis, had become the ultimate form of big government – everything and everyone controlled by big government.
We saw the horror, the destructive nature, and yes the human cost of racism and war under the old, national socialist German government. Damaged buildings, damaged lives, and military debris remained when we first came to live there. Germany had been under a big government which wreaked havoc on personal freedom. Their system killed free enterprise; it put the government ultimately in control of the economy, using cartels and regulations just as Russia used commissars and soviets.
Under any label, it was the rejection of the founding principles of this nation, of our nation which is based on freedom, democracy, and importantly entrepreneurship. It was an illustration of what can happen when too much power is put in the hands of a central, big government.
But importantly as a child I saw socialism – as always, working its way toward communism – just across the East German border. The tanks of the Soviets were pointed in our direction. Pointed at me as a twelve-year-old looking across the border.
I met people who had escaped East Germany and 30 years of socialism under first the Nazis and then the Communists – escaping with only their lives. While West Germany grew and rebuilt, East Germany, under the weight of socialism, stagnated. For those citizens, oppression and decline was normal. There, like in all of old Germany before, a big government was in complete control.
Having often as a child looked across into the socialist nightmare that was East Germany, for me it was a special joy when, years later and while on a business trip, I was back in Germany – in Berlin – when the Berlin Wall came down. For the first time I was able to walk into East Berlin. I walked down Karl Marx Strasse, the main street in East Berlin, the showcase city of the Soviet Empire – for the very first time. On that street, I could still see widespread damage remaining from World War II; destruction from decades before. I stood on the steps of the German Reichstag – their parliament – still blacken by the flames of Nazi arson. I saw damage that had never been fixed… not by the Nazi socialists, not by the Communist socialists – not unlike the lives that are forever ruined under the weight of a big, socialist government.
Those socialist governments failed. That system failed as it has time and again in so many places.
Now, here, in our own nation today we have people who want to push us in this direction. We have forces, and many personalities, on the left trying to drive us into socialism right here in America.
Well, I can tell you right now:
- as a citizen of the Live Free or Die State,
- as someone who will stand up for that motto,
- as someone who has proven he has what it takes,
- as someone who is a conservative,
NO, we won’t let that happen to America.
I will fight for our freedoms.
I will fight for our common sense.
I will fight against bureaucrats whose regulations treat us like fools unable to run our own lives.
I will fight liberals who use those regulations to tell us how to live, where to live, and why to live.
I will fight for our future.
I haven’t and I WON’T back down.
Big government Washington politicians and liberal special interest groups want a different course. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and her fellow socialists who now run the Democrat party want higher taxes, to limit freedom, and to control – and thereby suffocate –our economy. They believe Washington has the answers. They want to be permanently enshrined as the elite.
Well I didn’t just ride in from a government job given out of Washington to tell New Hampshire that Washington has the answers and that Washington insiders should bring them to you.
No, I will fight for the freedoms and liberties that are the core of New Hampshire. I have been here fighting right along. I don’t have to be taught about New Hampshire. You and I know New Hampshire in reality, and we don’t need those who come out of Washington or those who just arrived from other states to think they can figure us out and then go to Washington and to tell Congress what New Hampshire wants.
New Hampshire wants what we have been fighting for over the years.
I have proven that when it comes to fighting for freedom and economic growth, when it comes to fighting for our New Hampshire families:
I know the fight and I won’t let you down.
I have been married to the same, wonderful woman – Roxanne – for over 45 years. I am the father of three children, two daughters and a son. My son is practicing law, as have I. My daughters are doing well. One works in important pharmaceutical testing and another in organic food research. I want my daughters to continue their success as strong, independent women and I will stand up for them like all New Hampshire citizens. I will fight for New Hampshire families and for our state’s success so that everyone has a chance to earn the American dream as I have.
As a successful small businessman and proven job creator I know we can continue to grow New Hampshire’s economy if we have the right policies.
I don’t live in the world of Washington; I live in the real world – like other New Hampshire families – where we must put food on the table.
I won’t do what Jeanne Shaheen has done. I won’t become part of Washington.
Jeanne Shaheen has proven she is captive of a big government, pushing Washington control – she has left New Hampshire behind. Jeanne Shaheen no longer puts New Hampshire first.
The bipartisan National Federation of Independent Business reports that Jeanne Shaheen has voted more than 80% of the time against small business. Think about that! Jeanne Shaheen has voted 80% of the time to oppose our small businesses.
She’s putting Washington big government first. Or perhaps she thinks Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders are New Hampshire. Because they are who she puts first.
As a successful small business owner, I will fight for New Hampshire’s job creators and I will put you first.
The day Jeanne Shaheen cast the deciding vote for Obamacare, she promised us QUOTE: “more cost-effective health care.” Well, in New Hampshire, those forced into this system lost their private health insurance they were promised they could keep. And those who chose a Silver ACA Plan saw their Premiums go up over 77% in just one year from 2017 to 2018. Overall increases in their premiums have averaged 21% per year over the course of the last three years. When it comes to health care Jeanne Shaheen keeps talking and talking, she keeps press releasing and press releasing – catering to her liberal base which are the special interest groups in Washington, DC.
The result is that New Hampshire residents keep paying and paying.
And she’s not done. She advocated killing Medicare as we know it with a Bernie Sanders “Medicare for All” socialist scheme she endorsed in 2017. The projected cost of this socialism: Nearly $1.4 trillion a year. As CNN reported: “to pay for it, all Americans and job creators would see a tax hike.” All Americans – all New Hampshire taxpayers – would pay more for Jeanne Shaheen’s scheme and see Medicare for the elderly wrecked in the process.
More recently she flip-flopped. She said, “I don’t think we are in a position yet where we can get rid of private insurance.” Yet… “YET?”
She is playing politics with people’s healthcare. She is playing politics with people’s lives. Well, I don’t work for the Washington, DC liberal elite. I will fight to protect people with pre-existing conditions while at the same time working for reforms to actually help lower the cost and improve healthcare.
And then there’s the ultimate test of the extremist Washington push toward socialism, the “Green New Deal” that would cost trillions of dollars and tank New Hampshire’s economy. Even the liberal former Colorado Democratic Governor John Hickenlooper said it would be synonymous with “higher utility bills, rising taxes and lost jobs.” The former Director of the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office said the Green New Deal would cost tens of trillions of dollars. It would cost each New Hampshire family an average of more than $250 per month in higher electric bills. Hundreds of thousands of dollars in cost per household for all their socialist programs.
So, when a vote came to oppose this extreme socialist idea what did Jeanne Shaheen do? She voted present. 90% of the people of New Hampshire would have said, “Of course. Not. That’s crazy.” But all she could do is vote present.
She didn’t put New Hampshire first. No, she ran away. She refused to vote “No.”
Three Democrats and an Independent had the courage to vote with Republicans to say No. But all Jeanne Shaheen would do was vote “present.”
Well, you know who wasn’t present that day. The people of New Hampshire. They weren’t represented in Congress that day.
Jeanne Shaheen’s complaint with the Green New Deal? In a tweet: it doesn’t change the law enough or establish new programs.
For Jeanne Shaheen, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s socialist new deal didn’t go far enough, and government can never be big enough. That’s extreme and that’s wrong for New Hampshire!
Jeanne Shaheen also wants taxpayers to pay for abortion. That’s not New Hampshire, that is extreme.
She has voted against our 2nd Amendment Constitutional Rights over-and-over again, voting to oppose both New Hampshire’s law-abiding hunters and our constitutional right to self-protection.
Jeanne Shaheen voted for the failed Iran Nuclear Deal – a deal American Jewish leaders called “unacceptable” and a path to nuclear weapons. CNN reported her vote led to the Obama Administration handing over 400-million-dollars in secret cash to Iran. Hundreds of millions in currency on pallets delivered to the government of Iran. Experts believe this act, perpetrated as a result of Jeanne Shaheen’s vote, sent huge funds to terrorists.
So, where’s the contrast here:
- I oppose dangerous deals which give cash to terrorists.
- My record shows I will stand up for 2nd Amendment rights.
- And I will oppose extreme plans which will cause electric bills to skyrocket.
Because standing up to extreme policies pushed by the big government Washington socialists is not only the right thing for New Hampshire, it is TRULY – REALLY – putting New Hampshire residents First!
It is putting YOU first.
And, I won’t create open borders and a magnet for illegal immigration. I support legal immigration – my son-in-law who I love dearly is a new citizen. But those who break the law to come here must leave. And those who want to come here illegally must be stopped.
Jeanne Shaheen feels otherwise. She has voted repeatedly to encourage illegal immigration by shielding sanctuary cities who throw out a welcome mat for those entering illegally.
When it comes to illegal immigration, I simply believe Illegal is Illegal. So unlike Jeanne Shaheen, I won’t support illegal immigration. I will oppose federal support for any city who seeks to help others in breaking federal law. And YES, I will support improving our border including building more of the wall. Because an open border is not only an open invitation for illegal immigration, it is also an open invitation for drug smugglers and human traffickers who are helping create an opioid crisis and trafficking abuse of women right here in New Hampshire.
You know Jeanne Shaheen talks a good game when it comes to bipartisanship but her record with President Trump tells a different story. According to statistics from FiveThirtyEight, a liberal-leaning news and analysis group, Jeanne Shaheen has voted against President Donald Trump 100% of the time. 100% of the time against President Trump.
That’s not representing New Hampshire. That is not bipartisanship.
My goal is NOT to oppose President Trump 100% of the time. My goal is not to be a protestor in Washington. My goal is to work with everyone – most importantly President Trump – to do what is right for the people of New Hampshire! Jeanne Shaheen is now part of Washington, she has become extreme, she’s surrounded by and part of the swamp.
Let me make this very clear: Jeanne Shaheen is not putting New Hampshire first. She is not putting you first. She is putting Washington big government and those seeking a path to socialism first.
We need a new direction.
That’s why, today, I’m announcing that I’m running to replace Jeanne Shaheen and serve as New Hampshire’s next Senator.
And I need every New Hampshire citizen who believes in the founding principles of our nation to join me.
- If you believe in freedom, join me.
- If you believe in entrepreneurship, join me.
- If you believe that common sense conservative principles are a better course than big government and a drive to socialism, join me.
- If you believe real people, the citizens of New Hampshire, have the solutions to our problems – join me.
- If you believe we really need to put New Hampshire first – join me.
Don’t sit back.
Don’t wait to get involved.
Don’t let our nation continue to slide toward Socialism.
Join me in this campaign.
Visit Bill-O’Brien- 2020-DOT-com and join this fight (BillOBrien2020.com)
Thank you, thank you,
And thank God for New Hampshire and the United States of America.
