Having me. Acy is in real peril. If we what led to it was the fear 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 coming after us. That is about as unamerican an idea we could be facing. Familyr reaction . My wife was for it. We had a checkered career in business. Running the democratic rePublic Schools, its own challenge. She was up for another challenge. My daughters had different reactions. We have three daughters. The girl who was then 14 said, you should absolutely run. Reaction right out of the shoe. It made me glad that she was so proud of my Public Service. The longer we talked, she sought as an opportunity for me to be out of the house during her 15th year of life. Be burning the place down from i know right now. My 20yearold daughter, her reaction was, if you run and tell the truth and you lose, no one can follow you for that. I said to her, its good that you say that. Theres no other reason for me to run. I dont think theres any other way for me to win. I was glad to send her the editorial from the des moines registry, the largest newspaper in iowa, that had a headline from the Editorial Board that said, Michael Bennet pounds truth into this campaign. Thats at least a small token of what her charge was when i decided to run. Theres also an editorial from gary hart. Said that you have vision. What is your vision . . That democracy is vitally important to humanity and that we have inherited an imperfect over 230 years. As americans over that time, we have worked to make this country more democratic, more fair, more free. It is our obligation to provide the same to the next generation. The next generation of americans doesnt believe that is what were leaving to them. They believe we are leaving to them a mountain of debt, a lack of investment in our infrastructure, Climate Change unaddressed, 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 , as the son ofld a woman who survived the holocaust, she was a polish jew. Her grandparents left warsaw after the war. They went to stockholm for a year and then mexico city. Iny came to the only country the world were they could rebuild their shattered lives. I now know how important the idea of america is for people struggling to be free all over the world. Its not that we are perfect, far from it. We are a beacon to the rest of the world. I believe that reestablishing our place in the world will be one of the things the next president will have to do. Lets talk strategy. How do you get back on the debate stage . How do you break through . The debate stage is just a discouraging place for the American People. I wont pretend that i wouldnt like to be on there. I wish i were on there. It is not doing a good job of elucidating the issues. Its not doing a good job of equipping our candidates, putting them in a position to be to donald trump. Going forward, i hope we find a way to free ourselves from this. Ive often said that i think that roasts should be done away with. Its an art form that has outlived its usefulness. I feel the same way about these debates. There has to be a better way to get candidates to engage and to have a debate, a real conversation with the American People. I have tod all that, do better than expected in iowa and New Hampshire in order to stay in the race. I think i have a different perspective than other people about the nature of the corruption we face and how we have to overcome it. I have a different experience from the other people in the race. I spent a lot of time in business and running the demo Public Schools and 10 years in the senate. I think thats a useful set of experiences. We are in the middle of the impeachment debate. You will be a juror if it comes to the senate floor. What has this done for the country, democrats and republicans . Is too early to tell. 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. Thats what i hope comes from this. You and i will both remember watergate. That was a dark time in american history. Backdropam war was the for what was going on. The democracy one that. Winpe the democracy will this episode. When you talk to your constituents, what are they telling you . Mostly they are focused on their own economic situation. Summarizing the last 10 years of town halls in colorado, it would be people saying, we are working really hard. We cannot afford a middleclass life. We cant save the next generation. Thats the vast majority of people in the state. One of the most dynamic economies in america. Im hearing the same things. You delayed your hounds announcement because of prostate cancer. How are you feeling . Im feeling great. Nobody wants to worry about me. It was really scary. I was done with it in five weeks. What i would say to anybody watching is if you have a prostate, get it screened. If you dont, get Something Else screened. Ini hadnt had it picked up a primary care screening, i would still be talking to you. I would be really sick. I wouldnt know it. Its another reminder of why its morally reprehensible that we dont have universal health care. What does that mean for you personally . Did you make it more reflective . It was interesting for me. Pathologically, it made me more committed to running for president. I discovered that i was feeling really disappointed in the prospect of not being able to do it. I did not think i would run for president. Useful if ie been had. And then i got cancer. I thought, now i will not be able to run. I was deeply disappointed. I discovered that i would get through it. Again, it made me feel it is insane that we have a Health Care System in this country where every single american doesnt have access to the kind of primary care that i had access to, the kind of screen screening i have access to to detect my cancerin area 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. Care, going to the emergency room to get things done with. Believed that you have to try to take every day make everyday count. I believe that on the backside of the cancer diagnosis. We read your brother in the new york times. Whos the better writer . By far, hes the better writer. I think im a good writer. Not nearly as good as he is. Hes a gifted editor. Ive learned a tremendous amount from him over the years that ive tried to transmit to my three daughters. How to write short and compelling sentences. What was your path to colorado . You were not born there. I got married to susan daggett. She had a job offer in colorado right before we got married. How did you meet her . We were in law school together. She didnt know that. I knew that because i knew who she was. I saw her Walking Around the halls of high school. We met on a blind date at a concert. 1990 or so. 1994, i guess. She wanted to take a job with me at the sierra club. There. Wed her for a while, you headed up the denver Public Schools. What was the biggest challenge . What did you learn . Before i was in that shop, i was in the business of turning around distressed companies, companies that were wellrun companies but had terrible balance sheets, fixing bankruptcies. Those experiences helped a lot when i got to the denver Public Schools. We had had declining enrollment for years. Every year, enrollment decline. We cut the academic offerings for kids. Kids and families responded by leaving the School District. It was a long, difficult process that involved a lot of people. Until recently, denver was the fastestgrowing urban School District in america. A month ago, was a study done by Stanford University that said the kids in denver are growing faster academically than the kids and the rest of the state. Its as if they have 60 Additional School easier. On a 180 day calendar, thats not nothing. We still have massive achievement gaps in my School District, it haunts me every day. We are living in a country now where 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 inequality we have rather than liberating. The best predictor of the quality of your education is your parents income. That has to change in america. You never here about this on the debate stage ever. From the Vantage Point of the , theresat i work for not a more important issue. This lack of equity in our schools, the segregation in our schools, it is something that is tearing at the heart of our democracy. It needs to be a focus in the next presidency. How do you fix it . When do you start . Is it prek, preschool . How do you clean up a lot of wasted time for students getting to and from school, in between classes . It is such a great point. It is not one thing. Its a million things. Decidely matters that we design the way we pay teachers that discriminates against women. You have two choices. Being a teacher or a nurse. We will pay you a salary that no one else in your College Class would accept. Stick with us for 30 years, we will give you a pension you can retire on. Was all we offered when we developed the system. When we design the system 300 years ago, it was important for kids to be available to work in the fields in the summertime. He still have a ninemonth calendar that reflects that Agrarian Society that we dont live in anymore. Its not one thing. Its a million things. We have to take the system that is designed from two centuries ago and bring it into the 21st century. You mentioned preschool. If you took a focus group of them,ans today and asked what is the Democratic Party standing for on education . You would hear, pre free college. I am more interested in free preschool for american students. Dropouts start in fiscal. Thats when it starts. The 70 of kids that graduate from high school and dont go on to college . They are forced to earn minimum wage jobs because we havent trained them with the School Skills they need to earn a living wage. We should reinvent high school so that every kid that graduates with a High School Degree can earn a living range wage. That would transform the lives of millions of americans. When should the School Year Began and and . And . I would not design the school year for everybody in america. If i were designing one for my own kids, for the kids i used to work for, it should be yearround. More Shorter Breaks is better than having a long break in the middle of the summer. People dont put it to good use academically. My kids hate to hear me see this. Say this. Kids would be in school 60s week, not five days a week. I will never get that accomplished. Its a reminder of how much more time you need to be focused on education. The other conclusion i have reached is that when one group of kids has access to preschool and another group does not, through no fault of their own, april is not equal. Is not equal. We have to invest more in poor kids education in this country than we are. We have to do more for parents. Instead of fighting a losing battle for medicare for all over the next 10 years, i would rather win a battle to End Child Poverty in this country. That would make a huge difference for our country and the kids that i used to work for in the denver Public Schools. Intheres an ongoing debate republican circles whether we need the department of education. What is the role of the federal government when it comes to education . Its a great question. Its important because it administers our student loan program. I wish we use that program to incentivize universities to keep their cost low. College has gotten so expensive. From a k12 perspective, what it would be to help people on the ground learn best practices from other places and transmit them across the country. What the department of education money from the federal government to local communities. My percent of what we spend on k12 education. We have an important and vital federal role and National Role to make sure that the civil education ise of 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 their. That represents the origins of the department of education. You have been at administrator, you are a senator. How do you make a decision . How do you structure the decisionmaking process for the white house . When people asked me, how have you done what youve done, i say, i find people that are better at doing their jobs than i would ever be. Help put them against a challenge together that we face that is mutual. Thats 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 out of the private sector. Thats what always done. I didnt have a quick 12 background. I found the best people across the country and in denver. Some of whom who were it levels down in the bureaucracy. Putting a Leadership Team to make the effort, 20 take the effort. I believe that having the most diverse Leadership Team that you can possibly have is significant the worst decisions i make are the ones that make by myself in my house. Are those contending with people with different points of view with different expertise. I would expect to see a group of very talented people and very diverse people, people willing to say no to a president. The way i would reach decisions is by weighing the evidence with those competing viewpoints and reaching a conclusion. How would you define your ideology . I believe in democracy. Thats how i define my ideology. Pragmatic, aall me pragmatic progressive, pragmatic idealist. I believe in democracy. I believe our democracy is at risk. I will do everything i can do to protect it. The great debate in the Democratic Party is the Progressive Agenda that is providing a path forward on so many Different Levels and a more pragmatic approach that you and biden and others are proposing. I realize that is how the newspapers to find it. I dont actually accept that. What are the policies that will be most useful for the kids and families i used to work for . Fighting a losing battle about medicare for all, i dont think thats progressive. That will not make any difference. Ending childhood poverty would make a massive difference. That those are the terms of the debate. Thats one of the reasons why am running, trying to change that. Who shaped your agenda . A teacher, your parents . The kids in denver. Their families. In the five years i worked with them in an effort to try to deliver a better quality , i think for them thats really what has shaped my ideology. The 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. My father was a public servant. He told me that Public Service is a noble thing. I see the people testifying in this impeachment trial and standing up for the men and women in our intelligence agencies and armed forces in the state department, it reminds me that its been too long since people stood up for the Public Servants that my dad was one of. We should be proud of them. My mom and her grandparents came here as refugees from having survived the holocaust in warsaw. They lived the immigrant dream here in america. All of that served to make me who i am. Injured at work for the state department . He did. He had different result duty. He was not in the foreign service. I was born in new delhi, india. It was part of kennedys effort to promote democracy around the world. Then he worked in the carter state department. He was the assistant secretary for legislative affairs when they had to get the panama canal treaty through. Could you imagine getting that treaty through today . He was able to do it, Congress Actually functioned. Administration, he was secretary for international organization. He loved working at the state department. He was head of the agency for international development. You were the former head of the Democratic Senate campaign committee. As you look at 2020, putting on your political hat, how did the democrats regain control of the summit grip senate . I wish more candidates were thinking about this. It cannot be an afterthought. The president ial candidates need to be on focus as focused on winning the majority of the senate as they are the presidency. Shouldwo imperatives create a discipline going into the selection which will allow us to beat donald trump. That, what itbout will take to win in purple states like colorado. Im the only candidate in this race who has one to National Elections in a purple state. When im in New Hampshire, one of the early states, i think about somebody like the senator from New Hampshire. If we ran the president ial election the way she ran her race in New Hampshire, we will win. If we run like were running in state, wee space open up the risk that we could lose. That would be a tragedy. For us to turn around the placeary and to put in the progressive policies that we need to be able to address childhood poverty and Climate Change, it will require us to have a majority in the senate. Dont want to say one thing in the primary and another in the general election. You have to have the discipline to say the same thing in the primary and general election. If we do that, we will win. Did gary hart give you any advice . He did. He mostly gave me an inspiration. I was 1 in the polls once, too. He ended up going on to win the New Hampshire primary because of a lot of peoples help. His advice mostly was to get in the race. Hes a big believer that its important to be involved. Understands that much of this process is putting one foot in front of the other until something good happens and you make your unlock in this world. Let me put a hypothetical on the table. You are the president elect. You are in the oval office eating with meeting with donald trump. What do you tell him . Thank you. Can i now take over . Just try to have as quick a conversation as i can possibly have. What . What do you think of the president . Hes a danger to our democracy. Hes a symptom of our challenges , not the central cause. Hes the symptom of 50 years of no economic nobility mobility. Not somebody who had a clue about what this country needs. I think hes the weakest foreign president 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. With china position in this trade negotiation where i think xi can put the thumb on the scale of whether trump gets reelected. He can say, i will give that guy a deal on trade that will be good,. Trip trump has the chance to get reelected. I think everyone would want that. Look at what he did in northern syria. After fiveesident years of fighting isis successfully where we lost six ,uys over five years, tragic kurds lost 11,000 people. Donald trump abandoned them because he couldnt stand up to president erdogan. He spent the last weekend tweeting out stuff that if anybody at cspan tweeted out the stuff he did, a law firm or a bank, you would be meeting with the Hr Department on monday morning. If you dont stop this, you will lose your job. The answer to that from the employer was, dont worry about it. Im a stable genius. Dont worry about it, i have unmatched wisdom. You can get fired. This guy is the president of the united states. The whole weekend he was assessed 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 represent half of the gdp of the world. We were nowhere. The iranians were doubling the know of it number of centrifuges they are spinning to enrich uranium. Thats just one weekend of having donald trump is our president. That doesnt 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. China is building fiberoptic cable to connect latin america with africa. The costs are huge. I think hes the worst president weve ever had. I think he is the least patriotic president weve ever had. I think he should not serve more than one term. Thats what i think. Let me conclude with this president. Question. It is not me, it is us. In in the foreignpolicy problems or all levels. We have to decide if we are serious about reserving our democracy. We have to have a set of tax restore Child Poverty in america and make sure they have access to Climate Change and we have to take money out of it and put the people by andturning Citizens United gerrymandering in this country. Ban every member of congress from becoming a lobbyist and make sure every Single Person that is eligible to vote has a chance to vote. Democracy is profoundly at risk and we can save it. Donald trump ran for president saying i loan can fix it. I think that is opposite of the truth. Whethermore porton is we as citizens take on the role to restore our democracy and the whole world is watching and the whole world now is understanding what happens when they dont have the example that we have historically set at the champion of democracy and champion of diversity and that is what we need in a president and we all need to do our part, so i would say whoever you support, make sure you vote and make sure every Single Person who is eligible that you know votes. Nominee, wouldhe you selected Vice President a woman for vice cspan boss washington journal live with news and policy issues that impact here. Up, president of the National Constitution center Jeffrey Wilson will join us to talk about the impeachment process and the constitution. Also with us is a National Reporter for the Washington Post who preview the week ahead in the impeachment inquiry. Watch washington journal live at 7 00 eastern this morning. President ial candidate senator Elizabeth Warren holds a town hall in iowa city at the university of iowa today. Easternerage of 4 45 online or listen live. Congress is back in session. Work on awill Prescription Drug pricing bill and Voting Rights legislation. The house and senate have until september 20 to pass all 12 enteral funding bills to avoid a government shutdown. Work on ato finish 2020 defense policy bill. The house returns on tuesday. The senate will load on the Energy Secretary nominee when they return. He is currently the Deputy Center to deputy Energy Secretary perry at the senate will worst on will work on judicial nominations. Cspan sat down with 2020 democratic president ial candidate and former Massachusetts Governor deval patrick. He talks about why he entered the race, his stance on certain policy issues, and his childhood in chicago. Patrick,ernor deval the question everyone is asking is, why are you running . Ive had a range of professional and Life Experiences solving problems in business, government, in this country and overseas, and the opportunity to have big ideas on the agenda and bring people together in order to address those big ideas is just endlessly appealing to me, and we are at a time i think in this country, where the anxiety, economically, socially, that you see a broad is something that is very familiar to me having grown up on the southside of chicago, where we saw the steel