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Janet Mills is the governor of Maine.
My husband, Stan, was 74 years old when he died. Caring for him after his stroke, worrying about him every day, wondering whether he would recover, all while carrying my full-time job as attorney general, was the worst year of my life and one of the worst times for my family.
Still, we were among the lucky ones. Stan had Social Security. He had Medicare and good doctors. Many people in Maine are caring for aging relatives and ailing spouses, and many rely on Medicare or Medicaid for health care and on Social Security to make ends meet. These programs are the foundation of our security, but — make no mistake — they will all likely be cut if Donald Trump is elected.
A plan for a second Trump presidency — called ” Project 2025” — calls for cutting Medicare, Social Security and other benefits, eliminating free vaccines for Medicare recipients, criminalizing birth control and allowing Big Pharma to charge $2,000 a month for life-saving drugs.
Trump’s campaign signs and slogans talk about other things to distract us from these very dangerous policies. They scare people with misleading talk about immigration and inflation and public safety instead. These are important issues, but Trump isn’t going to solve them.
If the cost of living was really a concern for Trump, why didn’t he tell Big Pharma to lower the price of life-saving drugs such as insulin like the Biden-Harris administration did? Why didn’t he allow Medicare to negotiate prices to lower drug costs like President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris have?
If he was so concerned about health care, why did he try so hard to repeal the Affordable Care Act — which now covers more than 150,000 people in Maine — and offer no substitute?
If securing our border was so important to him, why did he tell Republicans in Congress to kill the major bipartisan border reform bill that we so desperately need?
If he cares so much about public safety, why did he personally incite a violent attack on 140 police officers at the U.S. Capitol that resulted in the deaths of four officers.
The answer is plain: Because, I believe, he doesn’t actually want to solve these problems and because he doesn’t actually care about Mainers.
That’s why independents and Republican leaders all across Maine have denounced Trump. They point out that he won’t defend our country, that he avoided military service during wartime and that he insults our veterans.
But let me tell you about somebody who does respect our veterans, who will foster real bipartisanship and who actually cares about Mainers.
I first got to know Harris as attorney general more than a dozen years ago. Together we took on Big Pharma for causing the opioid crisis, we went after the big banks that caused the housing collapse, and we cracked down on scammers who stole from our seniors.
As a senator, Harris stood with war hero U.S. Sen. John McCain to preserve the Affordable Care Act against repeal by Trump and his allies in Congress. Now she has plans to not only protect Medicare but expand it to cover cost-effective home health care, let family members work and keep people out of nursing homes. She will cut outrageous prescription drug prices just as she worked to cap the price of insulin under Medicare. And she will do everything in her power to protect Social Security and cost-of-living increases for seniors.
She also has a plan to bring down the price of groceries and housing. While Trump’s proposal is to cut federal programs to benefit tax cuts for billionaires, Harris knows that lowering the cost of living for middle-class Americans means preventing price gouging by mega corporations, fighting corporate mergers that strangle competition, helping young families buy their first home, and forcing drug companies to lower the cost of prescription drugs. These things will help people all across the state, especially rural Maine.
I know Harris. Her values, her commitment to protect the safety and security of ordinary Americans and the well-being of our families, are solid. The content of her character is sound.
In this presidential election, I am asking you to vote as if your health, your financial security, your safety and our freedoms were on the line, because they are.
