{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.kelly.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/icymi-at-the-atlantic-festival-kelly-discusses-service-leadership-and-his-fight-for-everyday-americans/", "ICYMI:\u00a0At\u00a0The\u00a0Atlantic Festival,\u00a0Kelly\u00a0Discusses Service, Leadership, and\u00a0His\u00a0Fight\u00a0for Everyday Americans", "2026-09-23", "2026", "2026-09", "Democrat", "Senate", "AZ", "Mark Kelly", "K000377", "www.kelly.senate.gov", "markkelly", "https://www.kelly.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/", "scraper", "In case you missed it, Arizona Senator Mark Kelly spoke at The Atlantic Festival in New York about how his experiences as a Navy pilot and NASA astronaut have shaped his approach to leadership and public service. In conversation with author Mark Leibovich, he also discussed the war with Iran, the challenges facing servicemembers and military families, and his work in the Senate to address the real problems facing everyday Americans.\n\nSen. Kelly speaks to Mark Leibovich at the Atlantic Festival.\n\nCredit: Marc Patrick BFA\n\nWatch the full conversation here. See key excerpts below:\n\nOnthe state of American democracy\u2026\n\n\u201cI am incredibly concerned about the direction of this country. I\u2019m concerned about the damage they\u2019re doing. After all the decades I spent in the military, I care so much about our servicemembers and the armed forces.\n\n\u201cOur kind of democracy, I think, is the best approach to this\u2026It\u2019s worked for 250 years. I\u2019d like to see another 250 years at least after this, maybe longer, but we\u2019re in a pretty perilous place right now. Don\u2019t forget, it wasn\u2019t that long ago that the President of the United States sent the Director of National intelligence to Fulton County, Georgia, to grab thousands and thousands of ballots. Why did he do that? Well, we don\u2019t know for sure. But it certainly has something to do with trying to interfere in the mechanism of our democracy, our electoral system\u2026\n\n\u201cI\u2019m very concerned about where we are and where we\u2019re going. I think we\u2019ll probably get through this, probably. It\u2019s going to take a lot of us. It\u2019s going to take a lot of hard work.\u201d\n\nOnwhyhe\u2019sfighting for a better future for his granddaughtersand all young Americans\u2026\n\n\u201cI\u2019ve been a public servant most of my adult life. I care so much about this country. I have two daughters, Now, I have two granddaughters. One is going to be a month-old tomorrow. And I worry about the future for them. I want them to have opportunities like I had. And young people today, they don\u2019t have those same opportunities. This is going to be the first generation that is probably going to be worse off than their parents were. And the thing is, that is fixable. We know what we have to do to fix it. We got to stop giving big, giant tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans, and we got to prioritize the needs of most of the country and hard-working people and middle-class Americans. That\u2019s what we have to do. If we could get the money out of politics, we can solve a lot of these problems.\u201d", 1, "2026-09-24T09:44:48Z", "2026-09-24T09:45:52Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.kelly.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/icymi-at-the-atlantic-festival-kelly-discusses-service-leadership-and-his-fight-for-everyday-americans/"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 2.7563213370740414, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}