And that humility is what god came to him. Because you did not ask for great wealth, i will give you wisdom so that you will be renounced. We have to be humble enough to accept all the new idea whether left, right or middle or where ever they are from, hopefully, the debate will be the change in office. Nothing is less at stake than the great middle class. Thank you for this support. [ applause ] well now take a brief pause to refresh the tables and well begin shortly. Thank you. Hello, everybody, we got a lot to look forward to. We need to keep our programming going. Leading up to lunch well hear from Kamala Harris, thatll be followed with a timely conversation by russia with senator murphy and congressman adam schiff. First, there is a woman whos not given up the fight, a smart and thoughtful leader, championing the vital role that women play in our economy who understands why working families need paid leave and healthcare and who knows how to get things done and help lead the effort to repeal dont ask and dont tell. Please join me welcoming Senate Senator kersten graham. Thank you nera. So this is a terrific opportunity for so Many Democrats to talk about some of the work we need to do and i feel fortunate to be working with my colleagues and sharing a stage with so many men and women that i work in the senate everyday. I was originally going to talk about how President Trump is portraying the working class voters that he pledged to fight for. Every single week is a different thing. According to reports, it appears that the president it was provided by an ally with the agreement that would not be shared. If this was true, President Trumps actions are not onlier irresponsible and putting lives at risk. I believe we have to fight back harder than ever. We must not stop until we have full transparency and accountability and that means not voting for an fbi director until a special prosecutor is named. [ applause ] we cannot let donald trump distract us from our everyday work fighting for working families. I brought one idea that i would like to challenge the president onto step up. I want to challenge the president in fighting for a National Paid leave program. Mr. President , if you are really standing up for working americans and fighting for them then there is no excuse for not having america joining every industrialized nation in the world. It is a middle class economic issue that creates Economic Growth and rewards work of the country. We are shorting changing our economy and that should not be acceptable to any of us. This is important. If we are going to pass a paid leave plan, it has to be a real one. It has to be gender neutral and allow you to care for not just a newborn infant but a sick and dying member. Remember on the campaign trail, candidate trump broke away from his party, he announced the support of his paid leave. Paid leave should not be a democratic or a republican idea, it rewards work because it helps us care for our family and grows the economy. It is something that we should all agree on. Again, this was another one of Donald Trumps empty promises. Real paid leave works like this. First, it has to be national. A state like north dakota or nevada does not have to worry about it. We have 20 million people. Second, paid leave must be gender neutral. It has to cover women and men or husbands caring for their wives who are sick or son who wants to care for a dying parent. Third, paid leave has to be comprehensive. You have to cover all illnesses. No one should ever have to choose between a paycheck and being able to sit with their dying mother who have been diagnosed with cancer or alzheimers. We have to make sure you can be with your child or be we that dying member. It has to be sustainable. National paid leave can only be sustainable if every worker in the entire country is apart of it. Everyone who is benefiting needs to chip in. It needs to be a universal benefit. Paid leave has to be affordable and manageable. Now, we have great data in from california, it was a statewide program and it was up and running for ten years. What we know from california is 90 businesses have no negative impact or positive impact on its bottom line. We know 99 of business have a positive impact. Small businesses around the country, 70 of them want a plan for paid leave because they have to level the plainfield. How are they going to compete with facebook and google of the world. So uhyou dont have national p or paid leave they can never compete. Businesses have also seen the numbers. They know it is good for the economy. If we had a National Paid leave plan, it would put into the economy 21 billion annually. It make sense. A woman in her lifetime loses about 320,000 because you dont have paid leave. To do a real paid leave plan, it is not just a tax cut. This is not about giveaways for successful companies. We need a bill, we have a bill. It is called the family act. Let me tell you what i does. It is a common sense bill that passes a National Paid leaid le plan. It is affordable. Let me explain to you what it costs. It is a cost of a cost of coffee every week. You are asking every employer to say would you buy one cup of coffee for each employee per week. For a worker would you put two dollars a week in a saving plan to know that when your mother dies, you can be by her side. It is not a lot of money. It is 2 a week. Thats 104 per year per employee. Thats muni business can afford. I think this is something that made sense. I want to talk about how we are going to get pass. We have been stuck in a madman era. Something is happening in america that i have never seen in my lifetime. It is about you and it is about the grass roots. It is the reason how many of you showed up today. How many of you march for the womens march . We marched all across the globe and in new york and worldwide. It was a moment in history where people believe that their voices actually mattered. After seeing donald trump get elected, they say this is not my country and i did not sign up for it and i dont agree with this person. For the first time in their lives, people across america made a sign, they made a sign talking about the issues they care most about. They talk about issues that made them angry and issues they have passion for and issues theyre not going to stand President Trump unwhiining. Whether you are marching for black lives matter or reproducti reproductive rights or clean air or clean water or immigration, it does not matter, it is your issue and what you care about. We are only going to pass it if every single one of you stand up and fight for it. It is important for our business and economy and family. It is about us. If we are willing to fight, it will never happen. This moment is about democracy. It is about each individual having a voice. It is a 17yearold girl that tweets something that made a difference. It satys it exactly like it is. All of us need to be apart of it. If we are apart of it, well win. Well defeat donald trump and well do good things like passing the National Paid leave plan. Thank you all. [ applause ] please welcome senator chris murp murphy, adam schiff and david sanger. Thank you very much, i am from the New York Times and i am delighted to be here with senator murphy and congressman schiff discussing of other issues in the news. I want to start with what we had on the front page today. So some what remarkable situation where the president had his meeting with Prime Minister lavrov alast week, we learned about the details from photos issued because we did not get in for any of those. That part, we now read a set of descriptions of the conversations. The president did not reveal any sources of methods but describe a fairly sensitive intelligence around the program that concerns the isis ability to put laptops on computers that could be loaded up with explosives and seem to suggest the city and which some of this was learned and so forth. Congressman schiff, since you are familiar with the difference between revealing sources of methods which nobody describe in the program in some details. Tell me which part of this we should be concerned about and what part is all concerning. Well, what we should be concerned about and not briefed on so i can go on the basis of whats alleged publicly and what the Administration Responds then. The president discussed a threat to the country with isis. The russians could determine what the source of gathering that intelligence was. The denial by the administrations are really a form of non denial, denial. Thats stating that the president did not discuss war plans as a bit, the president did not comment on sources of methods is also a bit of a ruse. Whats the implication of that . Well, it can compromise the source of information so that source can drive up or go away or it can be worse. If the source is a sister Intelligence Agency of a friendly country, that country could decide they cannot trust the United States with information or worse that it cannot trust the president of the United States with information, that obviously, that is serious repercussion. Particularly when we are talking about a threat to isis. If they are and certainly the president s tweets suggest that he talked about something of a concern here. We immediately have to go into damage mitigation mode and find out what steps we take minimize any risks to our sources and any damages to our allies and what steps we can take to reassure our allies that we treasure the relationship and the information and we are going to work much harder to protect in the future then i have to hope that someone will counsel the president about just what it means to protect closely held information and why this is so dangerous ultimately to our National Security. For senator murphy, lets start with you on this, the president made an argument in his tweet this morning trying to bring the russians over to be more active against isis, we certainly seen cases where president of both parties, president obama and president bush revealed some intelligence some information about the source in order to go motivate another country to help along. You may put it in another conte context, tell the chinese more of the north Korean Program if you are trying to give a sense of urgency. Could you argue this is the kind of thing that president s sometimes have to do. Well, you could argue if you are under the belief that this white house was operating in a way yes, you are right, in previous time, other president s have decided to share classified information so called adversaries but they only did so after consulting with the Intelligence Agency and have a whole government approach to declassifying that information. It was strategic. This clearly as far as we understand was not strategic and the idea that russia is going to be a responsible partner in the future of syria is of years and years of facts on the ground. We have been trying to get the russians to be a meaningful partner inside syria and they end up doing more damage than good. They end up conducting themselves in a way that kills, hurts civilians such that more and not less people on the ground inside syria are pushed into the camps of extremism rather than moderate. We have enough experience understanding that russia is not a credible partner. You are right there is a reasonable way to use classified information in order to win new friends or influence adversary. Thats not whats happening here. This is a president showing off how much he knew in the context of that meeting and potentially did syria jeopardy Immediate National security concerns as we are finding out today that some of our allies are already rethinking whether or not they should share information or reaping what kind of information they should share with the United States. Chris is exactly right. And looking at the president s tweets that have an impact of our policy. We try to look for a method in this when there may be not. If you look at some of the comments he made of north korea, you ask if this is some part of a strategy, you may conclude it was true if it was done in concert of other administration and in a cohesive fashion but too often it is not. It is not quite sure who to believe and as much as we try to rationalize it and explain it, the reality is we have create not a strategic am biguity of where we are and where we stand for and what we see happen and what our policy is. So the other fascinating intelligence leakage story thats going on right now is that it appears that it has been released by a group called the shadow broker. Outside those groups are tooled developed by the nsa. I realize that neither of you can comment on that. Lets take that for a moment as the working aassumptissumption questions have leaked out and may have been by the North Koreans to be used for a greater habit. What should american taxpayers think about that, that Cyber Weapons that are being developed by the United States are showing up basically in black markets and being exploited by our adversaries. Lets start with you since i am sure i heard a bit on this topic in the committee. Well, sure, i think what this incident points up and you are right, we cannot confirm a comment on what the shadow brokers disclose whether it came from the u. S. Or did not. We did know a few thing that is the director of the nsa have said publicly that from time to time well discover vulnerab vulnerabilities of software. That can be exploited in time and in cases thats linegitimat. That poses a vulnerability. There is a process to determine whether the importance of that potential access out weighs the risks of that vulnerabilities get out to the wild and can be manipulated by bad actors. According to director rogers and 90 of the cases of the Intelligence Committee reveal to the Technology Committee hey, you need to patch this vulnerability and what ever the problem maybe. I do think that one of the implications here that if indeed this came from the United States again, i cannot confirm or deny whether it did. I am sure it influence the process disclosing to technologies of vulnerabilities because we have seen the risks of not disclosing to technologies. We dont know if it is possible or a u. S. Government discover vulnerability. It was disclosed to microsoft recently before they patched it in march. It does raise the question, do we have the system under control . Well, this is a question i think that the committee will need to continue to kmexamine a explore. I will say that it will have an impact on one of the debates we have been having in the arena and thats the whole debate of encryption. The government can say you need to decrypt for us or allow us the argument of the Technology Companies is greater by saying not even the u. S. Government led alone our company cannot be trusted the key to that door. This will have implications beyond the issue of potential exploitation of vulnerabilities. We have a massive scale over the last 15 years of conventional American Power doubling u. S. Defense budget from the start of iraq war until 15 years later, we have a massive scale of our abilit ability and there is the old saying that all you have is a hammer, everything looks to you loo i c like a nail. Lets talk about the only means by which we actually took a Nuclear Security threat off the table at least for the time being. Thats your respect to the iranian nuclear. We certainly use cyber tools along the way but that was not ultimately positive. So this speaks to the broader imbalance thats available to americas president. If all you have is cyber warfare tools or conventional tools, you simply cannot meet the broad away of threats thats presented to the United States. Many of us are deeply worried about these deep cuts of the state department because we fear that this enormous plus on the other side, a, it is vulnerable and the reality of cyber warfare vulnerabilities and misunderstanding of the way you saw some of these complex problems which wont be through internet attacks. It will be through capacities that today the state department has and can affect. States get a 30 cut in that. I dont think anybody think it is slightly go through. What does it tell you of what the president think of the role of security i think it is clear that he views Foreign Policy through a military lens. Thats not just evident in the way hes budgeted but through the fact that he has loaded up National Security cabinet with x military officers and left an entire level of professional service appointed in the state department. We are here talking about big ideas. When i think about big ideas for the future, i think we should be talking about instead of a 50 million increase in the military budget. We should be talking about what you can do with a 50 billion increase for the nonconnect budget. The fact the matter is all of the virtually all of these new threats that are posting to the United States are not conventional military whether it is terrorism or terrorist recruiters or the spread of corruption. None of those threats can be confronted with the stuff that we very proudly make in connecticut submarines and helicopters and jet engines, those are state department tools. Yes, i think as president views policy through military lens, how our adversaries confronting of a symmetric power and not conventional power. This is a point where our military understand and everyone our president does not. In the military, they have expression if you are going cut diplomacy and developments, you better buy me more bullets. General petraeus he had something on the chalk board that said essentially money equals ammunition and what he meant by that is the resources they put in Development Projects was equivalent of buying ammunition. The more iraqis had to work, fewer iraqiss h had to fight. That is a good illustration of the fallacy of thinking that you can solve every problem by use of military and not only i think is the enormous cut in the state department budget, emphasis in development is equally wrong and moving in some of the bravest people i met working in select afghanistan and help them to build Public Trust Confidence in the Afghan Government and if there is any core problem in afghanistan, just use that example. It is not that theyre building up the Afghan Forces as it is. It is the failure of the government to attack the problem of corruption and give afghans a sense of hope and confidence that their government is worth fighting and dying for. You dont build that through a defense budget. You build that through the state department and usaad and the whole range in the tool box and simply not just the military tool. Senator, when you hear these argument, you convey them to secretary tillerson, what kind of response are you getting . Whats your impression that both of you discussed here . Hes talking to us as much as hes talking to you. Listen, i think tillerson has communicated what he at the state department to do. I dont view tillerson differently than i view someone like betsy devos. Hes inside the state department to under mind and i know that because hes going through a reorganization of the state department with an end goal already decided. He announced at the end of the process there will be 2300 less personnel in the state department which again fundamentally misunderstands the threats that are presented to us in, take us back to russia for a moment. Russia does not want to militarily own ukraine. What they want to do is use this build up of separate forces in eastern crukraine as a mean to destabilize kiev. Ultimately, you cannot confront that with military power. You have to give ukrainians tools to be able to survive what maybe a longterm occupation of their eastern front. This administration in the end, thats a recipe for failure. Congressman schiff, lets turn back to where your committee is off to a rocky start. Now you got a chairman thats committed to conduct a big investigation and a thorough one. First, what the russians did in the election and how they did it and what parts may have been successful and what parts may not have been and how you prevent it. Secondly, was there any collusion or collaboration with anybody with the president ial campaign. Giver us a run done wn of what think are the Big Questions or early answers if you gotten any yet. Well, i like to talk about in talking about the investigation by answering perhaps most important question which is why should people care about this . Is this an effort to relitigate the election as the president wants to suggest or is there something far more significant here. As important as the issue of collusion is and the issue of just what active measures did the russians employ, was there collusion or was there compromise or blackmail or the use of paid media trolls or the use of propaganda campaign, how many of the tactics that the russians used elsewhere in the world that they employ here. We have to understand the broader context. The russians hacked into our elections not because they simply hated Hillary Clinton but rather because they want to tear down our democracy. That he want to tear down our democracy in france and they want to see Angela Merkel gone. We are engaged in a new war of idea. It is not communism verses capitali capitalism. Thats what is at stake and v having a keen understanding of what the russians did here is not only important in terms of their person involved needs to be brought to justice. Also, how do we protect our allies and liberal democracy around the world. Just taking place in france zb and we are still looking to confirm was one of profound fears that i had with our own elections. While the russians hacked and dumped documents in the United States, my biggest fear was not that theyre hacking in Voting Machines because most are offline and most have paper trails, we aforging paragraphs thats suggested illegality by a candidate. Thats impossible to refute in the weeks leading up to the election and the polarized electric nobody believe the reputation if nobody could make it. This is what we may face in the next round. There is no way cyber defend your way against it. We have to improve our cyber defenses. Theyre never going to be good enough. Russians are capable enough if they want to hack into an institution, theyll find a way. The only way to protect ourselves is to inoculate yourselves. This is how they do it and both parties need to reject it regardless if it helps one or hurts the other. Well not allow foreign power to medal in our affairs. This is why i think the investigation sos are so pornti. We are looking at whether the Intelligence Committee got it right in their assessment of who did it. But, also what was the u. S. Government response . How soon did we recognize this was not a simply foreign intelligence gathered by the russians but they intended to weaponize the data. When did it become the goal and what other tactics did the russians use. All of this, we need to know not only in terms of justice considerations but also because the most fundamental point of how we protect our democracy in the future. Senator, we are running out of time here, if you look at the french election, could you argue that education process that congressman schiff have described actually worked to some degree . The last 72 hours before the election got pretty much, it was pretty transparent effort, and by the time we are all done looking at this, it did not seem to have any kind of effect that the russians may have, does that give us a guide going forward. I think it may but for the fact that we had to be the guinea pig that did it wrong before the french figured it out. It is got to be something. Yes, if you are the second victim of an attack that looks very much like the first then you maybe able to develop a series if the russians invent a new way trying to manipulate the election along the line of what adam is talking about then you are the first and you may not have the flexibility in order to respond the right way. With respect to the investigation, before we leave, i think it is enforcement talk about the subject dominating the news the next few days, i have all the faith in the world of adam schiff. [ applause ] there is a but there is a but. I dont though ultimately in the end have faith the republicans that are members of the committee in the house and senate. I worry as many as my colleagues do. Only a special prosecutor can get to the under line facts here and the Intelligence Committee and the house and the senate are not by nature investigative bodies. We understand that whoever thats put in by the fbi, they have sent a signal to the white house that they are likely to get fired or the very least neutered. There is no perfect way of this investigation. There is a flaw in in single one of the avenues to the truth. I think you will see mounting pressure to move towards special prosecutor because many of us worried about the political process inside congress no matter how good the Civil Service inside the fbi are and so this will be a dominant narrative this week that ultimately i hope is positive on republicans in the end. Unfortunately, we are out of time and dont have time for questions. I want to thank you both for taking the time to have this discussion and i appreciate you doing this. [ applause ] thank you very much. Thank you poi. Thank you all so much, there is so much to digest and take in today from so many progressives and movement leaders. The progressive movement, our movement is not defined by one face or experience as well see in this next clip brought to us boo i the emerson collective. This is title the dream is now face and voice are given to undocumented children of americas immigrants who are desperate to earn their citizenship and giver ba back te only country they call home. Here it is. Take any moment in history and you will find dreamers. People derivedistriving to enri american experience. It has always been apart of us. They make us smarter more prosperous, more pride and stronger. They are are part of the great americas tradition, dreamers wanting to help build our country. The question is, will we do our part and let them . [ applause ] i am delighted to introduce to you a woman who has been a lifelong advocate for californias most vulnerable. As the first africanamerican and first woman to serve as the states attorney general, she has aggressively defended consumers and understood that incarceration is not the solution to every criminal justice issue. Only the second africanamerican woman to be elected to the United States senate and author of smart on crime and making us safer, everyone please join me senator Kamala Harris from the great state of california. [ applause ] good morning everyone, we have an embarrassment when i was watching here, i know we have a lot to celebrate in spite of these very extremely challenging time. I want to thank cat for the work that you do everyday. I want to address the news that broke last night. We all know that it is deeply disturbing. The president revealed highly classified information to a foreign adversary, russia. And, as a member of this senate Intelligence Committee, i know that the men and women of our Intelligence Community put their lives on the line everyday. They do very dangerous work to keep our country safe. In fact, just a couple of weeks ago, i travel to iraq and jordan and saw firsthand many of the people who are serving at gre great they should not have to worry that anyone much less of the commander in chief may carelessly put their lives in danger by divulging i believe it is time for my republican colleagues to put the country ahead of party and join us and hold this president accountable and it is far past times that a prosecutor is appointed to oversees the fbi investigation into russia. [ applause ] and so with everything going on, we also know that we must multi task. We dpgot to keep our eyes on whats happening with russia and no no north korea. Healthcare, immigration and Climate Change and the throwing back reforms of our criminal justice. I decided this morning with everything thats going on that i would talk a little bit about whats going on in terms of our criminal justice system. And specifically because of this. Our system of justice, i think was shaken last tuesday when the president being aided and abetted by Jeff Sessions, fired fbi james comey. What got less attention, guys, and also threatens our system of justice was a memo that the attorney general issued the following day to federal prosecutors across the country. The United States department of j justice memo was entitled department charging and sentencing policy. A subject line that seems pretty tamed. What it effectively did was to declare the reviving of the world on drugs the frailailed wn drugs. Lets take a look at what Jeff Sessions out dated and out of touch views are doing thats going to be harmful to our country. Now, many of you know my background on the subject and i was part of the introduction. I will tell you. As a young prosecutor, right out of law school of Alameda County at das office once led, i started my work. I saw the war on drugs up close. Let me tell you, the world on drugs was a failure. It was bad for public safety. It was bad for budgets and our economy. And it was bad for people of color and those struggling to make ends meet. Police officer and prosecutors dedicated extraordinary resources to non drug offenses which could have voted to solve Violent Crimes. There are so many of these nonviolent drug cases dpa thth well do a hand off. That means young prosecutors would be handed, theyll be handled of a simple possession and we have five minutes to review it before we go to court. Well go in and argue for some sentence and that this person would be jailed. During that time and still, instead of focusing on prevention, we spent 80 billion a year in reaction, locking people up. Thats money that obviously could have gone to schools, roads or healthcare. Instead of treating everyone the same, we created a system where latinos are two times more likely than white men to be incarcerated for drug offenses. Africanamericans are 12 of the population but about 60 of the drug offenders who are in our states prisons. Where when inmates get out, their criminal records make it impossible for them to gate job. Did not work. All these years after president reagan created mandatory minimums and nancy reagan told us to just say no and president clinton signed the three strikes law, illegal drug use is higher than it was at the height of the war on drugs. As San Francisco da and then attorney general of california, i was proud to be a part of a different approach. Its what we called the smart on crime approach. And the Obama Administration similarly adopt and championed reforms at the federal level. Which ffincluded directing prosecutors tod avoid harsh sentences forev low level h nonviolent offenders which included reducing the disparity inin penalties for possession o crack versus, powder cocaine. Which included creating a task force, the task force on 21st century policing, the emphasize being on 21st century. Now this administration and Jeff Sessions wantn to take us backo the dark ages. Sessionsns has threatened that e United States department of justice may renew its focus on marijuana use. Even in states like california where it is legal. Let me tell you, what california needs Jeff Sessions, we need support in dealing with transnational criminal oerg organizationin organization. Not goingngdm after grandmas medicinal marijuana. Leave her alone. And sessions has overturned an Obama Administration directive to phase out the use of private prisons. Clear about private prisons. The Business Model is that you reap profit from incarcerating people. Letsan be clear about this. And lets be clear we should not bepr creating incentives to hou people in prison. We should bee creating incentivs instead to shut the resolving down into prison. [ applause ] and with last weeks memo, sessions advocated that prosecutors seek the harshest sentence available, including an increased use of mandatory minimums. Instead of going after Violent Crime, drug cartels and major traffickers wereth worried abo the neighborhood street level dealer. En about that. Instead ofab going after drug cartels and Violent Crime and major aftraffickers, he is callg for a renewed focus on essentially whatea is the neighborhood street level drug dealer. Instead ofnsns addressing the c issues off addiction and gettin focuses into treatment, were going to overcrowd and build more prisons. That is not justice. That is not smart on crime. And i believe we have to stop this. [ applause ] and when i say we, guys, i dont just mea c. A. P. , i dont mean just progressives, i mean everyone. Everyone has to be a part of stopping this. Because drugg addiction, by the way, is color blind. It doesnt see red or blue. So heres what im talking about. I started my career as a prosecutor in the 1990she at th height of them crack epidemic. And im now starting my career as a United States senator at the height of an Opioid Crisis. And,th folks, let me tell you these crisis havef so much mor in a common than what separates them. To illustrate this point, i pulled a bunch of headlines from over the years, which ill read. And im going to wonder and i do wonder if youll be able to distinguish which headlines is from thed 1990s and which is frm today. Which is about crack cocaine, and which is about prescription drugs. Which is about an urban city, and which is from appalachia. Here they go. Ge surge of addicts strains criminal justice system. Addict jailed for endangering here daughter. Addicted parents get their fix even with their children watching. How a mother and daughter who traded sex for drugs are beating addiction together. Ill give you guys the answers later. But youh cant tell the difference. And. N as you can see, this is a black b and brown issue. This is not an urban and blue state issue. It has always been an american issue. And heres the deal. Our nation has had a longstanding and insatiable appetite for drugs. And we need to deal with that. In 2015, opioids like heroin and oxycontin killed 33,000 americans. Fromin New Hampshire to utah to kentucky. There was aoh heart breaking headline many of you saw earlier this year, and it read amid overdoses, ohios Coroners Office runs out of room for bodies. It opioids havean taken the lives coal miners struggling with back pain in west virginia. And the son of a former republican congressman in pennsylvania. And a mom who got addicted to pain killers after a csection in San Francisco. Drug addiction touches every community and every family in our country. And it is unfortunately a universal experience. To fightht Jeff Sessions and hi Old Fashioned discredited and dangerous approach to drugs, i believe we must embrace what all regions have in common. W and build coalitions. And i believe we have opportunities in front of us. Conservatives like senator rand paul has advocated for a better approach to drug addiction. And eight in ten americans who voted for trump say criminal Justice Reform is important or very important to them. I believe theres a real opportunity. De and the opportunity here is to breakk people out of the demographic boxes we have put them in. The real opportunity is to make progress on a critical policy issue. And theres a real opportunity to reach parts of america that feels overlooked and dont realize how much they have in common with people who might look very different. Heres what i think we need to fight for specifically. We need a National Drug policy that finally t treats Substance Abuse not as a crime to be punished but as a disease to be treated. [ applause ] we need to build on reforms instead of having mandatory minimums. We need tori fund, not defund t office of National Drug controln policy. Ande we need this administrati toto understand that if they ca about the Opioid Crisis in Rural America as they say they do. They have also got to care about the drug addicted young man in chicago or east la. And while i dont believe in legalizing allll drugs, as a career prosecutor, i just dont. But i will tell you this, we need to do the smart thing and the right thing and finally decriminalize marijuana. [ applause ] and,ll finally, i believe we ne tocc look locally and elect progressive prosecutors. Because the vast majority of prosecutions occur at the state and local level. D there are leaders among us like kim fox from cook county. Who grew up in Public Housing andce knows we need a more balanced approach to criminal justice. There are leaders like john chism in the milwaukee das office who is working to reduce prison population. There are leaders like kim og, the da in harris county, texas who is saving taxpayers 10 million a year by sending peopleth caught with a small amount of marijuana toax a Decision Making class instead of jail. Auwi right. So even as we fight Jeff Sessionsin every step of the wa herere in d. C. , we should see these reformers and support them as innovatores who are showing s what is possible. I believe this is the time that we look in the mirror and ask who we are as a country on this issue of drug addiction. And the time is now to fight for thee values we believe in and te time is to fight not a war on drugs, but a war on drug addiction. And to make more effective and humane approaches to our fellow americans who are suffering. And i look forward to working with all of you on this, thank you. [ applause ] we go live to capitol hill where treasury secretary Steve Mnuchin will be updating the committee on domestic and international policy. Live coverage here on cspan 3