[applause] this is my comment. I said you are only known throughout all the 50 states. I can make you an International Name overnight. Let me write your speech. In her good judgment, she delivered a good speech and did not take me up on it. She is a great friend. And a voice from iowa to the rest of the country, welcome United States senator joni ernst. [applause] god bless you. Thank you. Thank you, so much. God bless you. God bless iowa. What a great day. Hey, it is wonderful to be serving as your United States senator. Thank you. Steve, i am still waiting for a draft of that speech. We had some good laughs over that. He said he would be happy to write my speech. I was waiting for the draft, but he did not get it to me in time. Thank you, congressman, so very much. Thanks you Citizens United for this wonderful event. I told the congressman backstage that we have got to find a bigger venue. We do. That is a good thing. That is a good thing folks. Thanks to all of the wonderful wonderful guest speakers we have joining us here today. It is an impressive, impressive lineup of speakers. We are glad they are taking the time to come to iowa. We have an important couple of years coming up. Thanks to them, but especially thanks to all of you in attendance. You are the grassroots of iowa. You are the ones making the difference. Thank you for all you are doing. The energy we have seen today and we can hear all of you in the back. You are plenty loud. This energy, this is a telltale sign of great things to come. This enthusiasm and energy, it led to a tremendous big tree in 2014. [applause] thank you. Thank you. Tremendous victory all across iowa. Thank you, for doing that. We saw that in 2014, but we cannot stop there. We have to take this enthusiasm and continue pushing forward. We have the momentum. We need to use it as we are Going Forward into 2016. Most definitely. [applause] i want to say thank you. I had an amazing 2014. I am proud to be serving as your United States senator. I could not have done this without you. We spoke loud and clear in iowa that we want to see a change. That change has been delivered. Thank you. Anyway as we are talking about a little speech i gave on tuesday evening, it was because of you [applause] thank you. It was because of you. And this tremendous victory we saw with our Grassroots Efforts they gave me the opportunity to do the republican address on tuesday evening. Im extremely grateful for that opportunity and i look forward to great things to come. If you did have been to watch the address on tuesday evening we talked about a number of things refuting the president. And what he has stated. Those things we will work on, on your behalf. Those things you sent us to washington dc to do. Reforming our tax code, closing loopholes, not raising taxes like what the president has proposed. We should not do that to our hardworking americans. We need to prioritize our spending. Cut wasteful spending. We need to balance the budget. [applause] i have not figured it out. I know we have done that across iowa, we have done it in our state budget. For heavens sakes we need to do it in washington. Another thing i spoke about was defending life. Defending innocent life. [applause] we, as a society, will be judged by how we take care of our most vulnerable within our population. That goes from the beginning of life to our natural death. [applause] so we need to make sure that everyone understands that we are compassionate. We will defend this innocent life. Another thing i spoke about was developing, and this is important to me, developing a comprehensive plan to address terrorism and threats to the United States. [applause] we must we must have a strong plan. A plan to uphold our national defense. And make sure that we are dressing the threats coming from isis, al qaeda and all of these groups being radicalized by extremists. As ive said, many times over in order to solve a problem you first have to identify that you have a problem. [applause] we have a problem. It is spreading worldwide. We do you have to do something about this. Many of our allies have been terrorized in their homelands just as we saw on 9 11, and many times over since then. We have to have a comprehensive plan. I would be happy to work with the president on that comprehensive plan. We have a bill we have been working on in the United States senate. We were up until 12 30 friday morning voting on amendments for the keystone job bill. [applause] and, and with this bill, amazingly, with the number of amendments that we are working in the United States senate, in the first three weeks of being in the United States senate we have voting on more amendments than they voted on in harry reids senate and all of 2014. [applause] ha ha ha. We are working for you. We are working for you. We are working on that keystone jobs bill. We will push that onto the president s desk. Another thing i mentioned in my speech was executive overreach. What we had seen coming from the president. Too much overreach. He is taking on the job that i was sent to washington dc to do. What congressman king does. We are legislators. The president is not. We need to stop the executive overreach, including executive amnesty. [applause] mmhmm. Thank you. The message that iowa voters and voters across the United States, the message they sent in november of 2014 was heard loud and clear. Because of that message, we now have a majority in the United States senate. [applause] i love it. Thank you. I love that. We have 54 wonderful republican senators. 54. But we are 6 seats shy of the magical 60 number. We need more senators. We need to keep the seats we have. As we approach 2016, understand we have another race in iowa we need to focus on. I have a phenomenal partner in the United States senator, and that partners name is United States senator chuck grassley. [applause] he has been a tremendous advocate for iowa. All of iowa. Whether it is our Manufacturing Industry our farmers, our seniors, our children. Chuck grassley is iowa. He is iowa. We can not take his race for granted. I am asking all of you to continue with this wonderful effort we had in 2014, and focus your effort ahead to 2016 and make sure that we hold this seat in the United States senate. We want iowa to remain red. We have worked so hard to get here. We will not be a purple state. We will be a red state. [applause] haha. Lets Work Together for senator grassley. I know we can. I expect you to be knocking on doors and making phone calls. I am where i am today because of the work you did. I know we can pull together to keep senator grassley where he is. We can maintain a majority. Lets go a step forward. What else is important in 2016 . We are all aware we have to take back the white house [applause] if we expect to get through this gridlock and have signed into law the wonderful legislation we are working on between house and senate. We must have a republican president. That is why ive thrilled that all of you are here today to listen to a number of contenders for this phenomenal opportunity in 2016. I look forward to working with all of you as we go through the caucus season. I hope all of you will be involved in the iowa caucuses. You should be involved in the iowa caucuses, and make your choice of candidate known to the rest of iowa and the rest of the United States of america. Very important process, here and i hope you will dissipate. I will leave you all now. We have a great lineup of speakers. I want to say thank you for the tremendous opportunity you have given me. I will be working hard on behalf of iowa. I will be making sure we keep republican a red state. I want to thank you for your Grassroots Efforts. We cannot do it without you. God bless all of you for your effort and god bless this amazing state of iowa, and god bless the United States of america. Thank you, so much. Thank you. Thank you. [applause] well, well, well. Is everyone having a good time . It has been amazing and we are just beginning. I cannot get my head around the fact that we are just beginning. Our next speaker is someone relatively new on the conservative seen. His breakout moment came in 2013 at the National Prayer breakfast. I think most of you remember it. [applause] a committed christian, he was supposed to be a safe choice to lead the event. He had other ideas. He is a worldfamous neurosurgeon who knows Health Care Inside and out. After a career spent breaking through medical challenges when president obama asked him to speak at the prayer breakfast, he got more than he bargained for. President obama is sitting 10 feet away and he got an earful. Our next speaker spoke truth to power. Lecturing president obama on the dangers of liberal Political Correctness. Obamacare. And liberal politics on education and taxation. Before that date most americans had not heard of dr. Carson unless you are one of the lucky few who had him as your brain surgeon, or had seen the amazing pieces on 60 minutes. I was one of those who did know of him. My friend of 17 years, mario dangelo, who works in the senate barbershop in washington dc found out his son had a serious brain problem and needed a procedure. Dr. Carson performed that surgery with his team on him over 12 years ago. His son was a young boy then and is now a grown man because of dr. Carsons talent. I knew of dr. Carson. Then came my turn. My son griffin needed brain surgery. He had a brain aneurysm. Dr. Carsons name came up to us. My son had four brain surgeries all by doctors who worked in and around dr. Carson. He is the leader, the innovator of brain surgeries and has been for his entire career. So, on behalf of all of the families across the country who needed your help, we ou a debt of gratitude. I want to say thank you. Dr. Carson changed how medicine was practiced. He worked his career at Johns Hopkins medical school, and eventually became the director of neurosurgery at only 33 years old. The youngest in history. He is speaking out in favor of conservative ideas in a way that infuriates the media. His defense of traditional marriage made bias anchors go nuts. He doesnt back down and tells them that a marriage is between a man and a woman. Here he is. [applause] so, he also called obamacare the worst thing that is happened to this country since slavery. Saying instead of a giant government run nightmare every person born in america it should be given a birth certificate, an Electronic Medical card, and a Health Savings account. Ladies and gentlemen you dont need a brain surgeon to tell you conservative ideas are what are right for america. We decided to bring you one anyway. Please welcome dr. Ben carson. [applause] thank you, very much. Thank you, so much. We are delighted to be here. Candy is out there somewhere. I always feel so welcome when i come to iowa. Theyre so many people here who actually have common sense. That is not something that is ubiquitous throughout our land. A lot of things i could talk about in my 20 minutes. I will obviously not cover all of them and someone will say you didnt cover look, 20 minutes is a finite. Is a finite time. I want to talk about education. It is the great divide in our country. Anybody who gets a good education can write their own ticket. It doesnt matter what their ethnicity or background is. We have to start emphasizing that concept. The cando attitude that helped america to propel its self to the pinnacle so fast. I was a terrible student. I was one of those people known as the safety net. No one had to worry about getting the lowest mark on a test as long as i was there. I took care of that. I tried to act like it didnt bother me when they laughed and called me dumb me, but it did. Not enough to make me study, but it did bother me. I was still going home playing basketball, baseball, football. My mother, who is the hero in my life, she was one of two dozen children. She got married at age 13. She and my father moved from rual tennessee to detroit. She was a factory worker. She discovered he was a bigamist. She had a third grade education and tried to raise two young sons by yourself. The interesting thing about my mother, she never became a victim. She never felt cipher herself. That is a good thing. The problem is she never felt sorry for us either. There is never any excuse we could give that was good enough. She would always say, do you have a brain . If the answer was yes, you could have thought your way out of it. I asked that same question of us in america. We have a brain . Do we have the ability to think logically to solve the multiple problems we have . My mother asks god to give her wisdom. What could she do . The wonderful thing about god is you dont have to have a phd to talk to him. You just need faith. [applause] he gave her the wisdom, at least to her opinion. My brother and i didnt think it was wise at all. Turning off the tv and making us read the books. What kind of wisdom is that . As far as we were concerned it was child abuse. And then two written book reports and week. Which she could read, but we didnt know that. I was not a happy camper. You had to do it. Back in those days you did but your parents told you. There was no social psychologist saying to let the kid express themselves. [applause] dont you find it interesting today how the government tries to insert itself into everything. They want to tell you how to take care of your children, what you should feed them, how you should discipline them. Everything about them. I would be happy to accept advice from the government if they were doing everything perfectly. It seems they cannot even run their own house, how are they going to run your house . This is a problem. [applause] at any rate, i was reading the books. Interestingly i started reading about people of great accomplishment. I noticed something they had in common. That vision and willingness to work hard. I began to understand the person who has the most to do with what happens to you in life is you. It is not someone else, not the environment. At that point i stopped listening to the naysayers. The people saying the system is stacked against you. I didnt have time for them. I was going to use that time to look at all of the incredible opportunities that existed for a young man in innercity detroit. There a lot of things, but you had to do them. They did not fall into your lap. It made a big difference. I started reading. In a year and a half i went from the bottom of the class to the top of the class, much to the consternation of all those people who used to calmly dumb who were now coming to me asking how to work this problem. I said, youngster, sit right down i was perhaps a little obnoxious. You think about the human brain and what is capable of. We need to start putting more emphasis on that. We need to look at ways that we educate our populace. We look at all of the failed innercity schools, and yet in the same inner cities you see private schools, charter schools, our schools where people are doing great, high graduation rates, college particular nation rates. College graduation rates. Why are we trying to get rid of the things that dont work . [applause] that is the problem, a big problem. Special interest groups. There should only be one special interest group. The people of the United States of america. Once we understand that, once we understand that we can do so much better. It was interesting that when alexis to tocqueville came to the United States to study they were fascinated on why were doing so well. In the end he concluded that america is great because america is good. If america ever ceases to be good, she will cease to be great. He was right on target. As we began to throw away all of our values and all of our principles, and we forget who we are, we will go from being great to being nothing. We have to to fight that. [applause] one of the other issues i want to touch on, immigration. You know, we have laws in place common sense works great. The arty have laws that dim we already have laws to menstruating howard person becomes an american system. We already have laws demonstrating how a person becomes an american citizen. Do we have an illegal immigration problem . Yes. Can we fix it . Yes. Of course we can. You have to realize there wouldnt be people coming here if there was not a magnet drawing the men. You have to reverse the polarity of the magnet. Get rid of the things drawing them in. Including employment. If you employ someone who is illegal, instead of getting a pass from the government you should get a criminal activity on your record, because it is a crime. [applause] you have to seal the border. Do we have the ability to seal the border . Yes. Of course we do. We just dont have the will. I think whoever wins in 2016 im pretty sure it will be a republican, i think they should make it their goal to seal the border within one year. [applause] these are common sense kinds of things. Where is compassion, you say . There are millions of people here illegally. Who have to hide in the shadows. I dont think they should have to hide in the shadows. We look to the north of us and we see canada. They have a well formulated guest worker program. People get registered appropriately. They come, work, pay taxes low back home as they please. No one has to hide in the shadows. We can do Something Like that with stipulations. We should not offer jobs unless americans will not take them. Number one. Number two in order to get a guest worker permit you have to apply outside of america. [applause] the case you should not get an advantage for breaking the law. [applause] it still allows people they can easily go and do that. They probably have an advantage because they know people who want to employ them. That person can offer them a job and they can come in, take it, and pay taxes like everyone else. Until we can learn to think that way we will not win this argument. When we do it by the law, we integrate compassion, but we use our common sense. That is what will make america work. What about the waste and fraud . There is a lot of waste and fraud. I will give you an example. Medicaid. We spent 400 billion a year on medic