Dear President Trump,

I pretty much left it all on the field today and don’t have a lot of time or energy for letter writing tonight. Still, though, I have something cool to tell you about.

Guess who said “hi” to us tonight?

Stumped? Well actually, quite a few people said “hi” to us tonight. A bus driver, several random bus passengers, an old student of Laura’s who happened to be on the bus, some more random bus passengers, many of whom had nice smiles, and Elizabeth Warren.

Seriously, Elizabeth Warren said “hi” to us as she got out of the car that was delivering her to her rally tonight at Seattle Center. We were maybe 10 or 12 feet away from her and we said “hi” to her past the line of police officers guarding her and she turned, flashed a great smile, waved, and said “hi” just as she went into the venue.

Well, really, she went into the absolutely packed overflow building to say “hey” to everyone, to thank us for being there, and to let us know she’d be staying until every last person who wanted one, got their selfie with her.

We just totally lucked out timing-wise in terms of getting to see her on her way from the car to the door. Laura accidentally left her gloves up at the check-in table by the main venue (the overflow building is set a couple of stories down into a hillside away from where the main event was taking place) and when she was on her way back down, the police up top at the back entrance to the overflow space started bustling around so she texted me and told me to come up there. Maybe two minutes later, if that, Warren’s car pulled up and through the open window I heard someone ask her “are you ready to go?” and she responded “yes, absolutely, let’s do this!” And there she was.

And she was fantastic. The crowd was fantastic. The babies and toddlers on their parents’ shoulders were fantastic. The old people with their walking sticks and fanny packs were fantastic. The beautiful gay guys standing arm-in-arm with each other, nodding emphatically, were fantastic. The sisters who asked me to take their picture with the screen of Warren in the background were fantastic. The rainbow crowd of people was fantastic as we all earnestly cheered in response to Warren’s plan to trust science on climate change, to bring in a Secretary of Education who supports public schools as well as an Attorney General who will uphold the rule of law (everyone actually went pretty nuts over that last one).

I so hope she gets to take you on, we need her to take you on. We need her passion, her intelligence, her persistence, her fight, and her plans.

May we be safe and free from harm.
May we be happy to leave it all on the field some days.
May we be healthy, strong, resilient, and persistent.
May we set the conditions for peace, justice, and respect for everyone.

Sincerely,
Tracy Simpson