The land of flickering light came out june 2019. Here is a portion of his discussion from san francisco. You cannot accept a solution on climate. You cannot accept the policies where you put in a set of policies for the Obama Administration the other guys come into rip it out then four years later or two years later you put it back in and they rip it out. I dont think thats any way to regulate a Banking System or support education but and then to deal with climate that way so thats why i think as a definitional matter you cannot accept the current Political Climate in america and we are asked to build a coalition of americans outside of washington to overcome a broken washington. That sounds really hard and it is really hard but there are no shortcuts in democracy not of particular interest to me but the real question is can you win states like colorado iowa and arizona because if you cant you cannot make the kinds of changes you want to make. The democrats are putting forward ideas and getting the most attention is the great new deal or policy cause of the green new dream not so much anymore but Scientists Say the longer you wait the tougher the solutions. So where do you come down quex what should congress be doing . First of all i believe that we should not ever compromise with science. Ever. And thats why we should support the findings of the Green New Deal but another approach to the policy would be successful and if you come out to colorado and then to and then to give everybody a paid vacation and Bernie SandersHealth Care Plan people will say that doesnt sound like a climate plan but something else. By the way the one thing they left off the list was a high Quality Public School and everyone in america. [applause] why are they always left behind . The kids in the urban school districts. And then with the climate deniers it should be disqualified. So that should be disqualifying on political terms. Because they believe the Climate Change is real and that they need to do something to fix it. And that is a disgrace we never should have lost it was economics. Otherwise it will be an economic catastrophe for america. When the reverse is true of course. If we dont deal with climate will be an economic catastrophe for america and thats an argument we cannot lose again. So there is an agonizing description from the keystone pipeline. And then that is not consistent with the environmental communitys view. And then to move to colorado because my wife was regional director of earth justice the Rocky Mountain region. And they do a great job perk i had to crawl into bed every night so i need to be right on these issues. [laughter] but what disturbed me. It was fun because we had been through it. What disturbed me was and then what would michael have said quex the movement or the politicians . And then the question. And that keystone was a symbol. So what would they say about the Civil Rights Movement to i said exactly the lunch counters brought the north and expanded the movement and built it in a way to overcome people that they would never give up on segregation in this country. So we have to build a coalition of people to change politics in washington dc. So we have this solution and i believe we can easily do that. The coalition is waiting for that but you just cannot expect it will be there or make proposals that divide people and i went to and you cannot compromise on the science. Not to say we shouldnt be open to build a coalition of people with the sustain of political outcome. That her is an honorable thing to do not dishonorable. You talk about segregation, civil rights that could never have happened without republicans. What has happened to the party quex but on science quex there is a chapter in the book called the corruption of in action its really about Citizens United but the way i described the background of our country. I dont want to overstate it but they had a fairly honorable tradition Everybody Knows but imagine that Richard Nixon signed into the clean water act. Ronald reagan close the hole in the ozone layer. He was a skin cancer survivor. To george bush said we have to do something on climate. And people think we will not get anything done on climate and my friend john mccain on immigration he ran on Climate Change. What happened quex in 2010 the Supreme Court decided Citizens United that led to the Koch Brothers and other people from having a completely outside role in politics. And then to sign a climate pledge that they said Climate Change is real. So they went out to sign the pledge. Ever since then we have been living in a world if they look like they will do something on climate because it is chump change for them. Because of the Supreme Court we could put 30 million into the next primary and you would be dead before the season starts. And that has created this profound action. And i use to describe and then i decided that was insulting to the seventh graders. So i dont say that anymore. [laughter] but their ignorance of that opinion were so focused on this idea of corruption of action you give me 5000 i write a bill for you or you give me 5000 and i write a bill that has the appearance of being written for you. But we have a right to worry about and we can limit contributions. Thats why you can only give me 5000. But then they said by definition they are independents we dont have to worry about it so thats why the Koch Brothers can give 1,000,000,000. 95 with their name on it. They say this money in american politics will not cause the American People to lose faith in their democracy. 95 percent say theres too much money and democracy. This is one of the huge reasons why we are in the mess we are in. The confluence of the rise of the t20 of barack obama. The Koch Brothers simultaneously being unleashed with that unbelievably corrosive effect in that era of the bipartisan gerrymandering. Those coalesce together in a structural toxic stew that we still live with. So when my friend joe biden says with a question of trump is a symptom not a cause then it will go back to normal to ignore those structural issues and many of those changes saying the face that one that the place is now populated. And those that were available to pass the civil rights bill. Joe biden began in 1972 elected senator for delaware. He has had over 1000 cspan appearances but only one on the tv. He wrote a book in 2007 and we want to show you a portion of that now. To make the twin towers had collapsed by the time we got on the road and the death estimates where five or six or 7000 or more. When i got home and put on the television i saw americans doctors and nurses were standing by ready to treat the wounded wear long lines of new yorkers were waiting to give blood even though the word was being passed that no more blood was needed. I concede in their faces. Nobody was talking about payback that even from total silence in washington americans would rise to the occasion. Watching these people in the bloodlines i was convinced i was convinced the country would get up off the mat and face new challenges head on and emerge stronger for having face them. For me this is the first principle, the foundation principle. Get up this art is simply getting up after you have been knocked down. It is taught by example. I got that lesson every day while growing up in a nondescript split level home in delaware. My dad was a man of few words what i learned from him i learned from watching. He had been knocked down hard but never stop trying the first one up in the morning, every morning in our home, clean shaven elegantly dressed getting ready to go to the car dealership to a job he never really liked. My brother said we could hear my dad singing in the kitchen. He never ever gave up and never complained. The world doesnt know you a living he would say. He had no time for selfpity. He did not judge a man by how may times he got knocked down but by how rapidly he got back up. Get up. That was the phrase. That was the phrase and has echoed through my whole life. The world dropped on your head . Might admit they get up. Lying in bed feeling sorry for yourself . Get up. If you get knocked down and got knocked on your ass on the football field. Get up. Bad grade get up. Not just small things but big one as well the only voice i can hear as my own after the surgery senator you might lose your ability to speak. Get up. The newspapers are calling you a plagiarist. Get up. Your wife and daughter im sorry joe there was nothing we could do to save them. Get up. Flunked the class in law school. Get up. Kids make fun of you because you cant pronounce your last name because of the stutter. Get up. There was no daylight between my moms philosophy of life and my dads she was just more vocal and continues to be. He couldnt stand people abuse power of any time and never laid a hand on any of us and we all heard time and time again to say it takes a small man to hit a small child. No man has a right to raise a hand to a woman under any circumstances. So its always about getting up and standing up. When i was in eighth grade i was invited to the Presbyterian Church and i was the catholic kid in mayfield and there wasnt many catholic families. I had to wear one of my dads dress shirts. It was a big deal. It was too long. But could not find cufflinks and my dad worked on friday night. So my mother went down to the washing machine and picked up the toolbox and literally got a nuts and a bolt. You think im kidding, i am not. [laughter] my mom came up from the basement and started to put them into my sleeves i pulled away and said im not doing this. I am not going to do this. They are going to make fun of me. My mother said joey, look at me. I said mom im not doing it. She said joey look at me. If anybody says anything about these nuts and bolts you look them right in the eye and say you dont have a pair of these . [laughter] i said mom. Im not doing this. [applause] im not doing this. But i wanted to go to this dance in the best way. All the girls were there so i went nuts and bolts and all. And i was standing at the punch bowl and the bullies of the neighborhood i reached out to hold up my arm and he said look look at his cufflinks. Nuts and bolts. And at first i was so embarrassed. But then i felt more angry. I said frank you dont have a pair of these and it was dead silence. True story. [laughter] he said yeah, yes i have a pair of those two. [laughter] [applause] i want you to know. It always reminded me is not gucci or cufflinks or nuts and bolts but who you are and what you believe. And on my 50th birthday my sister, stand up i want you to meet her. She is incredible. She went to tiffanys and had a pair of sterling silver cufflinks made that are nuts and bolts. [applause] [laughter] and she got them for me to remind me where we had come from and how to judge a person. And never forget. Never forget. And from time to time to talk about the holocaust and never understand how people and he said the world is wrong we only had one rule dad came home every night from the dealership that dinner is the only place you are expected to have impeccable manners no excuses. As he sat to have conversation and eat my dad would respond to what he thought were these type of things and it was fairly wrong. And said to be ashamed. And then to establish the state of israel because my father was not jewish. We each had a personal responsibility he told us just like the nuns told us not to point out that something was wrong but you are obliged and then to intervene. April 1993 i traveled to meet melissa mitch. He said lets talk at the conference table. He said youve got us all wrong. It is the muslims its not us. And those that are firing on civilian neighborhoods and with a humanitarian relief effort so the un has proceeded this. The recent bombings are not us. They are doing it to themselves that all in bosnia have artillerys battery on and tanks including the muslims. I said youre the only person that would say such a ridiculous thing. He could tell i had had it about his had it with his lies and then he looked at me up at the table with all the maps in front of him there without idiom motion he said what do you think of me quick so i could think of was my father. I said i think you are a god damn war criminal and i will do everything in my power to spend the rest of my life to see that you are tried as one. He looked right back at me as if i said to him that i thought he was a wonderful guy and it had no impact on him. But its about keeping your promises to yourself. Just like corey booker starting as a mayor the south bend mayor released his book in 2019 here he is at the library. If somebody is really mad they call me all kinds of names assuming its a real person. [laughter] then you try to give them the benefit of the doubt. So this stretch of rude it road is terrible yes i know i drove it on it recently and then i let them know some way they can help so so yes i was on that road we are trying to get more funds appropriated in the next budget by the way road funding is up in the state legislature would you be willing to send a letter . More times than not people respond to that. Not that everyone is a convert but it is helpful. But it doesnt always bring out her best self. But it is human nature. As is every good and bad influence. And by the way were only beginning to become sophisticated consumers so there is a fullpage ad to resemble newsprint and looks like a news story when you realize its a fullpage ad taken out by somebody who has a perspective on an issue and it takes two seconds to notice that we dont have that same pattern recognition for social media. Which is why it has such potential to have this information but as a get more used to it in a native way will become more savvy. As that happens will the federal government do things to mitigate the damage for one thing we need a policy over the ownership of data and we are behind on this we also need a policy to establish whose job of authentication. We have the weirdest patchwork of systems if you are who you say you are as a basic function of government but yet the way we do it is through drivers licenses a lot of people dont even drive and then your digital id is your Social Security number. Not to delete geek out but Social Security numbers suck first of all it contains information which is not something you want and id number to do. People can learn things about you just by seeing the number. s of you think about the way your Social Security number is used your user id is also your password. s we need a better system for digital identification so largely because people dont understand them which is why there are varying spectacles that the european framework is instructive but clearly we have to clarify. In your late twenties you ran for state treasurer of indiana. You became a mayor at what age . 29. You are 37. Youre running for president of the United States. Why the hurry . [laughter] to be in a hurry up to think youre getting to a certain destination. I wrote a book because i thought i had a book worth of stuff to share. I had the Exploratory Committee you look at the office so what did south bend need in 2011 and needed a better model for economic development. And what you bring to the table so to know that would be an active hope for the future. And then i went to that process to run for office or to decide not to run through office or to run for congress and now the question is where is the country and that has lost touch with the industrial midwest and the forgotten communities and in a moment that seems to cry out for a generation of change to become unbelievably crass and divorced from reality and disconnected that matters most. May be the right idea for a young midwestern millie and neil intellectual has something to offer. [laughter] [applause] host you mentioned millennial and i looked it up to be sure i am the very last year of the baby boom generation. You are the very first year of the millennial generation. So considering me as a punching bag tell me how we screwed everything up for you millennials and why we can never be given the reins of government again. [laughter] [applause] its not all your fault. [laughter] but it is interesting three out of the last four president s george w. Bush, donald trump and bill clinton are all different ages coming into the public consciousness. Actually not even it was all the summer of 46. The same season. One generation has mostly been running things for quite a while. Theres nothing wrong with that. But i do believe the perspective of a different generation is different so i come from a generation i was in high school when columbine happened. I feel i am from the School Shooting generation. My generation obviously provided most of the troops after 9 11. My generation will be dealing with Climate Change for the rest of our lives. We will be paying the price tag one the price tag for price cuts for theoretical and even now talked about by some of the people in charge as if there somebody elses problem. And for somebody my age or younger so i think the younger you are the more you have a stake in the consequences of the decisions being made today because you just cannot think of it as somebody elses problem. Not even your grandkids problem. It is your problem. And that perspective needs to be on the table right now. Host the skeptic was a year the mayor of a city of 100,000 people and youre asking to be country president of the most powerful nation in the world. Why should they trust you with that . There is something a little bit audacious and a little bit of scene. Really. Think about the presidency and what it calls for. Any human beings that thinks they belong in that office there is something a little bit crazy. The current occupant i support that theory. But really anybody. With those mortals and flawed human beings they are all older than i am some are more experience some are more intelligent so the real question is what do you bring to match what is out there . When it be better if you spend more time in