Live now to our roundtable discussion with20 20 democratic president ial candidate joe biden and a number of military veteransin tampa florida. This is live coverage on cspan2. Thank you for your years of service and continued commitment to supporting our students. Veterans as they pursue their educations. Thank you Hillsborough Community college for hosting us today. My wife jill is a Community College professor and weve known for a long time Community Colleges are the best kept secret in america in terms of our education system. This is just one reasonwhy. You help people take the next step in their lives to getthe training and accreditation they need. Including our vets who after years of dedication to our country are ready to build civilian lives ofmeaning and of opportunity. Less than one percent of the population of our country chooses to serve our country in the military. Less than one percent risks everything to defend our nation and everything we hold dear and the other 99 percent of it we owed them. We opened our thanks, our gratitude and our respect. Quite frankly, it makes me very upset where he gets in front of a camera and crows about how much he has done for veterans and then turns around and insults our Service Members and fallen heroes. He calls them suckers and losers. My son, bo, was a u. S. And went to cozumel for six months to set up a criminal Justice System and did such a good job there because of oh named a highway after him and then he had to get his exemption because his attorney general in the state of delaware to go with his unit to iraq and went for a year in iraq and came home with a bronze star and he is gone now but he was no sucker. He was a man like many of the people he served with, women and men who served with him, served in a way that they should be honored as heroes not in some derogatory way. He did not come home a loser. They came home heroes. I think is an absolute disgrace. Donald trump has no idea about the ideas that animate women and men who sign up to serve, duty, honor, country and that is what service and patriotism is all about. Duty, honor and country. As we reported from a very reliable source and confirmed by many major outlets it is said to a fallen father member of the service, the father of fallen soldier who was himself a member of the service as standing by the gravesite he allegedly said, i dont get it. What was in it for them . What was in it for them . Donald trump does not seem to be able to concede the idea of Selfless Service or being a part of a cause bigger than yourself. Every day i carry with me a card and ive done this for a better part of 14 years and it is my schedule and on the back of it where the schedule ends there is a black box that i have here and it says daily troop updates. U. S. Troops died in iran and afghanistan, 6000 as of today, 923, not roughly 6900, 923 because every one of these fallen angels left behind a family, left behind a community and it was an empty seat at that table now. U. S. Troops one in iraq and afghanistan, 53192 and not over 53000 and i have flown back on those c130s with caskets draped coming out of iraq and afghanistan and ive been there at Dover Air Force base when those bodies come home. You know, think of all the folks and you all know it coming home with unseen injuries with tens of thousands coming home with unseen injuries, postherpetic stress, dramatic brain injury and Mental Health challenges and as a nation ive been criticized for this over the last 30 years when i have set it but a nation we have many obligations to our children and elderly and the poor and those in need but i believe we only have one truly sacred obligation to prepare and equip our troops that we send into harms way and to care for them and their families when they return. We all are veterans the future of security and dignity that they have earned and it starts by protecting the va and restoring the trust in the va because the va must be the premier provider of Healthcare Services to remote to promote our veterans overall wellbeing. That is why the va is more Specialized Knowledge about how to treat veterans unique health needs the on physical and mental and the private sector does by far. Provides a community of understanding and support and facilitates accountability for Veterans Health and wellbeing as a whole that is absolutely vital to successful outcomes. We have a responsibility to ensure that we are providing veterans worldclass healthcare they deserve in every situation and that means hiring more doctors and medical personnel and professionals to work at the va, including physicians essential to Veterans Health care, nurses and psychologists. We need to offer these medical professionals the incentive to join the va and we need to pay them a Competitive Salary in the private sector. We also had to do more to build a pipeline of doctors and nurses, especially in rural areas. If you live far away from the va center is absolutely essential that you can see a doctor closer to home and that is why during our administration president obama signed the va act of choice and accountability act into law in 2014. President trump would like to say he passed the va choice but just like Everything Else he seems to be saying its a figment of his imagination and its a flat life. Now i need to keep working to implement the mission act effectively and efficiently so that it works for all our veterans and i will always make sure Community Care providers are held at the same, high quality standards as ba centers. We will make sure our Women Veterans and ebt q veterans get the service and respect they deserve from culturally competent providers. Critically we will make sure that no veteran is locked out of treatment for conditions related to toxic exposure from burn pits or traumatic brain injuries they experienced in the line of duty. We made that mistake with agent orange. As a senator i fought for decades to help you nonveterans get access to help and we were able to expand on it during the obama biden administration. We cant let this be delayed again and that denying access cannot prove a direct connection to your exposed agent orange and it is to be presumed that the ailment you have is caused by your exposure to agent orange as you get treated. Weve got to seriously tackle the Mental Health crisis we ha have. A suicide epidemic is claiming far to many veterans and servicemembers. One of the saddest things that my son came home after after a year in iraq he was back at attorney general and the week before christmas he came over the house and said i dont know what i will do. There was a marine veteran that have been deployed for a total of six times, if my memory is correct, who was in a relatively a modern upscale neighborhood, middleclass neighborhood and get up in the morning and get out and i think there was a dodge ram started down the street in front of his house which was no sidewalks and saw a woman walking her dog and ran over her, killed her, kill the dog, put her in the back of his pickup truck, took her down i 95 right by where the where was the all the sand pile for emergencies and molested her, put her back in the truck, came home and called the state places that i just killed someone and there was a voice in my head i had to kill someone picked turned himself in. You know, the latest stats suggest almost 600 veterans, are dying by suicide every year just here in florida. 600 a year. It is devastating. There arent any easy answers to this but we can do so much better than we are doing now. We have an allegation to do so much better and we have to help our heroes understand that it is an honorable thing to do and take strength to reach out and ask for help if they are suffering from unseen wounds. They are so accustomed to being asked not to ask for anything and we have to end this stigma surrounding Mental Health. When they do reach out and when they call the crisis hotline or walk into a va hospital or visit a va center for counseling we have to make sure, damn sure no one turns them away and no one tells them they have to wait and part of it is making sure that veterans feel a sense of security and connection and mission in the civilian world as they did an active duty and better implement opportunities and meaningful career trajectories, education like the one student thats get here at helzberg, Community College which is a greater opportunities for our vets, not just put money on the pockets of forprofit fraudulent outfits because we got to stop that. In all matters, especially matters how their families are treated. John milton the poet wrote these lines, they also serve and only stand and wait, no militaries families, wives, husbands, mothers, fathers they serve every single day attending to their specific needs and unique challenges should never be an afterthought for us. It is a National Security imperative and fulfilling our promise to her veterans and military families, caregivers and survivors it is critical to ensuring that not only we meet our obligations but the future generations continue to volunteer to serve. My wife, jill, worked on this more than about anyone and during our administration she and Michelle Obama teamed up and started a nationwide initiative to drive concrete commitments to support Service Members, veterans and their families and caregivers and survivors to help make sure teachers are equipped to better meet the needs of military children in their classrooms and to help bring down some of the barriers because the vast majority of those kids in the school have no idea what little johnny or little mary are worried because his mommy or daddy is stationed in a foreign land. It makes so much harder for military spouses to find good jobs and build their careers and they have to change and we are working with leaders like warren weiner, hiring our heroes and military Spouses Employment Program and for example making it easier to carry her professional credentials with you from one state to another when the spouse moves. The private [inaudible] they will keep pushing further to make it easier for audreys spouses to find meaningful careers to ensure teachers know how to support military children in the classrooms and to improve support for caregivers and survivors so much more than we do now. This isnt a theoretical commitment but personal. The year my son bo deployed to iraq and his National Guard unit that was when jill and i learned what it really means to be part of a military family. You end up praying every night and every morning for the safety of your child far from home in the middle of a war zone, facing unknown dangers and every Family Gathering they are missed and every time the children ask white mommy or daddy isnt there, it hurts. These are the challenges most americans never have to face and these are the women and men and their families and they are the absolute best that our country has to offer and the backbone of america and some of the most meaningful moments of my vice presidency of those eight years was in thanksgiving we hope to think saving meal for the wounded veterans as a Vice President ial residence and we spend every Christmas Day visiting the patients of Walter Reed Hospital and i spent time with our Wounded Warriors and Trauma Centers all across the country and around the world and you know what the message often heard and often i say soldiers so what can i do for you and whether they have their amputees or not and they tried to pull themselves up and try to salute and say yes, sir. I want to go back to my unit. Can you get me back to my unit . We leave this program at this point to take you live to the floor of the u. S. Senate to keep our longterm commitment to gavel to gavel coverage. You can watch the rest of this program on a website, cspan. Org. Now live coverage of the senate. Stoday lawmakers will work on judicial nominations. There appears to be. And the clerk will call the roll. Vote