Prosperity was kind enough in the weeks before i came to actually bombard the telephones, fill the mailboxes, talking about the fact that i was going to come up and visit. I have no doubt that a whole heck of a lot of you dont know what its like to have afp go after you but its a fairly common occurrence in a place like montana. I showed up anyway. By the end of the meeting, they acknowledged that 40 of the people that walked through the hospital doors didnt have health insurance. They recognize if they lost that rural hospital, that community was soon to follow. They saw past the rhetoric and understood that not only could expansion improve the health of the friends and neighbors. But at the endst day, it would save that rural hospital which also saves that rural community. Their support and then that visit gave their local republican legislator the confidence to defy her party leadership. To defy the coke brothers and actually support the measure and every vote matters. Every single vote mattered. Because of towns like shoto. We are the only states since 2014 to get Medicaid Expansion through a state legislature. And not is only a life line thrown to our Rural Health Care system, not only is our unemployment or uninsurance rate gone from 20 in 2013 to 7 last year. But 77,000 mormon mondayians who previously couldnt afford to see a doctor now have health care. I understand that man on the street stories are really only that. Its profound. They stop you on the sidewalk and tell you that your actions saved their life. Just showing up is not always enough m communities where i failed, but you have to try. I shoot for 100 with the hope of getting 51 . And do you that running for office and do you that in governing. As the National Party democrats dont seem to focus on this anymore. Think about those rust belt states that we lost in 2016. The strategy was all about using data to find people who already agreed with us so we can drag them to the polls on election day. There is little attention played to places, paid to place thats might be difficult to win. You must be from south dakota. No, there is really little talk about trying to persuade people about really offering voters that reason to vote for a democrat for president. What we followed nationally, i would have been kicked out a long time ago. Making an argument even in places where people are likely to disagree, its good for campaigning. Its good for governing. It is good for our democracy and it will be good for our Democratic Party. We cant assume that values of people even those we disagree with or didnt vote for are all that different than the values that we as democrats are consistently fighting for. We saw this assumption from my per inspective in 2016 win when the party wrote after areas of the map. Its silly and actually dangerous. The value of most americans are not partisan. Folks are too busy trying to support their families and put food on the table. Most americans value and want the same thing, a safe community, a roof over their heads, good Public Schools, clean air and clean water. A decent job and the unwavering belief that they can build a Better Future for the kids and their grandkids. My fundamentally believe there is true. Whether you live in manhattan, new york, manhattan, kansas, or even manhattan, montana. I thought to these values and the Public Policy that delivers them. Public education, protection of our public lands and economy that works for everyone in fair taxes. And it translated into people knowing that i was looking out for them. And then what that translates into is the ability to fight and govern and work on areas like equal pay for equal work. Translates to signing one of the most far reaching executive orders for protecting our Lgbt Community, transferring records, translating the First Time Ever investmentes in public and preschool, translates into never once compromising on womens reproductive freedoms. And when our legislature left and passing unearned income tax credit, something weve been working on for 15 years in montana. The bottom line is that when we do it right, fighting for our shared values, fighting for those great equalizers of opportunity and fighting for the public good will always, always beat out somebody fighting for their narrow self interests. Finally, i want to leave with you a radical idea and here it is. If youre going to do if youre going to talk about doing something then actually try to do it. Think about. That its montana. Simple, i guess. If youre going to talk about something, do it. I imagine dang near everybody in this room would agree that our Campaign Finance system is broken. I was attorney general when the u. S. Supreme court took up Citizens United. Montana wrote the ammic us brief in opposition. We got a good handful of republican led states. When court opened up and spending floodgates, i defended a law called the corrupt practice act of 1912 in montana. Montana for 100 years, we had a prohibition against corporate spending or contributions in our elections. And unlike what happened in Citizens United, i actually built a record. I got testimony from democrats and republicans talking about the corrupting influence of independent expenditures. In a decision that is forever captioned American Tradition Partnership versus bullock, the u. S. Supreme court disposed of our 100 year old law if a 54 decision. 594 decision that was the first significant case after Citizens United. As governor i didnt give up. I took a different tact. I worked with democrats and republicans, again my legislature is almost twothirds republican. I have to do that. But i work with them to pass one of the most progressive disclosure laws in the country. So the dark money groups, no matter what part of the federal tax code that they try to hide behind if, theyre going to spend or contribute in our elections or state elections, they have to disclose their spending and whos giving them money. Now it took a number of different attempts to get there to get that passed. But as a result, even the coke brothers stayed out of our election cycle for state elections last november. Now democrats didnt fix Citizens United when we had control of congress in the white house. Reform movements more and more are working around washington not with it. Washington is become a place where talking is often a substitute for doing. Its a place where folks outside the beltway often think that politicians complain about problems not to solve them but so they can raise money or get more followers on social media. I think thats a very, very cynical view or approach to politics and government. And its bad for democracy. I think it accounts for much of the distrust of the federal government. Yet i also think its fixable. I believe that the good news is that democrats can stand up for our values and the values of main street, mainstream america and that we can win. You have to believe that we share values. You have to talk about them and show up. Thank you for having me today. But more important, thank you for all being here today. Question . Thank you governor. He has time for one, maybe two questions. We have microphones. We have a question right up here. Hi. Just wait for the microphone. Fantastic. Thanks. You got it. Hi. Nina bede. Can you talk a little bit about this special election for congress and whether or not everybody in this room should send money . That i can not say. I was told what im not allowed to say. So we actually have a special election may 25th against a guy named Greg Gianforte who ran against me and spent 6 million of his own and lost. Well, i guess again, i guess i wouldnt be here were it otherwise. And against a gentleman named rob quist. He was new to politics. So our one Congress Person and its a 147,000 square mile state, we only have one. He became secretary of interior, rob quist is a life long montanan, raised in cut bank. Actually went through some medical issues so he knows when were talking about issues like repeal Affordable Care act how it can devastate individuals and families. I like i appreciate the question because its not unlike when i was running or others. People want to view well thats a heck of a long way away and theres no way that a democrat can win. On the march womens march, 10,000 people showed up at our state capitol. I dont think youd have 10,000 people showcapital. I dont think you would have that many people show up if you cancel canceled. Can i just say [ inaudible ] [ laughter ] theres latitude in the audience that perhaps i dont have am i done . Yeah. Thank you again, very much. [ applause ] please welcome to the stage tom desire and john podesta. [ applause ] welcome, everybody. Achl i backward . Yeah. Its not working. So were here to talk about a lot of things but were going to spend some time talking about Climate Change. I would note at the beginning that as evidence of catastrophic climbed change continues to pile up with 2016 the hottest on record with heat continuing to sore with Sea Level Rise kochbting to grow with humanitarian crisis and climate exacerbates security events the front and center in americas newspapers, even, finally looking at whats going on. Donald trump has reacted by appointing a climate denier to run the. E. P. A. , by trying to dismantle and tear down the clean power plant. Hes oh postsed a burnt that decimates science. Hes on a rampage really against the environment, but i think you would agree with me, tovm. Im going to ask you this at the outshet, that not all is lost. There is leader pship from businesses and mayors across the country. Were honored to have you here today because after a super successful Business Career tom decided that he wanted to spend his time not just fighting to tackle Climate Change but fighting for social justice and i used to talk to tom on the phone, him in california, me back this the east coast. Hed begin ever conversation by saying, john, its worse than you think its really worse than you think and hed give me the latest Scientific Evidence or sml something thats happened or some gigantic piece of ice that fell off the coast of greernland or somewhere. So talking ajts donald trump, he said, john, its worse than you think its really worse than you think i think, well, maybe thats let me start, though, on the climate question. And with really a broad question. How do you assess where we are today . Can the planet survive four years of this kind of policy coming from donald trump and his administration . So before i start, i think we should have a round of applause for what john podesta has done and what [ applause ] sheersly. Seriously. When we think about the task ahead, i like to break it down into three warts. They have to clean up our electricity system, we have to electrify everything, and we have to dramaticcally increase our Energy Efficiency, so when we ask about where we are as a country, ill get to the larger question about the globe but if you think about clean up our electricity system, thats predominantly done in the states so that we can have a lot of product over the next four years state by state, including red states, and weve had activity in four read states. Theres a major push for cleaner electricity. Secondly, electrify everything. When you think about whats the largest sort of green house gases, now its green house gas, transportation. We have to electrify our transportation system. If with you plug in your electric vehicle into a plug thats powered by a coal power play, its better to keep your internal kpusings car. You have to do the first step. The federal government has a big day, because if you think theyre saying theyre going to recue the cafe standards, did they rolled back what obama put in pleas for 2025 then what california and 13 other estates have already greed to do would be a quo of how we undo that. So what the federal government does to attack the electrification and the increasing in efficiency of the transportation sector is critical. And then lastly, Energy Efficiency is something which argues for itself in terms of costs but where the federal government can put it in place policies to make things happen sooner. So where are we . I would say the American People are behind us. You look at all of the polling datas, american business, establishment is behind us with the exception of the fossil fuel companies b and the engineering data, our ability to actually save money by mooulg to cleaner sources of energy is also behind us. The question is not are we moving to 24 . The question is the pace at which were moving to it, the pace at which the rest of the world is moving toward it. From my standpoint, i view this as much more urgent than is generally thought partially because what john started by teasing me about, that if you keep looking to the scientists kept says it was 2024. Now were sading its 2025. From my standpoint, the political question here about winning becomes infinitely more important because we have to win now. I dwant to come back to the kind of broader role of Climate Change as part of the progressive message. You said business voices are still on the side of change in support of this energy transformation. Not all businesses are on that side. And not no longer just the cold companies in the oil industry. The Auto Companies are aggressively who had spofrd add cafe standards afternoon trumps election are trying to roll them back. What do you think is the prospect of having the rest of industry that has been more positive about trying to take aggressive action being becoming something of a counter weight to the special interests that want to see the rollbacks on the regulatory side . I do want to agrees the auto makers. First let me answer your question which is we cannot account on bhern business to do that. I have think theyre supportive of it but i think theyre dependent on how on amicable relationship with the federal government and i think that they are very nervous about picking a fight with a ven buildingful president. So i think it is unrealistic to think that theyre going to be at the front arguing and pushing and making trouble. He and his twitter i think the fact of the matter is theyre on our side but we cant count on them to be leaders. The American Auto makers are clearly making the same mistakes before they made last time. Which is if you look at what they make on a normal suv, they love those. Electric vehicles are is zbroeing but theyre not making any bottom line money. Tesla is mor valuable than gm or ford. The market is telling us where the future is going to be. But within the companies, the people who have the power, the people who make the cash money, the people who get to make decisions are looking backwards and saying we work our make our money on combustionble cars. Its a shortsighted decision but it looks like thats the way theyre going. Lets come to the broader progressive argument. You said we got to win, we got to win now. We dont have time to waist. You have tried to really build a broader coalition. Talk about how you see the effort of blending essentially environmental politics into more Broader Movement politics . Well, troebl ten years ago, we were under the impression that Progressive Energy policies would be supported on a bipartisan basis on behalf of the broader sw of the United States of america and its citize citizens, and i think we spend a number of years and built a number of efforts around that idea. At this point, if you look in fact, the republicans have gone back farther than where they were when we started. So we think about it in terms of energy but we also think about it in terms of creating jobs that pay a desent wage that families can live on. We think about cleaner air and a healthier america and we think about an inclusive america that recognizes every single sit zen. So in thinking about that, we think were going to Win Every One of those once. Every policy area thats been brought up today, we think a Progressive Coalition will do that and thats not happening when we think about what were doing, we are absolutely committed to immigrant rights. We are absolutely committed on every one of those. Were strong believers in organized labor and its absolutely a central part of the american system. We think we win everything together or lose everything together. When we atom about where were going from here, we think we stick together and win period or we lose. Around we lose everything across the board. [ applause ] and the difference, john, which i hate saying this. I cleatly agree that american sit venus are much more alike than necessity get credited for. But they have an honest counter party. I dont believe we have one. I dont believe that theres a common ground. I think the only thing we can do is put our heads down and win, period. All right sh thank you. Youve had some fights with some of the building trade unions in the rest of america. How do you assess now the relationship between what youre trying to do in terms of building out clean energy, infrastructure with the in particular with the building trade unions are. Let me start with did California Coalition and address the the coalition we have which we started 10 years ago is different from the ones people think about. I think its income bent upon me to say that people who are commonly thought to be environmentally nouksed arent necessarily the people you think they were. The number one ethnicity that carries about climbs, energy, latinos. Number two, africanamericans, three three group is asian americans. Every Coalition Goes around the idea that it goes to every part of it. Part of what were talking about that is inseparable from everything we do is that we will create good paying jobs and distribute them in the communities. The thi