College Democrats (Answered by President, Owen Bros)
Abortion:
“The government should not be involved in your body in any way. Period. When abortion is on the ballot, such as most recently in Ohio, the American people overwhelmingly vote to protect the right to an abortion. If you are a person that thinks it is morally wrong then fine, but that also does not give you the right to tell someone else what to do about their bodies.
Let’s see what happens when women do not have access to abortion. There have been 65,000 pregnancies that have resulted from rape in 14 states that banned abortion since Roe was overturned. Most of those cases were in states that had no exceptions for rape. A 13-year-old rape victim gave birth to a baby in Mississippi due to the state’s abortion ban. She will start 7th grade with a newborn. Jessica Bernardo of Texas overcame infertility and got pregnant in July 2022. 14 weeks into the pregnancy, they found out the fetus had a fatal disorder called fetal anasarca, heart failure, and kidney failure. Texas’ abortion bans didn’t allow her to get an abortion and put her at risk for Mirror syndrome. She spent $7,000 to get an abortion in Seattle. It is not hard to see that a potential baby can ruin a woman’s life, and for disadvantaged women raising a child while they are living paycheck to paycheck is not what the American Dream is about.”
Supreme Court:
“Before Trump appointed three conservative justices to the Supreme Court of the United States; Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett; it was almost unheard of that you could lose rights from the Supreme Court as an American. The overturning of Roe was the first time Americans lost a civil right. In the same opinion, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote that he would be interested in looking over the cases that legalized marriage equality, birth control, and the declaration of sodomy laws unconstitutional. Justice Thomas, Justice Alito, and Justice Sotomayer are all in the early or late seventies, giving the next president the power to appoint three new justices potentially. To remind students, this court is the same court that granted the president full immunity in office. During oral arguments for that case, Trump’s lawyer brought up the hypothetical of death squads being sent out by the president to assassinate political enemies. Now do we think that this is hypothetical? The point here is that the power, at least in Americans’ minds, is in the Supreme Court. The last time I read my pocket constitution, Congress had the power to oversee the federal courts. While still a lame-duck president, Biden has called for term limits and enforcement of the ethics code. While term limits are a pipe dream, they have broad American support including 82% of Democrats and 57% of Republicans. An enforceable ethics code has emerged amidst the very questionable actions of Justice Clarence Thomas and Justice Samuel Alito. The next president may have the power to appoint several new justices and pressure Congress to pass some very needed reforms for the highest court in the land.”
Economy:
“Ronald Reagan ballooned the deficit from $70 billion to $175 billion. George H.W. Bush increased it to $300 billion. Bill Clinton lowered it to $0. George W. Bush blew a $1.2 trillion hole in it. Barack Obama halved it to $600 billion and Donald Trump blew it back up to over $1 trillion. Now tell me which party is better equipped to handle the economy.
Joe Biden has created more jobs than the last three Republican presidents combined times seven. The U.S. economy has grown three times faster under the Biden administration than the Trump administration. Under Joe Biden, the unemployment rate dropped to 3.5%, the lowest unemployment rate since 1969. After peaking in 2021, inflation has come down every single year. And let’s not forget, ten of the last eleven recessions in U.S. history have started under Republican presidents. Trump’s populist statements about the economy might appeal to his base voters, but for anyone with access to Google or a basic economic textbook at your local library, all his “promises” spell 4 more years of disaster for the everyday American. Americans are seeing that everything ranging from eggs, gas, bread, meat, clothes, and especially housing are way too high because of inflation. It’s also important to remember that the grass isn’t always greener on the other side and that the empty promises that Trump makes about the economy may land us all in a much worse spot than we currently are. While Trump gives tax cuts to billionaires adding over $2 trillion to the national debt, Kamala Harris spent her college years working in McDonald’s and promises to rebuild the middle class, something that we all should be getting behind. Think about the candidate that will bring us together as Americans, instead of dividing us.”
Immigration:
“Donald Trump is the biggest obstacle to the border crisis because he knows that without immigration, he has even less to stand on as a cheater, failed businessman, and convicted felon. In November 2023, Biden and Senators from both parties negotiated a bipartisan border bill. Negotiated by Senator Chris Murphy (D-Connecticut), Kyrsten Sinema (I-Arizona), and James Lankford (R-Oklahoma). This bill would have provided 1,500 additional border agents, 4,300 new asylum officers, 100 new judges, and 100 new machines, cut asylum processing time from 5-7 years to 6 months, and would give Biden the authority to shut down the border which he said he would use the day the bill was signed into law. Instead of this landmark of bipartisanship passing, Donald Trump instead called Republicans in private to kill the bill. And they listened to their leader because otherwise they would have been replaced by a Trump supporter in their next primary. No one doubts that there is a crisis at the border, but history is lost on so many people. The reason we have an asylum system in the first place is because America as a country was so ashamed of turning away thousands of Jewish refugees fleeing certain death in the gas chambers of the Nazis, we decided it was a moral imperative to take in refugees. Refugees are real people, with real stories. It is so important that we relearn our roots, to learn again the words etched on the base of the Statue of Liberty. The buses of refugees sent by Governor Abbot to sanctuary cities are an example of real people being used as political pawns. That is something every American should be disgusted and ashamed of.”
College Republicans (Answered by President, Giavanna Cangialosi)
Abortion:
“The Biden-Harris administration, Tim Walz, and many more have spewed lies many times before when it comes to Donald Trump. For example, claiming Project 2025 is Trump’s project, when Trump has stated on multiple counts that he wants nothing to do with Project 2025 and that Agenda 47 is his official project. To be honest, I cannot even blame them, if I were also running for President of the United States and had such unclear “policies,” I would start lying about my opponent too, right, Kamala? However, the main lie to focus on for this topic is the lies they spread about Trump’s policy on abortion. The Democratic Party has been preaching the lie that when Trump goes into office, he will mandate a national abortion ban; which isn’t even the case, a quick Google search will say differently. Trump refuses to endorse a national abortion ban and vows to veto any federal abortion ban, as stated in multiple sources. He has repeatedly stated that those types of limits should be left to the states. Let us talk about the dangers of supporting extreme abortion policies, looking at Walz. As Minnesota governor, in 2023, Walz signed a bill that restricts the authority to put restrictions on care under particular circumstances, such as providing care and lifesaving procedures for infants born after an attempted abortion. Under Walz, eight babies survived abortion attempts—all of whom died after little to no lifesaving care being provided by doctors. For the Democratic Party to say their policies on abortion will “protect women” while 158 Democrats voted against deporting illegal immigrants convicted of sex crimes– as a woman, that scares me.”
Supreme Court:
“Throughout the years, the Republican Party has consistently placed a high priority on appointing conservative justices to the Supreme Court because it sees the court as a vital instrument for protecting constitutional rights and influencing national policy. Unlike many countries in the world, the US holds a highly impactful right, our First Amendment. Supreme Court conservative appointees consistently protect the First Amendment in different ways. The most recent successful protection of the First Amendment was the Kennedy v. Bremerton School District case in 2022, which was mainly authored by Justice Neil Gorsuch, who was nominated by Trump. Americans practice the First Amendment daily without even realizing it, which shows our privilege. But imagine, your First Amendment suddenly becomes limited, where you will get silenced on saying your opinions; this is a possibility that might happen if Kamala becomes president and nominates new associate justices. The House of Democrats and higher Democratic officials have a deep history of promoting censorship. Democrats have historically supported more speech controls, while Republicans have long opposed platform censorship. In 2022, the White House internal communications admitted that they had a key role in censoring a well-known conservative reporter, Alex Berenson. Letitia James, the attorney general of New York, filed a motion to intervene with the Supreme Court having the support of Democratic attorneys general of twenty-one other states and the District of Columbia. The brief demanded the Court to overturn the 5th Circuit’s 2023 ruling in Missouri v. Biden, which mandated that the federal government stop using force on social media to censor speech that it disagreed with. These examples are a threat to democracy and clearly have a bias, and it’s possible for Democratic appointees to pass an overturn like that if Kamala is our president.”
Immigration:
“Illegal immigration is one of the biggest problems the U.S. has faced since Biden went into office. Illegal immigration poses challenges that affect our communities, economy, and national security. “I know what a crime looks like; an undocumented immigrant is not a criminal,” says Kamala Harris. If someone jumped over your fence and broke into your house, the police should take away the person and charge them with burglary, right? Illegal immigration is the same concept. According to US border officials, about 8 million illegal immigrants have crossed through the Southern border since January 2021, when Kamala Harris was put in charge of the border. In 2024, an American citizen traveled to the border to videotape a few encounters with illegal immigrants. When the American asked Movsum Mardan Samadov, who crossed the border, “Who are you?” Samadov replied, “You are not smart enough to know who I am. Soon you will know who I am.” According to the US Commission on International Religious Freedom, Samadov is a convicted terrorist from the Middle East. The horrific murder of Laken Riley, done by Jose Ibarra, an illegal immigrant from Venezuela. A couple of days ago, Trump announced Operation Aurora in Colorado, “I am announcing today, upon taking office, we will have an ‘Operation Aurora’ at the federal level. We will ICE, Border Patrol, and Federal Law Enforcement Officers to hunt down, arrest, and deport every illegal gang member until there is not a single one left in this country. If they come back to our country, they will be told it is an automatic 10-year sentence in jail with no parole. And I am calling for death penalty for any migrant that kills an American citizen or a law enforcement officer.” Days after announcing, the National Border Patrol Council endorsed him.”
Economy:
“As Tim Walz said himself, “We can’t afford 4 more years of this.” The American economy has been a complete and utter joke for the past four years. In case you dont know already, here are a few statistics that have been reported under Joe Biden’s rule. Under Biden, Kamala’s boss, mortgage rates reached their highest levels in 23 years. According to statistics, overall prices went up 20.1%, food prices went up 21.2%, rent went up 21.2%, and electricity went up 29%. When Kamala gets asked on what she would do to help fix our economy, she always answers with “I grew up in a middle-class family…” and continues to ramble on about her childhood life. Why does she do this? It’s because she has no clue on how to fix our economy! Under Trump, the economy has been the cleanest it has been in a long time, the US also becoming the number one producer of oil and natural gas in the world, helping the economy even more. I mention this because in 2019, Kamala endorsed a carbon tax to be put on the country, which does more harm than good—it will destroy the economy more than it already is. Under Trump’s rule, Americans were able to afford gas, houses, rent, groceries, and many more. Unlike Kamala, Trump has a couple of policies to help the economy under his presidential plan, Agenda 47. Some of them are: producing more American energy, heavily reducing wasteful federal spending, cutting costly and burdensome regulations, stop illegal immigration (illegal immigration effects our tax dollars), restoring peace through strength (to reduce foreign spending with US tax dollars). College students, you want to afford a future? Let’s make America affordable again!”
