00:00You know, I'm not one to mince words. I sort of tell things as they are. The U.S.-India
00:07relationship has been at the lowest point in the last 30 years. Trump's policies of getting into
00:15a war in Iran has been utterly destructive. It has been utterly destructive to the prices
00:22in India of gas. Talk to Jay Shankar if you don't believe me. The idea that we engaged in a
00:31unilateral
00:32war without our allies, without even consulting Europe or Canada or India and made a mess of the
00:40world has hurt our credibility. And then the irrationality of the tariff war. I was in China
00:49and the Indian ambassador and said to me, a generation of trust has been lost by this
00:56president of yours. See, if we don't speak the truth about the damage that this president has done,
01:03not only at home but abroad, then we're just not living in reality. The new generation is not only
01:11going to have to rebuild America, we're going to have to rebuild our relationships around the world.
01:17And I contrast one of the greatest presidents with arguably the worst president in our
01:22history, FDR with Donald Trump. And what was the difference? See, FDR actually believed
01:31in the self-determination of people. FDR was a supporter of what my grandfather was doing,
01:39Amarnath Vidyalankar, working with Lala Lachpat Rai, working with the Indian
01:46independence woman in jail in the 1930s, in the jail in the 1940s. And when Winston Churchill
01:52said that the British Empire should not set, FDR is the one who said, Churchill, you're wrong.
02:00America is for decolonization. America is for freedom. America is for being a good neighbor.
02:08America is for the principle of human rights and liberty, not just in the United States,
02:14but around the world. That's when America was seen as a moral leader of the world.
02:19And when John F. Kennedy was president, when we talked about self-determination and decolonization
02:27and working together with other nations to solve global poverty, to go into space,
02:33to solve disease, not through dictating by our might, but by inspiring from our ideals.
02:42That's what inspired people to come to America. That's what inspired my parents to come to America.
02:49That's what inspired so many here to come to the United States. And now you have an America that has
02:56forgotten that moral vision that has a foreign policy of might makes right, threatening not just Iran,
03:05threatening Cuba, threatening to conquer Greenland. And we're having dinner as if everything is normal.
03:13Of course it's not normal. You know, who cares about the partnerships of this and that when this president is
03:20literally destroying America's leadership in the entire world. And the demagoguery about immigrants,
03:28the demagoguery of this president and talking about the lack of immigrants coming into the United States.
03:38I mean, how can we sit here and not condemn his policies on what he has done with student visas,
03:47with the demonization of talent coming to the United States, with the sense of no understanding of the history
03:58of the civil rights movement and how that paved the way for the immigration act that allowed us to come
04:04here?
04:04He talks about leading in AI. 38% of the top AI researchers are of Chinese origin.
04:1072% have foreign degrees. This is a president who doesn't understand that we need to be recruiting talent,
04:18not turning talent away. And what is the good news?
04:24He's a lame duck. The Democrats are going to win decisively in 2026, and we're going to win in 2028.
04:32We are going to have a re-emergence in this country of a new generation.
04:39You're seeing it. I mean, they don't see it. Oh, these people winning in New York, what are they?
04:43They're going to say, come on, I've been out around the country. The energy is changing.
04:50You know, you can still go, you know, make your peace with Vance and Trump for another year,
04:55but that's not the future. It's not the future of this country. If you don't believe me, just get out
05:01there.
05:01See the anger that this president has caused in this nation.
05:07And so the hope is that we're going to re-emerge. After the Civil War, we had the 13th, 14th,
05:17and 15th Amendments.
05:19After Hoover crashed the economy, we had FDR. After George W. Bush, we had Barack Obama.
05:28America has a remarkable capacity for self-correction. Our destiny is to be the first cohesive multiracial democracy.
05:39And my hope as an Indian American, as an Indian American of Hindu faith, as an Indian American who was
05:47inspired by my grandfather,
05:50and who saw the sacrifices he made. As people who, you know, whatever we do, we won't pale,
05:58we'll pale in comparison to the sacrifices that my grandfather made, pale in comparison to the
06:04sacrifices that the founders of this country made, that those who fought in the Civil War made, or in
06:11World War II made, or were beaten on the Edmund Pettus Bridge made.
06:15My hope is that as we talk about the U.S.-India relationship, we talk beyond what the defense
06:22relationship is, what the economic relationship is, what the investment relationship is.
06:27We talk about what the relationship needs to be in terms of our highest values.
06:33The values of seeing human freedom flourish here and around the world. The value of seeing
06:39self-determination flourish here and around the world. The values of seeking
06:44a world that is at peace, working to solve civilization's problems. At its best,
06:52that's what America is. And at its best, that's what Indian Americans should be.
06:58It's not about a blind alliance. It's about finding an alliance that will further the values of
07:04civilization and humanity. That is the work I hope to do, and I'm really honored to have the opportunity
07:10to share some remarks. Thank you.
07:16Subscribe to One India and never miss an update. Download the One India app now.
Comments