[applause] thank you. Sit down. Sit down. Thank you, everybody. That is very nice. I have a massive cold and that makes me feel better today. I feel more well with that nice introduction. Thank you, mayor martin. He asked what should i say, and i said whatever you say, make it short. We have a lot to cover here. You referenced to we have with us, but i want to thank all the folks here, such as fantastic job every single day bringing Educational Opportunities to kids and adults here in stamford. Up toyou for opening this representatives Carolyn Simmonds and thank you for being here. I want to get right to the meat of this. Im sure you have loads of questions about what is happening, what has happened and i want to answer them. About a lot ofay things, but i get the foundation of it, we talk about the rule of law. We are going to talk about the very simple idea that has been at the root of this country since our founding that no individual, and matter how powerful, no matter what title stands before their name is supposed to be above the set of rules that we all play by. That has certainly been the topic of discussion in this country for the last week but frankly we have been talking about this for the last 110 days. I want to talk a little bit about that today. Then i want to turn it over to your questions. Thank you for giving me the opportunity for this job. I do not come from a family that has a background in politics. My mother grew up in the housing projects one generation removed from poverty. Now i get to be a senator whether you voted for me or did not the idea that people placed your faith in me as one of your two voices and the senate it is an honor. To be honest it is a thrill. I am so thankful for you to give me this chance. I am Getting Better at it every day because i am learning from you about what the priorities are about what you care about and how i should prioritize. This is an exercise for me to learn and listen. I do these town halls and try to engage proactively in ways as well. I am one of the few members of the senate that does my own twitter, facebook and snapchat. Some of you know that i walked across the state this summer going 130 miles. [applause] going from one side to another, others who could not attend a town hall or email or however. I am trying to engage and learned in creative ways as well as traditional waste like this. First, thank you for giving me the opportunity to do this job. We are going to talk today about the rule of law and checks and balances. I first want to admit why we are here. We are at this moment in part because donald trump fairly transparently advertised that he was going to blow up the way that things were done in washington. He advertised this coo model. He said this in his domination speech that he alone could fix this. People were drawn to that whether we like it or not. It was the popular vote but a draws a lot of folks. There is this hiring of democracy that is happening in tiring of democracy that is happening in the country. People understood the trade you got an democracy, you got all of this inefficiency. It took a long time or something to become a law from an idea. The trade was in exchange for that inefficiency you got the outcome that benefited the whole rather than the elite. Whether it is a dictatorship or democracy, you have policy made much faster but you tended to get results that were good for the ruling elite rather than for everybody else. Democracy protects the ability for the masses, for the general population to get a result its good for them. People that im not getting that trade any longer. The place looks as efficient as it has ever been, and yet the results that are coming out of washington still seem to be accruing to the top 1 or 2 , not to me. People started asking themselves whether we still should be invested in this big great experiment. Trump with his advertisement of only he could fix this seemed to be more attractive than it would have 20 years ago. What we need to recognize is this is not just a moment to take on these enormous challenges but to also remind people about how to engage in this determination, to really talk about how we can make our democracy healthier we are going to talk about immigration and health care. I also want us to be reminded that we should not take for granted that this democracy is inevitable. This is just something you are going to live under for the rest of your life, we need to remind people why we are all invested in this. I will say that there are parts of this that have been beholding, there are checks and balances inside this big endeavor that have worked. The president right out of the gate try to pass an immigration order that is plainly unconstitutional that we are going to stop the old coming into the country based on your religion. That violated the basic premises of the original document and the amendments attached to it. And the courts recognize that and said you cannot do that. The president is in the midst of trying to push through a Health Care Bill that is an absolute humanitarian catastrophe waiting to happen. 24 Million People could lose their insurance and rates could go up. They thought they were going to get this done in february. They thought they were going to be able to tie this thing up and move to the next priority. They havent stopped over and over because of the legislature in interesting ways it is responding because people are rising up and saying if you vote for this monstrosity we are going to vote you out. It has taken a lot longer to get this through the house of representatives and that means it is stuck in the senate right now because republicans editors know there are consequences for voting for something this inhumane. The checks and balances that are built in a legislature that are also responsible for the people is holding for the time being. There are these other places where the checks and balances are not there. That is what we are going to talk about today. We will clearly talk about what has happened, we cannot have a functioning democracy when a president of the United States can dismiss Law Enforcement individuals and leaders that are carrying out investigations against chief executives. I am sorry but the explanation he offers does not hold water, james comey did not get dismissed because he unfairly treated hillary clinton. He got fired because he was onto something. He got fired because he was getting closer and closer to a very damaging story about the trump campaigns interaction with the russian government. We do not know at the end of that story is but we do know that director comey was going to the highest levels of the Justice Department and asking or more resources to pursue that investigation. It is hard for me to think that is a coincidence that one week later he was fired. We are going to have the Deputy Director who wrote that memo next week and a closeddoor hearing to ask questions, we will get a little closer to the truth with that meeting. This is a direct threat to the rule of law, i hope as my republican friends go home this weekend they are going to choose to rise to the occasion. As i said on social media there are moments for you have to choose between the republic and your party. My advice to my republican friends is that you will never regret choosing the republic if that choice comes to you. [applause] you know what i think the path forward is, i ultimately believe that the investigation is fairly compromised, we need an independent prosecutor. [applause] so, lets give the weekend for republicans to think or this and make the decision and join with us in this call. If they choose not to then democrats and likeminded individuals are going to have to consider all of the tools at our disposal to push this forward. [applause] recognizing the gravity of the moment. Let me talk about the other threat to the rule of law and the checks and balances that happened today. One idea that should be in the news more than it is. That is the topic of four and affairs and international relations, we talk a lot about americas role in the world. Very quietly congress over the past 10 or 15 years has abdicated their responsibility of Foreign Policy. I was often antithetical to some of their conduct in Foreign Policy because i did not believe there was authorization, legal authorization for this administration to take military action against isis. I did not think it was wrong for the government to take military action i thought they simply needed to get authorization from congress to do that. My worry is today it is much harder to declare war against an enemy that was 30 or 40, even 50 years ago. There are shadowy enemies that we face today, it is not an army marching against each other that we signed a treaty with at the end of hostility. It is something that harder to define with victory that is much harder to get your head wrapped around with his uncivil. Desperate this this principal. If we allow the president to take military strikes against Bashar Alassad without any legal justification for, we will never authorized war as a congress you will lose your voice and making those decisions. What is happening today in syria should be very worrying to you. The president has essentially ceded his responsibility to the military. A slow creep of u. S. Troops inside that country from a number that was close to zero one year ago to a number that now looks close to 1000, a mission that is very hard to find. It is all about local groups raqqa and the intervention of the settlement of accounts that will happen after isis is out raqqa. In the case syria will look a lot more like iraq. Then this will become a much more worthy debate to see if we should be there. I worry about checks and balances falling apart with our country getting into another major intervention in the middle east without a full debate in congress. We can talk about the situation in north korea as well. Of law. That presents real challenges for this rule of law. I am happy that checks and balances held in part, i think this massive uprising of activists all across the country is making it is creating this molasses around the trunk the trump agenda. It does not mean that there will not be parts of it that are able to push its way through. It is slowing everything down, making the allies in Congress Stop and think if they want to endorse this hateful rhetoric. I am trying to raise my voice. My first obligation is a to represent the state and i think there were some important wins we got for connecticut in the last appropriation bill. The Mental Health reform act that i was the author of. I am also trying to raise my voice on a National Level and be a part of what i think is a defining moment for this country. I am perpetually a Glass Half Full guy, you cannot beat and this job and not try to see the light at the end of the tunnel. I am stealing a little bit of this from a colleague of mine who talks about these words from the declaration of independence. In a way, that is our north star as a country. It says all men are created equal. It is a totally flawed phrase from the beginning that all men were not equal and the phrase just sent men. It was a radical idea at the time. This idea of equality. You can kind of read our entire countrys history as trying to get a little bit closer to that reality, to that reality of full equality, full opportunity and experience. Yet you can also read the history as one of two steps forward than one step backwards. When you make enormous amounts of progress in a short period of time there is this natural , tendency for americans to dig a trench. We shouldnt forget how much progress we have made, the election of the first African American president. The ability to think about health care as a human right rather than a privilege. 100 years of talk about universal health care and then the enactment of a law that got us closer than ever. The decision that allows people to marry whoever they love rather than their sexual orientation. Our ability to bring in waves of immigrants from south america and the tradition of those who came from before. All of this progress in a short amount of time, there has this been decision to put a trench on to put a pause on it, to dig a trench for the time being. I would argue that the definition of this country is not about two steps forward and one step back but our ability to build a ladder out of that trench. After the pause, to decide to get moving on the road to the north star. That is what it is, it is a moment in which we decide if we are still on that journey or not. I just fundamentally believe that we will make the decision that we are. And this Resistance Movement that has been built up over the last 110 days across the country is a collective effort to build that ladder out of that trench. And get back on that journey. If that is the case, then count me part of that resistance. Thank you very much. [applause] lets ask some questions. Hello, to the overflow room. We have two microphones, if folks can line up at the microphones we will take as many , as we can. We will take as many as we can. The roads are awfully jammed today, i will take as many as i can in the next hour. Lets get right to it. We will go there to there. Then upstairs. We will sort of do that. Quick questions and i will give quick answers. I am a Founding Member of greenwich village, thank you for all that you do in so many areas specifically i am going to , address the independent commission issue. In the face of the comey firing, and the threat to the rule of law, the Washington Post ran a piece that talked about democrats stopping this scandal. Theyve reduce the efficacy of this using tactics such as asking them to yield for a mcconnell to yield for a question. Shining a light on all things russia. He said the filibuster and withholding consent. In light of the threat of the threats to the foundational underpinnings, will you agree to use these measures until such time that your republican counterparts agreed to an independent commission and special prosecutor to investigate trump and russia ties . [applause] thank you for the question. I have not read that article, so i cannot opine on that. I think you heard me say that we absolutely are going to have to use every tool at our disposal to translate to our colleagues in the house. Into the American Public how serious this moment is. I do not think we understand what a cataclysmic moment this is for the republican party. We are asking them to step outside of their party and to directly challenge this president , to call for the appointment of this independent counsel. I understand that they may not be able to make that decision on a dime, it might take them a couple days to figure out the gravity of this moment. Im willing to give them a little bit of space, but we do not have the luxury of time. The trail will grow cold, the message that is being sent to the fbi is a chilling message of pursuing truth. If it agrees to the detriment of the chief executive will get , solidified. I want to give my republican colleagues some time to understand what they need to do here. That time cannot be limitless and then we will ultimately have to use whatever power we have. You teased out some of the tools we have they have limits of efficacy. Excuse me, you talk about asking questions of the majority leader. Is, we dont control the house or the senate, so we have procedural tools at our disposal that ultimately arent dispositive in the end, but we should take a look at using everything we have. Good afternoon. The conservatives have done a phenomenal job over the last few decades of controlling and shaping the messaging to the public, now they are already attacking the democrats as a party of no, party of no new ideas a party attached to obama, and the clinton machine. Can you provide us a little bit of confidence that the democrats have a strategy or the progressives have a strategy, have fresh, bold ideas, fresh messengers that have some people in the pipeline that are going to be attractive to the general public instead of the whole partisan antimessaging that has been going on . Thank you for all your fantastic work here around the area. I am not here to deliver a sermon on the state of the democratic party. I will take the premise of your question and try to answer it. Listen, i think we have to understand that people have watched this economy technically recover. They cannot believe it has recovered for them. Ultimately we have to be a party of Economic Growth but not just for the 1 . We have to be this for everybody not just millionaires and billionaires. Then we need to be a party of inclusion, a party of a country that includes everybody. It doesnt have to be rocket science. We have to be a party of Economic Growth for everybody and a party of inclusion and a party that includes everybody. Then we have to be a party that is not scared of big ideas. The fact of the matter is Bernie Sanders got pilloried during the campaign for talking about free college and that was unrealistic. So what, if that is unrealistic , is a great idea that everybody should be able to afford to go to college. [applause] as a party, i think we have to be consistent about our messaging and make sure it is based in those stairs and we real economic fears, and we cannot be afraid of putting really big revolutionary ideas that may not be realistic tomorrow but tell the country about the vision of where we want it to go. Deep into the future. So i think right now we are at a crisis moment in which this Republican Congress is try to jam down our throat some legislative ideas that would be absolutely cataclysmic for our constituents. So a lot of our effort is around opposing that agenda, ultimately we have to be much better at translating who we are and not being afraid of those big ideas. That tell people about where we want to go. My name is jeffrey stewart, and i am here representing the medicare for all coalition. Our main function, why we created this group is to attain the passage of a bill those already in the house which is hr676, i want to repeat that for everybody. Hr676 it is worth reading. This bill will provide real Quality Health care to every child, woman and man in the United States. It will not only d