Campaign and we will kick off with michael bennet. Michael bit has been a senator for colorado since 2009. He launched his president ial campaign in may of 2019 and his book, a land of flickering lights came out in june of 2019. Heres a portion of of his discussion from san francisco. You cant accept the way politics works in washington and create a durable solution on climate because you cant fix climate to use at the time. You cant accept the politics where you put in a set of policies during four years of the bomb and message and of the guys coming and rip it out and then four years later, you put it back in and they rip it out. I dont think thats anyway to regulate a Banking System or support education but you certainly cant deal with climate that way and thats what i think sort of as as a definitional matter you cannot accept the current Political Climate in america. Were going to have to build a coalition of americans outside of washington to overcome a broken washington. Thats what were going to do and that sounds really hard and it is really hard but there are no shortcuts in democracy. This why the debate about to get rid of the filibuster, dont get rid of the filibuster, not particular interest to me because the question is can you win states like colorado, iowa, arizona tax because if you cant you will not be able to make the kinds of changes that we need to be able to make. The democrats are putting forth a lot of ideas on Climate Change and the one that is not the most attention for better or worse is the Green New Deal or is that supposed to cause a big green new dream i think she calls it. Not so much anymore. She is buried the hatchet with aoc but Scientists Say the longer you wait the top with the solutions are going to be if youre going to do with this. Where do you come down on this . What you cant be doing that is acceptable that is doable . First of all i believe we should not ever compromise with the science, ever, ever. And thats why i support the findings of the Green New Deal that say weve got to get to net zero carbon by 2050 antara bunch of other things in the findings i agree with. Another approach to the policies going to be more likely to be successful for the reasons that i said earlier. If you come out to colorado and have a conversation with people and say my climate plan by the way went to act urgently and my plan is we will retrofit every building in america and the next ten years and we will give everybody a paid vacation and were going to give everybody a paid job and Bernie Sanders health care plan, pretty soon people will say that doesnt sound like a climate plan. That sounds like something else. And by the with one of the things that drive me nuts about that is the one thing they left off that list was a high Quality Public School for every kid in america. What are the always left behind . Why are the always left behind . They are invisible to us. The kids in these urban school district. They are invisible to the Progressive Left in this country. What i believe is that the tragedy of the last election as i said a minute ago is we lost elections are climate denier. It should be disqualifying for the white house if you deny the Climate Change is real. It should be disqualifying [applause] it should be disqualifying on moral terms but i mean something else. It should be disqualifying on political terms because the majority of americans lead Climate Change is real and the majority of americans believe we need to do something to fix it. The argument we lost to trump which is a disgrace, we should never have lost it, was an economics. He won an argument with the American People what he said it would get with Climate Change its going to be an economic catastrophe for america. When the reverse is true, of course that if we dont deal with climate and will be an economic catastrophe for america. That is an argument we cannot lose again. So it was a failure of democrats to come up with a message. It is. Theres this agonizing description in the book about the Keystone Pipeline folks, and this is the thing where i voted in a way that was not consistent with environmental communities of you, with whom i have a very, very strong relationship. We moved to colorado because my wife was the regional director of earth justice. She was the Rocky Mountain region and they do a great job and i had to crawl into bed every night so i need to be right on these issues. [laughing] but what disturbed me speedy what was alike than that you voted for the Keystone Pipeline . It was fine because weve been through it. What disturbed me was it galvanized are based but it did make anybody else to the table. Someone else once said to me, what would michael have said . Who gets to pick the symbols, the movement or the politicians . I think thats a legitimate question and my answer is probably a little bit of both. The question from this friend of mine in colorado who was very disappointed in the on this but had agreed it was the keystone was a symbol, what would michael have said about the lunch counters in the Civil Rights Movement . This is all in the book, to which is it exactly, thats my point. Because the civil rights, the lunch counters brought them into the Civil Rights Movement. It expanded the movement and built it in a in a way that cod overcome people who fought, who would never give up on segregation in this country. We need the same sort of relentlessness and approach on Climate Change. Weve got to be building a coalition of people to change politics in washington, d. C. So that we have an urgent and durable solution. I believe we can easily do that. The coalition is waiting for us in america to do it but you cant expect its going to be there and you cant make proposals that divide people when youre trying to unite people. I want to end just to be very clear about it, you cannot compromise on the science and we cannot compromise on the science. That is not the same thing as saying we shouldnt should be. How to build a durable Coalition People that can sustain a political outcome in this country. Thats an honorable thing to do i think, not a dishonorable think. As you say in the book why think you allude to this but you talk about segregation, civil rights. Some of the big civil rights bills like a past in the mid\60{l1}s{l0}\60{l1}s{l0} could never have happened without republicans. What has happened to the party not just on civil rights which is more understandable in some ways but on science, on climate . Perfect example, a chapter in a book about italy about Citizens United but the way i described the effect on our country is by using lima change. I do want want to overstate it but the republicans had a fairly honorable environmental tradition. Everybody knows Teddy Roosevelt honorable tradition but imagine this, Richard Nixon signed into law the Clean Air Act and the clean water act and stood up the epa. Ronald reagan close the hole in the ozone layer using a capandtrade system basically. Two george bushes went United Nations and said weve got to do something on climate. In fact, george bush the dad went to detroit, michigan, and said people think we were not getting think that on climate forget about the white house the fact that we would get something done on climate. My friend john mccain who is part of the gang of eight with an immigration, he ran on Climate Change. What happened . What happened was in 2010 the Supreme Court decided Citizens United. That led to the Koch Brothers and other billionaires, fossil fuel people from having to completely outsize role in the politics where they first set out just in that year, they set out to require every member of congress whos a republican to sign a climate pledge the said they were going to say that Climate Change was real and that humans were not going to contribute to it. They went out and signed the pledge. And ever since then weve been living in a world where if a republican washington looks like theyre going to do something on climate, the Koch Brothers have to rattle the coins in the pockets because it is chump change for them and say really . We can put, because of the Supreme Court we can put 30 million in your next primary and you will be dead before the season starts. And that is created this profound corruption of in action and her country. The Supreme Court in their opinion which i used to describe as like reading a seventh graders American Government paper, and then decide that was insulting to americas seventh graders so i dont say that anymore. [laughing] their ignorance of that opinion where they were so focused on this idea of corruption of action. You give me 5000, i go write a bill for you, or you give me 5000 and take a right the bill that has the appearance of being written for you. The court says both those things where the right to worry about and we can limit contributions. Thats what you can only give me 5000. 5000. But then they said, with independent expenditures by definition they are independent so we dont have to worry about and thats why the Koch Brothers can get 1 billion and not not put their name on it and affect all american election. They said this money in american politics will not cause, visit their language, will not cause the American People to lose faith in a democracy. 95 of the American People say theres too much money in our democracy and the billionaires control too much of it. This is one of the huge reasons why we are in the mess were in. Its not the only reason. It was the confluence of the rise of the tea party and reaction to the election of barack obama. It was the Koch Brothers simultaneously being unleashed by the white house and unbelievably corrosive effect in that era of the partisan gerrymandering that happened in the house of representatives. Those things coalesced together in a structural, toxic stew that were still living with. When my friend joe biden says if we just get rid of this goes to the question of trump being a symptom not a cause, said if we just get rid of trump and will also muggle back to normal, ignores the structural issues that exist in the democracy that i lay out in my book and many of us changes over the last ten years and ignores the fact the place is now populated by bunch of Tea Party People and not by the kind of republicans who were available to pass a civil rights bill. Joe Biden National political career began in 1972 when he was elected senator from delaware. He said over 1000 cspan appearances but only once on booktv. He wrote a book in 2007 called promises to keep. We want to show a portion of that now. The twin towers had collapsed by the time we got on the road to bloomington delaware and the death estimates for in new york were five, six, 7000, maybe more. When i got home and put on the television i saw that americans were still had a heart still beating very strong. Doctors and nurses were stan at hospitals in new york ready to treat the wounded. Snaking through the streets and that the avenues were long lines of new yorkers waiting to get their blood. Even though the word was being passed that no more blood was needed. I could see the interfaces. They were hungry to do something, anything nobody was talking about war footings or paybacks. They just wanted to do their part. That was the day that reminded me that even in the moment of almost total silence from their leaders in washington, americans would rise to the occasion. Watching these people in the bloodlines i was convinced that the country would get up off the mat, face the new challenges head on and emerge stronger having faced them. To me, this is the first principle of life, the foundation principle. A blessing you cant learn at the feet of any wise man or woman. Get up. The art of living is simply getting up after you have been knocked down. This is a lesson taught by example and learned into doing. I got the lesson everyday while growing up in a in a nondescrit splitlevel home in the suburbs of wilmington, delaware. My dad was a man of few words. What i learned from him i learned from watching. He had been knocked down hard as a young man but he never stopped trying. He was the first one up in the morning every morning in our home, clean shaven, elegantly dressed, putting on the coffee, getting ready to go to the car dealership to a job he never really liked. My brother said most mornings he could hear dad singing in the kitchen. My dad had real grace. He never ever gave up and he never complained. The world doesnt owe you a living, chile, he would say, but without rancor. He had no time for selfpity. He didnt judge a man by how many times he got knocked down. He judge them by how rapidly he got back up. Get up. That was the phrase. That was the phrase and it is echoed through my whole life. The world dropped on your head . My dad would say get at. Youre lying in bed feeling sorry for yourself. Get that. If you got knocked down, got knocked on your on football field, get that. Bad grade grade. Get up. Girls parents wont let her go out with the catholic boy. Get out. It wasnt just a small things but big ones as well. When the only voice i could hear was my own after the surgery, senator, you might lose your ability to speak, get up. The newspapers are calling you a plagiarist, biden. Get up. Your wife and daughter, im sorry, joe, there was nothing we could do to save them. Get up. Flaunt a class in law school. Get up. Kids make fun of you because you cant pronounce your lasting. You stutter. Biden. There was no daylight between my moms philosophy of life and my dads. She just was more vocal about it and continues to be. He couldnt stand people who abuse power of any kind picking never laid a hand on any of us and if we all heard him time and time again say, it takes a small man to hit a small child. No man has a right to raise a hand to a woman under any circumstances. It was always like getting up and standing up. Standing up to the abuse of power whether it was the hands of a a neighborhood bully or ta dictator. When i was in eighth grade i got invited to the Presbyterian Church for a mix of all the kids went to public school. I was the catholic kid in mayfield and there were not many catholic families. I had to wear one of my dads dress shirts. It was a big deal to go to the dance. The dress shirt was too long so ill never forget my mom rolled up the sleeves twice french cuff shirt and then she couldnt find any cufflinks. My dad worked on friday nights and we couldnt find it. My mother went down to the wash machine in the laundering and picked up the toolbox. Out of the toolbox she literally got a nod and a bolt. You think im kidding, im not. [laughing] and my mom came up from the basement and started to put them into my sleeves. I pulled away and they said im not doing this. Im not going to do this. Im not going to do this, mom. Theyre going to make fun of me. My mother as all of her kids and grandkids have heard said, joey, look at me. I said mom, im not doing it. Im not doing it under any circumstances. She said joey, look at me. If anybody says anything about these nuts and bolts to you, you just looked let them right in e and say, you dont have a pair of these . [laughing] and i said, mom, im not doing this. [applause] im not doing this. What i wanted to go to the stint in the worst way, all the best looking girls and eighth and ninth grade with there. So i went, nuts and bolts and all, and literally i was standing at the punch bowl. One of sort of bullies in the neighborhood, i reached out and he held up my arm said look, look, biden, look at his cufflinks. Nuts and bolts. And at first i felt just so embarrassed, and then they felt more angry than it was embarrassed. I looked him straight in and i said, frank, you dont have a pair of these . It was dead silence. True story. He looked any wind, yeah, yeah, i got a pair of those, too. [laughing] i want you to know, i want you to know, it always reminded me, taught me its not about whether your barefoot are where guccis. Its not about what you nuts and bolts or find cufflinks, its about who you are. Its about what you believe. On my 50th 50th birthday my bet friend, my sister will you stand up . I want you to meet my sister. Shes incredible. [applause] my sister went to tiffanys and had a pair of sterling silver cufflinks made. They are nuts and bolts. [laughing] she got them in for me to remi, to remind me where we come from and remind me about how to judge a person, never forget. Never forget. From time to time he would talk about the holocaust, my dad. He could never understand how people could be persecuted for just being who they were. The war was wrong, joey, at the dinner table. We had only one rule. My dad came home every night from the dealership. One world was dinner was held the place you are expected to have impeccable manners. There was no excuses. As a place we sat to have conversation and occasionally eat. It wasnt about eating. And my dad would respond to what he thought were these terrible things. He said the world was wrong failing to respond to the atrocities against the jews. We should be ashamed. He also is very critical of jews who didnt want to establish the state of israel. He couldnt quite understand and my father was not jewish. We each had a personal responsibility, he told us, just like the nuns told us. It wasnt sufficient enough to point out something was wrong. It was obliged, you are obliged if if you the capacity of it anyway you