Gov. Weld i almost ran for president in 1996 and i thought about it before. Ive been a longtime student of the conduct of the office of the presidency. I knew mr. Reagan, both bushes. I was involved in both of mitt romneys campaigns, so not a stranger to the general precincts here, i have a lot of domestic experience, a lot of International Experience which i will tell you about but im not running because i think im the only person who can make a difference, im running because im troubled by the situation of our country and i think we are at something of an Inflection Point and i think the most urgent duty facing the next president is to seek to unify the country as opposed to dividing it. [applause] gov. Weld there are a bunch of things you can do there. One is to do what Ronald Reagan did and the bushes and certainly eisenhower who i dont really remember, but a past generation wanted to make all americans feel good about being americans and thats not what the Current Administration is doing. So part of whats being is lack of unity is washington is trying to divide this as opposed to unifying it starting with religion with the muslims going onto race with the mexicans being murderers and rapists and an effort is made to have us be resentful about people from other countries and even resentful about other groups of americans and that is not the way to go. I think a start in achieving this objective of unifying people is to realize that in our country today as a result of a lot of things, the rich are too rich and the poor are too poor and thats not good for social cohesion. So i do think effort has to be made to make the federal income tax burden on the poor less heavy than it is now. It is really not fair and im not one of those who say we are going to give everyone a guaranteed basic income it regardless of whether theyre willing to work, that is not my cup of tea. When i was in office i put in a work requirement for welfare and welfare rolls immediately dropped in the state of massachusetts. That begin the model for the federal law. I think we need to increase the earned income tax credit for the working poor to make sure the door to the middle class is not slammed in their face of the working poor. That would again be very bad for social cohesion. We are all one country and we should feel that way, we should not spend all of our time listening to someone try to persuade us that some brown person is going to come across the southern border, the Mexican Border and take our jobs. Further kindling economic insecurity or harm or wife or children. It is demagoguery of the firstorder. I think it is a move may i say on taxes, ive never met a tax cut i didnt like. I cut taxes 21 times in my years in massachusetts but never raised them and the result was that the Business Community got the confidence to build a plant next door, to increase employment, to invest in a plant or equipment and that helped unemployment. In my first term we went from the highest Unemployment Rate in the industrialized states to the lowest. So that is number one. Unification of the country. Number two, i dont think we should seek to divide people by generation. The current policy. Really disfavoring millenials into gen xers, they will pay the bill for all these excessive things being done in washington. They will pay the bill for the 1 trillion a year in deficit spending. It will pay the bill for the 9 trillion added to the deficit by the president s last budget. Its going to be the millenials who are now the largest voting bloc. They will also reap the whirlwind from any failure to make any effort to reduce the Carbon Emissions of our country in order to prevent the polar ice caps from melting in the relatively near future. Climate change may be something of a misnomer, because climate does go back and forth and this plays out in geologic terms, but it is not a misnomer to say that if we make no effort to reduce co2 emissions between now and 2040, 2050, that polarize cap is going to melt if we go up two degrees fahrenheit every year. The result is a huge storm surge on our coast. Rearrangement of our coastline. A lot of shore run just shorefront property that isnt now that doesnt want to be. The melting of every Mountain Glacier around the world which is the sole source of Drinking Water for 300 million people. We have to get more realistic than a one word platform. The right is having oneword platforms. Wall, hoax, you dont have to argue the issues because he doesnt have a deep bench so to speak in terms of being able to debate big on that. [applause] host those were 8 gov. Weld those were a couple of issues. Politically, my strategy is to trying get more people voting as opposed to less. No more voter suppression. [applause] gov. Weld get more people in, get more millenials voting, get more women voting. I dont just mean suburban moderate women, i mean all women. If i were a woman today i would be plenty exercised by the statutes that have been passed recently saying if you are raped, you own it, you have to go bear the child and support that child. I would like to see a 99 year sentence not for the doctor who performs an abortion, but for the rapist who doesnt support that child. [applause] gov. Weld other issues i think we need to Pay Attention to, obviously the deficit spending, cant have a trillion dollars a year. Unfair to the millenials. I was ranked the most fiscally conservative governor in the United States when i was in office. I kind of think it might be mr. Trump who is the rhino, the republican in name only, because he is not a fiscal conservative. He doesnt believe in conserving the environment. He doesnt believe in free trade , he doesnt believe in all of the things the Real Republican Party used to stand for. Im unapologetic about challenging him here because i dont think he is a real republican bird [applause] republican. [applause] gov. Weld im going to fight in those states and go to some friendly states, back to the midatlantic states, when i only when i almost ran before i concentrated on new jersey and new york and there are plenty of electoral votes to begotten. The last bridge to be crossed will be the rust belt states were mr. Trump won the election. Now we know a lot more about mr. Trump than we did the day after the election last time. And if this was just early 2017, i wouldnt be standing in front of you saying im challenging mr. Trump for reelection, because we didnt know enough. It was just one speech, now it has been backed up by two years of action, steve bannon says if trump is reelected you will have four years of uninterrupted payback. Payback for what . The truth is they will continue to lash out at people and i really cant sit still with that kind of approach to the government of the United States. So that is why im running, that is what im going to focus on and i would love it since i have to get to know you in order to have traction in iowa, i would love it if you ask me your questions. Sir . What kind of spending cuts do you have in mind to control the deficit in the out years . The answer is nothing can be sacrosanct. Entitlements cant be sacrosanct, the military cant be sacrosanct and doesnt really need to be. On the military, i believe in a robust engagement. I think it is mr. Trump who is the isolationist. On the other hand i dont believe that boots on the ground to go into another country every time we see something we dont like. [applause] gov. Weld in terms of entitlement programs, and other cuts, what you have to do is what i did massachusetts which is zerobased budgeting. You have to assume every account in the budget starts at zero unless it can prove that it did good work the previous year. In washington they assume anything other than blasters appropriation plus 5 , they call it a cut. What happens is the ds want to raise social spending and the rs want to raise military spending. So they decide to raise everything 10 . And the president , this president is absolutely not only sitting still for that, but he is cheerleading it. My motto when i was in office and to this day as there is no such thing as government money, only taxpayer money. It is not government money. Believe me when i tell you, those members of congress and in the administration think it is their money, they dont think it is your money. It is your money, that will be my approach in cutting the budget. Ive reduced spending my first year in office. Cut absolute dollars. I didnt know there were sacred cows littering the landscape. I didnt even know there were cows. I was able to do that and i would bring that to washington. What do you think about the trump plan to zero out the refugee and Asylum Program . Gov. Weld its another inhumane example of the inhumanity of the trump administration. If an countries have different approaches towards asylum, i might not go all the way to france which has this unbelievable asylum and refugee tradition, but we can do our share and pull our weight. Thank you for mentioning climate change. 40 of our electric is done by wind. 2000 jobs in the solar industry. What you think about a 100 Renewable Energy economy . Gov. Weld i think we are heading in that direction. We are heading for the electric economy, we are definitely heading for a renewables fuel economy. I think wind and solar and in my part of the country hydro, we want to have all of that. The one place where i get off the boat from the boat from the Green New Deal terms of the composition of the element of the grid is i think we should go back to nuclear and im not talking about huge Nuclear Plants built on top of the barrier reef, im talking about smaller plants. I know in upstate new york, counties there are hungry for small Nuclear Plants with good employers and good neighbors. People say why dont they invent something that has zero Carbon Emissions and can produce almost limitless amounts of energy and power . The answer is they did a long time ago, it is called nuclear. Im well aware of the primacy of the wind industry in iowa and i would be in your in your corner mixer wind is is and said as incentivized as possible. [applause] gov. Weld i was sharing with some of you earlier that when the gis who fought world war ii when they came home, they are two sets of needs paired education and health care. Congress took different approaches. Educationally past the g. I. Bill which means anyone could go to any college they want and it was a voucher system and it worked perfectly. Probably mosys successful Domestic Program in history. For health care, Congress Went the other way. The government has to control everything, im on the libertarian side of the Republican Party. I want the government to control as little as possible. I want to maximize individual liberties which includes choice, not just freedom of being enslaved. My view is better and should be able to go anywhere they want with their health care and not have these waiting periods and difficulties in care. [indiscernible] if you are elected president [indiscernible] mr. Weld the burden of cancer . One thing i can say is that may that may sound trivial is that the pain that is associated with cancer can be treated with cbd, which is an ingredient of marijuana, but it is not hallucinatory. It is pretty harmless. It has been legal to study cannabis in israel for a long time. They have essentially been running a human trial of 20,000 people for the last 30 years. We know what it can do and cant do. It has been illegal to study in the United States because it reaps madness. It cuts pain of Cancer Patients by 90 90 percent. When cbd is introduced with cytotoxins which are the tumor killing agents, their efficiency is doubled in cancer victims. And that is not palliative. That is not just addressing the pain caused by cancer. That is curing cancer. Killing the tumor cells. Yes . Cant talk about climate change, you put 5000 people on one train. One train a day to springfield. What . Come on. Mr. Weld i have actually been hi spieler highspeed rail buff. I went all the way to japan and rode the train peered you do not even know you are moving. You are going 505 kilometers an hour. It is a wave of the future. Im afraid it is awfully expensive in the u. S. I ride the Commuter Rail to work every day. If you live in the south shore of massachusetts, you pretty much have to. I have long been a rail buff. The only question is expensed. I ran trains out west to houston. I get it. Speaking of trains that are going to phase out, we are going to an economy of electric vehicles, it is the electric society. If you look at the projections of fuel consumption, even over the next decade, they are projected to go way down. Our highways will look very different not so long from now. Electric vehicles and driverless cars. Yes . What do you think happened to the rest of republicans like you . Mr. Weld you might call them new england republicans. We are people who are fiscally conservative, worried about taxpayers money, but socially we are embracing and welcoming. I was invited to address the republican contract convention in houston in the early 1990s. I summarized my political philosophy as being i want the government out of your pocketbook and out of your bedroom. For this, i was bood at the convention. Maybe that was a sign of things to come. That is what i think. I think there are a lot of them still out there. Particularly in New Hampshire. I have high hopes for that state to launch me past mr. Trump in an arc. There are a lot of people i know, old friends of mine in the senate, and washington, who are keeping quiet because they think it is not in their political interest to stand up just now. Im not rubbing their nose in anything and saying louis, how can you . Dont you remember the good old days . I do not ask anyone to do anything that is not in their own political interest. Once i get traction and movement, i will increasingly be making news about where the other folks are here. I think if they do not stand up and be counted, they will be defeated. What is your stance on assault weapons . Mr. Weld assault weapons, there are 300 million rifles out there in private hands. My stance is not to have a supercharged background check on everybody every time they buy a gun because i do not think that is where you reach the shooters. I think the red flag laws, coworkers, family members say this person has been making threats, have a list of people he wanted to kill since high school, has violent behavior, is exhibiting neurotic behavior, yeah, get that person in front of a judge. You do need to have a due process protection for the accused. I think that would be a giant step toward preventing the Mass Shootings that we are talking about. And you can do research. 90 of mass shooters grew up in a household without a father. A very good predictor of Mass Shootingss previous violent behavior. Give the fbi more money to scout out these instances with the help of people who can talk about it. I hate to say it, it may disappoint some, but the idea of universal background checks and trenching on someones rights to own a gun i have been a gun owner and a hunter my whole life. Would you ban semi auto semiautomatics . What about magazines . Mr. Weld no, that is different. That is getting torn an automatic weapon. It is already the law that you cannot own an automatic weapon. Unless you are a federally licensed firearms dealer. I would not allow them to become freely salable at all. Thank you so much, everybody. [applause] [background chatter] thank you. Thanks. I think they are coming down. Look forward to seeing you. Great remarks, sir. Absolutely. Hi, everybody. Any questions . This is your first trip to iowa. Mr. Weld no, it is my first trip on the cycle. As a president ial candidate. Why should iowans take your president ial run seriously . Mr. Weld the proof of the pudding will be in the eating. They will not be able to take my candidacy seriously unless i am here and i meet them. We will do the necessary things to make to be a possible contender in the caucus. If you mean why should they take it seriously because mr. Trump is massively popular among the republican structure in each state, i would say that is because the republican structure in each state is the trump organization. Of course they are not going to get out and salute me. I will keep talking to people about what i think needs to be done in this country, and what im going to do and they can make up their own mind. American voters are very smart. Over time, im hopeful that what i will sketch out is going to sink in and i am awful also hopeful that it will sink in that mr. Trump is getting more and more antic in his striking out at people and do people really want that in the white house . Not to beat a dead horse, everyone is aware of those aspects of mr. Trumps very public wrestling with his own demons. The main thing is what do i want to do . You dont have to buy my dog food but im hopeful over time, people will. Does your party have a race problem . Mr. Weld absolutely. Trumps not racist mr. Weld i said in detroit that the naacp on july 24, he is an extreme racist. If the Republican Party in washington, i think the states in washington, but the Republican Party in washington does not as a vow his racist tirades, they will go down in massive defeat in 2020. I saw this happen in the nixon year when a lot of people, very honorable republicans who engaged in the draining effort of defending Richard Nixon all year long and then it turned out when the tapes were released he had been lying to the American People about everything, they all lost. No questions asked. One was from iowa i believe. That will happen next year if they do not disavow his racism. My answer to your question is yes, he is a racist. The first thing i said when i heard about will heard is i hope you can hang on to scout. You talked about how people are keeping quiet. Who . Mr. Weld i will wait until the moment is right. Frankly, it will depend on me getting some air beneath my wings in terms of publicity and electoral progress at the national level. But then, i am not just going to get out too early and advance my interest. How responsible is the president for people taking up arms and shooting americans . Mr. Weld i hold him more responsible for that than most people do. Im so surprised by his ranting and raving. I dont expect to see that from the oval office. When he, in the Campaign Last time, beamed out images of the nazi party, i knew why he was doing it. Most people did not know that he founded the american nazi party. They knew what they were doing. The president and steve bannon, is number one political strategist, set on a plan to divide the country every which way they could, fill people with resentment, with hate. It is the opposite of the direction we need to go and. On the el paso shooting recently, the president retweeted two hours before the shooting, Katie Hopkins who is antiimmigrant, rightwing congressman in britain, he retweeted her with approval two hours before the shooting. If you read the manifesto, the shooter was guided by, it is torn out by the trump playbook. I am specifically linking him to the el paso shooting. More broadly, to the climate that produces all these shootings. About your fellow republicans who have stood by the president , where does that leave the party in terms of identity . Mr. Weld it leads the party to lose unless they change their tune. I think next year is going to be a disaster for the Republican Party unless they create or allow open water to develop between them and the president , who i think is behaving outside all bounds of conduct that is appropriate in washington, d. C. , which is the home of iffy conduct. Why do you think so many republicans have fallen in line behind President Trump . Mr. Weld i do not know. I think a lot of people think that the president creates the economy. President s and governments get too much credit for economies in good times and too much blame in bad times. There may be people who have done well in the stock market and who identify that with the president and think, im going nowhere. Im afraid there may be quite a few of those people. In efforts to cut into the vast gulf between the poor and the rich in this country. I think that needs to be done. Income inequality is the phrase and it may sound like far left, it is no longer far left. It is no longer a luxury to be able to attack that. It is an idea whose time has come. No. Return, if id not am not the republican nominee. I would not support mr. Trump after everything he has done under any circumstances. Win . W are you going to west to froment the state out there come aboard the rick perry states, washington, oregon. I feel like california would be hospitable to me. I assume trump will refuse to release his taxes. I plan on doing that a few weeks after labor day. New york and new jersey were the states that i concentrated on earlier. Networks and a number of critical states. I will not be starting from ground zero. The main thing is, speaking the truth, not lying, not being ignoble, not trying to set people against each other. Inhink it is going to set and sink in. That will be the turning point in the election. What do you think about obamacare . That was romney, not me. I do not think that we need to repeal the Affordable Care act. I think there is too much government by far. Government is deciding every operation. Cost oft drives up the health care, dramatically. I think that health care should be in the hands of the individual, which is what i think about everything. I think that we should have tax advantage. Big tax advantages. To store up against the winter. Chevrolet plan, not a cadillac plan some people want a big deductible because they do not want to pay that much up. Others are struggling to put food on the table. They cannot pay a deductible, so they pay more upfront. Makingividual should be decisions. Profound analytical tool, but it goes in the direction of less government, which is always my first instinct. Are you going to try any food here . Mr. Weld im going to try something fried. Something nice and greasy. Do they have fried dough here . Staple diet. Thank you, everybody. Thank you. We were wondering if you could commit coming to the aclu convention in South Carolina . Mr. Weld i was recently in the aclu in New Hampshire and told them i use to be a member and i will rejoin it. I just have not gotten around to it. I always wanted to say yeah. Finally i did. So you are going to try to attend . Mr. Weld i resigned when joe rao, he became the head of the aclu and announced the aclu would defend the constitution except for the second amendment. He hated guns so much that he said we will not support the second amendment. I quit. I guess it is up to interpretation, right . Thank you for coming by. I wish we could have had a brighter day. Mr. Weld im an old new englander, there is a lot of november. Thats like me, i met lentic i am atlantic north. Mr. Weld i love seattle. I worked with a phone company for 45 years. Mr. Weld you have an up close and personal thing. Thats right thank you, governor. Appreciate the hat. Mr. Weld nice to see you. Having fun . Mr. Weld i am having fun, against all odds. Step up, get a picture of you. Im trying to stay out of it. Thank you for coming to iowa. Mr. Weld thank you. I didnt think he would sit still. Thank you for being here. Mr. Weld i think the party is moving apart, beginning with the 1994 election. 1994 . That was the gingrich election. Mr. Weld yeah. I happen to know when he was minority leader, he did not have any private meetings. Can i get an autograph, sir . Mr. Weld absolutely, do you have a pen . I do. Thank you. Mr. Weld there you go. Hi, how are you . Is the Republican Party that you represent still existent . Mr. Weld im standing for decency, that still exists. I dont think that has been extinguished nationwide. It is a matter of whether decent politics is still welcoming in this country. I think we will speak up and articulate what is going on. Will republicans have enough trust in you . Mr. Weld i have not changed my position on a single issue. What you see is what you get. Thank you, governor. Really appreciate it. Good luck to you. Mr. Weld thank you, sir. A growing Public Health crisis in america, aging population, caregivers. What are your thoughts on how to address that . Mr. Weld the governor has to choose. When i was governor, i had priorities, and i would as president. I agree. What did you make of the president retweeting behind Jeffrey Epsteins suicide . Mr. Weld has that been reported . We do not know a lot of details. The president is retweeting somebody speculating behind it. Mr. Weld very much in character. Good morning. We are live with msnbc. Donald trumps Approval Rating within the Republican Party 90 or more. Is what role does your republicanism have in this party . Mr. Weld im going to tell the truth so i do not have to remember what i say and i will see if people agree with it. The Current Situation is somewhat artificial. People may be equating stock market with donald trump. We will see. I think he has a lot to answer for. What does your championship look like . Mr. Weld it looks like doing what you have to do to be competitive on iowa. Im also spending a lot of time on the campaign trail. There are a lot of folks that say that donald trump has been unfairly called a racist. They feel like that is reflected on them. What do you tell those voters that feel like they are not in targeted when donald trump is being called a racist. Mr. Weld he is the most obvious figure that iblic have ever seen. Thank you, governor. Appreciate it. Mr. Weld thank you. A wellknown historical figure that you admire that is not a president . Mr. Weld i admire a lot of people. Is there anyone in particular . Mr. Weld yeah. I would say general george steve marshall. Who was the author of the marshall plan. He was a great man. Why do you admire him . Mr. Weld he saw what had to be done and he announced at any had that he had a plan. I can see myself having a similar plan to deal with a huge impact Artificial Intelligence and robotics and Machine Learning are going to have on the workforce and what needs to be done in the way of education. That is coming up. Those are trump of voters who will lose their jobs. Thank you so much. Mr. Weld appreciate it. That was fun. Mr. Weld yeah. Yeah. Can you stick with me until we stop . We are going to keep moving. We will not be far. Where are we going . Yeah. [indiscernible] mr. Weld did mccain even compete . Mr. Weld i hope im Getting Better looking. [laughter] remember that . I recently dug those out of some boxes. Mr. Weld not my choice. It was mcgann. It was mcgann. Thats right. I saw those recently. Wow, theres a memory. Mr. Weld i still have got them. That was a fun time. Mr. Weld it was. John and i had a bromance. Doesnt happen anymore. Do you think this race is tougher than your race against Mark Roosevelt for reelection . Mr. Weld yeah. [laughter] that was ken mailmans First Political activity, that reelection. Right. He lost in the senate. Can i get a selfie . Mr. Weld where are those millennials . Right here [laughter] mr. Weld lets do it. Mr. Weld perfect. Thank you so much. Mr. Weld they are saying they cant have me unless trump shows up. Thank you, guys. What is your name again . Jack cofield. Mr. Weld thanks. Theoining us on Board Campaign 2020 bus is the former governor of massachusetts. Thank you for being with us. Mr. Weld it is a pleasure. What do you think of the state fair so far . Mr. Weld the people are so friendly. And we wentrge everywhere quite a lot. It is nototten that like the northeast. The people are very welcoming. Very friendly as their first instinct. It is a real cool glass of water. Massachusetts has the biggie. Is there anything comparable to the baystate . Gov. Weld the biggie exposition is our answer to the iowa state fair. It is nowhere near as big. We make do with what we have got in massachusetts. This is something else. All this fried food. No one to prevent me from digging in. Really great. Enjoy that. Lets turn to politics. You have been talking to reporters about the president being a racist. You called him a raging racist. What does that say about his supporters . Are they racist as well . Gov. Weld you know, i have warned that if the Republican Party in washington as opposed to the states, in washington, does not step aside from the president s rhetoric, that they will come to be viewed as the party of racism. They will not win any elections if that perception takes root. I have cast that warning. Other things being equal, i would rather talk about what i want to do to unify the country as opposed to criticizing the president for trying to divide it. Steve we want to get to that in a moment. If you look at the national polling, he has a lock on the republican nomination, and has the support of anywhere between 42 to 47 of americans overall. Steve that is a true fact. The Republican Organization in each of the 50 states is the trump organization. They have seen to that. That is not where i would go hunting for support. It would be by trying to make as many people vote as possible. College students, gen xers, millennials, less than 50 of them voted last time. I would like to persuade them that they are reaping the whirlwind from a failure to take Carbon Emissions seriously, from failure to rein in spending so that there is a 1 trillion deficit every year. They will pay the bills for that and it is not fair. I was speaking with millennials here and they do get that. They said, im the reason they are in the Republican Party, which is flattering. A bunch of people tell me that. I am going to do what needs to be done to draw a contrast between my approach to things and mr. Trumps. And let the people make their judgment. It is not going to happen in a day. Six months is forever in politics. We are just about at the six month time period now before the election start rolling. That is forever in national politics. Steve came across this piece available online, this is the headline what does bill weld actually believe . Tell the audience who you are, your ideologies, and why you are running for president. Mr. Weld im bill weld, a former twoterm governor of massachusetts. I believe the essence of democracy is individual rights and liberty should predominate, and the individual should never be thrust in a corner. I once said i want the government out of your pocketbook and out of your bedroom and that is a succinct statement of my philosophy. Instinct is to attack individuals and groups of americans, to set them against each other. It must be in furtherance of calculus that that would be to their political and of it. Otherwise i cannot imagine why someone would inject so much unpleasantness into the national discourse. Im running for president to reverse that, reverse the president s policies domestically in terms of divisiveness, and taking Environmental Protection seriously, taking the electric vehicles and the electric society of the future seriously in terms of its implications. What has to be done in terms of education for the people who will lose their jobs to automation. Those are big complicated issues. The president does not seem to get to them. He likes intoning hoax and wall and oneword slogans. That is why im running for president and my platform is going to be hard work, absolutely institutionalizing across the aisle behavior as i did in massachusetts, meeting with the democrats once a week, rain or shine, and starting with a bipartisan cabinet in washington to make people understand that it is no longer r versus d. Steve lets get to our phone calls. Eldred is joining us. You are on with governor bill weld. Thank you. I was just going to suggest that you may came up with andrew yang who is big with technology and all things robotics that will be taking over in the next time come. You also, like most of the candidates, do not see many people of color in the background at all. You need to work and see how you can get them aboard. Many of them did not vote. Steve thank you, mildred, we will get a response. Mr. Weld andy yang is most impressive. I did to spend two days in palo alto and San Francisco with the leading folks in ai and robotics and Machine Learning last week. Im going to return to that as a topic. In terms of people of color, my one predictor was at the naacp breakthrough was at the naacp where i paired off the nine Top Democrats in july, 24th, and people thought i did as well as anybody else a couple days ago. I was at the National Association of black journalists conference in miami. Again, Bernie Sanders was there, cory booker, mayor pete buttigieg. I am getting some airtime with the democrats, and the media seems to be coming around to the view that hey, there is a republican primary whether the president wants to acknowledge it or not. And he doesnt. He tried to abolish the first of the nation primary in New Hampshire although that failed miserably. Steve will there be debates before the New Hampshire primary . Gov. Weld if i have anything to say about it, there will. Obviously the president has said im not going to debate bill weld or anybody else. I may be reduced to challenging alec baldwin to a debate could who plays a president with an orange wig on saturday night live. I think i can hold my own with alec baldwin. Although i dont know, he has had a long career in showbiz, he may clean up the floor with me. I think he might be willing in service of the National Interest to at least have a go at it. That should be good tv if nothing else. The president would understand that. Steve we will be there if it happens. Lets go to lee in lakeland, florida. Caller good afternoon. Mr. Weld, i want to get in touch with you but i do not have a computer because i cannot see computer screens. How does a person do you have a Mailing Address or telephone number . Ive called that telephone number. It seems to be blocked. Your telephone number. Go ahead. Mr. Weld we have a website, it is weld2020. Org. Should answer all your questions. Caller mr. Weld, i do not have a computer. Mr. Weld ok. Steve is there a phone number or other way people can reach out to your campaign . Mr. Weld yes, i would look in the phone book under weld for president , boston, massachusetts. Mailing address would be 50 congress street, boston, massachusetts. Steve thank you for the call. We will go to eileen from east hampton, connecticut. Caller thank you very much for taking my call. I have been unaffiliated connecticut voter since i started voting. I have never participated in a primary or anything like that before. I never really had any desire. But i do vote very often in the elections. Anyway, when you declared your candidacy, i went down to my register and i registered as a republican, and i will be participating in the republican primary, and i will be voting for you. I dont know what will happen as far as the president ial as the primary, but but as far as a primary, and i hope that a lot of other voters do the same thing that im doing. Thank you very much. Steve eileen, stay on the line, would you . Mr. Weld thank you so much. That is part of my message. To unaffiliated voters and democrats, they can vote in the republican primary if they are not satisfied with the job mr. Trump has been doing. They can vote against him twice. Once in the republican primary, that vote would come out of mr. Trumps total by definition. And then they can vote for whoever they want in the final. If they are a democrat, they will have a nominee and they can vote for the democratic nominee. It amounts to voting against mr. Trump twice. Im getting a lot of traction with that on the ground, all over the country. People are saying, voting against trump twice, i never thought of that. It is perfectly legal and i encourage everyone to do that. That is how we get more people voting and may be a more sane result in the republican primary. Steve eileen, why governor weld and not President Trump . What is your reasoning . Caller because i just dont like President Trump but all. At all. So this was a protest vote. Honestly, if it was someone else who was running against trump, i do not know that i would have done this. I think i would have just sat back and voted for whoever the democrat was who was running against him. But because it was governor weld, i felt comfortable doing it. Lets say a person who ran against trump, you know, the first time who challenged him in the republican primary, i dont know that i would have done that. But again, because it is governor weld, im perfectly comfortable doing it. Steve eileen, thank you for the call. Mr. Weld thank you so much. Steve governor, does it surprise you that you are the only candidate at the moment challenging President Trump . There have been talks that perhaps Governor Hogan of maryland or former governor kasich would challenge him as well. But that is not the case. Mr. Weld well, i have been in touch with john kasich, an old friend and larry cut larry hogan, a new friend, and encouraged them to get in. They have other fish to fry. I think they want to see a path to victory right now before committing to get in. I do not need that. I have spoken recently with my friend, former governor mark sanford of South Carolina, who is taking a 30 day look at possibly getting in as well. And i think that would be great. The more people can break the ice, break the logjam and have a real competition and real primaries, the better. Steve lets go to bob joining us from san rafael, california. Democrats line, with governor weld who is on the cspan best. Cspan bus. Good afternoon. Caller im a veteran of the vietnam war. Looks like we are about to start another war and i think the candidate should unite. Before we get involved in another war, we should looked at the lesson we should have learned in vietnam and fix the veteran administration because there will be casualties. A lot of people will get hurt, including families. I am just wondering if the governor has a plan to do something for veterans because there are a lot of things being left out of and they are nearly 3 million of us out there. I think a lot of veterans feel the same. Thank you. Mr. Weld i do know that and thank you very much for your call. I will say two things i would do immediately for veterans. Number one, let them go get their Health Care Needs attended to. At government expense. Wherever they want to go. It would not have to be at the va hospital. No one disputes the people who work at the va hospitals but no one can look you when the eye and tell you you get the best service for any operation at the va hospital. The private sector, because of funding and history, so much better equipped to take care of that would be number one. Number two, and you may not agree, but veterans commit suicide because of ptsd and depression in this country every single day. And it is a national disgrace. Part of it is the pain that many of them feel from ptsd. And yet, the current federal rules is that they cant have recourse to cbd, which is a perfectly harmless ingredient of cannabis, although cannabis is still classed as a class one narcotic in washington, which is ludicrous, that is supposed to be for drugs with no medical rate at all. I think the suicide rate is alarming, i think it would go down if we would relax that rule and have utterance have solace further posttraumatic stress syndrome. Steve devon is joining us from petersburg, virginia. Caller hello, mr. Bill. Thank you for taking my call. Just trying to figure out what is your outlook on Recreational Use of the marijuana through all 50 states . Steve thank you, which is an issue we just talked about. Quick comment . Gov. Weld i favor states rights approach in terms of that. Im not going to tell the state of alabama that all 50 states have to do the same thing. If they do not want to legalize, thats fine with me. But i think the states that do want to, the federal government should respect those decisions. Incidentally, that was the position that candidate trump took on the campaign trail in 2016. I would like to see him follow through on that one instead of changing direction as he has so many times on other issues. Steve the last call comes from your home state in wilbraham, massachusetts. Republican line. Bill, you are on the air with governor weld. Caller thank you. Governor weld, i moved to massachusetts in 1991. I thought you did a wonderful, great job. Im not sure if it was all due to you are also the year i got married to a wonderful spouse. Gov. Weld [laughter] caller you were your Senate President at the time had a brother who was on fbis most wanted. You do work with corrupt politicians. I think you worry perfect fit for washington. You can get your point across without ranting and raving and namecalling. You just sound so much more intelligent than other candidates i have heard. Gov. Weld thank you for that. One thing i would do if i get elected is start out with a bipartisan cabinet, which i always had in massachusetts. In massachusetts, my cabinet of 11 consisted of eight women and three men. I picked them as i saw them and tried to get the best available athletes, so to speak. I also institutionalized going across the aisle by setting up weekly meetings, nothing other than coffee and cookies. Once a week among myself, my republican Lieutenant Governor and the democratic leadership in the house and senate. We just would tell jokes. It was not always substantive. But having that meeting once a week makes it harder to go to the press and say mean things about the other guy, or grandstanding. That sort of thing. We had seven years of very civil relationship between the democratic legislator and the republican administration. We got a great deal done. I think we should institutionalize that kind of social interaction in washington on a weekly basis. Come what may. Rain or shine. Crisis or no crisis. Kind of like Lyndon Johnson and speaker sam rayburn in the old board of education meetings. It is not quite the same because they were all democrats that we but we should do that across the aisle and that would do a world of good and washington, d. C. Steve both parties are very polarized. The democrats moving further to the left, the republicans further to the right. Why is it so broken today . Why is that so difficult and in washington, d. C. . Gov. Weld i think both parties have gone to the extreme because they want to stir up their base to get political contributions so they will have enough money to get reelected. They are all obsessed, both parties, with being reelected. They like the perks in washington. They do not view taxpayers money as being taxpayers money. They think it is their money. They think it is government money. My slogan always was there is no such thing as government money. It is all taxpayers money. People are hooked to that misapprehension in washington. It is going to take both parties to change. One way you can make them change in one fell swoop is to elect me president of the United States. Steve governor, the New York Times lists the iowa state fair as one of the 1000 things you need to do before you die and also talks about the food vendors. As you leave the cspan bus and walk by the 200 plus food vendors, what are you looking for . Gov. Weld im looking for fried dough, which is a commodity i know from the east. We will see. If it is not that, it will be fried something else. It will be very unhealthy. And there is no one here to stop me. Steve governor bill weld joining us onboard the cspan 2020 bus in des moines, our iowa. We thank you for being with us. Gov. Weld thank you, steve. Announcer also speaking was democratic president ial candidate senator Michael Bennet of colorado. This is 35 minutes