Sen. Warren you can see judy and i got the memo on what to wear today. I love it. Anybody else in bright pink . We have got a few more. It is good to see you all. Im so glad to have this chance to be with you and so glad, in fact, that i brought family with me. I have my son, alex. Where are you, son . There he is. Where . Guy in the blue shirt. [applause] sen. Warren now, just so you know, alex has been my tech support since second grade. [laughter] sen. Warren its true. He now runs his own small business, but he has picked up a new sideline. The new sideline is called support your mother when she runs for president of the United States. [laughter] sen. Warren thank you, alex. [applause] sen. Warren so i thought what we would do today is that i tell you just a little bit about myself, a little bit about why im in this race. I will try to do that as quick as i can. Then we will take as many questions as possible so that i am covering the things most important to you. Then we will engage in that most important part of democracy, selfies. [laughter] [applause] sen. Warren i will stay as long as you want. Well do selfies. I just thought i would tell you a little bit about me. I was born and raised in oklahoma. Dead silence. [laughter] sen. Warren not an okie in the group. Nobody even said i drove through once on the way to texas. Somebody did, good. There arent that many of us. I have three much older brothers. I am what used to be known as a late in life baby. My mother always just called me the surprise. My three older brothers are all now retired. They all live back in oklahoma. To this day, they are referred to as the boys, to distinguish them from the surprise. When we were growing up, our daddy had a lot of different jobs. He sold paint. He sold carpet. He sold fencing. He sold houseware. Ultimately, he ended up as a janitor. My mom was a stayathome mom until she was 50. After my daddy had a heart attack, she went to work to work a minimum wage job at sears. All three of my brothers went to join the military. It was their chance to serve, and also, lets be frank, it was a path to americas middle class. I am proud of all of my brothers. Me, i have known what i wanted to do since second grade. I hear some giggles. Some of you in the back probably did not decide until fourth grade. [laughter] sen. Warren i have known what i wanted to do since second grade and i have never wavered from it. I wanted to be a Public School teacher. Can we hear it for americas Public School teachers . [applause] sen. Warren yes. [applause] sen. Warren and i invested early. I used to line my dollies up and teach school. I had a reputation for being tough but fair. [laughter] sen. Warren anytime anyone asked, i wanted to be a Public School teacher. By the time i was ready to graduate from high school, my family didnt have the money for a college application, much less to send me off to four years at a university. Like a lot of americans, i dont have a Straight Path story. I have a story with a lot of twists and turns. Heres how my story goes. I was a high school debater. I got a scholarship to college. Woo hoo. [applause] sen. Warren you bet. Then at 19, i fell in love, got married, and dropped out. Woo hoo. [laughter] sen. Warren a good life, a life i had chosen, but i thought that was it on the chance to be a Public School teacher. I thought i gave that one up. We were living outside houston. Thats when i found it. A commuter college 45 minutes away cost 50 a semester. For a price i could pay for on a parttime waitressing job, i finished my four year diploma, i became a special education teacher. I have lived my dream job. [applause] sen. Warren have i got some schoolteachers in here . We got a bunch. We have a bunch. Lets give them a round of applause. [cheers and applause] sen. Warren i am going to need you to back me up on this. Teaching is not a job, it is a calling. I loved the work. I had four to sixyearolds in special education. To this day, i can remember my babies. I loved my babies. I probably would still be doing that work, but like i said, my story has some twists and turns. Heres how it goes. By the end of the first year, i was visibly pregnant. The principal did what principals did in those days, wished me luck and hired someone else for the job. Ok. So there we are. Now im at home. We are living in new jersey by now. I got a baby, i cant get a job, i have to do something. So i will go to law school. [laughter] sen. Warren i found a state law school. Cost 450 a semester. Baby on hip, i head off to law school, three years of law school, graduate visibly pregnant. You will discover a pattern to these stories. [laughter] sen. Warren take the bar, pass the bar, and practiced law for 45 minutes. [laughter] sen. Warren then went back to my first love, teaching. I traded little ones for big ones. I have taught pretty much my whole grownup life in law school. Other big change in my life about that time, husband number one, hint, it is never good when you have to number your husbands. [laughter] sen. Warren yes. Husband number one and i parted ways, but i found bruce. When you find a good one, hang onto them. Im still married to him. Thats right. Only two so far. [applause] sen. Warren so far. Heres the thing. Im teaching in law school. I dont know if its because of the kind of family i grew up in, but i taught the money courses. That is where i was always drawn. Contract law, commercial law, secured transactions, corporate finance, partnership finance, bankruptcy law. If it was about money, count me in. I was in the thick of it. But there was always one central issue that i worked on. That issue . Whats happening to americas working families. Why is americas middle class being hollowed out . Why is it that people who worked every bit as hard as my mom and dad worked two generations ago today find the path so much rockier and steeper . And for people of color, even rockier and even steeper. The answer is about decisions that get made in washington. Its about who our federal Government Works for. Think of it this way. We have a federal government that works great for giant drug companies. Just not for people who are trying to get a prescription filled. It works great for folks who want to make money investing in private prisons and Detention Centers down our border, down at our border, just not for the human beings whose lives are torn apart by those places. It works great for giant Oil Companies that want to drill everywhere, just not for the rest of us who see Climate Change bearing down upon us. [applause] sen. Warren and when you see a government that works great for those with money and not so great for everyone else, that is corruption, pure and simple, and we need to call it out for what it is. [applause] sen. Warren corruption. Understand this. Money flows everywhere through washington. Everywhere. It is about campaign contributions, you bet it is. It is also about lobbyists and lawyers and pr firms. Its about bought and paid for experts. And socalled think tanks, that just keep pushing on the government over and over and over. Think of it this way. Whatever issue brought you here today, the price of Prescription Drugs, Student Loan Debt, gun safety, anything that brought you here, if there is a decision to be made in washington, i guarantee it has been influenced by money. It has been shaped by money. It has had exceptions carved out by money. Money, money, money. If we are going to change that, we cant do it by just a nibble around the edge of a little here and a little there. It is going to take big, structural change to get it done. [applause] sen. Warren for me, that starts with attacking the corruption head on. I have had enough of playing defense. Its time to go on offense on corruption. [applause] sen. Warren heres the good news. I have the biggest anticorruption plan since watergate. Heres the bad news. We need the biggest anticorruption plan since watergate. This plan has lots of parts to it, but i want to give you a little sample out of it to get an idea of how it works. Part one, end lobbying as we know it. [applause] sen. Warren part two. End the revolving door between wall street and washington, between big ag and washington, big pharma and washington. Make it work. How about one more . I could do these all day long. Just one more. You really want to hose out corruption in washington, make every Single Person who runs for federal office put their tax returns online. [applause] sen. Warren so thats where i start this. Attack the corruption head on. If we can disrupt the influence of money, if we could just knock them back on their heels a little, if we could just bring some attention to this and start to hold our government accountable, then all kinds of other changes become possible, too. We could make this country work not just for those at the top, but make it work for everyone. Thats why im here. [applause] sen. Warren thank you. Lets hear some questions. Thank you. Ok. Lets do some questions. Where are our questions . Whats your name . My name is art johnson. Sen. Warren hi, art. I am a retired teacher, 42 years in the classroom. Sen. Warren god bless. My question is about the divisiveness in the country. You are elected president. How do you get people to come together . They are just unbelievably separate now. Sen. Warren its a great question, art. Lets start just a little bit by recognizing, those divisions in our country, they didnt just happen on their own. They arent the result of gravity or that we all got up one morning and decided we didnt like each other. Understand this. Donald trump has a strategy. The strategy is to turn people against people. It is to turn white against black and brown. It is to turn straight against gay and trans, particularly against trans. It is to turn christian against muslim and jew. It is to turn everybody against immigrants. Theres a reason for that. So long as we are fighting each other, then he hopes that we are not going to notice that donald trump and his corrupt buddies are both stealing our countrys great wealth and our good name all around this world. [applause] sen. Warren thats a big part of it. So, part of it is we have to be willing to fight back. We have to be willing to embrace each others fights. We have to be willing to say your fight is my fight. And build that coalition together. It is a big part of why i decided to run a Grassroots Movement rather than spend my time with rich people and run a bunch of tv ads. I wanted to be able to do this persontoperson here in iowa and New Hampshire and other parts of the country. Let me give you an idea about how we start to build something together. You know i mentioned my three older brothers . I was in oklahoma little over a week ago. One is a democrat. [laughter] sen. Warren do the math. Two are not. There are things we sharply disagree on. There are things that can take us from zero to shouting at each other in about 4. 2 seconds. Right . But there are also a lot of things we agree on. Let me tell you one of the places because i think this is important. Amazon. Not the part about delivering coffeemakers to your doorsteps. Actually, they all agree on that part. They love it. Its about the fact that last year, amazon reported more than 10 billion in profit. Anyone want to hold up a hand to show how much amazon paid in taxes . Zero. If you paid a single dollar of federal taxes last year, you paid more to keep this country going than amazon. You know what . That chaps all three of my brothers. The democrats and republicans. It makes them angry because they get it. We are getting cheated. Hardworking people who have to reach into their pockets to keep the roads and bridges paved, to keep our military going. They have to reach into their pockets. Amazon takes advantage. They get protected and they pay nothing. I say that another way to talk about this word is not just justere it is not republicans go to their corners and democrats go to theirs. The question of corruption in this country, the question of a country that works better and better and better for a thinner and thinner slice at the top, is one that cuts across political parties. This is not just democrats who are getting shortchanged. Its republicans, too. I believe we stay on that track, and then we talk about things, which i hope we will get a chance to do, like a two cent wealth tax, canceling Student Loan Debt, protecting and expanding Social Security, things we agree on, places we believe that together, we can build a future. I think we start from those things we agree on. We stop the ugliness against each other. That is how we begin to heal this country. [applause] sen. Warren thank you, art. Thank you. Hi. Hi. I am bobby. I have been an rn for 43 years. Sen. Warren thank you, bobbi. And i still am working, mostly in Mental Health. My question is, and im so saddened by this, is i work at a daycare center, a daycare that helps with ids, adults and mentally ill. These people in iowa have gotten their insurance changed twice in the last two years. This poor man came to me crying. His id, he has to get he cant have his psychiatrist he has had for 20 years because they wont accept his insurance. I am just appalled with this. These people dont have a voice. I want to be their voice. I want to stick up for them. This is just appalling. Why are we allowing this to happen . I want some change. I really feel like you are going to be our next president. I have total faith in you. You change this for us. Sen. Warren ok, bobbi, lets do this together. [applause] sen. Warren thank you. That is excellent. Lets talk about how we can make that change. I love this. Thank you for your work. Most of all, thank you for standing up for the people who dont have a voice, who cant be here to be part of this argument. Heres the thing about america. We can be the country that believes in the worth of every single human being and through our government, through the policies we put in place, we can reinforce that worth of every single human being. One place that starts is health care as a basic human right for everyone. For everyone. [applause] sen. Warren so here is my plan around that. What am i going to do . I love this part. First thing i am going to do day one as president , i will do everything a president can do all by herself. [cheers and applause] sen. Warren and heres how it works. I will defend the Affordable Care act, which is under attack. They have been trying to close people out of it. Millions have lost their health care. You can do this administratively. The second thing i will do is bring down the cost of Prescription Drugs, ones that are used regularly. Anybody in here use insulin or know somebody who does . Epipens. These are drugs that are still under patent. Theres a federal law that lets the president of the United States use what are called march in orders so they can bring down the cost of these drugs when they are too high. We just havent had a president who is willing to do that. I am the president who is willing to do that. [applause] sen. Warren it is going to save us billions of dollars. Then, lets talk for just a minute about full Health Care Coverage for everyone. Part one. It is possible to offer full Health Care Coverage, medicare for all, for everyone without costing middleclass families one single dime. We just have to ask those at the top to pay more. Yep. And let me describe how you do it. You increase the taxes on the top 1 . We can do that. On the big corporations like amazon that are paying nothing, we can do that. My personal favorite in how we get them to pay is we actually crack down on the tax cheaters at the top. We can make trillions of dollars doing this. [applause] sen. Warren we then use that money to fund full Health Care Coverage. Heres what im going to do. I will go forward with congress. We already have a way to do this in budget reconciliation. It means we only need 50 votes. It is not as hard as it looks. We can offer full Health Care Coverage to 135 million americans for free. We can offer full Health Care Coverage to the rest of america for a modest cost. We can let people across this country try. You are not forced into it if you dont want to, but try it. See what health care is like when its just between you and your doctor or your Mental Health provider, your nurse practitioner. Your physical therapist without some Insurance Companies standing in the middle to say no. Thats what we can do. [applause] sen. Warren and then, we get some experience with it. People have tried it out. And then, we vote on medicare for all for everyone. I feel confident that is where americans want to go, but this is what we do in a democracy. Thank you. Thank you for the question. Hi, my name is steve. Sen. Warren hi, steve. Im a retired Community College teacher, which was the best job i ever had. I congratulate you on the intestinal fortitude to go for this sometimes thankless job. I have a lot of questions, but the one i went to ask now is, im sick and tired of seeing shortterm profits and sacrificing longterm planning. This country does not do enough 10, 20, 30 year planning. The example is central and south america. We are paying the price for that right now. Sen. Warren yeah. So, you are exactly right about that. Can i take your example and tweak it a little . Can we talk for just a minute about the crisis down at our border . Understand, that is a trumpmade crisis. Countries in Central America that had been struggling for decades with gang wars and with governments that can just barely hold on, economies that cannot get their footing. And what does donald trump walk into the middle of that and do . Cut aid, cut support. And the consequence is the gangs get back on top, and that produces more and more threat. Let me tell you a very personal story about this one. Right after it came out that our federal government, your government and my government, the one we pay taxes to, was taking children away from their families down at the border, this was about a year and a half ago. I went down to mcallen, texas. I went down to one of these facilities, and i want you all to envision, it is like a giant amazon warehouse, only it is dirty and it smells bad. And i walked in, and on the left, it is just cage after cage after cage of men. Cages maybe 10 feet wide, 40 feet deep, a toilet back in the corner. Another, another, another. Packed in so tightly they could not all sit down at the same time. Over on the other side of the room, cages of women, just the same. And then i walked into the main space, and there, about the size of this middle section, is a freestanding cage of little girls. And then another cage of little girls, a cage over here of little boys. Back in the corner was a cage of nursing mothers. And i stopped and talked with several of them, but one of them, the story really stuck in my mind. A woman said that she had given a drink of water to a police officer, and word came back the next day that the gangs believed she was working with the police. She knew that meant she and her baby would be killed. And so, she wrapped up her baby and she ran for the border. So, heres how i think of this. First, when a mama comes running to our border in fear for her life and the life of her child, we treat her with some dignity and compassion. That is the nation we want to be. [applause] sen. Warren but part two goes directly to where you started this. We need to be looking out with longer vision. We need to be offering more assistance and getting more of our allies to assist, to help stabilize those economies, to help stabilize those governments. This is not a woman looking to immigrate to the United States. This was a woman who was terrified because the place she lived was no longer safe. And we need to think always about our position in the world and think about the longterm consequences of everything we do. And let me say that one more way. The longterm consequences. That also means we need to be a nation that lives our values every day. We never take children away from their families. Not ever. [applause] sen. Warren thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Hi. Hello. First of all, i am not in here to hold everybody up. Sen. Warren ok, good. I feel better now. Thank you. The flu is going around. Anyway. Sen. Warren weve had the flu run through our family. Bruce got it. Part of the reason he is not with us. I have two questions. The price of drugs. The other one is, do you, or any of them in the office, plan on taking Social Security out of the federal budget . Because they are double dipping. They are taking our money, everybody in here, plus, we still have to pay federal taxes. Sen. Warren i hear you. I tell you what, can we talk about Social Security . Lets do Social Security for everybody. Here is the thing on Social Security. We passed Social Security back in the mid1930s. And basically, we changed it roughly about 35 times between then and the late 1980s because people live longer, women went to work, different groups were included that had been excluded to begin with. Changes. Because we change as a country. So, we had to adjust taxes and adjusted for inflation and kept it going. Then, in the late 1980s, the republicans basically decided youre not going to make any more changes. Think about that. So, what happens is you start to create a deficit over time, because you are not building up and locking up your money the way you should be doing. And that looks little in the first year, but a little bit bigger in the next year and the next year and a little bit bigger and a little bit bigger, until we are now in a place, as you know, that by the mid2020s, we are in a place where Social Security is going to go off a cliff. It will not go to zero, but it will drop Social Security payments if we dont do anything, it will drop roughly by about 25 . Same thing will happen for disability payments. And i do not know about you but most of the people who are relying on Social Security are already squeezed hard enough, and sure cannot take that dip. At the same time that that is going on, the folks at the very top, they have been getting a sweeter and sweeter deal out of Social Security. It is not only the amount is capped that you have to pay Social Security on, it is they have figured out how to readjust their income so it is not subject to Social Security. Things like subchapter s corporations. It used to be about 93 of all income that came in was subject to Social Security taxes. Now, it is about 80 . And that difference is huge over time. So, here is the proposal i have got. Its that we straighten out our accounting to protect Social Security. We ask those at the top to pay their fair share on Social Security. That then gives us enough money to do two things. To extend the Financial Life of Social Security for decades to come. We put off any drops. And, we can increase every Social Security check and every disability check by 200 a month across this country. That we can do. You in . Good. [applause] sen. Warren and if i can, let me Say Something about that. Because that is a very nasty answer. I like math answers. You have already figured out i am a total nerd. I embrace that proudly. That i want to say, it is really a values question we are talking about here. After a lifetime of hard work, people are entitled to retire with dignity. And that means we have a moral obligation to protect and expand our Social Security system. So, that is the heart of it. Thank you. [applause] sen. Warren hi, we have another question . If i can real quick, we are going to sen. Warren do not step in where i spilled the water. Get your tickets out. If i draw your lucky number, go find ryan back there. Sen. Warren ok. More questions. 9948119. Sen. Warren 8119. Do we have anybody . 8119. We got somebody . You were just scratching. 8119. This will not be like it was in iowa city where we had this long pause and a woman was, oh. I think i have it, but i wrapped my gum in it. Ok. It still counted. Try another one. 8117. Head on back. All right. Sen. Warren good. 8107. Sen. Warren we have it . Fabulous. Come on over. I will get some more water. 8118. Head on back. Anybody come up with 8119 yet . Last call for 8119. 8113. Sen. Warren all right. And one more. 8111. Sen. Warren whoo fabulous. All right. Lets do this. Hi. Hi. We are from manchester. Sen. Warren tell me your name again . Reagan. Sen. Warren it is good to see you, reagan. I have a question, but she also has a really fast question. I really like books. What is your Favorite Book and why . Sen. Warren that is a good one. So, i really like the little engine that could. To me, its a book about people, or trains, that are kind of underrated, but they dont give up, and they just keep saying i think i can, i think i can, i think i can, and they get the job done. Do you like that one, reagan . I love your question. So, both of us have celiac disease we cannot eat gluten. Do not feel sorry for us. It makes us be very, very healthy. We feel very fortunate to be able to put fresh fruits and vegetables on the kids table, but i know there are millions of people in our country that have trouble getting fresh fruit and vegetables, affordable, to their kids. And we have an epidemic of childhood obesity. Can we talk about that . Sen. Warren can we talk about food . Ok. I am going to start in a place youre not going to expect, but i promise i will tie this together because i think it really matters. And that is, we have a problem in this country with giant corporations. Giant corporations that have swallowed up little baby corporations, small companies, mediumsized companies, and big companies, what used to be big companies. And the problem with these giant corporations is they have so much power. Power over their employees, power over their customers, power over the communities where they are located, and power in washington to keep getting the rules tilted in their direction. We want to have more innovation in this country. We want to have more local control. We want to have more smaller businesses. We want to have more opportunities to start something up and get it up and growing. We have antitrust laws that keep these giant corporations from being able to crush out the competition before it ever gets started, to keep them from being able to buy up the companies once they do get a business going. The problem is those antitrust laws are not enforced. It is time for a president who has the courage to enforce our antitrust laws. This is why i am here. [applause] sen. Warren and it relates to your issue because it relates to big ag. Yes, big ag, i am coming for you. Yes. Because big ag, like so many of the other giant corporations understand this. They are not loyal to our country. They are not loyal to american workers. They are not loyal to our government. They are loyal to exactly one thing and they say so openly profit, money, their own bottom line. And if that means they pick the most profitable crop and, say, plant it from fencepost to fencepost with no diversity and no concern about what it does to our environment in the longterm sustainability of these farms, they will do it, because they are here for the shortterm profit. And if it means that you can live in the middle of some of the richest farmland on the face of the earth, and yet not find fresh fruits and vegetables in your local stores, they dont care because all they care about is their bottom line profits. We want to change that. Its not enough to do a little law here, a little law there. We have to enforce our antitrust laws, and we have to let new businesses come in and do this. I think this is critical. [applause] sen. Warren do not leave yet. Do not leave yet. There is one more part to it, because there is one more part to it. Is not only a plan to break up the big guys, it is how we should be putting our family farms, our independent farms on the front lines in the fight against Climate Change. We need, as a federal government, to invest in our local farms and partner up if they want to to say if you will use sustainable methods, if you will get food to the local market, we will guarantee from the federal government that your model is profitable. Not the model of giant agribusiness, but your model, the one that is sustainable for families and the one that is sustainable for our planet. [applause] sen. Warren good. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks, reagan. Hi. Hi. My name is elle. Sen. Warren whoa, that is a beautiful name. Ok, i am ready. Why did you decide to run for president . Sen. Warren oh. Because i have two granddaughters who are just a little bit older than you are and a grandson who is a little younger than you are. And i figure, bruce and i, that is my husband, we have done pretty good. We have been blessed. We have had a lot of doors opened for us, and we are deeply grateful for those opportunities. But i worry about the world that you and my grandchildren are going to grow up in. I worry about this planet. I worry about this country and the state of our democracy. And not in a million years did i ever think i would run for any public office. But a few years back, the fight kind of came to my door. And there was a republican senator who represented me and represented the other folks from massachusetts, and i just basically disagreed with him on everything he voted for, pretty much. [laughter] sen. Warren yeah, we were running close to 100 there. He had a 65 approval rating, 10 million in the bank. Which, take my word for it, is a really good position to be in. And nobody thought that anybody could beat him, especially because he had just beaten a woman in a special election less than two years earlier. So a bunch of folks came to me and said, you should run for senate. You should get out there. I said i am a teacher, what do you mean . No, you should get out there. You have been talking about what has been happening to families all across america, you have been in this economic fight for a long time. You should get in this fight. You will totally lose, but you you should go ahead and get out there and do it. All i could say is democrats, get a better sales pitch. [laughter] sen. Warren but i looked at it and said, i am not sure anybody else is going to be able to beat this guy. And so, i got in the fight. And i started out down 17 points. I ended up beating him by 7. 5 points. [applause] sen. Warren and i learned that if you know why you are in a fight and you know who you are fighting for and i do that you get out there its a little like reagan and i were talking about you get out there like the little engine that could and you say every single day, i think i can, i think i can, until i get the job done. And that is what im going to do running for president. [applause] sen. Warren thank you. Thank you. I love your question. Hi. My name is courtney. Afgteter that, this is redundan, but i wanted to know how you remain so positive and engaging in society that is plagued with negativity. Sen. Warren that is a great question. I will give you an answer. Selfie lines. I am dead serious. I have been doing selfie lines since the 2012 elections. I will tell you part of the reason why. Once they told me i cannot possibly win, i decided two things. I decided i am going to make every day count. Every day i am in this race, im going to find some group of people, and im going to talk to them about what is broken in washington and what we can do to fix it. Whether it is three people or 30 or 300, im going to do that every single day. A second thing i will do is every time i meet a little girl, im going to say hello, my name is elizabeth, i am running for senate because that is what girls do. [cheers and applause] sen. Warren and then we started taking selfies. So we started doing it in 2012. That was my first election. I ran again in 2018. We took a bunch more selfies. When i got into the president ial race, which was almost exactly a year ago right now, i started by coming right here to iowa. We started the very first one with a selfie line. The reason i tell you that is so important is that it is a minute of just you and me looking at each other in the eye. It is a minute of being able to say, i am really worried about Prescription Drug prices, please. It is a minute of being able to say, i am worried about school shootings. It is a minute of saying, and here comes the best part, you give me hope. You talk about what is broken, but you also talk about how to fix it and how we can build a Grassroots Movement to get it done. And that gives me hope. So, you give me hope, and i will do my best to give you hope too. Thank you. Great question. [applause] my concern is about the economy. We have done great. Im concerned about the 2017 tax bill. There are backsides to this. And with 1 trillion in debt, what is going to happen here . Sen. Warren lets talk big economics for a minute here, and we will fit this one in as well. Big economics, for nearly 40 years now, we have tried trickledown economics in america, and it is a complete failure. [applause] sen. Warren a complete failure. I am sorry except for rich people. It has worked really well for them. Understand with the two parts of trickledown economics were. It was cut taxes for those at the top, and cut regulations for those at the top. In other words, fire the cops, and let the rich get richer and more powerful. Somehow, that was going to make the rest of the economy work. Do you know what happened . In one sense, it worked fine. 1980 to 2017, gdp in america does this. Corporate profits, the dow jones. Right . We are creating in this country enormous new wealth every year. New income every year. And you want to know how much of that new income from 1980, almost 40 years now, how much of that new income went to the 90 of america . Answer . Zero. Its actually. 04 , which rounds to zero. Think about that. 99. 6 of all new income generated in this country sucked up to the top. So what was the First Response of the Trump Administration when they got in . Tax cuts for those at the top, because they are not rich enough yet. Actually, they were pretty open about it. They said, our donors have been giving us this money all this time, and if we do not show a real payoff, they are going to stop giving us money. They just said it very openly. In fact, i hope everyone in this room, the next time anyone tells you the problem in washington is gridlock, laugh in their faces. Because it is not a gridlock problem. When they wanted to do tax cuts, five weeks. They went behind closed doors with the lobbyists, and with the big donors, and they wrote a tax bill that gave away what looked like initially 1 trillion. Then it turned out to be 1. 5 trillion. And now, the latest evidence as they rewrote all the regulations is it is closer to 2 trillion. And how much did it help the economy . They cannot even find any help to the economy. What it helped is it helped the rich get richer. So, the question is and it drives up our deficit. It means we are deep in debt as a country, and the tax break just drives us further and further into debt, which is something, going back to the youngsters we were talking about your grandchildren and my grandchildren have to pay for. We put it on their credit card, that is the whole deal. So we have this chance in 2020 to completely rethink how we look at this economy. Let me try to do this really quick. Part one, enforce the antitrust laws. You enforce those antitrust laws so that we get more growth in mediumsized towns. We get more growth in manchester. We do not just have big corporations running everything, and they do not have so much political power in washington. Part two, we need more power in the hands of workers. That means we need to make it easier to join a union and to give unions more power when they negotiate. [applause] sen. Warren unions built americas middle class. Give them a chance, unions will rebuild americas middle class. Thats part two. And then part three, i am going to do this in really short form. It is time for a wealth tax in america. Yeah. And my short version of this is, we put a 0. 02. Tax on the biggest fortunes in this country, the fortunes above 50 million, and that permits us to provide universal childcare for every baby in this country age zero to five. Think about that. Provides universal childcare for every threeyearold to fouryearold america. Permits us to cancel Student Loan Debt for 43 million americans. All of that is good for them individually, but think about what that means economically. It means that money comes right here to your town. If you have got the babies, that money is coming straight here. A local school wants to extend and have a new day care center, or a local church or private home, as long as they meet the standards, fire extinguishers and all those things as long as they do that, that puts money right back into the local economy. And that means mamas can finish their educations. Mamas and daddies can take jobs, be productive in the economy, and have that money to spend at the local grocery store, local restaurants. Have that money to spend to buy a car, have the money to spend on a down payment for a house. Maybe start your own business or your own farm. Have that money to spend here locally. Because that is the alternative way to understand how to grow an economy. It is not trickledown. Trickledown helps the rich get richer. What we need is we need an economy that grows from the grassroots up, and we can do that in 2020. And then we will pay off our debt. [applause] i am art. Sen. Warren martin . Art. My question is, i missed a credit card payment and my Interest Rate was raised 32 . How can we do something about this . Sen. Warren ok. I am going to do a short version of this, ok . There have been three periods in Consumer Credit in america. Period one starts when code of hammurabi, runs through biblical times and goes until 1980. [applause] sen. Warren all i am saying it is usury laws. They are in the bible, the koran, they were part of all the colonies. They have been part of american law and law around the world, because we understand the problems that those who have money squeeze those who dont. Bankruptcy is described in the bible that debts are forgiven every seven years. But as the big banks began to peck holes in our regulations, 1980, theyd effectively got rid of the laws. So then we run a period where the Credit Card Companies and Mortgage Companies and the payday lenders really start to figure out the money is not there for lending to people who can pay it back. The money is there for people who miss a payment, whether by accident or they just got a because these guys tricked you into changing the time. And that is how they started making real money. And that is when wall street raked it in by the double handful. And of course ultimately with mortgages, they took on so much risks they crashed the market in 2008. So that is period two. The answer to that is the Consumer Financial protection bureau. I will talk about that later. But they were given the power to be the watchdog. What they are supposed to do is watch out for you on exactly that kind of thing. So far they have made some real progress. There are some lying and cheating things that banks cannot do. Not the one on usery. So right now the federal laws and most of the state laws let them keep hiking up the Interest Rates no matter how much it tangles people up and gets their feet caught in webs that, for some, they can never get out of. So you asked me what i want to do. Here is what i want to do. I want a government that is not on the side of giant banks. I want a government that is on the side of consumers. We have a lot of the structure to make that happen, but we are going to have to do it together in 2020. Can we do that . Ok. Good. Thank you. [applause] sen. Warren so you can say i actually went to a political event with they talked about the code of hammurabi i. This will be our last question. Sen. Warren lets see what we can get in here. Engine that could. The little engine that could. Hi, my name is andrea. I fully support and agree with your decision that we need medicare for all. Sen. Warren good. My concern is, if we give it to some and did not make it mandatory for all, the costs go up because the people who will jump onto it the people with the most need. You know this. You are a numbers person. Talk to me a little bit about why we will not go all in right from the getgo. Sen. Warren we need to get the votes, and we need to get people some experience with it. Health care is deeply personal, and people are very uneasy, i think, about big changes in health care. And i understand that. So the way i see it is when i observed the new the Affordable Care act. Remember when we passed the Affordable Care act, that it was a long time before he went into effect . But then once it did, people got used to the notion that Insurance Companies could not discriminate against you because of preconceived preexisting conditions. Remember that part . And anybody under 26 stay on their parentss plan. Remember that part . Yeah. And somebody said, and i like that. That they could not charge women more. That being a woman was no longer a preexisting condition. [applause] sen. Warren right . The reason this is important to me in this story is, i remember the day that donald trump was inaugurated. Were any of you sober enough to remember that day . Just teasing. [laughter] sen. Warren i went. I come from a witnessing tradition. I know there were people who said they were not going to go to the inauguration. Not me. I thought it was important. When he was sworn in, i was maybe as far as donald trump is a lady in the gold vest. About that far away. And it was a good thing i went. Is now burned into the back of my eyeballs. Man, people say where does your energy come from. I close my eyes and i see donald trump and i go, im in. Back to work. [applause] sen. Warren but i remember that night. And that night i thought about when i was going back home, i thought about, 35 million americans could Lose Health Care by next friday. No way to stop it. Republicans had the majority in the house, the senate come and they have the white house. And that means they have the votes. And they have all said they are going to repeal the affordable because they ran on it. So, i thought about that night. What are we going to do . How are we going to stop him . We dont have the votes, and no legal device to stop them. And then the next day, i went to the largest protest rally in the history of the world, the womens march. [cheers and applause] sen. Warren and here is why that was so important. People spoke up. Lots and lots of people. It was an organic movement. It happened through lots of different places all around the country and all around the world. It was not just women here in the United States. A lot of people said, yeah, yeah, but are they going to be here in a month . The answer was yes. How about six months . You bet. We got in the fight. And we got in the fight, and i stood in the floor in august of that year, because it took that long. I stood in the senate when i watched the house, when every republican voted to repeal the Affordable Care act. Do you remember that . Voted to take away health care from 35 million americans. And then they highfived each other. Broke out the brewskies. Who does that over taking away health care for millions of americans . Then it came to the senate. We did not think we had the votes, but right at the end we had three republicans cross the aisle, and we saved health care for millions of americans. Now, the reason that is important is how many people why did that happen . Because people showed up and said i have tried this and i am keeping it. I have tried a Health Care System where they cannot discriminate against me because i have preexisting conditions. No one had even talked about preexisting conditions. For years this had been going on, that people have been knocked off insurance, people had been hurt, but there was no National Conversation about this. But that period of time, between the time republicans got elected and that summer when it came up for a vote, enough people across the country had shown up and said, whoa. I am not going back to a world where Insurance Companies can discriminate against me. I am not going back to a world where Insurance Companies will not let my kid get covered. So here is how i see this going forward. I have got a way to pay for it so we can be very generous in this. Lets open up the possibilities first. Lets let tens of millions of americans try it. Because we can afford to pay for it. Is not going to come out of middleclass familys pockets. Lets try health care across this country where it is just you and your doctor, your Mental Health professional, your pharmacy to get a prescription filled, and that is all it takes. Lets try it, and then lets do the vote on whether or not we lock everybody in. I am going to be out there fighting because i think the system that works best is to get us singlepayer. I believe in it. What i want in a democracy is i want a whole bunch of allies to make this happen. Because this is about building a future. Not just for some of us, about building a future that works for all of us. And a Health Care System where health care is a basic human right where everybody gets cover, where everyone at the top pays a fair share to make this happen thats in america that works better for all of us. And i think we can get there. I believe we can get there. Thank you. Thats a great question. [applause] sen. Warren great question. So, thank you all. These have just been wonderful questions. I love this. I am going to tell you one story and then we will wrap up. I want to tell you a story about a toaster. You did not see that coming. When i was a young mom, toasters could cause house fires. And the way that worked was those toaster ovens did not have automatic shutoff switches on them. You are nodding, you could do this. You could put bread in, slighted on, here the baby cry, run to the other end of the house, stay a little longer than you thought you had, and when you came back, the flames are leaping off the toast six to tate six to eight inches. If you are not careful in where you put it you might catch the kitchen curtains on fire. Ask me how i know. [laughter] sen. Warren all i will confess to is finally one year for christmas, my daddy bought me a fire extinction. The man knows how to party. So, along came the Consumer ProductSafety Commission and just said, enough. You just cannot sell a toaster in america that has a one in five chance of burning down your house. Done. They put Safety Switches on the toasters and that was the end of it. No more house fires from toasters. This goes back to the question from earlier. By the early 2000s, home mortgages had gotten so complex and so dangerous, they had a one in five chance of costing a family their home. Not through fire, but through foreclosure. Only this time, the government was not on the side of people, it was deep in the pocket of the big banks. And it told them to just keep selling these mortgages because that is how they were making big profit. And they sold those mortgages right up until they crashed the economy in 2008. And that is when i had the idea that i talked about a minute ago. And that is the idea for an agency. That is likely toaster agency, only for credit cards and mortgages and payday loans and Student Loans, basically to say banks cannot boost their profits by cheating people. Heres an agency that will do that over time as they find out new ways to cheat people. I do not have elected office. So i go down to washington and i knock on doors. I basically will talk to anyone who will talk to me. Democrat, republican, i want to pitch this idea because we have to start writing financial regulations. And i get what is basically the same two answers from almost everybody i talked to. The first one is, that is a great idea. You could actually make a real difference. That is structural change. The second, dont even try. You will be up against the big banks, up against wall street, you will be up against big money, every republican, and half the democrats. You will never get it done. I get it. Big structural change is hard. But it was the right thing to do. So we got in the fight and we took on the big money, and we took on wall street, and in 2010, president obama signed that agency into law. We won yeah [applause] sen. Warren and here is the thing. It has already forced the big banks to return more than 12 billion directly to people they cheated. We can make government work for the people. So what is the lesson that i drew from that . I understand this as even if the big money is against it, even if wall street is against it, we need big ideas to match the big problems in our country. We need big ideas to inspire people, to get out and caucus and get out and vote. We need big ideas to explain to the world who and what democrats will fight for. And we need big ideas to take back the senate and put Mitch Mcconnell out of a job. [cheers and applause] sen. Warren yep. Yes. We need big ideas, and we need to be willing to fight for them. You know, i get it. It is easy to make yourself sound so sophisticated. But just backing off from the big ideas. Heres the thing. When we give up on big ideas, we give up on the people whose lives would have been changed by those ideas. And those people are already in a fight. People struggling to pay their medical bills are already in a fight. People getting crushed by Student Loans are already in a fight. People getting stopped by the police or denied the right to vote because of the color of their skin are already in a fight, and those fights are our fights. [applause] sen. Warren our country is any crisis, and washington insiders and media pundits, and even people in our own party, do not want to admit it. They think that nibbling around the edges of really big problems is somehow the safe strategy. They are wrong. If the best we can promise is business as usual after donald trump, then we will lose. We win when we have big enough ideas to match the big problems in peoples lives. That is how we win. [applause] sen. Warren i am not running a campaign that has been shaped i of consultants. I do not have a bunch of proposals that are carefully designed not to offend billionaires. I passed that stop sign a long time ago. I am running a Campaign Based on a lifetime of fighting for working families. I am running a campaign from the heart. Because i believe that 2020 is an extraordinary moment in our history. I believe that 2020 is our time. 2020 is our time to win the fight for a Green New Deal and save our planet. Yes. [cheers and applause] sen. Warren 2020 is our time to win the fight for medicare for all and save our people. And 2020 is our time to win the fight for a two cent wealth tax and invest in an entire generation of young people. [cheers and applause] sen. Warren if you think that 2020 is our time in history, then i ask you today, commit to caucus for me. Get into this fight. Go to elizabeth warren. Com. Pitch in five dollars. Volunteer one hour. Do some phone banking. But get in the fight. This moment will not come our way again. This is our chance. Our chance to dream big, fight hard, and win. [cheers and applause] now for the fun part. Lets take some selfies, shall we . We are going to start lining up behind ryan there. If we can let folks with accessibility needs to go first, that would be wonderful. Head that way. And babies as well. [ Aretha Franklins respect ] [ aint no Mountain High enough ] campaign 2020, watch our continuing coverage of the president ial candidates on the campaign trail and make up your own mind. Month,voting begins next watch our live coverage of the iowa caucuses. Your unfiltered view of politics. Four look at the state departments Advisory Commission on public diplomacy. To examine u. S. Efforts to communicate with members of the public in other countries. We will hear from the commissions director live at noon. The house and senate are back this week, the house has yet to decide on impeachment matters. Eventually, the senate will sit as a jury to hear the case against President Trump. We are expecting the senate to take up the u. S. Mexicocanada trade agreement, which the house did approve in december. President trumbull deliver his state of the Union Address on february 4 President Trump will deliver his state of the Union Address on february 4. The impeachment of President Trump, continue to follow the process on cspan leading to a senate trial. Live, unfiltered coverage on cspan, ondemand at cspan. Org impeachment. Tonight on the