Mack Kleinman has been in the spotlight before as a member of the University of Kansas basketball team. He's drawing a different type of attention now as a candidate for the Democratic Party's nomination in the second congressional district of Kansas. He has a primary opponent in August, former congressman Nancy beuter. And there are five Republican candidates in the race. They're all trying to fill the seat to be vacated by retiring us, Representative jakela. Turner. Matt, thanks for being here. Appreciate you taking time today. And talk to us about the second district campaign. One of the questions I always ask people is, have you lost your mind? Why are you running for Congress, and I'm sure that's on the minds of voters as well.
So I've not lost my mind, much to the chagrin of many, I'm sure. I am running for Congress, because I care about my community. Now, there'll be people who will tell you they have a perfect life, or, you know, this is their calling, but I've been working in my community every day for the last 10 years. And I can tell you, from the work I've done, building mobile grocery stores advocating for sidewalks so kids can get to school safely advocating for housing policy, I've been on transportation policies, I've worked on immigration advocacy, every single experience I've had working in Wyandotte County, at the end of the day, we cannot property tax our way to prosperity, we can't just keep raising property taxes on fixed income seniors on folks who are low income, we need federal investment. And I'm running for office, because I know whether it's Humboldt, Kansas, or Kansas City, Kansas, there is a lack of investment in our district. And I'm somebody who has experience and going after federal grants, I want to start bringing those grants back home, I want to help our community across the district get access to the resources they need. It's not about me, it's not about my ambition. It's not about who I am, it's about us. And this is the work that I've been doing for last 10 years. It's about building coalitions. It's about building a unified group of folks who work together, they find resources and they struggle in in unity. And that is what this campaign is about. It's coming through in the endorsements we have it's coming through in the messages that we have, it's coming through in the people who are coming out and turn it out to support and knock doors for our campaign. Because it's not my campaign. It's not about me. And so when I'm running for Congress, I feel like I'm just representing a delegation of folks who deeply care about their communities. And that's the work I'm been involved with. So it doesn't feel crazy to me to be running for Congress, it's crazy. To change the system. It's crazy to look at what's around us and say we can actually do better. But that is the crazy that I like to be that is the crazy of somebody who deeply cares about the community who has experienced trying to change those systems, and is actually putting in the work to make people feel better about our politics so that we can get the things we need in our communities. And that just, you know, rail against, you know, this idea of civility as if that's the problem. The problem is we don't have people who are experienced enough to go do this work in Congress. You're
in the Democratic Party primary. It's occurring in August, and you have one opponent, Nancy Boyd, is actually elected to Congress many years ago, and is running again, but this is your first time as a candidate I believe it is. So what do you kind of make of it being a relatively new to the process? And what do you what's it? Like?
I'll be honest, I enjoy it. I really do. I am hearing stories from members of our community who are struggling. But it's also stories of people who when they meet with me, and we talk about, you know, what are the resources that they can access, they leave with hope. And I think that's the part that I am drawn to, it's this idea that we can find different ways to make people's lives better. And it's not just sitting on our thumbs and saying, Well, it's never gonna happen. It's actually saying, well, there is an opportunity there. So like, there's a family I talked about, because they want me to talk about their experience. But it's the Reynolds family there in Topeka. The dad was a veteran and Union lost his job, son, Isaac, got cancer. And his wife had to pick up two jobs to make ends meet. And when I met them as at the KU basketball event, roundball classic. And I said, the first thing on my mind was like, I'm really grateful we have these events to support your family and a lot of families like you. Our government shouldn't have a system where kids with cancer are now crushed by medical debt, their families are struggling to make ends meet. And that's the type of advocacy that I think we need from our members of Congress. I think we need to be able to tell those stories and meet with people where they are and identify there are things out there that we can do to improve the lives of many. It's not going to solve every problem. Nobody's I think that sort of naive about it. But as a first time candidate, this is not my first time being a public servant. This is the work I've been doing for 10 years do
what you're saying is the the second district has been represented for the most part over the last 30 years by a Republican. And you're suggesting that those Republican candidates maybe in the least more recent period, haven't actually stepped forward and represented the interests of Kansas City, Kansas and why not? County in some of those folks, maybe as they have other interests, like part of the district is quite rural. Yeah. And there's large government programs that support agriculture. But maybe maybe their advocacy doesn't extend to some of the needs here and where we're sitting in Kansas, Kansas.
Well, just to be clear on history, the north half of Wyandotte County where I live was in the third district until the state legislature
by Sheree representative redistricting, right tried to undermine SRIs, David's reelection camp,
and let's be clear, it was racially gerrymandered. It was not just gerrymandered, it's not a political decision. It was a racial decision. They they cut the majority of the black and brown community out of our district. And that was intentional. And I think that's wrong. And
explain why that's wrong. Because essentially, if you put a 1000s of certain voters into a majority white congressional district, you're essentially disenfranchising them because they did the same thing with Lawrence, Kansas. They put Lawrence, Kansas in the first congressional district, you know, the district that includes Garden City and Dodge City, you know, feedlots and things of that nature, slaughterhouses, and Big Ag out there. So the people of Lawrence can vote all they want, but they have little control over who gets elected to Congress in the first district, similar, similar story
similar, I would argue that what happened to Lawrence was more of what they would just consider typical political gerrymandering. And what the courts need to decide, is, is it political, or is it racial? And what the Kansas Supreme Court said was, well, not enough, people were racially disenfranchised of their political voice. And I just argued that that's not true, like any person disenfranchised in that way. I think that's wrong. But the question is, is was there a smoking gun, some email or somebody said something inherently racist to say we're going to be District Court our district this way? Or was it just sort of done with a wink and a nod? And that that is how we've seen states across our country, get away with what is effectively choosing who their voters are, rather than the voters choosing who their elected officials are?
And I think the Republicans approach in Kansas was gerrymandering is illegal. And as long as we don't see the offensive words, then we can get away with Yeah, I think is what they did. All right. Very good. Let's talk about your background. So Where'd you grow up?
I grew up in Overland Park, Kansas. I have my mom and dad and Callum Lisa and an older brother Derek and a younger sister Whitney, we grew up in Overland Park went to church of the resurrection group growing up, I graduated from Blue Valley, West High School played basketball there. But then I went to KU and I was recruited by different basketball teams sort of a mid major level and got an offer to walk on it North Carolina. And I was excited about that one, but I couldn't afford it. I already knew I was probably not able to afford out of state tuition. I got recruited to go to Yale couldn't make that work. But then KU came along and said, Hey, wouldn't you when we're here, you're tall, you're smart, you would love to have you on the team. And so they invited me to walk on and so I played from 2004 to 2009. So Bill self's second year to the year after we won the OA championship. And then I
remember during those years, you played you got into games all four years, but I think they're one loss record was pretty astounding, maybe 115 1520 losses. Yeah, that range? Yeah.
I mean, I was, I was there for probably the sort of, I would I call it the first golden era of Bill self's tenure. There, it was right after, you know, the Nick Collison, Kirk Heinrich guys, but you know, if people remember it from the Mario Chalmers here, but I remember it because it was the Bucknell year and it was the Bradley year, and then it was Memphis. And so for me, it was sort of this experience of being a local kid who really wanted to represent a state. And I probably got in over my head a little bit. But we won because we work together as a team. And I feel the parallel to what I'm doing today.
Would you study in school,
I studied architecture, I got a master's undergraduate degree. So a five year master's is intense. Any architecture student will tell you, you go to a studio, and you're working there, you know, eight hours a day on top of all your other coursework. And so I was doing that and basketball at the same time. So when I need this, when I say I'm not I mean, the hard work like this is, this is the work of my career's always doing the, you know, maybe the hardest thing, but doing it because I have a lot of energy and a lot of drive a lot of passion for graduate school now. So I got a masters and undergraduate in KU, I went to Washington University in St. Louis, where I picked up two masters in graduate school in St. Louis, in a post professional architecture and urban design to different degrees, and it was basically one year each, but it was because the recession hit. And so like, you know, I always say Isn't this in my stump speech, but Bill Self one day went around the room and he literally kind of pointed out where everyone was gonna go in the draft and it gets to me and he kind of points at me and he just goes, he goes, Yeah, not, not you. And it kept on going. He didn't say anything.
Now you've been going to class, haven't you? Yeah, yeah. So I, I realized
then that I needed to get a degree but I graduated into the recession because our banks were so heavily deregulated and so I go into, you know, graduate School wash you and, you know, I'm learning about how cities get built. And I'm learning firsthand how disinvested communities struggle. So I was working in East St. Louis and North St. Louis, on different projects as a student thinking, you know, how are you ever going to rebuild and communities that feel like they've been left behind? And I look back at our second district, and we have a lot of communities that feel like they've been left behind. And they, you know, to your point earlier about Republicans not well, representing the district, it's because they spend all their time on Fox News and CNN and all the other shows talking about culture wars, and they don't actually spend our time legislating. This has been historically one of the worst congresses in our country's history. They are not passing nearly any bills. And it's something where if you actually care about our country getting better, you should elect somebody who's going to go to work for you and not just get on Fox News.
Speaking of work, what talk about after you got out of grad school, in St. Louis, tell us about the kind of places you've worked and what you've been doing.
Yeah, so I came back to Kansas City. I actually remember in graduate school, I got to study abroad in China and Singapore and South America. I was in Buenos Aires, and I got to backpack through parts of South America. And I just remember having this like distinct feeling that cities that are getting built at that scale are just too big. They're too there's too much. Whole neighborhoods, whole towns getting wiped off the map to build new cities. And I just remember thinking like, how do I come back to my hometown, my community, community I grew up in and it had an impact and help people's lives to be better. I knew that that's what I wanted to do. And it wasn't, you know, I originally thought it was sports architecture, but sports architecture. You know, you build a stadium, it's used maybe a dozen times a year, I want to, I wanted to build things that people I was hearing about wanting, which was grocery stores, sidewalks, you know, places where kids can play safely parks that are clean and healthy. I wanted to have a role in that. So I came back to Kansas City. I worked in an architecture firm, for about three years, and I started picking up that there was opportunities. I was doing things like better block, which was a hypothetical, like, what if the streetcar came down Main Street? Well, we put up you know, banners and we posted events, and we organized for one day what it would look like if the streetcar was at 20th. And may well now look around, right? There were a lot of folks who were really excited about the future of what we could build. And so I was inspired by that work. I started teaching about 10 years ago, 12 years ago with the University of Kansas School of Architecture. So I was invited to teach as an adjunct professor, and we were looking around going well, you know, streetcar stuff is great, but that's going to get down either way. We were not gonna play a role in that. But we noticed that folks in mind that county were struggling. We were hearing about this group that was working with Latino community in the School of behavioral health sciences. And they invited us and they said, Well, we're gonna do a park bench in Bethany Park. We're like, Oh, that's cool. So who's your architect? You know, who's your design team? And they go design team? Like, why would we ever need a design team? You know, we're just gonna pick it off the shelf and put it in. And and that was the moment where we kind of realized that we had a role to play in this is in the world of law, it's called Public Interest Law. Yes. If you can't afford an attorney, one will be provided for you. Well, we figured out is there's also a world of public interest design. And we started going to conferences and meeting with people who are already doing this across the country. But it's this idea that there are needs that need to be met from how systems are built in our community, how sidewalks are built, how grocery stores are developed, how schools can organize with kids that they learned about the built environment. And we started doing that work here in line Knott County. We did it for about five years. And I'll tell you, my primary opponent ran a failed Senate campaign in 2019. And she reached out to me and she wanted my help and my partner's help at that agency to help her because she didn't know what to do on rural development. She reached out to me, she doesn't remember this. If she does, she hasn't thought about. But this is the work that I've been doing. It's how do you invest in your communities? How do you make X resources more accessible? And I'll tell you, this is the number one part of my planning platform. We need to reduce the cost of housing, there are federal things we can do. We need to reduce the cost of childcare, we need to make sure that we have infrastructure that connects us to our jobs and our economies. That's That's true across the district, whether you're in KC K, Southwest, Southeast, northeast Kansas, these are the issues that folks care about. And so yes, if I am enjoying it, I'm enjoying it. Because these are things I'm familiar with, even if I don't have the answer, like I can talk and say, well, there's a federal grant that you could go after there's a you know, DOJ, or I'm sorry to go the DOJ consent decrees there's tra HUD and transportation have no foes out right now for rebuilding communities like there's a grant right now and that EPA through the inflation Reduction Act that Biden put out there $10 million minimum and I told Pittsburg Kansas Wesley house about to go after federal dollars to build homeless shelter that they're working on right now. Those are the types of things that I have experience with. And so it's ironic to me that now in my primary, I'm running against somebody who came to me for help. So this is the work I've been doing for the last 10 years. I've worked for nonprofits, I worked for Youth Build training, construction tradeskill members, that's why I'm glad to have the support of two different unions right now. And I think a third is on the way with AFL CIO and UAW. 31 I've worked for a Children's Mercy Hospital where we were advocating for parks and we were building coalitions across the region I've worked for Have a unified government health department where we manage the health equity task force to make sure that we were getting resources into our community in an equitable way during COVID. And most recently, I worked for vibrant health. vibrant health is a federally qualified health center. They provide health insurance, health care, to uninsured and underinsured patients in Wyandotte. County, about 20,000 patients. But this is the work I've been doing and building up our communities. And it's experience I have. And so I'm very fortunate to have an experience where I know what it's like to meet with communities who feel like they've been left behind. I know what it's like to sit there and listen to their concerns and come back the next day and say, Hey, here's an idea. Let's work on this together. That's what I've been doing. I've not been on my farm, minding my own business, I've actually been serving the community.
You mentioned housing, there must be healthcare access issues that are out there that you could address. You've talked on your campaign about fair wages.
Yes, I, the last minimum wage increase we had in this country was in 2009, it was 725 an hour. Today, based on inflation, that same value is worth less than $5 an hour. And nobody can get by on that. And I'm I'm frustrated about that. Because I've had a lot of folks come up and say, Well, isn't that only for college students? Isn't that only for part time employees? Isn't that only for people who are working sort of entry level jobs? Yes. And those people deserve a raise, they deserve a raise because our country is not providing we have income inequality that is making it harder for working families to get by. I don't think it's right, that people should be working two, three jobs to take care of their kids, especially if they're getting, you know, medical bills. On top of all of that, I think we need a race to the minimum federal wage, but we also need to hold corporations accountable.
That would be a good target for the new minimum wage.
I think you track it with inflation, and you make it a market adjustment so that it's fair across
a lot of states, the states impose minimum wage $15 An hour there.
I think it's got to be relative to the cost of living, right, you're not gonna have a one size fits all. But we do that already. In a lot of other ways. I think there are smart policies that we can work on. The problem is there's no one's even trying to work on it.
Yeah, I don't think the Republican congressional delegation in Kansas is pushing for raising the minimum wage.
No, and I've had this conversation with Republican state legislators, and they frankly, don't believe that working families deserve a raise. They don't think that this is a big enough issue.
Another issue that's been prominent in Kansas and has come up some in the campaign would be abortion rights. You know, we had a very important constitutional amendment a couple of years ago that was rejected, that would have allowed the legislature to be more aggressively restrict abortion in Kansas. So what do you think about that?
Well, it's not just abortion, let's be very, very, very clear. It's your family's right to plan for your own family. It is attacking not just abortion, it is a tax on IVF. Because they think any IVF procedure is effectively murder, which I think is a weird policy to stance to have. They think that contraception is not right, because they want to tell you who you can and can't sleep with. And they want to tell you who and who does not get pregnant. This is a critical election because some really strange politicians think they deserve to know what's going on in your bedroom. They deserve to know what's going on in your doctor's room. I don't think any person has that right to decide what's right for someone else's body. And I think that the fear mongering and the hatred towards people who are trying to do what's best for the family, they tell lies about, you know, babies getting murdered, like none of that's true, but they don't bother to check it. And I think the problem is, is we have a lot of people who are struggling in this community. We have folks who, you know, just in Kansas City recently, we have folks who have to go into sepsis to be able to receive health care. I think that's wrong. Now in Kansas, yes, I can kill you. Yeah. And if you look at other states, the rate of dangerous pregnancies is on the rise. It is absolutely something where, if you believe that women should not die giving birth, you should allow for abortion as a medical procedure, full stop. And right now, I think we have a really dangerous moment, our country where folks are just strangely fascinated and fixated on what's happening to a woman's body or deciding what's right for them. And I think that's entirely wrong. And I think we should have elected officials across the spectrum standing up for what's right, LGBTQ
issues have become an issue. Your primary opponent, Nancy Boyden has talked about it in the context of athletes. And she's kind of waffled a little bit between whether that she wants to apply a policy to girls, kids or adult athletes, but really doesn't want transgender people, women participating in sports teams that are designated for women. So your thoughts? So first
off, I want to make something very clear that in every setting, as somebody who has worked in communities for a long time, I believe that the people who are closest to the problem must be closest to the solution. It is not for an answer your eye to decide what happens for somebody else's family. Granted, there are laws that we will vote on, but I stand firmly in the belief that if we're going to vote we need to be in formed. And I don't think it's a coincidence that I've been endorsed by the LGBTQ caucus of the Kansas Democratic Party. I've been endorsed by equality Kansas, I've been endorsed by Q space. These are advocacy groups who are adamant that Nancy's views are onerous. They are not what is best for our community. And I firmly believe that if you're going to try to separate one group or another and marginalize already marginalized folks like I don't want to stand with Kris Kobach. On that side of the issue. I don't want to stand with people who think that transgender people don't deserve basic human rights. Every person who's LGBTQ plus community deserves to have a champion who fights for their rights, because he's
kind of an irony here. You have Republicans, largely some Democrats, who tell us that we need to get government out of our lives in terms of taxes and education, policy decisions, parents know best on Education Policy, but when it comes to health care for their children, parents don't know best. I just see a conflict there that that is not reconcile, and it must have something to do with ideology of the party and where they're headed. Let's look at other issues here. Oh, immigration reform. I know. There's a large immigrant community in Kansas, Kansas, maybe larger than in some other areas of the state. What do you think about all the hubbub about immigration?
I'll be honest, it's one of the things that I'm most afraid for is this sort of radical right wing approach towards immigration. We're a nation of immigrants. You know, unless you are a Native American or your ancestors were brought here and forced slavery, you are an immigrant. And the belief that we should somehow deport every undocumented immigrant I think is is evil. I think it is, is appropriate to call it what it is. It is wrong, because I know in my community, some of the very best people I know were championing the rights of working families every day are were brought here when they were children. There are folks who've been here for decades, and they are terrified of what it means to have a country that's willing to put them in a country that they've never been in. They've never they've never known. I hear from farmers who know explicitly that there are candidates for different offices, and they exploit our undocumented workforce, because half of our entry level workers and farms are undocumented. And we need a system that works I'll be I'll be very transparent. We need a secure border that works and a pathway to citizenship. i The year I was born. Ronald Reagan granted amnesty to 10 million undocumented immigrants. Why is it that Republicans can only talk about Ronald Reagan on everything, but this?
That's a good question. Are there other issues that you're asked about on the campaign trail that you you would like to speak about?
You know, my opponent likes to claim that I can't win this race. Her very first stump speech, she said in Wyandotte. County to a roomful of my neighbors, this is not a winnable race. She doesn't think it's winnable, but I disagree. And
suggesting it's not only not winnable by you, but it's not winnable by a Democrat.
She said it is not a winnable race, because I believe it is and she wanted to paint that contrast. I can't speak to exactly what she was saying. But I can tell you at that time and conversations I've had with her, she did not think is winnable race. This is a race that I do think is winnable, because this is the race that Laura Kelly beat dexmet in this district by 1500 votes and vote no on abortion two years ago, one by 35,000. I was in Iowa a couple of weeks ago at a bipartisan forum and I talked about inflation. I talked about how it's down to I think some of the lowest levels we've ever seen talk about immigration, immigration is down 40% from the border search. There's absolutely things that our country is struggling with. But what we're struggling with is not immigration, and inflation and nothing else, right. We're struggling with the cost of housing going up. We're struggling with property taxes, we're struggling with rent, we're struggling with access to health care, we're having hospitals closed, we're having schools get disinvested we have a lot of issues going on in our country. And so when I talk about those kitchen table issues, I talked about an aisle and I came down off the stage. An older gentleman came up to me goes young man, are you a Democrat? And I said Yes, sir. And he goes, Oh, shit, I gotta vote for you. I need to I need to change my registration. And when I was in base for last week, I was talking to a bipartisan panel. And I got up there and I said, Hey, let's talk about Project 2025. Let's talk about the the radical sort of destruction of America as we know it. And you can't walk away from that because there are folks who worked in Trump's administration who wrote the chapters and I talked about it from if you care about your V seniors, they're gonna cut VA. If you care about seniors in Social Security, they're gonna privatize it or make it so you have to continue to go to work until you're you know, in your late 70s. Like there's so many heinous things that they're pushing And for, and the one I kind of pointed out was like, I don't think, Trump, when he came in the office, the tax corporate tax rate was 35%. In 2017, he passed the Trump tax cuts it which will expire in 2025. And it dropped it down to 21%. And probably 2025 calls for him to drop to 18%. What far right conservatives are doing is they're running on a fear based campaign to get folks angry at immigrants and point the finger everywhere else, but at the issues, and the issues are that our corporate tax rate is dropping so low, that we're going to be balancing our nation's deficit on the backs of working families. And I don't think that's right. The project 2025 plan calls for eliminating all but two tax brackets and getting rid of every deduction. That means if you're a family of four with two children, your annual income tax will go up. Because there's no child tax credit. And your deduction. You get rid of your if you're making less than 160,000, your annual tax bracket will force you to pay $6,600 more a year. That's not right. And it's because they're trying to balance it on the corporate tax cuts they're giving 2025
is a conservative organizations agenda. The people that are pushing it are Trump administration,
the Heritage Foundation, which is deeply tied in with the Trump administration. These are the people that worked in his administration last time, these are the people that manage the department that they want to cut now and they want to make everybody in America pay more part
of their proposals will never happen, of course, but would you suggest about tax policy very well could. Speaking of President former President Trump, what do you what do you make about the candidacy and Kamala Harris's emergence,
I was proud to endorse Kamala Harris, I think that the, you know, my primary opponent called for Biden the drop out immediately, I think that was sort of a foolhardy decision. It's it's reacting on a place of weakness and not on strength. I think what we saw in the Democratic Party was they organized, think about what just happened. You had an entire RNC convention dedicated toward taking down Joe Biden, they picked the vice president candidate that was designed to take on Kamala Harris. And now look at us, we have a nation with momentum building we have raised, gosh, I don't know over a quarter billion dollars just in the last week alone on money. And and we have people with hope. I've been talking, I've been in living rooms of Republicans in our district, who checked out after the Biden debate, and they are excited right now. They are excited to vote for a Democrat, because they know what's at stake. They know that this is a election that's about our values and about who America really is.
So you think we'll see, let's make the assumption that you win the primary and August you go to the general election, do you think Kamala Harris on the ballot will help a Democrat candidate in the second congressional district 100% 100%.
Now, is it going to be a tough race? Yes, it's a tough race every time but this is a blue district in theory, because think about it. Kansas City, Kansas, Topeka, Emporia, Pittsburgh Leavenworth Atchison, Junction City, these are working families, these are labor towns. These are college towns. These are some of the bigger cities in our state. They years ago went for Republican for President 20%. And then it became 16% then became 12%, we're on a bluer trend. Eight of the 11 counties that went for the vote, no amendment are in district two. This is the next district to flip in this country. And it's happening across the country. But it happens not because we're talking about going so far to the middle of the road that you might as well cross it to the other side. It happens because we're talking about the issues. And that's I'm the only candidate, Republican or Democrat, endorsed by the Kansas City Star. I'm the only candidate, Republican or Democrat endorsed by the mainstream coalition, because these are issues that I'm talking about that working families experience, and that's what our country should be working on. And so yes, I do believe that when you talk on the issues, you get folks to show up for you and vote. And I think with Kamala Harris and the ticket, we're seeing young people turn out in numbers. I think we see Republicans saying, You know what, I can support her because the alternative is a 78 year old, weird old guy, and he's got some, you know, young candidate who's a venture capitalist Silicon Valley plant. I mean, there's no question that Kamala Harris is a better candidate. And I'll tell you this, this is the last thing I'll say on this. At the baser event. There was a surrogate for Derek Schmidt, because they're committed, they want to show up to the debate, or he just didn't want to show so his surrogate shows up and talks and we had a great conversation afterwards. He and I, we talked about the issues and he said, Matt, you're a really good candidate. I I'm very supportive of you. Can I get a sign?
You're talking about Derek Schmidt. They're looking guy he's gonna probably win the Republican nomination. Second District is surrogate
asked for a yard sign now whether or not he was doing that in good faith. I don't know. But that tells you that when we talk about the issues, we actually get people to agree with us and I've had a lot of that when I'm out there talking about issues. And in that same event, another candidate, Jeff cars is staffer came up to me and said don't talk about Project 2025 anymore. It's not it's not a Trump thing. It's not a Republican thing. They don't want to talk about the issue. Oh, yeah. So when I'm having these conversations with voters in the second district, I'm always gonna listen to all these, you know, some of these outlandish ideas, really weird ideas, but I go, can we have an honest conversation? Can we actually talk about what's really going on in this country because a lot of folks are going to repeat talking points that they just make them sound good. But when we talk about what's really going on in our country, what we need is we need to give working families an opportunity to thrive, and that's what I'm focused on. Matt, we're
gonna have to close it out here. I wonder if you might just pretend you're at a stump speech and you're getting to the end. You got people on their feet, they're applauding, it's like, okay, you basketball game. Just close it out and make a pitch for why people should vote for you.
People ask me all the time. Why did you get in this race? And there's a lot of reasons. But I'm 2016. I remember sitting on my couch at home, watching the election results turn in. And I'm an optimist. And I said, you know, that sucks. Trump won. But we'll be okay. And I looked over my wife, Sangeeta. And she she immigrated here when she was two, and she became a citizen at 18. And we got married about nine years ago. And she's the love of my life. And I said, we'll be alright. And I look over at her and she's got tears in her eyes. And she said, No, you don't get it, you'll be alright. But I won't be my community won't be. And she was right. Because, you know, I'm a white Christian, male, straight living in Kansas, where I played for KU basketball, like, I'll be okay. But what I have come to realize in the work that I've been doing every day for the last 10 years is our communities are struggling. And what I know is that when we organize, we can win. This is not an election about me, it's not about me trying to relive some former glory, this is an election about our future. This is an election about what kind of community do we want to leave to next generation? Do we want our kids to be able to have good paying jobs? Do we want our kids to be able to afford affordable housing. So we want to have schools that are open, and we're not just sending kids to private schools on vouchers that are using state payer taxpayer dollars for this? Do we want to have unions that are open and giving people a fair deal? We need to do the work this election in every election for the rest of our lives to restore our faith in democracy. And we do that by organizing, we do that by showing up. We do that by caring about the issues that affect working families. And so I'm very proud to be a Democrat. I'm very proud to be endorsed. I think by now almost two dozen individuals and organizations because this is a race about our future. And it's not about me, it's about every single one of you. And I think if we work together, we win when we work together. We win together. And I certainly appreciate your vote on August 6.
Very good. Matt Kleinman, the Democratic candidate for the second congressional district. I want to thank you for your time today. So lovely morning out here. Next to the street, we have a few people that buzzed by with loud mufflers, but I think it's okay. And I want to thank you for listening. And one final point please go vote.
