i'm lavinia. i'm 14 years old and elizabeth warren is my gammy. gammy and i are very close, she comes to my diving practices and we have girls night sleepovers and we paint each other's toe nails blue, of course. she works hard but makes time for our family. she's always there for us no matter what. i want her to be the first female president of the united states. because that is what girls do. come on out, ♪ gammy. >> hello los angeles! wow, i'm glad to be here with all of you. that is why we've been in california, who are ready for big structural changes, los angeles? now as you can see, it's for me a family affair. you met lavinia, you met atticus, my other granddaughter octavia is here. my daughter amelia son-in-law, and my son-in-law, alex in the blue shirt. it's really good to be here with family. very to say. alex has been on the road with me. alex has been my tech support since second grade. it's true. it's true. he runs his own business now. and is also trying a new one and support your mother when she runs for president of the united states. so glad you're all here tonight. i thought what we'd do is i'll tell you about myself and we'll take questions. i think atticus managed all of the numbers now. and might take a while for people to get to the mic but i'll stay as long as you like. so i was born and raised in oklahoma. we have oakies. good. i love it. born and raised in oklahoma. i have three much-older brothers. i'm what used to be called a late in life baby. my mother was always referred to me as the surprise. my three older brothers who, to this day are known as the boys, my three older brothers old enough to join the military. my oldest brother was career military. he spent about five and a half years in combat in vietnam and we were lucky to get him back home. you bet. my brother, john, he was stationed overseas for a little over a year. and my brother david, the youngest of the three boys trained as a combat medic giving rise to a rule in the family. that is never joke around david. and to this day, he can perform a emergency tracheotomy. it makes for exciting moments during thanksgiving. anyone go ahem, and david is ready. i love my brothers and i'm close to them. we're growing up our daddy did a lot of different things. he sold paint, he sold fencing. he sold house ware. in middle school, the boys were gone. my dad, and my daddy and me. my daddy had a massive heart attack. and for a long time we thought we're going to lose him. now, he pulled through but he couldn't work. and it went on and on. and i remember losing our family station wagon. i remember my mama used to tuck me in to bed at night. give me a kiss, walk out of the room and close the door. i knew what is coming next. i heard her start to cry on the other side. she never wanted to cry in front of me. and when heard words like mortgage and fore closure, and one morning i walked into my folks' bedroom and on the bed was laid out my dress. some of you will know the dress. the one that only comes out for weddings, funerals and graduations and there was my mother, in her slip, her stocking feet and she is looking down and she's pacing and she's crying and she's saying "i will not lose this house, i will not lose this house." we will not lose this house. and she looked up and sees me in the doorway. just a kid. looks at me and looks at that dress and she looks back at me and she is 50 years old. she never worked outside of the home and she's terrified she takes one more look at me. wipes her face pull that's dress on and puts on her high heels and walks into sears and gets a full-time minimum wage job that saved our house. and it saved our family. so for many years i thought about that and that is no matter how scared you are or when it comes down to it, you reach down deep. you find what you have to find. you pull it up and you take care of the people you love. and it was years later, before i came to understand that wasn't just my mama taught me. it's what millions of people across the country do every day. no matter how hard it looks and how scared they are. they reach down, deep, they find what they have to find and they take care of the people they love. that is who we are. but it was almost years after that that i came to understand that that same story is also a story about government. because when i was a girl, a full time minimum wage job in america would support a family of three. pay a mortgage, it would cover the utilities, and would put food on the table. today, a minimum job in america will not keep a mama and a baby out of poverty and that is wrong. and understand that this is not a difference just happened over time. it's a difference of who government works for. when i was a girl the question asked in washington about minimum wage is what does it take a family of three to survive? what does it take a family of three to get a toe hold in the middle class? what does it take a family of three to have something solid they can build from? today, the question asked in washington is where do we set the minimum wage to maximize profits of giant corporations? i don't want a government that works for giant corporations. i want one that works for our families. so my brothers went and joined the military, me? i have known what i wanted to do since second grade. a couple of you laughed. you doesn't dnt until what? fourth grade? okay. i get it. but i have. and never varied from it. i wanted to be a public schoolteacher. can we hear it for america's public schoolteachers? i wanted to teach school and invested early. i used to line my dollies up and teach school. i d i had a reputation for being tough, but fair. it's what i wanted forever. but by the time we graduated high school we didn't have money for college application much less to send me off at four years to university. so like a lot of americans, i don't have a straight path story. very a story that has twists and turns. so i got a scholarship to college. yeah. and at 19, i fell in love, got married, dropped out and found a job. okay. a good one. but the dream was gone. so by this time i found what is then a computer college that cost $50 a semester. yes. so i could pay for on a part time wait dress tresing job, i finished my diploma became a special needs teacher and lived my dream job. i loved that work. i still remember the faces of the little ones, 4 to 6 years old. do we have special needs teachers in here? oh, one here, got one over there. one here we've got one. so back me up on this. is is not a job. it is a calling from the heart. exactly right. i loved that work and i'd probably still be doing it but there is a twist. by the end of the year year in teaching i was physically pregnant. and the principal did what they did in those days. wished me luck and hired someone else for the job. so there i was with a baby, amelia, over there talking to people and not listening to her mother. been that way for a long time. so home. i've got a baby. i can't get a job. what am i going to do? i'll go to law school. yes. never inquire too closely about why your friends goring to law school. so baby on hip, i head off to a public law school. we're living in new jersey. $450 a semester. three years in law school and i grad wait visibly pregnant. and that turned out to be alex, good enough to wait until after graduation to be born, thank you, son. so there i am. two little ones. i take the bar. pass the bar. and practice law 45 minutes. and then went back to my first love of teaching. i traded little ones for big ones. and have spent most of my grown up life teaching in law school. so i don't know if i grew up without money or worried a lot as a kid but i taught money courses in law school. if it's been money, i learned it and taught it. contract law, commercial law secured transactions. and commercial codes, bankruptcy. taught it all. but there was one central question that i wanted to know. that was what's happening to working families in america? why is america's middle for people of color, even rockier and even steeper. why? the answer is about who the government in washington worked for. so think of it this way. we have a government that works for giant drug companies. right? for people that want to invest in private prisons and centers not just by the people whose lives are torn apart by those institutions. we have the rest of us bearing down on climate change upon us. and here is the deal. when you see a government that works great for those with money and for those that can hire lobbyists and lawyers and not working well for everyone else, that is corruption pure and simple. corruption. corruption of money that flows through every part of washington and influences every decision. whatever issue keeps you up at night. whether it's gun safety, health care. immigration. criminal justice, whatever is the issue if there is a decision to be made in washington it's been nudged by money and had exception created by money. in 1990s, climate change is something our country and scientists are finning to understand it. they don't have it all. but they're starting to get it. here is the deal. early 90s testimonies and republicans were working together. this is this is time, how do we have to do this? then, along came the kokh brothers. i see you've heard of the kokh brothers and have strong opinions about them. yes. okay. so some in effect they get together and say wow. is congress getting serious? so they have an investment decision to make. they could say we're going to get clean up technologies right? they don't do that. right? they flip money in washington and understand it. this the ones that deny climate challenge. and dinosaurs loved it. why? they don't do it because they don't understand this science. they do it to build an umbrella over the politicians so they can keep taking money from those today it's 25 years full of corruption. so what are we going to do about this? we're going to get regulations here? no. we want to change this. it's going to take big struck you'ral change. and we're going to attack the corruption head on. we've got to be willing to go on offense. enough of this doing deep end. yeah! i have the biggest anticorruption plan since water gate. we he'd the biggest corruption plan so money makes itself felt this many different ways so here is one of my favorites. end lobbying as we know it. i dot another. lock the resolving door between wall street and washington. make the united states supreme court follow basic rules of ethics. okay. i could do these all night long. i know. i know. you are the angel on my shoulder. one more, one more. this is a goody though. make every person when runs for office put their tax returns online. okay that is step one. that is step one. step two, we're going to make structural structural and they used to be called big businesses. they roll over their customers and communities. and they call many other shots in washington. how about a president with coverage to entrust our antitrust law? it takes time to enforce them, okay? of had country. okay. so here the deal. you know? some say listen. i had a operate idea. i worked hard. and stayed up late. here is the thing. you pilt a fortune? good for you. yes. you've built it at least in part getting your ifs to market on roads and bridges all of us help to pay pills. and we're happy to do it. we understand making these events. all we're saying is that when you make it to the top of the top of the top, pitch in $0.02 so everybody else gets a chance to make it in america. $0.02. $0.02. $0.02. $0.02. $0.02. $0.02. yes. $0.02. so what can we do with $0.02? we can do universal child care for every baby in this country. and universal pre-k for every 3-year-old and 4-year-old in this country. plus, raise wages of every child care worker we can do all of them for our babies, plus we can provide tuition free technical school, community college, four year college, everyone had wants to get an education. plus, we can expand pell grants so it's a meaningful chance to go to college for people to have a chance to to to college. we can put $5 billion into historically black colleges and universities. think about that. i just want everybody to reflect how badly broken this economy is. of the top one tenth of 1% would let us make an investment in the ten rags. think about that. think about that. so part three protect our democracy. i want a constitutional amendment to protect the right of every american citizen to vote and to get that vote counted. i have a plan to make voting as secure as fort knox. no hacking. we need to review every voter suppress law ket rid of political fwery mannedering and one more. overturn citizen's united. just three things. attack the corruption head on. get structural change in our economy. and protect our democracy. that is it. they sound like they're unrelated right? but we do those things. think about making the fostwork for everyone else. for me, this pulled me into the race. to be standing here and it's about opportunity. opportunity. or our kids to get a great education. start there. opportunity for our kids. opportunity to marry the person you love and build a family. i was a special needs teacher. i understand opportunities are not the same for everyone. maybe it's just to be able to live independently but it's for every let's win! thank you. thank you. let's pet questions. are the a moment. this is is where you can tell. we'll do this. come on. hi renee. to see you. step so people can see you renee. yes. would you consider nominating mayor dparland to the supreme court? >> you bet. i want to make points. first is think about the way the republicans have been attacking under pinnings of democracy. think about that. a major party plans to keep americans are from voting. but other part is about courts that advance an extremist agenda and just keep more pro corporate. as democrats we've got to be willing to get out there and piet for a court that fair and independent and we will do it. who is on next in okay. hi. >> hi. how are you? tell me your name. >> nathaniel and i'm a public schoolteacher. >> so what do you teach? >> high school. and i teach english learners. >> nice to be talking to a colleague. i appreciate it. thank you. we're going to leave here tonight and tell people we're here. and people are going to have to maybe people will be more jaded than us. i don't think big business is going to let senator warren become president and i want to say what should we say? >> if we don't get in the fight that is what is going to happen. this tos to the heart of the moment. this is about all problems we've wot in had country and there are many. do we have a democracy that only works for those at the top? i dpelt it. rich people may are more cars and clothes and more of a lot of thick things but they don't have a bigger share of our democracy. so it's going to come down to us and how we're going to do this and i've got a plan for that. and when i first made the decision to run for president i knew what i would be fighting for. second. i knew how i would be fighting. i made the decision i was if going to build a twras roots movement. i was not going to pend my time behind crossed door was ba zillion zillionaires. i was not going to be dependent on people with the money. i was going to do it face-to-face, $10 contributions and an hour of volunteer time. i leave that that is the way we'll continue in november 2020. and we'll make big change in january, 2021. every day had this campaign matters because it's a chance to bring in one more person to get one more volunteer and one more person in the fight. if you think that is the right way to run a campaign go to elizabeth warren.com. pitch in. volunteer an hour. because this is it, folks. our democracy on the line here. and this is it. come 2020 we're going to decide not just next four years and eight years but for generations to come what kind of a country we are. i'm in this fight to strengthen our democracy. to make this government work. >> hi. >> my name is jessamin. my question is about the trans and nonbinary community. i wonder how we can see that they have the appropriate health care in rural communities and how are we going to protect trans women of color? >> thank you. thank you for the question. so let me do the second part first. just yesterday, i put out a plan for reforming our criminal justice system from the front to the back end and making sure those sworn to protect us are there to protect us and that trans women of color are fully protected everywhere in america. it's a part of that. i want to make sure we talk about health care. what the dangerous trends in america now. and suddenly decide i don't like the life you live. that is wrong. and must be stopped in america. this demonstration is in court trying to defend the proposition that states that sexual identity you can pail to treat people and the answer is that no our administration will make sure they cover everyone. i want to talk about health care two. years ago the house of representatives voted to repeal the aporedable care act. dournl that? voted to take away health care. here is the part that got me. they hi-fived each other. what kind of people high five each other over taking away health care from millions of americans? had and here is the thing. also buried in that bill is if president obama was in favor they weren't in it. and also to take a bite out of medicaid. because they think most think it's about someone else. here is the deal. two out of every three seniors in american homes are counting on medi yeahed to pay the bills. yup. anyone in here have a friend, a family member with mental health issues? if they're able to get health care transpeople, likely to be covered by medicare. addiction issues? it's medicaid. anyone knows a someone that had a baby that ran up a million dollars in medical bills in the first couple weeks? even if the parents had the best insurance in america medicaid provides special breathing equipment and feeding equipment. occupational therapist. and so that there is a chance for that baby. we don't know if granda is going to outlive their savings. we don't know. and give birth to a baby that ends up with millions in medical bills. but we do know, we're all going to pitch in money today so if it happens to your family the rest of us are going to be there for you. that is the best in america. it's the best in america. so i believe health care is a basic human right. we fight for basic human rights. i'll fight for medicare for all. so everybody covered. because i believe in the worth of every human being and i believe we can build a government that reflects that value. that is what i want. so thank you for the questions. there are things we'd love to talk about. we've got some here. and there are many things you can be doing. 020 matters i'm grateful you're here to make an investment in your and i like that. i know, i have been teased a lot for having a lot of plants. i get it. my view on this is if you want to get something done, you ought to have a plan for it. but, but it is true that all of the so-called experts, which includes everyone in the united states senate except me tells me -- you know, people do not want to hear all that. they say nah it is too complicated. say some nice things. say something catchy. smile more. that is what running for office is all about. and do you know what? when i heard this the first time and i hear it a lot, i thought what do you think they said to the suffragettes? [cheering] too hard now. what did they say to the early union organizers? too hard, quit now. what did they say to the foot soldiers in the civil rights movement? too hard, quit now. what did they say to the lgbtq activists? too hard, quit now. but they did not quit. they got organized. they built a grassroots movement and they changed the course of american history. [cheering and applause] this is it. this is our moment in american history. this is our opportunity. to get organized. to build a grassroots movement. to persist. and to build the america of our best values. dream big! dream thbig! [cheering] ♪ [♪ "respect" ♪] ♪ sen,. warren: it is all right. >> hello, again. if you want to take selfies with my grammy, lined up over ther -- line up over there. >> ♪ ba, ba, bum announcer: over the next couple of days, senator warren's facebook page says she is holding barnstorming events in knoxville and chattanooga, tennessee. as well as dallas and fort worth, texas. announcer: campaign 2020. watch our live coverage of the presidential candidates on the campaign trail. and make up your own mind. these bands campaign 2020, your unfiltered view of politics. announcer: here's the president and first lady arriving earlier today in the seaside resort city of the ritz,