Caucuses. Many of them are unity sided. Please welcome former Vice President joe biden. Thank you, erin. Great to see you. Great to see you. [ applause ] we got a good crowd. Great crowd. Good to be back. Good crowd on a poll night. Thank you. Are you ready . Ready, get set, go. So lets get started and get straight to our audience. Vice president , of course today is veterans day and we honor all those who serve and have served this great country. The first question we have tonight is from dave degner, served in the u. S. Army reserve for nine years and spent 15 years as a truck driver. Hes currently running for state senate here in iowa and is the Democratic Party chair and is teaching at a local Community College while attending the university of Northern Iowa full time. Go ahead with your question. How do you have time to even come and ask a question . God love you. Thank you for your service. Ill make time for you, mr. Vice president. As she said, as a 42yearold veteran who enlisted before 9 11 and served until 2004, i am unable to utilize gi bill benefits for 15 years. The veterans at that discharged after january 2013 get those benefits to life thanks for the forever g. I. Bill. Would you, if elected, extend those benefits for all veterans so people like myself can go back to school or enroll in job training later in life if our situations required it . Yes, i would attempt to do that. Number one, we owe you big. The fact of the matter is own 1 of our population serves. We only have one sacred obligation and it not hyperbole, one saek krcred obligation to pt those who serve and make sure they have everything theyre entitled to and so the answer is yes. Thank you. [ applause ] all right. Our next question, mr. Vice president , is from kate nash, shes from marion iowa and is an admission counselor at cornell college. Go ahead. I come from a military family. My brother is a veteran, served two tours in iraq. So many of our veterans do not receive proper Mental Health care when they return and end up on the streets. How do you plan to fick this x issue . You probably do know more veterans are committing suicide than are being killed in battle. It has to stop. One of the things that president obama and i did when we dealt with the homelessness of veterans, we said we were going to end it, make it a gigantic priority. I would make sure every single solitary veteran when they pick up that telephone and they need help, theres help available to them immediately. We added 1,600 doctors and 4,000 nurses in our term. We need to provide more services, not fewer. More services for those veterans that are coming home and theyre entitled. I carry in my pocket and i wont do it now and i have my schedule every single day, lists everything in my schedule and has a Little Black Box in it and lists in it u. S. Daily troop update, u. S. Troops died, 6,900. Every single one of these people left behind an entire community. These fallen angels deserve all our respect. 52, 954 wounded. Guess what, 300,000 that have come home from these wars with post Traumatic Stress and theyre not getting the services they need. So the combination of being aible to able to increase the amount of money we are al kalocating to the v. A. My son did a year in iraq. We lost him but he came home and one of the things we should be looking at is those burn pits that are there. It just like, you know, when all the firemen in new york wheent down to 9 11 and so many got cancers, particularly brain cancer. Thats whats happening. Iraq with brain cancer. Home from theres a direct connection between those burn pits and taking in that all that toxin thats available. And we should say anybody who was anywhere near those burn pits, teahats all they have to show and they get covered, all their health care covered. Theres a lot we have to do but i think the public is ready to do it now because so many people have direct connections with somebody in the 9 11 generation that served, that its real and we have to move on it now. Thank you, mr. Vice president. I want to bring in andrew tucker, a junior here at Grinnell College. All downhill from here. Thank you. It infuluenced new discussion about the number of troops we have overseas. Do you think we can have the same level of protection by allowing more diplomacy. One, we dont need large standing armies abroad. That is not what we need. Particularly in the middle east. Particularly from the mediterranean to the gulf. We dont need that. But we do need special forces in small array of people that we have put together with other 69 countries we worked with to deal with stateless terrorism and unstable areas of the world because we cant do it all by ourselves. The other thing we should be doing is strengthening our alliances instead of embracing au auough autocrats and dictators like this president does and poking our finger in the eye of people of nato and japan and far east. We should be embracing them because we need them to help us deal with the reality of what the new world is. Were going to be dealing with unstable countries, stateless terrorists and we cant be the worlds policemen. We need them with us so i think we need troops abroad but in small numbers. We only had several hundred troops taking care of all those kurds and 11,000 of them died fighting isis and winning and we abandoned them. Did you see the looks on those soldiers when they were coming up in those tanks and uparmored humvees . People were standing there saying help me, help me. You can see in their faces how they felt so, so, so badly that they were leaving and look whats happened. Whos going to trust us . You know, youre eluding to obviously your criticism of the president s decision to pull troops out of Northern Syria but also in your answer you touched on your you dont want endless wars. You talked about not wanting that. Yes. When you look around the world right now, mr. Vice president , we currently have 200,000 Service Members stationed around the world, in the mediterranean through the middle east, 63,000 troops in the middle east alone. So where would you look first to start bringing them home . Let me make a clarification. We dont need large numbers of combat troops conducting wars in areas like afghanistan or iraq, et cetera. We dont need that. Thats not whats necessary. We do need we do need bases and stations around the world, we do need people that are stationed in nato. We do need troops that are stationed in the far east, in asia dealing with the concerns that they act as a sign saying not here, the United States is here. We are going to dissuade you from doing anything irrational. But the fighting troops out there shooting, the special forces folks, are needed to deal with the stateless actors. If we pulled our troops out of everywhere from gaum to australia and everywhere in between, that would be a green light for china to continue to try to take over significant areas of territory by their mere presence we have to make sure we enforce International Rules and sea lanes and skies, et cetera, that were going to make it clear you got to go through us to change it. That is important to have troops dispatched around the world but not combat troops engaged in active wars. We are just two days away, of course, as we all in this room now and as you know from public impeachment hearings from president trump. Our next question is from will freeman, an associate professor here at grinnell. He said he supports you for the nomination. Will, go ahead. Welcome, sir. Thank you. I feel like our country and all we stand for has been hijacked by a pesh who i view as decidedly unamerican. He is not a reflection of what this country stands for. Will the current impeachment process convince independents that the president has to be northbound or could this backfire on the democrats . Well, to answer the question, the simple answer is this. The house has no option. It has to enforce the constitutionwhether or not it turns out to work or not work or whether or not it turns out that he should or shouldnt in asking other countries to engage within our politics that is a violation, that is a problem that we have to look at. [ applause ] and so it may or may not [ applause ] ive been there for two impeachments, coach, and theyre not pretty. And it not anything i wish the country to have to go through, but we have to maintain the constitutional principles that exist. Heres what will happen. If the case is made as strongly as its being saying we got to do something here. Everybody says the house will in fact indict, impeach, and the senate will never move. I dont buy that it will depend on what their constituency says. If youre a republican in a republican area and you have a republican representative and you think the president has my job is just to go beat them. So you remember of course and many of you im sure also saw the New York Times oped written by the anonymous senior trump official. So that person has now written a book called a warning. Comes out next week and just tonight weve gotten an excerpt. I just wanted to share it with you. Uhoh. In is about. Those of us who have seen these sorts of wreck less that he wanted to help combat corruption was barely believable to nen around him. The president had apparently learned nothing from the you for donald trump fwlflt he is given. What to you make of this picture behind the scenes in the white house . I didnt write it but i could have. Look, i think thats every single it including your network and others, have looked at this, have said theres absolutely zero basis to the accusation that i abilitied in any way appropriately or that my son didthis is all about trump trying to create a diversion. And if . Sff i know hi. There as not been a scintilla evidence i think theres overwhelming evidence that this was about let me put this another way. Can you ever think of a time when i sit sfrk two things ive learned in the last couple weeks. With twrrk number two, this guy trump nt want me to be the nominee. So Vice President biden, the House Republicans have ask pr your son hunter is on. Want are in the whats your feeling that hunter should speak for thetory pr we have a president who to serve in that office. Are in. Mr. President , youre worried about corruption . Release some of yours. Release some of yours [ applause ] this is and by the way, those and, look, it going to sound youre a really talented reporter and you follow things very closely. Youve been to many of these places were talking about, physically i remember when you were in egypt you reported there. This is prul tess to avoid focus on him pes thats what this is all about. Ill be darned if im going to let us take our eye off the ball. Did trump commit impeach abable thats what it all about. Well, mr. President , release your tax returns, show us what you mentioned having been there for prior peoplements and Declan Oreilly are. Reporter mr. Vice president , having experienced the watergate era, whats the significance of the executive branch defying congress al subpoenas and congress al oversight for the fshto even if everybody liked trump when he did these things, you have to respond because it breaking down the walls, the separation of power wall. When i was asked early on did i support impeach, i said let say. Go the president phone calls and doesnt respond and it gives them more power. And the idea that he gets a lawyer to send to the United States congress, i cooperate in way way. No president has done that. As my mother would say, who died and left him king . No, i really mean it. There are three equal branches of government, equal. Equal equal. And he is feep. So you or what did to you, plp mr. President than those and poll tex today as gotten so mean and ugly and dirty and if the and not focusing at all on trying to put things together instead of disdegreeing on stub stangs, you go to it has become so, so difficult for republicans to be able to, unless they have real courage to stand you and take on the president even if they think he should be ten out because he such if somewhere between 30 and 35 of the electorate, which is the bulk of the republican party. Ands i ill give you an example. When we nominated a Supreme Court justice and it was decided they wouldnt even hold a hearing for him that, injury justice, the reason i recommended him to president obama, was that he, in fact, had gotten 35 republicans to say great things about him and he was a really serious person. I called 12 republicans and said what are you doing . 12 of my colleagues in the senate do you realize what youre doing to the constitution . They say we know, joe but im in a state where in in fact the koch brother drop in 10 million, 12 million, i will lose a primary. If you notice republicans lose pro primaries in red and purple states. Its not about courage, clearly not. But they know what they were doing was wrong. With trump out of the way, i predict to you now, my 89 opponents running for the nomination are going to Say Something different. But let me say i honest to god believe with trump out of way, youre going to find people screwing up a lot more courage than they had before to say, okay, okay, i can move now, i have more leeway. Because look what he does. You got Jeff Sessions in alabama saying, please, dont say anything negative about me, mr. President. I know you dont like me. Come on. This is just the politics has gotten just so out of whack. But its going to come back in whack, this guy. Anyway all right. Were going to take a brief break, everyone. Please stay with us well be back with more from the former Vice President , joe biden, live from iowa right after this. Announcer this cnn town hall brought to you by shrm, better workplaces from shrm. Is that for me . Mhm aaaah nooooo. Nooooo. Nooooo. Quick, the quicker picker upper bounty picks up messes quicker and is 2x more absorbent than the leading ordinary brand. [son loudly clears throat] sigh [mom and dad laugh] bounty, the quicker picker upper. Skip to the good part with alkaseltzer plus. Now with 25 more concentrated power. Nothing works faster for powerful cold relief. Oh, what a relief it is so fast welcome back to the cnn democratic town hall with former Vice President joe biden. We are live at Grinnell College. I want to talk to you about something thats deeply personal for you and for Many Americans and that is loss, deep, deep personal loss. In 1972 your wife and infant daughter were killed in a car crash and your sons injured. As a parent its impossible to imagine. Four years ago you lost your son beau to brain cancer. Now, throughout your public life and throughout this campaign, mr. Vice president , wes have seen you and heard you connecting to people through personal grief, youve heard those personal stories in public. What does it mean to you that people have taken comfort in sharing some of these deep personal tragedies with you . Well, you know, i have a lot of people have suffered more than i have. And i have been really sounds bizarre to say that i had an incredible family. When i lost my wife and daughter, i had my brother and sister, and my mom was there to help me raise my kids and when i lost beau, i had my son hunter and my daughter ashley. When youre the recipient of someones understanding and empathy, you understand how it can help and its just impossible, although sometimes its hard to not share it with others. When people come up to me often, as youve observed is they come up and theyll walk up to me and all of a sudden a man or woman will just grab me and hug me and say i just lost my son, lost my daughter, tell me, am i going to be okay, am i going to be okay . What people really want to know is when they go through these how many of you have lost someone to cancer that you love, thats close to you, a husband, wife, son or daughter . Raise your hands. Look at that. And, you know, what it teaches you is a lot of things. I was a single parent for five wree years. Im not sure i would have fully understood how difficult it is, with all the help i had. My mother used to use an expression. She said out of everything bad something good will happen if you look hard enough for it. And i watched the relationship that i had with my two boys, it was like a steel belt running through our chest after they lost their mom. I watched the relationship my sons surviving son and daughter have with one another. So, you know, and the other part is, ill just conclude by saying everybodys different but what i found is the way you overcome enormous tragedy is you got to find purpose in your life. Purpose. And a purpose is best utilized if it relates to something that related to what the person you lost cared about. So, for example, yesterday i was at a i went home to delaware and i was at a run for the Beau Biden Foundation when she felt he was overwhelmingly concerned about the abuse of children. He had a chance to become the United States senator but he stayed and wanted to prosecute one of the sear yrial child abu, 160 some young girls or boys he penetrated ages between 1 and 7. And so we had to run to make sure we dealt with those issues. So i get up, like many of you do with the loss you have, and think to myself for real, no the a joke, is he proud of me today, is she proud of what im doing . Is this and so i found i think theyre just part of me and its the way ive dealt with it. I promise you and you know it happens to me hundreds of tiles on t times on the trail, people just want to know can i make it, can i make it . Am i going to be okay . There will come a time if anybody of you are going through it where the thought of the person you lost will bring a smile to your lip before it brings a tear to your eye. Thats when you know youre going to be able to make it. But its hard. Its hard. It gives me some it gives me some sense of purpose when im able to be of some help. I know that those words [ applause ] those words do mean a lot to people. As a form are Unitarian Universalist church minister, go ahead with your question for the Vice President. Vice president biden, thank you for being here. Thank you. A year ago, my professionally successful, beloved girl friend had a brain injury from lack of oxygen after a cardiac arrest. She