Welcome to the 238 members and welcome to the teamsters. It is great to have you here. [applause] teamsters local 238 negotiates 270 contracts across the state of iowa, both the Public Sector and private sector. It is safe to say there is not a single aspect of the iowa handsy that teamsters do not touch. We are everywhere. As the first caucus in the nation, teamsters have also been everywhere dogging these candidates. We have been following them around for months asking them questions and educating them about our issues, as well as our brothers and sisters in north carolina, south carolina, new hampshire, nevada. We have done a great job of coordinating our messaging to candidates across the country. Some members from those states are here and we would like to welcome you and thank you for traveling across the country to be in iowa today. Today we bring you the candidates. And we bring you the candidates with the help of the storm lake times added the guardian, our sponsors today. We would like to thank the times and the guardian. [applause] as mentioned, the forum format will feature questions from the moderator, question from the rank and file, from the audience, and a question from rank and filers that will be piped in from around the country. This is not an open mic. Do not be looking from a microphone, there is not one. Over 700 amazing that teamsters are in the hall today. If you think about it, 700 teamsters in one place is a pretty powerful thing. When you add our allies and friends, and makes us unstoppable. It is unbelievable. [applause] and we are in this beautiful venue today, Veterans Memorial coliseum, and it is an the 70thte venue on anniversary of pearl harbor day. So this is a great day to be in this venue. We would like to recognize the van veterans in the audience. My father was a marine who lost his leg in korea. And a combat veteran print and we would like to honor the veterans by asking you to stand up if you are able, so we can recognize you. [applause] thank you. Thank you for your service. We would ask all of you to stand up now for the presentation of colors by members of Law Enforcement, teamsters from cedar falls county sheriffs department, and other members from the iowa Law Enforcement committee. Community. [marching commands] present arms. Indivisible with liberty and justice for all. You see, by the sons early light, what at thewe hailed twilights last gleaming. And bright stripes stars through the perilous the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming. Thehe rockets red glare, bombs bursting in air, gave that through the night, our flag was still there. Does that yet wave,led banner free,he land of the the home of the brave. [applause] kevin burke, winner of the 2018 international lose challenge in memphis, tennessee. 2018 and Sisters International blues challenge. Brothers and sisters, remained standing as we have a moment of silence for our brothers and sisters who have been killed. A moment of silence. [gavel sounds] thank you. There are pencil officers from different pete stark teamster officers from offices around the country and joint councils around the country. In iowa we are part of dont council 32, iowa, minnesota, north count dakota and south dakota. Joint council 32. I would like to introduce you to my brother, larry. [applause] good afternoon. 32, asrs joint council jesse just said is minnesota, iowa, north dakota and south dakota. It is our pleasure to host this event today. It is historic, it is important. You get to hear from the president ial candidates on issue that are important to working men and women around this country. Behalf of the 77,000 active and retired teamsters in joint council 32 and the 1. 4 million teamsters across the country, welcome and enjoy the farm forum. [applause] thank you, larry. We do not want to hold up the show. You are not here to see me. But the i went teamsters have been organizing along with the international. Our leadership along with jim hoffa appeared our leadership has grown in the last 20 years. In iowa we have been organizing. We finished bargaining contract for the field staff of the Iowa Democratic party. They are now the first teamster represented Democratic Party in the country. [applause] some of them are here today. We represent now the field staff , the president ial field staff for the president ial campaigns of joy biden, cory booker and amy klobuchar. Some of them are here today. [applause] announce,ld like to and i am proud, to let you know and announce formally that we are officially beginning the last year of steve kings congressional term. That guy is a national thatrassment and i am sure this is his last year in office for two reasons. One because jd shelton is running against him. There is jd in the back. [applause] reason, isond because this week, the shelton campaign recognized the teamsters as a representative of his congressional field staff. King, itake out steve is going to be with teamsters strength. If you are mentioning with jd shelton and the teamsters, you are about to lose. We are going to take steve king out and we are proud of it. [applause] recognizeld like to Abby Finkenauer who is here also. We are here to discuss important issues with the teamsters paired we look forward to replacing that train wreck in washington, d. C. And replacing it with one of the Democratic Candidates who will be with us, or were invited today. It is not just a train wreck in washington, d. C. In iowa, it has been a train wreck also. The legislature has 185,000 Public Sector workers from elective bargaining rights paired they have cut amendment him waved they have cut enema wage, Mental Health funding, veterans housing funding. It goes on and on. We have been fighting and we to fight back and do community organizing. People to rund campaigns in their communities. We have been in hundreds of evictions and we have taught people to fight back for Affordable Housing in their communities. Working with our allies to create a statewide network of activists and mobile Home Communities to fight against predator lending. And tens ofurbed thousands of pounds of food to people who are food insecure. The Legislature Also passed a law that mandates Public Sector workers to have statesponsored recertification elections every year before their contract is up. They thought they were going to kill us. Im proud to say that in all of those elections for the third year in a row, 97 of union whogers Union Members vote in those elections voted to retain their union. 97 . [applause] of votersagine 97 and election agreeing on something. It is an amazing thing. Our movement is growing and we are making progress and winning ground. Part of that is where the right union and we have the right leader paired we are getting more militant. We are more mobilized than ever. We are educating our members. The fact that we are all here today is a sign of things to, appeared is because of our leaders. Jim hoffa, for 20 years he has been leading us. I want to introduce the president of the International Brotherhood of teamsters, jim hoffa. [applause] jim are the teamsters in the house . [applause] nice crowd, very, very good. What a wonderful event. This is the first teamster forum we have had. Are you all standing up . You can sit down if you want. We are going to be here for a while. It is good to see you all and to talk about the teamster forum and who we are going to elect. Want to hear the issues paired we are teamsters. And we vote. That is the most important thing. And we have gotten their attention. The fact that we have gotten all the candidates coming here, the six candidates today, talking about the issues that are important to every one of us in this room. One of the most important things we have been talking about are, what are those issues . We have gone out and surveyed people and we found those issues are Retirement Security, collective bargaining, and good trade agreements. That is what the survey showed. Inare translating that back to say it, lets talk about those issues. Thats have those people come here and talk about them. We have also made them go out and do things. To say if youre going to be and want teamster support, you have to go out and do things paired you have to do a video. The videos are available on teamsters vote. Com. I have watched them. Theyre pretty good videos. Make them talk about what theyre going to do to get our vote. They have to own and basically get our vote. That is what this is about. That is what is happening right now. The other thing we said is we will go out and do something. We go to Union Meetings. You should go to Union Meetings too. You should walk a picket line. You should do things that devon straight your involvement with regard to organized labor. That demonstrate your involvement with organized labor. I think they learned in 2016 they cannot take labors vote for granted. It is working and we have their attention. They have all done white papers about what theyre going to be for us. Most importantly, we want them to come here, before you right now and say what theyre going to do. And im really looking forward to them being here. It is going to be a very, very exciting day. Be sure to look at all of that. I want to take the opportunity to introduce our people that are going to be here today. Andnt to thank the guardian the storm lake times for cosponsoring this important form. Is my pleasure to now introduce our moderators, Leslie Marshall is a host of nationally recognized Leslie Marshall show. A commentator on fox news. She is an outspoken advocate for working people and a longtime friend of the teamsters. Come on up here, leslie. There she is. [applause] thank you so much. Art , awe are joined by prizewinning editor of the storm lake times here in iowa. His life very important with the guard to speaking truth to power. He has a leader in his profession. Lets welcome art . Come on up, art. Art cohen. Elcome [applause] now we have our commentators. Im told we have one thing we do not have. We do not have our candidate. It is live television. It takes a little bit of time. He is on the way. Our first person is going to be joe biden. And he is going to be here. And Everybody Knows that joe biden is a very good friend of the teamsters. He is the senator from delaware for many, many years. And he was Vice President under president obama for eight years. So he is on his way but the story is he is not in the building yet. Moment it we just take a. Jesse, tell us where he is at. I do not know where he is either, jim. But he is on his way. He will be. Jim a lot of you are teamcan members, the social Justice Union in iowa. Along with illuminating hundreds eliminating hundreds of evictions of lowincome residents and disturbing food to food insecure people, a lot of our many fractured homes a lot of our manufactured home campaigns are in the latino community, and especially vulnerable part of our society. We have made great strides. A lot of you who are not members of the teamsters community but are members of team can, you know we have opened our doors and included you in our movement because we are stronger together. In order to join you need movement in this country, the government has made it ridiculously impossible. Though if you sign a card, if you ellie mae your boss, if you do not get fired, if you win an election, if we get a contract, you get to join the Teamsters Union. And we said, enough of that. We do not need their permission to join a union in this country. We do not need the governments permission to start fighting for workers rights. If you want to join the Teamsters Union, there is a way to join our movement. It is team can. [applause] every year, we sent a group of High School Kids on the civil rights to her to memphis and birmingham and selma and other places in the south and take them to hbcus and teamster halls. It is the first time a lot of these kids are exposed to a College Campus or the Union Movement. We teach them about the Labor Movement and the Civil Rights Movement that they are not different movements they are not parallel movements. Theyre the same movement and jim hoffa gets that his dad got it. When we were forming team can, we went to d. C. And we ran this idea by jim. He embraced it immediately. The reason we are successful in iowa is because jim greenlighted this project. Because he understands the importance of engagement in iowa. Members,r teamcan thank you for the support youre getting a spirit when we say we are proud to be teamsters, we hope you are proud as well to be a part of teamcan. To do this Great Community organizing, we need all of your help. If you are a teamster member we need you active in your union. Member, wea teamcan need you active in your community, organizing. If you are not a member of either one yet, we need you to get active organizing and join teamcan or the Teamsters Union in a workplace. How much time to have . How much time do we have . Five minutes ok. We will be back in five minutes. Hold on. [applause] evening after mineras a blackskinned join the union while you may, do not wait until your dayg dirty, black legged miner. I was a minor miner. I was a railway men between the wars. I raised a family in time of , and sweat at the foundry between the wars. I looked to the government to help the workingmen. They brought asperity down at prosperity but down at the armory [] between the wars. While we wait for the candidate portion of the teamsters president a form to get started, here is 2020 processional candidate Kelsey Gabbard eating with supporters in a house Party Last Night in jaffrey, new hampshire. Ok. Name is duncan. A pleasure to meet you. My brother and his family [indiscernible] my father passed away a few years ago. My mother decided that we needed to fight. We need to be an allstar team. We dont have a team uniform. []ignifies so isnt that great . Team america. Like giving a copy to everyone. Veryone in congress [indiscernible] take care. Thank you. Rd thank you for being here. [laughter] i need to get a photo. Supposed to say i have no interest in this. [laughter] anyone wants to talk about that national debt. [] the nation unlike venezuela. Can you address that at some point . [] it was awesome. Saw the rochester film. You had rogan fan boys show up. Is, [crosstalk] in your gun control section, is not reciting what youre saying. It is not reflecting what you are saying. They are saying she is another beto orourke. Youre blowing smoke in my direction they are saying. Rep. Gabbard theyre working on that. Linda and i were both looking youri rogan. He will be here any minute now, we are seconds away. You are already, the moderator is ready. Almost. Ok. We take care of our own. We take care of our own. Flown, wehis flag is take care of our own. Jesse case want to introduce our first candidate who is going to tell us why we should elect him, former great center order from the state of delaware, former Vice President , joe biden. [applause] [cheers and applause] fmr. Vp biden ok. It is good to be home. Welcome. Vice president biden, we are in a room full of teamsters and i want you to tell all of them here and all of them watching, why they should vote for you. But no malarkey. [laughter] tell you why. I first i should thank you. The only reason i am sitting here is that in 1972, i was losing in the pose the sunday be poor for the election, the newspaper i was losing in the polls the sunday before the election, the newspaper went on strike. You guys had put on a gigantic insert in the sunday paper to go out on the republican party. You guys would not cross a picket line. And i won by 3100 votes. [applause] you think i dont like secondary pickets, youre wrong. The reason is, i am, as my grandfather would say, labor from belt buckle to soul. I understand a basic notion to shoe sole. Wall street did not build america, the middle class did. And unions built the middle class. I am the real deal. [applause] the nlrb when it was past do not say there could be labor, it said the government should promote labor unions for a simple basic reason. When you are strong, labor you are the only one that can keep up our at the gate. No joke. Barbarians keep the at the gate. No joke. They only understand power. Countervailing power. And you guys have been getting killed. Organized labor. We are down to 6 . When i started off as United States senator, it was 34 of all people working that were part of organized labor. And there has been a war on labors house. For the last 30 years. Toive a speech 12 years ago the aflcio National Convention the thought i was exaggerating. Everything im everything going on here is about keeping you from being able to compete with corporate power. , without strong unions being strong, we are in deep trouble. It used to be there was a direct correlation. A basic bargain in america, if you contribute to the wealth of the outfit you work with, you got to participate in the profits. Yes what . ,rom the end of world war ii and by the way this is pearl harbor day, everyone of you who are veterans out there, thank you, thank you, thank you for all you do. [applause] but look. Think about this. Productivity went up 92 . From the end of the war until 1978. Wages went up because of labor 94 . Wages went up. From that point on as the war on labor began, guess what . 68 andvity went up wages went up 8 . Now everythings the only obligation we have, Corporate America has, according to milton friedman, god rest his soul, i hope you had little contrition on the way up. T