Transcripts For CSPAN Campaign 2020 Sen. Elizabeth Warren House Party In Hampton Falls NH 20240714

Senator Elizabeth Warren meets with supporters 50 miles north of boston. It is her 15th trip to the state. [applause] just call my name, ill be there in a hurry you dont have to worry aint no Mountain High enough, aint no valley low enough sen. Warren hello, and thank you, carly and others. That was fantastic. Thank you for the introduction. I also want to say a very special thank you to pam and dennis for opening up their backyard for all of us. What a beautiful way to do democracy. [applause] sen. Warren i am so glad that all of you are here. I appreciate your being here. I know there are a lot of things you could be doing on labor day, but 2020 really matters, and not just for the next four years or the next eight years, but for generations to come, and we all know that is going to come straight through the center of New Hampshire, so thank you all for taking the time to be here today to invest in your democracy. I appreciate it. Thank you. [applause] sen. Warren i just before i get started, i want to say a word about the fact that we are here on labor day, and what that means. When i did the official announcement for my campaign, i went to lawrence, massachusetts. I do not know how many of you know lawrence, massachusetts. [cheers and applause] sen. Warren but i think about it. I thought about it on that day. I think about the women who worked in those mills, the women who had so little that they often lived two and three families to a room, who often had to choose between whether or not to heat the room or whether or not to be able to feed their children, who had so little at a time when the bosses were just getting wealthier and wealthier and wealthier in the textile trade and the shoe trade and one trade after another. And the day that the women got the news that their pay was going to be cut, you know, here they were. Think about the conditions they were working under. Children were working. One in every three adult workers at that mill lost their life by the time they were 25 years old. That is how dangerous the machines were. That is what it meant to breathe the dust that they were all breathing, but they got the word and it spread through the factory that their wages were going to be cut, and here were women, mostly women, nearly all immigrants, they had come from 50 different countries, and they said, enough. We have had enough. And first in twos and threes, and then by the dozens and then the hundreds, they got up and they walked out, and that what started the strike that changed in america. These women who had so little put it all on the line to try to build a future, and they did it together, and here is the part that always got to me. You go back and read the papers, the bosses at the time, the management, were sure the women would never come together. And you know why . Because they were different from each other. They spoke different languages. They came from, as i said, 50 different countries, and yet, the women decided they had more in common that mattered to them and that they were going to put aside their differences and come together to build a life in america that would create opportunity for themselves and their children, and for me, that is what the Labor Movement is all about, so happy labor day to all of you. [applause] sen. Warren this is our chance. Yep, it is our chance to come together. So i thought what i would do today is i would tell you a little about myself. I will tell you a little bit about why i am in this fight, although you may already have some sense of that, and then we will do the most important thing. I will stay as long as you once, and we will do a selfie line. That will be the fun part, you bet. You bet. I was born and raised in oklahoma. No oakies. I have got one or two, ok. We have got a few, but there are not that many from oklahoma. I have three older brothers. I am what used to be called a late in life baby. My mother always just called me the surprise, and that is how it was. My three older brothers, who to this day are still referred to as the boys, to distinguish them from when i came along so much later, the boys all went off and joined the military. My oldest brother, don, was career military, and he spent about 5. 5 years off and on in combat in vietnam. We were very lucky to get him back home. My second brother, john, was stationed overseas for about a year. My third brother, david, trained as a combat medic. Now, this is important in our family, because it gave rise to a rule in my family, and that is never choke in front of david. [laughter] sen. Warren to this day, the man carries a sharpened pocketknife, and he is convinced he can perform an emergency tracheotomy. [laughter] sen. Warren it gives us some exciting moments at thanksgiving. Somebody goes mm, everyone is like, david, sit down. We are good here. I love my three brothers. They have all moved back to oklahoma now. I get back as often as i can to visit with them. When we were growing up, our daddy had a lot of different jobs. He sold paint. He sold fencing. He sold hardware. He sold rugs. And when i was in middle school, the boys were all gone by then, my daddy had a massive heart attack, and he was in the hospital for what seemed like a very long time, and for a while, we thought we were going to lose him. He pulled through, but when we got him back home, he could not work for a long, long time. And even now, i can remember the day when we lost the family station wagon. I can remember how my momma used to tuck me in at night, and she would give me a kiss, and i always knew what was coming. She would walk out of the room, close the door, lean back against it, and start to cry. I would hear her. She never wanted to cry in front of me. And these were the times i learned words like mortgage and foreclosure, and then one day, i walked into my folks bedroom, and laid out on the bed was the dress. Now, some of you in here will know what the dress is, the dress that comes out for things like graduations, and there is my mom in her slip and her stocking feet, and she is pacing, and she is saying, we will not lose this house, we will not lose this house, we will not lose this house. She was 50 years old. She had never worked outside the home, and she was terrified. And she looked up and she sees me in the doorway, i am just a kid, and she looks at me, and she looks at that dress, and she looks at me, and she wipes her face, pulls that dress on, puts on her high heels, and walks to the sears and gets a fulltime, minimum wage job answering phones. That minimum job saved our house, and, more importantly, it saved our family. And i always think of this as the lesson my mama taught me, and that is no matter how hard it looks, and no matter how scared you are, when it comes down to it, you reach down deep, you find what you have to find, you pull it up, and you take care of the people you love. Thats it. [applause] sen. Warren now, it was only years and years later that i came to understand that it is not just the lesson my mama taught me, that is what millions of people across this country do every day, that no matter how scared they are, no matter how hard the path looks, they reach down deep, they find what they have to find, they pull it up, and they take care of the people they love. That is what we do in this country. But it was only years after that that i came to understand that same story is a story about government, because here is the thing. When i was a girl, a minimumwage job in america, fulltime, minimumwage job, would support a family of three. It would pay a mortgage. It would cover the utilities, and it would put food on the table. Today, a minimumwage, fulltime job in america will not keep a mama and a baby out of poverty. That is wrong, and that is why i am in this fight. There it is. [cheers and applause] sen. Warren yep. And understand this difference. Its not an accident. Its not something that just happened over time. This is about deliberate decisions made in washington. When i was a girl, the question was, what does it take a family of three to survive in america . What does it take to give them a toehold in americas middle class, a chance for something solid that they can build from . Today, the question asked in washington about the minimum wage is, where do we put it to maximize the profits of giant, multinational corporations . Well, i do not want a government that works for giant multinational corporations. I want one that works for our families. [cheers and applause] sen. Warren so, like i said, the boys, they went off and joined the military. That was their path. My path was different. I have known what i wanted to be since second grade. Oh, you laugh. Some of you may not have decided until, what, fourth grade . I get it, i get it. But i have known what i wanted to be since second grade. I wanted to be a Public School teacher. Can we hear it for americans Public School teachers . [cheers and applause] sen. Warren yes. Yes. Oh, this is what i wanted to do, and i invested early. I used to line my dollies up and teach school. I had a reputation for being tough but fair. [laughter] sen. Warren i never wavered. I always knew this is what i wanted to do, but by the time i graduated from high school, my family did not have the money for a College Application much less sending me off to the four years of university so i could be a teacher. So like a lot of americans, i do not have a Straight Path story. Mine has some twists and turns it. Here is how my story goes. I graduated from high school and got a scholarship in debate. Yay. And then, at 19, fell in love, got married, dropped out, and got a job. Not exactly the plan, but, you know, i picked it. It was my decision, but i thought it meant i would never get to teach. And then i found it. We are living down in houston at this point. Yeah. Sen. Warren oh, yeah. Living down in houston, i found what was then a commuter college about 45 minutes away that cost 50 a semester, and for a price i could pay for on a parttime waitressing job, i finished a fouryear diploma, and i became a specialneeds teacher. I have lived my dream job. There it is. There it is. [cheers and applause] sen. Warren yep. So i love that we are doing do we have any special needs teachers here . Oh, we do. We have bunches. Fabulous. So, back me up on this. This is not a job. This is a calling. I loved my kids. I had four to sixyearolds, principally, and i can still remember their faces. I would probably still be doing that work today, but my story has a couple of more twists to it, and here comes the next twist. By the end of the first year, i was visibly pregnant, and the principal did what principals did in those days, wished me luck and hired someone else for my job. Ok. So now i am at home. I have got a baby. I cannot get a job. What am i going to do . And the answer is, i will go to law school. [laughter] sen. Warren do not ever ask your friends how they ended up in law school. The stories are always a little strange. So anyway, i found a state law school, and this time, i was in new jersey. Whoo sen. Warren there we go. State law school, baby on the hip, 450 a semester. I head off to law school. I do three years of law school, visibly pregnant you will understand a common theme to these stories, visibly pregnant, take the bar, and i practice law for 45 minutes. Ok, it was not for me, because then i went back to my first love, which is teaching. So i traded little dreams for great big ones and taught in law school. More twists and turns in my personal life. My husband number one, it is never a good sign when you have to number your husbands. [laughter] sen. Warren he moved on. But husband number two, i am still on two, so that is good. [cheers and applause] sen. Warren so, there it is. I teach. And, i dont know, maybe it is like everybody who grows up without money. I tell you what i will teach about, and that is money. If there was a law course about money, i taught it. I wanted to learn it, master it, and teach about it. Contract law and secure transactions, universal commercial code, bankruptcy law, partnership law, Corporate Finance law, economics, i taught them all. But there was one central question that all of my work centered on, and that is, what is happening to working families in america . Why is it that americas middle class is being hollowed out . Why is it that people who work every bit as hard as my mother worked two generations ago, today find the path so much rockier and so much steeper, and for people of color, even rockier and even steeper . [applause] sen. Warren and the answer is just like the answer around minimum wage. It is who government in washington is working for. Think of it this way. We have a government that works fabulously, works terrifically, for giant drug companies, just not for people who are trying to get a prescription filled. We have a government that works really, really well for investors and private prisons and private Detention Centers down at the border, just not working for the people whose lives are torn apart by those places. We have a government that works amazingly well for giant Oil Companies that want to drill everywhere, just not for the rest of us who see Climate Change bearing down upon us. [applause] sen. Warren when you see a government that works great for those with money, works great powerful, and is not working much of anyone else, that is corruption, pure and simple, and we need to call it out for what it is. [cheers and applause] sen. Warren yep. Corruption. And i want you to think about it this way. Whatever issue brought you here today, whether its guns, health care, climate, whatever issue gets you up in the morning, if there is a decision to be made in washington, i guarantee it has been influenced by money. I guarantee it has been nudged by money. It has been shaped by money. It has been moved over a little and then a little more and then a little more by money. In fact, let me tell you a quick story. So, go back to the early 1990s, and you will see science is really beginning to get it on Climate Change. The studies are starting to show, whoa. They do not have all of the right words, but they have got the basics about what is happening here and why. And here is the amazing thing. In washington, it is not a partisan issue. Democrats and republicans are working together. They are talking about trying to figure out, so what do we need to do . Do we need to give the epa more power . Is that the direction we need to go . Do we need some new regulations . Do we need new investments . What do we need to do . And then along come the koch brothers. Oh, some of you have heard of the koch brothers. The giant Oil Companies, the big polluters, and they get together and say, in effect, say, wow, if congress get serious about Climate Change, that is going to bite into our bottom line. That is going to cut our profits pretty seriously. So they have an Investment Decision to make. They could decide, we can stop with fossil fuels and go to clean, and they do not do that. They could decide to invest in all of the cleanup, how to pull carbon out of the air, how to clean up the water. They do not do that. You know what they invest in . Politicians. They invest in washington to get the decisions changed. Oh, and here is one of their biggest and earliest investments. They invest in scientists, socalled scientists, who deny Climate Science. Think about that. Why would they invest in the people who deny Climate Science . It is not because they do not understand it. No, they invest because that builds an umbrella that people can hide under for decades and keep taking money from the oil industry, keep taking money from the big polluters and say, gee, i dont know, it all seems very controversial. You want to understand the Climate Crisis we are facing today . It is 25 years of corruption that has led to inaction in washington. That is why. [applause] sen. Warren so here is the thing. The money is everywhere in so many different ways. The corruption infects so many different decisions, but it comes to us what to do about it, and the answer is it is not going to take just one change, one statute over here, two regulations over there. No. It is going to take big structural change in our government. That is what it is going to take. [cheers and applause] sen. Warren and i got a plan for that. [cheers and applause] sen. Warren alright, so lets talk about the plan. This is the fun part. Lets talk about the plans. Part one on corruption, attack it head on. We have to call it out and attack it head on. Now, here is the good news. I have the biggest anticorruption plan since watergate. Yeah. [applause] sen. Warren yeah. Here is the bad news. We need the biggest anticorruption plan since watergate. So, you would not be surprised. This plan has a lot of moving parts to it because there is so many ways that money influences decisions. So let me just give you a sample of a few of these. First one, end lobbying as we know it. [cheers and applause] sen. Warren there we go. Lock the revolving door between wall street and washington. Enough. [applause] sen. Warren here is one you may never have thought about, but it is important. Make the United States Supreme Court follow basic rules of ethics. They dont have any requirement to do that, and they dont. Im just making friends everywhere. One more. One more. Theres a lot of pieces here, but here is one that will root out some corruption, and that is make every Single Person who wants to run for federal office put their tax returns online. [cheers and applause] sen. Warren ok. So that is part one, and that is get out your raincoats. Part one, attack the corruption head on. Part two, we need some structural change in this economy. And let me talk to you for just a second about what this is about. We have now giant corporations that have just gotten more powerful and more powerful and more powerful. And they have sucked up the little businesses, mediumsized businesses. Shoot, they have sucked up what used to be the big businesses. And the problem with these giant corporations is they just run over everybody. They run over their own employees, customers, communities where they are located, and they call to many of the shots in washington. What can we do about it . One part is we could have a president who has the courage to enforce our antitrust laws. Im there. [applause] sen. Warren important, but not enough. Structural change means we need someone else in this negotiation, in this ongoing conversation, in the economy. That means we need more power in the hands of workers. We need to make it easier to join a union and give unions more power when they negotiate. Unions built americas middle class and unions will rebuild americas middle class. We get more powerful unions, that changes the structure. It is time for a wealth tax in america. It is time. [applause] sen. Warren let me talk to you about what a wealth tax looks like. Here is my plan. Your first 50 million is free and clear. I see a lot of people go, whew. [laughter] sen. Warren first 50 million is free and clear, your accumulated wealth. But your 50 million and first dollar, you have to pitch in 0. 02. Anybody here own a home . You have been paying a wealth tax for long time, it is called a property tax. How about four bazillionaires, we include most of their wealth, which is their stock portfolio, the diamonds, the rembrandts, and the yachts. I am just saying lets include all of it. Ok. And by the way, i want to send everybody i am not proposing a wealth tax because im cranky. No. I am not. I am not. You know, some of these guys say, oh, i worked hard, i had a great idea, i worked late like anybody else i worked late, or inherited wealth, and yet, yeah, this is mine. The answer is, this is for you. No one is angry about that, but heres the deal. You built a Great Fortune here in america. I guarantee you built it at least in part using workers all of us helped pay to educate. Yeah. [cheers and applause] sen. Warren you built it at least in part, getting your goods to market on roads and bridges that all of us helped pay to build. Yep. [cheers and applause] sen. Warren you built it at least in part protected by police and firefighters during all of us help pay their salaries. And we are glad to do it. These are the investments we make as americans. We are happy to do this, to create more opportunity. But heres the thing. When you make it big, i mean really big, i mean the top onetenth of 1 big, pitch it 0. 02 so everybody else gets a chance to make it in this country. 0. 02. 0. 02. [cheers and applause] sen. Warren because now comes the fun part. What can we do with 0. 02 in america . I tell you exactly what we can do. First, we can have universal childcare for every baby in this country age zero to five. [cheers and applause] sen. Warren 100 of them. Yep. Universal prek for every threeyearold and fouryearold in this country. [applause] sen. Warren raise the wages of every preschool teacher and childcare worker in america. [cheers and applause] sen. Warren we can do all of that, but im not through yet. All of that for 0. 02, plus we can make technical school, two year college, four year college, tuitionfree for every person who wants to get an education. [cheers and applause] sen. Warren plus, we can level the playing field, put 50 billion into our historically black colleges and universities. [applause] sen. Warren yep. And im still not through. We can do all of that and cancel Student Loan Debt for 95 of the folks who have got Student Loan Debt. [cheers and applause] sen. Warren think about that. 0. 02 and we would have 200 billion left over. That tells you how far off this economy has gotten. That is part two. Part one, attack the corruption head on. You break up the corruption, now you have a chance to get a lot of other things done. Part two, we need a structural change in this economy. Part three, we need to protect our democracy. Yeah. [applause] sen. Warren i want to see a constitutional amendment to protect the right of every american citizen to vote and get that vote counted. Yep. [applause] sen. Warren i have got a plan to make sure every vote that is cast is isaac you are that is as secure as if it were at fort knox and not subject to hacking by russians, North Koreans or anyone else with a computer. [cheers and applause] sen. Warren oh, here is one you all should care about. We need to get rid of political gerrymandering. [cheers and applause] sen. Warren and at the federal level, roll back every Voter Suppression law in this country, including keeping College Students from voting. [cheers and applause] sen. Warren and just one more, overturn citizens united. Democracy is not for sale. [cheers and applause] sen. Warren so there it is. I just want three things. Just three things. Right . Attack the corruption, so that we can make this government work for the people. Restructure a couple core pieces in this economy so it works for everyone. And protect our democracy. Now, those three things may sound like three different things. They are not. For me, they all come to the same place. Opportunity. Who gets it in america . Is it something reserved just for those at the top . Opportunity. Opportunity for every one of our kids. Opportunity to get a good job, start your own business, maybe buy a house, opportunity to love the person you love and build the family you want to build. Because you want to understand sen. Warren opportunity. Because you want to understand why im standing here today . Not in a million years did i ever think i would be here talking to people about running for any office, much less this one. But heres what i know and heres what pulls me in. My daddy, he ended up as a janitor. But his baby daughter got the opportunity. Got the opportunity to become a Public School teacher. Got the opportunity to become a college professor. Got the opportunity to become a United States senator. And got the opportunity to be a candidate for president of the United States. Dream big, fight hard. We have got to win this. Thank you. Thank you. [cheers and applause] sen. Warren thank you. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Thank you. 0. 02, lets do this. Ok. Thank you so much. You ready to do this . I am the moderator of the Hampton Falls School District and northampton. I have to say, there are more people today than at the last school meeting. [laughter] anyway, we are going to do something that is really traditional here in New Hampshire and that is a lottery. Elizabeth is going to pick two numbers elizabeth is not going to pick two numbers out, shes going to hold the basket while i pick two numbers out. So i am responsible for whoever did not get picked. The first number, when i call the number out raise your hand and someone will bring the microphone to you. The lucky winner for the first question is number 2010. 2010. Sen. Warren do we have a winner . You must be present to win. 2010 . Sen. Warren and we are throwing in a stuffed animal. 2010 . Last call. One more time. 2019 . 2019 . 2019 . We have a winner, over there. Congratulations. And while the mic is making its way to her, we are going to pick another number so you can get on deck. And the next person will be, 1997. 1997 . 1997 . And another winner over here, 1997. So those of the first two questions. Line up and go. Sen. Warren i was hoping we could do more but i get that people are a little anxious here. So who do we have first . Tell me your name. My name is linda. And i am with indivisible New Hampshire. Sen. Warren wahoo all right. Im very happy to be here. This is the second time i have heard you speak. Sen. Warren am i Getting Better . You convinced me 1000 the first time. And i am allin for your candidacy. Sen. Warren great, lets just quit there. [laughter] one of the things that concerns me is when i talk to friends and family all of the country, they say we love Elizabeth Warren and we love her policies, but can she really beat donald trump . So i think it would be really helpful for you to tell people i certainly believe it, but i would like to hear from you. Sen. Warren that is a really good question. How about we start with, i know how to fight and i know how to win. [cheers and applause] sen. Warren yeah. And that is a big part of it. I mean, i think you have to be willing to get into this fight all the way. But here is another key part of it, at least as i see it. I think what is going to carry us as democrats is not playing it safe. It is not [applause] sen. Warren pretending that everything was just fine and here is this one problem and we get rid of that one problem and it will all work out, because it is not. It is not. We have problems going back decades now, and they are big, structural problems. And nibbling around the edges or pretending they are not there is not going to make them go away. [cheers and applause] sen. Warren so i think talking about not just talking about, being willing to confront the big problems in this country and then producing plans, real plans for big structural change, i think that is what people want in this country. I think you have got to give people a reason to show up and vote and that is what im doing. [cheers and applause] sen. Warren good. All right. Who else we got . We got amy. Sen. Warren where are you . Here you are. I was not prepared for this. Sen. Warren that is ok. This is how my students used to feel when i would call on them. Nice day, huh . So, what is your plan we keep having shootings it seems like on a weekly basis now, and it a big deal for a day and then everyone kind of forgets about it and it goes away. But it is a huge problem, obviously. What is your plan to try to get the gun situation under control . Sen. Warren so, let me start by saying today, just an average day in america, seven children will die from gun violence. It will not make headlines, most of them. It will happen in neighborhoods that did not get covered in the news. It will fall particularly hard on communities of color, but i will happen, and it will happen tomorrow and the next day and the next day and the next day. It is our responsibility to put a stop to that. That is where we have to start, the urgency of this moment. That is part one. Part two is think about what i just talked about with corruption. Corruption is what keeps congress from doing the peoples business. The overwhelming majority of americans want to see us take sensible gun safety regulations. They want to see us change the laws. [applause] sen. Warren and that is true. By the way, the majority of gun owners want to see us change the law. Come on if we know what the pieces are, universal background checks, assault weapons off of our streets, get rid of bump stocks and the ability to fire weapons and a short period of time. There are a lot of things we could be doing. So why doesnt it happen . And the answer is corruption. It is corruption. Right now, we have a washington that is held hostage by the gun industry and the nra. That has to stop. [cheers and applause] sen. Warren and then one more part i want to add to this. And i know we are all about to get wet, but stick with me for a minute here. We have to treat this like the Public Health emergency that it is. [applause] sen. Warren we cannot think of this as one and done. Or two and done. Lets get two statutes passed, then everyone says, whew, we got that done. Back in 1965, there were five deaths for every one million miles traveled in america. You go back and read that, and you want to know the word people were using to describe that . Carnage in the highways. How were we going to stop it, that families were being wiped out on the highways. We decided we were going to reduce deaths from driving, and we did. Some are obvious. For example, seatbelts and saftey glass. Some had not even been invented, like im good, thank you. Some had not even been invented, like airbags and automatic braking systems, but the point is, we stayed after it and we have cut deaths by auto by more than 80 . So here is my pitch on guns. We need to set a goal. My goal is we need to cut deaths by 80 from gun violence. That includes mass shootings, neighborhood shootings, and not rest until we have done it, so thank you. Thank you. [cheers and applause] sen. Warren so, i am sorry we are short on questions today, but it looks like we have to make sure we get in those selfies before we are all drowned here. Let me just say to all of you really quickly, i know this is hard. A lot of people say to me and it goes back to the question earlier, these plans are hard. They have a lot of pieces and there is math in it. [laughter] sen. Warren the experts in boise, and that means everyone in the u. S. Senate, tell me this is not the way to run for office. They say come in, say a few things, or not, however you want to do it. But smile more. That is what they tell me. And you know . Here is what i think about. What he think they said to the suffragettes . You are never going to make change. Its too hard. Give up now. What did they say to the early Union Organizers . Too hard, give up now. What did they say to the foot soldiers in the Civil Rights Movement . Too hard, give up now. What did they say to the early lgbtq activists . Just a few years ago. Too hard, give up now. But they did not give up. They got organized, they built a grassroots movement. They persisted. [cheers and applause] sen. Warren and they changed the course of american history. This is our moment in american history, our moment to dream big, fight hard, and win. Thank you. Thank you. [cheers and applause] sen. Warren thank you. Thank you