Warren hello, manchester. [applause] yo can see judy and i got the memo on what to wear today. I love it. Anybody else in bright pink . A few more. Good to see you all. Im so glad to have this chance to be with you and so glad that i brought family with me. I have my son alex. Where are you . There he is. The guy in the blue shirt. [applause] just so you know, alex has been my tech support since second grade. [laughter] its true. He now runs his own small business, but he has picked up a new sideline. The new sideline is called support your mother when she runs for president of the United States. [laughter] thank you, alex. [applause] so i thought what we would do today is that i tell you just a little bit about myself, a little bit about why im in this race. I will try to do that as quick as i can. Then we will take as many questions as possible so that i am covering the things most important to you. Then we will engage in that most important part of democracy, selfies. [laughter] [applause] i will stay as long as you want. I just thought i would tell you a little bit about me. I was born and raised in oklahoma. Dead silence. [laughter] in the group. Nobody even said i drove through. Once on the way to texas. Somebody. Did, good. There arent that many of us. I have three much older brothers. I am what used to be known as a late in life baby. My mother always just called me a surprise. My three older brothers are all now retired. They all live back in oklahoma. To this day, they are referred to as the boys, to distinguish them from the surprise. Up, ourwere growing daddy had a lot of different jobs. He sold paint. He sold carpet. He sold fencing. He sold houseware. Ultimately, he ended up as a janitor. Was a stayathome mom until she was 50. After my daddy had a heart attack, she went to work to work a minimum wage job at sears. All three of my brothers went to join the military. ,t was their chance to serve and also, lets be frank, it was a path to americas middle class. I am proud of all of my brothers. Mean, i have known what i wanted to do since second grade. What ii have known wanted to do since second grade. I heard some giggles. Some of you in the back probably did not decide until fourth grade. [laughter] i have known what i wanted to do since second grade and i have it. R wavered from i wanted to be a Public School teacher. Can we hear it for americas Public School teachers . [applause] yes. [applause] and i invested early. I used to line my delis up and teach school. Dollies up and teach school. I had a reputation for being tough but fair. [laughter] , i wantedyone asked to be a Public School teacher. By the time i was ready to graduate from high school, my family didnt have the money for a college application, much less to send me off to four years at a university. Like a lot of americans, i dont have a Straight Path story. I have a story with a lot of twists and turns. Here how my story goes. I was a high school debater. I got a scholarship to college. Woo hoo. [applause] you bet. Then at 19, i fell in love, got married, and dropped out. Woo hoo. [laughter] sen. Warren a good life, a life i had chosen, but i thought that was it on the chance to be a Public School teacher. I thought i gave that went up. We were living outside houston. Thats when i found it. 45 minutes college away cost 50 a semester. A price i could pay for on a job, ime waitressing finished my four year diploma, i became a special education teacher. I lived my dream job. [applause] have i got some schoolteachers in here . We got a bunch. We have a bunch. Lets give them a round of applause. [cheers and applause] sen. Warren i am going to need you to back me up on this. Teaching is not a job, it is a calling. I loved the work. I had four to sixyearolds in special education. To this day, i can remember my babies. I loved my babies. I probably would still be doing said, my, but like i story has some twists and turns. Heres how it goes. By the end of the first year, i was visibly pregnant. The principal did what principals did in those days, wished me luck and hired someone else for the job. Ok. So there we are. Now im at home. We are living in new jersey by now. Job, a baby, i cant get a i have to do something. So i will go to law school. [laughter] school. A state law cost 450 a semester. Bb on hip, i go to law school, three years of law school, graduate visibly pregnant. You will discover a pattern to these stories. [laughter] take the bar, pass the bar, and practiced law for 45 minutes. [laughter] then went back to my first love, teaching. I traded little ones for big ones. I have taught pretty much my whole grownup life in law school. Other big change in my life about that time, husband number one, hint, it is never good when you have to number your husbands [laughter] yes. Husband number one and i parted ways, but i found bruce. When you find a good one, hang onto them. Im still married to him. Thats right. Only two so far. [applause] so far. Heres the thing. Im teaching in law school. I dont know if its because of the kind of family i grew up in, but i taught them money courses. That is where i was always drawn. Contract law, commercial law, secured transactions, corporate finance, partnership finance, bankruptcy law. If it was about money, count me in. I was in the thick of it. But there was always one central issue that i worked on. That issue . Whats happening to americas working families. Class americas middle being hollowed out . People who worked every bit as hard as my mom and agoworked two generations today find a path so much rockier and steeper . And for people of color, even rockier and even steeper. Answer is about decisions that get made in washington. Its about who our federal Government Works for. Think of it this way. We have a federal government that works great for giant drug companies. Just not for people who are trying to get a prescription filled. It works great for folks who want to make money investing in private prisons and Detention Centers down at the border, just not for the human beings whose lives are torn apart by those places. It works great for giant Oil Companies that want to drill theywhere, just not for rest of us who see Climate Change bearing down upon us. [applause] and when you see a government that works great for those with money and not so great for everyone else, that is corruption, pure and simple, and we need to call it out for what it is. [applause] corruption. Understand this. Everywhere through washington. Everywhere. It is about campaign contributions, you bet it is. It is also about lobbyists and lawyers and pr firms. Its about bought and paid for experts. Tanks, thatd think just keep pushing on the government over and over and over. Think of it this way. Whatever issue brought you here today, the price of prescription debt, gundent loan safety, anything that brought if there is a decision be brought here, i guarantee it has been shaped by money. It has had exceptions carved out by money. Money, money, money. That,are going to change we cant do it by just nibble around the edge of a little here and a little there. It is going to take big, structural change to get it done. [applause] for me, that starts with attacking the corruption head on. I had enough of playing defense. Its time to go on offense on corruption. [applause] sen. Warren heres the good news. I had the biggest anticorruption plan since watergate. Heres the bad news. We need the biggest anticorruption plan since watergate. Parts to has lots of it, but i want to give you a little sample out of it to get an idea of how it works. Part one, end lobbying as we know it. [applause] part two. Betweenrevolving door wall street and washington, and washington, big pharma and washington. Work. T how about one more . I could do these all day long. Just one more. You really want to hose out washington, make every Single Person who runs for federal office put their tax returns online. [applause] sen. Warren so thats where i start this. Attack the corruption head on. If we can disrupt the influence of money, if we could just knock them back on their heels a little, if we could just bring some attention to this and start to hold our government accountable, then all kinds of other changes become possible, too. We could make this country work not just for those at the top, but make it work for everyone. Thats why im here. [applause] thank you. Lets hear some questions. Thank you. Ok. Lets do some questions. Where our questions . Whats your name . My name is art johnson. Hello, arch sen. Warren hello, art. I am a retired teacher, 42 years in the classroom. Sen. Warren god bless. My questions about the divisiveness in the country. You are elected president. How do you get people to come together . They are just unbelievably separate now. Sen. Warren its a great question, art. Lets start just a little bit by recognizing, those divisions in our country, they didnt just happen on their own. They arent the result of gravity or that we all got up one morning and decided we didnt like each other. Understand this. Donald trump has a strategy. The strategy is to turn people against people. It is to turn white against black and brown. Against turn straight gay and trans, particularly against trans. It is to turn christian against muslim and jew. It is to turn everybody against democrats. Theres a reason for that. So long as we are fighting each that we arehe hopes not going to notice that donald trump and his corrupt buddies are both stealing our countrys great wealth and our good name all around this world. [applause] thats a big part of it. So, part of it is we have to be willing to fight back. We have to be willing to embrace each others fights. We have to be willing to say your fight is my fight. That coalition together. It is a big part of why i decided to run a Grassroots Movement rather than spend my time with rich people and run a bunch of tv ads. I wanted to be able to do this persontoperson here in iowa and New Hampshire and other parts of the country. Let me give you an idea about how we start to build something together. You know i mentioned my three of the older brothers. I was in oklahoma little over a week ago. One is a democrat. [laughter] do the math. Two are not. There are things we sharply disagree on. There are things that can take us from zero to shouting at each other in about 4. 2 seconds. But there are also a lot of things we agree on. Let me tell you one of the places because i think this is important. Amazon. Not the part about bringing coffeemakers to your doorsteps. Actually, they all agree on that part. They love it. Its about the fact that last year, amazon reported more than 10 billion in profit. Anyone want to hold up a hand to show how much amazon paid in taxes . Zero. Ofyou paid a single dollar federal taxes last year, you pay more to keep this country going than amazon. You know what . Chaps all three of my brothers. The democrats and republicans. It makes them angry because they get it. We are getting cheated. Hardworking people who have to reach into their pockets to keep the roads and bridges paved, to keep the military going. They have to reach into their pockets. Amazon takes advantage. They get protected and they pay nothing. I say that for another way to talk about this, its not just so republicans get to their corners and democrats to theirs the question of corruption in this country, the question of a country that works better and better and better for a thinner and thinner slice at the top, is one that cuts across political parties. This isnt just democrats who get shortchanged. Its republicans, too. Track,ve we stay on that and then we talk about things, which i hope we will get a chance to do, like a two cent wealth tax, canceling student loan debt, protecting and expanding Social Security, things we agree on, places we believe together we can build a future, i think we start from those things we agree on. We stop the ugliness against each other. Thats how we begin. To heal the country. [applause] thank you, art. Thank you. Hi. Hello. I am bobby. I have been an rn for 43 years. Sen. Warren thank you, bobbi. And i still am working, mostly in Mental Health. My question is, and im so saddened by this, is i work at a daycare center, a daycare that , adults andds mentally ill. These people in iowa have gotten their insurance changed twice in the last two years. This poor man came to me crying. He id, he has to get cant have his psychiatrist he has had for 20 years because they wont accept his insurance. I am just appalled with this. These people dont have a voice. I want to be their voice. I want to stick up for them. This is just appalling. Why are we allowing this to happen . Change. Ome i really feel like you are going president. Ext i have total faith in you. You change this for us. Sen. Warren ok, bobbi, lets do this together. [applause] thank you. That is excellent. Lets talk about how we can make that change. Thank you for your work. Most of all, thank you for standing up for the people who dont have a voice, who cant be here to be part of this argument. Heres the thing about america. We can be the country that believes in the work of every throughuman being, and our government, through the policies we put in place, we can reinforce that worth of every single human being. One place that starts is health care as a basic human right for everyone. [applause] for everyone. So here is my plan around that. What am i going to do . I love this part. First thing i will do, day one as president , i will do everything a president can do all by herself. [cheers and applause] sen. Warren and heres how it works. I will defend the Affordable Care act, which is under attack. They have tried to close people out of it. Millions have lost their health care. You can do this administratively. The second thing i will do is bring down the cost of Prescription Drugs, ones that are used regularly. Anybody in here use insulin or know somebody who does . Epipens. These are drugs that are still under patent. Theres a federal law that thats the president of the United States use what are called march in orders so they can bring down the cost of these drugs when they are too high. We just havent had a president who is willing to do that. I am the president who is willing to do that. [applause] it is going to save us billions of dollars. Then, lets talk for just a minute about full Health Care Coverage for everyone. Part one. Full possible to offer Health Care Coverage, medicare for all, for everyone without costing middleclass families one single dime. We just have to ask those at the top to pay more. Yup. And let me describe how you do it. You increase the taxes on the top 1 . We can do that. On the big corporations like amazon that are paying nothing, we can do that. My personal favorite in how we get them to pay is we actually crack down on the tax cheaters at the top. We can make trillions of dollars doing this. [applause] we then use that money to fund full Health Care Coverage. Eres what im going to do i will go for otis congress. We already have a way to do this in budget reconciliation. It means we only need 50 votes. It is not as hard as it looks. We can offer full Health Care Coverage to 135 million americans for free. We can offer full Health Care Coverage to the rest of america for a modest cost. We can let the people across this country try. You are not forced into it if you dont want to, but try it. See what health care is like when its just between you and your doctor or your Mental Health provider, your nurse practitioner. Your physical therapist without some Insurance Companies standing in the middle to say no. Thats what we can do. [applause] and then we get some experience with it, people have tried it out, and then we vote on medicare for offer everyone. I feel confident that is where americans want to go, but this is what we do in a democracy. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for the question. Hi, my name is steve. Sen. Warren hi, steve. Im a retired Community College teacher, which was the best job i ever had. I congratulate you on the intestinal fortitude required to go for this job. I have a lot of questions but the one i want to ask now is im sick and tired of seeing shortterm profits and sacrificing longterm planning. This country does not do enough 10, 20, 30 year planning. We are paying the price for that right now. Sen. Warren yeah. So, you are exactly right about that. Can i take your example and tweak it a little . Can we talk a little about the crisis down at our border . Trumpmade that is a crisis. Countries in Central America that had been struggling for decades with gang wars and with governments that can just barely hold on, economies that cannot get their footing. And what does donald trump walk into the middle of that and do . Cut aid, cut support. And the consequence is the gangs get back on top, and that produces more and more threat. Let me tell you a very personal story about this one. Right after it came out that our federal government, your government and my government, the one we pay taxes to, was taking children away from their families down at the border, this was about 1. 5 years ago, i went down there to make allen, texas. And i went to one of these facilities, and i want you all to envision, it is like a giant amazon warehouse, only it is dirty and it smells bad. And i walked in, and on the left, it is just cage after cage after cage of men. Cages maybe 10 feet wide, 40 feet deep, a toilet back in the corner. Another, another. Packed in so tightly they could not also down at the same time. Over on the other side of the break are cages of women, just the same. And then i walked into the main space, and there, about the size of this middle section, is a freestanding cage of little girls. And then another cage of little girls, a cage over here of little boys. Back in the corner was a cage of nursing mothers. And i stopped and talked with several of them, but one of them, the story really stuck in my mind. A woman said that she had given a drink of water to a police officer, and word came back the believedthat the gangs she was working with the police. She knew that meant her and her baby would be killed. She wrapped up her baby and she ran for the border. So, here