Democratic speech in des moines iowa. Her name has been mentioned as a possible president ial candidate in 2020. Here are some of her remarks. [applause] thank you. Thank you everybody for coming, it was wonderful dinner. Before we introduce our headline speaker tonight, i want to talk about the flake that is behind me. A lot of people have been asking, that is a weird looking flake, you had to modify it to get hung up is that the right play . I can tell everybody that is right play. The last time you saw this flag was draped across the east village for them president obamas last Campaign Speech of his entire career. We wanted it to be here tonight to show that we have had good days in the past, we have a good day today, and well have good days in the future. [applause] so, barack obama, no pressure senator will amy is the daughter of an Elementary School teacher. She was the first woman to be elected to the u. S. Senate minnesotas history. She is one of the most effective members of the u. S. Congress. Thats not just me senate, was reported lester that she was right number one in the senate with most bills enacted into law on the hundred 14th congress. [applause] she has worked on a law that cracks down on sex traffickers, she has led ledgers to combat the opiate epidemic she has reached out to work with the democrats on the democratic bill. In a recent poll 72 approve of her work including a majority of republicans. Most recent recently shoes one of the senators to call for a commission on the Trump Campaign ties to russia i think she will continue her work investigating because im sure theres much more to find out there. Speaking of that guy who we are going to try not to says name tonight, somehow the sexist boss from every 76 got into the oval office. A lot of us dont know for sure how it happened, but one thing has been clear since the womans march and that is, it is going to take the women of the Democratic Party to save the Democratic Party. [applause] and is going to take the women and the mothers and the sisters of the daughters and the grandmothers to save our country. Senator Amy Klobuchar is one of those women. Please join me in welcoming her to polk county. [applause] [applause] thank you so much. Hello good neighbors. It is great to see all of you. I had no idea where this leg was from until he said it. Could we just have a hand for president obama and michelle and the incredible work they did. [applause] this is truly a beautiful iowa sunny blue sky day. As i have told many of you before, i can see iowa from my porch. So, it is good to be back with friends and i thought i was going to come here to cheer you up but you have cheered me up. This is incredible energy. Congressman smith who has neve r given up about caring for this country, thank you for this work. Danny, thank you, you not only represent your members but you represent the working people of america. Thank you for that incredible speech. [applause] thank you bruce and all of the elected officials that are here. Thank you rob for that wonderful speech even though you trash talk to my state. Do you think i didnt notice that . Right on cspan you trash talk my state. I think my favorite line was when he said that we are not going to be moping around in the backyard, right . Instead what i learned here is that you will be yelling from the porch in the front yard. Thank you for that. [applause] a lot has happened since i was here in the fall before the election. Some really big things happen like back in january on that inaugural stage i was officially displaced as the most famous in america by melania trump. That has been hard on me. She was actually born in our away from where my relatives are farm in slovenia. Every time i look at her is like looking in the mirror. [laughter] okay, so i could spend as your speakers before me, my entire speech talking about donald trump. There is endless material. Look at just what happened in the last week when democrats and republicans, after working together for months behind the scene and across the area, finally averted a government shutdown. We did that and congress. We get that done. It is not easy to do in this time of gridlock. We have had many of these close calls. For me, the loss moment of these urgent disaster episodes was actually a few years ago when we had the fiscal cliff boat. We voted until 3 00 a. M. On new years eve. There i was, new years eve, this romantic moment, this is a true story. On the senate floor, the clock strikes 12, i look to my left and i see harry right read, either to my right and i see Mitch Mcconnell, every girls dream and new years eve. So we got out of that disaster. Lastly, despite all of the rancor in our politics we averted disaster again. We kept in funding for the troops, medical research, agriculture, roads, bridges, broadband, minors healthcare and planned parenthood. [applause] what did donald trump to . He sent out to tweet the next day threatening a quote major shutdowns fall. That is not leadership, that is tweet or ship. Without of cost estimate, no regard for the consequences of how it passes, their Health Care Bill on tuesday, millions of americans are wondering if they are even going to be able to go to the Doctors Office and he has his guy pals over and there they are, big backslapping celebration and gleefully he tweets, big win, from the oval office. Then theres the attacks on refugees, immigrants, and judges. It was alexander hamilton, good want to quote these days, who said judges dont have the power of the pfister the sword. They get their power from the constitution. It is our duty to stand up for judges and an independent judiciary. That is what we do as democrats, he has attacked at the press as well. I am the daughter of a journalist, so i take this personally. I heard some unless we can put it like this. President trump is a man who tweets everything that enters his head, yet he refuses to acknowledge the constitutional amendment that allows him to do it. Guess what . We democrats not only acknowledge the first amendment, we embrace it and we will defend it every step of the way. [applause] so, donald trump likes it when we talk about him, right . Here in iowa, you pride yourself on being first. First in corn production, first in hogs, first in caucuses, and i know you are up for the challenge so here it is. Must be the first Democratic Party dinner where the rest of the night we do not even mention his name. Okay . Are you up for . [applause] so, tonight lets talk about something else. Lets talk about how we move forward as citizens, as a party and as a country. Here we speak from the heartland. We are the people in the middle of the country. There are many in this room who are in the middle class, middle income, even if you who could be described as middleaged. [laughter] and yes, from time to time, in the middle politically. My husband is the third of a six boys. His mom and dad had four boys and his mom really wanted a girl, got pregnant again and had identical twin boys. Thats a true story. They all lived in a mobile home in mankato, minnesota. He was the middle child and he got forgotten a lot. In fact, one time they actually forgot him the gas station. They did not realize it until they were miles away. I have never done that to him. But, we all know it is not easy be in the middle child. This time, those of us in the middle going into the 2018 and the next years in the middle of this country, we will not be forgotten. We have a voice and people should listen. Because, both iowa and minnesota have a strong tradition of grass roots of politics, yes a party caucuses, yes but we also have independent voters. Not all of the states and country have that. If you dont believe me about Minnesota Three words for you, governor jess even to our. So what do we do now as we move forward. First we have to acknowledge the elephant or the donkey in the middle of the room. That is what happen this fall. It was a tough, tough night. I was going around our Minnesota Party with my junior senator, al franken. We were going around in the night goes on and it is getting worse and worse. Finally i go home. I get a text from my daughter and at that moment i realized i forgot she was at hillarys party in new york. I felt this incredible guilt. I had even forgot she was there i so taken by what was happening and the text said, mom, what should we do now . I wrote her this longmont guilt tax back, you need to go now. You and your roommate are staying at a friends, a you have . , this isnt going well, she is probably not going to speak. My daughter writes back immediately, mom, i mean our country. So i told her the next morning, i said our country has been through tough times before. The congressman could tell you that. We have been through wars, injustice, discrimination, financial problems and deepseated discord, through it all we have voice had a peaceful transition of power. We have always kept moving forward and that is what we need to do now. I still believe that today. But, what is moving forward the click . When you have an administration that is exactly this way and that. When you have republicans in congress who want to hold us back when we had big money is our friend danny pointed out, that is trying to hold us back and a lot of families who just feel stuck. That is what the Democratic Party needs to focus on. While there are plenty of reasons why we lost in 2016, there is at least one that we can definitely fix for next time. We can make sure that no one is left it behind in where we go, and who we talk to, in what we say, and in what we do. We know a little bit about how important that is in the heartland, because minnesota manors, wisconsin matters, West Virginia matters, florida matters, nebraska matters, ohio matters, and yes, i what matters. [applause] i learned what matters by visiting all 87 counties in my state every single year. It gets interesting when its a small county and youre looking for something new to do every time. At one point in one of my smallest counties found a new business for me to visit and it was called, insect inferno. Subtitle, we kill bedbugs with heat. They literally had a truck where they would put mattresses and couches to kill bedbugs. It had signs, we kill bugs with heat. So the senator that i am i went into the truck and they said we want you to see what it is like but we will only turn up the heat halfway. As a former republican candidate for president once said, if we want to win, we do not show up in the places where we are comfortable. That is right. We also show up where we are uncomfortable, even when they turn up the heat. That is part of what we as democrats need to do in this next election. We leave no people behind. [applause] when i go through my state i hear a lot. I hear about dads who can be sure their sons and daughters will have the support they need to take over their family farm. Moms who cannot figure out how to pay for their kids prescriptions when they double and cost. Teenagers who cannot understand why their friends have gotten hooked on opiates. Manufacturers who cannot find workers to fill jobs. Small Business Owners who cannot get a broadband connection. That is too many cans. We are a nations of cayenne, i can, we can, we can dream it, we can build it, we can do it. I think america is at its best when we are a country that thinks, invents, and exports to the world. Thats a competitive agenda that includes everyone. The truth is, that how much money wall street makes in the short term that helps iowa and minnesota, instead we should measure our success by how main street the ice in the long term. I have seen what success looks like. I have visited golden grand energy in mason city where they are creating jobs in the midwest instead of feeding the coffers of oil sheiks in the mideast. Or when i got to stop by popcorn heaven in waterloo, where innovation has led to popcorn flavors like dill pickle and southwest have wings which i somehow ate at 10 00 a. M. These workers and small Business Owners like those we see costanza in my state shows us what is possible. That is in the center of this competitive agenda. I think of it with four corners, it is kind of like the state of iowa, square but cool, right . First, our nation can only compete in one corner if workers are paid fairly and prepared for the 21st century economy. The basic bargain, and danny knows it used to be that if you worked hard and play by the rules you could get ahead. You can make sure that your kids and grandkids, now far too many times the cost of that basic bargain is too high. People are working two or three jobs was saving such not add up to much more than they could put under a couch cushion. Theyre doing everything so they can get by and their kids a leg up but it doesnt leave them much time to do anything else. We need to give workers a raise. We need to make sure no good job goes on filled because workers are not getting training. As the Democratic Party we need to make an important statement. That is that not Everyone Wants to go to a Fouryear College. We need to respect that. [applause] my own sister didnt, not at first. She did graduate from high school and she got her ged. You know where she got her ged . In iowa. She got a job at a plant town here, people were nice to her, she ended up going to a Community College in iowa and eventually she got her fouryear degree. After all of that, she got the best score on her accounting exam in iowa that year. Thats a little trash talk for you, and she has been an accountant ever since. There is not one path to success, theres many. That is why we need to boost science, technology, math and engineering in our high schools. I think some people think about the stem idea in their mind goes to Silicon Valley and Mark Zuckerberg and phds in whatever, but that is not the only thing were talking about. We are also talking about bluecollar jobs, bluestem jobs. We need high school auto classes with a hightech spin. Theres a shortage of welders, why not teach kids who want to get that skill, that skill earlier. Lets give students a jump start in learning about things like computer integrated manufacturing and medical research. The student sitting in our classroom today are the ones going to work in the lab. They are going to follow through on joe bidens moonshot. Those are the students will end up places like mayo and carver. They are the ones who help save our families from the devastation of alzheimers and find a better treatment for opiate addiction. We need to support Community Colleges. President obamas two years of free Community College is still an idea, that is great, and lets do it. We need to strengthen apprenticeship programs. Thats a bill i have with Susan Collins, republican of maine. Theres a reason unions have been running the programs for so long, they work. We need to make sure veterans can get good jobs in the come home and the skill they have learned fighting overseas are needed over here. We need to bring down the cost of Fouryear College and is the burden of student debt. If billionaires can refinance their second homes and their planes, i think our students should be able to do the same. [applause] many paths. Every person in this country deserves a clear path to a good job. As your great island, Tom Phil Sackett and tom harkin who have preached so many times, these paths could use some clearing and rural america. For the poverty rate for children is actually five points higher than urban areas. Warehousing is hard to come by, you know that. And where it is harder to stay in business. It is time for us to make a real commitment to our rule communities by expanding broadband, by supporting our farmers, building Affordable Housing and taking on rural poverty. That is how we leave no one behind. [applause] so, my grandpa never graduated from college or high school. He worked 1500 feet underground in the minds in ealing, minnesota and he save money in a coffee can so he could send my dad to college. My dad grew up on that iron range in northern minnesota where he went to Community College in ely and then he got his journalism degree from the university of minnesota and went on to interview everyone from mike ditka, from Ronald Reagan and ginger rob tritt robbins. My mom taught second grade until she was 70 years old. We lost her a few years ago but i still have adults come up and tell me she was her favorite teacher. What i learned growing up is that no matter where you come from you can succeed. Now, i am here today the granddaughter of iron or minor, the daughter of of a teacher and reporter and the first woman elected to the United States senate. That is how america works. , but could my grandpa do that today . Thats how we get to the second corner of trying iowa. We need to give american businesses the incentive to invest and innovate right here in america. 13000, that is a number of hardworking americans who were laid off in the latest downturn. With china producing half of the world still and heavily subsidize production, American Steel companies cannot compete. American workers got hurt as a result. We need fear trade. We know that with her agricultural products, we need to sell our American Goods to customers around the world. We must do more to catch Foreign Companies were breaking our trade laws. We brought president obamas chief of staff up to iron rich and he saw firsthand. He met a guy named dan hill who everyone had spoken and the steelworker spoke at the end and he said, you know mr. Mcdonough, my daddy just graduated from preschool and the teacher asked them what they want to be when they grow my kid said, i want to be a steelworker just like my dad so please catch the tshirt you are in football and they said make it come true. And you know what happened, we pushed and we pushed and they upped those and guess what, the head of that company sa