Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt (R) delivered remarks on Monday at the Heritage Foundation 'Policy Fest' at the RNC.
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NewsTranscript
00:00Hey everybody, how's everybody doing today? I'm pumped to be in Milwaukee. This is
00:07gonna be great. You know, I just want to first take a moment to condemn the act
00:14of evil that occurred the other day and the assassination attempt on
00:19President Trump. Just so thankful that the Lord protected him and I just can't
00:25even imagine how close that was. And so, you know, just in a few days
00:31we're gonna be putting him forward as the nominee for our party for President
00:36of the United States and just super excited for that. So this reminds me, a couple
00:44years ago at the Democrat National Convention, there was a group of
00:48reporters that were running in and they see this little boy over there and
00:52he's selling puppies. And he's saying, come get your Democrat puppies here, get
00:58your Democrat puppies. And the press is like, oh cute little boy, and they go on
01:03in. And two weeks later was the Republican National Convention and the
01:08press is there and they're running in and they see a boy over there selling
01:13puppies again. And he's saying, come get your Republican puppies, get your
01:17Republican puppies here. And the press is like so curious, they're like, man I
01:22wonder if that's the same little boy that two weeks ago was selling Democrat
01:27puppies. So curiosity gets the better of them and so they go over and they
01:31say, are you the same boy that was here two weeks ago selling Democrat puppies?
01:35He said, yes sir, I sure am. And they said, well what changed between two weeks ago
01:40to today? And he looked at him and he's like, well now the puppies have their
01:45eyes open. Oh man, just making sure I was in the right audience here. But we're here
01:55this week to fight for the American dream and really our way of life. You
02:01know, our founders, to our founders the American dream meant freedom to worship,
02:05freedom to assemble, freedom to speak one's mind. It meant that there was no
02:11limit to what someone could accomplish. It meant freedom from the government, not
02:17control by the government. The American dream is really the belief that everyone
02:23is capable of anything he sets his mind to. You know, that each of us is endowed
02:29by our Creator with certain unalienable rights. That we all in America have
02:35endless opportunities that if we're willing to work hard for them. And now
02:40nearly 250 years after the signing of the Declaration of Independence, it's
02:45time for us to reclaim that American dream. You know, I love how Ronald Reagan
02:52would say it. He said, government is not the solution to our problems. Government
02:59is the problem. You know, we all know that in here. A perfect example of this is in
03:05our education system. During the COVID pandemic, blue states across the
03:12country, it's so important we don't forget this, were bending to the will of
03:16the teachers unions and were shutting down schools for sometimes up to two
03:22years. And as a result of that, an entire generation of students were cheated out
03:28of their right to an education for the illusion of safety. And in Oklahoma, we
03:36believe that you don't put the Constitution in the attic just because
03:41somebody in Washington DC tells you to. You know, states like Oklahoma, we put
03:46students first. We kept all of our schools open. And I was one of the only
03:52governors in the country that refused to do a mask mandate statewide. Y'all
03:57remember all the mask mandates? It was unbelievable. Nationally, public education
04:06has seen a 20% drop in language arts proficiencies, a 37% drop in math
04:13proficiency. And even after seeing these results from these lockdowns, blue
04:19states are still deferring to teachers unions. They want parents in the dark
04:26about what's being taught to their children. In red states, we we call that
04:31stuff crazy. We're pushing back and we're seeing huge education freedom choice
04:37movements across the country. In Oklahoma, we passed the very, very best
04:43school choice plan in the entire country. And now every parent, regardless
04:49of income, has a refundable tax credit or a voucher to go to a school of their
04:55choice. And here's what I tell people. Listen, rich people already have school
05:00choice. They can send their kids to any school that they want. And if you were
05:05governor and you had to talk to the single moms that are trapped, or the
05:08single dads, or people without resources, and they're in school districts where
05:12their kids are getting a failing education, it would break your heart.
05:16Now everything's possible in Oklahoma. We also became the very
05:21first state in the country to approve a religious charter school. Okay? We're so
05:28excited about that too. St. Isidore is a Catholic school that's going to be set
05:31up in the state of Oklahoma. The American dream is making sure that every
05:36kid has the opportunity to get the education that best fits their needs. So
05:42let's talk about government control versus free markets in the energy sector.
05:47You know, in blue states, the government is trying to control what car you drive.
05:54They're trying to say what stoves you can have in your house. I mean it's
05:59getting weirder and weirder. On day one in office, think about this, President
06:04Biden started putting up roadblocks to American energy
06:09dominance. He canceled the Keystone XL pipeline. You remember that? Okay,
06:15Cushing, Oklahoma. Cushing, Oklahoma is right in the middle of our state. That is
06:20the largest commercial storage of oil in the entire country. It's a hundred
06:25million barrels. Did you know that there's already two pipelines from
06:31Canada to Cushing, Oklahoma? One of them is called the Keystone. The Keystone XL
06:37was going to be the third pipeline. Okay, it is absolute common sense that the
06:41safest way to move oil and natural gas is through pipelines instead of train or
06:46trucks. It's just unbelievable. This all gets so political. West Texas
06:51Intermediate, WTI, is priced not in West Texas but from Cushing, Oklahoma. And then
06:56the pipelines go on down to Houston and Louisiana to meet the needs of our
07:00citizens there. You know, President Biden has leased fewer acres of land for
07:07energy projects than any other president in history. I give you the
07:11stats. It's just unbelievable. Because of Joe Biden's anti-energy, American energy
07:17policies, taxpayers are now stuck paying, spending about 1.7 trillion dollars in
07:24hidden energy costs. This is crazy because states like Oklahoma can meet
07:31the need of Americans and our allies around the world in Pennsylvania and
07:35Texas and other states. Oklahoma, we're so proud of our all-of-the-above energy
07:40story. And I'll tell you real quick, we're number six in the country
07:45in oil production. We're number five in natural gas production. But here's what
07:49people don't realize. We're also number three in the country in electricity
07:54generated by wind. Okay, we have an all-of-the-above approach. We're one of
07:59only four states that 45% of our energy comes from renewables. Okay, that blows
08:05away the people on the, you know, some of the coasts that are just the green stuff
08:09that they think about states like Oklahoma that are leading the way on an
08:13all-of-the-above approach. You know, President Biden also halted, y'all see his
08:18LNG ban? Okay, LNG exports. He's banning LNG exports from the U.S. which is really
08:25hurting our allies. It's denying our allies around the world access to clean
08:30reliable energy. And it really drives our allies into the arms of our
08:36adversaries. Here's a newsflash. Every country has to heat their homes and
08:42their businesses. They have to drive their, they have to drive to work, take
08:45their kids to school. They need energy. And so they're gonna get it from us, so
08:49they're gonna get it from people that may not like us very much. I always, I
08:53always talk about energy as a national security issue. You know, energy
08:59security is really your national security. Because the Biden
09:03administration has done everything it can to squash our domestic energy
09:07supply, the U.S. and our allies are less safe. We have seen unprecedented
09:16aggression from our, from adversaries around the world. Nothing is more
09:20evident than when we watched Hamas' brutal attack on Israel on October 7th.
09:27Myself and Governor Abbott took a trip over there. We met with Netanyahu and we
09:31met with President Herzog as well and saw what was happening. It was
09:35unbelievable. It'd be like at a concert in the U.S., terrorists coming in with
09:41machine guns and just mowing down our young people. We visit them in the
09:44hospital. It was the most brutal attack you could imagine. And here's the deal.
09:49By lifting sanctions on Iran, the Biden administration has made them flush with
09:56cash right now. And they're using it to fund terrorist groups around the
10:01world. Let me tell you something. A Trump administration would immediately put
10:06sanctions back on Iran and bring stability back to the region.
10:15The other thing President Trump is passionate about is reducing our
10:20reliance on China. Right now, China controls 60% of the critical mineral
10:27supply chain and about 75% of the manufacturing. And critical minerals, if
10:33you think about it, they go into everything from our smartphones to
10:37satellites in space to our F-35 fighters. In America, we have the
10:43workforce. We've got the technology. A lot of times we invented this processing
10:47technology and the resources to bring the supply chain back to America. We're
10:52leading the way in Oklahoma. We've made announcement after announcement because
10:56of our business-friendly approach. We just landed USA Rare Earth, which is the
11:01first-ever mineral-to-magnet manufacturer in the U.S.
11:09And I encourage you to check out my op-ed I wrote in the Wall Street Journal
11:13last summer on this exact topic. And it was talking about America needs to have
11:18a strategic stockpile for critical minerals like we do in the oil and gas
11:22space. We need to set up relationships around the world in Africa and in
11:27different in South America to make sure that we develop those relationships
11:31because China is out in front doing those. You know, it's no secret that the
11:36Biden administration has been terrible for our economy. And over the last few
11:41years, Americans have been choked by inflation. It's hurting Oklahomans. It's
11:46hurting Americans all over this country. We're spending 20% more on everything
11:53that we need. You know, when President Trump left office, inflation was below
11:582%. And in 2021, your average gallon of gasoline was $2.40 a gallon. Today, it's
12:06$3.50. That's causing everything to cost more. But for Democrats, that's not a
12:13mistake. They want more reliance on the government. They've taken programs that
12:18were supposed to be a hand-up, and they've really turned them into a hammock
12:22where people are sitting in them. The deficit spending to fund these
12:28social programs has caused our national debt to skyrocket. And now, when you
12:35really think about it, we are spending a quarter of our income, okay? A quarter of
12:40your income is on interest-only payments. Right now, our interest-only payments on
12:45our national debt is more than we spend on our national defense. Just think about
12:50that for a second. You know, I like to describe it like this. When I
12:54graduated, I went to Oklahoma State. I got an accounting degree, got my first job in
12:58Tulsa, Tulsa, Oklahoma. And I bought my first house right across at 8th and
13:02Harvard, right across from TU. And I spent $66,000 on my first house. I was
13:08pumped. I was dating my wife, Sarah, at the time. We've been married for 26 years, by
13:12the way. But, thank you. We, $66,000 for my first house. My house payment was about
13:20$550. And I remember making my first house payment. I was 27 years old, and I
13:25looked at it. It was $550, and only $49 went towards principal. And I was like,
13:31what? And the rest was interest. But at least I knew that in 30 years, when I
13:37looked at the amortization schedule, that I was going to own my house at 8th and
13:40Harvard. Folks, we don't do principal and interest on our national debt. It's
13:46interest-only. That means we're never going to pay it off. And it gets worse,
13:51because right now, they keep piling on top of it. So, where our revenue is about
13:56$4.4 trillion, you would think they would spend about $4.4 trillion. They
14:00spend $6.4 trillion, right? They're spending $2 trillion over what our
14:06income is. And that's just making it harder and harder and harder and harder
14:09for the taxpayers. But at the end of it all, if they control our education, if
14:16they control our energy and our economy, they'll next go after our ethics. You
14:22know, it's really already happening. We are living, I tell Oklahomans, I mean, this
14:26is like I'm living in the Twilight Zone here, when people think it's okay to
14:31perform sex-chain surgeries on children. They think that a child who can't get a
14:37tattoo, can't buy a gun or vote, but it's okay for them to have life-altering
14:42surgeries. They think it's okay to expose children to inappropriate sexual
14:48material, regardless of their age. They believe that men should be able to
14:53compete against women in sports, hold records. I mean, we're seeing that all the
14:58time, like, hey, this dude broke this female swimming and track record.
15:02They believe it's okay for men to be incarcerated in women's prisons or
15:07chained in women's locker rooms. We know that's crazy, and it's not happening in
15:13Oklahoma, I'll tell you that. I was the first governor to ban men and women's
15:18sports. Thank you. The Washington Post called me and like, governor, you signed
15:27this controversial bill, and I was like, it's really not controversial in
15:32Oklahoma. We know the difference between boys and girls, but I also had to sign an
15:37executive order to take, to define what a woman was, to make sure that, to make sure
15:43that women weren't going into, or men weren't going into women's prisons,
15:47because we were seeing that happen in other states. You know, they know if they
15:51can break apart our families, that they can exert even more control over us. And,
15:56you know, we're seeing record levels of fatherlessness across our country right
16:03now. Today, nearly 18 million children are living without a father in the home. The
16:10statistics paint a grim picture. So, 71% of those who drop out of high school
16:17grew up without a father. 71% of those that drop out. 66% of juveniles that are
16:23in state custody for some kind of problem grew up without a father. So, in
16:30Oklahoma, we're tackling that. We're promoting fatherhood. We know that the
16:35best place for a kid is at home with their mom and their dad. And in red
16:40states, we're fighting for families so they can keep fighting for the American
16:45dream. And you guys are here today because you believe in freedoms, not
16:51government control. You know that there's hope in that American dream, and it
16:58is worth all of us fighting for. So, I just thank y'all so much. You are the
17:02leaders of your community. You're here at the Heritage Foundation. You're making
17:06sure that you're here taking this message back to your states. And it's
17:11clear that the American dream can't survive another four years of Joe Biden.
17:16That's why it's so important that we bring common sense back to the White
17:19House. I'm grateful for groups like the Heritage Foundation who are advocating
17:25for freedoms. They're engaging the decision makers and educating Americans
17:30about the most important issues that are facing us today. The founders of our
17:36country envisioned that there's no limitation to what we can accomplish, but
17:44it does matter who we choose to lead us. And there's only one choice in this next
17:49election. Thank you all so much for being engaged and for working to keep that
17:54American dream alive. God bless you, and may God continue to bless this great
17:59nation of ours. Thank you so much.