THE PRESIDENT: Hello, everybody. (Applause.) Kahee. (Applause.) Well, thank you so much. Everybody please have a seat, please have a seat.
THE PRESIDENT: Love you back. (Laughter.) It's good to see you.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: We love you, man!
And I want to thank every tribal leader here for making that happen, especially those of you who come year after year, committed to making our nation-to-nation relationship as strong as it can be.
I also want to thank the members of Congress who are here today. I want to thank Sally Jewell, our outstanding Secretary of Interior. (Applause.) Sally is also the Chair of the White House Council on Native American Affairs. And I'm proud to have Native Americans serving with dedication and skill in my administration, including somebody I love -- Jodi Gillette of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. (Applause.) Everybody here knows Jodi, my Special Assistant for Native American Affairs -- as well as Raina Thiele -- (applause) -- who is Denaina and Yup'ik, and works in the White House Office of Intergovernmental Affairs.
I hope you'll allow me this indulgence before I get started talking about what we have accomplished and what we still have to accomplish -- because one of the things about being President is news breaks, and it's important for people to hear how I feel and how I'm thinking about some important issue that we face in this nation.
Now, when I visited the Crow Nation in Montana, I was a candidate for this office, and I made it a point to meet with tribal leaders on the campaign trail as often as I could, because I wanted to make sure our country did better by our First Americans. Talk was cheap and there had been too many promises that hadn't been kept. And I tried to make sure that I didn't over-promise. I tried to make clear to the leaders that I met with that I wasn't going to be able single-handedly to reverse hundreds of years of history, but what I could do is listen and learn and partner with you.
So as I said earlier, as I said on the campaign trail, we haven't solved every problem, but I've been able to keep a promise to all of you that I would learn and I would listen, and I'd treat you with the respect that you deserve. (Applause.) And we have more work to do. But when we step back, we see there's virtually no area in which we haven't made significant progress together. We can take pride in that.
And I made another promise that I'd visit Indian Country as President. And this June, I kept that promise. I know that the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe is here. Where are you all? (Applause.) So Michelle and I traveled to their reservation in North Dakota. It was a day I'll never forget. We attended the annual Cannonball Flag Day Powwow. (Laughter.) Students were singing the Lakota National Anthem. There was a drum group that performed a veterans' song as American flags flew in the breeze -- and it was breezy. It did make me think about I'm glad I was there during the summer. (Laughter.) But this drum group was honoring a tribal citizen who served -- each was honoring a tribal member who had served in our military. People of all ages wore the traditional regalia with pride. And it was clear how deeply this nation values its culture and its history. And it was clear how deeply they cared for each other, especially their young people.
And so it was arranged for me to meet with some of these young people. Michelle and I, before the powwow, sat down with a group of Lakota young adults. There was no press, no teachers, no parents -- it was just us. And folks were invited to say whatever was on their minds. And these young people could not have been more poised and they could not have been more thoughtful. And they talked about their families, and their friends, and their dreams for the future. But they also talked about the pain in their hearts, and the obstacles they had had to overcome, and the problems they had seen with loved ones who had been brought down by drugs or alcohol or violence or poverty.
One young man was raising his four little brothers by himself. All of them knew somebody that they loved who had attempted suicide, committed suicide, died in a car accident before their time. Some of them had spent time living in a bus. And there were tears in that room pretty much the entire conversation, and the sense that schools weren't always preparing them properly and that they weren't sure about the possibilities of a better future.
And Michelle and I were honored that these young people opened up to us. But more importantly, we were moved because they were like Malia and Sasha -- just as smart, just as hopeful, just as beautiful. But at their core, there was a nagging doubt that they would have the opportunities that my daughters had. And nothing gets me more frustrated than when I hear that. Nothing gets me angrier than when I get a sense that our young people early in life are already feeling like opportunities are foreclosed to them -- because that's not who we are.
And the truth is those young people were representative of young people in every tribe, in every reservation in America. And too many face the same struggles that those Lakota teenagers face. They're not sure that this country has a place for them. Every single one of them deserves better than they're getting right now. They are our children, and they deserve the chance to achieve their dreams.
And as I spoke, they knew I was serious because it's not very often where I tear up in the Oval Office. I deal with a lot of bad stuff in this job. It is not very often where I get choked up, so they knew I was serious about this.
And so here is what I want you to know that we're working on as a consequence of these conversations. Number one, today, we're releasing a report on the unique challenges that Native youth face -- because we cannot solve these challenges without a comprehensive picture of the problem.
And the Department of Education has launched a new initiative with a handful of tribes called the Native Youth Community Projects. The idea is, we're working with tribes to give schools and students intensive support across a range of areas -- from nutrition, to mental health, to culturally relevant curriculum. We know that learning about the history and language and traditions of one's people can make a huge difference in a child's education. And in the long run, if it's done right, it can help more of them be prepared for college and careers. We want to help make that happen.
We're going to fight to reauthorize the Native American Housing Assistance and Self-Determination Act, because every young person deserves a safe place to live. (Applause.) We're going to keep promoting economic growth in Indian Country, because every young person deserves the chance to work and get ahead.
We're going to keep working with your communities to deal with the very real impacts of climate change. And I want to thank the tribal leaders who have advised me on how to do that as members of my Task Force on Climate Preparedness and Resilience.
Which brings me back to what I said at the beginning -- because too many promises haven't been kept, I've tried not to over-promise. But when I've made a promise, I've tried to make sure that I meet that commitment. So when Michelle and I said goodbye to those teenagers in Standing Rock, we told them we wanted to return their hospitality and we asked them to come visit us at the White House. And a bunch of them told us later they didn't think they were ever going to hear from us again. (Laughter.) Because, they said, you know what, we've had a lot of adults make promises to us that didn't get kept. Well, two weeks ago, they came by and we took them out for pizza. (Laughter.) And they got a tour of the White House. And they met with officials from across my administration. And everybody here who had a chance to meet them said how terrific they were.
We're all one family. We're all one family. Your nations have made extraordinary contributions to this country. Your children represent the best of this country and its future. Together, we can make sure that every Native young person is treated like a valuable member not only of your nation, but of the American family -- (applause) -- that every Native young person gets an equal shot at the American Dream.