Transcripts For CSPAN2 Campaign 2020 Nashua NH Democrats Breakfast 20240714

Thank you. This is one of those weekends where most folks in the room, they realize how lucky we are to be democrats here in New Hampshire and the special place that we have with the primary, fantastic convention yesterday which many of you were part of and it will keep on rolling now in the primary in february. We have a program this morning, a great program, were very fortunate and a lot of the candidates realize that if you want to win New Hampshire you have to win nashua. We have a lot of people coming through and before we hear them john delaney, i want to think the sponsors for todays events, we are raising funds right now to help fund arm and the support election, campaign from this fall as well as the Campaign Next year for the state and the National Race that we have in New Hampshire. Every little bit counts because of the breakfast today, we will get our cards so we can go doortodoor effort and pull out every democratic boater that we can in the election this november. We have a number of people who are going to be on the ballot and who are here with us today starting with mayor jim who is here. [applause] and lori roeser and Michael Brian running at large. Chris klee who is running in three on the polls. Jeb bishop who is running for board of education. Am i missing anybody . Catherine is not running, shes running next time. Linda and warren. [applause] jijamail yeah we have campaigns who have come with the literature who are outside here in the lobby area. Please go visit them and get information if youre still undecided or just stop and say hello. Obviously to my left, to start the speaking program, we have someone who is not familiar to the democrats, he has been a great friend at nashua in helping us all along with the big part, very generous in a Campaign Last fall to help elect 27 of 27, two state senators and an executive. Congressman john delaney from maryland has been working here in New Hampshire for well over a year bringing his vision of what he thinks the country needs and im happy to introduce congressman john delaney. [applause] thank you dave, good morning nashua wind democrats. What a beautiful morning. How is everyone doing. [applause] he was at the convention yesterday. [cheering] a pretty good turnout. So, thank you for the introduction and i would only edit what you said, the person who wins nashua is not just going to win the the race but the run the world. We need new leadership around the world because United States is not leading. It is great to be with you, this is my 20th trip. All my gosh 23rd, my math is deteriorating. Good my state director who is amazing by the way in my whole team was worried because those on the belmar show friday night. Which was a last minute thing and chris said, you know your speaking at 11 00 oclock in manchester, there is a 955 american flight to boston and if you can meet me at the boston airport at 7 30 a. M. Ill make a speech. Lets put it this way, i had a good night sleep last night. So my 23rd trip, i will be back for a few weeks because my oldest daughter is getting married. [applause] very excited about that. I have four daughters, we are very blessed and this is my first wedding, hit me the other day, the Little Program for their wedding came around and i had the timing of all the stuff and then it said there was a point in the program where a given toast about my daughter. And i said, this is funny because now i speak for living and i give speeches, but this is a hard one. So as a head back to maryland tonight i will start thinking about all the things i want to say about my daughter who i love so much. I wont be back for a few weeks but trip 24 will be in a few weeks. Its great to be with you. I talked about a couple of Different Things yesterday. I think we have to broaden the discussion in the primary. The point i was trained to make yesterday, how everything is actually interconnected because i really think it is and i think we have to think about the next president as someone who fundamentally understands that. As i said yesterday, a few weeks ago we watched in horror as the amazon burned. Im sure Climate Change is a very important issue for everyone in this room. I know it is for New Hampshire. But we watched in horror as a burned. When you realize why this happened, you understand what is really going on in the world which is a bunch of farmers in brazil set fires 2d forest the amazon. And the reason they did this was because they wanted to plant soybeans. And why did they want to plant soybeans . Well, because the biggest buyer of soybeans is china. They used to buy most of their soybeans from the United States of america. They do not do that anymore. Why . Because were in a totally stupid trade war. Which by the way is killing american farmers, every acre of farmland in this country is worth less today than it was when the president was inaugurated and we can win role america on that point. And we have to be making it. But it also shows how trade policy is so interconnected to Climate Policy because as a Global Community should be using every acre of land as efficiently as possible. Before engaged in destabilizing trade wars, it results in a lot of land being converted into farmland. We watched last week of what happened with brexit. Lets face it, that was entirely based on a protection instinct, and dangerous protection instinct. In the Prime Minister and the parliament wrestled with how to handle this. You know who this will be good for, this is good for trump and putin. This will destabilize the european union. So it is all interconnected, this notion of isolationism. We are watching how this president is engaging in a war on children, on immigrant children, children separating them from their parents. Threatening to deport them even if theyre receiving critical medical care. We are better than this. All of us are better than this. We have watched how he has done nothing to deal with the huge number of our citizens that a been left behind because globalization and technical innovation. Forces that were incredibly powerful but forces that have also left 40 of our country not able to afford basic necessities. Literally 40 of the market people cannot afford rent, food or utilities. All of this is interconnected. The fires in the amazon would trade policy. What is going on in europe, with the trump putin alliance. With the fact that we are protection instinct that he is stoking in her country and causing us to build physical walls and economic walls. And the fact that so many of our citizens have been left behind. Which is why we need new leadership. We need a leader who wants to lead a modern Democratic Party. Someone understands the world is in fact interconnected and interdependent and we do not need a United States of america that is retrieving from the world stage, we need a United States of america that is leading on the world stage, on all of the important issues whether Climate Change, whether global migration challenges, whether its human rights violations, whether its Security Issues to entrained. Trumps form of isolationism is the wrong answer to every single question. But democrats can adopt a democratic form of isolationism. We have to have a compelling vision for the world that has a u. S. Leadership at the center. We need a president who understands that we have an enormous opportunity to build a Better Future if we invest. I believe were at the threshold of extraordinary breakthroughs in the life science and energy research. We can in fact cure cancer. We can cure all tremors. We can in fact develop a new technology whether battery technology, transmission technologies, direct air capture technology, that will not only save our country but save the planet. But you actually have to invest, you need dramatic increases in basic research and you need a president who understands how to harness the extraordinary innovation economy that United States of america has. And we need a president and a leader who is committed to solving real problems that are facing hardworking americans. In the daytoday lives. Now its an impossible promises but with Real Solutions that can get done. In the majority of the American People can get behind. As president i promise to fight for a 2 trilliondollar infrastructure program. The simplest thing we can do to create good middleclass jobs in this country, maker businesses more competitive and improve lives of our citizens. I promise to fight to double the earned income tax credit, that is the simplest thing that we can do if we action want to help working families. We should be doubly the amount that families receive and we should be expanding the eligibility to include 20 million more americans. That one thing can lift up tens of millions of americans out of poverty. As president i promise to fight for creating a form of universal healthcare where every american has healthcare as a basic human right but also a program where americans have choices because the American People fundamentally want choices. These are the kind of Real Solutions that can get done. Because what hardworking americans need is not more ideology, not more partisanship, not more gridlock, the actually need us to solve these problems, so my leadership style is different but probably because i have a different background. My grandparents were immigrants. They had a struggle to get into this country. What a migrant prince came as a young boy with Seven Brothers and sisters and his mother. They were all led into the country except for him. He was separated from his parents, from his mom and his brother and sisters when he came to the country. And they set him up for deportation. The reason was because he had one arm. And back then, we did not let disabled people into our country. So my grandfather, 1923, a little boy comes to the country, his whole family is london he is separated and sent to Staten Island to be deported. But he got an appeal. Several months later. The appeal was held in the great alhall of ellis island, hundreds of people, my grandfather the little boy back in the room with his one arm and the judge walks in. In my grandfather sees the judge, he also had one arm. So the only reason he was led into this country is because the one arm judge look at the one on boy and settle the two in but make something of your life. So migrant prince struggled to get into this country, my dad was a construction worker but fortunately he was a Union Construction worker, and a union of the International Brotherhood you may be familiar with it. Its a great union. [applause] its a great care of us grown up in new jersey. An action pay for half of my tuition of college. I became an entrepreneur. Started two businesses from scratch, crated thousands of jobs with the youngest ceo in the uni new york stock exchange. I can go to toe with trump, he was handed his business by his dad in six bankruptcies. I started mine from scratch, crated thousands of jobs in my company was voted the best places to work in the community and the Obama Administration gave us an award for investment in disadvantaged communities. So ill put my Business Record against him any day of the week. Then i had the privilege of serving in the congress of the United States. I have a very different background. That is the kind of back on that makes you focus on making progress in solving problems. In the biggest problem we need to solve is to be donald trump. Thats the number one issue that any major. Nothing else compares. To beating the reckless lawless, immoral individual who is leading our country at this moment in time. But the way we have to be him, we have to capture independent voters like we did in 2018. We flipped the house in a remarkable turn of events and no one thought we would do that. We flipped 40 seats that were republican and flip them to democrat. And we did with problemsolving candidates. Candidates that built big tents and were progressives, moderates and independents and republicans were welcome. Those voters want real solutio solutions, they want us to focus on solving problems that affect the daytoday lives. They want us to run on bringing people together. On unity, that is our past to win in 2020, not only the white house but the senate and the house of representatives. We have a generational opportunity to build a new coalition, a coalition based on decency. Based on morality. Based on solutions, based on a copositive vision for the future that we can build together if we invest in our country and ourselves. But the problem goes beyond that. Because i think trump is a symptom of the disease. In the disease is divisiveness. This notion that your enemy is your fellow american. Because they look different the deal. Or they worship a different god. Or they have a different Sexual Orientation or increasingly because her in a different Political Party. This is the core of our problem that is rotting our country. And this is the problem i believe, we the Democratic Party have to solve. We have to solve it by talking about the notion of common persopurpose. We are all actually in this together. We have to get back to the roots that this amazing country grew from in the tree of liberty grew from in the sunshine of a cause worth fighting for. The fact that united we do stand. In 1958 john f. Kennedy gave a speech where he said we should not seek the democratic cancer, we should not seek the republican answer, we should seek the right answer. He gave the speech for weeks after sputnik was launched. The American People were terrified, they thought they had lost their future. But john kennedy stepped forward inside no, our future is ours to build but we have to build it together and i think were in a similar moment in time and theres not one rocket into space but theres tremendous change in the world driven by very powerful horses globalization and things that are remarkably positive and left huge numbers of our citizens behind. It is destabilize politics and destabilizing the world. This is the calling of the Democratic Party to respond, to respond with decency and to respond with solutions, to respond by bringing the country together and leading around the world. That is why im running for president. It is been an amazing privilege to spend the last year or two with you all, thank you for coming out and all you do. Just remember, this is a magnificent country and dont let anyone tell you otherwise. [applause] it is true. We have every advantage any nation could possibly want to have in the world in 2019. Except for one thing. We have a broken government. The good news is that is fixable. That is fixable with new leaders who are serving for the right reason who have ideas about how to bring us together and solve the problems that are facing so many americans, invest in creating the Better Future that is absolutely obtainable to all of us and get back to leading on the world stage. The world desperately needs us to do that. And that i believe is a calling of this Amazing Party at this moment in time and together we can do it. God bless you, thank you for having me. [applause] for the folks that just walked in, please help yourself, we will be back with her neck speaker in a few minutes. Thank you. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] a couple people that i wanted to recognize. He is here working the door. We appreciate everything that he does for the committee. Also i want to point out josh query whose estate representative for manchester and he will organize the elections in the fall and the doortodoor campaign so please before you leave today, see josh, give him your information so we can get you out there and knock on doors and get voters out. I did not recognize officials because we have such a tight program and when i tried to recognize the folks who are running on a list i must set upt up worldly. We will get that after words. We have a tight program, a lot of folks and we are very fortunate to be joined by cory booker and we have a bit of a situation going on the microphones. I have to apologize to all the speakers because they set it up for my height and it may be a little more low but senator cory booker. Good morning everyone. This is been fantastic. First of all i wanted to give a big round of applause. It is one of the hardest jobs with the least amount of recognition for all the work that you do and im grateful for you. My staff gave me holistic people to read off, i will follow your lead and not do that. But i actually dont want to talk about my policies and my ideas, you are hear from all of us, this is my third trip to your community and the first time i was blown away, you got 2727 reps elected. , i dont think this election is going to turn necessarily on the policies that we are doing. You know this, the differences between the democrats are so small between the democrats between us and donald trump. I am one of the people that want to sound the alarm of concern that if we are so much as we choose between an array of incredible candidates, one of my closest friends in politics, people i admire and learn from on the debate stage. I was telling him, he is teaching me about math for crying out loud. If we start reaping each other down, and creating impurity test, or somebody doesnt reach ten out of ten boxes that you checked and suddenly theyre not good enough and then a general election we cannot unify we will have a real problem in our party. I think one thing we have to understand right now is a selection is not a referendum on one guy in one office, its a representative random on who we are and who we must be to reach other. And not to each other as democrats, its a referendum on the culture of her country. We see one person and one office engaged in a level of world vandalism that is in the front, not just to the democrats but different too so many people, folks that are independent, people are hurting by what they see and we fear the culture is slipping further and further into tribalism and people hate each other. I hear stories about families that cant sit at the same table. If we cannot get our family unit together, we cannot get our neighborhood communities to agree on a common purpose and common cause than the adversaries are going to win. I see the intelligence reports from russia, icy what they are trying to do to us, the rino jewisdestroyus from within and l media to whip up more hate. Between democrats and republicans, any division they can exploit they will go for. I think the best of who we are as a nation, those generations past who fought every single time they had an opportunity to put more indivisible back into this one nation under god. Youll hear me talk about policy, i was up on cnn talking about climate plan, i was in primetime for hawaii and at the end of the night. [laughter] talking about policy the matter. Whether nuclear have a role, 50 of the noncarbon energy that we should talk about that. Talking about guns which as you all know is an issue that nobody in the campaign has had to deal with because people get shot in my neighborhood and i believe the gun licensing which some interparty dont want is essential. 80 of americans agree on that. But i want to be a little different because youre gonna get a chance over the next five months to get to know who i am. And i was laughing at a reporter, what about pulling. I am actually really happy about the pulling because nobody from our party who is going to be president since before i was born has one who is been pulling ahead. You should ask the people being pulled ahead to worry. The people we elect are dynamic candidates that were considered longshots, carter, bill clinton, barack obama was 20 points behind this far out. We win because democrats from our party focus on people, grassroots, organizing, connecting to people. And i want to talk to you right now because as a guy who is in politics, not because im a democrat, but because i decided to move into a neighborhood which is one of the most distressed in america, the central in newark new jersey, i live in a low income apollo under below poverty line community, the last senses in my neighborhood was 14000 per household. That was the income the median income. When i moved there in the 90s, it was challenging, it was difficult and i won my city council against the political regime. You few want to talk about fighter, there was literally a documentary made about my career called the street fight, it got nominated for an oscar. [applause] dont applaud me because then it goes on to be a shameful reality that the oscars to a movie called march of the penguins for crying out loud. [laughter] i am not as cute as a penguin i found out. And what i learned is what you all are demonstrating, this is what i want to encourage. I had all the forces arrayed against me. Literally, not only the political forces, i had windows on my car smashed, tires slashed, hate literature going out against me. I was warned in my career by federal judge who is concerned about my safety and security who went out of her way to reach out and warned me in my journey through coming up, i had my phone hacked, i was followed by the police, you watch the movie and you understand. But what was the faith that brought me forward was what you all are doing so well, forget partisan politics for a Second Period when you connect with people and you knock on doors, when you talk to them with the language on tv but you meet them where you are, my mom used to say cory you win your First City Council because you talk to people and ill tell you what she had a saying, she said who you are is going to speak so loudly that people will not be able to hear what do you say. Meet them at their heart and at their spirit. When our party years from that, we lose elections. When this election, this president ial election will not just turn on the head, we need candidates like you that will speak to the got in the heart and the soul of people. Because the best person with 815point policy plan is not the person that wins, if it was we wouldve won the last president ial election with a better prepared candidate, better plan, better issue, how are we going to connect to heart and spirit. Thats why want to end with an unusual story that i hope will govern your thoughts. I know you embody the spirit and i know this is what dave talks about, i knocked on thousands and thousands of doors when iran for city council to become the youngest person ever elected. It was one of the best educations ive ever received. I got my ba from stanford for my ph on the streets of york talking to real folks in the wisest people were not the letters after the name necessarily. People in the community who know their streets, and other people and those of the folks, my opponent got the same amount and hed been in office forever, we beat him because we connected to people and brought out an entirely new elect or. That is what well have to do in the states. I will leave you with a story that so much defines my character and speaks to the learnings i had to do. When i got to newark i was a penetrate advocate, my whole life has been fighting in my housing policy, im so proud in a guy in the trenches fighting for. I showed up and met the president in the project that i would move into for eight years, highrises, stress project, horrible condition, slumlord straight out of the casting. This woman i never forget knocked me down to size right away. I showed up as a law student and said im here to help you. And she said you need help. And ill never forget she takes me down to Martin Luther king boulevard insist tell me what you see, what you see in the neighborhood and i described what i saw, crackhouse, project and she said you cant help me and i said what are you talking about, she said you see the world outside you is a reflection of what you have inside. If youre one of these people that looks at my neighborhood and sees problems in darkness and despair you cannot help me, if youre stubborn people with every time you open your eyes and see hope and opportunity and love in the faith of god, then you could come up and help me out. She became. [applause] one of my great professors. One of the biggest lessons she redid, when we took on the slumlord and eventually got convicted in federal court for his crimes in the buildings. The person that she brought in was an elderly man who was the most legendary tenant leader youve ever seen. He ran the longest rent strike in nordic history and he took on the federal government. He took on the federal Housing Authority in one. And when i heard about this guy, this legend when he comes into the room, im a little under impressed. He did not suck the oxygen out of the room. But i felt was his heart and his spirit like my mom said, who you are speaks so loudly i cant hear what do you say. The first tenant meeting he sat in the front and mrs. Jones introduced the dignitaries, im sitting there and lines of people came up to speak to microphones about their pain and the hurt in their fears and the lack of heat in the water. And after the first hour i had everything i needed for the legal documents i wanted to file but the meeting went on and on and im getting tired in the sky break hutchins sat there and every person that got up for the microphone he looked at them as they were the first person, i looked in his eyes and by the end of the night everybody was talking to him although he never said a word. He was like the heat lamp in the corner of a room on a cold day because thats where they get their warmth from. As we work out i make is nine, ten. I say that was a long meeting and he stops very gently and says cory, you need to understand, were not here to fix the physical buildings. This trauma, hurt, were here to repair communities. And to be a part of the tightening in the spirit of this community that has been so under assault. Frank was one of the guys that told me too get into politics. This is not what i thought i would do in my career. But they said, you need to run for councilman city hall is corrupt. And i said im going to be a lawyer, they said no youre not you need to help people, the people will tell you what they want you to do. They said you dont worry have faith in us and they walked me through the buildings that i knocked on. I one in the lowest income area of the lowest income areas over nation through the subsidized housing, they vouched for me. Why do i still live there . Because i will not forget the community that put their faith in me. Now, frank is starting to get older. I become a city councilman, mayor and his health declined in his eyesight went. And i would go visit him and i say frank, its cory and he said i see you. And i knew he did not see me but that became her thing. Every time i would see him he would say icu. And there were taken Grocery Shopping and take him out, where you want to go. Hed say the movies and i say cant see the screen, i want to sit and enjoy a movie. So he got older and older and he ends up in hospice. And they go visit him as he is dying. And i want to tell you how messed up my ego is because again my education, i was upset when i would visit him that one of the greatest tenant in america who kept thousands of people in their homes with heat and hot water, it bothered my ego that i went to visit him nobody else was there. I was like why are there not crowds of people balloons, flowers everywhere then i realized this humble man in his last days whosoever, i realized that for him life is not about celebrity, its about significant, its not about popularity it is about purpose. It was not how about comedy people show up at your funeral when you die. Its about how many people you show up for while you are living. Contact and so, on the last day that i saw this man alive, i love health professionals. These nurses and these folks, we need unions, they should be paid more, theyre so heroic. And they saw me there regularly, the mayor of the city indicator to me and my emotions in this day they told me, this will probably be the last moments and last time you see him alive. They apologize because he had stopped talking, his breath had grown shallow and rapid and they inform me what to expect and i walked in and it opened the door and i said frank is cory. And then i saw him struggling and i was not sure what was going on but you struggling to speak and he forces out and i get closer to his bed, i see you. I would not be here if it was not for him. I kissed his forehead and i told him, we were making massive transformation at the time, and everything i was doing was because of you. And i told him how grateful i was and helped him but eventually i had to go. I was mayor of the city, busy, and i hugged him one more time and i said frank, i love you. And then he tries again to force out words and he says, and he forced shallow breathing he says i love you. And i walked out of his room and thats the last time i would see him. I want you to know i am in this because of this mans last words. If anything that can define who he was and what im trying to do with my life and i know for those of you who have elected offices, is not like running for president , you cannot go shopping, take two hours. You care about things that nobody talks about on the national news, youre definitely not doing it for the pay period. [laughter] you are embodying what this country needs and as we get caught up with materialism and celebrity and we have a president this stands up and says only i can solve these problems, franks last words, i see you. I love you. Recovering from addiction, but has taken his personal pain andd needed a purposmade it a purposs country to fight against the opiate addiction. Its the folks i needs that are senior citizens, some of you are in this room, attack on your body. But every day you say as long as there is breath in my lungs and blood in my veins i will not stop serving other. I see you and i love you. I have to teach them to hide in icu and love you. Senior citizens that work all their lives and now are wondering why they are under the poverty line and Social Security checks wont go far enough to. The woman had survived Sexual Assault havent even told her hr husband about what happened. Icu and i love you. This is about a lot of things but its about a referendum on us. How courageous is our empathy, in this time of darkness can we bring the light of a revival of civics grace. [applause] i am running for president of the United States but if anything being there taught me it broke me down and made me realize my power doesnt come from a position, it comes from people and communities that are connected and invested and comes from those repairers of the bridge between us and our society that dont stand around and brad. We are not called for tolerance. Its a cynical state of mind. We are called to love one another because patriotism of the love of country. You cannot love your country unless you love your fellow countrymen and women. Love is not a sentiment. Its not sentimentality. It is what you do. Love and sacrifice. Icu and love you. I want to finish with this because going this far down the road about my imperfections and the lessons i learned, i will give you a story to end that makes you smile. I thin think everyone of us cant fall into the seduction of being embodied the values of that which we are against. At the end of the day, my parents taught me do not complain about the world until you are first doing something about that which you are complaining. My parents challenged enough to point fingers but to accept responsibility and not to find blame but to be one that stands up and takes that responsibility. So, my final challenge to everyone in this room is in my checking myself. Im telling you weve got to do more. We have to wake up the imagination of the country and expand the moral consciousness of our nation. That is what great leaders do with the leadership of other people that they are humble. They are not perfect. They are willing to make mistakes and struggles and they know that often by shoving vulnerabilities that is the greatest courage to. This is my confession. Im driving home and we have lots of these fast food joints. So i am driving one of these and get a large fry. Im sorry im a guy that believes we should schedule marijuana on the federal level but maybe we should schedule those fries because they are very addictive. By a Police Officer came back home and has been a Police Officer now a detective. He drives me around and we all need to communicate. All they did is look in the Rearview Mirror and i hung my head in shame. Now ive got my french fries and im holding them like it mor waf the rings, my precious. Im about to drive out and there is a man with his head in a trashcan fishing around. I tried to lif live my values ad faith. Show it to me in how you treat other people. So, i rolled down the window because i know what my religion says. Jesus said something about if you have to mcdonalds french fries and your neighbor has none, there was a sermon on the mountain if i have a right. I said hey brother what do you need . He said im hungry. So i reach in my bag and pull out one of the fries and said hey take some of my fries. Then he stops and looks at me, and i know i was working with the mayor on some projects. We know that sometimes if youre homeless, socks are gold and he said do you have any socks . I said i dont have any. Looking around my car i dont carry any extra. I said im sorry i dont have any. He looked a little disappointed. Still happy to have the fries but i could see that he was in pain. He stepped away from my car, and i looked and im like whats going on. A guy he reaches into the steering wheel, takes off his shoes, the sox that hes wearing and hands them through the window. Now with the value, United States senator im a guy that talks about love and compassion and decency. I didnt think to take off the socks on my shoes. I tell you this to say simply this, this is not about him coming it is about us. How creative we are going to be in a moment of moral distress. How imaginative we will be in our acts of service and kindness and decency. This will pass the power of our love and i use that not as a false word that a powerful word. Being strong doesnt need to be cool and being tough doesnt mean you need to be mean. What we need is a ferocious love of our ancestors who stood before it marched on the admin this bridge the kind of love that brought them together to stand together. I have great ideas and strong policy that you want to know why im running, im running because icu and i love you and i believe organic anything thats the spirit that this nation is and needs from every office in the land. Thank you very much. [applause] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] every time i hear you speak you [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] i wish you all the best. Im glad that you are healthy. [inaudible conversations] im glad that you are running. Im looking forward to hearing you today. [inaudible conversations] you have upset me a few times on the debate stage. Im sorry about that. [inaudible] jobs dont exist anymore and that changes the equation for so many of the things democrats have preached for so many decades. It changes the dynamics and when people dont recognize that, they dont understand that this is going to mean a [inaudible] we would reall we would really like to continue this conversation if i could have your attention again we are fortunate to be joined by Michael Bennett. [applause] many people know he was the superintendent of Denver Public schools. I asked how they do make a big that schools are and told me that 95,000 students which is larger than the city of nashua into billiondollar budget. Please join me in welcoming you senator Michael Bennett. Thanks for having me. [applause] thanks for your leadership and all of you for being here today. I know that you have heard todays speeches and im going to spend most of the time taking questions so i hope that you have some questions. I wont go on and on about the federal budget deficit or Something Like that, but before working for the School District, i was in business and worked for the city and county of denver for a guy that had just become the mayor, john hicken luper. One of the duties as the chief of stafchiefof staff was to shoe nights we were having City Council Meetings and get raided by the city council. That was my job. The first time i did that come a, thefirst night i was there, my wife, have put the kids in the room with our Television Sets to watch this exercise and selfgovernment unfold in front of them which turned out to be like being berated by the city council and they were very young at the time. Advertisers are now 18 to 19 and 15. Then they were seven and five. So i got rolled around and went home and the kids all they wanted to note is how i have gotten into that and what i have done to make them so mad at me. That has been the essence of my political career ever since. I was very fortunate to then go work in the Denver Public School District like so many across the country where the majority of kids are kids of color into the majority are living in poverty and when i took a further 78,000 in the latest 95,000 because a district that have been retelling children because we havent been offering the kind of academics families once it is now one of the Fastest Growing in america and the other day stanford put out a study that said the kids are growing so much faster than the rest in the state that its as if the 60 Additional School days a year in denver compared to the rest of the state and this was a School District where student growth was slower than any other district in the state of colorado. I mentioned that because we are living in a country with profound economic inequality. The cost terrible lack of economic mobility. We have the largest income inequality that we have had in a hundred years into the Education System rather than liberating people from the circumstances is actually reinforcing the income inequality. Because the best predictor does your parents income because its a predictor of where you are going to live and that is a predictor of whether you are going to go to a good school for not its never came up during the course of their debates. It didnt come up during the course of our debate but its an issue especially for people in poverty. If i had to summarize my last ten years of the town hall in colorado on the road now in New Hampshire and iowa people are saying to me we are working so hard that w but we cant afforda combination of housing, healthcare, Higher Education or Early Childhood education and for the families that are not coming to my troubles to steer working two, three, four jobs to stay barely above water or the families i worked for when onee superintendent at denver. We are working as hard as we can possibly and we cannot get our children out of poverty or in a position to live a life that is better than we are living. This is what we are contending with as a country its not just a matter for the federal government which is why i mention it here because there are so many people here that are committed to Public Service at the local level and i just want to say thank you. I think the most good that we delivered as a society is education that on average the percentage that show up to vote is Something Like 3 in this country. We are treating americas conflict they are someone elses and thank goodness it still works by and large. I will shut up in the second. Whea second. When they set up thy they didnt imagine it was a country where we would agree with each other. That wasnt fair assumption. Their assumption is we would disagree because we were living in a free society is the way we contend that would enable us to cash in more imaginative and affordable solutions. I still believe in that and think thats true. The worst decisions ive made are the decisions ive made by myself without contending with other peoples points of view without understanding other people have a different perspective and without knowing that its legitimate even if it is a completely different than my own. How we fashioned them into it at the stoplight goes there or there or if youre goin we are n a school here or there or create universal health care for everybody in this country would deal with Climate Change this is the work of a free people created by people who live here who didnt even know there was a place called colorado when they set this up and i think we need to reconnect in the spirit of selfgovernment and with a democratic republic looks like if we are ever going to make washington work again for the American People. Washington doesnt work. Its completely broken before donald trump ever got there and its one of the reasons im running for president because i think i have a better understanding of the nature of the corruption than the other candidates that are running. Ive been there long enough to know how to get things done but also by the most important why t things do not get done. I know washington will never fix itself. Its going to be the American People that are going to be united behind an agenda that can reach people that will change the way washington works. It will never fix itself. Ms. Mcconnell will never fix itself and the Freedom Caucus wont fix themselves. They are a tyrant. It doesnt believe in the exercise of selfgovernment. They think they have a monopoly on wisdom that they try to put out on the rest of america and weve been immobilized by them for the last ten years so the Vice President says if only we get rid of donald trump it will all go back to normal, that isnt true. Ive seen it. Ive lived it and showed up there when barack obama became our president and i sulfated to him for the last six years of his presidency the inability to move anything through the congress means we can make progress except in the where we are going to continue to break these institutions you need to accept the world where democracy can never solve Climate Change. You will hear every candidate in this race talk about how we have to direct Climate Change and i agree we do. But that seems sufficient. We need a durable solution to Climate Change. We need a solution that will endure for generations. You cant solve Climate Change two years at a time and then have the other party come in and rip out whatever it is muted and go back two years later or four years later and put it back. That wont work. That sort of politics which is where we are today as a nation is works for people that have been sent to washington to face their appeal in type Cartoon Version of what the Founding Fathers would do to destroy the federal government. They are served by a politics that doesnt expect us to create solutions for anything you and thats why every time we cant even pass a budget it serves their purpose, but it makes it harder and harder for us to serve the children i used to work for in the Public Schools and their families that are living in poverty and the greatest country in the world but cant get ahead in every week that im there for the last ten years, ive evaluated the work weve done based on whether weve served as children that i used to work for and i can tell you the report card should be in it from that perspective. In my mind, the hallmark of a society like ours is whether the most Vulnerable People are able to move up and for decades in this country, they have not been able to move up and for those of you that are students of history, which i know many of the people in the room ar are, democracies dont survive for very long unless you have economic mobility and unless you have a chance for everybody to earn when the economy is growing. Thats what we have got to have as our agenda Going Forward building towards the National Election in 2020, so im grateful for the chance to be with you this morning. Im sorry to go on for so long. Let me stop and see, i am happy to take questions or criticisms. Ask me questions he would ask another politician because you think you might hurt their feelings. I was in urban schools superintendent for almost five years. You cannot hurt my feelings it has been beaten out of me a long time ago. We watched cory booker hit us with oratory. You have an entirely different presentation. Is it your belief that we actually need a politician more like you the than somebody that inspires multitudes . That is a good thing to do. The first time i met cory he had given a spellbinding address of the country club in Denver Colorado and i was than the superintendent. He was the mayor of newark and i said do you have a ride back downtown and he said no. I will give you a ride. He said okay and we have been friends ever since. I think that he has an incredible amount of skill. What i want out of the next president is somebody that will tell the truth about the nature of the challenges that we feasted with the obstacles are that we have to overcome and what each of us needs to do to overcome it. For me it isnt about one person at 1600 pennsylvania avenue. When donald trump rand saying i alone can fix it i cant think of anything more at war with how the country iacountry is suppos. Its not a question about who is better, it is a question about what we are doing and what our conviction is that citizens about our responsibility to this democratic republic and actually going back to the founders, my conclusion about that having spent some time thinking about this is that when you think about what the founders did, they did to incredible things in their time. Some of them came from right here. They led an armed insurrection against the colonial power that has never happened before in human history. They wrote a constitution ratified by the people that would live under it. That has never happened before. And therthere were a couple of s that have done Something Like this come athis, but the expanse geographcome at the expense ofgr happened before and it was beneath by a lot of people said couldnt happen to a. They were too big and there were too many people. They wouldnt imagine here we are coasttocoast, 330 Million People some of the most powerful economy for the moment o that te world has ever known. The most powerful capacity for selfdefense but the world has ever known that in many ways they wouldnt recognize the country because it is so much more democratic and free van they would have ever wanted it to be. So, how did we get here . When kids have come to see the lincoln memorial. Its a tendency for them to think this stuff was all just here and of course none of this stuff was just here a. When you think about the founders as i do, you need to consider the fact that they did something absolutely reprehensible which is they perpetuated human slavery, and that wasnt something that was a conventional approach to human events or affairs when they did it. They knew what they were doing was wrong and immoral. And it took other american amerd Frederick Douglass is the one whose story i like to talk the best for the kids that come to see me in washington and other americans to fix that, to end that and Frederick Douglass was born a slave, and enslaved human being in this country. He fled t massachusetts, new england where he hooked up with the Abolitionist Movement here. Actually it was in massachusetts. And if they were makin they were argument at the time the constitution was a proslavery document. Frederick douglass who was completely selftaught said you have this exactly wrong. He said the constitution is an antislavery document we are just not living up to the promise of the constitution. You cant imagine the power to the constitution is an antislavery document and we are not living up to the words conveyed by the way the same argument that Martin Luther king made the night before he was assassinated in memphis when he sold, told folktold folks when n to memphis with garbage workers he said im just here to make sure that america keeps the promise of america voted down on the page. In my mind when i think about the contribution to our country and our history, to me he is as much a founder as the people that wrote the constitution or. When i think about our responsibility if we have a guy in the white house that says i alone can fix it to somebody that doesnt have any belief in the conventional american approach to things and doesnt believe in freedom of the press or independent judiciary or separation of powers whos using his Emergency Powers to build a wall by stealing money from other parts of the national defense, whose wallets and unpatriotic to be when i ask myself what is our responsibility and what is our role, i believe that. Its elevated a okay to disableu show up on one of these executive committees in New Hampshire or you show up to vote for somebody and make other people vote or to make sure your superintendent is doing what they are supposed to be doing with the kids in the School District have the opportunity they need what they need to do, and then we are doing something for the lack of justice in this country i think that you are acting like a founder. We need to think about it that way. Its hard when its that elevated. Its hard. Its not easy. But the work has somehow been lost in our history books that kids dont seem to have as much. All that work was hard. What we are being asked to do now with trump is nothing compared to ending slavery. We are fighting a civil war. We are landing on the beaches in normandy knowing you were going to be shot as you climb those clips. Its nothing compared to those that fought to make sure that my daughter is into the women here have the right to vote because our founders didnt do that. That was other americans who saw it as their responsibility. Its nothing compared to the people. Im still meeting on the campaign trail who were beaten during the Civil Rights Movement and had their houses burned down to make sure their kids could have decent education and now the schools are just as segregated as they were then so its not as if there is a shortage of work. The reason is our exercising selfgovernment has been immobilized in stolen from us over the last ten years and we have to get it back in if we dont, we may never make progress on all the promises every candidate in the race has been making. Its going to require all of us to do our jobs better. [applause] there is a little bit of frederick. I know you had the pleasure of touring and you have seen what we can offer our students but we are struggling with making sure children throughout the state have an equal education. Communities that are wealthy or can provide more funding for their schools. Do you see any role on the federal level to assist us making sure that our kids have an equal education . I do thank you for asking that question. I put out my plan earlier this week and is in the eye yelling at you by the way or is this okay . I put out my plan earlier this week, and it includes a section for the federal government to fund state and local efforts to fix the kind of inequities you are talking about. We cant fix it all ive been fighting to make sure that it makes it to the kids in this country because for the reasons i will not bore you with today it doesnt and what we have is a massive subsidy in America Running for children to wealthy children which is the opposite of what we should be doing if we are trying to close the gap between kids of color in kids in poverty. I live in a state that has tried to equalize our funding. We have made some progress as a result of the there are many states in the country where there is no equalization so i think of my old friend who at that time the kids in the suburb next to mexico for getting 18,000 in tickets in chicago were getting 6,000. Its a joke. It is a joke and thats happening all over america. It weve got to find a way to fix it. Ive got to tell you i dont have the answer because we are so committed to the way we fund our schools today through local property taxes that i am committed to trying to export it with communities that want to work on it as well. I will give you another example out of my plan which is another problem i dont have a solution to that i know weve got to work on it and that is teacher pay. You want to know why we pay teachers a little in america, i will tell you it is because the whole system of paying teachers and training teachers and inspiring them to come to the classroom belongs to the time we had a labor market that discriminates against women and said you have two professional choices, one is being a teacher and one is being a nurse and if you dont want to be a nurse for whatever reason, you can be a teacher and we will make you teach Julius Caesar every year. Does this sound familiar to you . We will make you teach every year for 30 years of your life you and we will pay a wage that no one in your class would ever accept if you stick with us for 30 year30 years,30 years, and ye they are discriminating against you, we will give you a pension that sounded pretty good because your spouse would probably die before you that its the same system we have today even though the labor market looks nothing like that today. How we change that is going to be staggeringly hard but we have to because if we dont start paying people like the professionals that they are, we will continue to lose 50 of the profession in the first five years which is what we are doing today as the country. And i know part of that is going to be about paying people more that are in high poverty schools, paying people more with a special set of skills like Language Science acquisition but its going to be a challenge and that is why that also contained in my plan. Should i stop . One more idea and then i will go. If you ask a focus group across america what is the Democratic Party stand for an education, what do you think the answer would be today . Free college is what people would say. I dont know how we got to thate position as democrats because to me that if i were adding up a priority list i think i would start with free preschool long before i started with free college and i think that i would be thinking of the kids that were the 70 that are not getting a college degre degree e first to earn the minimum wage when they graduate from high school in order to earn a living wage because of our neglect and it doesnt have to be that way. If we were focused on those two things, we could actually transform the American Economy and the lives of millions of people. I was in manchester at a school where they were doing Technical Education like im talking about and there was a young woman who was working on a hovercraft. I said to her what are you doing whewere youdoing when you gradum high school in manchester . She said i am going to be an underwater welder. She was smiling. I said i bet that pays a lot and she said you Better Believe it. Thank you for having me okay. Its wonderfuontoday. Its wonderful to see you. [applause] please go to Michael Bennett. Com and register the [inaudible conversations] big how do you feel about hr 40 . [inaudible conversations] is [inaudible conversations] theres a lot going on today if i could have everybody just take your seat. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] we havent responded to the last one [inaudible conversations] sometimes we just need someone to go in and get the job done. [inaudible conversations] [applause] [inaudible conversations] i am the state director and Senior Campaign advisor. Marianne is an author, entrepreneur, leader and activist who se had a 35 year career transforming the lives of people in crisis. Im really happy to introduce you to marianne williamson. [applause] thank you to all of you. I think we are living in a time where the very concept my fellow americans means something that maybe we havent taken as seriously as we might have beenn the years before. When the senator was talking, i agree with everything he said. Everything he was saying is true that when i hear some politicians talk today, im remindei amreminded of what hape swear an oath in a court of law. The swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. The conventional political system certainly on the democratic side, we want the democrats a way that is the bottom line, but there is a lot of truth being told but not a mother who truth. I dont believe just telling the truth is going to defeat the kind of lies coming from the other side right now. We need help the whole truth and nothing. Can we talk about the fact these kids need to have better education, lets talk about the fact its more than education that we need to. The system on both sides needs to take responsibility for the fact we have been slaving away from democracy, economic and every other form. We have had a policy after poliy that was transferred to a very few people. We talk about the fact that before we had a College Education for free, we had to have preschool free. We need to talk about the fact that millions of American Children who are traumatized before preschool. In New Hampshire alone, northern New Hampshire i was told by political and Economic Business leaders that you have 25 of your children in northern New Hampshire that go to sleep hungry at night. This is what ive learned i didnt know it on the level i know it now. People of the United States were even more wonderful than we hoped. The people of the United States are just kind. That isnt where the problem lies and i would say that about the average american on the right and the left. The problem lies in the fact that our government functions in such a way that has come up lately divergent from the consciousness of the people of the United States. Michael bennett was talking about this is a democracy meant to be the will of the people have the wil,the will of the pek to dominate the policies of our government, but the policies are not dominated by the will of the people. The policies are dominated by advocacy for huge multicorporate national entities. That is what dominates the politics, anpolitics come into e politics because of the undue influence of money on our political system. Every one who is part of that system, even those that are most well intended, ladies and gentlemen of the system is so corrupt, im sorry but its time for the people to step in. and they create this illusion that it has to be one of them. We think about this for a moment. People whose careers were entrenched in the trunk of this ditch. And weve become kind of stepford politicians. What issues we are talking about, why dont w we talk about the militaryindustrial complex and that defense contractors do more to influence the National Security agenda that would showt influences which ishowthe influl legitimate security needs of the United States, because if it was only the actual security needs of the unite United States unitt influences dominated the security agenda, it would consist of two things. One, every village. The military needs have only agreed. And it will also include a u. S. Department of peace. They would support an equal power at the table as does the military. Why isnt that being talked about, like two girls on the campaign and whistles. When peace and gentlemen, why do you think that is what im talking about poverty in america, why do you think it is we are not talking about country children or the fact that millions of American Children who go to school every single day in schools that do not even have the adequate School Supplies with which to teach a child to read it if the child cannot learn to read by the age of eight, the chances of High School Graduation or drastically decreased and the chances of incarceration are drastically increased. You dont think that the institutional racism doesnt run a little bit deeper than that . Thank you very much. And the answers that are being g prosecuted by the conventional democrats, ladies and gentlemen, does the phrase same old same old mean anything to us . I read an interview that moved me into this when Jared Kushner was talking about a conversation that he had his fatherinlaw twwith hisfatherinlaw two yeae the last election. He said to his fatherinlaw and you know theres a lot of angry people out there. We could harness all that angerr and make you president. When i looked it up and read that interview, this is what i thought to myself. There are a lot of wonderful people out there in a really good dignified people out there, smart people, good people. We could harness all that and change the world. But ladies and gentlemen, if we want that we cant go into the same old same old. Its not going to beat donald trump. We need to be more psychologically and emotionally sophisticated. We are in our lives, we just go almost done and it comes to politics come into democrat dem. In a way that is odd. When the republicans were told by the Republican National committee well, you can choose jeb bush, ted cruz, scott walker, they didnt care for the rnc said. Said. We want donald trump. But its on our side if there is a lack of rambunctious as what they say you can choose this one or this one. Its happening right in front of us. This is my belief. We need to wake up. Donald trump is not just a politician. Donald trump is a phenomenon. And i do not believe that the traditional conventional even democratic conversation would defeat him. I dont want to say that it wont because they dont want to put that into the air but its going to be difficult and let me tell you why it is going to be difficult, because the part of the brain that analyzes this issue and what he ought to do about it isnt the same part of the brain decides who to vote for. For. And the candidates are sharpening their knives. The republicans will be bringing to us t the fight. They have got to know what the russians are bringing to the fight. We need somebody qualified, we have the most qualified candidates must find a. We had the best policies in the world us time and i had good plans, i have good policies. My policies go further. I dont want to develop more money for education, i want a department of children and youth to deal with the fact that our children are hungry and we need Community Wraparound service and antiviolence and bullying in touch, and fund education, emotionally the psychological and political establishment is dwindling so much in the 20th century. This is the 21st century. Im not saying anything that anybody i know isnt already talking about it. Im just talking about it when the microphone is on. To defeat donald trump, we are going to need something on the same language we have been talking for 20 years. We are going to need a phenomenon of our own and i agree with Michael Bennett, isnt one human being. We dont believe that because we are not just democrats, we are americans. But the phenomena that will override in the various influence is that the Trump Administration isnt one person, but its a rising of the consciousness of the American People are conscious of the American People that is not to say in one our ow own parties ad going deep enough to say we will and his brave enough and courageous enough to say when one of the traditional candidates isnt saying is, maybe thats the point. Maybe thats the point. Whewhen im called an outsider s interesting to me when im called an outsider. This is america. We are all insiders. Dont you get what is being talked about here . Iam talking more like kennedy and the democrats that were a part of my years. We are the party of the people and too often the Democratic Party also to advocate to the people at the same time to make sure Health Insurance companies are happy and pharmaceutical companies. And the militaryindustrial complex contractors are happy. And it breaks my heart when i see republicans more willing to stand up to their establishment then democrats are willing to stand up to theirs. The democratic establishment elite says no it has to be this way but they failed. If we allow them to dominate the conversation i dont want to say we will fail again but that is my thought we need some rambunctious this and some revolutionary spirit in this country the same spirit that was in play in 1776. We have to realize there is no moral equivocation when it comes to stand up the forces of tyranny and when you fail to educate when you are the richest country in the world and you withhold education from a child that is called passive oppression. When they say things like the country is still tied to this idea that we find the educational system primarily with property taxes then thats a problem. It needs to stop. It is wrong. It is wrong. We know the racial element in all of this but also white children who live in poverty. 40 percent of all americans who live with chronic economic anxiety and we have a system where corporate aristocracy let us be clear about this with all the horror that it needs us to take it in that we repudiated in 1776 corporate aristocracy but today it is sitting up there somewhere they are talking about in the form of job creation and then say dont take crumbs we will give you a cookie. But im the kind that says this is america we dont eat cookies either. Everybody gets to feast. But for that to happen there has to be a power in version beginning with you and me. We are not supposed to say thank you corporate aristocrat for taking such a transfer of wealth in this country that 1 percent owns more wealth than the bottom 90 percent. With 40 percent to leave england living in chronic economic anxiety that we have decimated the income equality that used to exist. And for those of you that were young enough this all started in the eighties. The Democratic Party should stand for the american that should say to anybody no matter what form that it takes , you give me free healthcare , Free Education give me a decent shot and i will give you a career. Now we have to ask pretty please we have been so trained to say please . Do you think maybe our children could have enough to eat . There childrens yes in New Hampshire that go to School Every Day if the teacher has food for them to eat . We need a peaceful revolution because the current political system has gotten us to where we are. It will not lead us from here the declaration of independence says all men are created equal all men have unalienable rights of those children who dont have enough to eat for adequate School Supplies, are they able to pursue happiness . Because lets keep reading after all that is our Mission Statement it says that government is to secure those rights and then it says if the government isnt doing its job it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it. Im not saying we should abolish it but absolutely we need to alter it and we wont just continuing to bow for the systems that perpetuate to be the way they are not part of an organized Political Party i am a democrat. We laugh at that because we dont just toe the line. We should be the party where the people tell them. Why do they talk about the militaryindustrial complex . Why are we talking about the fact we have a system that is so immoral that the only way we will override the immorality of donald trump is through a moral compass through a shift and a transfer doing everything it has to do with repeal the 2017 tax cut and stop the corporate subsidies so the government can negotiate with big pharma cut military spending we need that 3 percent tax on a billion or more on assets of over 500 million we need to do those things and make things right. When im president of the United States i want every school to be a palace of learning of culture and the arts see that unrealized economic potential in this country Going Forward is the fact that we refuse to make sure the brain of every kindergartner can become everything they want to be. A lot of people love to pay but those that hate the racist and the bigots and the homophobes and anti semites are active their effective than they know what they want and they go for it. The problem is and that there are more haters. We are a nation of good people and dignified people but we have to go for love the same way they go for hate we need to stand up and wake up and push through anything holding us back in the entire conventional political system that is not the system the founders gave to us. They did not put the power in the hands of any political elite they put them in the hands of the people if you dont have the power in your hands if you dont have in your heart or in your head ladies and gentlemen i suggest you take the people very seriously they came up with the Abolitionist Movement not the government the Abolitionist Movement led up the same with the suffragettes the Us Government the political system did not wake up and say give women the right to vote the people stepped out and stepped in and the same was civil rights. Us government didnt wake up and say lets end to segregation. The people rose up and stepped in. Democracy is pretty radical. Democracy is pretty revolutionary and its an ongoing process. We are about america and it is time once again and it is critically important for the people to step in and i am Marion Williamson and i am for the people. Thank you. [applause] [applause] [inaudible conversations] thank you. [inaudible conver [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] folks to introduce our last speaker i will introduce senator klobuchar. [applause] all my favorite democrats are here. I am extremely proud i have read about you this week and i was super impressed. He is a writer and has published some books and fighting for great causes so now ill introduce john who will introduce amy. [applause] thanks for having me i am amys husband i have been married to amy over 25 years because she wanted to be here so she did to sunday shows for moms demand action and gun safety legislation. [applause] and now the senate is going back into session there is a lot of work to be done and she has a lot of bills she has been working on in that gun safety legislation area and the secure elections area. Just things to be looking out for the next week she is bringing the bill to close the boyfriend loophole. It sounds a little innocuous but right now if you are a spouse and you commit a serious Domestic Abuse offense you cannot get a gun but if you are a boyfriend you can. Is the same danger so she has been trying to close that loophole part of the violence against women act that has already passed in the house and is sitting on Mitch Mcconnells desk right now he is refusing to take it up he is holding up the entire violence against women act to close the loophole that says if your boyfriend and commit a serious Domestic Abuse offense you cannot get a gun. That makes a lot of sense to me to pass this law for go the other bill amy has been meeting is the secure elections act the bill she has been cosponsoring with a code conservative from republican James Langford that says the state should have a backup paper ballot. Right now there is 11 states that do not have backup paper ballots. This bill was up for a markup not too long ago and the Trump Administration and Mitch Mcconnell killed the bill because they do not want secure elections. In 2020 we need to have secure elections imagine the chaos to ensue if you dont have backup paper ballots and dont know how people voted and of course with the russians and chinese they know they dont have ballots theyve done that before was to make sure it doesnt happen so she has these bills in the mix to change our democracy and this morning i wanted to tell you a little bit about amy i hope some of you got to see her performance at the convention yesterday. [applause] there was an article in the Washington Post that said she brought her a game. She knows how to win thats on the minds of everybody in New Hampshire. With cory booker and Michael Bennett are friends of ours we have known them a long time in the senate. But this is a really important election and we need to win. I will tell you how i saw what amy did in minnesota and how she won these elections. When amy first ran for office she ran for the county attorney which is the da position with minneapolis and 45 surrounding suburbs the first time she ran against the congresswoman sister because of that relationship she could raise a lot of money she was outspent two one that she won a hardfought race she went doortodoor and talk to people and got the vote out and could win the election by only nine votes per precinct 1998 the same year former governor ventura became the governor of minnesota. So we have independent voters just like you have a New Hampshire. Four years later they cannot find anybody to run against her because she had done such a good job she had no opponents this led to some humor another opponent in town didnt have an opponent so frank and amy would have the society of unopposed candidates and still had to explain why they had to campaign she had an overwhelming victory without the opponent but she worked those candidates as well that grassroots tradition with the highest voter turnout in the state to expand the people to vote not to restrict the people who are trying to vote. [applause] because republicans the voters are supposed to pick the politicians but right now with gerrymandering politicians are picking their voters to reduce the people that can vote at a time we should be encouraging young people to vote. Amy has a bill to allow every single young person to turn 18 to be registered automatically. Wouldnt that be a great idea . We have sameday registration so we are all about letting people vote to participate in democracy. Running for the senate and the first time in 2061 senator decided not to run and amy ran against sitting congressman who was the predecessor of michelle bachman. Remember her cracks his name was mark kennedy and supposed to be one of the most contested races in the country with an open seat amy won that race by over 20 points. Six years later she won 85 out of av 87 counties in minnesota she goes to every county every year. This last year she won 42 of the counties donald trump one so if you ask yourself can she beat donald trump . In some way she already has because she won back those voters that donald trump convinced to vote for him. She did that by making one he did that by making false promises he is telling people he would do something about infrastructure that was his promise and you know how long he met with the democrats it was about three minutes before he cratered the deal. He doherty given the money away with his tax bill. He promised he would do something about Prescription Drugs and make our head spin. How low the prices were going to go. He hasnt done anything about that. Amy by contrast has led the three bills to bring down the cost of Prescription Drugs. To unleash the power of the seniors and let them negotiate for Prescription Drug prices i think its very unamerican not to negotiate the pharmaceutical industry paid a bunch of lobbyist to get over 200 million to get this provision to have a refusal to negotiate actually they do under the Veterans Administration system and they reap millions of dollars of profits from that payment to those lobbyist. Amy wants to change that to have medicare negotiate for drug prices also to bring down the price of drugs to have them coming from canada and other countries in minnesota of course canada is very close we can go to canada to purchase things like insulin when discovered by canadians scientist they sold it to the university of toronto for three dollars because they wanted to make sure that would be available to everybody. Somebody in our state her son aged off insurance at age 26 he tried to ration his insulin he had a good job but he died because he cannot afford insulin is 1200 a month. If you look at the prices in canada it is a lot lower and there is no earthly reason why americans should be driving to canada if they could even get there but why should the price be so much higher in the United States than other countries . A third thing is in the practice of pay for delay where Branded Drug Companies will pay generics to keep their products off the market. The only people that benefit from that is the Drug Companies and the person that loses of the american consumer. We need to push these bills through congress because right now my wife knows how to get things done in one of her skills as identifying the problem and in working to fix it she passed the bills were she is the lead democrat think about that with the gridlock from washington dc but yet she can make progress in that as a sign of a true progressive. Paul wellstone said we all do better and we all do better than that politics is the improvement of peoples life. If youre not improving their life than whats the point . Mitch mcconnell calls himself the grim reaper. Killing all of these ideas that are out there for legislation. We need to have somebody on the top of the ticket not only win against trump but a big win to bring along because if we dont take back the senate none of this will happen. He will keep holding it up like the gun safety legislation or anything on Prescription Drugs. We need to have somebody at the top of the ticket to help everybody down the line. Whenever amy is on the ballot we have flipped the house or the senate whatever it was at the time three times in a row she has done that one each district every time shes been on the ballot she knows the farm issues in the middle of the country and the kinds of issues people are crying out for to solve this problem of the rural urban divide to solve problems like housing and mental health. This has been a huge issue with opioids and she has a very personal connection. Number one her father was an alcoholic. He lives in assisted living and says its hard to find a drink at this point but hes been sober for many years and is now suffering from alzheimers and these are issues nobody is really talking about but millions of people with alzheimers as we see the growth in the senior population longterm care is another issue thats what amy wants to work on as well. And she has a backbone. Look at donald trump by contras contrast. Here is somebody who continually lies i refer to this as the pinocchio presidency that he tells me lies in acts like a petulant child with that sharpie drawing on the hurricane map who does that . You cannot make this up he has a propensity to lie and is a puppet and recording with Vladimir Putin to say theres no reason not to believe Vladimir Putin and one of the journalists say what does donald trump do . He makes a joke about it all these people that have died fighting for democracy and options around the world that donald trump thinks its a joke. It is no joke we have to replace donald trump and betsy divorce. [applause] and all the acting secretaries who act like they know what they are doing but they have no clue. Amy can win. She works incredibly hard vanderbilt did a study and found in the senate she was most effective. You have some great senators here in New Hampshire but you need to help make things get done. They look at the metrics and she was the first person since the nineties to be in the Minority Party and the top five most effective senators thats a record of accomplishment and achievement and she will not back down. One thing you will notice donald trump does not like to deal with strong women. Nancy pelosi has proven that. And he just doesnt know what to do. Thats why andy will be a great candidate and one of the things i like to point out 2020 is the 100th anniversary of the 19th amendment. Wouldnt that be a nice just result . Thank you for being here and thank you for listening. [applause] thats talent when he becomes president how do you think she would tap into the talent of these present candidates quick. Amy gets along with everybody and tries to we have the embarrassment of riches in the Democratic Party right now she has good relationships with people you heard from today and she is the leader that brings people in and asks for their help not like donald trump to do it by himself. You have to work with coalitions and sometimes you may have a disagreement with somebody on one issue but become a friend on another. When she has been on the debate stage she has been taking her case against all trump not attacking the fellow democrats. That is the number one priority. To beat donald trump. Can you comment how amy would address the deteriorating relationship with china from the chinese standpoint as well as those that rely on china as the supply chain quick. Thats one of the big issues of our time. What we see as donald trump has approached this the wrong w approached this the wrong way. This was a legal conduct and brought the chief of staff up to the iron ranch and they came to meet with dennis and said that this meeting and he was then convinced of steel dumping and went back to dc and they worked together to enforce the law dealing with steel dumping and what baseball is the they saw ad adding people into jobs again but that is a very targeted approach to taking on misconduct instead of just having a blanket and American Consumers are paying the price for this. They said the average consumer will spend a thousand dollars more per year because of the tariffs and donald trump is just not a very good negotiator, to be honest. I was reading something about a case involving donald trump and bust in new jersey it was a billiondollar case and this was not a good negotiation or good moment for us business perspectives. Its a different approach and i think that if the policy makes no sense. One of the most recent examples he canceled the meeting with denmark because they refused to sell. Really . I work with the gentleman said to me i like amy but what i heard about her dealings with the staff we have a question in my mind. How do you respond to that it needs to be addressed. The office in washington, d. C. There were more than 20 people that find it high turnover in the staff. I. These are some highlevel people that work with both barack obama and michelle obama. She was very supportive of those people and soak in some cases people come back to work on the president ial campaign and you dont get all that legislation passed by being someone you cant work with. I know a lot of the staff people personally. Shes been in the senate for over 12 years now and has great people and loves her staff and so she also wants to get things done and you cant afford to be or take every single time to be overly polite about things have to be direct and get things done and thats where you get things done and right now have millions suffering from opioid addiction. I can tell you shes effective and one of the other things that you see think about that for a second. R. All the women just bad bosses . I dont think so. Any more questions . You stumped the crowd which would have been a first. Thanks for having me. Dave was in minnesota and got some training and was involved in setting up an alternative to the incarceration so thats a big thing we are proud of. I got to experience a storm in st. Paul. Thank you all for being here today. That will conclude the program. Im sorry that before i got to recognize all of the officials who are here, we have so many it would have added another 45 minutes. Thank you all of you for what you are doing because it is a sacrifice both personally, professionally for families and everything else. Thank you for everything she d did. Tomorrow night we do have our monthly meeting of the public librarat the publiclibrary righ0 for the National Democrats for anyone who can join us there. Thank you very much for coming out