oh
come on
we gonna
they go right foot being left and what
they ain't gonna do is finesse
they don't work too hard too long it's
about time to come and write these
wrongs
i'm joe biden and i approve this message
thank you for joining this biden harris
campaign national women for biden call
with scarlett johansson and
representative johanna hayes
and now please welcome biden harris
campaign women vote director
carissa smith and women for biden
advisor
rachel wallace
hello hello everybody welcome welcome
welcome to this evening's women
providing
hey everybody thanks so much for joining
us uh we hope you liked video music
awards
oh go ahead crystal sorry you cut out
for a minute oh
sorry about that i was just saying how
awesome the ad was
uh lifting my spirits this week
yeah that was an amazing ad we premiered
on the mtv
music video awards earlier this week
which was just it's been in my head for
sure
um well we're really glad that you're
here we're going to be talking about a
very important conversation
this summer has been really tough and
instead of having a back to school
season that feels like a fresh beginning
americans across the country whether
we're talking educators
students families really entire
communities they are all still feeling
really anxious so
um jill biden earlier this week kicked
off a back to school tour where she's
been meeting with educators in states
like north carolina
and florida and hearing their concerns
about reopening safely
and in fact joe biden traveled to
pittsburgh earlier this week and he
really
laid this out quite clearly um the
american people
do not feel safe in donald trump's
america
not safe from the spread of coven 19
not safe from economic ruin not saved
from crime and looting
not safe from racially motivated
violence um
and it's not like people don't want
things to go back to normal right
college students want to be on campus
parents want to send their kids back to
school back to child care centers
we want to feel safe in in our streets
um and all of us would rather be having
this conversation in person tonight
right
um but donald trump has just not done
the work to make that possible so that's
why we're here tonight to talk about
what it's going to take for schools to
be able to reopen safely um
and not just get things back to normal
but as joe biden says to build back
better
so before we dive in we wanted to take a
moment and really celebrate this
community
uh we put out a call for yard signs on
the women for biden harris 2020 facebook
group
uh we asked folks to show their buying
hair as pride post a photo
of how they're showing support for the
campaign and of course
women from buying really delivered we've
seen hundreds of
photos from women across the country and
we're really excited to
showcase just a couple of those tonight
um you know yard signs are some of the
most visible ways that we can show our
support
especially when so many of us are social
distancing so
um that's why we wanted to show them
here and shout out to all these women
um especially my home state of
pennsylvania
for their terrific signs and by the way
you can order your own sign you can
order your own flag
and support the campaign by going to our
official campaign shop
we are going to drop the link in the
chat so
really the 2020 version of back to
school shopping um
so thank you to everyone who's been
doing these awesome awesome
photos and sharing them with us i love
this michigan photo
and also would like to be on that front
porch right now so these are just really
really terrific shows of support
so we have one final update for you um
everyone on this call tonight has been
part of the tremendous growth that we've
seen in women for biden
this network is really a force to be
reckoned with and now is the time to
make that force felt
um feel felt in every state across the
country so
we we are two months out from election
day um and that's really critical but
really we are
two months out from the end of the
election because people in states like
north carolina are already requesting
their ballots by mail
so this is really the time to take
action um
after after next week we will be
starting
uh weekends of action where we will
organize and mobilize our fantastic
volunteers and supporters across the
country
so um women for biden will be coming
together and texting on saturdays we'll
be making phone calls on sundays
um and we will be making sure that you
have this information so that you can
join us
but we wanted to give you sort of a
heads up so you can start making plans
to
hang out with us on weekends in addition
to thursdays
these events will be run by women for
women uh and every weekend we're gonna
adopt a different battleground state
and reach out to voters so they have the
information they need to be heard this
fall
okay update's over let's get to the main
event
tonight we have two very special guests
to talk about what's going on in schools
across america
and to kick things off we'd like to
introduce our moderator for tonight's
conversation
courtney o'donnell courtney is mom to
oliver and felix
she previously served as communications
director for dr
jill biden in the white house and she is
an officially brand new member of team
joe
um she just joined to the campaign as
chief of staff to senator harris's
husband doug emhoff so courtney
we're so glad you're here tonight
welcome hi there
um thanks rachel and carissa um
it's so great to be here as rachel said
i'm courtney o'donnell chief of staff to
doug
emhoff our next and first second
gentleman
i'm so happy to be here tonight i've
been a proud member of women for biden
since the beginning of the campaign
and now to be officially on board is
just an honor
and i came to this campaign precisely
because i know how much
joe biden and kamala harris care about
supporting working families
i also joined this campaign because as a
mom i'd like to have a president
and a vice president that my boys can
look up to
thanks to donald trump's failed
leadership the virus has pulled my kids
to boys who you may see in
the background at any minute um and many
of yours
out of the classroom and onto zoom and i
am so grateful for the heroic
work that our teachers and schools are
doing to keep
learning happening safely and remotely
but every time i see the kids hunched
over their laptops or
around the house i think it just didn't
have to be this way
and we're so great we're so lucky to
have a candidate and joe biden
who can help lead us out of this uh many
of you know
on on this gathering that being a mom is
hard
even under the best of circumstances and
so if we do our jobs and
elect joe and kamala we'll have a team
in the white house who gets this
and is in our corner but that can only
happen with your help
so i want to thank you for being here
today for all you've been doing
and all you're going to do in the next
61 days
and so now it's my true pleasure to
introduce two leaders in their own right
who are equally devoted to making the
world a better place for our kids
and all kids congresswoman johanna hayes
and scarlett
congresswoman johanna hayes serves as
the u.s representative for connecticut's
fifth congressional district
she was recognized as national teacher
of the year
in 2016 and then ran for congress in
2018 becoming the first african-american
woman and first african-american
democrat
to represent congress connecticut in
congress
she serves on the house committees on
education and labor and
agriculture and actress and producer
scarlett johansson
is a tony and bafta winner and five-time
golden globe nominee
she most recently starred in the final
installment of the avengers film series
avengers end game in the golden globe
nominated marriage story
and in taiko
welcome to you both thank you so much
for being here
so my first question is for both of you
um how are you thinking about the start
of this school year
and what are your principal concerns um
and congressman
can we start with you
my answer to that first of all thank you
for having me this is awesome
but my answer is simple safety i think
people keep talking about all of these
other concerns until we get
safety back under control we cannot open
schools
school is just geography if people think
that students will return
and thrive and resume learning they're
not going to do that if they're not
healthy
if they're hungry if their parents have
lost their jobs if they're homeless now
if they have all of this recurring
trauma from the last six months that has
been
that has not been addressed and we
are reopening schools absent data absent
any
um security for them uh we're not
instilling confidence in teachers and
generally when kids i mean we're not
doing that for kids
and generally when kids don't have that
it comes from their teachers
and what i can tell you is that my
teacher friends are scared
they're emailing me and they're calling
me they're scared for their safety
they are afraid that they're going to
have to stand in front of kids and make
promises that they cannot keep
they're going to have to tell them it's
okay when they don't know if it is
my community my school district was a
title one district
they don't have the funding or the
resources to do some to even follow the
basic guidelines that they're being
asked to follow
and they can't do that without
leadership so safety is my number one
concern both as a
mother as an educator and as a
congresswoman
thank you scarlett doing them add
some thoughts um i you know i i have a
young daughter
a rose who's six years old he's going
into first grade this year and i have to
say i
echo the same you know sentiment as
congresswoman hayes
um i'm also concerned about my
daughter's safety and our family's
safety and our friends safety
um you know i i think right now
like so many parents i'm sort of
grappling with
you know two things that i'm deciding on
on
one hand i talked to my daughter's
pediatrician and he's saying you know
the most important thing
for children you know young young school
children that are you know under
under that third grade second grade
first grade is socialization it's so
important for their
for their mental health it's so
important for um
you know for their how they socialize
how they grow how they
how they become you know members of
society and and
you know in some ways your your parents
i think are forced to
try to decide what's more important
their children's
mental health and their children's
developmental health or
their physical health you know are you
are you is it more important for your
kids to go physically to school
and have that you know much needed
interaction with other children
um and but then on the same hand you're
putting you're putting your kids health
at risk your family's health at risk you
know i
personally have family members that are
you know high risk and
you know i'm thinking am i not going to
be able to then see my mom
or see you know their family at risk you
know family members because my
daughter's going to school and it's a
very
very scary time and i think it's really
um you know it's it's devastating that
parents are being
asked to to you know to grapple with
this it's very stressful and
um you know it's it's uh it's it's
just emotionally so um so draining
you know it's it's on on top of being
just
scared for you know how the year is
going to go
you know um what how your
you know how how to how to grapple with
you know this
online education what that how what that
looks like and you know how our working
parents supposed to
juggle all of those things um yeah it's
it's
uh it's it's been very very tough
for everyone i think you both have
really touched into
this growing sense of anxiety and that
um
also a sense that uh president trump
isn't
doing the work to get the virus under
control
um and no end in sight to this
in fact um a rush to open schools
without
those safety uh parameters in place
and you know i know um congresswoman
hayes
as a former teacher yourself as an
educator
um i'd love to hear a bit of your
perspective i know dr biden an educator
herself has been out
visiting with teachers members of the
school community parents as well but
really would love your insights as a
teacher and what you're hearing from
educators in your conversations
right um there's no such thing as a
former teacher i am hardwired
educator and these are things i think
about
all of the time and to
i feel weird because she just called me
congresswoman hayes and i'm i'm going to
call you scarlett just because i love
the way it sounds
so i can call you miss scarlett if you
like
but uh this idea because everyone's
talking about
kids social and emotional well-being but
no one is saying
that because we recognize the trauma
that kids are going to have and the
relationships that they are going to be
denied
we are going to have trauma-informed
counselors meet them when they come to
school
we're going to make sure that we have
people there to kind of unpack some of
the challenges that they're feeling
teaching is about relationships it's
about proximity
i'm i was a high school teacher and i
had kids come in and gave me a hug every
day
you would feed off of their body
language so the idea that they're going
to come into a building and be
six feet apart and can't socialize with
their friends is going to be strange and
foreign to them and will not be
reminiscent of school
and then i think the other thing and
this is why
i'm so excited about this this ticket
with both joe biden and kamala harris
because they get it
they understand education they
understand that we have to make
intentional investments
in education they understand that covet
has just
kind of widened those disparity gaps
because and i have 41 towns that i cover
and some of them will be okay they'll be
able to open they'll bring in a
facilities manager
to space out the building they'll buy
all the equipment and the supplies and
they'll be up and running
and other districts will be crippled
because they're already minority
districts title one districts
low-income districts and they can't
afford to do any of these things
without support from the government but
i think the last thing when i talk to my
teacher friends
it cannot be lost it's not just the
president he has a train of accomplices
we have a secretary of education who
does not believe in public education
and i don't know how as an educator you
can go in with confidence when the
person who should be advocating and
fighting on your behalf
doesn't even believe in the work that
you do the secretary hasn't come before
congress one time to say this is what i
need to get schools open safely
this is what i need to make sure
teachers are prepared teaching is a
profession
teachers should have gotten professional
development back in april to
teach virtually to make sure they had
the skills in case we had to go to a
hybrid or virtual
you know it's not like you just turn on
the computer and turn it around
it's a skill that has to be learned that
has to be practiced and we didn't even
take the time to do that
and now with no new information
we close schools because of this virus
and now we're opening them
schools are the only part of our economy
that we're even considering
opening at full capacity all inside all
in person
and teachers should not be left with
that burden with
no support from the top so this there
there are so many people who are
complicit in what is happening right now
absolutely um and i scarlet i don't know
if you wanted to add to that point but i
think what you've touched upon
congresswoman really speaks to
um you know the planning that is
required for all schools
not just some schools and um
the cooperation with members of congress
and
the entire administration that's
required and so
that is you know we're seeing that the
lack of that and working with members of
congress
and being able to provide all schools
with the resources
they need um
i i wanted to turn to because there are
many
um people on the call who may not have
been as engaged and we've seen the women
forbidden community
grow um over over time and i think it
speaks to a huge rise
in mothers getting involved and becoming
advocates
in their communities and um i'd love to
hear
scarlett some of your impressions as a
mom yourself like
what are you hearing from moms what do
you um
how do you think they're engaging and
any
advice or thoughts you have from from
others who may want to become more
active
um you know i think
it's hard because all of my you know
friends that are
moms are juggling so much you know
they're
juggling their children at home they're
working from home
some of them have businesses that have
failed or struggling
um they are in you know
dual income households and you know both
parents are
trying to you know figure out at times
you know who's using their computer
and how to balance that um you know it's
just it's such a
difficult time to really ask people to
with all of that going on you know you
know to to give
more um to give more of their time um
you know for for people that do have the
time obviously canvassing is really
important
fundraising is really important voter
awareness and engagement is super
important
um you know i've been involved with the
get out the vote
initiative for a very very long time um
you know that there's different
organizations and ngos obviously that
can
you know that are i think doing great
work like get out the vote um
and other bipartisan organizations but
um
you know for me i think the most
important thing is
help moms helping other moms women
supporting other women
um that has been a lifeline for me it's
been a lifeline for for all of
my my friends with children um you know
just
trying to figure out okay you know if we
have to move to a plan b
you know can we do virtual learning in
one another's homes is there a way that
we can create
after-school pods where everybody's
committed to a safe environment
or our children can continue their
education um
and even you know just have the time to
socialize in a safe place
with one another um thinking of ways
that we can carpool
now that there is no public
transportation um you know can we figure
out ways that we can help each other
make bagged lunches
all of that stuff is really um you know
so vitally important and then just
having the emotional
support from other moms and being able
to you know
have a shoulder to cry on and just talk
about how tough this
is and you know i mean that is all um
you know been invaluable i think and
will be you know
continued to be invaluable um you know
for
for certainly the upcoming months um you
know up until the election and i think
that's
you know we're just all um waiting with
baited breath just
you know and and and you know hoping
that uh
you know will be alleviated of this uh
because it's gonna be i think it's gonna
be very tough winter
for for so many parents
we can't hear you courtney we can't hear
you can you hear me now
apologies okay um and and that's
this is all happening um in an
environment that has been
marked by communities in turmoil with
episodes of police violence that have
sparked protests
and demonstrations across america and as
the congresswoman referenced earlier
you know covet has really unlocked and
made
so visible some of the other greater
inequality and that has existed
across our country and so congresswoman
i'd love to hear from you
your perspective as a congresswoman and
a mother
um on what what you're hearing from
women
about how they're feeling on about
safety
of their children and their communities
and
um ways you would encourage them to get
engaged
um i think since we're talking about
educators like
we went from there's this this sense of
uh back in march teachers were the
heroes you know they turned everything
around they went to virtual learning
and then it went to they're too lazy to
go back to work
so there's all of these you know putting
people in different categories
and what i've been saying over and over
again is
parents are going to need to be their
own best advocate
because a lot of the information that's
coming down teachers alone
can't fight for these changes for for
children
um our future depends on what we do in
this next election
we have seen just an emboldened sense of
of hate i i was watching as i was
watching the closing of the two
conventions
last week when i was in the classroom as
a history teacher
i would have had my my students watch
the convention and we would have talked
about it and we would have unpacked it
but one of those conventions was so
just pressurize that it would have
created a conversation in class that i'm
not sure
i would have been able to handle it and
this is the direction that we're moving
so parents have to say i don't accept
this
i don't give you permission to do this
and especially when we're talking about
education on my committee of education
and labor
at every hearing you have a member from
the other side
just really spotlighting the fact that
they don't think that the federal
government should have any
responsibility to educate our children
that's not our job that's not our
responsibility
they see no value in other people's
children
so as parents as mothers we have to
stand up for our kids who can't stand up
for themselves and make sure that
we're fighting for them you know because
they don't vote
you know people say kids don't that's
what people said to me when i ran why do
you spend so much time with children
they don't vote
they worked on my campaign they
volunteered and they were completely
disregarded because they don't vote
so we as their parents have to vote for
them
yeah i think that's super powerful and i
think um why
i know i feel so strongly about um being
a part of
the biden harris campaign because to to
be able to advocate
not just for some families but for all
families and especially those children
who haven't had a voice and haven't had
a seat at the table
just really quick courtney i think if
this year hasn't taught us
anything as a mother if you're okay with
seeing other people's kids in cages
you know as a mother if you're okay with
um
seeing just some of the hateful rhetoric
i would we wouldn't allow that from a
soccer coach we wouldn't allow that
if i were a teacher and said half of the
things that this president like you said
you want someone that your children can
look up to
this isn't about policy anymore you know
republicans and democrats have always
kind of
had different ideas about how we get to
um
you know how where which direction we go
on on policy
this is about civility now this is about
decency
this is about where you want your kids
to grow up
absolutely um and and i think it is
um as we've talked it's hard being a
parent
on a good day but to be able to be
afraid
that your children will pick up um bad
behaviors from
you know the highest office in the land
um is
something that you know i think would
have been unthinkable uh
prior to this this time um
i'd love to before um
we we wrap i i'd love to
pivot then to you know a lot of people
are discouraged right now a lot of
people
are um hurting right now um
so i want to end on a positive and
hopeful note
so i'd love to ask each of you um
in just a few words to to think about
a biden harris administration um and to
think
what you know what makes you most
excited about that
um and tell us as a parent what that
would look like to you and i'd love to
start with you scarlett
i think it looks like we might have lost
her did we
i think we may have i think everyone is
um
does the wi-fi connection i'd love to
to hear from you representative about
the hope and optimism that
well i guess
first of all i love that that you're
taking care of doug
because i i think it's awesome that
uh i didn't know that was the thing but
i i think that that's awesome
but um this ticket had me at hello
i mean joe biden one thing that i think
we all agree on is just such a decent
man
who cares about people who takes time to
hear people
and listen to people and
i think in a post covet america and a
post after this administration
there's going to be so much hurt and so
much healing that has to be done
and i loved in at the end of the
convention where
dr biden said how do you heal a broken
country
the same way you heal a broken family
and i just
i i i feel safe with
a biden administration and kamala harris
i just think brings
just a perspective and a dynamism and
just really i know her personally and i
i've been
you know a supporter so she was the very
first person to endorse me
and help me with my campaign and
literally
this is when i couldn't get anyone to
listen to me and i said she said to me
tell me what you can do to why you think
you can make someone else's life better
that was literally the way our
friendship develops so
both of them are just interested and and
speaking up for people who don't have a
voice
and that's what this country's gonna
need you know we can't
we can't go back to where we were before
this pandemic so if people are looking
for schools to reopen the way they did
in march i'm not looking for that i'm
looking for better
i'm looking for to close those gaps and
and to fix the things that we've known
historically have been wrong and now to
start to address them
a trump administration is not going to
have honest conversations about race
like we need to
the biden heroes ticket is ready to do
that they're ready to talk about
education and race and health care and
all of the things in the way that we
need to talk about them and i'm just so
thrilled you know to to be able to be a
part of that
and and to do my small part to help get
the two of them elected
well we can't thank you enough and i
will um echo what you said that i think
with
um this entire um team
and and doug today was was talking about
you know his
his daughter's starting her first day of
school in front of a computer
and excited to just work as hard as he
can
um as well for this um this ticket and i
think
from the at the highest level we have
the greatest commitment
to change and so i we can't thank you
enough
for your role as an educator an elected
official
i know um i think scarlet like like so
many of us had some wi-fi connectivity
issues
but really appreciate her using her
microphone and platform
to to advocate for action and so thank
you so much for joining and i'm going to
hand it back to lena and rachel um to
to close out and give some some more
information
yeah thank you so much courtney scarlett
and congresswoman
um for that great conversation on a
topic that's on all of our minds right
now
um i'm lena i'm on the women providing
team
and i want to end by asking you to find
some time over the next few days to do
something to help elect
joe and kamala this fall and maybe you
invite a few friends to our labor day
event
this monday maybe you make some calls to
voters maybe you download our vote joe
app by texting app
app to 30330 and text some friends about
making a plan to vote
yeah we are down to the wire here so
this is the time for all of us to get
involved
you've just heard like a thousand good
reasons from congresswoman hayes
uh and scarlett johansson and courtney
um about really what's at stake this
november um
and i i can't stop thinking about uh
what first lady michelle obama said at
the democratic convention
when she spoke about how we would have
won michigan in 2016
if we had won just two more votes per
precinct in the state
two votes per precinct so ask yourself
we we all need to ask ourselves what can
we do
to help us get those two votes in each
precinct um that is
that is like we can we can join a phone
bank and reach those two voters
we can join a text bank and reach those
two voters um so please take the time
to get involved as you heard tonight
this is so so important and there's just
a lot at stake
yeah it really is so important rachel
this is a tough fight but it's one we
can win
um we know that when women unite when
women show up we will win
so thank you again for joining us thank
you for being in this fight with us
and we hope to see you on labor day for
our event this coming
monday yeah absolutely thank you
everyone
thank you to our uh interpreter tonight
crystal we are so grateful for you
and your work and for making this event
accessible thank you
and we hope to see everybody on monday
have a great evening and stay safe
what you think
what's up
oh
you
