We will hear a bit more from her later. For takinghank you the time and caring enough about our country to get together and talk about what we are going to do to make things better. We are in a chaotic and unstable and frightening and divided moment. But i believe it is in our hands to change all of that for the era that is ahead of us. We are lucky and unlucky enough to be among those americans who. Et to be alive this is about more than who is a resident today, although lord knows, we will need a new president. Applause]d we approach choosing whether to buy prescription drugs or and theto buy groceries president still focusing on whether or not to buy greenland, we have a problem. I dont think a person like the current president can ever get within cheating distance of the oval on oval office. We have to respond to the fact that for as long as i have been alive our political and Economic System has not been keeping up with our reality. Up and lifeoing expectancy has been going down. We have a climate that is losing its ability to support our way of life. War with no plan to get out. Sooner or later this comes to a breaking point and we are at that breaking point. It is within our power to do something different. Thats where i come in. Thats why i am running for president. [cheers and applause] with your help. What does it better way look like to build a presidency that can handle those problems in the moment. Policies,get to the we have to anchor ourselves in our values. This will be the campaign that , we are talking about not conservative values but American Values that are best honored by the policies. That has implications. If we are serious about freedom come up then we need policies that recognize there is more to read him then cutting the regulation of a bank somewhere. If we want to experience liberty and freedom we have to deliver policies that give Us Health Care because you are not free if you dont have health care coverage. It holds you back from living the life that you choose. We are also proposing a medicare for all who want it system that gives people the system eedom to choose a public we want to talk about freedom lets make sure we are securing the Freedom Associated with a womans right to choose. We need more men to be feminists out there backing women up out there for their rights. Heres what it means to be serious about freedom. That means we are to be free to decide who to marry. Applause]d i think freedom comes by way of the ability to organize for a good days a for a Good Days Work we stand with organized labor. It is the unions they will have. Our middle class. Economic freedom is freedom also. Applause]d i believe freedom comes by way of education, we have a secretary of education who actually believes in Public Education we need a secretary of education who believes in Public Education. We can be uniting around these american aliens. We can be uniting around the value of patriotism. We gather under a flight that is not an republican flack but an american lag. American flag one that i saluted when i was in uniform knowing it representative freedom but obligation to speak up when our leaders are doing the wrong thing. We should not be accused of being disloyal to the republic for which it stands or be told to go back from where we aim wrong. Where we came from. Security at a time when National Security will require more from us than ever before. Threatsty White Nationalism needs to be called out. Cheers and applause National Security means ensuring the Second Amendment is never twisted into id. Sentence for americans because we are not ready to implement common sense gun reform. If we are serious about security we have got to be able to treat climate disruption as the security of our time. And security in the age of endless war, authorizations for war should have a subset. They should have to go back to congress and make the case and congress should be ready to step up. If we have troops who came go overseas and put their lives on shoulde, Congress Vote on whether or not it should be up for it to do so. Lets rally around these values that bring us together, read him and security that do not belong to a political party. Who does not belong to a political party. We stand for people of any religion and no religion equally because that is the founding idea of this country. Those who are guided by religious faith ought to know there is a choice at a time when we are seeing on the southern budgets that take food eight out of the hands of the gry, knowing that we are commanded by every tradition to concern ourselves with the will being of the , feeding the hungry, welcoming the strangers. Dont let people tell you that Christian Faith means you have to vote republican not when we are seeing when we are seeing what is in this white house. We have a choice and the choice has never been clearer. Is not in the best. Hape at this moment it is not a democracy or even a [applause] republic if districts can be drawn to where politicians are picking out their voters any other way around. If our fellow u. S. Citizens from puerto rico to d. C. Do not have proper representation, we have work to do. [applause] the good news is we can do something about that, it is why i have proposed a Voting Rights act that make sure everyone can exercise their right to vote in this country. [applause] eye view ismayors when there is a problem we find a solution. We have a problem with people dividing against each other and not recognizing as fellow americans people who have a different background, that is a there is a solution and part of that is by creating National Service opportunity so american can Work Together on Something Like i had in the military without having to go to war to get there. That is something that i can do. [applause] we have a problem with systemic racism, which is why am proposing we have a solution as ambitious and bold as the Marshall Plan to rebuild europe, but invest in america. Experience puts you almost in a different country everything to the vote to credit to start a small business, we need health equity, better housing, we have a plan. [applause] when we see a problem with Rural Communities losing population, we have got to act on that. We need a federal government that will support communities developing their plan to innovate and build up jobs, and we need to support immigration as part of the solution for communities who need more jobs and people, and more people willing to be in Rural America if we make it possible. [applause] today, we have been traveling the state talking about the crisis in Mental Health and addiction. It deserves to be named and deserves action. No longer can this be treated as a specialty issue because it affects all of us. We have to act. [applause] what does that look like . It means enforcing parity so that Health Insurance companies have to treat Mental Health conditions and provide for visits just as much as we do for physical health. [applause] means treating our Police Officers training our Police Officers and teachers on signs of Mental Health issues and a place to send them when they identify those issues by making sure that we have the providers that we need. [applause] it means building up our defenses as a country, to the risk posed by Mental Health, addiction, and suicide risk. That is why there should be a three digit number linking to the National Suicide hotline so it could be that easy to tell people where to go. [applause] silenceme to break the that has people struggling with Mental Health issues or addiction thinking that they are alone, because one in five americans will experience a Mental Health challenge. People experiencing that need to know, and their loved ones too, that there is nothing to be ashamed of. Need to talk about these issues as openly as we would talk about cancer or diabetes, because lives are on the line. Deathsdo the math on from alcohol, drugs, and suicide and look what will happen in the next 10 years, it means that we can cut by half the deaths from despair in this country, we will save one million lives. How can we not . How can we not do that . Let us make it happen, together. [applause] that is what this is about, not easy fixes, real solutions. These are problems that will be with us, even when we have gotten a new president. We need to sink our teeth in and realize that we cannot spend all of our time and energy talking about him. We have a show going, quite a show, ik reality show, or a game show, or a horror show. [applause] the thing with horror shows, you cannot look away, that is what makes them gripping. We cannot win by going on his show. We have a better show, and so this movement is about picking up the remote and changing the channel to something better. [applause] that is a little bit about what i believe, what i plan to be doing as president , and why i am running. I want to make sure that we have a conversation. The numbers are getting larger, but this still qualifies as an intimate rather ring enough that we can have a conversation. We gathered questions from folks who are here. Please welcome back, mckenzie, who is going to guide us in those questions. There she is. [applause] [cheerings] a great crowd. First question, what is your relationship to president obama . Ruth. All, iuttigieg first of am a i am an admirer. [applause] this is somebody who operated under some terrible constraints, especially when you look at what happened in the senate. And yet he was able to reverse the trend toward a Great Depression in this country, move us out of the war in iraq. Rescue the auto industry, so that is an important thing where i come from. It was not bad for eight years work. And, [applause] while it is easy to say that there are things we would do different, and we need to move things forward beyond what was achieved with the affordable soe act, but it has saved many live so we must defend it while it is on the books. [applause] i am puzzled that some folks are running against president obama, i am running against president trump. [applause] also say that we are fortunate that he has decided to commit his ex presidency to mentoring a Younger Generation of leaders. In the arts, community organizing, and a little bit of politics, and as part of a new eration i am glad he he he decided to invest his energy. One other thing about this, and this is important. If you dig in on the job growth numbers, the president says you have to vote for me, you have no choice. Because of the economy. It, if you think about under president obama, unemployment was 10, and he got it down to five. The president got it down from five to four, and he thinks he is like the rooster that made the sun come. He says you have no choice to vote for me, and the message is that you may not like the chaos, the bad example that is being youve your kids, but got to support me because of the job growth, that is almost as good as the job growth in the obama years, what an argument. It shows you how out of whack things are. Having said that, this is about what is next, and each moment is different. The moment i had of us is unlike something we have seen. It is not it is not like going back to any other time, it is figuring out how to make the future better than the past, because there is no such thing as again in the real world. [applause] all right, what are your plans for strengthening our Public Schools to provide every child with a quality education . Mayor buttigieg great question. Are you involved in education . No. I married aieg teacher, so i get an education about education every time i come home. And educators i know are dedicated and they bring it home with them when they are involved, but they are not getting the resources they need. There are a lot of Different Things that need to happen across the system in order to support kids in the next generation. The biggest thing is to support our teachers, which means pay them more. [applause] teaching is a profession of unbelievable importance for the future of this country, and it is not being treated that way or viewed in the same professional lens as so many other important professions. If we honored teachers like soldiers and pay them like doctors, this would be a better country. [applause] this is also why we need to invest in Mental Health, and make investments in supporting a professional learning communities among educational professionals and be willing to use federal dollars to help smooth out the fact that it is actually the lowest income districts that have the fewest dollars per pupil going into supporting the kids and getting a good future. You would think it would be the other way around. You would think we would invest more for those who need the most, that is what i aim to fix. There is no question that we. M. D to do a lot around s. T. E education. It is also true that Arts Education is not a luxury. [applause] not a luxury, it is a necessity. If for no other reason than we are not only educating workers, we are educating citizens and we want them to be strong, which means having a wideranging education. [applause] mackenzie next question. Would you want each High School Graduate to do National Service, maybe to forgive our college debt for one year, and that is why that is by patricia ryan. Mayor buttigieg is patricia here . You are here somewhere. Thank you. Heres the way i would do it. I would not do it as a requirement, make it that the norm that everybody does it. If we get it right is that what you look like, whatever you do after high school whether you are applying for your first job or the military, or applying for college, the first question is what did you do during your service and what did you learn, it just becomes universal. That is an investment in the future of this country. Be e do that, we will it will be a benefit because you are getting paid. I also believe that they should qualify for Public Service benefits and we need to make it easier to access the Public Service loan forgiveness program. It is great in theory, but it needs to be userfriendly and it would inspire people to be involved for a whole career of Public Service. [applause] mackenzie do you think that a president should always get the consent of congress explicitly to undertake military action . Mayor buttigieg yes. This was what i was getting to earlier. As our questioner here . Is our questioner here . Right here. Hello. Uttigieg we are why we are where is that congress has walked away from its war powers. A three year in sunset to every authorization. Niger inoldiers in terms of terrorism, and members of congress admitted that they did not know that they were in the country. We have folks deployed in east asper, east africa. We are not that far off from the day when we will see new was about a casualty in afghanistan who was not born on 9 11. I thought i was one of the last troops leaving afghanistan five years ago, and right now there is a soldier packing her bags, ready to go over there, probably wondering a little bit let the end game is and what the mission looks like. I believe a big part of this has to be for congress to step up, and as congress as president i would insist on congressional authorizations before committing troops. [applause] mackenzie describe your prophecies for appointing the Supreme Court justices. Mayor buttigieg great question. By the way, let us all pray for the health and wellbeing of justice ginsburg. [applause] so, the process will involve identifying justices who have that same vision of freedom that i shared earlier. Justices and judges for the bench. We should be a little more expansive in who we look to to be on the bench. Week, i aminst night partial to harvard. Ofre should be a wider range educational backgrounds going into the federal judiciary. Then we have today. And, it should be as common to find people with a background in being a public defender as it is to find people with a background in prosecution. There should be balance. [applause] i will look for people who think for themselves, it will not be about aligning with the partisan politics of the moment. I will care very much about the judgment and values that justices and judges put forward. Here is other thing. I will have to get somebody through the senate. You may have heard where Mitch Mcconnell and 2016 said it was a matter of principle that he would never vote on a justice in the election year, and if he said if it would happen in 2020, he would have a vote. Bipartisan negotiation relies on good faith, and we are seeing the Current Senate majority leadership does not even pretend to be there in good faith. [applause] this is one reason why i agree with harry reid that we have to do away with the filibuster. [applause] and, it is why it is really important, of all the strategies for dealing with which mcconnell, the best one for him as not to be the majority leader anymore, and i need your help to do that. [cheering] that means having a nominee with coattails. Mackenzie what is your favorite symphony . [laughter] mayor buttigieg i did not see that coming. Is there a questioner here for that . What is your favorite symphony . Really, interesting. Good. Im going to go for the seventh, it takes you through all of the emotions, it is heroic, sad, up down, stirring, i have to go with the seventh. Now, it is in my head. Tunesher got one of the from the seventh caught in his head for roughly five years. Whenever he was doing the dishes he would be humming, and maybe that is why it stuck with me. Mackenzie if you become the democratic nominee, how do you plan to unite the liberal and moderate wings of the party . Mayor buttigieg that is a great question. Good. Thank you for your question. All, 22 whatever number of people running for president right now, that number minus one is going to not be the nominee. Let us say the 23 people not going to be the nominee need to rally around the one who is an unite as quickly as possible. [applause] and, we have got to do it around our values. In my view, these are American Values, we do not have a monopoly on it. That is why i love to see independence or republicans thinking about crossing over. I do not think we win them by pretending to be more conservative than we are, we win by being so true to our values that people know that we came by our views honestly and came to vote for that. That way, i think we can unite. [applause] problem with getting everybody to agree is having a shared sense of direction that this country is going in and where we need to take it. Most americans are with us on all of this. The democrats have the psychology where we are inclined to be on the defensive as if everything we were saying was unpopular and we had to hide from our ideas, but there are some things that we may advance that are not popular, but the right thing to do. Also, most democratic pop policies are more popular than the current president. Universal health care, universal background checks, immigration reform, people want to do what we want to do. We have differences on how to get there, and it is healthy. By the end of the day we are on the same team and we have to act like it. [applause] mackenzie can you tell us what personally motivates you the most when it comes to addressing the climate crisis, and why you will make it a top priority on the campaign trail as president . So, abuttigieg questioner here . Lovely. Hello anyway. What does your tshirt say . Climate action, excellent. I cannot make out your hat, what does it say . Make earth cool again. Sounds like a good idea. [applause] one thing that motivates me is it hard to look into the eyes of anyone younger than me, the longer you plan to be here, the more you have at stake. In my view it is not saving the planet, the planet in some form will be here no matter what, it is about saving opportunities and lives for those who have to live on the planet and thrive. The personal thing that motivates me most in terms of what sticks in my head, it is an experience i had as mayor as south of south bend. Twice i have had to activate our Emergency Operation in extreme flooding. The other one was one was eight thousand year flood and the other was a 500 year flood happening 18 months apart. Statisticale crazy luck swirling around me, or things are changing around us. The 1000 year flood is no longer. I remember the night before the first day of school during an august flood that destroyed homes because we had seven inches of rain, i went to bed thinking it was one of those fiveminute rainstorms, two hours later i was in the Emergency Operation center working on the response. If you are is a a few hours of that, i am on the porch of a woman with four kids, her home is flooded halfway through, it is a split level. The toys are floating by, cartoon style. She is saying, what am i supposed to do with my kids, it is the day before the first day of school, and i thought to myself this is climate change, it is not pieces of ice, it is not things happening in the distant future or off on the north pole. It is happening in our communities and one million different ways. Wildfires in california, sea level rise, and in the middle of the country, and our little river city, peoples lives being wrecked by the consequences of climate disruption, that is what motivates me, knowing how much we have on the line. Also what motivates me is how good it would be for our country if we did something about it. Just implemented policies, but rallied as a country. We do better when we have a national project. We had the 50 Year Anniversary of the moon landing. Picture what it was like for the country to summon its energies. And, lead the world in doing it, it would not be a bad thing. Imagine if weg were leading with a global crisis. I think we would stand taller and prouder. Let that motivate you. [applause] mackenzie i am here today with my two School Aged Kids as they prepare to return to school next week. They worry about gun violence. How, specifically, do you plan to help my kids and hundreds of thousands of others to keep them safe . Are they here . hello, how are they doing. Just a few more days of summer, right . And then back to reality. 15 and 12, you said. 12, ander being 15 and it is not super easy. It is fun, but it is kind of hard, figuring out school, figuring out homework which starts getting harder. Socially, it is harder. Should behing you worried about is your physical safety. Those of us who are in charge are supposed to deal with that so you do not have to. It is the last thing that should be on your mind. We owe it to you to make sure that is reality. [cheering] [applause] you know what, mom has a lot of other things that she should be worrying about without worrying about your physical safety. We know that things that we ought to do and things that america wants to do from universal background checks to red flag laws, to dealing the idea that the kind of weapons i trained on or stuff like i carried when i was in afghanistan the idea that that should be anywhere near a school in a neighborhood in 2019 is dead wrong. [applause] so the American People want these changes to happen. We need a president who is prepared to stand up to an nra that does not speak for gun owners, just company executives. Hasthe president demonstrated no will to stand up for them. For a hot minute he pretended to be for background checks, and then the nra called and he took his orders. Weve also not ban the cdc researching the gun violence as a Public Health issue. [applause] time there is a law against researching something you have to ask yourself what is it that they do not want us to find out when we do the research. [cheering] on gun violence calls for us to deal with all of that as well as add to instead of subtract from the department of homeland securitys program to deal with violent extremism and build up the political and civic power to deliver something that americans want. What is making the difference is the urgency of the questions coming from young people manning that we make sure there is not another generation dealing with school shootings. And, the power being demonstrated by moms and the red tshirt that show up at every event and demonstrate that the nra is not the only game in town. Thank you for your activism and leadership. [applause] mackenzie arts support all areas of life. As an accomplished pianist who speaks several languages, and a war veteran, will you increase arts funding and support . Mayor buttigieg absolutely. [applause] hello. Got one. Dy we are fellow eight fellow symphony lovers, you can have two. Is not just about generating workers, our Education System ought to be preparing us for life and arts is a big part. Another important thing is that in a moment where we have a crisis of being able to understand each other, one of the best ways for getting to know people who are different is through art, it is what film and literature does. It put you in somebody elses shoes and we can picture each others perspective. That is in short supply. It is almost a National Security investment to make sure we are doing more with the arts. It is relevant from the perspective of economic development. The parts of our jobs that are going to go away are the parts that you repeat all of the time. Those can be done by a machine. That means the parts of jobs that are going to become more important are the things that involve critical thinking, dealing with ambiguous situations, exceptions to rules, or dealing with other people. From an education and culture perspective, that is what arts does. Is ais not a luxury, it necessity, and it will be supported. [applause] mackenzie we have time for one last question. How would you deal with the det. T and what is the number one issue you care most about . Mayor buttigieg here . Hello. So, the issue that i most care about is the projector he of our country and the shape of our democracy that would make it possible to deal things deal with things like climate and gun violence. As to how to deal with this president . I would think of it this way. Aboutof all, it cannot be him, but we have to deal with him. When he tells a lie you have to say what the truth is. If use if he does something racist, we have to say that it is wrong. We cannot give them the power to change the subject. Dealing with insults are not a problem. I grew up in indiana, and i am gay, i am not worried about it. Bullying, not a problem. [applause] you know, i learned how to keep my cool when the taliban were shooting rockets at the base, i think i can keep cool when he is sending tweets my way too. [applause] but, the best way to deal with him is to not let him change the subject. The subject of the election is you and how is your life going to be different. How is your school going to be safer, how is our climate going to be more sustainable . How will you have more earnings in our pockets and strengthen our communities in dealing with Mental Health . It is how is our lines going lives are going to be different . The less we talk about him, the more we talk about you. That is about that is what this campaign is about. [applause] one more time for mackenzie. We are excited for you. Really excited for your future. Mackenzie thank you. [applause] [chanting pete] mayor buttigieg alright. Alright. I have to keep coming back up here, this is great. I want to close with this reflection. I want to make the case for hope, and i know hope has become a little bit less fashionable these days, because we know what we are up against. I am still motivated by it. I have been showing up, knocking on doors, running for office, and voting itself is an act of hope. You do it if you believe it is possible to use the levers of our system to make life that are in the every day. For us, that is why we do this. Even though we know what we are up against, i am animated by a sense of hope. I am picturing looking in the eyes of kids in the nottoodistant future, running into your kids again, a few years from now, and being able to say, im sorry we let it get to that point, but arent you proud of what we did. Isnt it great that 2020 we stepped up and made it safer and we have made it more decent . And say we taller took care of these things for you. So, by the time they are old enough to run for president , they are dealing with a different set of problems and the things on our table now, that we do not leave those problem for them, we fix them. We will be proud of ourselves, each other, and our country when we make that happen. Thank you. Ask you is toe to spread that sense of hope, and urgency, and that sense of belief that it is worth getting involved. Are you with me on the idea of letting that play itself out, picking up the remote and changing the channel . Will you help me win New Hampshire so we can take that to the white house . [cheering] i am pretty sure we have got this, and i will be working with you every step of the way. Thank you for your support, involvement, and caring about the future. I will see you on the trail. Thank you. [cheering] mayor pete jude Pete Buttigieg continues the campaign in New Hampshire. He is scheduled several events that are called meet pete events. In hancock, and hanover. Yesterday, he unveiled a 300 billion Mental Health plan focusing on veterans. , includesanging plan 100 billion in grants and calls for integrating treatment into primary care settings, increasing the number of available treatment beds, making it easier for patients to get access to medication for opioid addiction, investing in suicide prevention, and addressing disparities in Behavioral Health care. 2020, watch our live coverage of the president ial candidates on the campaign trail and make up your own mind. Campaign 2020, your unfiltered view of politics. More campaign 2020 coverage as president ial candidate senator Elizabeth Warren holds a town hall in los angeles. The massachusetts democrat talked about her tax plan, universal childcare and tuition free higher education