On Wednesday, Sen. Jim Banks (R-IN) delivered his first speech on the Senate floor.
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NewsTranscript
00:00Thank you, Mr. President. It is the honor of my life to be here representing Indiana
00:07in the United States Senate. I want to start off by thanking Hoosiers for sending me here
00:13to serve them, my state, and my country. It's an incredible honor. It's humbling and thrilling,
00:20truly, speaking on the floor of the United States Senate for the very first time.
00:26You see, I grew up in a trailer park in Columbia City, Indiana, a small town of less than 10,000
00:36people. I still live there today with my wife, Amanda, and our three young daughters. And really,
00:42it is the best hometown in America. But when I was a kid, we lived on the very south end of town on a
00:51dead-end street with about a dozen trailers. I often drive by that boyhood home, and I point it
00:59out to my daughters, and I say, that's where I came from. Unfortunately for them, it's on the way to
01:05school, so they hear me say that a lot, and they get annoyed every time I say it. But I have a lot
01:12of great memories growing up in that trailer park. I remember my dad teaching me how to ride a bicycle
01:20in the cul-de-sac at the end of the street. I remember his cream-colored Ford Bronco. The top
01:28would come off. He would wax it on the street, drive it around town. He was so proud of it.
01:32I remember the bunk bed at the front of the trailer that I shared with my brother Chad. I remember
01:39the swing set in the side yard. I remember, Mr. President, I remember deer hunting season. My
01:45dad would bring the buck home that he was proud of. We would can the meat, and we would live off of it
01:50for the winter. You see, my parents didn't have much, but they worked hard, and they provided for my two
01:58younger brothers and I. My mom and dad were high school sweethearts. They didn't go to college.
02:06They had me at a young age. My mom started working when she was 13 years old at a local nursing home
02:13called Miller's Mary Manor, and she only recently retired from working there for most of her life.
02:20My dad worked at a local Dana factory where they made axles for cars and other vehicles.
02:28My uncle, my grandpa, many relatives, many friends of our family also worked in that same factory.
02:36In fact, it was my grandpa, my mom's dad, who got my dad his job there when he started dating my mom.
02:43When I was growing up, that factory provided good pay and opportunities for so many families
02:49in my community. During all three shifts, 24-7, the parking lot would be overflowing
02:57as workers earned a wage that was good enough to support their families. That was our American
03:06dream. Those were exactly the kind of jobs that allowed my parents to put food on the table
03:12and raise their boys.
03:17To so many Americans, like my parents, the American dream isn't just some concept that think tank
03:23experts in Washington, D.C. write about. It's real.
03:27It's what they've lived in their lives, like my mom and dad did.
03:32Because to my mom and dad, the American dream is if you work hard,
03:36then perhaps your kids might have a better shot than what you did.
03:42Mr. President, I want to take a moment, like the good book says to do,
03:46and I want to honor my mom and my dad. It's because of them that I have lived
03:51the American dream. Look at where I am today, the floor of the United States Senate.
03:57From humble beginnings in a small town in northeast Indiana, the first in my family
04:03to go to college, the great honor of wearing the uniform and serving my country.
04:10I served my country in the United States House of Representatives,
04:14and now here in this historic chamber, the United States Senate.
04:19My oldest daughter, Lillian, is in the gallery with us today.
04:25And just like my parents, I want my three daughters to be better off than what I was.
04:32That's the American dream.
04:34This really is the greatest country in the history of the world,
04:38and that American dream is always worth fighting and protecting.
04:43But, Mr. President, sadly, the country has changed a lot from when I was a kid.
04:49Growing up in that small town.
04:52There used to be plenty of those good-paying factory jobs like the one that my dad had,
04:57with pay that kept up with the cost of living and companies that treated their workers right.
05:03It's no accident that a lot of those jobs have disappeared,
05:07and the working class is falling further and further behind.
05:11You see, it's clear.
05:14It's the result of bad policy choices that put corporate and foreign interests ahead of those workers like my dad.
05:23Decades of America-last policies have hollowed out our industries and crushed our workers.
05:29Wall Street shipped factories overseas and stripped our companies for quick profits.
05:37And for a state like Indiana, the top manufacturing state in the country, that is a huge blow.
05:43We lost 6 million manufacturing jobs since 1980,
05:49while our population grew by over 117 million people.
05:54Like President Trump said last week,
05:57we've also lost more than 90,000 factories since NAFTA was signed.
06:02Adjusting for the value of the dollar, working class wages for men haven't gone up at all.
06:08They earned about $850 a week in 1980, and they still earn about $850 a week today.
06:17About 600,000 jobs went to Mexico over two decades since NAFTA.
06:26In the 1980s, it took about 40 weeks of work for a factory worker to earn enough to support their family.
06:34Today, it takes about 62 weeks, which means those working class families are growing debt and falling further and further behind.
06:45For too long, empty lots, boarded up buildings, and dead storefronts could be seen all over America
06:53because of the choices that our nation's elites made.
06:57It was a tremendous failure of leadership.
06:59They opened up our borders, they cut wages for workers,
07:04and as a result, cheap labor flooded into our country.
07:10Indiana is also the top steel-producing state in the country.
07:15But the steel industry has shrunk by two-thirds.
07:20In 1980, the U.S. made one-sixth of the world's steel.
07:24Now, that's dropped to one-twentieth.
07:27Foreign companies have used their low wages and subsidies to dump cheap steel
07:34and take over our market, while American steel companies have struggled to keep up.
07:40Today, America produces 1% of all of the cargo ships in the world.
07:47But in 1980, we made over 50% of them.
07:50It costs more than double to build a ship in the U.S. than it does in China or South Korea,
07:57and they heavily subsidize their shipbuilding industries.
08:01You see, in Columbia City, my small hometown,
08:05the best-paying jobs are at a local steel mill called Steel Dynamics.
08:10A lot of guys I went to high school with, a lot of friends of our family work there today,
08:16and they do really well and provide for their families.
08:19But we've lost way too many of those kinds of jobs around the country to China
08:23and foreign countries who have taken advantage of us and our workers.
08:28It was great to see leaders from that steel mill, Steel Dynamics, in the Rose Garden last week
08:34when I had a front-row seat to celebrate President Trump's tariff announcements,
08:39which will massively help our steel industry in places like Columbia City, Indiana.
08:46For too long, our leaders have turned a blind eye when our enemies like China
08:51took those good-paying steel jobs away from us.
08:53One of the really memorable moments from the Rose Garden last week with President Trump, for me,
09:02was when he said that it's hard to fully blame foreign countries
09:06when it was the lack of leadership on our own part that allowed those countries to take advantage of America.
09:12In fact, he kept pointing back to the Oval Office
09:14and saying that we're in the position that we are today
09:18because many of the men who sat in that office behind him
09:21did nothing while foreign countries took advantage of us and our workers.
09:26President Trump understands, like we all do,
09:30that we can't pass the American dream on to the next generation
09:33if we let China dominate us.
09:36In fact, he is the first president of my lifetime
09:39to call China a threat to the American way of life.
09:42That's why I believe that letting China into the World Trade Organization
09:47was the worst economic mistake of my lifetime.
09:51For too long, they've stolen our technology, they've copied our products,
09:56and they've built up their industries with slave wages
09:59that American workers can't and shouldn't have to compete with.
10:03And no one has held them accountable, Mr. President, until now.
10:09Too many of our leaders have been playing footsie with China
10:12instead of pushing back and standing up for our workers.
10:16In 2001, our trade deficit with China was $84 billion.
10:22By 2024, that deficit more than tripled to $295 billion.
10:29Nearly 25 years ago, China accounted for 8% of the world's manufacturing output,
10:36but by 2020, that number has gone up to 35%.
10:41The Chinese Communist Party wants to make the U.S. irrelevant in every key industry.
10:48Steel, aluminum, nuclear power, AI, semiconductors, telecom, planes, ships, cars, and many more.
10:57They're making us weaker and dependent.
11:01And here's the worst part about it.
11:03The CCP conned American investors into footing the bill.
11:08They rolled out the red carpet to corporate America,
11:12and Wall Street poured nearly $1 trillion into Chinese companies
11:17that destroyed American jobs.
11:20Some people believe naively that China would become freer, more open, and more like America.
11:27The complete opposite has happened.
11:30Now they're our biggest adversary, and it's past time that we fight back.
11:36During my time in the House, I made it my mission, my biggest priority, to stand up to China.
11:43And only one president in my lifetime, once again, has understood that threat.
11:46In the United States Senate, I intend to help and stand with President Trump
11:51to stand up to China and put America first.
11:55When President Trump first came down that escalator over 10 years ago,
12:00my dad, a retired union factory worker, Mr. President, was for him from day one.
12:05I wasn't so sure about it.
12:10But my dad knew that Donald Trump was going to fight for the working class, and boy, was he right.
12:17President Trump tapped into the American people's hopes in a way that few leaders before him ever have.
12:23And that's why I was so inspired in just the first couple of weeks on the job as a United States senator
12:31to be in that rotunda for President Trump's inauguration,
12:36when he talked about the golden age, ushering in the golden age of America.
12:41It was so encouraging and inspiring to real people in real places like my hometown.
12:49I feel like I'm living through some of the best parts of our history,
12:53and I stand with President Trump and his commitment to put those working families first.
12:59He's removing the kick me sign from the backs of our workers and our producers.
13:05He's doing what the voters elected him to do, and he's keeping his campaign promises.
13:10He's putting our attention on the issues that matter most to working Americans,
13:16like being able to afford a home, a car, groceries, education, and health care.
13:22He's standing up against global companies that are selling out to our enemies,
13:28and he's bringing back a country that builds and makes things.
13:32Just last month, so important to Indiana,
13:35we heard that Honda is going to build their new Honda Civic in Indiana, not in Mexico.
13:42And last week, GM said that they would increase truck production
13:46just a few miles from my hometown in Fort Wayne.
13:50Our steel mills are roaring back to life.
13:53Our tech companies are hiring in America again.
13:56And Eli Lilly, also based in Indiana, plans to invest $27 billion in American manufacturing.
14:06So far in just 10 weeks, Mr. President,
14:10President Trump has announced $6 trillion of new investment in the United States of America.
14:16That type of investment is helping to bring back the American dream for hardworking Americans.
14:22On Election Day, Mr. President, this past November,
14:29I took what ended up being a long and nostalgic walk with my dog, Marshall.
14:37He's named after Thomas Riley Marshall, the 28th Vice President of the United States,
14:44who's also from my small hometown.
14:47In fact, his vice presidential statue is right outside the west door as you enter this chamber.
14:56In fact, on Election Day, we walked right past his home,
15:00which today is a museum and is honored to his history.
15:04When I was in elementary school, we would go on field trips to the museum,
15:08and the teachers would say,
15:09look what this guy did coming from a small town like this.
15:13If you work hard and dream big, maybe you can do something like that, too.
15:20I went on this dog walk with Marsh, and we walked past the museum.
15:26We walked past the courthouse and the town square in my hometown.
15:30We walked past the hot dog stand that was where I had my first job as a teenager.
15:37And then we ended up in that trailer park that I mentioned earlier, where I grew up.
15:44I've driven past it many times, but it was the first time that I've actually gone there alone
15:48and walked through and down this street since I was a kid.
15:53It was just a couple of hours before the news would call my race
15:57and name me the senator-elect for the great state of Indiana,
16:01so this was a rather emotional experience for me.
16:05As memories of my childhood flooded back,
16:07and I realized how incredible of a life and opportunity that I've been given.
16:13But as we were walking down that street, I noticed a mom
16:17sitting on the steps of her trailer, smoking a cigarette,
16:21watching her two boys in the yard who would have been about the same age
16:25as my brother and I would have been when we lived in that trailer park, too.
16:29As I watched them, I couldn't help but wonder
16:32if those boys would be able to achieve what I did
16:36or if the deck was so stacked against them today
16:39that that kind of opportunity for them is way out of reach.
16:45Later that evening, as the results from election night poured in,
16:48it became apparent to me that America decided to turn the page
16:53to a new chapter for this great country.
16:56And as someone who's lived the American dream,
16:59I got great news for those boys and their mom.
17:02The golden age of America is here.
17:06It's only been five months since Election Day when I took that walk,
17:09and we've already seen a major shift for hardworking Americans.
17:14For too long, Washington has not cared about people
17:18like those boys and that mom.
17:21But I do, and I know that all of you do,
17:25and I know that President Trump does, too.
17:28As leaders in this country, we have a duty to fight for those boys
17:33and those moms like her for their American dream.
17:38To my Republican colleagues and my colleagues across the aisle,
17:42we must stand together more than ever before
17:45to fight for those working families.
17:48It's going to take everyone in this chamber
17:50working together to do it.
17:52There's so much in this fight that we can all agree on
17:56as Republicans and Democrats.
17:58And now is the time for leadership of both parties
18:01to step up for American workers and families.
18:04We're kicking off a new era of peace and prosperity
18:08like we have never seen before.
18:11Again, Indiana, thank you for this incredible opportunity.
18:16To my colleagues, it's a privilege to serve with you.
18:19I'm so excited about what lies ahead.
18:22Mr. President, I yield back.