Transcripts For CSPAN Campaign 2020 Democratic Presidential Candidates Speak At We The People... 20240713

Abouta at an Event Campaign finance. [applause] i dont think i need this microphone. Fork you for coming, braving the cold. I think it is one degree outside. So, we are really excited to have six of the candidates in conversation with us. Joining us will be on livestream. The way this is going to work is the candidates will be coming out, speaking for a couple of minutes about plans to fix democracy, kevin and i will be asking them questions, then we will take questions from the audience. React toage you to things. Please be respectful. Haggling, protesting, no rushing the stage please. I would like to first introduce senator Elizabeth Warren, our first speaker. [applause] they just use your mind and they never give you credit, its enough to drive you crazy if you let it. Sen. Warren thank you. I think the single biggest question we face now and in america is who this government is going to work for. For decades, our government has worked better and better and better for a smaller and Smaller Group at the top. And worse and worse and worse for everyone else. When you have 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 understand this. It is going on right now in the primaries. We have billionaires who think they can just buy an election. Case in point, Michael Bloomberg, has already dropped 200 Million Dollars to make his voice heard and drown out every other voice in this democratic primary. Think about what that means . And he plans to skip the democracy part of the election. That is coming to places like iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and nevada and meeting people. Instead, it is all going to be set up for tv, running tbs to make it work. Running tv ads to make it work. And he has applied to the federal Election Commission to delay making his federally required financial disclosures. When does he want to delay it to . Until after super tuesday and we have very possibly picked our candidate by then. Think about that. If he has serious conflict of interests, business interests in other parts of the world or other corporations, when are we going to know about that . Not until after super tuesday. That is not how democracy is supposed to work and we need to shut that down. [applause] i am so glad to be here with all of you, because to me, this is our big chance in 2020, to build a Grassroots Movement, to make our voices heard across this nation, to say we do not want to government that just works for billionaires. We do not want to government that just works for giant corporations. Or just works for corporate executives. We want a government that works for the people. That is what democracy is about, and that is what we can do in 2020. Thank you all, thank you, thank you. [applause] sen. Warren alrighty. Lets do this. [laughter] kevin so, senator, you just talked about Michael Bloomberg. He spent a lot of time during this campaign decrying out size influence billionaires like Michael Bloomberg have on this process. Bloomberg has also said he will keep spending huge sums of money to support whoever the democratic nominee for president is. If you are that nominee, do you want his help, do you want his support or would you discourage him from spending that . Sen. Warren no, look, Michael Bloomberg wants to come in on issues, good for him. He wants to put money into getting a democrat elected, good for him. But understand this, i do not sell access to my time. I do not spend time sucking up to billionaires. [applause] i am just not there. So people want to make a contribution, thats great. But i am going to keep fighting the fight i am fighting. And that is a fight to make this government, to make this democracy work. Not just for a thinner and thinner slice of the top, to make it work for everyone. That is why i am here. Amanda Michael Bloomberg has given a lot of money to various groups over the years, to fill some of those folks may be endorsing him because he has bought their endorsement from support over the years . Sen. Warren i cannot know what is in their heads but what i can tell you is that money talks. And it talks over and over and over. You know how i know that . I watch it in washington. In every campaign. Understand this, when i made the decision to run for president , i knew what i would be fighting for. It is the same thing i have been fighting for all my life, for hardworking families that just keep getting the short end of the stick over and over. I knew the fight i would be in. But for me was important not just what i was fighting for but how i was fighting. So i talked to folks. There are people who are experts about getting people elected to big offices include president. And they came to see me. They said, heres how you do it. You go spend a huge amount of your time vacuuming up as much money from big dollar donors as you can all around the country. You get bundlers who are people who gather money from others and they get access to you, they promise in your name more access. They identify where this money is coming from, which industry, which interest. You gather up all that money. You make a few guest appearances in the early stage, you get your picture taken and then you run a bunch of tv ads. That is basic how works. And to meet that is the ultimate statement of what is broken in our democracy. The ultimate statement of why, for decades now, this country has worked better and better and better for those at the top. When i say better and better and better, think of the examples. Amazon, chevron, eli lilly reported billions of dollars in profits last year. How much did they pay in taxes . Zero. Zero. If you paid a dollar in taxes last year, you paid more than these corporations that reported billions of dollars in profits. How does that happen . Because of loopholes in the system. How did the loopholes get there . It is not like they are motheaten loopholes. [applause] [laughter] they did not happen as an act of nature. They happened because people kept putting money into the system. Money in Campaign Contributions. Money in lobbying. Money in bought and paid for experts. Pr firms. Money in tilted think tanks. Money, money, money. So i decided im not doing it that way. I said im going to find this thing entirely grassroots. And i am not going to my time. The consequence has been, a lot more time to be able to go do town halls. It also means building a Grassroots Movement. Because this is our only chance. We are going to be up against billionaires who are reaching their own candidates or candidates who have been selected by billionaires. The only way we fight back against that is we have got to do this with a Grassroots Movement across this country that says, we are going to make democracy work not for those at the top, we are going to make or make it work for all of us. [applause] amanda so i want to ask you a bit about judges. Trump has remade the federal judiciary, i think he has had almost 200 judges confirmed with the help of Mitch Mcconnell. Part of the way his been able to do that, a lot of these people have extreme positions, have been rated not qualified by the american bar association. He has been able to do this in part because he has flouted a tradition known as blue slips. Home state senators traditionally get approval or veto power over a judge that comes from their state. Trump has not followed that tradition. As president , would you follow the blue slip tradition . Sen. Warren you know i watched this on both sides. President obama honored the blue slip tradition, which meant in states that had two republicans, he could not come up with the nominee. In a few cases. Their view was keep this open until we get republican sitting in the white house and then because it will be open, we will be able to get more republicans on the bench. So they played blue slip game from one direction when there was a democrat in the white house and now that there is a republican in the white house, they play at the other direction and that is they have tossed the blue slip outcome as you say exactly and they named whoever they want to name. Heres a problem we have got about the judiciary. The answer cannot be, that when we get a democrat back in the white house, which is going to happen in january, 2021 [applause] sen. Warren we cannot work to make our judiciary more politicized. That cannot be the right answer. We can have a debate about whether or not blue slips make it more politicized or less politicized. And for that i think theres evidence going both ways. I do not think the blue slip is at the heart of it. I think what is at the heart of it is who you asked to be a judge, who you want on your list to be a judge. And i will tell you what the answers been for donald trump because ive seen this guy. Homophobic, that is in. Racist, that is in. Sexist, oh yeah, most definitely. And, antivoter. That has been a big qualification. He has named one person after another who and i do not mean we have kind of a sense that that is who those people are i mean look at the written records. Look at the activities they have already engaged in. Look at the fights they have been in and which side they were on. Our answer has to be that we have a judiciary that truly respects the rule of law. And respects every single human being in this country. That is the job of the judiciary. It is there to protect individual rights. It is not there to protect corporate rights. It is not there to protect the folks with money. It is there to protect individual rights. And i had the honor, as a baby senator, and i mean a baby senator, i had been elected, sworn in and then john kerry left to become secretary of state, it took me 15 minutes to become the senior senator from the commonwealth of massachusetts. [laughter] sen. Warren i had the honor to be able to recommend to barack obama, people to fill the vacancies we had in massachusetts. And for me, what was key on this were people who came from different backgrounds. People who had different experiences in the legal system. So the very first person i was able to nominate, a woman named indira talwani, who represented workers, who represented people who did not have much money, who saw the legal system not just from the side of giant corporate practice but who sought from the side of people who turned to the courts because they needed help. That is the kind of people i want to see on the bench. And i want to see us restore a bench where everybody no matter what Political Party you are in, no matter who you are, if you come in front of one of our federal benches, you have complete confidence that the people who are sitting on this bench are there to uphold the rule of law. And treat you with respect. [applause] amanda i want to get to an audience question but first want to go back to my blue slip question. If you go at put forth somebody meet your qualifications but republican home state senator jack set nominee would you pull back the nominee or go forward . Sen. Warren i want to see how it plays out. If it happens once, its different than if its an organized plan to try to block everyone who comes through from a democratic nominee. Im not going to play this game the other way either. Im not going to be the democrat assess if the democrats are the white house will play by the nice rules and when republicans are the white house we all play for the dirty rules. I am not playing that game. But i will give them a chance to at least join us in having a government that works again and a judicial pointman process that works again. [applause] amanda we are going to mark collins, who is an advocate, gun owner and a gun violence survivor. Sen. Warren hi, mark. Thank you for being here. I am a gun owner and someone who was previously impacted by gun violence. 20 years ago three of my coworkers were gunned down during a robbery. It affected my desk during a robbery. It affected our community. Theres a chilling parallel between a lot of those communities and those who are just proportionately underserved , often urban communities, often majority minority communities. You see the stories all the time, voter rolls are purged, partisan gerrymandering is enacted and entire communities are effectively silenced. Even universal background checks which has 95 approval across the country cannot get a vote in the u. S. Senate. How would you as president ensure these three needs are heard and that issues that confront them from Voter Suppression to gun violence are addressed in a way that includes their voices . Sen. Warren thank you. We have a gun violence in this gun violence problem in this country. It is about Mass Shootings and shootings that take place everyday and sidewalks and backyards and on street corners and disproportionally affect communities of color. It is also about suicide at and domestic violence. And the increased that woman will end up dead if she is in the house with an abuser who also has a gun. Reasonable background checks, getting assault weapons off our streets, strong public support. More than 90 in most of the polls i have seen including gun owners, including members of the nra. And yet in United States senate, we cannot even get a vote. Why not . Because of corruption. Who is calling the shots in the United States senate on guns . The gun industry. The gun industry, their money, and they are in league nra. We have to be willing to stand up against that. How do we do that . Part of it is something a president can do all by herself. [laughter] sen. Warren that is, we need an attorney general, we need a department of justice, that is willing to enforce our civil rights laws. That is willing to enforce the voter laws that we still have on the books. That is willing to go after white supremacists. That is willing to get in the fight against those who would undermine the rights of people in this country, and particularly undermine the rights of people of color. That is part of what we can do. We can have the right attorney general and the right department of justice. But i want to add another piece to this. When we think about what we need to do in washington, in congress, in the senate. We need to make changes in the laws. Exactly the ones you identified. Theres a lot we can do on her on our own but theres a lot that has to go to the senate. Think about this aspect of it. We need to reform the rules in the senate and get rid of the filibuster. As long as we have a filibuster in the United States senate, that means it is going to be a 60 vote threshold for anything we want to get done and that effectively means that the gun industry has veto. The same way the pharmaceutical industry has a veto, the same way the oil industry has a veto. One powerful lobby after another has a veto. You know how i know this one in particular . I was on the senate floor in 2013, when we passed some sensible Gun Legislation and what happened . We got 54 votes, i think. And in a body with a hundred people, 54 votes was not enough. It would not carry us through because of the filibuster. And understand, this is a big issue that divides the Democratic Candidates for president right now. If anyone comes in and talks to you about how important it is to them to have real reform, real reform on guns, where you see such an active industry. Real reform on health care, real reform on Student Loan Debt. Real reform on climate. And yet is not willing to take on the filibuster . Then they will not make real change. Because you kept the threshold too high. So i believe to get something done, to get the kind of fighting back against monied interest, we need to repeal the filibuster. It is time to get rid of the filibuster. [applause] sen. Warren those are two ways we can push back on this one. Amanda now we have mary from des moines who has worked in health care for 27 years. Hi, senator warren. Sen. Warren hi, mary. Donald trump spent his presidency making clear he believes he is above the law. Sen. Warren i have noticed that. [laughter] and that the constitution does not apply to him. His crimes have led to his impeachment. What would you do on day one to improve our system of democracy to demonstrate your administration will be different. Sen. Warren so, thank you. Actually i will talk about the same thing i start with on guns. We did the things we can do by ourselves. When you start on day one. That means an attorney general who is there to enforce the law. It means a department of justice with a real and functioning civil rights division. That is how we show the kind of difference we want to make. The second one, did anyone ever take a close look at who are the ambassadors who represent you around the world . Yeah. In some countries, they really are part of our diplomatic corps. You want to make sure you acknowledge that. But how did the current ambassador to the eu, sondland, you have seen him, right . He has been in the news lately. What qualified him to be the ambassador to the eu . This is a serious post, right . How did he qualify . He made a Million Dollar contribution to Donald Trumps inauguration effort. A million bucks evidently bought somebody an ambassadors post. That is something we can address right now in the democratic primary. I said on this one, quite publicly, quite anybody who wants to contribute to my campaign, have at it, thank you very much. Im not selling access to my time but if you want to contribute, good for you. Understand this. You make contribution to my campaign, i will not consider you for ambassador anywhere. Ambassadorships should not be for sale. They should go to people who are qualified, who know something about the area, to people who have worked for our state department. That is how we should run our government. When we sell ambassadorships to big donors, it is just one more way to say to all of the American People, rich people are different from you, they get different access in government, they get different ownership of government. I have made this commitment on ambassadorships. Ive asked everyone else, all of the other Democratic Candidates to do the same, the people who are still in this race and most of them have refused. Think about that. You dont even have to say people are actively trading for favors. It is, how does it look . We have a notion in the judiciary that it is not even impropriety, it the appearance of a propriety. It is the appearance of a conflict of interest. Because no one should ever have to doubt that the judge who you appear in front of his is impartial. We should be running a government that says from the beginning, no, these terrific jobs are not for sale to contributors. The other thing is i have the biggest anticorruption plan since watergate. The bad news is we need the biggest anticorruption plan since watergate. [laughter] sen. Warren let me tell you two or three of the features because they matter, right where you are because it will matter on the first day. That is, we need to end lobbying as we know it. [applause] sen. Warren we need to change this. Part of this you want to be a United States senator . Good for you. Get out there and run for office. Or congressperson, great. Or secretary of any the departments, part of the cabinet or even a president of the United States. That is great, get out there and do it. But once you have done it, theres a lifetime ban on lobbying. You cannot work in the government and be peeking over the edge at what your next very lucrative job may be. I am not going to fill my administration with former or future lobbyists, and i think that will make the difference too. [applause] sen. Warren theres a lot we can do, lock the revolving door between wall street and main street. Make the United States Supreme Court follow basic rules of ethics. And everyone who wants to run for federal office ought to have to put their tax returns online. [applause] kevin senator youve talked about a lot of your plans here tonight. Sen. Warren yes, but i got more. Im not even 10 in. [laughter] kevin some of these plans are going to face constitutional scrutiny. Your plan on student debt on the first day. Youre going to be facing a 54 Supreme Court. Sen. Warren theres a lot we do is not a constitutional issue. Kevin your wealth tax, there have been constitutional questions raised about that. I know you disagree but the conservatives on the Supreme Court might disagree with you. If they do, how do you persuade them to agree with you or what is the alternative route to pursue some of these . Sen. Warren look, on some of them, you start out on solid legal ground. Lets talk about Student Loan Debt. I have two plans. The first start to the wealth tax, to send tax on the greatest fortunes in this country, a two cents tax on the greatest fortune in the country. Your first 50 million is free and clear. Your next 50 million, you have to pitch in two cents. You hit a billion dollars, you pitch in a penny more. Universal prek, universal child care, raise the wages of andy childcare worker preschool teacher, put 800 billion new dollars into k12, we into put 50 put in dollars historically black colleges and universities. Cancel Student Loan Debt for 43 million americans. That is a path and that is how we get paid for. They want to fight over the constitutionality, i think im a very solid ground. Who make the constitutional argument. Heres the other half. The secretary of education has a lot of power to deal with Student Loan Debt already in the law. We have not picked up those tools and used them aggressively. As president , i am prepared to use those tools. I am prepared to help cancel Student Loan Debt for millions of people across this country because the law already permits it. The problem is extreme and it is time for action. So i will go either way. Amanda this issue of unconstitutionality, do you think the Obama Administration did enough to prepare for the fact that the Supreme Court ended up finding things unconstitutional . Sen. Warren do i think the Obama Administration anticipated what Mitch Mcconnell and the Trump Administration were going to do . Who would have anticipated that. I cannot tell you how many days ive gone to bed at night and thought that is as low as they i cannot tell you how many days ive gone to bed at night and thought that is as low as they can go. Then i get up the next day and they have gone not just a little lower, they have gone a lot lower. I do not think that is the way to look at this, backwards, what should we have seen coming from a Trump Administration. I see the other way around. Given what they have done, what should our response be . Sen. Warren ultimately our goal is to restore a government that works for everyone. We talk about anticorruption, i get it. Mitch mcconnell loves the system like it works, right . As it works right now. There are a lot of people who do really well under this system, and a lot of lobbyists who do really well, at a lot of corporations that you really well, because they have figured out investing a few tens of millions every year in lobbying yields billions of dollars in profits for them. So they figured out, investing in corrupting your government is a moneymaking operation for giant corporations, sometimes for wealthy families, wealthy individuals. So when we talk about anticorruption, when i get up and talk about it, it is not just democrats who get what is broken. It is democrats, independents, and republicans. Not the ones in washington, dont get me wrong. Im talking about people all across this country. I was born and raised in oklahoma. Two of my three brothers are still republicans. We can do our democratic republican talking points but when we Start Talking about amazon and chevron and eli lilly, what we talk about and their billions of dollars in profits, and that they pay zero in taxes, all my brothers are mad about that. They understand that is not fair. They understand someone has to keep this government going. Somebody has to keep the roads paved and keep the defense active. Somebodys got to do that. They pay their taxes and they want everybody to pay their taxes. This is i place we can come together. Excuse me. Not a place we have to be separated. We are going to start with the things people understand and want to see changed in washington. I think that starts with the anticorruption plan. Amanda thank you to senator Elizabeth Warren for coming today. [applause] sen. Warren thank you so much. [applause] [cheers and applause] [applause] applause]d [laughter] so now we are we have mayor Pete Buttigieg joining us. While khmer, thank you for joining us today welcome, mayor pete, and thank you for joining us. [applause] we wanted to give you couple bennetts to talk to the crowd and then we will have you join us for questions. Mayor buttigieg great. I will be brief because i want to get into the conversation. As you probably noticed, in my campaign we put democracy reform front and center. The reason it is on my day what agenda is that it is the issue of how we deal with all of our issues. As we look at all of the things that are going wrong in this country, especially all the areas where there is actually a healthy majority among the American People to get something done, but cannot seem to get majority in the merc in congress, it shows you just how twisted and how troubled our democracy is. We do not have to take that sitting down. We can take action about everything from the romany place in politics, to the Voter Suppressionoften racially motivatedthat is changing Election Outcomes around the country, to the fact that there are structures that disempower an american majority in a lot and a lot of u. S. Citizens. Including everything from the lack of statehood for d. C. To the lack of Political Representation to puerto rico to Electoral College that affects everyone of us negatively, no matter what state you live in because the ultimate practical effect of the Electoral College in my lifetime is that two times it has overruled the American People leading to a bush presidency and a Trump Presidency and the decisions that went on their. Decisions that affect all of us a lot more than the number of Campaign Rallies held in the Capital Cities of our respective states. So i look for to talking about these issues. And im glad you have gathered to highlight them. It is not always an easy conversation to have. Sometimes these process questions are considered unsexy. But i have put them front and center in my campaign because i believe the other things are not going to get better until we do it. That meansbut i have everythinge kinds of actions we can take right away, things like the reforms that were contained in the prodemocracy anticorruption hr 1 bill, what if many the past the house only to die in Mitch Mcconnell senate. All the way to project may take a generation to deliver, from a National Popular vote to structural reform for the Supreme Court. The reason is important to begin making the case for those now is because it may take a while to deliver the solutions. All the more reason we need to be at work starting yesterday to build a case and get it done. That will be a central focus for me throughout my presidency. Again, i will keep my mind a lot to that because i know we are going to dig into a conversation. Thank you for putting these issues first and i look for to discussing. Amanda great, thank you. I want to start off the campaignfinance reform. Everyone running for president want some form of campaignfinance reform, believes Citizens United be overturned, Public Financing of elections. I was hoping you could lay out for us why you think campaignfinance reform needs to happen, and whether you think certain types of Campaign Contributions corrupt politics . Noor buttigieg theres question that there are a lot of for example,s, that consider their contributions to be nuts much of an expression up legal values, as an investment. They would not be doing it unless they believed there would going to be an outcome. It is one reason my campaign does not accept them. We need a legislative solution to deal with these issues. What we have now is a doctrine under Citizens United that suggest that spending money to impact the outcome a of an election is the same thing as an expression of political speech. I think we have to clear that up. Even if it takes a constitutional amendment to do it. See donors, corporations in particular, sometimes in a general election, sending checks to candidates from both parties who are opposing each other in the same race. I think we can put to rest the idea that that is about an expression in good faith of values. Is why we need to take action on everything from setting up structures for Public Financing, to making clear the limits on campaignfinance, to ultimately, also term overturning Citizens United. So we have a system where players do not believe that can impact the outcome of elections and impact the priorities of political figures through Campaign Contributions. So, you do some high dollar fundraisers while some of your challengers in the race have decided not to do them. But youve also decried a purity test saying that just because a wealthy person gives money to not necessarily in it is corrupt. You have sworn off money from the fossil fuel industry and from lobbyists. But i wonder could you explain why you will not take money from those groups but say money from wall street is acceptable . Mayor buttigieg heres where think about it. We are getting our support from individuals who believe in the progressive message of my campaign. I may not agree with them on everything. We have 700,000 donors in this campaign. So i do not even know what all my supporters believe about any given issue. But i make one promise to every contributor, weathers three dollars on pete for america. Com or something comes to a house party. The promise i make is we will take that funding and use it to build the Campaign Organization that is going to defeat donald trump. I will also say that you should not be in politics if youre not paired to do the right thing and make the right decision, no matter what. I also think any honest candidate tell you, life would be better across the country and frankly running campaigns would be better, if we had a different and better system. Being the mayor of the city of south bend indiana is obviously not known as an establishment campaignfinance powerhouse. I would not be here at this stage of the campaign if we had figured out how to make sure we build a Grassroots Organization that has been capable of beating the odds and bringing us to this point. We also recognize the system needs to change. Determined to make that happen 70 running for office, someone living a country impacted by the system that is not working. You mentioned you will not be bought by these interests, then why not take money from everyone, from lobbyists and the fossil fuel industries could you . Why view chosen not to take money from some groups but to take money from others . Mayor buttigieg if you make a decision to draw a line take money froman be if you somewhere, you will be criticized. Thatw money from the space makes the most sense and is compatible with being able to build the Campaign Organization. I suppose the only way to not be criticized at all would be to say nothing on the topic. We have worked to strike the right balance and make sure we can build the Campaign Organization. Right now, you have talked a lot about reforming the Campaign Finances. The Campaign Finance laws we have had our not being enforced because the fcc does not have a quorum. That, republican members of the fcc have not shown much of an interest in enforcing Campaign Finance laws. Members of the way the way members of the fcc are appointed, the Senate Minority and majority leader have a say. President , would you allow Mitch Mcconnell to have a say . Mayor buttigieg i think everything needs to be on the table because what we have right justn the senate is not members of different parties expressing different values. Of ake an example different area, look at how they have handled Supreme Court appointments. In 2016 when Merrick Garland was up, it was a matter of principle. You would never support a Supreme Court justice in an election year. Then, Mitch Mcconnell made it clear that in 2020, he would totally schedule a vote. They are not even pretending. That is why we need to ask ourselves, in the face of a party that will shed any norm to gain its own advantage, whether these norms are serving. Im not proposing we become what we are fighting. We should take steps that are good for our democracy. I think the customs and deference that are shown to senators in practices like the appointment of fcc commissioners are customs that are not serving the country. A level ofot seeing good faith out of the senate, i believe we should be willing to move on. Amanda something that has come up with the Trump Administration is who he is taking advice from. When you are president , would you require the public this re of White White House Visitor Administration . Course orls or a golf any other place you might be . Mayor buttigieg i think that makes a lot of sense. I do not golf. Obviously, you have to do it in a way that is consistent with any law or appropriateness in terms of the place you are visiting as president. If it bears on public interest, it bears on the question of who has access to the president and less transparency. Amanda i want to go to the audience. We have an attorney from des moines. Feel free to face me. That is totally fine. I know that is weird. Good afternoon, mayor buttigieg. He can hear you. You talked about Merrick Garland. I would like to hear your thoughts about the ultraconservative transformation occurring in our judiciary with President Trumps appointments. The harms you see that will come from that and how judicial appointments might affect your ability to accomplish your agenda. Mayor buttigieg this is a real problem. Part of why republicans have stayed on board with a president who is as offensive to their to my party. S as they feel they are getting their way in one narrow field. What we are getting are often unqualified extreme ideologues. This is going to have an impact for quite a while. It is one of many reasons why it is imperative we succeed and there is not a second trump term. This is also play of why we need a different approach on the judiciary going forward. In terms of the ideological balance, that is why that is where my appointments come. I will appoint justices and judges who espouse my values. I will also be looking for judges and justices who have a range of experience. I do not to betray my omma motter, but it cannot be that just a couple Ivy League Law schools should be generating disproportionately the level of control we have had over the bench. Far fewer people with public defender backgrounds relative to prosecutorial backgrounds. This is also why i proposed we have structural reform. Morenly to make the court liberal. In order to make it less politicized. What we see now is a strange twisting of what we have come to expect from our records. Being designed not around making the best arguments on points of law that around the personal idiosyncrasies of the person who is considered to be the swing justice. We see justices being filled to justices feeling the need to depart from the bench based on who is president. The fact that every time there is an opening on the highest court, we have an apocalyptic ideological firefight. That is why i have led the field in proposing structural reform to the Supreme Court. Not something a president can do singlehandedly, but something i tol ask for a commission evaluate. By creating a 16 member court where five of the members can only be appointed if the other 10 anatomist agree to the idea of rotating judges to somewhat more modest solutions. We know the Current System has sent the judiciary down the bath down the path of being viewed political institution. [applause] followup, you talked a little bit about reforming the court. The traditione by in which home state senators get veto power over their judicial appointments . Mayor buttigieg i think this is an example of a norm for custom we have observed for a long time that needs to be evaluated for whether it is benefiting the American People. I am not going to make a blanket statement, but the idea we do things because we have always done them does not conform to the realities we will be facing in 2021. Amanda now we want to go to another audience question. James simmons who is a Community Leader living in des moines. Is mariantion for you Wright Edelman once wrote that democracy is not a spectator sport. There are Many Americans who are feeling like they cannot take part in the basic foundation of our country because of the power the wealthy. Have in our elections how would you prioritize the hr one bill that is dying in the senate to make sure democracy reaches every american and every american has one voice and is able to use that voice to fight for themselves in that community . Mayor buttigieg this is so important because democracy is. Not just a principal. Democracy value is not just a principal. It is also a value. We have always been imperfect as a democratic society. When we havet extended access to the vote. Hr one is just the beginning. Some of the provisions are crucial. We talk about making it easier to vote, same day registration, automatic registration. Things that worries me is there is a selffulfilling quality to the damage that has been done to our democracy. We are a country with distressing low voter turnout. I remember when i came home from my deployment to afghanistan, i wanted to feel as a servicemember that part of what i was doing was upholding in some and direct way america and americas democracy. I have seen afghans put their lives on the line to vote at polling sites where there were warnings that you risk violence just to show up. My state of indiana had the lowest voter turnout rate in the country. Is low isy turnout because of Voter Suppression. Senser reason is that the of an election is it is a foregone conclusion. It is one of the reasons why all these issues are connected. Amething like hr one is package of reforms i would be championing as president and would sign the moment it hit my desk. We need to go further than that. We need to undertake constitutional action to clear up Something Like Citizens United. I know some folks think that sounds for out. A traditional of constitutional amendments. Since the 1970s, we were doing it quite a bit. Onceve in a country that changed the constitution so you could not buy a beer. Minds anded our changed it back. Believe we need to pass a 21st century Voting Rights act to get ahead of the kind of very suppression, which is often something with a racially disparate effect. To require states uphold voter access to get ahead of the voter id laws that are not about protecting the integrity of the elections. And to ensure there is a demonstration of freedom in the election. It will not be diminished by any action of the state. The last question related to this. You mention a lot of things that require congressional approval. What is something you could do using executive action to protect Voting Rights . Mayor buttigieg we know at a minimum we could layout standards. Even as we are working to get legislation that has an impact on gerrymandering. It also look at what kind of executive actions could be taken around election day as a holiday. Even just getting information out. We have seen three things like proposed Citizenship Question on the census how an administrative action could have nefarious effects. I will be working with scholars to see how we could have the reverse effect. And then undertaking the generational efforts like constitutional reforms around a National Popular vote. Amanda thank you. Thank you for joining us. We wish you could have been here in person. [applause] mayor buttigieg thank you for [applause] amanda we wanted to have you give a couple minutes of her remarks, and then we will do questions. Sen. Klobuchar i want to thank all of you. This is so astounding to be part of the first ever micro c forum. Me,rst want to say that for this is the driving issue. I have committed that hr one will be the first bill i get through as president of the United States. That is because i believe all of the issues we are talking about, whether it be health care, climate change, whether it be immigration reform. We are not going to be able to get this done if outside money is flooding our system. For me, this is personal. I do not come from a lot of money. , i havece i have won when it with having the last less i have won with money. Youve also probably heard my story that one point running for u. S. Senate, i gave up trying to call people because no one could pronounce the name. I called everyone i knew and raised 17,000 from exboyfriend. Exboyfriends. A constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United. Led havebills i have been in hr one. That includes stopping the independent commissions so we do not have gerrymandering, doing something about Election Security. The thing i want to get done right now, the honest ads act so that social Media Companies have to follow the rules. I guess i will end with this story because for me, it says it all. In the last president ial election, there wasnt image of an africanamerican woman. She has since called the senate and said that is my face. Someone stole it. They put it on africanamerican facebook pages in swing districts. It was a fake Hillary Clinton logo. It said, why go wait in line to vote for Hillary Clinton . Votead, you can text your to 86153. To me, that is a crime. What we in one image, are talking about. The discriminatory nature of this kind of illegal activity. It shows these outside interest who will do anything to defeat us. The number one issue for all of us to be protecting our democracy. That is it. [applause] start offwanted to asking you about judges. According to an analysis of people for the american way, you voted to confirm a little under one third of trumps judges. I wanted to talk to you about why you vote to confirm his judges . Have supported i about 32 of the judges, it puts me in the top 10 or 15 senators for opposing trump judges. There is some wrong information out there. I appreciate that very much. For me, you look at a judge. You try your best to make a decision about if you think that judges going to be fair. Sometimes that judge will not be your first pick. What we have seen from the Trump Administration is ideologues they are putting forward, people who do not respect the law. If you want to know where i am on judges, all you have to look is what happened during the kavanaugh hearing. When that nominee went and looked at me and asked me if i blacked out and went after me and i stood my ground. And then he had to take a break and apologize. The kind of judges i think we should put forward as a now. Dent or on the court people like elena kagan and sonia sotomayor. Notoriouseyer and the rbg. I think we should have a diverse court. Put a highly have esteemed africanamerican judge recommended to barack obama on the Federal District minnesota court. I think that will reflect on the kind of judges i put in when i am president. One thing you should know about me is i like to get things done quickly and right. One of the things president obama confronted when he came in, it was a lot harder to immediately put the judges up and realize what the republicans were going to do. Willa some precious time. I will not let us lose precious time. There are going to be a bunch of openings. Get the process moving through the senate. We do not want to lose times. These guys have been stacking the court. There are going to be a lot of openings when a new president comes in. It is time to fill them with judges who pursed who respect the law. Amanda when you are looking at who to nominate, are there any cases you would ask them about and you would want to know how they think about those cases . Roe v. Wade, obamacare, things like that. Sen. Klobuchar i think it is incredibly important you know whether or not they will respect precedent. Like, that means cases brown v. Board of education. Something the trunk nominees refuse to even say recently if not. Support or cases like roe v. Wade. That is in the body of precedent. Amanda what about Citizens United . Sen. Klobuchar to me, that is not in the long body of precedent. That is a political decision that was made by a bear margin and is a much different kind of case and something that has been in law for so long like brown. Amanda are there any other that like Citizens United you would consider not precedent . Sen. Klobuchar a lot of the decisions made by this court have been made by political reasons. There are some things you can do. You can try to get those cases overturned. You can also change things legislatively. Sometimes, like the Citizens United story, there is only a minimum number of things. You can do some things with transparency legislatively. The best way to overturn it is with a constitutional amendment. Amanda you talked about nominating judges at a quicker pace. Say Mitch Mcconnell still is majority. We have this tradition we have been asking about folks about asking folks about the day. Would you under the blue slip tradition . Sen. Klobuchar right now, the blue slip process is really only is really the only thing that is saving us from more conservative nominees. While they have gotten rid of it on the circuit court, they have thankfully left it in place for district court. If we were to say, lets get rid of it, they would probably do the same thing. That is why i think it is really important to continue that tradition. Just like the filibuster tradition, it is leverage. They are messing around, you have the leverage of changing something. Amanda so it is something you would be willing to look at. Sen. Klobuchar it is something i would always be open to. In the end, it would be up to the majority leader of the senate. Moot unless we are able to win and win big. That is one of the arguments from my candidacy. I have been able to bring people with me in all of my elections. If you win big, you accomplish one very important goal. Not just winning the presidency, but also sending Mitch Mcconnell packing. [applause] sen. Klobuchar to do that, you need to win the u. S. Senate. Governors races in kentucky and indiana. I see no reason why we cannot state oface in the iowa. We need to have people see that as a major goal. Winning in places like colorado and arizona as well as iowa. Www. Cspan. Org even if you kevin even if you do when the mcconnellit mitch still will likely be the minority leader. Always say two i amys are better than one. Kevin he or john cornyn in that case. He and Party Leaders have been given a lot of say over who the nominees are. The fcc does not even have a quorum. It was not doing much because the republican members did not have an interest. Would you abide by that tradition and allow the republican leader to have influence on who your appointment would be . Sen. Klobuchar these are all things we can negotiate, but the number one thing we need to do is reform the fcc. It is a hollowed out shell. Is made much worse by worse because the fec does not even have a quorum. We cannot get things done. We have a nominee the president has been stalling on. If we can get that nominee through, they usually go in pairs, and we have a quorum. The president has refused to act. I cannot tell you how disastrous this is going into an election. I am glad you brought it up. I just wrote a letter on this. Im getting a number of senators involved because i am the rulesg member on the committee. All we are asking for is the democratic nominee along with a republican nominee to be able to go on the fec. Guess why they are blocking it. They do not want them to be able to take action on anything. It is just like they blocked my Election Security bill i had with the republicans heading to the floor. Support from people like Lindsey Graham and mark warren. What did they do . That is for the audit of elections. Just when it is going to go through committee, we get got punched. Administration and which mcconnell because republicans. This is not america. America has always believed in a democracy. It bleeds into what i am heading back to, which is the impeachment hearing. I said on the debate stage, if they blog witnesses, fa or not going to allow for a quorum on the federal election committee, they may as well give the president a crown. Last time i checked, we were founded on the idea we were breaking off from a monarchy. In america, the law is king. I think it is going to become a huge issue which dovetails exactly into what the purpose of this quorum isabel. I repair it our this quorum isabel. Our democracy is at stake. It is a democracy check on this nation. [applause] you reform the fec in the long term . How would you change the structure . Sen. Klobuchar that would be part of the reform. Not do anything. At least when we have a quorum, they can make some decisions on some basic cases. It cannot even do that right now. Kevin you just said they might as well hand trump a crown. He has consistently found new ways to flout tradition, ways to enrich himself as president. What new restrictions should be placed on the office of the presidency . Sen. Klobuchar i actually think this is a good question. Number one, all president s should have to put forward their tax returns. That would be a nice description. Ethics there is a lot of changes we should make. I do not know if you have talked about those today. Office ofthis ethics. Toi am president , i am going give them enforcement authority. We should have the code of ethics that applies not just to the white house, also to the u. S. Supreme court. There is actually no code of ethics for the u. S. Supreme court. There are a lot of things we can put in place that make it clear no one is above the law including the president of the United States. What brighter what better president to do that than someone who has been a lawyer . Thesemes, you go through forums and hear all these ideas. I really think the time is right for this. There is a woman who got elected to the congress from my state in a red congressional state. Her name is angie craig. Showed this ad that people standing on bales of hay in a district that was suburban and rural. They were trying to talk. Every time they opened their mouth, nothing came out. The whole theme of the mouth of the ad was, big money is taking away your voice. It really is a libertarian argument. I see this as a driving force. You bring people in who maybe are not always in our Democratic Base and do not always agree with everything that is said on the debate stage. You bring them in with these kinds of arguments. The big money interests and other people outside of our tomato see her drowning out your voice. With a theme like that. We have to keep in mind the practicality as well as what these great proposals are. If i had to pick one of my favorite proposals, it would be to register every kid to vote when they turn 18 across the country. If you do that, you get rid of all of the states that are messing around with registration. Really, you get a Social Security number. That is how it works. Everyone gets one in the country. Et can find a pair of shoes in hawaii. I do not understand why we cannot give kids a Registration Number when we turn 18 when they turn 18. [applause] amanda we heard senator warren talk about ambassadorship. She said she would like to have been wealthy ambassadors from being able to donate. Sen. Klobuchar the vast majority of people i would put in for ambassadorship would be career people, people who have served in government. Sometimes, some of them have money. Ometimes, some of them dont number one on my list would be ambassador jovanovich. [applause] got klobuchar i think she kind of a raw deal. I personally know her. I got to be with her when i was out in ukraine with a group of actuallyi think, elizabeth and i were on one of those trips together. I am excited about the work that can be done to fill out a hollowed out state department. It is not just the ambassador level. It is also just regular workers who have left. This is going to mean a call to peoplec service to young , but also some of the people who have left that you want to bring back. That is one of my major proposals for foreign policy. You have got to make this cool again. And patriotic again to serve our country. Amanda but you would not necessarily block donors from receiving ambassadorship should i am sure there are some that are qualified. There was one from my state from president obama. He went on to be one of the first people in minnesota to help barack obama. He went on to be the first jewish ambassador in morocco. I think he has pretty good experience. He did a great job. I would not block out anyone. I would make sure people are qualified. I even opposed one of the obama nominees who was a donor who i did not think was qualified. That is the best way to look at it. A lot of people who have served in the senate and congress would be great ambassadors. Especially with what trump has done, it is going to be important to bring some gravitas and credibility into our diplomatic corps. Congress,mbers of many of them after they leave congress and staffers as well, become lobbyists. Do you think there should be a been on members of congress from becoming lobbyist . Sen. Klobuchar by may 1 got into the senate, we put some major rules in place on time limits. I just do not understand. I would not want to use the incredible gift i have been given of being a u. S. Senator to become a lobbyist. Amanda do you think it should be a lifetime ban . Sen. Klobuchar yet, i think that would be better. Amanda i went to turn to an audience question. We are going to go to betty andrews. Good afternoon, senator klobuchar. I am here standing with a member of our naacp youth council. My question is around voting. It is with his and others futures i am asking this question. The right to vote is among the most fundamental right in our democracy. It is a right that has never been fully available to some americans, especially people of color. Voting today is harder in 25 states then it was a decade ago for the Voting Rights act was gutted. Millions of people have faced disenfranchisement. Texas, restrictions on Voter Registration drives make it harder for people to get registered in the first place. A strict voter id law makes it harder for those who registered to actually vote. A recent question to the legitimate of tens of thousands of citizens on the roles have cast a Chilling Effect on the electorate. Lets not forget about here in iowa where the voter id law was recently enacted. We have the distinction of being first in the nation for the Iowa Caucuses and last in the nation when it comes to allowing returning citizens to vote. These and other restrictions target communities of color, part of a long history in our nation of denying Voting Rights to africanamericans, teen knows, asian americans, and native americans. Progress has been made with the passage of hr four, the Voting Rights act amendment. We know that that is not necessarily the law of the land. My question to you, and i know you have spoken in your opening remarks about voting, i wanted to know what specific actions you will take the first 100 days of office to end this countrys ongoing assault on people of colors right of right to vote and make sure everyone has full access to the ballot box. [applause] sen. Klobuchar thank you. Would start out by giving that tomorrow, we will be celebrating the life of Martin Luther king jr. He once said we are all tied in one single garment of destiny. What effects one of us directly effects effects everyone of affects everyone indirectly. Happens, it effects all of us it affects all of us. Has all ofone, which the voter protections in one package as the first bill i would pass. That would include reauthorizing the Voting Rights act and fixing what the court did in the shelby decision, which is really the catalyst that caused all of these courts to do a bunch of bad things. Some of the specific things i think would help stop the discrimination would be to stop the voting purchase. This is a bill i lead with sharad brown. As president , i would get it done. I thought stacey abrams, who should be the governor of georgia, explained best and she said just because you do not go to church or a mosque or synagogue for a few months, you do not lose your right to worship. Just because you do not go to a meeting like this, you do not lose your right to assemble. Purge names from a list, you are effectively lost. You have lost your right to vote in the election. I thought that said it best. That is why we must stop the purging. We must stop these states from doing what iowa did. Again, our state had the same voting id. Posal on a a former republican governor joined with a democratic governor, and they did an ad in the rural areas. It was targeted to seniors and rural people. It talked about what it would mean if you had to bring in id all the time. What that would mean to your voting. Combination of forces and people, we were able to get that defeated. Our state was able. I am so proud of the groups that worked on that. I have used other examples. You have courts, even some republican appointed judges who will intercede. But we really need is a president who sees this. I suggest you look at my plan on my website. It is a 100 day plan. I have found 137 things i can do without congress that are legal. And number of them are proposals when it comes to democracy. You need a president who is going to see that as a priority and get a lot of these things done. We need to remember that what is going on is blatant discrimination. It is discrimination we have not seen for a long time led by the person in the white house. He has appointed a number of these judges. He has gotten behind a number of these efforts in the state. Just to give you a little bit of hope, you look at the state including what just happened in nevada and other states where when there is a change, they have done things look allowed people when they get out of prison to vote. We are starting to see that all over the country. Something that is changing things. You have been able to see some Court Decisions on gerrymandering that have changed the mix in some of our states. When we took the house of representatives and made at the peoples house again, we may change. All we need to do is change the u. S. Senate. It is that simple. And put a new president in place. And you really look at our democracy, that is going to be key. I feel like with the 400 those sitting on Mitch Mcconnells desk, a number of them democracy reform, we feel like we have going backwards in the u. S. Senate while the rest of the country is going forwards on things like gun safety and Voting Rights. Turnout in be a huge our country. It has to be a statement from states like iowa and michigan and wisconsin and minnesota and ohio. Said, my plan is to build a beautiful blue wall around the midwest and make donald trump pay for it. [applause] amanda i just wanted to followup on bettys question. Laws that disenfranchise people who were incarcerated were targeted to black americans. You indicated you support changing that. What about allowing people to vote while they are incarcerated . Sen. Klobuchar i have not supported that. There is one thing that is going on that is a good thing. Sometimes when people are in jail and have not been adjudicated so they are actually not officially a felon, they should be able to vote because they are not even a felon. That is something they actually did in illinois that made a change. My position is you should be able to vote when you get out of prison. Amanda what is the argument for not allowing people to vote when they are in prison . Sen. Klobuchar i think the argument is and it is shared by most of the candidates running for president i am not just out there on my own. One of the arguments is when you go to prison, you have committed a crime. You lose rights when you are in prison. That is the argument. I would say leading to another issue, criminal Justice Reform will be a big priority of mine. We got the first step act. We got that passed thanks to the leadership of senator booker who i wish was still up with us on the debate stage. [applause] sen. Klobuchar senator durbin and senator harris. I was always a cosponsor of that bill. I think we not need to move to the second step act and a knowledge 90 of people incarcerated or in state and local jails. Need to create incentive to see the same kind of reforms we were able to make on the federal level. Amanda our last question is going to be from pastor kathy moore. Hi, senator. We do appreciate you in iowa. I have a long question. Sen. Klobuchar you never know with start with it we appreciate. Coreu know one of the problems of our political system money has. Influence corporations, billionaires and the way they are able to contribute to campaigns. One way to empower regular incentivize to small donor donations and forgo accepting the larger gifts. There are number of places in 26 different states, there have been moves made to have some kind of small donor donation campaign. Ancing would you support this . If you would, how would you get congress to go along with that . Been aobuchar i have long cosponsor of that bill, to have the same federal financing you have in a number of states. I have seen it work well. You have to get an overwhelming vote in the country to push through legislation like this. You have to make a case to the people. I personally in this president ial campaign and not lobbyistc donations or donations. I set that forward immediately before i immediately even got into the race. You are talking about core campaignfinance reform. You explain when all of this money works and how unfair it is, the way to do that is examples. My example is something that unites the country. That is to bring pharmaceutical prices down. There are two lobbyists from the pharmaceutical companies for every member of congress. Start with that kid is it a surprise they got written into medicare cannot negotiate better prices for 43 million seniors . It is written in law before i got to congress. My proposal is to lift that and allow medicare to negotiate like medicaid and the v. A. Does. We cannot have less expensive drugs coming in from other countries. The reason i bring this up as it is just an example of outside money. The more light you shed on it, the better. I just refuse to believe that change cannot happen. Tok at what happened President Trump when we look at the womens march this weekend. The day after President Trump got inaugurated, liens of people marched over this country. Marched in small towns and big. The next day, 6000 women signed up to run for office. 10 days in, people spontaneously showed up at airports to protest the antirefugee order. When he was taking on our environmental roles, people marched for science. Sign, what do we want . Science. When do we want . After peerreviewed. When do we want it . After pure review. W. After peer revie my favorite one was a legislative in legislative race and age in new jersey. I hope they are home in time to make dinner. That guy got defeated by an africanamerican woman. That is the march we are all in. Marchse to believe that cannot end, given we turned the house against all odds. Even we held onto the Affordable Care act. ,n the house of representatives we passed Gun Legislation sitting on which mcconnells desk. People are with us. When you ask them, do you think it is fair that all this big money can give pharma Carte Blanche so they can do whatever they want, 90 of them say no. It is our job. Amanda thank you. Everyone thanks senator klobuchar for coming today. Sen. Klobuchar thank you. Thanks, everybody. [applause] are live coverage of the president ial candidates and i will continues monday. At 4 30 p. M. Eastern, senator Elizabeth Warren, followed by senator Bernie Sanders in des moines. Watch our Live Campaign 2020 unfiltered coverage of the president ial candidates this weekend on cspan, online at cspan. Org, or listen wherever you are on the free cspan radio app. Here is some of what is coming up this evening on cspan. Q a is next. Joseph mcquaid talks about. Residential primary history after that, prime ministers questions from the british house of commons. Then, a form with president ial candidates talking about money and politics. Host joe mcquaid, longtime publisher and editor at large of the New Hampshire union leader. We will spend an hour talking but the history of the New Hampshire primary. Before we get into history, lets talk with the current one