Welcome senator bernie sanders. [applause] low. Thank you all for coming out. And today i want to talk about some of the very important issues facing our country, but before i get to some of them, i wanted to take a moment to address the events in iraq and the escalating crisis in the middle east. Yesterday, President Trump ordered the assassination of a top iranian general, custom soleimani in iraq along with an iraqi militia. This is a dangerous escalation that brings us closer to another disastrous war in the middle east. Which could cost countless lives and trillions more dollars. And lead to even more deaths, more conflict, more displacement in that already highly volatile region of the world. When i voted against the war in iraq in 2002, i feared that it would result in greater the stabilization in that country and in the entire region. At that time i warned about the deadly socalled unintended consequences of a unilateral invasion today, 17 years later that fear has unfortunately turned out to be a truth. The United States has lost some 4500 brave men and women fighting in iraq. Tens of thousands have been wounded. Hundreds of thousands of iraqis have been killed. And trillions of dollars have been spent on that war. The result . Today, today we have massive unrest in that country. We have corruption in the country. We have terrible poverty in the country. And now iraqis want american troops out. All of that suffering, all of that death, all of that huge expenditures of money for what . It gives me no pleasure to tell you that at this moment we face a similar crossroads brought with danger. Once again, we must worry about unintended consequences and the impact of unilateral decision making. And let me repeat a warning i gave in 2002 during the debate over the war in iraq. This is what i said back then. War must be the last recourse in our international relations. And as a karen nation, we must do everything we can to prevent the horrible suffering that a war will cause. As a former chair of the Us Senate Committee on veterans affairs, i have seen close up the pain, the death and despair caused by, ive gone to many funerals in my own state. Ive talked to too many mothers who have lost their kids in war. I have talked to too many soldiers, men and women who have come home with ptsd, who have come home without arms and without legs. And i know that it is rarely the children of the billionaire class who face the agony of reckless foreign policy. It is the children of working families. Let us not forget when trump took office, we had a Nuclear Agreement with iran, negotiated by the obama administration. Along with our closest allies , countries from all over the world came together to negotiate that agreement which put a lid on Irans Nuclear program. The wise course would have been to stick with that Nuclear Agreement, enforce its provisions and use that diplomatic channel with iran to address a wide range of concerns including their support of terrorism. Unfortunately, trump ignored the advice of his own Security Officials, ignored the advice of his own Security Officials and listened to rightwing extremists, some of whom were exactly the same people who got us into the war in iraq in the first place. As we all remember, trump promised to end endless wars. Tragically, his actions now put us on the path to another war. Potentially one that could be even worse than before. The truth as we all know is that the world today is a very dangerous place. We are seeing a movement all across the planet towards authoritarianism, we are seeing a growing arms race and we are seeing Nuclear Weapons in the hands of unstable and hostile regimes. I believe that in the midst of all of that, the role of the United States, difficult though it may be must be to work with the International Community to end conflicts, to end the threat of war, not to promote war as President Trump is doing. This is how the true power of the United States is shown. And that is how i will use American Power as president. [applause] as i think we have seen for several years now, trump makes decisions impulsively without explanation and in this case as in the past, without any congressional consultation. I believe strongly that a key step in ending our endless wars is for the congress to reassert its Constitutional Authority over matters of war. [applause] our Founding Fathers had it right. And they gave the responsibility of war to congress and that is exactly where it must be placed. I find it incredible that at the same time as trump is greatly expanding military spending, and i am proud to tell you that i have voted against all of trumps military budgets. [applause] at the same time he is spending tens of billions more on the military , he is cutting back on the diplomatic capabilities of the state department to negotiate agreements around the world and that to my mind is a very dangerous course of action. I have consistently opposed this dangerous path to war with iran, but we need to do more than just stop the potential of a war. We need to firmly commit to ending the us military presence in the middle east in an orderly manner, not through a sweep. Must understand and understand these wars have cost us so much in blood and treasure. We must end our involvement in the saudi lead intervention which is one of the worst humanitarian catastrophes on earth. And we must bring our troops home from afghanistan. [applause] instead of provoking more volatility in the region, but United States must use its power, its wealth and its influence to bring the regional powers to the table to resolve conflicts. And let me conclude by simply saying this area at a time when we have over 500,000 americans who are homeless today including 30,000 veterans. At a time when some 87 million of our people are either uninsured or underinsured and 30,000 die each year because they dont get to adopt it when they should, at the time when we face the urgent need to rebuild our crumbling infrastructure, to build the housing that we desperately need and to address the existential crisis of Climate Change, we as a nation must get our priority right. [applause] we must invest in the needs of the American People, not spend trillions more on endless wars, thank you. Obviously the situation in iraq and iran are of great concern, but i wanted to touch on some other issues as well. And i wanted to tell you that what our campaign is about and what our administration will be about is not just defeating donald trump who in my view is the most dangerous president in modern history of our country. [applause] but what our administration will be about is more than that. Our administration understands, will understand that there are enormous crisis facing this country that we must address. We must address the corruption of our political system in which billionaires today are able to buy elections. [applause] now, i made the oldfashioned, but i believe that democracy means one person, one vote. Not big money interests controlling the way our government works. [applause] and what our administration will be about is addressing a moral issue and an economic issue that we just dont talk enough about. That is the growing level of income and wealth inequality that exists in america. We need an economy and a government that works for all of us, not just a handful of wealthy campaign contributors. [applause] and we dont talk about it, but there is something profoundly wrong when as a nation we have three people who own more wealth than the bottom half of American Society. Something profoundly wrong when the top one percent owns more wealth than the bottom 92 percent. Something profoundly wrong when here in iowa or in my state of vermont weve got people working two or three jobs to take care of their families get 49 percent of all new income goes to the top onepercent. Something profoundly wrong when over the last 30 years, the top one percent have seen a 21 trillion dollar increase in their wealth while the bottom of American Society has seen a decline in their wealth. Something profoundly wrong when over the last 45 years, 45 years when we have seen an explosion in technology, when we have seen worker productivity substantially increased, despite all of that, the average worker today makes almost exactly in real dollars what he or she made 45 years ago. That is unacceptable. We together are going to create an economy that works for working families, not just billionaires. [applause] what that means, this is not radical stuff. Its stuff that is pretty common sense and is what the American People want. I have talked to too many people in iowa who are trying to get by on nine, 10, 11 an hour. You know what . You cant get by on 10 or 11 an hour. That is why we will raise the National Federal minimum wage to at least 15 an hour. [applause] that is why we will make sure that women receive equal pay for equal work, not . 80 on the dollar. And that is why we will make it easier for workers to join unions, not on them. And when we look at the future of our country, we must thoroughly reexamine what is happening with education in america and in general, how we treat our children. We are the wealthiest country in the history of the world. Yet we have the highest rates of childhood poverty of almost any major country on earth. Unacceptable. Today, all over this country , all over this country mom goes out to work, dad goes out to work. We have workingclass families not finding decent quality affordable childcare. We are going to end that. I believe, you believe in universal high quality affordable childcare for every family in america. This is the worlds wealthiest country. We must have the greatest Public Education system in the world. We must have a system which pays our teachers the salaries that are commensurate with the enormously important work they do, at least 60,000 a year. I want our young people in college today to say with pride i am so excited that i am going to become a teacher because it is one of the most important jobs that we can do. We must invest significantly in low income and title i schools. Where going to have triple fundingfor title i schools and by the way , in this great country, we must make it clear that any person who has the ability and the desire should be able to get a Higher Education regardless of the income of that family. [applause] if the United States congress against my vote could bail out 11 years ago the trucks on wall street whose illegal behavior nearly destroyed our economy, if two years ago trump and his friends could give trillion dollars in tax breaks to the wealthiest people in this country and the largest private corporations , we can make sure that our public colleges and universities are tuition free and we cancel all student debt in this country. And we knew that, we pay for that through a must tax on wall street speculation. We bailed out wall street, its time for wall street to help working families of this country. [applause] and as president , i will finally lead the way to do what president s in this country have talked about for well over 100 years going back to Teddy Roosevelt. And that is that healthcare is a human right, not a privilege. Is not a new concept. It is a concept that exists virtually all over the industrialized world. It exists 50 miles away from where i live in burlington vermont where we border on canada. And what that means is that we must have the courage, finally to do what Teddy Roosevelt talked about. To do what fdr talked about in the 30s and 40s, when truman talked about. When jfk talked about. Lyndon johnson talked about and actually did something about red when obama talked about. We have got to make it clear that the function of irrational Health Care System is to provide quality care to all, not billions impoverished for the Drug Companies and insurance companies. [applause] that is why i strongly support and im proud to have written the medicare for all singlepayer bill in the congress. What does that mean. Youre going to hear a lot of misinformation about medicare for all. Ill tell you the truth because the Healthcare Industry and the Drug Companies and trump, republicans and some of the democratic establishment will be tell you something and what you mean by area its not radical idea, its an idea that exists but weve encountered it a little better in countries around the world. Number one, we start with expanding and its important everybody knowsthis. We are now spending twice as much per person on health care as the people of any other country. Got that . Were spending over 11,000. You, you and your kids. Double what other countries are spending. What are the results, a fall in expenditure. We got a 7 Million People who are uninsured or underinsured and let me underline that wordunderinsured. Weve got 30,000 people who die every year because they dont get to a doctor when they should because they dont have proper insurance and theres an amazing fact and i talked to people in iowa about this. Healthcare is so expensive in this country, we have 500,000 people who go bankrupt every year because of the weight related illnesses. Think about that for a moment. Think about somebody who is struggling with cancer. Struggling with alzheimers or some other terrible, all that they have to do to figure out how they get well, how they treat those bonuses and then on top of all that, if youre a workingclass person, and youre running up a Big Health Care bill, there is a strong likelihood that either your family will go bankrupt or your credit score will be shot because you cant pay your medical bills on time. Bankrupt because the money has cancer is unacceptable and that is something we will end in this country. [applause] so what is the program briefly . What is the four year transition program. When itstarts off , by ending premiums in america. And i want you all to think about it because im criticized, how are you going to pay for medicare for all. Its a fair question. But the equally important often is how do you pay for healthcare today mark how do we pay for healthcare so we are going to eliminate and i want to open this for discussion in a moment. But that care for all elements all premiums for workers and their employers, not a radical idea. Its all over the world. We eliminate copayments so you can go to the Doctors Office even if you dont have that hundred dollars or 50 that you need. We eliminate an insane concept that we have come to accept. It is called a deductible. Think about the insanity of what a deductible is. When you have insurance, the assumption is whether its too expensive or not thats one thing when you get insurance, its gone i have insurance, im going to go to the doctor. Not quite area because if you have a 5000 deductible, whatever it may be, you got to pay the first 5000 or 10,000 out of your own pocket. Well, what happens if you dont have that 5000 or 10,000 which is certainly the case for many millions of americans . You dont get to utilize your insurance. We eliminate the absurd concept of deductibles. Gone out of medicare for all. We also eliminate all outofpocket expenses and ill tell you what else we do. Because medicare, medicare today is a strong program. Im sure people here over 65 are in the program. But we have got to improve medicare. What we do is expand medicare to include dental care because the last that i heard, dental care and oral health is a healthcare issue. We expand medicare toinclude hearing aids. And eyeglasses and ill tell you what else we do. We expand medicare to cover Home Healthcare so that people are not forced out of their homes. And we do all that over a fouryear period. So the first year we expand medicare to cover what i just said we lower the eligibility age from 65 down to 55. Next year down to 45, next year down to 35, next year everybody is in medicare. And medicare for all. What i want to do as i need yourhelp , help me out on this issue. I do this at virtually every meeting that we hold you i criticized, how you pay for healthcare is a real and legitimate issue. And its an issue we need to discuss. And i criticized as i mentioned a moment ago how am i going to pay for medicare for all mark im going to pay tell you that the moment i want to talk about how we pay for healthcare today. How do we pay for healthcare . We pay for it through premiums. If youre in, if you have employerbased healthcare you pay for it through premiums or selfemployed. How much are people, anybody here what to volunteer as to how much theyre paying in premiums . Man, stand up here. Give us your name if you could. Turnaround, facial friends area. I paid 600 just for my husband and i. A month, plus we have a 6000 deductible. And then we have a 20 percent copay so virtually last year we paid 17,000 in medical and im still making payments. Today on some of those bills and still paying these high premiums. That is, thank you very much and i know its not easy for people to stand up in front of the tv cameras. I ignore them all the time i ignore them, they ignore me, we have a great relationship. But that is, im going to get back to you in a moment. Im not going to forget you read sitting right here in front here is the point, im assuming youre not a billionaire, is that correct assumption question mark thats how perceptive i am. So i make a great president , i picked thesethings up. But heres the point. This is im assuming a workingclass middleclass person. Average iowa one. 17,000 a year, thats a big chunk of your income im assuming you please help me out here. What are we talking about in premiums . Deductibles, who wants to volunteer . Be shy. Premiums or deductibles, aci hand over there. Why are the women braver than the men here. Okay. Stand up if you could pleas