[applause] thank you. Sit down. Sit down. Thank you, everybody. That is very nice. I have a massive cold and that makes me feel better today. I feel more well with that nice introduction. Thank you, mayor martin. He asked what should i say, and i said whatever you say, make it short. We have a lot to cover here. You referenced to we have with us, but i want to thank all the folks here, such as fantastic job every single day bringing Educational Opportunities to kids and adults here in stamford. Up toyou for opening this representatives Carolyn Simmonds and thank you for being here. I want to get right to the meat of this. Im sure you have loads of questions about what is happening, what has happened and i want to answer them. About a lot ofay things, but i get the foundation of it, we talk about the rule of law. We are going to talk about the very simple idea that has been at the root of this country since our founding that no individual, and matter how powerful, no matter what title stands before their name is supposed to be above the set of rules that we all play by. That has certainly been the topic of discussion in this country for the last week but frankly we have been talking about this for the last 110 days. I want to talk a little bit about that today. Then i want to turn it over to your questions. Thank you for giving me the opportunity for this job. I do not come from a family that has a background in politics. My mother grew up in the housing projects one generation removed from poverty. Now i get to be a senator whether you voted for me or did not the idea that people placed your faith in me as one of your two voices and the senate it is an honor. To be honest it is a thrill. I am so thankful for you to give me this chance. I am Getting Better at it every day because i am learning from you about what the priorities are about what you care about and how i should prioritize. This is an exercise for me to learn and listen. I do these town halls and try to engage proactively in ways as well. I am one of the few members of the senate that does my own twitter, facebook and snapchat. Some of you know that i walked across the state this summer going 130 miles. [applause] going from one side to another, others who could not attend a town hall or email or however. I am trying to engage and learned in creative ways as well as traditional waste like this. First, thank you for giving me the opportunity to do this job. We are going to talk today about the rule of law and checks and balances. I first want to admit why we are here. We are at this moment in part because donald trump fairly transparently advertised that he was going to blow up the way that things were done in washington. He advertised this coo model. He said this in his domination speech that he alone could fix this. People were drawn to that whether we like it or not. It was the popular vote but a draws a lot of folks. There is this hiring of democracy that is happening in tiring of democracy that is happening in the country. People understood the trade you got an democracy, you got all of this inefficiency. It took a long time or something to become a law from an idea. The trade was in exchange for that inefficiency you got the outcome that benefited the whole rather than the elite. Whether it is a dictatorship or democracy, you have policy made much faster but you tended to get results that were good for the ruling elite rather than for everybody else. Democracy protects the ability for the masses, for the general population to get a result its good for them. People that im not getting that trade any longer. The place looks as efficient as it has ever been, and yet the results that are coming out of washington still seem to be accruing to the top 1 or 2 , not to me. People started asking themselves whether we still should be invested in this big great experiment. Trump with his advertisement of only he could fix this seemed to be more attractive than it would have 20 years ago. What we need to recognize is this is not just a moment to take on these enormous challenges but to also remind people about how to engage in this determination, to really talk about how we can make our democracy healthier we are going to talk about immigration and health care. I also want us to be reminded that we should not take for granted that this democracy is inevitable. This is just something you are going to live under for the rest of your life, we need to remind people why we are all invested in this. I will say that there are parts of this that have been beholding, there are checks and balances inside this big endeavor that have worked. The president right out of the gate try to pass an immigration order that is plainly unconstitutional that we are going to stop the old coming into the country based on your religion. That violated the basic premises of the original document and the amendments attached to it. And the courts recognize that and said you cannot do that. The president is in the midst of trying to push through a Health Care Bill that is an absolute humanitarian catastrophe waiting to happen. 24 Million People could lose their insurance and rates could go up. They thought they were going to get this done in february. They thought they were going to be able to tie this thing up and move to the next priority. They havent stopped over and over because of the legislature in interesting ways it is responding because people are rising up and saying if you vote for this monstrosity we are going to vote you out. It has taken a lot longer to get this through the house of representatives and that means it is stuck in the senate right now because republicans editors know there are consequences for voting for something this inhumane. The checks and balances that are built in a legislature that are also responsible for the people is holding for the time being. There are these other places where the checks and balances are not there. That is what we are going to talk about today. We will clearly talk about what has happened, we cannot have a functioning democracy when a president of the United States can dismiss Law Enforcement individuals and leaders that are carrying out investigations against chief executives. I am sorry but the explanation he offers does not hold water, james comey did not get dismissed because he unfairly treated hillary clinton. He got fired because he was onto something. He got fired because he was getting closer and closer to a very damaging story about the trump campaigns interaction with the russian government. We do not know at the end of that story is but we do know that director comey was going to the highest levels of the Justice Department and asking or more resources to pursue that investigation. It is hard for me to think that is a coincidence that one week later he was fired. We are going to have the Deputy Director who wrote that memo next week and a closeddoor hearing to ask questions, we will get a little closer to the truth with that meeting. This is a direct threat to the rule of law, i hope as my republican friends go home this weekend they are going to choose to rise to the occasion. As i said on social media there are moments for you have to choose between the republic and your party. My advice to my republican friends is that you will never regret choosing the republic if that choice comes to you. [applause] you know what i think the path forward is, i ultimately believe that the investigation is fairly compromised, we need an independent prosecutor. [applause] so, lets give the weekend for republicans to think or this and make the decision and join with us in this call. If they choose not to then democrats and likeminded individuals are going to have to consider all of the tools at our disposal to push this forward. [applause] recognizing the gravity of the moment. Let me talk about the other threat to the rule of law and the checks and balances that happened today. One idea that should be in the news more than it is. That is the topic of four and affairs and international relations, we talk a lot about americas role in the world. Very quietly congress over the past 10 or 15 years has abdicated their responsibility of Foreign Policy. I was often antithetical to some of their conduct in Foreign Policy because i did not believe there was authorization, legal authorization for this administration to take military action against isis. I did not think it was wrong for the government to take military action i thought they simply needed to get authorization from congress to do that. My worry is today it is much harder to declare war against an enemy that was 30 or 40, even 50 years ago. There are shadowy enemies that we face today, it is not an army marching against each other that we signed a treaty with at the end of hostility. It is something that harder to define with victory that is much harder to get your head wrapped around with his uncivil. Desperate this this principal. If we allow the president to take military strikes against Bashar Alassad without any legal justification for, we will never authorized war as a congress you will lose your voice and making those decisions. What is happening today in syria should be very worrying to you. The president has essentially ceded his responsibility to the military. A slow creep of u. S. Troops inside that country from a number that was close to zero one year ago to a number that now looks close to 1000, a mission that is very hard to find. It is all about local groups raqqa and the intervention of the settlement of accounts that will happen after isis is out raqqa. In the case syria will look a lot more like iraq. Then this will become a much more worthy debate to see if we should be there. I worry about checks and balances falling apart with our country getting into another major intervention in the middle east without a full debate in congress. We can talk about the situation in north korea as well. Of law. That presents real challenges for this rule of law. I am happy that checks and balances held in part, i think this massive uprising of activists all across the country is making it is creating this molasses around the trunk the trump agenda. It does not mean that there will not be parts of it that are able to push its way through. It is slowing everything down, making the allies in Congress Stop and think if they want to endorse this hateful rhetoric. I am trying to raise my voice. My first obligation is a to represent the state and i think there were some important wins we got for connecticut in the last appropriation bill. The Mental Health reform act that i was the author of. I am also trying to raise my voice on a National Level and be a part of what i think is a defining moment for this country. I am perpetually a Glass Half Full guy, you cannot beat and this job and not try to see the light at the end of the tunnel. I am stealing a little bit of this from a colleague of mine who talks about these words from the declaration of independence. In a way, that is our north star as a country. It says all men are created equal. It is a totally flawed phrase from the beginning that all men were not equal and the phrase just sent men. It was a radical idea at the time. This idea of equality. You can kind of read our entire countrys history as trying to get a little bit closer to that reality, to that reality of full equality, full opportunity and experience. Yet you can also read the history as one of two steps forward than one step backwards. When you make enormous amounts of progress in a short period of time there is this natural , tendency for americans to dig a trench. We shouldnt forget how much progress we have made, the election of the first African American president. The ability to think about health care as a human right rather than a privilege. 100 years of talk about universal health care and then the enactment of a law that got us closer than ever. The decision that allows people to marry whoever they love rather than their sexual orientation. Our ability to bring in waves of immigrants from south america and the tradition of those who came from before. All of this progress in a short amount of time, there has this been decision to put a trench on to put a pause on it, to dig a trench for the time being. I would argue that the definition of this country is not about two steps forward and one step back but our ability to build a ladder out of that trench. After the pause, to decide to get moving on the road to the north star. That is what it is, it is a moment in which we decide if we are still on that journey or not. I just fundamentally believe that we will make the decision that we are. And this Resistance Movement that has been built up over the last 110 days across the country is a collective effort to build that ladder out of that trench. And get back on that journey. If that is the case, then count me part of that resistance. Thank you very much. [applause] lets ask some questions. Hello, to the overflow room. We have two microphones, if folks can line up at the microphones we will take as many , as we can. We will take as many as we can. The roads are awfully jammed today, i will take as many as i can in the next hour. Lets get right to it. We will go there to there. Then upstairs. We will sort of do that. Quick questions and i will give quick answers. I am a Founding Member of greenwich village, thank you for all that you do in so many areas specifically i am going to , address the independent commission issue. In the face of the comey firing, and the threat to the rule of law, the Washington Post ran a piece that talked about democrats stopping this scandal. Theyve reduce the efficacy of this using tactics such as asking them to yield for a mcconnell to yield for a question. Shining a light on all things russia. He said the filibuster and withholding consent. In light of the threat of the threats to the foundational underpinnings, will you agree to use these measures until such time that your republican counterparts agreed to an independent commission and special prosecutor to investigate trump and russia ties . [applause] thank you for the question. I have not read that article, so i cannot opine on that. I think you heard me say that we absolutely are going to have to use every tool at our disposal to translate to our colleagues in the house. Into the American Public how serious this moment is. I do not think we understand what a cataclysmic moment this is for the republican party. We are asking them to step outside of their party and to directly challenge this president , to call for the appointment of this independent counsel. I understand that they may not be able to make that decision on a dime, it might take them a couple days to figure out the gravity of this moment. Im willing to give them a little bit of space, but we do not have the luxury of time. The trail will grow cold, the message that is being sent to the fbi is a chilling message of pursuing truth. If it agrees to the detriment of the chief executive will get , solidified. I want to give my republican colleagues some time to understand what they need to do here. That time cannot be limitless and then we will ultimately have to use whatever power we have. You teased out some of the tools we have they have limits of efficacy. Excuse me, you talk about asking questions of the majority leader. Is, we dont control the house or the senate, so we have procedural tools at our disposal that ultimately arent dispositive in the end, but we should take a look at using everything we have. Good afternoon. The conservatives have done a phenomenal job over the last few decades of controlling and shaping the messaging to the public, now they are already attacking the democrats as a party of no, party of no new ideas a party attached to obama, and the clinton machine. Can you provide us a little bit of confidence that the democrats have a strategy or the progressives have a strategy, have fresh, bold ideas, fresh messengers that have some people in the pipeline that are going to be attractive to the general public instead of the whole partisan antimessaging that has been going on . Thank you for all your fantastic work here around the area. I am not here to deliver a sermon on the state of the democratic party. I will take the premise of your question and try to answer it. Listen, i think we have to understand that people have watched this economy technically recover. They cannot believe it has recovered for them. Ultimately we have to be a party of Economic Growth but not just for the 1 . We have to be this for everybody not just millionaires and billionaires. Then we need to be a party of inclusion, a party of a country that includes everybody. It doesnt have to be rocket science. We have to be a party of Economic Growth for everybody and a party of inclusion and a party that includes everybody. Then we have to be a party that is not scared of big ideas. The fact of the matter is Bernie Sanders got pilloried during the campaign for talking about free college and that was unrealistic. So what, if that is unrealistic , is a great idea that everybody should be able to afford to go to college. [applause] as a party, i think we have to be consistent about our messaging and make sure it is based in those stairs and we real economic fears, and we cannot be afraid of putting really big revolutionary ideas that may not be realistic tomorrow but tell the country about the vision of where we want it to go. Deep into the future. So i think right now we are at a crisis moment in which this Republican Congress is try to jam down our throat some legislative ideas that would be absolutely cataclysmic for our constituents. So a lot of our effort is around opposing that agenda, ultimately we have to be much better at translating who we are and not being afraid of those big ideas. That tell people about where we want to go. My name is jeffrey stewart, and i am here representing the medicare for all coalition. Our main function, why we created this group is to attain the passage of a bill those already in the house which is hr676, i want to repeat that for everybody. Hr676 it is worth reading. This bill will provide real Quality Health care to every child, woman and man in the United States. It will not only do that but it will provide a savings of 600 billion per year. Not over 10 years, 600 billion per year with a increase of savings in the future. It will also Save Companies thousands of dollars for employees and make our companies more competitive overseas and help us balance those payments. We have several requests for you. We would like to ask if you would commit to introducing this bill to the senate as a alternative to the horrendous bill that was passed in the house. If you will become its champion in the senate, if you will meet with us and work with us so we can find out ways to support you and support a National March two to pass medicare for all. [applause] i would be happy to talk more about the bill, i am not familiar with the house bill. Here is my approach to this issue about where we go once we hopefully defeat this terrible and draconian attempt to repeal the Affordable Care act. Im a believer in the public option. That is the ability for anyone to choose whether they want to be on a private plan or on a medicare plan. Originally conceived this is public option was going to be its own medicare light plan. You can shortcircuit that and access toe direct medicare and allow them to buy into medicare or get prices at a discounted prices at a lower income. I think that is the fastest way towards the kind of system you want, is a system in which everybody is on a medicare on products. Give individuals that choice to be on medicare or if they want sector on their private health plan. I will look at the house bill, the reason i have been supportive of a public option is because i think from a political standpoint it makes more sense to give people the option to get into that system if they want. I do think that the bulk of our attention needs to be on defeating the proposal that is before the house and the senate. [applause] net is where energy has to be. That is where our energy has to be. I will just tell you republicans are saying that democrats are not for anything, why arent democrats telling us this 20 step plan that is an alternative to our disastrous Health Care Bill. That is because they want us to be spending all of our time talking about what we would do differently rather than what stopping passing. They want to do this quickly, they want to jam is built through before people can understand it. I am all for discussing ideas about what should come next. I am unapologetic about spending the vast amount of my time to explain what the American Health care act is and why it is so terrible. And why it does not fix a single problem, once they do that then we can sit down and talk about where we go next is a party and where we go next is a congress. Good afternoon. I am from stamford. Is there preemptive action you can take in the senate to prevent him trump withdrawing from the Paris Climate Accord . [applause] theoretically, there is. Practically there is not. There is not support to pass legislation that would keep the United States and the paris accord. The Paris Agreement was not conceived as a treaty, so it was not ratified as the United States senate because it was constructed as a volunteer executive agreement of nations. Theoretically, yes, the senate could pass that, but what you have the senate that is by and large controlled by the oil and gas industry that thus have no interest in supporting the United States staying and paris. You have a couple of senators who would work on that but not enough to get you to 50 or 51. I know we will have more questions on climate. We are putting as much pressure as we can on this administration to stay in paris, i spent a little bit of time thinking about how i can organize public and private sector pressure to stay in paris. But we do have to think about ways in which we can work around this administration. We have to talk about how localities can lead to keep building green. We need to talk about the companies we all do business with that we buy things from. We need to make our supply chains green. I will say this one thing to give you the sense that hope is not all lost for republicans. We have been going through Congressional Review Act votes, which allows congress to overturn the regulation with a 50vote majority. With all of the legislation that trump has passed it is all under this very narrow window congress has to overturn it. That is what congress has been doing, overturning lateera obama legislation. The republicans have successfully overturned these except for a cra that overturned a regulation obama had passed at the end of last year regulating methane emissions from oil and gas distribution systems. They brought it up for a vote and it failed. [applause] senator murphy three republicans joined 48 democrats and the regulation which restricts the number of methane that can escape from the systems stayed in place. You do have republicans that are occasionally willing to work with us. Probably not enough to work on a standalone bill on paris, but maybe on smaller efforts like we saw this week. We are going to go to the overflow room. Good morning. Good afternoon, actually. I am here with my wife. First, i want to say a few for to say thank you wife. First, i want to say a few for what you have been doing or us. Your hard work is very evident in we had seen you on what you are doing. We do appreciate that. In regard to the health care, i do believe the democrats should have been able to fight the republican agenda as well as prepare a plan to fix what the Affordable Care act has so to present that to the American People about what we have been able to fix as well as to fight against. I do believe we could have done Something Better with that. But this week we listen to the grandiose, strong, affirmative words of our president as he fired comey. We listened to him speak and fear, uncertainty is felt through the bones in our country because he is not a focus individual. He is very scattered. It is very fearful in the position that he holds. I would really like to know what options are there that can secure us that our government is a functioning government so that when we do have hope that things will get better because right now there is fear there. [applause] senator murphy thanks for the question. Listen, do not buy this line that democrats do not have ideas that we dont know how to fix the Health Care System. We are all united around any of them. Add a public option to every exchange so you have medicare choice inside every exchange. That will make everything cost competitive and viable allow for , medicare to be able to directly negotiate drug prices. That will save this country 50 billion a year every single year, i can go on and on, this is a republican talking point that we do not have a plan to make the Health Care System better. That his bs. We do have a plan, we want to talk about ways in which we had improve upon the Affordable Care act. We are ready to negotiate with you. The republicans are not talking to us about health care, not because we do not have ideas, but because they have zero interest in our ideas. They want to ram through their version of repeal and devastate. This is a big talking point that they have that some democrats have picked up on. That is not the reality of how this thing is playing out. I am not going to be able to deliver you the satisfactory message on how we fix all of this. Without talking about the elections. Ultimately, right now republicans control the white house, the house of representatives, and the senate. And they are doing some stuff that is way out of step with what the American People want. And while we can grow this activist movement and the as as big and as loud as we can, ultimately have to win a election. We have special elections happening all over the country, we have a midterm happening in 2018. This is not a political rally or meeting, but we are going to talk a lot about what we can all do to try to make the next two years turn out as well as we can for us. But ultimately you have to change the power balance and power dynamic if you want a different result, and everybody that is trying to be a part of this movement has to keep an eye to that as well. I am from weston. I am the membership chair and we really appreciate everything you do for us. Trump admitted that he fired comey because of the russian inquiry. Do you consider that to be a obstruction of justice which the only remedy is impeachment . Senator murphy yeah. [applause] so it is always hard to figure out what he is saying when he speaks. [laughter] senator murphy it certainly appeared in his comments that he was telegraphing that he fired comey because of his conduct in the russia investigation. Of course, he said Different Things on different days about it. Listen, it seems pretty clear that this is part of a pattern of obstructing the ability of justice to get to the truth. It is not just the firing of james comey, it is the firing of sally yates and every prosecutor across the country. I think we are going to try to glean some information over the next week to understand what the true motivation of the firing was, what the plans are in the fbi to continue this investigation going. Again, this happened just a few days ago. We had a Deputy Attorney general coming to the Senate Next Week in which we are going to ask him many of these questions. So it is a very troubling pattern. I am going to seek to get all of the information i can before i decide what strategy and path to pursue. Thank you for holding a town hall. I am a member of action together connecticut. I also want to thank you for your assistance with the immigration case. [applause] thank you and to all of your staff who assisted with that. My question is about a interview i heard on npr with senator sasse. He seemed to imply that in the past to a pointing of a special prosecutor, it would be influenced or the call be made by the attorney generals office. I wanted to get some clarity on what the path forward really is for that. There arerphy different ways a special prosecutor can be up and it but it is hard for that process to happen outside of the attorney generals office. Chuck schumer will not be the person to appoint a special prosecutor. It will be somebody from inside the department of dust is it obviously we would expect that anyone who does the appointment will do so in consultation with both parties. So that way there is someone we truly believe is independent we will want a commitment that that individual will be given all of the resources they need, so we are back to this original problem. So long as you are operating where someone is friendly to donald trump. It is hard to ever guarantee that outside independence. That is why we are meeting with the Deputy Attorney general next week. He said in his confirmation hearing, given that sessions recused himself, he said he would appoint a special prosecutor if the time came when that was appropriate. If this is not the moment, then when would that moment be . [applause] senator murphy so we would so we would obviously safeguards an assurance in securing that appointment, so that will be part of the discussion next week. I want to thank you for doing a wonderful job. I am a sophomore in high school. I have a question regarding the Health Care Bill. I know it cleared the house and even though the republicans have a majority, what specific power does democrats have to revise or block the Health Care Bill . Senator murphy the republicans have convened a group of 13 men all they do not have a lot of women to pick from did they do have republican senators that they could have chosen. They had 13 senators that are meeting secretly behind closed doors to craft their version of a Health Care Reform bill. Ultimately they can pass pieces of Health Care Repeal with 50 votes. But anything that is not budget related they cannot pass with 50 votes. They need 60 votes. That is the limit on what they can do without democratic support. For instance, allowing states to get around the protection for people with preexisting conditions, that is not budget related. Related. So that would need 60 votes, and i believe that would be the opinion of the parliamentarians. They could cut in half the subsidies and transform medicaid with only 50 votes, and they are very concerned about what the political ramifications are. There are some republican senators who are trying to pass this in a honest way and what will work. They are going to have a devil of a time just getting to that 50 number never mind the 60 they will need to do the kind of dramatic broad reform that the house did. Lets do a couple more here and then we will go to the room across the street. From greenwich, connecticut. As an attorney i am in complete agreement with the independent counsel, but beyond that as a former official i am particularly concerned about the politicizing of the department of justice. Without regard to what the president said or what he meant, there are two things that are inescapable. Number one, Jeff Sessions participated in an event for which he was allegedly recused. That is nonrecusal recusal. Two, rod rosenstein, without regard what you think of him the plain truth is he engaged in or allowed himself to be engaged in a charade to justify the wrongful termination of the head of the fbi. As the president later admitted. My question to you is even those facts, wide not ask the i. G. To investigate the department, with Jeff Sessions and rod rosensteins willing participation of a charade, that besmirches the department of justice . [applause] senator murphy well said. I think that is a worthy idea and i will give it some thought. It is unfortunate it is a little muddy, his recusal is not a recusal under law, it is a political commitment that he made. It was at the direction and recommendation of the ethics people in the department of justice, which recommendation he accepted. You cannot renege when it is convenient. Senator murphy legally, you can. Let me think about it, because i think that makes a lot of sense. You would have to think about what standard we are asking them to hold sessions or rosenstein too. You are not talking about legal standards. We are talking about the standards we as people to have they are often informal ones. No, i do not disagree with everything you said. Clearly sessions did not refuse himself, and rosenstein, who many of us voted for because he has this reputation as being a honest straight shooter, clearly wrote a memo that created a problem. The answer to that he needs to answer for that, hopefully we will get answers next week. Thank you. [applause] thank you have up there being here, my question is regarding the strength of congress right now, i am terrified. Our democracy is being threatened, just the core values of it. Liberty, equality, and justice, in every single realm. Donald trump is trading instability everywhere. When someone is convicted to jail for laughing at a everymation hearing, when person is jailed because he pressed a cabinet member for a answer and with photographers are invited to the oval office and americans are barred. When those who do not pledge loyalty are removed, with the independence of the judiciary is deemed when factions are encouraged in the congressional policy to encourage this unity, when he threatens to cut off the publics access to press he is not making America Great again, he is making america russia. [applause] or maybe any of those other dictatorships he is aligning himself with. Trying tontionally change the system and he is undermining all the checks and balances you were talking about earlier today. How can you assure us that the strength is there when theres so much disunity and he keeps graduating it . I cannoturphy individually assure you of that, this is a collective exercise. I opened by talking about checks and balances, your ultimate check here is elections. Here is the flipside of that. It means at the top of all of our agenda and has to be about assuring legitimacy of the electoral process which is under , assault as well. One of the ways you can sleep at night is knowing that the democratic minorities cannot stop all of this, at least the American Public who registered trump at a 38 Approval Rating can stop this in 2018 and 2020. That is not true if millions of americans have their right to vote rob from them. If the census does not go forward as planned so that we have an accurate count of who should be eligible to vote and who should get representatives in proportional amounts. I think part of the answer to your question is all of the things we have to think about today is making sure we are guardians of free and Fair Elections so even if we cannot stop all of this dangerous slide away from the rule of law in the next year and a half, then we have the ability to rise up, the American Public, and they can put their stamp of disapproval. None of this will be a satisfactory answer because they cannot stop all of this elections are supposed to be your final and most complete check on this that you are talking about. [applause] senator murphy i cant tell if we have anybody there. Do we have somebody . Somebody from the overflow room . Good afternoon. I am from stamford. I would like to know and i thank you for writing and passing a mental Health Care Bill of 2016, i would like to know if the advances put forth by that bill will be in jeopardy if the a hca is passed. Senator murphy i mentioned a little bit about this earlier. It is such a uncomfortable moment because i felt like i was just getting good at the end of 2016 in figuring out how to work across partisan lines. As i mentioned i spent all 2015 and 2016 working on a huge rewrite of the Mental Health laws. I worked with a very conservative senator who helped me, bill cassidy. We wrote that in 2016 which radically changes a lot of our laws surrounding Mental Health care. Maybe the most important way, pushing Insurance Companies to by more for health care saying that you are in violation. F federal law if you deny care we think this is going to result in hundreds of millions of dollars in new care being authorized. , of the short answer is course, it is all in jeopardy because the protections in the Mental Health reform act only work if you have insurance. So if 24 Million People lose insurance it is difficult to get your head wrapped around what that means, because the numbers seem day. That is the equal equipment to 17 u. S. States put together. That is 17 u. S. States all losing their health care at one time. And losing their access to the protections built into that act. The second risk is a lot of things in that act are only working if the administration does them. That forcedvisions the Insurance Companies to spend more on Mental Health care, they actually only work if the department of health and Human Services uses the power we gave them to force the Insurance Companies to do it. The good news is that we set up a new position in that act, a new assistant secretary for Mental Health, one person, standing right next to the commissioner of hhs, that is oversized of all Mental Health government policy. Even though trump has not filled 90 of positions available, you nominated a good person trained in connecticut to be the new secretary of Mental Health, who seems like she will be a pretty strong advocate for the provisions of the bill. We will cross our fingers that we can get some of those provisions and lamented. Go ahead. So sorry for my my question is about race. Senator sessions we all knew was a racist. [applause] that is a little out of order. Sorry. I dont think so. Senator murphy we are not going to give commentary. He talked about mandatory minimums which is a discriminatory practice. I was wondering what we can do to counteract that. My second question is, what would you like us to do to help you will be forward in the next two to four years . [applause] listen, whaty senator sessions testify to us was that he had done and said things that he regretted in the past. I reserve the right. I voted against him. I was a strong opponent of him, but i reserve the right to believe that people can change, noti do not know i do know if i would characterize him in that simple set of terms. Policiesthink he has that he is pushing as attorney general that are deeply, deeply troubling, and there are all these republicans who came out over the last few years and claimed that they were for criminal justice reform, said that they understood the detriment of minimum mandatory sentence. And yet crickets from them when sessions comes out and says he is going to start pushing judges to enforce the highest potential punishments under the law. Something i wish we did in 2016. Reformclose to passing that would have limited the power of justices to impose these overly dry kearny on nonviolent offenders. We were not able to. His announcement means that we aed to double down, find consensus, because it is there. There are enough republicans who will vote with us in order to pass Something Like that. Im not big into namecalling. I hope that jeff has changed from who he may have been, and hopefully we can get a Bipartisan Group together to pass criminal justice for. Go upstairs . Hi. I am from reading, connecticut. I want to thank you letters for being here today but for serving and the role that you serve in i pounded the pavement for you, i made calls, and i am proud that you are the person i thought you would be. [applause] in my work, i am a pastoral counselor, and i started a coalition at the u. N. On behalf of gender equality for little girls, who are without a doubt the most oppressed people in our world. [applause] how difficult is it for me to realize when we talk about all men are created equal, what do i say to girls about that, when we see members of a Senate Committee completely set up with men and not one woman there to talk about issues on women . How do i talk about women and girls, not just in our own country, but in other countries as well . It is incredibly disappointing to me, and in the meantime, i am an expert on this. I know that those legislative bodies are far removed from the 5050 representation that would be a truly equal representation of any country or corporation, for example. The further you are from that, when there are only 10 , 15 , or even 20 , the issues are this merchant by what men see of our issues. They are many parties and then they tend to act like a man to those who will listen. The closer it gets to a truly 5050, the more likely the country will think about infrastructure issues. Think about what is best for children, think about what is best for health. It happens over and over again, and yet we who try over and over again that we are a great nation, we ignore that read i do think it takes voting, but it takes a few good men to say that this is important, and given that we are one of the few countries at the United Nations who have not voted for that conventional rights of women. Senator murphy thank you for your work. [applause] senator murphy i just wanted to share a story with you. I was meeting with a group of awardees from the carter group that were working in places like kenya and nigeria and empowering women. They wanted to talk about james comey. I thought that was fascinating, i did not have time to stay in the meeting but i wanted to learn why they wanted to talk about him instead of those who funded their work. They said they are invested in promoting the rule of law and explain why we need to move our countries so where dictators cannot get what they want, and if we do do not have the gold standard, how can we go about doing our work empowering women of standing up to people who are trying to eviscerate those norms . Set up ise we incredibly powerful. Maybe itle say that does not influence people at the top, but it gives inspiration to the people at the bottom, the grassroots, doing organizing organizing work, so hi, thank you, senator. I am from weston and i am with a group called ict4. The question i have got for you is a practical one. We have got a 5248 senate more or less. We have got a couple of big issues that we are facing, health care, for one. We have got the independent investigation, for another. I look at you. You are a politician. You have sold yourself. You have done a great job in representing us and, frankly, in getting elected. How can you sell a couple of republicans who are already leaning our way on changes, particularly in health care, and particularly on the independent investigation . Is there a solution . Do you have a practical way of being that effective salesman to that side . [applause] senator murphy that is a good question. Well, we try to do it in a bunch of different ways. Obviously, you know, i have these private conversations all the time with my colleagues. We are trying to explain to them the seriousness of the moment. You know, that is my communication to them this week about the fact that if there is a choice to be made between your party and your republic, you will never regret choosing your republic. We try to make them understand the political consequences of continuing to side with trump, make them understand that you may not be a senator for another term if you continue to oppose what the vast majority of the American People want. In this case, an independent prosecutor. Part of the difficulty is just thinking about how the senate process works. It is not as simple as convincing two or three republicans to join us, because that would give you a theoretical working majority, but you have to get what you want on the floor of the senate for a vote. And that is very hard to do without the leader of the senate, the majority leader, who controls the agenda of the senate. So without going into the details of it, just because you convinced three republicans to support an independent investigator does not mean that, all of a sudden, it becomes law. You would need that passed by the house of representatives. And you would need to get that on to the floor of the senate for a vote. Mitch mcconnell, who i think for the time being is not going to be amongst the three that is going to join us [laughter] senator murphy shocker. He has a lot of control about that agenda, so it is very difficult. You would likely have to have well more than three because you have to create a real tempest within the Republican Caucus that would cause mcconnell to set up a series of things on the floor that would bring that ultimately to a vote. Remember, political gravity has applied to this administration. So Michael Flynn did eventually havfe to be forced out. Jeff sessions did have to recuse himself. So it is not outside of the realm of possibility that as the story continues to unfold that there will have to be a special prosecutor appointed if we continue to keep the conventional pressure up. That did ultimately work with respect to flynn and sessions. It is not inconceivable that it would not work with respect to the independent prosecutor. Thank you. Margie im from stanford, connecticut. I will try to be brief. Aviation is at the crosshairs of spoofing and stalking attacks. This is a result of two forces. One, the faas opening unsecured data, and, two, the advancements in electronics, crowdsourcing, and the internet, allowing this data to be published to anybody and everybody. In the past, the government, congress, has tried to protect the security of this data and the people who are flying in the skies. In sections of the appropriations bill and the reauthorization of the faa. But this is a global problem and Global Alerts are being raised in business and academic world. There is a 2020 deadline, selfimposed deadline by the faa that this must take place. Everybody must transit this Sensitive Data in the open airwaves by 2020. This is an artificial deadline. We have seen past examples of what happens when groups go through with artificial deadlines. Take the challenger explosion. Imac is skiing i am asking congress, you and congress to require the secure transmission of this Sensitive Data and to free the faa from this selfimposed deadline and not convert to mandated transmissions until they can be secured. Senator murphy if you can talk to my staff and give us a little more information about it, i would be happy to learn more. I imagine you are talking about a competing priority on the other side, which is understanding who is flying on planes so we can check that against databases we have of individuals who should not fly, and to know who is moving from country to country. Obviously, we should require that be done in a secure way. And also, they are posting on websites, offering to stalk or track an individuals flight or plane. And they are posting military, air force one, special ops flights, diplomatic flights, Homeland Security flights, putting it up for everyone to see who is going where. Senator murphy get the information and i will try to learn more about it. Thank you very much. We are going to go to the overflow room. Good afternoon. Senator murphy hello. Thank you for coming down to stamford. My name is caitlin and im from connecticut and i am representing one of the many connecticut groups, specifically fairfield united. Thank you for all your advocacy and tenacity in working for all the American People and leading connecticut as a blue state and as an example for the entire country. With what happened with the ahca passing the house, one of the potential solutions that our group has passed around to other groups and collaborated with is the fivepoint action plan. We decided we wanted to do this because the last time, with the momentum in the house going through and then, unfortunately, passing, we were waiting for some type of direction, whether that was from a federal level or from indivisible, which many of us are a part of. So we would like to offer, with your direction, which you gave, which was the two most important things we can do as citizens in this country, is a, showing up to our representatives office, and by calling. So we put together this action plan. You can find it on our website, under the action item. It is pretty simple. The two main things we want people to walk away with are that they can pick up the phone, and they can call five people that live in states that are with the republican senators. And we need to convince them to call their representatives to vote no. Time is of the essence and we recognize that. And then move on, which would be number five senator murphy do you have a question . My question is, for being a blue state, which we heard you say many times, to protect the aca, what is it that we can do here in connecticut to move forward and be advocates for people across the country . Senator murphy listen, presence, even in connecticut, it matters. The news of how many people are showing up to my town halls, to others town halls, that spreads people out of connecticut. There are people who are swing votes on these matter, so even though you feel like youre preaching to the choir, presence ultimately matters. Participation in national groups, you know, looking up with groups and giving them support where they have reach into these districts, that helps as well. Being a constant presence online. Gumming up the works of social media, that works as well. It is a nice problem to have in that you are not working to convince the seven of us here in connecticut, but im telling you, people notice even when there are big turnout happening here in connecticut and in other places. To the extent to the extent you can affiliate yourself with our national organizations, that matters too. Remember, i dont want to tread too far into the political here, but remember, there is really important elections coming up here in connecticut. Do not take for granted the fact that connecticut is going to, in unison, resist all of these policies. You need to make sure you have local officials and you are sending people to hartford that are going to be active in the resistance to some of the most reckless parts of this policy. And that is not something to be taken for granted. Do not think that just because you have seven people in the federal delegation by and large are with you on this, that there is no need to have active conversations and be politically active here in connecticut. So should we go up there . Hi, from westport, a junior in high school. So from the way in which congress is set up, i know representatives are focused on obtaining immediate results rather than longterm ones. Put the mic near your mouth. Senator murphy yes, Talk Straight in the mic. The way in which congress is set up, i know are presented as our focus on obtaining immediate results rather than longterm ones with a desire to get reelected. How do you and fellow members of Congress Plan to combat Climate Change and education reform that the solutions will take longer than a single house term . Senator murphy great question. [applause] senator murphy thank you very much for being here and for caring. So, as you know, the senate is supposed to be designed to have a little bit longer term view than the house of representatives. There is nothing wrong with worrying about reelection. We want every republican in the house of representatives to worry about their the election. [laughter] senator murphy and this is one of the most fascinating questions a democratic theory, because you often hear all these members upon the care about reelection, as if that is a bad thing. You are supposed to be doing the things your constituents want so they will vote for you for reelection, but you are right that there are sometimes decisions you have to make that may have a shortterm consequence, but have a longterm gain, and that is one of the hardest questions of representation. Im not confronted with it every day, but probably every month, i am confronted with one of those decisions, the place where it may be my constituents are not totally with me right now, but i know it is the right thing to do with respect to generational change, and so, you know, i do not think there is any good way to answer that in the absolute. Every single time you are confronted with one of those decisions, you have to weigh shortterm necessity against longterm benefit. I would argue on Climate Change that it is not a longtermshortterm problem, that. This is a shortterm immediate crisis. [applause] senator murphy and i can tell you a story about the civil war in syria through the prism of Climate Change. The idea that over a course of time several severe droughts occurred in syria that were no doubt connected to Climate Change, forcing millions of farmers to leave rural areas, concentrate themselves inside urban areas, creating a capacity for services that the regime could not meet, resulting in a frustration with that regime that spilled into revolution that is a story of Climate Change, creating instability. That is a Current Crisis we are dealing with today. It is not as simple as the Climate Change story in syria, but that is a big part of that story. Change,to solve Climate Change not as a longterm home with shortterm detriment, but as a problem that is immediate that if we solved comes with shortterm gain, not shortterm pain. I appreciate the question. It does often come up in the way that you framed. I would like to know, senator murphy, if you would be able to share your priorities in terms of tax reform, including expanding the earned income tax credit. At the last town hall, i learned and was very relieved that the republicans, because the earned income tax credit has to do with people who work that the republicans actually support it. Senator murphy i mean, my theory of the case on tax reform is that any tax reform should accrue to the benefit of the big middle slice of america that trickledown tax policy has been proven to not work over and over and over again and that when you are choosing what to tax and what not to tax, you should be taxing stuff that you do not want and you should be not taxing things you want. Right . So if you do not want carbon, you should tax that. If you do want corporations to locate inside the United States, you should not tax that. So you should have a conversation about what you want, what you dont want, and build your tax policy on that. You should understand that the data very clearly tells you that if you concentrate your tax cut on the top 1 or 2 of americans, it is not going to ultimately flow down to everybody else in the way that folks believe it will. And then i think you have got to bring in a conversation about the way in which we tax Investment Income today. Right . This is a very different world today. We treat Capital Gains very differently than we do ordinary income, and that comes from a time in which when people made an investment, they held it for a pretty substantial period time. Now when you make an investment, you hold it for a short period of time, and that investment is not in the american economy. It is in a foreign economy. We should start asking real tough questions about whether we should have such a differentiation in the taxation of Investment Income, which, you know, by and large, accrues to the benefit of wealthier people versus ordinary income, that might have made sense at a time when Capital Gains came from investments mainly made in america, for longterm investment purposes. This is a different moment today, so those would be amongst the principles i would bring to a conversation about tax reform. [applause] senator, thanks for being here. A couple of political questions. I know it is early. What odds would you give the house, democrats in the house of getting sizable returns in 2018, and for the Democratic Senators to hold the line, and how seriously are you looking for running for president in 2020 . [laughter] [applause] senator murphy my body cannot even sustain being a United States senator, because it turns out, never mind doing anything bigger than that. No, im really happy being a United States senator. I dont have any plans to run for president. I have got a reelection to work through two years from now, and i hope people in connecticut will give you the chance to do this job for another six years. I think the chances are very good that democrats could win back control of the house of representatives, given the sort of trajectory of where things are heading today. I just do not understand how republicans can walk into a Midterm Election with Something Like the American Health care act around their necks and think theyre going to be survive, never mind being fairly universally supportive of a president who probably will not be above the low 40s in terms of Approval Rating. Now, the way the districts are drawn do not help democrats. We have to have a broader conversation about the political gerrymandering that has happened in this country. [applause] senator murphy and we should have that conversation for two reasons. One, right now political gerrymandering accrues to the benefit of republicans. There are a lot of states that have drawn districts so that republicans get as many seats as possible. We should have a conversation because it accrues to the detriment of the General Health of our democracy because we have so few swing districts. This district, the fourth district, so many are full of just democrats and republicans, that there is very ittle incentive for big parts of the house of representatives to actually cooperate and talk to each other. So i think the chances are good. Maybe i would put them a little bit better than 5050, today, that you take back the house. The senate is tougher. Of the 48 democrats, 25 are up for reelection. In the senate, there just are not as many competitive seats that we can contest, so im going to try to take a few why dont we try to take one more from every place and then get out of here . There, there, there, and there. Whoever is standing at the microphone at all four thoughts will take this questions, and then i have got to book. Mine is really short. Are you familiar with this . What are your thoughts . Senator murphy i like those individuals, but their bill stinks. [laughter] bill cassidy, i do not have a better friend in the room. What they claim their bill does is to allow for states who want to keep the Affordable Care act to keep it, and for states that dont want it, to get rid of it. Practically, that simply does not work, because, you know, there already is a massive transfer of resources from states that have not done the Medicaid Expansion to states that have been the Medicaid Expansion. But if you deconstructed all of the subsidies in republican states and maintained them in democratic states, it would be an even bigger shift of money from red states to blue states that would be unsustainable. You couldnt keep that together because a Republican Congress would never support continuing to fund a law that only sent subsidy dollars into states that had democratic governors and democratic legislatures. So from a practical standpoint, it just doesnt work. Their bill is actually silent on what happens with respect to the taxes, which is kind of a fatal flaw in their bill. What would happen under their premise for the taxes that are in the bill . Would people only in the states that maintained the Affordable Care act pay the taxes . And how would you administer a system . There is no other tax administered at the federal level that applies only some states and no other states. So just as a practical matter, it does not work. I applaud them for trying to solve a problem that addresses some of the concerns of those of us that represent states that want to keep the Affordable Care act with improvements, but logistically, it falls apart. Hi, my name is lindsay fahey. Im going to ask the audience if you can help me. Can you please stand up if you have a preexisting condition or if someone in your family has a preexisting condition . Senator murphy that means if anyone in your family has ever been sick before, right . [laughter] senator murphy good for you, if you are not sending. My question to you is, can you promise to all of us that you will not compromise on coverage or benefits for anyone currently eligible for the aca . Senator murphy yes. Great. [applause] i have one last thing. Senator murphy another question . [laughter] wait a second. We have a special election. You talked about it. It is really important. We have a special election june 6 in fairfield. We really need help. It is kevin kiley for fairfield on facebook. We really need help phonebanking and canvassing, so special election, really important, june 6. Please come help. Senator murphy all right. My name is richard dupree. We live in weston. Got up to ask you a question about health care, but i think particularly with the last question, that concern you have addressed that concern very, very clearly, so i want to skip, without any preparation, to asking you about something else, having to do with judicial appointments. You know, just recently, after judge gorsuchs seating in the Supreme Court with a seat that i think with good argument was stolen from president obamas nominee, Merrick Garland [applause] i dont even know. I have not had a chance to do any research. I dont know if you are on the judiciary committee. And had a chance to weigh in on judge gorsuchs nomination. Risking launching a fishing expedition, what can we do to oppose judicial nominations that we find really offensive . And how can we support the representatives such as yourself who most likely would take a strong stand against them . Senator murphy let us take this last one and i will answer them together. So take the last one, a short one, from the overflow room. I am from stanford, currently a high school sophomore. I have profoundly admired your commitment to furthering progressive causes in congress, advocating for racial, economic, and social justice, and advancing reforms. I was deeply overjoyed upon seeing your victory in the election against Linda Mcmahon. She has exercised disregard for the wellbeing of workers. She has allowed the nation to visualize flagrant intolerance. You publicly endorsed mcmahon, mcmahon, someone who epitomizes the antithesis of those convictions you firmly believe and have vigorously defended since the beginning of your career and subsequently voted in favor of her confirmation to head the Small Business administration. Can you please extend the reasons for voting for her confirmation and possibly more important, is it true you keep diet mountain dew in your coke coffee cup at every Committee Hearing . Senator murphy that is true. [laughter] senator murphy let me do these quickly. Both the questions on judicial confirmation, listen, i voted against gorsuch on the floor. Ultimately, i think he will is going to be the most conservative of all nine. He has radical views on judicial precedent that could really unravel a lot of the productions we have against the Supreme Court becoming a completely independent political entity. And the next fight will be even bigger, because to the extent that kennedy or ginsburg do create a vacancy, then that is really the swing of the court, and we are going to have to have a tempest across this country in order to stop a gorsuchlike justice from replacing somebody like kennedy or ginsburg. On mcmahon, listen, as many of you know, we supported Linda Mcmahon to be the sba administered her. I think we fought, obviously, a very tough, hard campaigns against her. I obviously disagree with her deeply on a lot of reviews she had. It is a question of what our test is when we are voting on these nominees. Here is the test i have chosen to employ. Im not but a vote for nominees for any position in the trump administraion that i believe are truly radical going to vote for people that i believe are truly radical. Applying that test to Linda Mcmahon, with as much animosity as we had for each other in a campaign, she does have experience, and i do not believe she is radical in the way that somebody like scott pruitt or judge gorsuch are radical. So it is a difficult thing, because we do end up voting for people for these positions where we have the political disagreements. But ultimately, i worry about a senate in which every republican in the senate votes against anybody a democratic president ever puts up and vice versa. Im not sure how you ultimately unwind that. Every single one of these are a tough call. You presented a lot of the most important issues here, and im learning constantly about how to best fight against this reckless agenda, about what issues to prioritize on a daily basis. That is a biggest part of this job, understanding how to spend the 16 hours you have every day, while you are awake. Every single time i do Something Like this, i think i get better, i refine my priorities a little bit more. Again, i feel so lucky to have this job. And i do ultimately believe that this is a test for this country. We are not going to win everything the one of the skirmishes inside the broader battle, but i think we are going to win more than you think, as long as you are committed to keeping this level of activism up every single day that you are part of the fight. Thank you very much, everybody. I appreciate it. [applause] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2017] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] to seattle. A threejudge panel in the ninth Circuit Court of appeals will hear oral argument on president trumps revised travel ban. The Court Considering the appeal of a hawaii u. S. District judges ruling that blocked the president s ban. We will have that oral argument live here under way shortly
comparemela.com © 2020. All Rights Reserved.