Rules for florida debate on a resolution to impeach donald trump for abuse of power and obstruction of congress which the full house is expected to take up on wednesday. Colorado senator and democratic president ial candidate Michael Bennett visited the Edward M Kennedy institute for the u. S. Senate in boston to talk about his campaign and take questions from a noddy and of mostly High School Students. [inaudible conversations] hi, senator, how are you . Very nice to meet you, thank you for coming, nice to meet you. Come on in. Senator bennett will be joining us. Great. So. Have you had a chance . I have been next door. We have a school fullscale replica of the Senate Chamber which is where we will be today. We will walk you this way. A lot of our programs, we have a Senate Emerging module, an English High School students coming for the program today. A little hot water. That is the plan. A little reminder. This is dedicated. Can i have 99 people come up here, that would be useful. It traces the history of the senate and the nation, students coming in and learning about that. How the senate operates and down here we explain what the senate does or what separation of powers are. And the senate over time which has changed with the country in terms of additional states and everything and really unique to see the spaces the change, everyone loves to deck out when the first woman was elected. So it starts with the first every two years. Here we are. Senator kennedy right ovary there. So happy you are here. I was reading my memo. So excited. You honor us by being here. It is great. Absolutely. Thank you. [applause] good morning. I am so happy you all got here in the weather. I am vicki kennedy. On behalf of our executive director and the board of directors im so pleased to welcome you all to the Edward M Kennedy institute for the United States senate. This morning, special getting to the point program. It is always meaningful to have a United States senator visit us here and join us in our replica of the Senate Chamber here on Columbia Point in boston. It is especially meaningful to be joined by a candidate for the president ial nomination of his party and especially significant to have a United States senator here when such historic actions are taking place today on capitol hill. With a special shout out to the students, thank you for being here. When my late husband senator Edward Kennedy first contemplated the creation of this institute, more than 15 years ago, he had a list of things he wanted to accomplish. And the senate that he loved so much. Wanted to do in a handson experiential way. This replica of the United StatesSenate Chamber. And to walk onto the senate floor and feel what it was to be a senator, to feel the are and majesty in place and to remember the hard work and dedication of the men and women of goodwill, of both parties who came together to address the great challenges facing our nation. Even though he couldnt have anticipated at the time how much we would need it, he wanted this place to be a center that encouraged civil discourse. A place where citizens can come together to discuss tough issues and find a way when necessary to reach compromise and wanted this to be a place that we could hear and learn from and question our nations leaders about the most important issues of the day. He wanted to encourage active position in the democracy. And in the process to consider the next generation of leaders. Our featured speaker, senator Michael Bennet of colorado is one of our nations inspirational leaders and trust me when i say there is no greater complement that i could pay to everyone, that he is cut from the same cloth as ted kennedy. In 2009, my husband passed away in 2009, the service in the senate could overlap very briefly. In that short time, ted recognized Michael Bennetts leadership qualities, his pragmatism, his independence, his drive to create opportunity for the next generation. During the past ten years in the Senate Senator bennett has built a reputation, to take on dysfunction in dc. Like all great senators in history, he has reached across the aisle. Working with republicans and democrats to address our nations greatest challenges and developed a reputation, staff and colleagues, as someone who knows what he is talking about. A4 gracious reader who immerses himself in the issue, who prepares, who studies, who is constantly expanding his knowledge. Drawing on that knowledge senator bennett has offered innovative proposals to make education, healthcare, childcare and housing more affordable and accessible for working families. He has made Climate Change a top priority, helping farmers, ranchers and Rural Communities become more resilient to changing weather and investing in clean energy. As a member of the bipartisan gang of 8 he helped create comprehensive Immigration Reform that overwhelmingly passed the senate. It got stuck in the house. He worked to dramatically reform no child left behind, fasttrack the fda approval process for breakthrough medical treatment, conserve iconic public land, promote clean energy and crackdown on the illicit prescription of opioids. He also was central in crafting and passing the bipartisan farm bills in 20142018 which provided stability for farmers and ranchers. Before representing colorado in the senate Michael Bennett was a successful businessman and as superintendent of the Denver Public school, he led one of the most extensive Reform Efforts in the country resulting in substantial sustained academic improvement for denvers children. As anyone who has seen him in action as a senator or candidate can attest, he has a passion for issues relating to quality education and opportunity for young people and a drive to continue to make things better. As a president ial candidate he has been passionate and eloquent about providing opportunity to everyone to participate in the American Dream and restoring integrity to the government. I know you cant wait to hear him. I cant either. Please welcome him now to his seat. Colorado senator and candidate for the democratic nomination for president Michael Bennett. Please welcome Stephanie Murray from politico in massachusetts who will be here talking to him. Thank you for being here. Get to our conversation shortly, i will give senator bennett a chance to give some remarks and thank you for being here. I will be brief because i want to have a conversation with all of you. My name is Michael Bennett. I have been in the senate for ten years. You are sitting there, where i sit. Senator kennedys desk is right next to it. Thank you for having me. I cant tell you what it means to be here. I didnt know what it would mean to be here until i came into this room. Your husband was still on the senate. You were talking about it earlier, sitting at the desk, i had no idea what i was doing. I was sitting at the desk presiding over the United States senate. I had this huge commotion coming from this door, and to settle down, i was unsure of what i was doing. I looked over and what did i see but ted kennedy come through that door, and had cancer from it and came back for appear go for a vote. Dont remember what it was. His colleagues streamed across the floor to welcome him back. Never have i been glad her that i restrained myself. If i was gambling ted kennedy i would not be will to live with it. I will say by way of introduction i spent a lot of my life outside politics. The superintendent of Denver Public schools which is 95,000 kids in colorado, mostly kids in poverty. If i were to summarize the last 10 years of my townhall in colorado, a state that is one third republican, one third democratic and one third independent, people coming to visit my meetings and saying we are working really hard but we cant afford housing, cant afford healthcare, cant afford Higher Education for ourselves or our kids, Early Childhood education, we cant afford what we used to think of and i still think of as middleclass life. We cant say we are worried our kids are going to live a more diminished life than we lived. If i think about families in Denver Public schools not coming to my townhall because a lot of them are working 2 or 3 jobs to get by, if they did come what they would say as we are killing ourselves that no matter what we do we cant seem to get our kids out of poverty and that is an anecdotal reflection of an economy that the last 50 years or so has worked well for the people at the top. Sometimes we call them the top 10 . We have an Education System in America Today that is reinforcing that it incumbent equality instead of liberating children from it because the best predictor of the quality of the kidnapped education is their parents income. That is not the way this is supposed to work, it is not what ted kennedy fought for when he was in the senate. This is supposed to be country that if you work hard which almost everybody does you can lift your family and you can grow economically. I decided to run for president because i was really worried that if we spent another 10 years like the last 10 years my generation of americans would be the first generation of americans to leave less opportunity, not more, to the people coming after us. That is what ted kennedy fought for. That is what kennedys family fought for and that is what it means to be an american. You fight no matter what your job is, if you are a teacher or student or senator of the United States senate our job is to make sure the next generation has more opportunity than we had. I believe strongly that if we can pull ourselves together, unify our country, there is no reason we cant be the generation that leaves more opportunity than list of people coming after us and that is why im running for president. Im grateful youre here today. I look forward to your questions. I often say please ask me the questions you might not ask another politician because you are worried you might hurt their feelings. I was an urban School Superintendent for 5 years, you cannot they have been beaten out of me a long time ago. Please thanks for being here. Lets get started right away talking about something on the mind of a lot of americans which is impeachment. Seems like the impeachment trial will happen in the senate in january and im curious about your thinking on impeachment and how it might impact your candidacy, you might guess pulled off the trail before some early states. Whether i get pulled off the trail or not is not important because we have a constitutional obligation, the seats were occupying this morning is the jury in an impeachment trial, a vote to acquit or convict the president , it takes two thirds, the house has an impeachment proceeding that referred to the senate. It will be interesting to see if the majority leader, mitch mcconnell, who sits at that desk, it will be interesting to see whether he wants us there for a short time or long time. That is up to him and if he wants to put a lot of pain on the president ial candidate we will be there for a long time. Have you studied watergate . A little bit . Not in school, that is when we had the impeachment of Richard Nixon. I was a little younger than you are when that happened but i remembered really well and it was a dark time in American History with the vietnam war going on. We had a lot of divisions like we have political divisions today and that experience of having that impeachment actually was a victory in the end for the rule of law and a victory for the idea that nobody is above the law including the president of the United States in that case Richard Nixon and in this case donald trump has done some things that brought this on himself and we have to see as the process goes forward with the results are going to be but i hope it becomes an opportunity for us to reestablish to the American People why the rule of law is so important. It is a fancy way of saying no one is above the law. We are a nation of laws, not a nation of men or of women. It doesnt matter who you are, you are the same in the eyes of the law. That is the aspect of moving in a democracy like ours. Spend t days in New Hampshire and i will go place to place to place answering every question, taking whatever criticism anybody hasnt staying until the last question is answered. That is a style of campaigning i love. It is the way i am a senator at home and when we were passing the Affordable Care act ted kennedy and others in 20092010 when president obama was president were telling people dont have a townhall meeting because the tea party was going crazy and stuff. And sometimes it works in New Hampshire. Ted kennedys friend john mccain had a lot of success showing up in meeting after meeting after meeting and im trying to replicate that. You mentioned colorado. Do you see colorado as a swing state . I absolutely do. It is a purple state. Democrat or republican, it is challenging to be a senator from a state like that and i noticed it puts me in a different place than other people running for president. When you represent a state, a third, third, a third, you learn quickly that you need to say the same thing in the primary that you said in the general election and the same thing in urban parts of the state that you say in rural parts of the state because people are listening for whether you are pandering to them or not or if you are not sure about what to say. I noticed with other folks from very blue states they dont have to have the same discipline and a view that you can take one position to try to win the primary and another position to win the general election. It is fascinating to see that and it has taught me a little more about my colleagues in the senate and why we have differences because we do have differences based on the states we are from and the politics of the state. I would love to hear you talk more about that. Almost a year or so that folks have been in the race, a lot of conversations and on healthcare, medicare for all. Do you think a candidate espousing medicare for all can beat donald trump . I think it is going to be very hard. I wouldnt say they couldnt beat him but it creates a real challenge because medicare for all makes it illegal all insurance across the country, private insurance except for cosmetic insurance and it raises taxes by 31 trillion which is the equivalent of 70 of all revenue the federal government will collect over the next ten years so that is almost double the amount of taxes we are going to collect to take peoples private insurance away. I dont think that is going to happen. I believe really strongly that we should have a goal of ending poverty in this generation. That is a goal ted kennedy would have shared. I have a proposal called the American Family act that would cut childhood poverty in america in one year by 40 . It would end the 2 a day policy for kids and it would cost just 3 of what medicare would cost. My concern about medicare for all is less that we might lose the president ial election which i worry about, but that we could spend the next ten years fighting a losing battle for medicare for all instead of fighting a winning battle to end childhood poverty and deal with Climate Change both of which we have to do. Youve been in this race for quite some time. I was looking at photos i had on my computer, the first time i covered you in New Hampshire was back in march. That is the first time i won. Feel like a lifetime ago. What is missing in this race . What has been left out of the conversation that you feel democrats should have been talking about . The next generation of americans is what this race should be about. If we refocused on the next generation of americans, as a former School Superintendent i dont think the Democratic Party would be standing for free college for example. We would be standing for free preschool. We would be standing for what are we doing for the 70 of kids the graduate from high school and dont go to college so they can earn a living wage when they graduate from high school, not just a minimum wage. We would be standing to end childhood poverty instead of medicare for all. That is why i stayed in the race. I think we will be judged properly so on what we do for you guys. I was i can say it here. Former president of harvard not that long ago and i asked tell me about the political activity on her campus. She is not there anymore but she was there and she said everybody hates politics and everybody hates politicians and i said i know some of these guys and i dont like some of them myself but then i said tell me about what political activity was like when you were a student and she was a student during the 60s, the vietnam war and she said we thought our country needed us to survive. We thought our country would fail without us. That is what i think about all of you. We need you to survive. We will fail without you and we need you involved in this today. My generation is not doing the job we