Relationships with allies to restore the leadership. These relationships are vital to National Security of all americans. As someone working on the front lines to mitigate the suicide epidemic in the veteran community, i can say that our veterans, First Responders and their families cannot afford to start over. Andust improve on this, biden has the knowledge to do that. That bidenn, i know appreciates the cost of serving our country, but that his sons served this great country, and he understands these challenges. On a personal level, ice President Biden and president obama ate it possible for me to anve our nation openly as lgbt servicemember. That was something i could not do when i first started my career. I am grateful for that. We cannot move backwards on civil liberties. It is an honor of a lifetime to introduce ice President Biden. [applause] vice President Biden. Thank you. Keene. I love this town. Back toor of my coming often, i may not leave. What a beautiful town. I mean it. Saying thankoff by you to president treadwell. She is here on a saturday morning. She needs this like another hole in the head. I went to state that there are a lot of things that i want to talk about today. I have a tradition that i have honored and most people do since i have been involved in national politics. I never criticize the president s Foreign Policy when he is abroad. I mean that. I will have a lot more to say then i did yesterday about the Foreign Policy and what is going on at the g7 and what is going on with russia, which has me greatly concerned. I will not take the time today. It is an omission by intention. I do not think its appropriate for me to criticize an american president when they are abroad. As it relates to Foreign Policy. I want to say to eric, you are doing a great job for an awful lot of warriors that come home in real tough shape. I showed i have a schedule that i have carried every day for the last 400 years, but on the last, i think now almost 12 years, i carried with me i have a little black locks i have in the bottom, and i want to have my staff, and i can do it online, contact the Defense Department and i want to know exactly the number of fallen angels that have been died or wounded. As of today, yesterday when i 6883. It was i hate it when people say, well we are over 5000 or over 6000, everyone of these women and men, and some belong to you, everyone of these have left an entire Community Behind and they deserve to be remembered. Ist eric is doing, what he doing is working with these folks. List isnot on this soldiers as a0 consequence of iraq and afghanistan since we went in who are in fact coming home with posttraumatic stress good more people are dying of suicide than there are being killed in action. We have to Pay Attention to it. That relates to everything from Mental Health straight through to drug abuse which in many cases is a Mental Health problem to Substance Abuse across the board. It also results in actions and activities that are almost beyond their control rate we have an obligation. I want to say thank you to eric for your commitment to continue to fight for these men and women. [applause] there are many things to talk about today. Obviously i am not going to trespass onto much of your time because it could keep you standing for hours, but let me begin by saying what i am not going to talk about. I will just mention this briefly , i think what is happening now , the trumprday administration filed a brief and gone to the Supreme Court of the United States to say that lg tbt eople have no civil rights lgbtq people have no civil rights. He has already challenged the right to marry, removing title ix protections from students. We have to pass the equality act 20, some of you know what i am talking about, and under my administration we will get it passed. [applause] when i launched my campaign, made my stop here right after my announcement, i said you would be seeing a lot of me. The bad news is you will be seeing a lot of me because it is really important. You guys hold one of the keys to is i have this to admit, i get in trouble with my staff nationally when i say this, this is gods country up here. You are lucky to be where you are. I said when i launched it, you will see a lot of me, i am here this morning, theres something i think truly frightening for not only our nation but for the world. Actuallynistration is falling apart it seems to me. With the pressure of economic and the economy teetering on recession, i think we are concerned about their ability to handle not just the economic piece of it but the emotional consequences. This trade war with china is blowing up and we just learned that the unites states created 500,000 fewer jobs than thought last year. The warning signs from an inverted bond market to collapse of manufacturing all around us, and we are only going to make i think this Administration Act more erratically. Aboutis a lot to Say International relations, but i will keep that for another day. The president is in trouble and he knows it. We are going to have to fight even harder to push back against the worst instincts that will come out of this administration. They will not diminish. They will increase. I have said it many times, we can overcome for years. Can you hear me . R years ofrcome fo this administration, but if we give it another four years, this white house will change the character of this country in my view. Just get to be a campaign about beating the president. He is trafficking some of the darkest farkas forces that have run through this nations history. A Simple Campaign is not enough to beat him. It has to be a movement. It has to be a movement grounded on the values that define us as a nation. America is unique, unique in all of the world. No other nation is founded the way we are. We hold these truths to be selfevident, no nation has ever been founded on that principal. We the people in order to form a more perfect union, unique in , no tyrant nation can take us down, only america can rip itself apart. This has to be a movement to stand up for who we are and what we believe, and we democrats have a special responsibility. I think it is an obligation to do more than just when. Than just win. I believe president wilson said the party is worth no more than the country. We have to repair the moral fabric of this country. Conservative columnist talked about an invisible moral fabric holding up society and it is being ripped, and it has to be restored. We have to reach beyond our party and unify the country, and we have to restore the soul of the nation. We have to be what we once were again. We never fully lived up to our obligations could we never walked away from them before. We never abandoned them completely, but we have to be a nation of values, treating everyone with respect and dignity, giving everyone a fair shot. Leaving nobody behind, giving hate no safe harbor, demonizing no one. And is happening now, lending the power of our example oft just the our power, and leading that way. We all know in our gut that this election is different. Not because i am running, really, because people would think im just saying this about me. We know its different. The words that the president says matter. They can move markets, send our brave women and men to war. They can bring peace, appeal to our better angels or they can unleash the deepest forces in this nation. Are inand gentlemen, we a battle for the soul of america. That is why i am running for president. Thats why i am running. The second reason i am running [applause] by the way, can you think of any president , when you saw what happened in charlottesville said they are there are good people on both sides . President has ever said anything like that. The close you become can can come is the second reason i am running is because we have to restore the backbone of this country, the middle class. Streettraight wall did not build america. You built it. It was built by hardworking people doing extraordinary things. That is the journey of the history of this country. My dad used to have an expression, he said it all of the time, after he lost his job, but if you listen to barack obama, you think i climbed out of a coal mine, but my dad was a salesperson. There was no work. He was always saying a job is a lot about a lot more than a paycheck, its about your dignity and respect and about your place in the community. Its about looking at your wife and saying its going to be ok and mean it. Some of you may have had to do it during the great resource and recession. I think the longest walk a parent can make is up a flight of stairs to tell their son or daughter you cant go back to the same school because we lost our job. Dady so many when my made that walk and he said it was going to be ok, he meant it. He thought it could happen and it happened. Today many people dont believe it. They cant do that. We have to change this. Itll class people think there kids will never have the chance that they had. We are no longer the wealthiest itll class in the world. I know i am called middleclass joe and that is not meant to be a compliment. Deal, the reason why we need a strong middle class, it does well if it does well, everybody does. The reason for americas social and political stability through difficult times has been a strong middle class, believing anything is possible, and we are losing that now. Job as president will be rebuilding the middle class, bringing everybody along. I have a number of brilliant economists working for me. When you asked them to defined middleclass, they give you a number, its not a number. It is the value set. Its being about owning your own home and not renting it if thats what you want to do. Will able to know your kid come home safely or sending your kid to a local school and if they do well, they will be able to go on beyond school, and you can figure out a way to pay for that. Hoping your children ever have to take care of you. You have a little rethink room. It is a value set a little breathing room. Every american, it matters to every family that there be good education and access to Affordable Health care, a climate where you can drink the water and breathe the air. [applause] [indiscernible] you can frack with me later. We can talk later. I am happy to talk to you, anyway, by the way, i agree i agree with her. Dignity,to maintain you have to be able to have the ability to have a Health Care Plan that is affordable and decent because what happens when you have a sick child with a preexisting condition and theres nothing you can do about it. And only does that child in trouble. It deprives you of your dignity. Or you are being told that you have a husband or wife who has terminal cancer, and they say, by the way, how many of you have lost someone to cancer and or you are dealing with it . Its the same in every crowd i speak to. You know what i am talking about. I cant imagine what it would be decoratedmy son, a veteran coming home from the war in afghanistan i mean iraq, and two years later contracting terminal cancer. They gave him only months to live. He outlived the months but he did not outlive the prognosis. He was attorney general and determined to finish his job and he did. I cannot imagine in the last several months if someone came in well i was looking at my daughterinlaw and my grandchildren while he was lying there in bed and the Insurance Company were able to come in and say, your time is up, you have outrun your coverage. You are finished. About nott its only the health of our families. It is about what is the worst thing for a parent, to look at a child with a problem and no there is nothing you can do to help them. That does not have to be this way. Thats why we need to finish the job on health care. When we passed the Affordable Health care act, i told the president it was a big deal or something to that effect. I did not know. Thank god my mom wasnt around. Anyway. Inmade historic progress extending health insurance. America did not have it before. He provided for the first time protections for 100 Million People with preexisting conditions. We have to finish that job, make health care a right not a privilege. Give everyone the peace of mind they deserve. For me that means a public option. It is the most costeffective way to get universal coverage. When it comes to education, my wife who is a teacher, she is teaching now, she is back in the classroom where she teaches in northern virginia, and she has an expression, any country who out educates us will outcompete us. We have to make sure every child gets an education. We have to eliminate the funding gap that exists between minority quite and majority white and richite districts, between and poor districts. We need to take title one funding which is for distressed schools and triple the amount of money we spent. We need to bring everything in our power to confront the ofmate, investing billions dollars as no one else has suggested in research, partnering with farmers to develop the next generation of energys, building clean infrastructure from a network of charging stations for electric vehicles and had them all in place by 2030, railroad system, a unique one here in your state, by the way. Ofting america on a course emissions. Ssions, i am running for president because i believe we need to unify the nation. Opponents i am only joking, theres an awful lot of really qualified people i am beingt i know attacked for being naive about being able to pull this nation together. If we cant, we are in deep trouble. We will just engage in the greater abuse of power by the will dot saying that he what he does not have executive power to do. The president has decided to be president for his base. I will be president for every american. Everybody knows who donald trump is. We have got to let them know who we are. , unityse hope over fear over division, truth overlies and science over action. Here is the deal, i get frustrated. The press is probably tired of hearing me say this, but i get frustrated democrats and republicans going, we are in such trouble, what are we going to do. Theres not a single thing beyond this nations capacity. When i was elected to the senate , not old enough to be sworn in, they said i was a young idealist. I am more optimistic now than i have ever been in my entire life. We have to first get rid of donald trump in order to do this, but think about it. We have the largest economy in the world, more Great Research universities then all the rest of the world combined. Ourre in a position where workers are three times as productive as they are in asia. What are we worried about . Its time to remember who we are. Which i will up, do in the department of health, a section just like in the department of defense, called darpa, advanced research projects. Why are we doing the same thing in health care . We should be putting away billions of dollars to deal with alzheimers, with diabetes and cancer. No other group can do that, but we can read we can do it. We can get it done. This young manes standing here in the front, his generation is going to see more incredible change if we move forward, if we are able to take the take act this country than the rest of you and all of us have seen in the last 50 years. There can be so much done. I really mean it. This is an opportunity, not only to take out tunnel trop donald trump, but to unite the purpose, thecommon fact of the matter is, the majority of the American People agree on the issues. It is our politics that are broken. They are ugly, mean, no longer directed by the white house that is now preaching division based on race and religion, sexual orientation. It is wrong. We got to bring it back together. So folks, i will be back and go into great detail, and i am happy to do it and provide for you the ability to know in great detail my position on all these issues, but one thing for certain, i promise you, the United States of america will in fact own the 21st century if in fact we invest in our people, remember who we are and remember it is we the people, we the people. Godbless you all and may protect our troops. I appreciate you being here. Thank you. Which way am i going . Where am i going . You are kidding me. [laughter] ld you writ could you write a letter to my wife . Mr. Biden sure. Not going anywhere, i need you. I love you. Whats your name . Dennis. Mr. Biden dennis, good to see you. I go by joe. Can i get a picture with you . Mr. Biden sure. Give me a camera. You can stand right there. Hes all right. Dont worry. Ive got your back. Mr. Biden thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Biden thank you. Keep it up. Say hi, braden. I know, its true. Thank you, good luck. I am stephanie. Wouldnt that be something . Something to consider when you get in office. Mr. Biden thats right. There is a lot. You ought to give my staff your number. Thank you. Good to see you. You give me a camera. Ill take a picture of you and your son. He is yawning. Mr. Biden thats all right. God love you. Thank you. All the other candidates are doing it. Mr. Biden i dont care about the other candidates. I take better selfies. You have five of them now. Can we take slp too . A selfie too . Mr. Biden sure. One second and i will be happy to do it. Thank you. Thank you so much. Mr. Biden is the number on here . Is there a number for me to reply . You are the next president. Thank you. Mr. Biden thank you. [indiscernible] there you go. Where are you from . I am irish. I just went home. 80,000 people showed up when i came back. Yeah. In county loughlin. Nice to meet you. Mr. Biden what is your name . Im wendy. Good to see you. Mr. Biden how are you doing . Good to see you. Very excited to be here. Mr. Biden are you ready . Thank you. It was nice to meet you. Mr. Biden pleasure meeting you. And my family, thats a very big deal. Its a huge deal. That is what we need. Mr. Biden thank you, pal. Thanks for being here. [indiscernible] obamacare. Are you aware of that . Mr. Biden say that again . Covered under obamacare. It is like car insurance. Mr. Biden it is because of the governor. Obamacare covers you nationwide. Unless they pull back. It would be a mistake. Give me your name, i will give you a call. Hey, good to see you, man. How are you . My lord. God love you. It has bee