Good afternoon, everybody. Good afternoon and welcome. Here at the unit Franklin Pierce school of law. My name is john and i direct the rudman center. It provides curricular, experiential, and Financial Support for law students interested in public student readers. It serves as the face of the university here in concord by presenting public programming such as todays event. We are happy to be able to partner with the aclu of New Hampshire with an ongoing series of Civil Liberties and the presidency. We are happy to welcome to the law school senator cory booker from the state of new jersey. Not New Hampshire. [applause] senator booker has been a senator since 2013. Before that, he was the mayor of newark, new jersey, from 2006 to 2013. He served on the council in new york. Graduate of Stanford University and yale law school. Moderating todays event will be genie from the aclu of New Hampshire. Neither the aclu New Hampshire nor the rudman center, we are both nonpartisan organizations and neither endorses political candidates. With that, please welcome senator cory booker. [applause] hello, everybody. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Sit down, for crying out loud. They have already told me to not go beyond the boundaries of the aclu sign. As a former footfall football player, whenever im stationary, i think a linebacker will hit me. I really want to get into a conversation. Understand that im here because literally, americans were really willing to stand up for the rights of people who do not necessarily look or pray like them or are even in the same geography. It was a group of activists in a small town in new jersey years ago that made this determination that black families would try to move into northern new jersey suburbs, the can for the best public schools, and they said they would stand up and fight for them. They formed a group that would do sting operations in new jersey and they would follow black families around. Away couple volunteering would say hey, i would like to buy this house. One family was mine. I was two months old in 1969. My parents were denied moving into the house i grew up in. Activists showed up and helped my family by home they were originally denied. What is amazing about the story is the light couples, papers were drawn up and on the day of the closing in the Real Estate Agent office, the white couple did not show up. My dad did, and a volunteer lawyer from that group of activists. They confronted the Real Estate Agent in his office and then he stands up and punch as my dads lawyer in the face and six a dog on my dad. Growing up in this beautiful town, in this great neighborhood, every time i dad told this story, the dog would get bigger. [laughter] my family has values that your family probably shares. I grew up in a university because of a 4. 0, 1600 receiving yards. 4. 0 for carries. I studied for oxford and law school. For my parents, that was not success. My father said life is not about degrees you get but the service you give. Running legal clinics at yale, i decided my life would be about trying to pay back all of the blessings i inherited from activists willing to stand up on the front lines, take punches, people willing to stand together for my rights. You drink deeply from wells of freedom, liberty, and opportunity. My first job, i decided to move into one of americas lowest neighborhoods. I became a tenant right lawyer and i had to pay it forward. My career began in no low Income Community fighting for america. I am the only United States senator and the only person running for this office below the poverty line. We fought and made tremendous changes. We made changes in our community. Walk around my block. I try to get reporters to do it with me all the time. Black businesses have opened. Schools are outperforming the suburbs. Are of thousands of jobs being created fighting against gentrification by doubling the production of Affordable Housing and making sure everybody has a community to live in. We are able to transform newark and outcomes people thought were not possible. Now the Number One School system in america. So many changes that when i got down to the senate, i knew what it took to make changes. It is how we made change in newark. Bring people together to stand and Work Together to understand we were all called, as king says, a that in justice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. A black guy going down to the senate, the fourth ever elected in the country, i wanted to be a voice of lived experiences and start taking on the big fights that were devastating communities across this country and communities in my hometown of newark. Those were things like criminal Justice Reform, the only major bipartisan bill passed by this president was something i write i helped write. Even the things i did not get past, the dignity of women in prison, that legislation is so strong it has picked up by 10 states and passed on the state level. I have one driving concern my entire life. Will this nation lift up to all of its people and say we will be a nation of liberty and justice for all, but these words are still aspirational. I want to make one interesting point to you. Change does not come from washington but to washington. It is not like they said hey, lets give women the right to vote and then they said ok break. No. One day, came to the senate floor and said, i see the light, let those negro people have writes. No. Why do those lawyers represent black families . One night, sitting at home, march 7, 1964, the movie most americans were watching that night was judgment at nuremberg in this historic night in america. They broke away to show a bridge in alabama. The Edmund Pettus bridge. Civil rights marchers were marching, get stopped on that bridge by state troopers who would not let them pass. Then this guy on a couch in new jersey, a white man, sees them get viciously beaten. We know the day as bloody sunday. I spoke to john lewis his chief of staff today. He was on the bridge. What does one guy on a couch in new jersey do . Does he sit there and be a spectator for democracy question democracy . No. He got up on the couch, realized he could not afford a ticket, so he decides to do this Great American tradition, the best i can with what i have and where i am. Who might need some Legal Support in new jersey, a group of activists in the living room, they put together a sting operation. Four years past he said. A family coming up in the south so they cannot find housing and northern new jersey and they are being turned away. He said we represented the family and you know the two names on the case fire and i said no. He said your parents. Im literally sitting here right now because of civil rights activists that i know. I am also here now because it like i new jersey, middleclass and living comfortably, new that his freedom was intrinsically tied to the mothers of america. He stood up, and im running to be president for the United States. I could be the first descended of slaves in our country to go to the white house, built by slaves. All of these things are possible not because of who the president was her who the senators were, but because of the engagement of the citizens of this country. People understand patriotism isnt love of country. You cannot love your country if you do not love the men and women of your country. Not sentimentality, love is sacrifice. Service. When great activists said, what is love look like in public . It looks like justice. Thank you for being hit today so we can have a conversation about justice. [applause] thank you. We will get started with a q a. Me having the privilege of asking questions and taking questions from the audience. Well start with a question, our criminal Justice Reform and race. We have an inherently unjust criminal system in this country where too often, your experience of the system is based on the color of your skin and your income level, as opposed to what you have done. You have committed to extensive criminal Justice Reform and i want to give you a chance to lay out what your top reforms would be as president. Anyone running for president needs to have earned trust. Have long experiences. This issue you bring up, criminal Justice Reform, is not just a tavon my website. It is my lifes effort. I started in law school when a crime bill passed. I knew it would lead to from the time i was in law school to newark, this nation was building a new prison or jail every 10 days. This is not just Racial Disparity and incarceration. This is the new jim crow. It has literally devastated american communities. At villanova, they did a study that shows we have 20 less poverty if our incarceration rates were the same as industrial peers. What should offend all of us is, i went to college and saw a lot of people using drugs. I know, not here this law school, but there is a different standard for different people. There is a no difference, blacks, whites, using and dealing drugs, but if youre black, you are almost four times as likely to be incarcerated for it. If you say that we do not incarcerate people for marijuana usage anymore, and 2017, there were more marijuana arrest than all Violent Crimes combined. Its a lifetime sentence. You may not serve jail time, but now you cannot get a job or a loan from the bank. Your life and economic outcomes have changed. If you have children, their lives are changed forever. We now have more africanamericans because of mass incarceration. More africanamericans under criminal supervision of his country than all the slaves in 1850. Before i talk to you, about what i will do as president , this will be a fight. In every level of my career, we talk about being in reforms and making big changes. This is not a side issue for me. And the mass incarceration, i will do everything my power to tear down the system and end Racial Disparity come all the best disparity, not just incarceration but the things that lead to incarcerations. We have systems of suspension in our schools that were the same exact infractions, African American boys and girls are so much more likely to have out of School Suspensions which are correlated with challenges with police. We have a Racial Disparity from environmental injustice, housing injustices, Racial Disparities in housing that all lead to massive disparities and it has to stop. My career has been based upon this. More than a dozen pieces of legislation i have been pushing a moving as you United States senator speak to that. When i am president of the United States, we have seen other president s line up with new visions of, tough on crime, hiring police, all of that stuff that over incarcerate our country. I will be one of the legacies, one of my legacies will be ending mass incarceration, not a punitive Justice System but restorative Justice System. I will press you on a couple of specifics there. Legalizing cannabis . There is able in the senate called the marijuana justice act. I wrote it and lead it. Please do not talk about legalizing marijuana, if not in the same paragraph, you do not talk about expunging peoples record. [applause] im a guy who never drank alcohol. My bill involves im in law school, lets be specific. These schedule lysing marijuana and calling for a number of other things. Expunging records. Holding states accountable. State laws. I believe, fundamentally, that states legalizing marijuana should not exclude people from getting contracts to sellers. This is an industry that is overwhelmingly white. A lot of folks convicted for doing things that two of the last three president s admitted to doing, cannot even get business opportunities. It is called the marijuana justice bill because it is a lot bigger than legalizing cannabis. Many of the people incarcerated in this country are incarcerated in state prisons and state jails. There is a question of how much the president can actually do to end mass incarceration. Howd you incentivize the states to take action . I know you believe that Substance Abuse disorders are medical issues and should be treated medically instead of through incarceration. How do you incentivize states to adopt the same philosophy . You know that one thing that drove mass incarceration was federal policy , to change mandatory minimums, and gave the money needed to build more prisons. We make massive amounts of dollars available to the states that we are changing criminal Justice Systems and locking people up. I was the mayor of a city with complicated challenges. We know there are streams of funding. Thank you. [laughter] the casualty of this campaign for me is always my voice. Now i can talk with my inside voice. There are streams of income we can now withhold from states that are not doing productive things. My Justice Department, i view them in my civil rights division, i will view them the same way Johnson Administration and the Kennedy Administration did. Making sure the ideals of our country. If you have Racial Disparities and incarceration, they are our there are fundamental problems with that. In the same way the Obama Administration, use the Justice Department to investigate disparities in policing. North new jersey, and i was a black mayor the data analyses, they showed us we have massive disparities in the stats we were doing against lack and brown people. In the same way the Obama Administration was leaning into the account buddy of policeman, they help cities like mine do a better job. We need to do better on disparities and incarceration, education, and the treatment of lgbtq americans. Many states have savage inequality on race, orientation, and even religion that have to be addressed. We will go to the audience. I grew up in melbourne. [inaudible] on a serious nature, the Current Administration is to do everything they can to drive wedges between all of the minorities in the country, black communities, brown committees, hispanic communities, Southeast Asia and communities, and muslim committees. There is a huge increase in hate crimes across the country, including just last week at a rabbis home during the celebration of hanukkah, a celebration a lot of time when oppressed people fought back and won. I am curious what strategies you can do to reunite yourself when they are afraid to speak up when theyre on their own, but realize we can overcome and that is the most critical part. Anyone from new jersey quoting star wars. Thank you. As a scifi fanatic. One of the things making fear in jacked into our society. We have become a more fearbased culture because of a president from his immigration policies, striking fear to immigrant committees, all the way to even condemning nazis. Since 9 11, there have been more terrorist attacks driven by rightwing extremists and the majority of those happen of white supremacists. One thing, if im president of the United States, im commanderinchief. Martin with her king said i cannot legislate you to love me but i can pass rules to stop you from lynching me. I cannot have lost to change her heart, but i can pass laws that can restrain the heartless. We can do a lot more to naming and acknowledging white supremacy, naming and technology and decent antisemitic violence, naming analogy and he islamic violence, and support it before it happens and better do the things we know and researchers know can diffuse these things before they rise up into violent acts. Number two is the energy you are putting out in the overall oval office. This president now is using their platforms to divide the nation against itself, to try and pit americans against americans. You may not want this as president , but i hope you will support me if you do. So much is about policy issues but the thrust of my campaign is creating conditions necessary to make the policy change is possible. It means to stop hate in this country, where we go home from the holiday for the holidays and cannot sit with family members because of the tribalism in our country and the 60 Million People who voted for donald trump are not our enemy. I want to put Mitch Mcconnell back in the back benches, i will do everything i can to make sure that happens. It does not happen by being like the very people we are trying to get out of office. [applause] im running for a town hall in iowa, im a big guy, a former allamerican football player. The older i get, the better it was. The big i stop me and puts his arm around me and says dude, want you to punch donald trump in the face and i look at him and say, dude, that is a felony. We black guys do not get away with that much. We beat him because activism called to the best of who we are and inspired people in birmingham, when king wrote those letters, he did not write them for the hatemongers of the country who will always be in the minority. He called to the good people doing nothing. This is a challenge now. In our politics, im a democrat who can tell you the end goal for me is not beating republicans. It is uniting americans with a common cause and common purpose. That brings me to the last [applause] i am going to use my platforms every day to heal, to inspire a more courageous empathy, to ignite a civic grace. These are all things that are critically important, but you said one thing, though, that i want to be very clear, antisemitism is on a massive rise. The monthly stabbing attacks, we need to call it and name it. It was not either or, it was both of these two things. One of the shames of this country is how we treat americans with Mental Illness. People coming in and out of prisons in jail never getting the support they need, and by the way, they should never be going there in the first place. If you drill down on the monthly attacks, here is a person that shows so many signs of crisis, of serious Mental Illness, schizophrenia, and try to treat people, that is a human rights issue, the shanklin as a society shameful miss of bash shameful mess of a society that takes people with a Mental Illness and put them in a condition that makes their Mental Illness worse. A ban on juvenile solitary environment and the United States. That is a human rights violation. It is proven it triggers Mental Illness or causes Mental Illness. You are much more likely to commit suicide as a child when that happens. Under my presidency, this is what i mean, to use your constitutional duties, but the other call in the highest office of the land is to use that form bash platform platform to inspire that grace and that empathy, to create the necessary preconditions to call good people back into the field, to keep the fight going to affirm the dignity and the humidity of humanity of all people. [applause] so i want to build on that with an interesting issue, and that is surveillance, because one of the concerns that have come up is with the rise of white nationalism, there is an increase of domestic surveillance, and as a Civil Liberties organization, surveillance is deeply troubling to us. Any surveillance that can be used on a terrorist organization can be used against local protesters. So how do you balance this . How do you balance the fight of hate crimes while also preserving personal privacy and making sure surveillance is not misused by the government . Watch the movie street fight. If you do not think love is a political force, it was nominated for an oscar, unfortunately it lost to the march of the dadgum penguins. [laughter] i had my phones tapped. I believe somebody was using their power to violate fundamental rights. This is a tough balance. We went way away from this. Remember, after 9 11, fear is a toxic thing, and people were willing to surrender basic american freedoms in the name of security. But when you do that, you lose both. You lose your freedoms, and you lose your security. And as a guy who actually has to run stuff, this is an issue. So when i decided to put cameras all run newark and public spaces, the aclu of newark complained. And i think we may not agree with you, but we brought in to the table to write the Standard Operating Procedures of what we could do with those cameras. Have to find a balance, but there has to be far better accountability than what we see in the federal government right now. In the context of trunk, there are a lot of points that are being made. The fbi recently, their Inspector General word brought out a lot of very bad practices. Fisa courts, i can go through things that disturb me deeply. Privacy on the internet, who can get into that and who cant . If you are not every day wrestling with these thorny issues, problems are going to happen. My commitment is to find a way to strike that balance, and one of the ways to do this is to invite civil rights organizations to the table to help craft these policies and find that ground. Speaking of tax, which you just mentioned, you support thirdparty privacy, which is information held by a third party like facebook, google, amazon, and one of the issues that comes up here is how do you prevent companies from sharing data . We had a thirdparty privacy bill here in New Hampshire and had d. C. Lobbyists come in to fight it, because Tech Companies or their money off of private information. Here is the other balance. How do you strike the balance between supporting private business and also preserving personal privacy . We are way out of lack right now. And corporations are winning in ways that should outrage americans. I lost in this vote in the senate when Cable Companies who were paying, came to the United States government and said, we want to be able to take your viewing data now and sell that. I am already paying you, and now you want to take my viewing data and see how much scifi i actually watch . This is outrageous. Corporate power in this country is corrupting our powers in our individual rights. I do not know if we will agree on this or not, but i think Campaign Finance laws are violating our First Amendment rights. When you see a corporation is a human and they can now pump ungodly amounts of money onto our politics, i believe that suppresses my First Amendment right as a guy who is not a billionaire. So these are balances we now have come and im one of the people calling for regulations of these tech platforms, which i believe are violating the national security, and we can go into that as well, and we need to rebalance this to give individuals better control over your private data. [laughter] [applause] back to questions. You had your hand up there first. I am eager to talk about a hate crime that has been bothering me for many appeared years. On 24 may 1979, the governor of New Hampshire signed a bill to raise the drinking age, and i suddenly found myself no longer old enough. They felt i should be punished for crimes other people were doing, just the same as if you were going to go to jail for a crime committed by somebody else named cory booker. It is amazing that some people think it is terrible if the president withheld foreign aid as a way to pressure president zelensky into doing something, but it is perfectly ok for congress, that is you, to withhold highway construction money as a way to pressure state legislators and governors into committing a hate crime against people under 21. Now it is terrible as the owner of a private Catering Company is free to refuse service at a samesex wedding, but it is perfectly ok to put bulletproof vests into the same caterer refusing to serve. I want to talk on the subject of what you are talking about, but i think we run into some problems in this country when we equate things to hate crimes that look, i live in new jersey, and we just had a horrible shooting attack on Orthodox Jews in jersey city. I have seen the manifestoes and things they have written by hatred, and we have to be very careful, because these are now legal definitions, and when we start rolling around these terms, we delete the sense of urgency dealing with actual hate crimes, so i just want to stipulate that. The second thing about federal government doing things to drive down drinking ages, and again, we have a very specially designed republic to affirm states rights, and i think that is what you are getting to, is where is the balance on these things . Sir, i am going to be completely honest with you, i have never thought of drinking age as a policy issue. It has never been on my sort of agenda. I am open to learning more. I do not know the history you talked about in 1979. I was a nineyearold boy trying to figure out how big i could grow my afro. [laughter] and so i will look at these issues and everything like that, but i do worry about that balance, and as an African American in this country, i am uniquely aware that people continue to try to suppress the rights of minorities in this country under the guise of states rights. And we had that battle in the 1960s, where states were trying to do things. We have that battle right now on Voting Rights in this country, where all of these states you like it is their prerogative to write voting laws that are suppressive. As i said in north carolina, the laws were nearly tailored, the judge said, to disenfranchise africanamerican voters. You know my bias right now. I respect states rights, but if you are violating the rights of transgender americans, violating the Voting Rights of all americans, if you are targeting minorities in your state in ways that i believe violate federal law, my Justice Department will uphold the law. I will not do what this of administration is doing, pulling back all civil rights protection from affected groups, and really allowing free reign for states to do things that are violative of what i think are basic american principles established by the bill of rights. You mentioned an issue that is actually very pertinent in New Hampshire right now. I know what my cue its. [laughter] my name is polana. So i joined a friend today at the dmv today, for those of you who do not know, yesterday at the dmv, New Hampshire started officially offering nonbinary drivers licenses. [cheers and applause] yeah this is actually one of my endorsers. Oh i was pointing to senator waters, who was the cosponsor. My other endorser. Multiple of my endorsers are here. I went with them, and it was like pure joy as we got this action. We went out to breakfast afterwards, and now i want one on my passport, but that is not an option. I am curious, if elected, would you support nonbinary identities and legal documentations . Yes. If you want a short answer, yes. Again, i had this mother i still remember when roots was coming out, going back to the 1970s, and my mother was one of these mothers are i used to get upset about as a child, and now she is a super hero to me, but she said before we watch roots, we will read the book, and one of them is called the invisible man, and when we render people into invisibility, when you bring people back to the center of affirming their dignity, their identity, you begin to move toward justice far more. So this is not an issue of convenience, no, this is a fundamental issue of justice, and so i want to go one step further, because when i was mayor of the city of newark, i am a guy who and again, john lewis, a guy i am talking about a lot, he had an idea of good trouble, and i knew this was going to cause the trouble. It was 2006, and the Democratic Party leaders had not yet evolved on lgbtq issues, and they were opposed to marriage equality, but even more than that, they passed awful legislation, like the defense of marriage act. So i was one of these, and theres another mayor in california named gavin newsom, who i love to death, he is a dear friend of mine, and we tried to cause good trouble on a mayoral level. Ive raised a gay pride flag, and i got an anonymous hate calls, people who said they would never call support me again. I am cantankerous, and i said i have the power to mayorrry people, i will not marry anyone until everyone can get married. And at my first angry call with my mother, corey, you can marry one person. [laughter] this is a victory. Im proud of what you all have done here. Marriage is a victory and im proud of that. Everybody gets upset and emotional, the sheer physical danger of being day in america, being transgender in america. We just finished a year where 19 black transgender women were murdered because of who they were. We still live in a nation where 30 of lgbtq children report not going to school because of fear. The violence in this country, the bullying, the intimidation, the firings, because in the majority of states in america, you can be fired you can post your wedding pictures online, but you can be fired from your job with no Legal Recourse whatsoever. The reason why, like some other folks over here, that i am in original cosponsor, led the legislation for the equality act, is just as a demonstration that we have so much further to go in order to become a country where the rights of lgbtq are the same as the rights of mine, and so i celebrate these victories, but i do not want to in any way make people have any sense of understanding that we still dont live in a world where everything with a people take their lives into their own hand by just walking down streets, Holding Hands with somebody that they love. [applause] so that was an incredible legislative victory this year, and we are heading into a legislative session this week, and we are actually facing legislation that is targeting trans student athletes, and this is legislation and other states that would essentially result in full body cavity searches of young students. It is abhorrent, and it is obviously not coming from within New Hampshire, this is coming from outside. You mention on day one, i will be again restoring justice to trans americans, and im interested how you will combat this narrative where it is not just about legal issues, it is building up a culture that is inclusive. We have been here before. Every time there is a minority that culture picks on, we are back to the fight of whether they should participate equally in sports, in school, whatever it is. So how do you fight that . Again, my job when i was mayor was not just to execute the rule they give me. I will abide by the constitution, and i will do my job as a constitutional officer, your president , but i knew as mayor that part of my job was expanding the moral imagination of the whole country, because the country looks down on urban places like my city, and my career was about this idea, in the shadow of the greatness like of greatness like a of a guy like john lewis, susan b. Of greatness like a of a guy like john lewis, susan b. Anthony, i can go to the great activists, alice paul, a name everybody should know, the first protest in front of the white house ever was a suffrage protest, of someone who knew how to get national attention. Alice paul was then arrested, went on hunger strikes. These are my heroes. And so my if you give me, like the people of new jersey did the honor of representing you as the chief executive, i have the obligation to hold up to the previous ancestors who found ways to get more people onto fighting for the dignity and honor of all people. Anybody who is running for president , i want to know what you have done to do that before. When i was mayor of the city of newark, we got national attention. I said you know what, i am the mayor of this city. There is a disproportionately high number of People Living on food stamps, so i did this incredible odyssey of trying to live on food stamps. I am a horrible cook. I did not know i literally had come in my neighborhood, i have always lived in neighborhoods at her above the poverty line, having my neighbors come in and have mercy on me to teach me things, like why are you buying canned beans, buy dry beans, they are cheaper. I lost so much weight, because i was going to bed hungry almost every night. But that testimony had me on National News talking about the absurdity of the amount of money we are given to families and children that are struggling. People in my Neighborhood Work fulltime jobs, extra shifts, and they need food stamps. When i was a city council person, how could people ignore the clear and present danger of people who live in communities, where children are dying every day . So i went into a place called guard inspires and set up a tent, miles away from the healthy suburbs, and i said to the social public media, i am going on a strike. As a mayor, i was able to get the country to Pay Attention to, to invest in, to take part in the revolutions in new york, but make me your president , and i understand my obligation is to make, to bring about the best and who we are, we are a good people, we are loving people, but we have to understand. I say this about religion, and i am one of these people who say before you tell me about your religion, for show it to me, but we have a civic gospel that we say in our pledges, liberty and justice for all, we have one of the greatest national anthems, and at the end of it, we say home of the brave, when our veterans, disproportionally, when they come home, they are homeless. The president , look at his twitter feed, his nastiness, he has the bravado, his meanness. I am a guy who will break a lot of norms in your presidency as well, but not break in the way he is doing, mean, the grading, dividing, i will do it in the ways i did as a mayor come as a city council person, to challenge us to have a deeper empathy and grace and decency toward each other, because that is our legacy, that is our history, and i believe that is going to be the future of this country, to rise up with that spirit and truly make this a nation that lives up to the greatest words that we sing in our songs and pledges. [applause] so to live up to that, we would want to add gender identity to federal not dissemination productions, which means getting it through congress. Here is the issue of bipartisanship, right . We can also talk about reproductive rights, issues that are inherently civil rights oriented and have become, unfortunately, inherently partisan. We have had canadas come in with sweeping reforms that they themselves cannot achieve, because they have to get it through congress. With the same issue, emotional courage, how do you achieve bipartisanship on issues that have not been for quite some time, like trans rights, like reproductive rights . Two quick points on that. The first is, this is why, if you want to heal this country, you cannot do it in a partisan way. I am very serious about this. King said, you know, darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that. I have had people who come up to me and say i want a democrat who can fight fire with fire. Iran a fire department. It is not a good strategy, yall. [laughter] i tried you have a dinner or meal with every one of my republican colleagues. I went to dinner with ted cruz. It was hard. [laughter] it was hard to find a restaurant, because i am a vegan, and he is from texas, for crying out loud. He and i passed legislation together to help communities recover after a natural disaster. I go to bible study and rightwing, conservative, chairman of the committee, inhouse offices, and i noticed there was a black girl prominently placed on his shelf. I found that curious. Turns out she is adopted by his daughter. I dont know if i have that right, it might be his son, but my point is i went to him about these horrible challenges about not disaggregating data for homeless kids in foster children, which means we cannot hold people accountable to outcomes, and he got on the bill. We passed it criminal Justice Reform, i had Newt Gingrich in my office, the coke brothers in my office, Grover Norquist in my office. If i didnt do that, we wouldnt have the coalition to pass bills now to get people literate. Let me speak very blunt with you. When it comes to this party, you want me on the head of the ticket in the next election. Why . Because we have got to ignite the entire Rainbow Coalition of the Democratic Party. If black folks had turned out of the same levels in 2016 as they did in 2012, we would be talking about president Hillary Clinton right now. In jersey, when i had a special election, Chris Christie did not want it on his election, we did it three weeks earlier, africanamerican turnout between 30 and 40 . When it was the normal election, three weeks later, in november, people up and down the ticket drop down between 9 and 10 . If you do not have an authentic connection to communities of color as a president ial candidate and can ignite record turnout, you talk about getting the presidency back on it goes back to north carolina. Obama was running, we had a democratic senator. Arizona, south carolina, these are states where black and brown constituencies are essential. I believe i am the best person to do everything to do with Civil Liberties, not only education, but dear god, if you want to make sure we have judges on the bench, someone i pray for everyday is ruth hader ginsburg ruth bader ginsburg. [applause] this gets me back to the point again. I will look to a fact checker, one of the most annoying reporters of my life, a guy named cruz, who is sitting right there, and i want to say this, even though the guy and i have come to bighead batting, the media is not the enemy of the people. In fact, they are important. He has held me a accountable my entire political career, you son of a gun. So he knows the wild and wacky things i did as the mayor of the city of newark to get legislation, things past that people told me we could not do, and so if i became the mayor of newark in a recession, when people were literally leaving, walking out of our cities, i was running around the country trying to get help, foundations would not return my calls, i am not kidding, they laughed at me when i talk about food deserts, i was desperate to find change. And so the creativity of your next executive, the ability to reimagine things is so important. So have this guy, come up and fact checked me afterwards, when one night on the tonight show, the curtain opens up, conan obrien comes on, they insult our city. Like they often do. Kicking communities, detroit jokes, chicago violence jokes, he says i think the best health care ticket idea for newark is a bus ticket out of town. So i am like i got you. Got fake mad and said conan obrien has insulted the city of newark. I basically said conan obrien, you have insulted the city of newark, i hereby ban you from newark airport, you are on the nofly list, try jfk, buddy, and it went up online. The video goes so viral that i get an avalanche of calls from city hall, including civil libertarians, who did not know it was a joke and getting on me about violating Conan Obriens civil rights. As if we do not have more important people to worry about. I am not exaggerating, the tsa put a clarification on it was right that mayors in on their website that mayors in america do not have the power to ban people from their airport. It was such a big story that i am now getting earned media for newark that we were never getting before. Everybody is coming, satellite trucks, city hall and i am doing interviews bragging about the dignity of my city. It becomes so big that conan obrien goes on his show, shows my video, it gets millions of hits of earned media, and that he bans me from Burbank Airport which, those of you who fly to the l. A. Area, not a big deal. L. A. X. Is better. It becomes one of the biggest stories of that week, the battle between me and conan. I go back and ban him from the state of new jersey, of course, and then one of my heroes, this person did so much for human rights on planet earth, humans womens rights, human rights, she was secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, she sent her own video, basically she just said cory, conan, give peace a chance, and the next thing you know, the tonight show curtain opens up, the mayor of newark goes on stage, is apologized to by conan obrien, writes money to charity, and that is not the kicker to the story, now i am a national name. I call foundations, and they return my calls. Developers presented to newark, we got construction, supermarkets that laughed at me, i shop there a few weeks ago. This is not a test of who has the best policy plans. I am serious. Why . Because most of the people on stage i work with, and they are brilliant, good people. Democrats attacking democrats really annoys me, because i know the character of every person running for president , and they are great, righteous people that wake up every day and wanted to get good done. Like most of the others, they will take the best policy ideas from wherever they can get them, and i hope they take them from me if i am not the guy. This is what we need our next president. Do not make this with your head, make the decision with your heart and your gut. Who can best ignite the moral imagination of this country . Who can challenge us to deepen the quality of our mercy . Who can call us to the best of our ideals, where the best four letter word that can be dropped is not the ones were our president using but is love . That is what my heroes who adorn my walls, that is what they stood for. They called this country out, and people responded. John lewis, who is suffering today, his brilliance was not condemning people. One of the people that beat him, bloody sunday, we know, one of the people came to his Congressional Office with his grandchild and in tears begged him for forgiveness. What did he do . Did he do the bravado, angry retaliation we see in the highest office of our land now . No. He wept with that man and forgave him, because all of us are people in development, all of us have made mistakes, and we all know we should not be judged by the least of what we have done. This election is about heart and spirit and values and who can best ignite them in the heart of our country. [applause] what does your arm say . We dont know the things in life that may come. It may be that one day i will no longer be anyone. Thats one of those things you have to think about a little while. Im very concerned about the trump administrations war on journalism. Im disturbed about what is happening to Julian Assange who is being locked in solitary confinement faces extradition to the country. What you going to do to defend this man who has done quite a bit to inform us about water about what our government is doing in our name . This is one legal case i dont know as much as you do. Im not going to comment on that. I dont know all the facts of the case. If he has broken our loss, he should be afforded due process. We havent a country that treats you better if you are rich and guilty than if you are poor and innocent. Im going to make sure we do justice and talk about the bigger question. The charge of fake news right now, it makes other countries are literally imprisoning people now. We have an attack on journalism , making journalists less safe. Were hearing things that totalitarian governments say all the time. Its coming out of the mouths of the people in our higher offices. This is a crisis in our country and equally challenging to me is the fact that the very strategies of the russians is this misinformation idea to try to get america to the point that they dont know who to trust anymore and by the way, we all have to take some responsibility. We are not to blame. Well have to take responsibility because we are creating a system of fractured where what gets rewarded my state newspaper, people are getting compensated based on the click theres on their stories. 20 of your salary is placed on clicks. What behavior is that incentivizing . We have a real challenge with news information and our country that we need to take seriously now before it becomes worse than it is. And im telling you right now, i because in the political context, what does that reward . If i were to yell at donald trump when he was talking you lie, i might have my best fundraising quarter as a president ial candidate and i make that statement when obama had that happened to him, that guy had his best fundraising quarter. We reward that behavior. One guy i know was on a show called crossfire, the two of them got to know each other as friends. , pullard to hate up close people in. These guys were paid to sit together, but they are human beings and started talking and realized they had so much in common so they decided to last segment of the show was going to be called cease fire and they would talk about the things they would agree on. Guess what the producers did . They stopped it because they saw ratings go down. You want to hand off to the next show with high ratings. All of us have to take responsibility for what is happening to ideas of truth and information because we are not as divided as our media wants us to be. I know. 90 of americans believe on commonsense gun safety but we cant pass laws. Another one. Obamacare. You poll republicans, significant amounts against it. You take obamas name off of it, you poll the individual policies, people love it. We have become such a fractured society. We are benefiting some people. I dont buy into that and so im going to do everything i can for due process. The media plays an important role. This is a larger context in our society. We have to start addressing the erosion of our institutions, the erosions of trust and what we are doing towards sensationalism, halftruths and it is now polluting our most sacred spaces which are the civic discourses essential for a thriving democracy. [applause] we will try a couple of quick questions. First week in office, repeal the muslim ban . O god, yes. Quick answer, yes, and a lot of other things. Touching on immigration which is the issue of detainers where local lawenforcement hold someone until they can get their. Would you prevent ice from using local Law Enforcement . Yes. When i was mayor of the city of newark, we became vilified on fox news for saying no. You have your local police doing federal immigration law. You create lack of safety for your community. Immigrant communities. They dont want to talk to anybody within the Police Department because of a fear of being deported. I will make america so much safer around immigration issues. Him injecting less safe. Violating our values and hurting our economy. Poorpresident is making us and less safe. Questions . Hello,. Am doris and i am very grateful for your candidacy. Im hearing you speak from your heart. We here in New Hampshire have a rightsmmigrants network. We are trying to get all of the candidates to go to the border pp. See the effect of the m i wonder if you would consider doing that. Booker my core values, one of them is a verse from matthew 25. When i was in prison, you hungry,me, when i was you said me. This is my life. I have been to the border multiple times. An organization a few months ago asked me to come down. I have been to the border multiple times. [inaudible] are women and walked across the bridge. Before that, i went into mexico. I went late at night around midnight, we walked over the bridge and as soon as we got over the bridge, a mexican official jumps out and says you need to go back, it is too dangerous. I dont know if you noticed, im a big guy. Former tight end im just joking. [laughter] what the experience is of someone trying to cross the border. They have people stations on the bridge to stop me before i could even step in to america. He starts asking me for papers and im complying and also asking him a lot of questions. He was a little frustrated by my questions. Me who i was. Ed i look at him and say my name is cory booker, im a United States senator and he goes you need to talk to Public Relations people and so i happen to have on my phone the head of customs and Border Protection who represented things to me that i was seeing were not true. I was seeing that people, moms with Young Children at night were being sent back into a town that this 63 black guy from jersey was told was not safe to walk into, but the citizens escaping, and challenges are being sent back were now i know they are preyed upon and so i will continue to go. I have gone to Immigration Detention Centers to help a woman in missouri who was she was not we felt getting the treatment needed. I have gone to private persons private prisons. In texas to check on their conditions. I have been to my own state which has had a lot of controversy. This is something that all americans have to understand and that these things are being done in our name. That are violating human rights. If you dont know the st. Louis, it is a ship that came from nazi europe that came to our shores seeking asylum and our country turned it around and many died in the holocaust and we say it a lot never again. One of my best moments as an american is when i went when the muslim ban happened, i heard we got a federal court order because people being detained were not being given right to counsel and so i jumped in a car, drove up with my team and i was charging in to talk to the Border Patrol and then i walked in and get stopped in my tracks because the whole concourse is full of hundreds and hundreds americans. I do find hope as the act of conviction to not let despair have the last word. There were not going to let the last word of our country be despairing of peoples rights and exterminated against based on the religion. People corrupted and chairs, people dancing and singing. It was amazing. The guy tells me that as people came out of the day, we were cheering hundreds of people and except for corey, there were no international flight. I have done that and will continue to do that no matter what position i hold or what title i have cured as long as i am an american i will not try to preach our values more than i act on them. [applause] we are running out of time so we will end with one question which is on reproductive rights. It is january, the anniversary of roe v. Wade is this month. Would you run on protecting the Hyde Amendment . Senator booker this is an attack on Many Americans and an attack on women and i want to be very specific that from the time i was in college this was an attack on low income communities. The one thing i wanted to know is other president s with elevated issues credit offices on combating hiv and aids, i will create an office of reproductive freedom in the white house to make sure we coordinate between multiple agencies and protect and make sure humans have control of their own body. All of these things are fundamental rights and i will do everything i can as your president to defend. [applause] thank you, everyone and we want to thank the senator for joining us today. If you dont already, follow the aclu on twitter. We will be having more of these. Thank you so much for coming. [applause] senator booker i have 15 toutes my staff just told me stand up here and take some selfies. If that is what folks want. If you can find a way to make fun of cruz over there. Presente a christmas for you. I made it. My wife wanted you to see why she is not here. Issue going to be ok . Going to be ok . Yes. Senator booker im so happy to hear you are ok. I want to send you love and healing and thanks to your family for empowering me on this journey. Love you and god bless you. Thank you, corey. I appreciate your dedication to civil rights. Booker that is my middle name. I know you are a great guy. [laughter] ka with the alzheimers association. Thank you so much for your support. We really appreciate it. Thank you so much. Quick question. You said you would not support the right to vote. [inaudible conversations] senator booker i strongly believe that we reduce incarceration. The reason there is distraction is because having people [inaudible] rights to vote. It is undermining the rights i have. Which is ending mass incarceration. Lets talk more in a minute. Ok, thank you. I have a question for you. [indiscernible] mainly people of color. Just to talk about the environmental injustices. You are right. Thank you, guys. Sen. Booker the first of their kind in the work when i was mayor the first of their kind wark where i was mayor. I have a question for you. Do you think this is too much . I can cover it up. [inaudible conversations] sen. Booker can we call amanda today and find out what is going on . Sure. Email me, that would be great. I love your hat. Thank you. So good to see you again. Would you ever be willing to send an email to john lewis . What your name . Name . T is your sarah. Im her mom. Sen. Booker thank you. Nice to meet you. I am a former brooklynite. Beautiful. historic. We were in el paso and we visited every saturday. Had 11 guys. How are you . Nice to meet you. Sen. Booker where you from originally . [indiscernible] i cant speak for other candidates. Thank you. Have a great day. Have a great day. I go to school here. Thank you for coming to the school. Thank you for being so accessible. Sen. Booker thank you. They need a federal law that if you are about to get deported , you get a public defender and getnterpreter then when you naturalized come of the statute of limitations is over. They made a material omission. It is still final. [inaudible conversations] show ] of yourin awe authenticity. Sen. Booker thank you so much. I am also inspired by gandhi. I would love to talk to you about five minutes when you have time. Sen. Booker please speak to erin. Thank you so much for injecting so much positivity. I am a jersey native. I went to school in jersey. They have a campus overseas. Yes, that is right. Thank you. Sen. Booker thank you for being here. Thank you for coming here. Sen. Booker appreciate you. Hello, how are you . Can we get one with you . I want to get out of the shadow. [indiscernible] hello, senator, my name is Kaylee Howard and i am a law student here. Sen. Booker should we get a picture . That would be great. Thank you. Hello. Thanks so much for being here. Born in jersey. Sen. Booker which down . Which town . Moorestown. Town. Rris can i ask a big question . Sen. Booker with the possibility of ginsburg with her age how do you propose we tackle that . There are a lot of things from Citizens United to Voting Rights to roe v. Wade we have a long way to go. [indiscernible] there are other things we can do as well. Im not saying it will be easy. It never was. I just want to say hello again. It i am with you all the way. Thank you for inspiring so many people. Take care. Sen. Booker do you want to take a selfie . That is ok. You have long arms. The situation at the border where you have been. The situation has deteriorated. The danger people are knowntering i want to if you are going to go back to the border and lead the rest of the president ial candidates in demanding that we stop the humanitarian crisis. I dont know what is going to happen on valentines day. I know from bernie and elizabeth i am confident. I will continue doing this. I will continue to support organizations like i have as a citizen giving resources to lawyers who are down there fighting. [inaudible conversations] show there are mothers down there trying to decide where they are going to die and where their children are going to die. Or they tried to cross and they are made criminals. We are doing things that violate our laws and values and it has to stop. I will continue to be one of those people going there to make this more of a center issue. Thank you for going and i invite you to go again because it has gotten ever so much worse. Thank you so much. Good luck. Good luck to you. 78 a sabbatical on the farm. I have a quick story. In 1978 i got student tickets. And they do their thing. My uncle was 78 years old at the time. Sen. Booker one of my friends was a tree when i was there. Good luck to you. Sitting 20 rows back. I caught passes from him when i was a kid. Good luck to you. A lot of what you said really resonated with me but this is the one thing i disagree with you on. I am very concerned with the partisan nonsense in washington i saw people like Maxine Waters tell supporters to harass members of Donald Trumps cabinet. Some people are talking about 9 11. On an airplane. I did know people that died that day. Mig sen. Booker and im so sorry. I have to run. But things are taken out of context. This is not a time to deepen divisions among us. One of my best friends was in that tower. There is concern about terrorism and attacks. To try to turn us against fellow americans weakens americans. Im so sorry that i am out of time, i have to run. If youre the democratic nominee, instead of attacking president trump, try to tell the country what youre going to do gavebooker every speech i , i say this is not a referendum. We need to talk about what we are for and not just what we are against. One more thing. I sell you one tv and you said and i laughed. Sen. Booker at the end of the day, we can get you information if it is something that weve talked about before. Just reach out. Im sorry we dont have a chance. Dont really email that much. Thank you very much. Sen. Booker great to see you. We will see you again. In campaign 2020 news, democratic president ial castrote julian announced he is suspending his campaign for the white house. This is the message he released on twitter. [speaking spanish]