sen. klobuchar: unbelievable, wow, this is something. thank you, cedar rapids. thank you, iowa. this is amazing. this is my husband, john. there you are. and our daughter, abigail. who has done -- she has gotten really famous lately. she was on the front page of the l.a. times, there you are. and has been doing a great job with our hot dish parties across the state. that somehow ended up on "saturday night live" last night. [laughter] sen. klobuchar: anyway, thank you, guys. thank you you to peggy flanagan. [applause] sen. klobuchar: the amazing lieutenant governor of minnesota, who, by the way, is the highest ranking native american elected to an executive office in the entire country. [cheers and applause] sen. klobuchar: i'm really excited to have her here, and hurt leadership. of course, liz, thank you so much. thank you for being in all my ads. you're great. [laughter] sen. klobuchar: where is molly? thank you, molly. great state legislator. where's rob? there he is, back there. at tog i in the back. thank you. [applause] sen. klobuchar: i also want to mention swati, who's been helping me from the beginning, thank you, swati. i'm so honored to have gotten the endorsement of the chair of the iowa democratic party disability caucus. thank you so much, catherine. that means a lot. a really important issue to me at home. [applause] sen. klobuchar: thank you very much. and janice weiner our iowa city councilmember. [applause] sen. klobuchar: i was excited to get the endorsement of the iowa city newspaper, the citizens press, recently. thank you for that. [applause] sen. klobuchar: and our great team somewhere in the corners, rachel and keira and eli. thank you so much. [applause] sen. klobuchar: we have been on this incredible journey this weekend. somehow starting in the quad cities, then going to sioux city, then going to cedar falls. then going to des moines. then beaver dale. then ending up here in cedar rapids. that's just the beginning. i would call it the super bowl of campaigns, so to say. it is for me, i'm literally putting in two days what i was going to be doing in about 10 days. i first want to thank you for having my back, for being willing to show up here on 11:00 on a sunday on the most warm day we've had all winter -- so warm that we could keep the doors open, practically. so, thank you for doing that because i think you understand that i have a constitutional duty to do my job and that we should see it as a plus and a positive that i am actually in the arena. and that we are searching for the truth. and when i go back there -- we're going to be back there for a period of time this week. i'm going to be able to look at my colleagues and say this truth is not going to come out in five years. no. it's not going to come out in five months. it's going to come out in five days or five weeks. and that is what's going on here. when you look at the revelations of the last week that we've heard from john bolton, someone who wants to testify, who was the national security adviser to the president of the united states, whose stories are now backed up, bolstered by the career diplomatic people, by the career military people in this country. so that is why it is so important that we get to the truth, that we know what actually happened. and i don't believe the american people are going to tolerate the fact that this administration have been hiding the facts, nor do i think they're going to tolerate that we look at the president like they do and gave -- give him a crown and a scepter and declare him king. because, in america -- in america, the president is not king. the law is king. [applause] sen. klobuchar: so, i had never envisioned i wouldn't be here these last 10 days. but what is so unique about iowa is you can see beyond that and you can look at a candidate and decide who is best to lead a ticket. let me make my case to you. first of all, i think we all know that this is an economic check on this president. it's an economic check because we've got people out there who can't afford their prescription drugs. we got people out there who aren't able to access the help they like to send their kids to college, that just aren't sharing in the prosperity of this country. and we have a president who literally went down to mar-a-lago after he signed that trump tax bill into law and looked at all his friends and said, "you all just got a lot richer." were any of you in that room? [laughter] sen. klobuchar: i just wanted to make sure, because i didn't want to embarrass you. if it they were there, you can feel free to tell us what it was like. we do know that he went to down there. that's where he went. i can tell you this -- when i am president, i want to come to towns like cedar rapids and say i delivered you childcare across this state. not just childcare -- [applause] sen. klobuchar: i want to say i helped with k-12, that i finally did the investment in infrastructure we need across the state. that we did something about mental health and addiction, that we had people's backs. [applause] sen. klobuchar: that's what i want to do. so, when we look at this election, i want us to remember that economic check. we know how important that is. but i also think we know, especially in a state like this, that there are tons of people out there, including in the 31 counties in iowa that voted for barack obama, some by sizable margins, and then turned and voted for donald trump. we know that there are people out there that stayed home in the 2016 election. we know there are people who voted for trump. we know there are people who voted for other candidates. and they are watching all of this right now. and especially in this state, you understand how critical they are in a general election. when they watch the debates, they may not agree with every single thing we say on the debate stage. i don't agree with everything that's said on the debate stage. but what they do agree on is this, and that is that the heart of the united states of america, the heart of our country, is so much bigger than the heart of the guy in the white house. they know that. [applause] sen. klobuchar: and when you think about the people who you will talk to, because you will be the investor -- the ambassadors for this election, not just the primary but the general election -- i think about some of these people, like the rancher in minnesota who took me on a tour of his cattle ranch on his atv, and we were dodging in and out of these cows, and i thought "what a way to die." this is not what i want to do. and then he got us, i went into his house, and he said, "we voted for donald trump." i said, "what do you mean, the ranchers, your family?" he said, "no, i mean me. i just don't like to talk about myself, so i always say "we." we voted for him because we and he said so, were mad about health care. and he said, then we saw him in front of the wall. and i said the wall was not built. and he said no, the cia wall. he remembered the day after the inauguration that donald trump had given an incredibly partisan speech in front of this wall, covered in stars of deceased cia agents who died in the line of duty. anonymous stars. dont have their names on them. they don't have their names on them. that's a place he chose to and stand and give this partisan speech about the size of his crowd. this guy remembered that. then he said -- we go by, months go by, and that was it. the boy scout speech. that was the last straw for me. that was his big boy scout jamboree. i talked to the guy about being a boy scout because my husband was a boy scout. john grew up in mankato. yes, that's a very good fact. [laughter] sen. klobuchar: he is one of six boys. his parents had four boys and wanted a girl, so his mom got pregnant again and had identical twin boys. [laughter] sen. klobuchar: and they lived in a trailer home with triple bunk beds. they were really active in scouts, so much so that five of the six of them became eagle scouts. and i never want to say which one didn't make it, because i don't to embarrass my husband. [laughter] sen. klobuchar: so i told this guy that story. he talked about scouting. then he said, as he stood there, looking at that donald trump on tv, he said that's when i knew it wasn't patriotic. he said you never give a political, partisan speech like that in front of a group of young people. tears come down his eyes, and he said, "that's when i knew that wasn't patriotic of me." it wasn't patriotic for me, what i did. he went like this. or i think about the people in a line in conway, new hampshire. they were all very happy voters and had stickers on. i'm a supreme court voter, "i'm a climate change voter," "i'm a reproductive rights voter," "i'm a supreme court voter." a guy comes by and does not have a sticker on, and i said, "you do not have a sticker on." he leaned over and said, "that is because i am a trump voter." -- i was a trump voter. he said, we don't have stickers. he said, "i don't want them to know. these are my neighbors. they don't know. don't say anything. but i'm not doing it again." [applause] sen. klobuchar: i want us to remember this. if you think these are just my stories, i think you all know stories like this. you know about people having second thoughts who are standing back. you see it in places like louisiana, where we just reelected a democratic governor. in kentucky, where we elected a democratic governor and mitch mcconnell now has a democratic governor. [applause] sen. klobuchar: you know what those two states have in common, besides being redder than iowa? and by the way, if we can win in those states, don't tell me we can't win the u.s. senate race in the state of iowa. [cheers and applause] sen. klobuchar: of course we can win that. of course we can. the other thing those two states but have in common is the night before the election, someone went down there and campaigned against the democratic governor candidates. that's right. donald trump. can't win the u.s. senate race in the state of iowa. [cheers and applause] so the question is, where can we send him next? [laughter] sen. klobuchar: there's that story. or you look over in kansas, where laura kelly is now the governor, and she beat kris kobach. or gretchen witmer, who will give the response to the state of the union, the governor of michigan. you see things all over the country, including in-house races, where people came back after the 2016 election. but it wasn't just our fired up democratic base, which is so key to those victories. it was also independents and moderate republicans. so my first piece of profound advice from this whole thing is we better not screw this up. because we have people that want to come with us. and we need a candidate who is going to bring them with us instead of shutting them out. and you do that by remembering that people are going to have differences on these issues. by the fact we want a candidate who can win in rural and suburban areas. and you remember this is not just an economic check for everyone. it is also a decency check. it is a patriotism check. [applause] sen. klobuchar: it is this idea that brings people with us when they see a president that stands next to a ruthless dictator, vladimir putin, and when the reporter asks well, what about russia's interference in our elections, a foreign country's interference in our elections, our president looks at vladimir putin and makes a joke about it. you think about it. hundreds of thousands of americans have lost their lives on the battlefield. that's what world war ii was about. that's why those five sullivan brothers in waterloo lost their lives. they were standing up for democracy. you think of those four girls at the height of the civil rights movement, in that church in alabama. they lost their lives, innocent, simply because they were trying to be part of the democracy, and people trying to push them out of it. so many of our greatest moments in our country have been about our democracy. so many of our worst moments have been about our democracy and our constitution. but this president, on the world stage, he turns and makes a joke about it. it is a decency check. it is what peggy flanagan was talking about, about what people -- how people feel when they see this president talking on tv. and i always think about the story when i think of this decency check about a young man from primghar, iowa, who grew up in a family of immigrants, humble beginnings, went on to go to grinnell, and then got the job, the highest job in the army for a lawyer, counsel for the army. and his name was joseph welch. and during the height of the mccarthy hearings, when senator mccarthy was going after people because of their political beliefs, because of their supposed political beliefs, getting them blacklisted so they couldn't work, then took it out to the limelight with the hearings, and people were afraid to stand up to him, because they thought they would lose their job or someone in their family would use their job, you know who stood up? joseph welch of iowa. he was the one that looked mccarthy in the eyes and said, "sir, have you no sense of decency? at long last, have you no sense of decency?" [applause] sen. klobuchar: that is this moment. [applause] sen. klobuchar: that is this moment for our country. that is this moment. and when you think about what's going to bring in so many people beyond our fired up base, that is what it is. what else do we know? at, in the middle of the -- we know that when you look at, in the middle of the country, when you look at the middle of the country, and i went on this blue wall tour of states we lost in 2016, like pennsylvania and michigan and , andnsin and ohio minnesota, which we barely, barely one, i came up with this idea. we are going to build a beautiful blue wall around these states, and we are going to make donald trump pay for it. [applause] sen. klobuchar: the other thing that we have to remember is how people think about trump. yes, people think of him that he is a bully, that he's a racist. but there's something else if you just think like that, you miss an important ingredient. for a lot of workers out there, when things go wrong for them, when they have to have trouble paying the rent or they can't afford insulin because this president hasn't done anything about it. or when they can't send their kid to the college they want to send their kid to, they can't just whine about it like this guy. they have to get a loan or an extra job. then they look at him, and he has the best job in the world. he's living in that fancy house. in the course of his career, he got $400 million from his dad. and by the way, i cannot wait to stand across from him in the debate stage and make that contrast. i'm going to be able to say the midwest is not flyover country to me. i live here. and with your trade wars and the farm bankruptcies and what you did with the big waivers to oil companies, those people are not poker chips in a bankrupt casino. they are my friends and they are my neighbors. and then you look at our backgrounds. my grandpa worked 1500 feet underground in the mines in northern minnesota. he never graduated from high school. because he had to save money, to be able to try to take care of his nine brothers and sisters. the youngest one had been sent to an orphanage in duluth when his parents died when she was 8-year-old. and then he promised he'd get her, and he got and borrowed a car and went and got her and brought her back. and he and my grandma helped raise that whole family on an iron ore worker's salary. and the unions back then, if he didn't have the unions, he wouldn't have lived. made the mine safer. there would be whistles that would go off. people would run to the mind and they wouldn't know if it was their dad who had died or their brother. he saved money in a coffee can in the basement of their house to send my dad to a two-year community college. you couldn't fit $430 million in a coffee can in a basement, i can tell you right now. but that was our family's trust. that was it, in that coffee can. my mom grew up in milwaukee, wisconsin. she wanted to be a teacher. she moved to minnesota because i -- they had a stronger teacher's union. and she taught second grade until she was 70 years old. so i stand before you today as the granddaughter of an iron ore miner, as a daughter of a teacher and newspaperman, as the first woman elected to the u.s. senate from the state of minnesota and a candidate for president of the united states. [applause] sen. klobuchar: that is the country of shared dreams. the simple idea that, no matter where you came from or who you know, that you can make it in the united states of america. no matter where you worship, no matter who you love, no matter the color of your skin, that you can make it in the united states of america. and so when those workers looked at this guy, they don't see themselves. they thought maybe he was going to build things and do all this stuff -- they don't see themselves. it reminds me of this story -- i've had a lot of time to think in the senate lately. i don't know why. [laughter] sen. klobuchar: i have had to be quiet. [laughter] sen. klobuchar: when i get home, i've been reading books, and i read this book on leadership by doris kearns goodwin. she looks at a number of presidents and talks about the defining quality that united them was this quality of resilience. not how they lead when things were easy or how they handle things in their lives when things were easy, but how they handle things when things were hard. and one of the presidents she talks a lot about is franklin delano roosevelt. and then i remember the story about him, which is this -- when he died, they put his body on a train. the train went through america, people lined the train tracks out of respect. at one of the places, a reporter stood and saw this guy, a simple guy who had his hat off, and he had his hat across his chest, and he was sobbing. and the reporter goes up to the guy and says, "sir, do you know president roosevelt, did you know him?" and the guy says, "no, i didn't know president roosevelt. but he knew me. he knew me." [applause] sen. klobuchar: that is a very important quality. empathy. that is empathy. that is the idea of having someone that can actually put themselves in your shoes, that wakes up every morning and puts the interest of this great country and our great population first instead of the interests of himself. so i figure, when you are given opportunity by someone, whether it's in a coffee can or wherever it is, whether a grandparent or or parent, whether it's a coworker, that you go into the world not with a sense of entitlement, but obligation to left people up instead of shoving them down, an obligation to bring people with us instead of hoarding it for yourself. that is what this election is about. and if we are going to win in a big way, because we don't want to eke out a victory at 4:00 in the morning -- that would be sweet if we did that, but that state won't be iowa. that state will be iowa. and i want to win in those hard states across the country. i want to win the u.s. senate seat in arizona and in colorado and in the state of iowa because if we do that, if we win big,, then we send mitch mcconnell packing. that is how we do it. [applause] sen. klobuchar: that is a natural -- national victory. that's a national victory instead of a personal victory. so to do that, we need an optimistic agenda for this country. that means taking on the challenges right in front of us, like health care. we had a debate on what the best plan is. have any of you watched the debates? have you seen that? have you seen that debate? ok, so all good intentioned, yes. but the way i look at it is practical. i'm progressive and practical, which is true. i've passed over 100 bills as the lead