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Kirsten Gillibrand officially announces 2020 run
01:53 - Source: CNN

Editor’s Note: Kirsten Gillibrand is the junior US senator from New York and a Democratic presidential candidate. The views expressed in this commentary are her own. View more opinion on CNN.

CNN  — 

Several weeks ago, I launched my presidential campaign in front of Trump International Hotel with a message that I believe in so strongly: When Americans join together to reject hate and division, hope rises, fear loses and, most importantly, bravery wins.

Bravery is exemplified by the millions of Americans who have tirelessly spoken out against this administration’s cruel policies toward women, Muslims, the LGBTQ community and immigrant families at our border.

They have spoken out because President Donald Trump is tearing apart the moral fabric of this country. He continues to demonize the vulnerable and he punches down.

Kirsten Gillibrand

He does all of this because he wants us to believe he is strong. He is not. The President is a coward.

That’s not what we deserve. So many Americans are making a choice to resist the backward pull of this administration and push us toward a better future. And we need a president who is worthy of their bravery. That is why I’m running for president of the United States.

We need to fight for an America where power truly belongs to the people, where our politicians care about everyone in this country – and lead not from weakness or ego but from strength of character.

I know we can be that America. But it means starting at the root of many of our problems – greed.

Right now, special interests are displacing the voices of the people of this country. Find me a so-called unsolvable problem, and I will point you to the greed and corruption standing in the way of solutions to it.

Polluter profits take precedence over drinking water. Predatory lenders get special access to the White House and are allowed to take even more advantage of the most vulnerable customers. And the National Rifle Association, one of the most powerful lobbying groups in America, stops popular common-sense gun reform, while stray bullets kill children in our communities.

Dark, unaccountable money is at the heart of this outrageous inaction. We need to crack open our government, flip the switch and let the light flood in.

That’s exactly what I did when I came to Washington and challenged Congress by making my meetings, finances and earmark requests public with my Sunlight Report. In fact, I was the first member of Congress to put this information on my website, and it was not popular with a lot of my colleagues, who said I was setting the bar for transparency way too high.

I rejected that notion then, and I reject it now. The American people deserve to know their elected officials are working for them – not special interests.

It’s why I wrote and tirelessly pushed Congress to pass the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act in 2012. I fought to make it illegal for members of Congress to line their pockets and profit from insider information. Public servants shouldn’t enrich themselves from the offices they hold.

And I will keep leading on transparency within my own office and campaign. That’s why I am not taking any money from corporate political action committees, federal lobbyists or individual super PACs.

That’s why I was the first presidential candidate to release my 2018 taxes, and have put 12 years of tax returns online – going back to my first year in public office.

And as president, I will fight for publicly funded elections to reduce the influence of wealthy donors and special interests. I believe it’s the closest thing we have to a silver-bullet solution to so many of our challenges. It would change the way Washington works overnight.

Our president should govern based on the principle that our democracy only works when elected leaders hear directly from all Americans, regardless of their financial status.

Only then – once we address the greed in Washington – can we finally start making progress on the problems we face.

But here is what I have also learned over the years. To take on the issues that matter the most, America needs a leader who is willing to be brave. I have learned that bravery means standing up to the powerful and summoning the courage to confront them head-on.

That’s what I did when I first ran for Congress in a 2-to-1 Republican district that nobody thought I could win. Except for my mother, which tells you a lot about her. People told me: “It has more cows than Democrats – you just can’t win!”

But I took those long odds, and I won. And the next election, I won again – that time by a 24-point margin.

Why? Because I never forget who I serve. I stood up to greed and voted against the bank bailout. I stood up to corruption by making insider trading illegal for members of Congress.

I stood up to bigotry and fought to repeal “don’t ask, don’t tell.”

And it’s why I’m proud to have stood up to Trump and voted against his Cabinet nominees – more than anyone else in the US Senate.

I will go toe-to-toe with anyone to do the right thing. Whether it’s powerful institutions, the President – or even my own party.

We have big fights in front of us that we can’t afford to lose. And we can’t possibly win them if we aren’t willing to speak out and speak up for what’s right.

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    I am running for president to fix what’s been broken, to repair our moral fabric and to rebuild the common bonds between us as Americans. This fight is so much bigger than any one election – it’s about making a choice and deciding who we are, and who we are going to be.

    I believe that we can do this. And I know that, years from now, we will look back on this moment in our history, and we’ll be able to say that we were brave enough to do something about it.