Captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2008 create jobs, encourage entrepreneurship, encourage innovation, and get people investing in smaller communities. That, my friends, is one of the central challenges of our country. That is a focus of my campaign. For the next 30 days i will do 40 stops in 40 small towns around iowa talking just about this issue. What im asking you to do is if you think this issue matters, if you think the Democratic Party and our leadership needs an agenda to encourage be a investment in small communities im asking you to caucus for me, to send a message not only to the Democratic Party but to the country that Rural America matters, that small towns matter, that they need to be the focus of national politics, that its not just about the coasts, that its not just about the big cities. We cannot continue these trends. We cant wake in 10 or 20 years and see huge parts of our country trained economically and ten huge cities with all the jobs. That will never lead to stable democracy, they will never lou us to do the kind of things we should have done and that will be terrible for these communities. Let me tell you some of the things i want to do to deal with this issue. I want to create an incentive for companies to locate in smaller towns. Im going to tell you one very simple thing im going to do that will have a big impact. Right now, the u. S. Government is the largest buyer of goods and services in the world. The u. S. Government buys more of everything than anyone. You fund that, the taxpayers, through the Government Contracting process. So right now, if youre trying to get a government contract and youre a veteran owned business or minority owned business or woman owned business, you get a preference, meaning you get an advantage in getting a government contract. I support those. Those are good programs. I want to create a new program where 25 of the government contracts in this country go to firms that have half of their employees in communities that are struggling economically. Because we dont need more Government Contractors in San Francisco or los angeles. We need them in the heartland of this country. Thats one thing i will do. It will be transformative and create an incentive for all these Government Contractors when theyre thinking about hiring new people, to set up operations in communities that are struggling, which includes Rural America, the industrial belt of this country, even inner cities that are struggling. Second thing, part of a National Infrastructure program, a 2 trillion dollars National Infrastructure program i have a plan thats fully paid for and i want to create an over allocation or a disproportionate allocation to those same communities struggling economically. I want to take part of our tax code where we have something called the earned income tax credit, wiscons which is a tax that goes to workers on the lowend of the pay scale and puts money in their pocket at the end of the year. I want to increase the i would like to increase it all over the country but at a minimum increase it in communities that are struggling economically. Then i want to mr. On something i did when i was in congress, which is to create something called the Opportunity Zone legislation which creates an inventive for private investors to invest in struggling communities. Those four things, a National Infrastructure program with more dollars in struggling communities, so we have Rural Broadband everywhere and stuff like that, an incentive for Government Contractors to locate in these places, doing things to help workers in these places, right, creating incentives for private capital to flow to these communities, that will transform a huge number of struggling communities all around this country. Its an unmatched agenda relative to any of the Democratic Candidates running for president. I would argue none are even talking about this issue. Its a huge part of my campaign. As well as my proposals to create a form of universal health care which we can talk about, but a smart form of University Health care. Only three candidates right now have proposed universal health care, only three. Universal Health Care Means everyone gets health care as a basic right of citizenship. Three candidates have proposed that, senator warren, senator sanders, and myself. The rest of the candidates are talking about something called a public option which is a governmentrun insurance company. Theres nothing wrong with it, but its not going to do anything to deal with the problems we have in our Health Care System right now. It would be positive, but its a very, very small step. But unlike senator warren and sanders who propose a universal Health Care System, but then they also make private insurance illegal, what ive proposed is a universal Health Care System that allows people to have private insurance, what germany does, france does, australia does. Thats a common sense way to create universal health care. Because i think every american should have health care as a right. As you may know in a lot of hospitals around this country, most hospitals around this country, particularly in Rural America, hospitals get paid two to three times from commercial insurance they do from the government. The problem with having the government pay all the bills is it wont keep the lights on in the hospital. The government pays less than the cost of health care. So thats why we want a mixed model. It underscores how i think about policy and leadership, we should be solving problems by looking at facts, looking at data, bringing people together with common sense solutions. You know, i wrote a book, i see some of you have it, its called the right answer and it comes from a speech that i gave that it comes from a speech that john f. Kennedy gave in 1958 and in this speech he said, we should not seek the republican answer, we should not seek the democratic answer, we should seek the right answer. He went on to say, we should not seek to fix blame to the problems of the past, but we should own our responsibility for our future together as americans. And be he gave this speech a fe weeks after something called sputnik was launched. Shf you remember or read about sputnik, the rocket the soviet union launched into space. If you look at the history books, you realize the American People were utterly panicked by this event. They didnt know what it meant. Great leaders like joe bidhn ke said our future is ours to build and we have to build it together and thats what we did. I think were at a similar moment. Its not one rocket into space, but its all this change driven by technology and globalization, change that has been transformative and positive. I mean this change has been extraordinarily positive. Billions of human beings have been lifted out of poverty the last 20 years, 2 bill people have been lifted out of poverty across the last several decades. We have innovations that no one could have ever imagined. Some children are born with situations that 20 or 30 years ago they wouldnt have a chance, now they can live full lives. Diseases that were terminal are now curable or made chronic with one device we can connect to people all over the world, weve opened up society. We also know this change has been challenging for so many of our citizens. 40 of our citizens cant afford their basic necessities. A lot is in Rural America in the heartland of this country. We need to come together and rise up to this challenge. But the only way we can do it is by working together. For every challenge and opportunity we have, theres a right answer. Theres a right answer for all these things. This is a magnificent country. You shouldnt let anyone tell you otherwise. Right. We have the best hand of any nation in the world. The only problem is were not playing it right. Were not working together, were not getting things done. Thats the kind of leadership i want to bring to the white house. I want to be the president that wakes up every day and asks for strength that i can every day do something to bring the American People together, who wont act like half of the country is entirely wrong about everything they believe, who in their first 100 days will put forth five or six big ideas in health care and climate and education and Digital Privacy and infrastructure, but every one of those ideas will be based on an existing bipartisan bill in the congress because they exist. Theres lots of great ideas in the congress where democrats and republicans have come together. Thats a goodlooking steak you just served up there. Distracted me for a second. Where democrats and republicans have come together and found Common Ground. Wouldnt it be amazing if a president was actually putting these things forth and really working on getting them done . Thats the kind of leadership, which doesnt mean we agree with each other on everything, who wants to live in a country where we agree with each other on everythingrs but you deserve to live in a country where the things we dont agree with each other ob are debated honestly, based on the facts and with some measure of civility. Every once in a while your leaders roll up their sleeves and actually find Common Ground and get something done. Isnt that the country we all deserve to live. Isnt that the country that the next generation, people like trinity, amazing young people like her and all these other fabulous young people in the world, they deserve for us to do what we can do which is to leave the world better than we found it on every issue. But we just have to start working together to do it. Thats what my campaign for president is about. Again, i want to thank you for coming. I want to now now i want to hear what you all have to say. Thank you. Whose got a question . I like the idea about [ inaudible ] Rural Communities because were shrinking and such, but you can invest, but the problem were facing here is not having fair competition. We dont have a referee blowing the whistle, that we have a Free Enterprise working the way it should. We have a lot of big ag corporations that are manipulating the market, making it so like for our ranchers they can only get one supplier to buy from them. Then they set the prices. Well, you know, Free Enterprise you dont have a situation like that where you have thats a monopoly, you know. We not only have that, we have right here in brooklyn, our local elevator, thats now been bought out by a bigger conglomerate. Now theyve changed the prices, the prices from last years elevator [ inaudible ] it shot up. Yep. Thats what im trying to say. You know, also with trade, we need a government that can actually help us with our markets. Yep. Corn and soybeans, we just are not able to survive it. Even if we have more local investment, if we dont have a fair playing field, were still not were going under if we have this situation being amplified any more than it is already. Let me tell you the two things im going to do that will make a difference on both on those issues that you mentioned. The first, lets talk about trade first. So i cant believe im about to say what im about to say, but i am the only democratic candidate rung for president , the only democratic running for president , who supports the Transpacific Partnership. You know what that was . The tpp . So this was president obamas, why im so amazed when i say this, this was president obamas number one domestic economic priority as second term. The reason i know that, i worked very closely with the administration on it in the congress. What the tpp did was to create a 12nation trading block and that group of nations, which doesnt include china, would comprise 40 of the Global Economy and the United States would have been the head of that group effectively. It was going to lower tariffs in all these country and open up markets. A person who was an incredibly important person on this trade agreement was tom vilsack, your former governor, who was a great secretary of agriculture, because the big winner in the Transpacific Partnership was agriculture. My sense, farmers dont want these happenedouts they want markets. You want steady prices. You want more opportunities to sell your products. If im elected president of the United States, i will get us back in the Transpacific Partnership. What that means the day im elected every single price of every crop in this country will go up because the markets are going to know that were going to be in this trade agreement and that will make every acre of ground more valuable in iowa. That will help us compete with china because well have these other 12 trading partners to grow with . This was obamas number one priority. Only 28 democrats in the congress supported him. I was one of them. I was lead point person in the house. He was right. It was good for farmers, it was good for our economy, it was good for our Competitive Position against china. It put us in a position to actually build on our relationship with allies. The best way to have allies around the world is to have an economic relationship with them. Im going to get us back in the tpp which will open up markets. Thats one of the parts of your question. The second the monopoly power in agriculture. What i want to do about that, there are two antitrust laws in this country. One is called the clayton act, one is called the sherman act. Theyre old laws. Theyve been on the books since the 30s. Theyre our main antitrust laws. What they were designed for, they were designed for what is called horizontal mergers. Imagine you got four Grocery Stores on each one on a corner and they all merge and create a monopoly and control prices. Thats what those laws were designed for. The problem is theyre outdated. What we have now, we have what are called vertical mergers which is what you talked about. The company that bought the Grain Elevator i bet they own other stuff other than Grain Elevators. In technology and agriculture weve seen vertical integration and we dont have the right antitrust laws. We got to update those antitrust laws to encourage competition, to encourage innovation, make sure theres new opportunity for players in markets and the nice thing about the antitrust laws of this country, which is very unique and not a lot of people know, is and people were smart when they wrote them, the clayton and sherman act if you update them you can apply them retroactively, which is smart because the theory is, when you get around to updating an antitrust law its probably too late so you have to turn the clock back. Were going to update those laws understand my administration. Were going to ensure theres more competition in these vertical mergers, and thats going to result in big ag losing a lot of its power and putting more power in Small Farmers and operators. The first candidate ive heard speak about that. Ive listened to quite a few of them. They wont say were going to break them up, none understand how to do it. The problem is horizontal mergers are what all these laws were written for. Thats not what we have anymore. My sense whats happened in the ag business, the big ag companies have console dated everything but the riskiest part of the business. Theyve left that for you. Right . You got it. You know. Because they dont want that. They want you to have what they want is let me see if i say this right, heads they win, tails you lose, right. Thats what they want. Heads they win, tails, you lose. Thats got to stop. So thank you, sir. Other questions . Youre in the same business . Yeah. You got that good looking steak in front of you. Any questions . I have one. Yeah. What is your plans with gerrymandering and how Supreme Court decisions have kind of gone against how do you fix that in iowa here we have the Gold Standard for how our redistricting is ran so i would love to see other states adopt something thats not partisan. I know that you are particularly affected by it so i would like to hear my district that i won in congress was gerrymandered. I had very personal experience with it. I was running my business. They gerrymandered it for a particular individual who was the majority leader of the Maryland State Senate who i ran against and beat in a primary, but they literally drew the district for him. So that was in many ways my first exposure to gerrymandering and i realized when i went out there campaigning, how everyone just hated it. No matter which side of the aisle youre on. All the republicans hated it because they felt like that their district, which had been like call it, you know, r plus 10 meaning a very republican district, became a competitive district. You know, i ended up beating a republican who held a seat for 20 years. Even the democrats didnt like it because they had a member of congress they liked, a guy name Chris Van Hollen, a senator, a great member of congress, terrific member of congress, and they were like, you know, i dont have Chris Van Hollen anymore. The republicans hated it and the democrats hated it. I made a pledge when i ran, i said listen im running, i had nothing to do with the gerrymandering but if i get to congress im going to dedicate myself to this issue because its insidious and its destroying our democracy and you all have it right here in iowa and six or seven other states that have independent commissions or judicial processes for determining. I introduced a bill called open our democracy act, and what it does is require all the states to have end pint commission in drawing these districts and thats totally constitutional. The late Justice Scalia who was not known to broadly interpret the constitution, by the way, he said very clearly in several opinions, that under the elections clause, you know, the congress can require the states to use kind of independent commission to do it and thats even what the recent opinions decided. What the court has said is this is not a judicial matter, this is a political matter, and the political system should address it by having independent commission. I think we need National Legislation requiring independent commission and i also think we should make election day a holiday so more people than can vote. Thats part of my open our democracy act too. We have to do Campaign Finance reform and we have to have Election Security. But this gerrymandering stuff is terrible. I will tell you a simple reason why its terrible. Because these districts are gerrymandered, about 85 of the seats in congress are safe. What i mean by that, is a relationship or a democrat is going to win it almost no matter what, meaning there are 20 republican or 20 democrats. Only 15 of seats in congress are competitive. Iowa has more competitive districts because you have independent commission. Pretty much all your districts here are competitive. Look at what abby flipped a district, cindy flipped a district, j. D. Shulton is going to flip a district and daves whole district is competitive also. Still his district. The thing about members of congress who are in competitive districts is they want to work with people on the other side of the aisle. Why . Because they need those people to win an election. And isnt that the right incentive . I cant tell you how many bipartisan bills i had i was ranked the third most bipartisan member of congress. I would have these big bipartisan bills and i would go to members of congress and i would say what do you think about this idea . Theyre like thats a really good idea, i like it. I would say great, why dont you sign on it . If theyre a democrat theyll say, i dont know, you have a lot republicans on that bill. Im like, yeah, its a bipartisan bill. Yeah, but thats not good for me because in a primary, if a democrat runs against me, they may say im doing all this stuff with relationship with republicans and republicans would say the same thing. It creates the wrong incentives. If youre in one of the safe districts the only way you can lose is your primary, right, and you can be attacked in a primary for being bipartisan. As amazing as that is. Im absolutely committed to ending gerry mannedering as president. Yes, trinity. [ inaudible ]. Global warming. So trinity, i want to make sure everyone hears this question, what am i going to do about Global Warming . Lets hear it for trinity. So im so glad you asked this question, right, because trinity, whats really important and youre only 11, your grandma is looking at you very proud right now, i have a feel you and your grandma thing about Global Warming the same way, its a big problem. Its you study science in school, right, trinity . The science tells us this is a problem. Let me tell you what the science says. The science says the planet is warming. And because the planet is warming, ice is melting and thats causing sea levels to rise but it also changes weather patterns because the amount of water and the temperature of the water determines a lot of our weather. You wouldnt realize this, but some of your weather in iowa was determined by the temperatures of the oceans. Its a really big problem. Its a problem for you and your friends and your generation. Its up to us to deal with it. We got two things we have to deal with. We have to deal with it here in the United States and we have to deal with it around the world. Because Global Warming doesnt know any barriers. You know, it doesnt know the difference between iowa and nebraska or the United States and mexico, right, or north america and europe. It doesnt know a difference about any of that stuff. What i want to do as president is first, lead by example. The way we need to lead by example is for the United States of america, we need to get our house in order and we need to start cutting what are called Greenhouse Gas emissions by using less fossil fuels, oil, and coal and natural gas, and using more of those Wind Turbines you see around iowa and solar panels on the roofs. I dont know how many electric cars you have here in brooklyn, but you need more because we need to get electric cars to be less expensive and have them have better batteries. What i want to do as president is i want to create a situation where people are encouraged to use renewables and not use fossil fuels. I want to invest money in scientistses so they figure out better batteries. You know how you have some toys that have batteries and they wear out. How much better would the toys be if the battery lasted for ten years. Thats what we have to do with cars. We have to get the batteries to lo last a long time. Were going to do that. Were going to come with all kinds of new things because like those wind mills you see or Wind Turbines and solar panels didnt used to exist, but we inveptsd them and we got to invent a whole bunch of other things too. Im going to make sure by 2050, when you are 41 years old, that the United States of america is not emitting any co2 into the atmosphere. And then i also want to use the position as president , right, which a lot of people call the president of the United States the world leader because the United States is the most powerful nation in the world, i want to use the position as president to lead all the other nations around the world to do all the same things because we have to solve it here and we have to solve it around the world. The good news, trinity, is we can do it. The science is telling us its a problem, but the science also tells us we can fix it. We just need the will and the commitment and the hard work and the dedication. Your parents worked hard, dedicated themselves, took some risks and thought of a bunch of new things to create this deli, well thats kind of what we got to do on a big scale. We got to work hard, have commitment, come up with some new ideas and be positive that we can fix the problem and we can and then your kids are going to live in a totally sustainable world. Good question. The first time i heard you talk about health care and explain how you would your plan would pay for it, everything clicked and ive never looked back. All right. Can you share. Lets talk about health care. So first of all, im going to take a little bit of time to answer the Health Care Question because my sense is the number one issue that American People are dealing with is health care. Health care is three things. Its access, meaning how many people have how many people have access to health care. Its cost. In other words, what does it costs us for health care . Then its the quality. Is the health care any good . The standard i want for all of those things, i want universal access. I think every american should have health care as a right of citizenship. I want to make sure quality is improved. One of the problems ive seen in Rural America, the quality is challenged because theres not a lot of investment. Same thing with inner cities. I want to do things to control the costs because were spending a huge amount of money on health care, more than any other country in the world. Theres two other candidates who want universal health care. Bernie sanders and elizabeth warren. And then theres me. The three of us are the only candidates that want universal health care. All the other candidates dont. My advice to voters, you should support someone who wants universal health care. Does anyone think health care is not a right, a human right, of citizenship in a country as wealthy as we are . Honestly. And by the way, in a way we kind of have a universal Health Care System, its just the dumbest one you could possibly have, called the emergency room. Right. Its a stupid form of universal Health Care System. If you go there, they have to take care of you. Im going to give Everyone Health care, but unlike sanders and warren, i dont want to make private insurance illegal. I want allow people to have options. Under my plan called better care, it looks a lot like germanys plan, frances plan, australias plan. Everyone has health care, but also they can choose to have private insurance, called a mixed model. I want to pay for that by right now theres a huge loophole in our tax code where companies, corporations, dont have to pay get a deduction on the cost of health care, yet individuals when they get it, dont have to pay tax. If a Company Gives you a housing allowance, they get to deduct it and the person who gets it has to pay tax on it. With health care, they give their employees health care, and the employee doesnt pay taxes on it but they also get a deduction. I want to take away that deduction of the corporate deductibility of health care and use that money to basically have universal access. Employees wont lose in this because if an employee doesnt want the Government Health care, theyll get a tax credit from the government which they can give to their employer to offset the cost of health care. So everyone gets covered, but everyone has an option to get supplemental plans or to opt out. Thats what i would do on health care. Yes. We have a question back there. Can you tell me how you would improve the mental Health Care System also . Thank you for asking the question. The question was about Mental Health. So let me start by giving you my opinion on this. I think we have a crisis, a Mental Health crisis, in this country. 40 million americans selfidentify as having a Mental Illness and we know the number is much greater than that. I think so many of the issues we have in this country tie back to Mental Illness. It starts with this notion of parody and what i mean by that is, the Mental Health care in this country is not on equal footing with physical health care. Ill give you an example. Mental Health Claims are four times more likely to get denied than physical Health Claims. Reimbursements to Mental Health providers are significantly less than reimbursements to physical health providers, which creates an incentive for people to go in the physical Health Care Business and not in the Mental Health care business, right. So we got to create parody. The second thing we have to do, we have to stop stigmatizing it. I think a president can do that. I mean no one should be ashamed of a Mental Illness like no one should be ashamed of a physical condition. Yet, we allow that to exist in our society. Which prevents people from stepping forward and saying they have a Mental Illness. It creates a situation where family members are embarrassed to say that someone in their family has a Mental Illness. If i were to ask you, i wont do it, who has a Mental Illness in your family put up your hand, i think everyone would put up their hand, right. This is something if you look at whats happening to kids and teens with the amount of anxiety in school, if you look at veteran suicide, if you look at despair and depression, its terrible. So we need to change how we approach Mental Illness, we need to change how our leaders talk about Mental Illness. We need more resources in the Mental Health care infrastructure in this country, both in terms of providers and reimbursement. Then we can start tackling these issues. You know, it takes a whole different approach. My wife april does a lot of work on this issue. Shes one of the leading nonprofit leaders in our country deal with the effect that media and Technology Companies have on children, so media literacy, you know, this targeting the Technology Companies do on our kids, the affect that social media is having on young people in this country, which is devastating by the way. You know, the anxiety and depression that its creating and teen suicide. And its just its really a crisis in this country right now. Im familiar with this through the great work april has done. Its a total crisis. We need to better reimbursements, more parody in the system, talk about it differently, act differently about it, we need to get rid of the stigma. We feneed to pass some laws arod privacy and digital targeting, bullying and Cyber Bullying in schools. Theres a whole portfolio of issues, but it all starts with acknowledging how big this problem is, acknowledging that we dont talk and think about it the right way, and acknowledging were going to need more of an investment in the Mental Health care infrastructure in this country. Thank you. Really important thing. Yes. [ inaudible ] some really great ideas of antitrust of health care and Mental Health, how do you get this stuff done in an atmosphere of Campaign Finance that weve got . It would be good the first thing it would be good to change some of the Campaign Finance stuff, right. I think on all this stuff, the difference between me and i think other people is, i consider myself a pragmatic idealist. A lot of the stuff i talked about, you cant get it all done right away. Like on this a Mental Health issue. Some of the things we can get done right away, we can pass privacy laws to stop some of this digital targeting that goes on. We can make some changes to School Curriculums to deal with Cyber Bullying and some of that stuff. We could pass laws creating more parody between health care and Mental Health because who is against that . We can do smart things to increase reimbursements for Mental Health providers. Those are four targeted things, every one of those has bipartisan support. Those you can get done right away. Right away. So, you know, im a pragmatic idealist. I want to tell you what my vision is for things, but i also want you to know that im going to start chopping wood on these issues right away. Right. You dont wait until you have one big swing to solve the whole problem. Like health care. Health care is one sixth of the u. S. Economy. If it was its own country it would be one of the largest countries in the world. You cant throw the whole system out and start from scratch. You have to have a vision of where you want to go and then you have to start chipping away at it. Same thing with the antitrust laws. Im sure as president i wont be able to amend the antitrust laws to be exactly the way i want them, but that doesnt mean im going to sit around and not amend them. Im going to do what i can legislatively but then do what i can through executive authority, then im going to do what i can to help democrats get elected around the country to make changes at the state legislature. Its all those things working together. Its federal legislation, its state legislation, and its executive authority of the president. You turns the dials as much as you can to achieve your bigger vision. Thats how i think about it. We have to make changes to Campaign Finance and mostly around citizens united. We need to get rid of citizens united. I would love for it to be overturned and a constitutional amendment to eradicate it. Im not going to hold my breath for those. What i will do is work with the congress to pass a law requiring transparency. Let me give you an example that i just find so outrageous every time i say it, it gets my blood boiling. So if someone gives me money on my campaign, so if someone were to give me more than 200 and i dont take money from packs or corporations, but if an individual gives me more than 200 i have to disclose their name, address, and what they do for a living. So you can look up everyone who has given me money. You can look up their name, their address and what they do for a living. You should know that information. And the most they can give me is 2,800. Okay. Someone can put 200 million in a super pac, 200 million, and not say who they are and it can be completely dark money. How is that possibly right . That a super pac has more rights than an individual candidate . Its crazy. So again, if you take the i always think you have to have an inside and outside game. So the outside game is taking the case to the American People on all these issues, you have to take the case to the American People and you have to explain the issues clearly. Lay them all out and get public opinion. Like gerrymandering. I have yet to meet a citizen of the United States of america who thinks gerry mannedering is a good idea. I have yet to meet that person. Other than an elected official who has benefitted from gerry mannedering. Right. A lot of people dont know what gerrymandering is. Theyve never heard of it. When they hear about it they throw up. Theyre like thats awful. So the nice thing about being president , you have a camera and a mic in front of you and you can always talk about the issues you care about. You have to take the case to the American People. Thats the outside game. Imagine them almost charging the hill demanding change. Then you have the inside game. Where you have members of congress who are human beings, what do you do with human beings, you get to know them and work with them. Im going to have a member of congress over for breakfast in the white house every day. For a half hour. Im not going to tog politics. Im going to talk about their family, community, what i can do to help them, democrat or republican, doesnt matter. Build some relationships. You know, i was when i joined congress in 2012, i was the copresident of my freshman class. We had a big class. It was 85 members came in out of 435. One of the biggest classes in congressional history. Me and my republican counterpart, we organized 40 bipartisan events. You know, get togethers, meals, we bring in speakers, we had speakers on immigration, we had speakers on basic research, we had speakers on all this stuff. Its one of the reasons i was the third most bipartisan member of congress because i had relationships with people. It matters. You know, like its not going to its not going to allow you to get something passed that cooperate get passed, but remembers the Affordable Care act was passed by one vote. You know, you may need these relationships. So thats my inside game. Thats the only way i know how to do it. You know, you cant wave a magic wand. A lot of people are saying were going to change the Electoral College. To be honest with you, theyre just all lying to you. I hate to be so direct about it. Were never going to change the Electoral College. Because to change the Electoral College you have to get a bunch of small states who benefited from it to agree to get rid of it. Do you think thats going to happen . It requires a constitutional amendment. We havent passed an equal rights amendment act. Theres no argument against equal rights amendment. Women should be treated the same way as men. We havent passed that. Were not going to change the Electoral College system. All these people talking about these theories im like, listen, our country is like all of us. I think every single citizen of this country is has the potential to be inherently beautiful, right, in good, but were all also flawed. Were all imperfect. Our challenge is to have the best in us overcome our imperfections. Thats what our country is. I think its a magnificent country, but its not perfect. It has imperfections. Our system of government is not perfect. But its the best one out there. And so people say to me, you know, you want to throw it out and start from scratch. I dont know. It has pretty good track record. Youre never going to get something thats perfect. You have to work within the system to some extent. If you look back over history you look at medicare, social security, civil rights act, americans with disability act which tom harken led here in iowa, you look at all these great things, you know how they were done . With bipartisan coalitions, where people like Lyndon Johnson who picked up the phone and worked it and got the votes here or there. So you have to have the outside game and inside game, thats my opinion. Thank you. Folks getting the hook . Well, one month from today is the Iowa Caucuses. Everybody raise your hand real quick, raise your hand, see what you did, you prabltsds for the caucuses. Thats all you have to do. One month from today john is making a stop here in small towns just like this over the next, what, 22 days, well see 42 more towns, i think, talking about rural invig rags and some great topics that affect folks like you. I want you to think about supporting john. Our friend frank over there, raise your hand, if you havent signed their mailing list let us know. If you need a lawn sign we have them in the rv. John will wrap up and time to chat with everybody and take photos. John will wrap it up. So, i want to ask you a favor. I want you to caucus for me. Ill tell you why i want you to do it. Number one, i think im the right person to be president. You know, weve had a good conversation here. Im happy to talk to you more about it. I have a totally different background. First in my family to go to college, successful entrepreneur, created thousands of jobs, served in the congress. Thats what we need. Anticipate focused on what this country needs to have happen which is bring it together. Theres another reason i want you to caucus for me, which is to send a message because what has happened in this cycle is the issues of small town america, of small, Rural Communities, small communities in the industrial belt of this country, they have not been the priority of this election. Not even close. I feel like i am the one who is fighting for these issues. I will do it as president and i promise you, if i do better at caucus than people expect, every single interview i give is going to be one message, which is i invested my time in small iowa communities whose voices matter and they sent a message here tonight with me doing better than people thought, that theyre important, they matter and we need to focus on their issues. Because the Democratic Party, one of the reasons i have been proud to be a democrat my whole life, i believe we are the party who is always fighting for the little guy, who is always fighting for people who are struggling and having a hard time and right now that includes small towns in Rural America. Its up to the Democratic Party with smart trade policies, smart antitrust policy, investing in communities encouraging businesses to locate here, infrastructure to rebuild here, improving the Public Schools here, improving the public Health Care System here, its up to us to make this a priority on our agenda. Im absolutely committed to that and im absolutely committed to making it clear to people that if i do better on caucus its for one with reason, because i asked small towns in Rural America to step forward and help me out and they did and im never going to forget them and your voices will be heard. So thank you. God bless you all. Thank you very much. Whats that . [ inaudible ]. Right. Yeah. I have. Yeah. And you will literally, i mean if i do better at caucus, im going to name the small towns right in front of them. Go down the whole list. I think we feed need to send a message. You know, five or ten big cities doing really great in this country. [ inaudible ]. Trinity is pretty close to perfect. She was good. Nice job. Thank you. Yeah. You can say pore. I feel very [ inaudible ]. I do. Yes. Yeah. [ inaudible ]. Want to know whats happening in iowa. [ inaudible ] youre one of the good ones. Well thank you. I appreciate that very much. I wish you well. Thank you. You can help me do well. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Sure. Are you two together . We are. Im sensing a pattern here. Right. Shes terrific. I have four daughters so i have a spot my youngest one is 12. Good for you. Yeah. So my youngest one is in seventh grade. Yeah. 27 to 12. My oldest one is this one, the youngest one is 22. Thanks for having us. Absolutely. Appreciate it. It was great. Really great. Its a great spot. Thank you. [ inaudible ]. How long did you say youve had it for . One year to the day. Oh, my gosh. Its been a journey. What did you say you did before . Im a skydiver. Yeah. Thats what i do for money and then this is part of a, you know, exercise. Yeah. Well, its great. Do you just have trinity . Whats that . Just one child . I have a son thats 28 now. Wow. Yeah. You got 28 like me, i have 27 and 12. Youre 28 and 11. Yeah. Thank you, sweetie. Thats okay. Happy new year. Happy new year. You made my thanks for coming out. Sure. I agree with most of your policies. Good. But i havent heard anything about foreign policy. Well, you didnt ask me about it. Well, i raised my hand. Oh, im sorry. But especially with killing the Iranian Military leader last night. Yeah, i mean, look. I have a grandson in the military . Yes. Look, listen. Im not going to the world is better off without him. Yeah. I agree. Full stop. He was probably responsible for more american servicemen and women deaths than anyone. So the world is better off without him. And i would i have not seen the evidence that theyre using to justify this strike. So im not going to actually prejudge that. But what i will say well, i just believe that trump needed another distraction. Well, yeah. Again, i think on these kind of issues i never want to give trump the benefit of the doubt on anything, but this guy was a bad guy. They killed him based on what they described as an imminent threat to our troops. Im not going to judge that because i havent seen it, but what i can judge him on and ill judge him harshly on is he did not consult with congressional leadership or our allies like britain or france. That would have taken him 15 minutes. And thats dangerous. Because the most important thing a president does is what he just did. Which is to deploy our military. And it should be done with humility. It should be done with consultation. You have to be decisive, but you have to also take the appropriate steps. Because thats in the best interest of the United States of america. To actually brief the other branches of government. And he didnt do it. And i thought that really underscores what a reckless leader he is. So im not going to prejudge whether this was right or wrong, but i will harshly prejudge the way he did it. You see what i mean . Commander in chief yes. Youre going to be willing to work with congress, going to listen to your military leaders. Absolutely. Let me tell you the three things i would do before i deploy our military. Assuming i had time. If theres an imnept attack, youve got to immediately 9 11 when a plane was about to hit, you know, the right. You got to be the first thing you do is consult with your experts. Your military and state department. Second thing is you consult with the gang of eight which is the eight most senior congressional leaders. And the third thing if you have time is you take a walk around arlington cemetery. And you make sure youre ready to pick up a phone and call someone. Because you may be ordering that. And you got to make sure in your soul youve really youre doing it for the right reason. Those are the three things i would do. Thank you. Whos this Perfect Little thing . This is my son artie. Hi, artie. How old is artie . How old are you . Two. Hes two. Arties really cute. Look at that great jacket arties got on. Hes nice and cozy warm. Good luck to you. Lets keep in touch. You too. Thank you. Yeah. Go get em. John, this is ken. Yeah. This is his sons restaurant. Ive known ken i mean, he was at the baby shower at jacks house because i know him through different circles. Its really its pretty gutsy what youre doing. Im trying. Are you getting good traction . Yeah, i think so. Thats the bet. That is the bet. Best of luck to you. Thank you. What do you do . I make documentaries. Oh, you do . He did one on George Washingtons father that was on pbs nationwide. Fantastic doc. Wow. I was working production in los angeles. We moved to iowa 16 years ago. Thats your grandpa. Youre a rock star. She was terrific. Great. Thank you, trinity. You made her night. That was a good question. Shes with it. Shes very sharp. Runs in the family. Thank you, thank you. How yall doing . Thanks for coming out. I got you midbite there. Were running a little behind. Thats all right. Im glad you came. Thank you for the question. Mental health is a big issue. It is. And lack of access to it is big. And the fact its stigmatized allows that lack of access to perpetuate. Because people are afraid to, like, complain about a lack of access. Because they dont want people to know theyre suffering. And no one should be ashamed of suffering from Mental Illness. Because ive had, like, personal family people that like, the hardest thing to do is to ask for help. Yeah. When you ask for help and then youre turned away, i mean, thats like the worst sorry about that. You lost your fork there. The most costly thing the fivesecond rule. Right. Or but and its the opposite of what it should be. Because when people get a physical injury, they obviously seek out help. But a lot of people with Mental Illness, part of their issue is that they cant selfidentify. They dont acknowledge. They dont go get the help. So any little barrier to help makes it even more difficult. Someone with a physical injury, theyre typically very focused on navigating this system to get their care. You break your leg, you figure out how to get your care. Youre hurt, you go to the doctor. You wait in the emergency room, yo do all that stuff. You endure a lot of inconvenience to get your care. But when youre suffering from Mental Illness, getting care is hard even if its right next door. And free. A lot of people with Mental Illness dont want to get the care. The fact its hard to operate in and insufficient and inadequate compounds the problem. I have been very vocal myself. What do you do . My father committed suicide. So you know first hand. How old was he . 52. Yeah. Thats a prime age. Yeah. I mean, he was very educated, you know. Theres no but thats the thing. It is its like a physical issue. It is no different. Anyone can get it. And i dont think look at robin williams. Look at stories of these extraordinary he should be okay. You know, hes in this position and he could do all these things. Yeah. Listen. So he cant ask for help. Any super successful, well connected, wealthy people commit suicide. So that shows you how tough this is. Because they have access. Well, thank you. Yes. Thanks for coming out. Yes. Thank you. Have a good evening. You too. Campaign 2020. Watch our continuing coverage of the president ial candidates on the campaign trail and make up your own mind. As the voting begins next month, watch our live coverage of the Iowa Caucuses on monday, february 3rd. Cspans campaign 2020. Your unfiltered view of politics. Our campaign 2020 live coverage continues today at 7 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan2 with President Donald Trump in toledo, ohio, at keep America Great rally. And on sunday at 3 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan. Senator Michael Bennett is in bedford, new hampshire. Watch live on cspan and cspan2. On demand at cspan. Org or listen on the go with the free cspan radio app. Sunday on American History tv on cspan3, the 1999 interview with the late senator robert byrd prior to the impeachment trial of president clinton. We have a great body of evidence already before us. We have much of which is sworn testimony already. It hasnt been cross examined, but it would be possible in my own mind for us to conduct a trial without having witnesses called. Sunday at 9 00 p. M. Eastern on American History tv on cspan3. Were live on capitol hill now for coverage of a hearing where lawmakers will discuss the election and voting season. Voting system officials will look at the need for federal regulations, potential problems from Remote Access and Internet Connectivity which can put Election Security at risk. This is hosted by the House Administration committee. Live coverage here on cspan3. Well, welcome, everyone. And good morning. We expect a few other members to arrive momentarily, but while were waiting, i think well begin with our opening statements. And id like to note that our committee is charged with