Pete is in his eighth and final year as mayor in south indiana. He was elected in 2011 at 29 years old and reelected in 2015 with 80 of the vote. Under his leadership, south bend has reimagined its role in the global indiana. He was elected economy, spurrinb growth and major investment in the Tech Industry such as data and technology. Pete emphasized building a south Bend Community where every resident, regardless of race, religion, gender or orientation, could feel safe and included. Pete has more years of government experience than the president , more years of executive government experience than the Vice President , and more military experience than anybody to walk into the oval office as president , george w. Bush. Pete served as a lieutenant in and tooknaval reserve an unpaid, sevenmonth lead leave during his mayoral term to deploy to afghanistan. For his counterterrorism and tok an unpaid, sevenmonth work he joint he earned the joint Service Commendation medal. He is a Rhodes Scholar and graduate of Harvard University had lives with his husband in the same south grand same south bend neighborhood where he grew up, with their two rescue dogs. Kevinn 27 back in 2000 pete knocked on doors for president obama. [applause] honored to be introducing him. Please join me in welcoming mayor pete. [applause] i remember when i came out here, knocking on doors with a couple of friends, deciding we wanted to make a difference for a candidate we believed in. And chris cross here in ringgold and decatur counties, i remember spending new years eve at terribles casino somewhere around osceola, i remember a lot and rememberts, spending caucus night in murray, not far from here, and having a chance to see for myself this part of the democratic process. There was a basketball game going on that did not pause for the selection of a nominee for the presidency that was happening in the next room over, but just seeing how American Life in these communities matched up with this enormous process of the president ial being made to feel so welcome by the people that we met in communities like mount air and murray and creston and lamoni i and other areas around and otherd lemoni, areas around here. I wanted to mention another reason why that trip my friends and i took here 12 years ago was so important in my life. It settled a question i have been turning over in my head for a long time, the question of whether i would join my familys tradition of serving in the military. I had been weighing a lot of things on whether it was my term serve,e, my time to but the thing that put me over the top was when i knocked on a door in this area on somebody that came to the door, i learned the young people in that household are in that community were getting ready to serve in the armed forces. I was time i left, i knew out of excuses not to be part of the solution myself, and new that it was time for me to play my role, sign up for the reserve, and that was a long road that led me to afghanistan and back, and has a made and has made me a better person and better aware of what is at stake in the american presidency. So i have learned so much in these communities around here. I want to share with you why i am motivated to run for president at a time like this, and why i am asking you to caucus for me. Let me ask you to form a picture in your mind as specifically as you can, and that is of what it is going to be like in our country that first day that the sun comes up over the United States and donald trump is no longer in the white house. [applause] just picture that with me. I think a lot of us are ready for that day, just to have the chaos in the rearview mirror, to have that fear of wondering what the tweet from the oval office will be today, when we turn on the news behind us. But the reason i am asking you to picture that day is not just something to look forward to, the real reason i think we need to visualize that day is to think about how challenging of a day that will be in this country. All of our problems are not going to go away on that day. Overun is going to come up country that will be even more divided, more torn up over politics, even more polarized than we are right now. Crying out for unity, and for healing. And at the same time, Something Else will be true, which is that the issues that got us to this point, crises in our economy and our communities and our climate, those will be there waiting for the next president to deal with them. They are not taking a vacation for the impeachment process. They are net there they are not taking a break for the trump presidency. Think about what that means in terms of the work for the next american president. We are going to need a president who can lead the country with those big issues with meaningful, bold and swift action, and we have got to do it in a way that is going to unify, not divide the American People. That is why i am running for president. I am running to be the president to can pick up the pieces, guide the American People in the same direction, and do it toward the greater purpose of getting these big things done. [applause] lets think about what that is actually going to require. It sounds like a tall order, and it is. But the presidency is capable of big things. The big thing we need from our presidency today is to gather americans around the values we already share in common, but are being used right now to pit us against each other. I am thinking about values like love of country, patriotism, especially as these especially these last few weeks. But i am not talking about the cheap nationalism of hugging the flag, or thinking it is promilitary to cancel the judgment of military justice and pardon somebody who was turned in by his own soldiers for committing a crime. That is not the kind of patriotism i am talking about. [applause] i am talking about a love of country that starts with the recognition that our country is made of people, and you cant love a country if you hate half of the people that are ended. We are all in this together. That is what our patriotism is based on. [applause] flag,an allegiance to the that remembers that the flag stands for something. In fact, if somebody speaks up on wrongdoing at the highest levels, that is knocked of loyalty to the republic for which it stands, which is why we ought to protect them. [applause] a love of country that calls us to protect the country not just abroad, seeing to it that no one will ever question whether it is a good idea to put your life on the to therusting your life word of the United States of america, but also right here at home. That is why we have got to act to make sure nobody ever confuses the Second Amendment with an excuse to do nothing whatsoever to keep our communities safe from gun violence and keep our kids safe from fear when they go to school. [applause] and yes, that means protecting our future, which is making sure all of america, including rural ofrica, is called to be part the solution as we rise up and a National Mobilization to confront Climate Change as the security challenge of our time, and lead the rest of the world in doing something about it before it is too late. That is part of what it is to protect our country. [applause] about values that could bring us together, but they are using them to pit us against each other. That is what i am worried about, because faith could be something that brings us together. This country was built on the idea that we have freedom when it comes to matters of faith, that this country belongs to people of every religion and of no religion equally. That is a core principle of the constitution. I am also offering those who are guided by faith the opportunity to have a white house that you wouldnt have to look at on the news and scratch your head and ask yourself, wait a minute, whatever happened to, i was hungry and you fed me . I was a stranger, and you welcomed me . Thee. S for the least of that is our obligation. [applause] believing in democracy, as a value, a belief that we are a better country when every vote is counted and every voter counts, and we have districts that are drawn fairly, instead of politicians picking out their voters ahead of an election. We do something about the role of money in politics, see to it that our democracy really is democratic. I have even gone so far as to suggest we might consider picking our president the way we do every other election, by giving it to the person who got the most votes. Just a thought. [applause] and im thinking a lot about what it would mean to have a president that guides us forward in the name of freedom, but not freedom the way some folks see it now, just cutting every regulation and tax. I am not talking about amazons freedom to not have to pay any federal income taxes on their billions of dollars in profits. Am talking about our freedom to live a life of our choosing, that that is why we need to make sure that sometimes, yes, the government gets out of the way. Whatever your personal views are, the time is now to get government out of the business of dictating to women what their Reproductive Health care choices ought to be. [applause] but sometimes it means the Public Sector has to step up. We already get that at the local level, when we are paving roads and setting up schools. Schools, by the way, deserve a secretary of education who believes in public education. [applause] it is also why we have got to do something about health care. Because you are not free if you dont have health care. That is why i am calling for all who wanted. We take a version of medicare and make it available for everybody who wants it, but i trust you to have the freedom to decide whether you wanted. So if you would rather be on your private plan, fine by me, as long as everybody is covered that is what it means to solve the problem and honor freedom. Are the values that could through dealing with our toughest problems as a country, problems like Climate Change, problems like racial inequality that will drag down this entire country if we dont do something about it in our time, problems like our failure as a society to treat addiction and Mental Health and talk about them as openly as we do physical health. The time has come to rise and meet that problem. And today, we will be rolling out a vision to tackle problems that are created by our aging society, and fix those problems with solutions that will make us proud of how we handle this. I know not everybody is expecting the 37yearold candidate to be the retirement guy, but we have to shore up Social Security and make sure there is not one penny in benefit cuts to Social Security, even as we had over and above that to save for retirement. We will do that when i am president. [applause] do something about affordability and quality of longterm care in this country. This isnt just about policy. This is about our relationship with those that we love and we all want to know that those we love will be well cared for. I will never forget the feeling when my dad was ale, and we sat down with a social worker who explained to my mother, as im sure he had done to countless families, that the best option might be to spend yourself into poverty so you qualify for medicaid to get help on longterm care. That is no way to run things in the greatest country on earth. And when i am president , we will have a National Insurance program for longterm care. [applause] i am offering a presidency where we can come together and do big things, and also a presidency, this is another Public Health benefit i am putting forward, where you could look at the news and see the white house and fill your Blood Pressure going down instead of up through the roof, feel about feel a little better about what is going on in this country. [applause] but more than anything else, it is building up a sense of belonging in this country. Folks are being told they dont belong. The message is going out to different people in different ways, because of how you look or because of who you love or because of a disability or the language you speak at home or how old you are, whatever it is, everybody is hearing it in a different way but everybodys getting this message that you dont belong, and i believe that is propelling so many of the problems in the life of this country, and we have to fix it. And we can. It is the message of this campaign that we are recruiting everybody to be a part of this. Progressives, yes. Moderates, for sure. I see an awful lot of what i like to call future former republicans out there, who need to know they are welcome in this movement we are building, more than welcome. [applause] we can build that in this campaign, imagine what we can do with the presidency. Imagine what we can do using the powers of the presidency to make sure this is a country where everybody belongs, and where everybody can thrive. I believe that is the purpose of the presidency, that the presidency exists not for the glorification of the president , but for the empowerment and unification of the American People. That is why i am asking you to caucus for me in february. [applause] now, our numbers have grown as this campaign developed from four people in a small room in south bend at the beginning of this room, but it is never too large a room to have a conversation. With microphones, and if you stick your hand up, we will call on as many as we can so we can have a conversation about where our country and communities are headed. Yes maam . Ive got two questions. Sorry about the laryngitis. When will the United States force the minerals to build batteries for electric cars question for electric cars . On when will a question Climate Change be in the Defense Department . Mayor buttigieg there are a lot questions on electric vehicles but the job potential is enormous, including in my own community, where we have seen a transition in automotive. The u. S. Is still so good at making automotive components, and especially at regional inventions related to automotive, but some of this is a Global Supply chains. We have to get components from around the world, that is ok as long as we have secure, stable relationships with places we are buying and selling to. The current president s idea of trade is to go up to another country, poke them in the eye, and see what will happen. They will poke back, and if you are anywhere near soybeans, you know how the consequences come down on american farmers, workers and consumers. We can do a much better job ensuring we have the supply chains we need to develop not just batterypowered vehicles, but all the Different Things we need to create in our manufacturing. You mentioned the security component of climate. This is important. We are already seeing evidence that conflicts and migration crises are increasing because of droughts and fires that are accelerated by the problems in our climate. There is evidence this contributed to the syrian civil war. We need to set up a Climate Watch floor, same as we have other kinds of watch floors i was part of in the military, that look at the way threats develop and what we can do to get ahead of them. We not only have to work to slow Climate Change, we have to deal with problems at our feet, because they are already happening. Whether it is natural disasters here at home or putting fuel on the fire of crises around the world, we cant have our heads in the sands. We have to rise to this and engage our allies around the world and helping us rise to this, because this is a global challenge. [applause] on the family for is asian im a family physician. With access tos health care in Rural America, i have patients who get sick, working people who have a heart attack or get cancer or something happens to them, and they lose everything, health insurance, job, savings all disappear, and their access to care as well. How does your plan do something for that . How do we give them support that doesnt let them fall through the cracks and die because they lost their job . Are allttigieg we closer than we would like to admit to getting thrown completely off the rails. That is a policy failure. We cant stop people from getting sick sometimes, but we can stop getting sick from becoming a poverty sentence, if we have the right policy. This is what we need to make sure everybody has Quality Health insurance, whether on a public plan i want to create, or a private plan. What we cant have is a surprise when you go into the hospital. You think you are covered and then you get the sticker shock of surprise billing. We are going to do something about that. We are going to make sure everybody has got coverage to begin with. And for a lot of folks, my generation and those younger than me who are going to change careers a lot, we have got to have an option for health care that isnt so connected to your workplace. If you are certain you are going to have one employer the rest of your life, great, but not a lot of us have that certainty anymore. It is one more reason we need to innovate in our system. A second thing we need his paid family leave. A lot of times, folks are in a because somebody they love gets sick, they are knocked out of the workforce, and they have to choose. This morning we heard about folks losing coverage because they had to leave their jobs to take care of somebody they love who got sick. It is why we need better coverage for longterm care, but also why it would make such a difference to have paid family leave. I delivered it for our employees in the city of south bend and we need to make sure we have an across the country. The third thing we have to do is make sure we have a safety net to support people going through if theions, especially economy is changing even if your if you are perfectly healthy. Your job is your understanding of who you are, and the social isolation that can come with losing a job, whether it is over a health issue are the economy is changing, we ha