Run for president . Sen. Bennet thank you for having me. What led to it was the fears that our democracy is in peril. If we continue to engage in politics the way we have the last 10 years in this country, i think my generation is going to be the first generation to leave less opportunity and not more to the people after us. Unamerican ans idea we could be facing. You talked to your family you were thinking about this, what was your what was their reaction . Sen. Bennet my wife has had a checkered career in business and in the Denver Public schools, which is its own challenge. My daughters all had very different reactions. We have three daughters. Then 14 said,as you absolutely should run. That made me glad that she was so proud of my public service. The longer we talked, the more i realized she just saw as an opportunity for me to be out of the house during her 15th year of life. She could be burning the place down for all i know. My 20yearold daughter, her reaction was, if you run and tell the truth and lose, no one can fault you for it. I said to her, caroline, it is good he say that because there is no other reason for me to run. I do not think there is any other way for me to win. I was glad to send her the other day the editorial for the Des Moines Register that had a headline that said, Michael Bennet pounds truth into the campaign, which was a small token of what her charge was when i decided to run. There was also the editorial from gary hart. He said you have vision. What is your vision . Sen. Bennet first of all, that democracy is vitally important to humanity. We have inherited an imperfect marker see an imperfect democracy. We have worked to make this country more democratic, more fair, and more free, and it is our obligation to provide the same to the next generation. They believe we are leaving to them a mountain of debt. They believe we are leaving a lack of investment they our infrastructure. They believe we are leaving Climate Change unaddressed. They believe we are leaving a broken democracy because of citizens united. These are all things we have to fix. On top of that, america has an incredibly Important Role to play in the world as the son of a woman, my mom, who survived the holocaust. Warsaw and went to stockholm and then mexico city, and then came here. The only country in the world where they could rebuild their shattered lives. I know how important the idea of america is all over the world. It is not that we are perfect, but we are a beacon to the rest of the world. Thatnk i believe reestablishing our place in the world is going to be one of the things our next president has to do. Lets talk strategy. How do you get back on the debate stage . How do you break through . Sen. Bennet i think the debate stage is a discouraging place for the American People. I would not pretend that i did not want to be on there. It is not giving it is not doing a good job of elucidating the issues. It is not doing a good job of equipping our candidates, putting them in a position to be donald trump. I hope going forward, we find a way to free ourselves from this. I have often said i think that roasts should be done away with. It is an art form that has outlived its usefulness. I feel the same way about these debates. There has got to be a better way to get candidates engaged and have a debate, a real conversation with the American People. Having said all of that, my strategy is, i have to do better than expected in iowa and New Hampshire to stay in this race. Different i have a perspective. The nature of the corruption we face and how we have to overcome it. I have a different experience from the other people in this race. I have spent a bunch of time in business and running the amber Public Schools and 10 years in the senate. Think that is a useful set of experiences. Thee are in the middle of impeachment debate. You will be a juror if it comes to the senate floor. What has this done to this country for democrats and republicans and the American People . Sen. Bennet what i hope it will do is reestablish the importance of the rule of law and reestablish the idea that nobody is above the law including the president of the united states. You and i will both remember watergate. That was a dark time in american history. The vietnam war was the backdrop for what was going on. What Richard Nixon had done with watergate. The democracy won that episode in our history. I hope the democracy is going to win this episode. When you talk to your constituents, what are they telling you . Sen. Bennet mostly, they are focused on their own economic situation. If i had to summarize the last 10 years of town halls in colorado, it is people coming to me and saying, we are working very hard we cannot afford some combination of housing, health care, and Early Childhood education. We cannot afford a middleclass life. That is the best majority of people in state with the you delayed your announcement because of health issues, prostate cancer. How are you feeling . Sen. Bennet i have feeling great. Nobody needs to worry about me. Nobody likes to hear they have cancer. It was really scary. I was done with it in five weeks. What i would say to anyone watching, if you have a prostate, get it screened. If you do not, get Something Else screened. Ini had not had it picked up a care screening, i would be here sitting talking to you, and i would be really sick. It is another reminder why it is morally reprehensible we do not have health care in this country. It meant a lot. It was trysting for me, you might say is it was interesting for me. You might say it was it made me more committed to running for president. I discovered i was feeling really disappointed in the prospect of not being able to do it. I have not spent my life taking i was going to run for president. It probably wouldve been useful, but i did not. And then i got cancer, i thought, i. Am not going to be able to run. I was deeply disappointed. I discovered i was going to get through it. It made me feel it is insane we have a Health Care System in this country where every single american does not have access to the kind of primary care i had access to and the kind of screening i had access to to detect my cancer. Not only is it morally reprehensible, but economically, it makes no sense. All it means is that people who do not have access to primary care are going to the emergency room to get things dealt with. I have always believed you have to try to make every day count. Thertainly believe that on backside of the cancer diagnosis. We read your brother often in the new york times. Who is the brother who is the better writer . Sen. Bennet he has by far the better writer. I think i am a good writer, but not nearly as good as he is. He has a gifted editor. I have learned a tremendous amount from him that i have tried to transmit to my daughters. How to write a short how to write short and compelling sentences. What was your path to colorado . You were not born there. Sen. Bennet i got married to a woman named susan daggett. She is my wife. How did you meet her . Sen. Bennet we were in law school together. She did not know that. I knew who she was. I had seen her walking around. We met on a blind date at a neville brothers concert in around 1990 or so. 1994 i guess. She wanted to take a job with the Sierra Club Legal defense fund, which is now called earth justice. I followed her there. That is how i got to colorado. You headed up the Denver Public what was the biggest challenge . What did you learn . Job, ire i was in that was in the business of turning around distressed companies. Companies that were wellrun companies but had terrible Balance Sheets that we fixed in bankruptcies and held onto for the longterm. Those experiences helped when i got to the danbury Public Schools. We had declining enrollment for years and years. Enrollment declined paired with cut academic offerings for kids. And kids and families responded by leaving the School District. It was a long, difficult process. It involved a lot of people. Until recently, denver was the Fastest Growing urban School District in america. A month or so ago there was a study by Stanford University that said the kids in denver growing so much faster than the kids in the rest of the state that it is like they have 60 Additional School days in the year. We still have massive achievement gaps in my School District that haunts me every day. Where living in a country basically, there has been no economic mobility for 90 of the American People for 50 years. Taken in its totality, our Education System is reinforcing the income and inequality the income inequality we have. The best predictor of the quality of your education is your parents income. That has to change in america. You never hear about this on the debate stage. From the bandage point of the is noti work for, there a more important issue. S lack of equity and are lack of equity in our schools, the segregation in our schools is something that is tearing at the heart of our democracy. How do you fix it . When you start . Is it prek, preschool . How do you clean up a lot of wasted time students getting to and from school, in between classes. Sen. Bennet it is not one thing. It is a million things. It really matters that we design the way we pay teachers in a labor market that discriminated against women and said, you have two professional choices. One is being a teacher, and the other is being a nurse. And weach Julius Caesar are going to pay you a salary that no one else in your College Class would accept. That was our offer. When we developed the system. It is our offer today. When we designed the system 300 years ago, it was important for kids to be available to work in the fields during the summertime. We still have a calendar that reflects that Agrarian Society we do not mostly live in anymore. It is a million things. We have to take the system that is designed for two centuries ago and bring it into the 21st century. He mentioned preschool. You mentioned preschool. If you took a focus group of americans and asked them, what does the Democratic Party stand for in education . You would hear, free college paired i am far more interested. N preschool dropout star in preschool. That is when it starts. I asked, what about the 70 of kids that graduate from high school and do not go on to college. Who today are forced turn and among wage jobs because we have not trained them and equip them with the skills they need to earn a living wage when they graduate from high school. We should reinvent high school so that every kid who graduates with a High School Degree can earn a living wage. That would transform the lives of millions of americans. Went shed the school year begin, when shed in when shed the School Year Began . When should it end . Sen. Bennet i certainly would not design the school year for everyone in america, if i were designing one from my kids, i would say, it should be yearround. More Shorter Breaks is better than having a long break in the middle of the summer, which people do not put to good use academically. My kids hate to hear me say this. Willgot a magic wand, kids be in school six days a week. It is a reminder of how much more time we need to be focused on education. The other conclusion i have reached, having been working on this the last 15 years is that, when one group of kids has access to preschool and another group does not, when one group has access to decent k12 schools and one group does not, and one has access to guidance counselors, and the other does not, equal is not equal. Inhave to invest much more ducations e and we are. Instead of fighting a losing battle for medicare for all, i would rather fight a winning battle for education. Ongoing debate in republican circles whether or not we need the department of education. What is the role of the federal government when it comes to education . Sen. Bennet it is a great question. I think it is important because it administers our Student Loan Program. I wish weve used our Student Loan Program to incentivize universities to keep our costs low because college has gotten so expensive. Itm ak 12 perspective, what perspective,2 would be to help people on the ground learn best practices and transmit them across the country. A pastor of money from the federal government to the local communities. About 9 of what we spend on k12 education. We have an important and vital and national will to make sure of civil rights impulse education is not lost. We need to be there to protect kids against inequities based on their skin color, based on the circumstances of their birth. We still have an Important Role to play. That is representative of the origins of the department of education. You have been an administrator, you are a senator, so how does Michael Bennet make a decision, how do you structure the decisionmaking process in the white house . Sen. Bennet when people ask me however you done what you have done, i always say i find people who are much better at doing their job that i would ever be a putg their job, and i hope them against a challenge we face that is mutual. That is what i would do as president. We need to have somebody in this job that can attract the most talented people out of government and the private sector. That is what i have always done. That is what i did as superintendent. I did not have a k12 background, but i found the best people across the country. Some of whom were eight levels down in the bureaucracy, to put a Leadership Team to make the effort. I believe that having the most diverse Leadership Team you possibly can have a significant and important because the worst decisions i make are the ones i make by myself in my house. The best decisions i make are the decisions i make contending with different with people with different points of view. I would expect to see a group of very talented people and Diverse People and people who are willing to say no to a president. The way i reach decisions is by weighing the evidence with the competing viewpoints and reaching a conclusion. How would you define your ideology . Sen. Bennet i would say i believe in democracy. That is how i define my ideology. Some people call me pragmatic. A pragmatic progressive, a pragmatic idealist. I believe in democracy. I believe our democracy is at risk. I will do everything i can do to try to protect it. The great debate in the Democratic Party as the project is the Progressive Agenda that is providing a path forward on so many levels. I realize that is how the newspapers define it and how cable news defines it. What are the policies that are going to be most useful for the kids and families i used two work for in the danbury Public Schools . Forting a losing battle medicare for all i do not think is progressive. Ending childhood poverty as i have proposed, that would make a massive difference. I am frustrated as you can probably tell that those are the terms of the debate. That is one of the reasons i am running. I am trying to change the debate. Who has shaped your agenda, a teacher, your parents . Sen. Bennet i would say the kids in denver and their families. The five years i worked with them in an effort to try to deliver a better education. Really what has shaped my ideology. A feeling that this country has to be a land of opportunity for it to work. For too many of our kids, they are cut off from that opportunity. I was shaped by my father who was a Public Servant. I see the people testifying in the impeachment trial, standing up for the men and women in our intelligence agencies and armed forces in the state department, it reminds me it has been too long since people stood up for the Public Servant that my dad was one of and who, i think, as americans, should be proud of. And my mom and her grandparents came here as refugees. Having survived the holocaust and warsaw. Who live the immigrant dream in america. Did your dad worked for the state department . Sen. Bennet he did. What was that like for him . Sen. Bennet he had different tours of duty. I was born in india because my dad was working it was part of kennedys effort to promote democracy around the world. In the carter state department. He was the assistant secretary of legislative affairs. Can you imagine getting the panama canal treaty through today . He was able to do it. Congress actually functioned. In the clinton administration, he was the westin secretary for international relations. He loved looking at the state department. He was also head of the agency for international development. You have been the former head of the Democratic Senate campaign committee. How did the democrats in your mind regain control of the senate . Sen. Bennet this is an excellent question. I wish more of the candidates were thinking about this. The president ial candidates need to be as focused on winning a majority in the senate as they are unfocused debt as they are focused as they are focused on winning the president ial election. That, what itbout will take to win in purple states like colorado where i have won twice. I am the only candidate who has won two National Elections in purple state. And am in New Hampshire, one of the early states, i think about someone like Jeanne Shaheen who is a senator in New Hampshire. If we run the race like she has run her races, we will win. Run it like we are running in a deep blue state, we open up the risk we could lose. That would be a tragedy. For us to turn around the judiciary and put in place the progressive policies that we need to be able to address childhood poverty and Climate Change, it is going to require us to have the majority in the senate. I main point is, do not try to say one thing in the primary and another thing in the general election. You have to have the discipline to say the same thing in the primary and the general election. I mentioned senator gary hart. Did he give you any advice . Sen. Bennet he has mostly given me information inspiration. I was at 1 in the polls want. He went on to win the New Hampshire primarybecause of a lot of peoples to hatcher primary because of a lot of peoples help. His advice was to get in the race. Hes a big believer it is important to be involved as i am. He understands that much of the process is putting one foot in front of the other until something good let me put a hypothetical on the table. You are the president elect. You are in the Oval Office Meeting with donald trump. What do you tell him . Sen. Bennet thank you. And can i now take over . [laughter] just try to have as quick a conversation as i can possibly have. [speaking simultaneously] sen. Bennet what . What do you think of the president . Sen. Bennet i think that he is a danger to our democracy. I think he is a symptom of our challenges, not the essential cause. Hes the symptom of 50 years of no economic mobility. He is a symptom of the degradation of our institutions that allowed us to send a reality tv star to be president and not somebody who has a a clue about what this country needs. How important americas place in the world is. I think he is the weakest Foreign Policy president weve had in our lifetime. Russia is taking advantage of it. China is taking advantage of it. Iran is taking advantage of it. You know, we are in a position with china in this trade negotiation where i think xi can actually in some ways put the thumb on the scale of whether trump gets reelected. He can decide if he wants trump to get reelected, he can say, i will give that guy a deal on trade that is going to be good, at least appear good to the farmers and ranchers so that trump has the chance to get reelected. I think everyone would want i think that is what putin would want and erdogan would want. Look at what he did in northern syria. No other president after five years of fighting isis successfully, where we lost six guys over five years, which is tragic kurds lost 11,000 people. And donald trump abandoned them because he couldnt stand up to erdogan. This is the cost of having a last weekend he spent the whole weekend tweeting out stuff that if anybody at cspan tweeted out the stuff that he and not even cspan. A law firm or a bank, you would be meeting with the Hr Department on monday morning. And they would be saying, if you dont stop this, you will lose your job. If the answer to that from the employee was, dont worry about it, im a stable genius. Or dont worry about it, i have unmatched wisdom. As the president has said. You would get fired. This guy is the president of the united states. The whole weekend he was obsessed with cable television, responding to it over and over again with tweets, china was signing a trade deal with enough other countries that together, they represented half of the gdp of the world. And we were nowhere. The iranians were doubling the number of centrifuges, they are spinning to enrich uranium. Thats just one weekend of having donald trump as our president. That doesnt even account for the seven months we spent wasted in the capital debating his 6 billion for his medieval wall that mexico was supposed to pay for. When china is building 35 miles when china is building 3500 miles of fiberoptic cable to connect latin america with africa, and then with their surveillance state in china, the costs are huge. What do i think of him . I think hes the worst president weve ever had. I think he is the least patriotic president weve ever had. And i think he should not serve more than one term. Thats what i think. Host let me conclude with this question. How do you restore the problem we just addressed . Sen. Bennet it is not me. It is all of us. Do you mean the Foreign Policy problems are democratic problems . On all levels, we have to decide whether we are serious or not about preserving our democracy. If we are serious, we have to end this gilded age like we ended the last gilded age. We have to have tax policies that makes work paying again, restoring the dignity of work. Makes it national sure all kids have access to a high quality of education. We have to address Climate Change. We have to reform our politics, take the money out of it and put people back in by overturning citizens united, ending partisan gerrymandering in this country, i would ban every member of congress from ever becoming lobbyists in washington, d. C. , and make sure every Single Person in the country that is eligible to vote has a chance to vote. Our democracy is profoundly at risk, but we can save it, and donald trump ran for president saying, i alone can fix it. I think thats the opposite of the truth. That he is att 1600 pennsylvania avenue but whats more important is that we as citizens take on the role of citizens to restore our democracy, and the whole world is watching. The whole world is watching that is understanding what happens when they dont have the example that we historically have set as a champion of pluralism, democracy. We all need to do our part. What i would say to everybody whos watching this is whoever you support, whomever you support, make sure you vote and make sure every single eligible person you know votes. One quick followup, if you were the nominee, would you select a woman as a Vice President . Sen. Bennet i think that would be a very likely outcome. Thank you for having me. Senatorl candidate Elizabeth Warren owns a town hall in iowa city on monday. Watch coverage on monday on at cspan. Org, or listen free on the cspan radio app. The impeachment inquiry hearings continued with House Judiciary Committee chairman Jerrold Nadler holds a hearing focusing on the constitution and the history of impeachment. Watch lot coverage wednesday at 10 00 a. M. Eastern on cspan3. Chairman nadler extended an invitation for the president and his counsel to hear before the appear before the committee. The letter to the president on our website cspan. Org impeachment, or , listen live on the free cspan radio app. Announcer now, a discussion on the social impact of technology and innovation with mark dean, who worked at ibm for more than 30 years, and helped create the ibm personal computer. This took place at the American Museum of science and energy in oak ridge, tennessee. This is one hour and 10 minutes. Good afternoon, everyone. Glad you made it in the increment weather. We have a nice representation of people for what i think is going to be an exciting talk. We are glad you are here. Im harold connor, a member of the Museum Foundation board