ABC News Democratic Debate - WATCH THE FULL DEBATE (2019)

good evening and welcome to Houston we are live from Texas Southern University for tonight's democratic debate that top 10 candidates are here it's going to start right now and on the stage you see them they have all met the criteria set by the Democratic National Committee at least 10 others have not met the threshold so for the first time in this primer a single debate in a single night with all the top candidates facing off it is a critical test for candidates and their campaigns at a critical time for our country they're gonna lay out their vision for the country their records their differences with President Trump and each other and we're gonna best to bring you a lively informative and civil debate I'm joined here tonight by my ABC colleague will news tonight anchor David Muir our national correspondent Lindsay Davis and Jorge Ramos from our partner Network Univision all right thank you very much we appreciate the opportunity to welcome Latinos across the country and to ask about Latin x issues too in these challenging times en este pais también se habla espanol este Roboto share a little momentum mood official para los Latinos and Texas in todo esta vez una dos tres importante que ellos saben que sabemos que esta también es nuestro Pais let me just give you a little translation here I'm telling Latinos that despite the fact that we are facing difficult times this is our country too we are delighted to be on the beautiful campus of Texas Southern University one of the largest historically black colleges and universities in the country and here in the health and physical education building tonight we are joined by a live audience of 3,500 people most invited by the Democratic National Committee and of course some of the brightest minds of the student body here at TSU go tiger [Music] the rules of this debate are very basic tonight it have been agreed to by all the campaigns in advance candidates will have one minute 15 seconds to answer a direct question and 45 seconds for a rebuttal or response as directed by one of the moderators candidates will each see green and yellow lights there you see them right there indicating how much time they have remaining and when time is up the light will turn red candidates who interrupt will be subject to having their time reduced later on but this is democracy the great American experiment and the candidates are here tonight to make their case the podium place is based on their current standings and nationally recognized elections recognized polls with the leading candidates in the center all kennix have been told they can have one minute to make an opening statement and we're gonna begin in Reverse polling order with secretary who Leon Castro good evening bienvenidos at the house welcome to Texas it's great to be here at TSU home of the Tigers you know on January 20th 2021 at 12:01 p.m. we're gonna have a Democratic president a Democratic House and a Democratic Senate there will be life after Donald Trump but the truth is that our problems didn't start just with Donald Trump and we won't solve them by embracing old ideas we need a bold vision universal pre-k and universal health care unleashing millions of new jobs in the clean energy economy a tax system that rewards people who have to work for a living but first we have to win and that means exciting a young diverse coalition of Americans who are ready for a bold future that's what Kennedy did it's what Carter did it's what Clinton did it's what Barack Obama did and it's what I can do in this race get back Michigan Wisconsin in Pennsylvania Florida Georgia and Arizona and finally turned Texas blue and say goodbye the Donald Trump senator klobuchar good evening Texas Southern I believe that what unites us up here the 10 of us is much stronger than what divides us and I think that's true of our country too now I may not be the loudest person up here but I think we've already got that in the White House houston we have a problem this we have a guy there that is literally running our country like a game show he would rather lie than lead I think we need something different I am someone that tells the truth I don't make promises that I can't keep I have people's back and I believe that to win you bring people with you and that is how you govern as well so you're gonna hear a lot of ideas up here some will be great but if you see that some of them seem a little off track I've got a better way if you feel stuck in the middle of the extremes and our politics and you are tired of the noise and the nonsense you've got a home with me because I don't want to be the president for half of America I want to be the president for all of America Congress in better r-ark it's an honor to be on this debate stage it is wonderful to be back in Texas in Houston back here at TSU on August 3rd you know Paso Texas two things became crystal clear for me and I think produced a turning point for this country the first is just how dangerous Donald Trump is the cost and the consequence of his presidency a racism and violence that had long been a part of America was welcomed out into the open and directed to my hometown of El Paso Texas where 22 people were killed dozens more grievously injured by a man carrying a weapon he should never have been able to buy in the first place inspired to kill by our President the second is how insufficient our politics is to meet the threats that we have right now the bitterness the pettiness the smallness of the moment the incentives to attack one another and try to make differences without distinctions mountains out of mole hills we have to be bigger we have to see clearly we have to speak honestly and we have to act decisively that's what I want to do for you as president of the United States Thank You senator Cory Booker it was over 20 years ago that I was a law student and moved to inner-city Newark New Jersey to serve as a tenth rights lawyer to try to address the challenges in my community and I was sobered by them the gun violence the substandard housing but it was my greatest mentor a woman named Miss Virginia Jones who challenged me she said boy if all you see in this neighborhood is problems that's all there's ever gonna be but if you're stubborn and defiant and can be put forth a vision that can unify people then we can make transformative change she was a church woman that said without vision the people will perish well that's exactly what we did we created extraordinary unity in our community and we did things that other people think thought work was impossible that's the story of America at our best we unify we find common cause and common purpose the differences amongst us Democrats on the stage or not as great as the urgency for us to unite as a party not just to beat Donald Trump but to unite America in common cause and common purpose that's why I'm running for president and that's how I will lead this nation entrepreneur Andrew yang in America today everything revolves around the almighty dollar our schools our hospitals our media even our government it's why we don't trust our institutions anymore we have to get our country working for us again instead of the other way around we have to see ourselves as the owners and shareholders of this democracy rather than inputs into a giant machine when you donate money to a presidential campaign what happens the politician spends the money on TV ads and consultants and you hope it works out it's time to trust ourselves more than our politicians that's why I'm going to do something unprecedented tonight my campaign will now give a freedom dividend of $1,000 a month for an entire year to ten American families someone watching this at home right now if you believe that you can solve your own problems better than any politician go to yang 2020 calm and tell us how $1,000 a month will help you do just that this is how we will get our country working for us again the American people [Music] mayor P Buda judge its original I'll give you that the American people are divided and doubtful at the very moment we need to rise to some of the greatest challenges we've ever seen as a mayor of an industrial city coming back from the brink as a veteran of the war in Afghanistan I know what's at stake in our national leadership we keep sending politicians to Washington asking them to fight for us but then when they get there they seem more interested in the part about fighting than the part about us good politics is supposed to be not about the day-to-day fights of the politicians but about the day-to-day lives of Americans we just mark the anniversary of 9/11 all day today I've been thinking about September 12th the way it felt when for a moment we came together as a country imagine if we had been able to sustain that unity imagine what would be possible right now with ideas that are bold enough to meet the challenges of our time but big enough as well that they could unify the American people that's what presidential leadership can do that's what the presidency is for and that is why I'm asking for your vote senator Kamala Harris thank you it's great to be back at TSU so I plan on spending tonight talking with you about my plans to address the problems that keep you up at night but first I have a few words for Donald Trump who we all know is watching so president Trump you spent the last two-and-a-half years full-time trying to sow hate and division among us as and that is why we've got nothing done you have used hate intimidation fear and over 12,000 lies as a way to distract from your failed policies and your broken promises the only reason you've not been indicted is because there was a memo and the Department of Justice that says the sitting president cannot be charged with a crime but here's what you don't get what you don't get is that the American people are so much better than this and we know that the vast majority of us have so much more in common than what separates us regardless of our race where we live or the party with which were registered to vote and I plan on focusing on our common issues our common hopes and desires and in that way unifying our country winning this election and turning the page for America and now president Trump you can go back to watching Fox News senator bernie sanders senator sanders let me be blunt and tell you what you don't hear much about in congress or in the media and that is it goes without saying that we must and will defeat trump the most dangerous president in the history of this country what we must do more we must do more we have got to recognize that this country is moving into an oligarchic form of society where a handful of billionaires control the economic and political life of this country and as president i am prepared to take them on yes we will raise the minimum wage to a living wage yes we will finally make sure that every American has health care as a human right not a privilege and yes we will address the catastrophic crisis of climate change and transform our energy system away from fossil fuel senator Elizabeth Warren so I was born and raised in Oklahoma but I'm sure glad to be in Texas tonight all three of my brothers served in military bases here in Texas that was their ticket to the middle class me I got my big opportunity about a half mile down the road from here at the University of Houston back when it cost $50 a semester for a price that I could pay for on a part-time waitressing job I got to finish my 4-year degree and I became a special needs teacher and after law school my first big job was back here in Houston by then I had two little kids and when childcare nearly brought me down my Aunt Bea moved in and saved us all the path to America's middle class have gotten a lot smaller and a lot narrower today service members are preyed upon by predatory lenders students are crushed by debt and Families cannot afford child care I know what's broken I know how to fix it and I'm gonna lead the fight to get it done Vice President Joe Biden you know I'm President Kennedy announced the moonshot he used the phrase that sticks in me my whole life he said we're doing it because we refuse to postpone well I refuse to postpone one more minute spending billions of dollars on curing cancer Alzheimer's and other diseases which if we invest in them we can find cures I refuse to postpone giving every single child in America no matter of their zip code pre-k all the way through high school and beyond I refuse to postpone any longer taking on climate change and leading the world in taking on climate change look this is the United States of America there's never been a single solitary time when we've set our mind to something we were not able to do it we're walking around their heads down like woe is me we're the best-equipped nation in the world to take this on it's no longer time to postpone we should get moving there's enormous enormous opportunities once we get rid of Donald Trump candidates thank you some review said you are more United than dividing that is certainly true all of you agree on one big thing the goal of defeating President Trump driving the country in a new direction but out on the campaign trail you have outlined big differences over how far to go and how fast to go and Vice President Biden the differences between you and the senators on either side of you tonight strike at the heart of this primary debate both senators Warren and Sanders want to replace Obamacare with Medicare for all you want to build on Obamacare and not scrap it they propose spending far more than you to combat climate change and tackle student loan debt and they would raise more in taxes than you to pay for their programs our senators Warren and Sanders pushing too far beyond where Democrats want to go and where the country needs to go that would be for the voters to decide that question let me tell you what I think I think we should have a debate on health care I think I know that the senator says she's for Bernie well I'm for Barack I think the Obamacare worked I think the way in Austin we add to it replace everything that's been cut at a public option guarantee that everyone will be able to have affordable assurance number one number two I think we should be in a position of taking a look at what costs are my plan for health care costs a lot of money it cost seven hundred forty billion dollars it doesn't cost $30 three point four trillion a year turns out is twice what the entire federal budget is that's before it exists now without interest on the debt how are we going to pay for it I want to hear tonight how that's happened so far my distinguished friend the senator on my left does not has not indicated how she pays for it and the senator has in fact come forward and said how he's going to pay for it but it gets about halfway there there's a lot of other things that need to be done I tried a bold plan to deal with making sure we triple the money for at-risk schools that are a title one schools from 40 from 15 to 45 billion dollars a year but I go down the line and each the things we're talking about I lay out how I can pay for it how I can get it done and why it's better senator Warren let me let me take that to you particularly on what senator Biden was saying there about health grades actually praise Bernie Sanders for being candid about his health care plan that Senator says that senator Sanders has been candid about the fact that middle-class taxes are going to go up and most of private surance is going to be eliminated will you make that same admission so let's be clear about health care and let's actually start where Vice President did we all owe a huge debt to President Obama who fundamentally transformed health care in America and committed this country to health care for everything day and now the question is how best can we improve on it and I believe the best way we can do that is we make sure that everybody gets covered by health care at the lowest possible cost how do we pay for it we pay for it those at the very top the richest individuals and the biggest corporations are going to pay more and middle-class families are going to pay less that's how this is going to work direct question you said middle-class families are gonna pay less but will middle-class taxes go up to pay for the program I know you believe that the deductibles and the premiums will go down will middle-class taxes go up will private insurance be eliminated look what families have to deal with is cost total cost that's what they have to deal with and understand families are paying for their health care today families pay every time an insurance company says sorry you can't see that specialist every time an insurance company says sorry that doctor is out of network sorry we are not covering that prescription families are paying every time they don't get a prescription filled because they can't pay for it they don't have a lump checked out because they can't afford the copay what we're talking about here is what's going to happen in family's pockets what's going to happen in their budgets and the answer is on Medicare for all costs are going to go up for wealthier individuals and costs are going to go up for giant corporations but for hardworking families across this country costs are going to go down and that's how it should work under medicare-for-all in our healthcare senator Sanders you were invoked by the vice-president also take on that question about taxes that Medicare for what would cost over 30 trillion dollars that's right Joe status-quo over 10 years will be 50 trillion dollars every study done shows that Medicare for all is the most cost effective approach to providing health care to every man woman and child in this country I who wrote the damn bill if I may say so intend to eliminate all out-of-pocket expenses or deductibles or co-payments nobody in America will pay more than $200 a year for prescription drugs because we're going to stand up to the greed and corruption and price fixing of the pharmaceutical industry we need we need a health care system that guarantees health care to all people as every other major country does not a system which provides a hundred billion dollars a year in profit for the drug companies and the insurance companies and to tell you how absurd the system is tonight on ABC the healthcare industry will be advertising telling you how bad Medicare for all this because they want to protect their profits that is absurd nine George you get the you get a response then we're gonna broaden out the disco no one my health care plan does significantly cut the cost of largest out-of-pocket payment you'll pay is a thousand dollars you'll be able to get into a anyone who can't afford it gets automatically enrolled in the in the Medicare type option we have etcetera but guess what of the hundred and sixty million people who like their health care now they can keep it if they don't like it they can leave number one number two the fact of the matter is we're in a situation where if you notice you hadn't answered the question this is about candor honesty big ideas let's have a big idea yeah the the tax of 2% the Senators talking about that raised about three billion dollars guess what that leaves you about twenty eight billion dollars short the senator said before it's going to cost you in your page there will be a deductible in your paycheck you're going to the middle class person someone making sixty grand with three kids they're gonna end up paying five thousand dollars more they're gonna end up paying four percent more on their income tax that's a reality now it's not a bad idea if you like it I don't like it okay now I went everybody keeps at the time but you didn't vote both senators I have to get responses to then Senator Warren you go first so let's be clear I've actually never met anybody who likes their health insurance company I've met people who like their doctors I've met people who like their nurses I've met people who like their pharmacist I like met people who like their physical therapists what they want is access to health care and we just need to be clear about what Medicare for all is all about instead of paying premiums into insurance companies and then having insurance companies build their profits by saying no to coverage we're going to do this by saying everyone is covered by Medicare for all every health care provider is covered and the only question here in terms of difference is where to send the bill senator Sanders let us be clear Joe in the United States of America we are spending twice as much per capita on health care as the Canadians or any other major country on earth this American yeah but Americans don't want to pay twice as much as other countries and they guarantee health care to all people under my medicare-for-all proposal when you don't pay out-of-pocket and you don't pay premiums maybe you'll run into people who love their premiums I have it what people want is cost effective health care Medicare for all will save the average Americans substantial sums of money on his or her health care bill senator Klobuchar you said in your opening statement you don't you want to represent the people stuck in the middle of the extremes who represents the extreme on this I think you know that I don't agree with some of these proposals up here George so I'm talking about if I could if I could respond to some of the proposals but from my friends first of all senator Sanders and I have worked valiantly to bring down the cost of pharmaceuticals that was a Clovis Shar Sanders amendment to allow for drugs to come in from less expensive countries like Canada we have worked to bring down the cost by fighting to allow 43 million seniors that's a bow I lead to negotiate for better prices under Medicare I figure that's a lot of seniors and they should be allowed to get a better price but when it comes to our health care and what comes to our premiums I go with the doctor's Creed which is do no harm and while Bernie wrote the bill I read the bill and on page 8 on page 8 of the bill it says that we will no longer have private insurance as we know it and that means that 149 million Americans will no longer be able to have their current insurance that's in four years I don't think that's a bold idea I think it's a bad idea and what I favor is something that what Barack Obama wanted to do from the very beginning and that is a public option a nonprofit choice that will bring down the cost of insurance cover 12 million more people and bring down the prices for 13 million more people that is a bold idea Senator Warren 149 people will lose their health insurance I'm sorry she said page a to the bill 149 people will lose their health insurance what current health insurer 49 million million excuse me so let's be clear about this people will have access to all of their doctors all of their nurses their community hospitals their rural hospitals doctors won't have to hire people to fill out crazy forms they won't have to spend time on the phone arguing with insurance companies people who have sick family members won't have to get into these battles what this is about is making sure that we have the most efficient way possible to pay for health care for everyone in this country insurance companies last year sucked twenty three billion dollars in profits out of the system how did they make that money every one of those twenty three billion dollars was made by an insurance companies saying no to your health care cut yeah boo to judgment the problem senator Sanders with that BAM bill that you wrote and that Senator Warren backs is that it doesn't trust the American people I trust you to choose what makes the most sense for you not my way or the highway now look I think we do have to go far beyond tinkering with the ACA I proposed Medicare for all who want it we take a version of Medicare we make it available for the American people and if we're right as progressives that that public alternative is better then the American people will figure that out for themselves I trust the American people to make the right choice for them why don't you senator Sanders 45 seconds George you talked about 150 million people on private insurance 15 million of those people lose their private insurance every year when they quit their jobs or they go unemployed or their employer changes their insurance policy Medicare for all is comprehensive health care covers all basic needs including home health yeah it allows you to go to any doctor you want which many private insurance company programs do not so if you want comprehensive health care freedom of choice regarding doctor or hospital no more than $200 a year for prescription drugs taking on the drug companies and the insurance companies moving to medicare for all is a way to go senator Harris you started out co-sponsoring senator Sanders bill you now say you're uncomfortable with it why I want to give credit first to Barack Obama for really bringing us this far we would not be here if he hadn't the courage the talent or the will to see us this far I want to give credit to burning take credit Bernie you you know you brought us this far in Medicare for all I support Medicare for all I always have but I wanted to make the plan better which I did which is about offering people choice not taking that from them so under my medicare-for-all plan people have the choice of a private plan or a public plan because that's what people want and I agree we shouldn't take choice from people but here's the thing everybody on this stage I do believe is well-intentioned and wants that all Americans have coverage and recognizes that right now 30 million Americans don't have coverage but at least five people have talked some repeatedly on this subject and not once have we talked about Donald Trump so let's talk about the fact that Donald Trump came into office and spent almost the entire first year of his term trying to get rid of the Affordable Care Act we all fought against it and then the late great John McCain at that moment at about two o'clock in the morning killed his attempt take healthcare from millions of people in this country fast forward to today and what is happening Donald Trump's Department of Justice is trying to get rid of the Affordable Care Act Donald Trump's administration is trying to get rid of the the ban that we placed on undeniable Trump is trying to say that our kids up to the age of 26 can no longer be on our plans and frankly I think this discussion is given the American public a headache what they want to know is that they're gonna have health care and cost will not be a barrier to getting it but let's focus on the end goal if we don't get Donald Trump out of office he's gonna get rid of all of it seconds 15 seconds let me get to Carson over work and then bring you'll go ahead and 15 seconds look everybody says you want an option the option I'm proposing is a Medicare for all in Medicare for choice if you want Medicare if you lose the job from your insurance company your employer you automatically can buy into this you don't have no pre-existing condition can stop you from buying it you get covered period and if you notice nobody's yet said how much it's gonna cost the taxpayer I hear this large savings the president think my friend Vermont thinks that the employer is going to give you back if you negotiate his union all these years got a cut in wages because you got insurance they're gonna give back that money to the employee matter of fact they will well let me tell you something for socialists you got it you it for a socialist you got a lot more confidence in corporate America than I do by senator Sanders George go ahead all right two points you got to defend the fact that today not only do we have 87 million people uninsured and underinsured you got to defend the fact that 500,000 Americans are going bankrupt you know why they're going bankrupt because they suffered a terrible disease cancer or heart disease under my legislation people will not go into financial ruin because they suffered with the diagnosis of cancer and our program it's the only one that does that I know a lot of our cancer let me tell you something it's personal to me let me tell you something every single person who's diagnosed with cancer or any other disease can automatically become part of this plan they will not go bankrupt because of that they will not go bankrupt because that they can join immediately and we're talking four six eight ten years depending you talked about before we get to Medicare for all come on I've been there you've been there you know what it's like people need help now hope now and do something now kind of Center would yeah thank you listen I'm grateful that we all agree about the urgency of this challenge and the fact that Donald Trump is undermining the limited protections that we have right now but I also think we're being offered a false choice between those who propose an all-or-nothing gambit forcing tens of millions off of insurance that they like that works for them to force them on Medicare and others who want to as a vice president does incrementally improve what we have which will still leave many maybe millions uninsured and uncared-for in a state like Texas where the largest provider of mental health care services is a county jail system we've got to do better in my proposal Medicare for America says everyone who's uninsured will be enrolled in Medicare everyone who's in sufficiently insured cannot afford it can move over to Medicare and those like members of unions who fought for the health care plans that work for them and their families are able to keep them that is the best possible path there is the top issue for everyone in the country I want to make sure everyone gets one minute to respond to comments senator secretary Castro Andrew Yang and then senator senator Booker you thank you and you know I also want to recognize the work that Bernie has done on this and of course we owe a debt of gratitude to President Barack Obama now of course I also work for President Obama a Vice President Biden and I know that the problem with your plan is that it leaves 10 million people uncovered now on the last debate stage in Detroit you said that wasn't true when senator Harris brought that up there was a fact check of that and they said that was true you know I grew up with a grandmother who had type 2 diabetes and I watched her condition get worse and worse but that whole time she had Medicare I want every single American family to have a strong Medicare plan available if they choose to hold on to strong solid private health insurance I believe they should be able to do that but the difference between what I support and what you support Vice President Biden is that you require them to opt in and I would not require them to opt in they would automatically be enrolled they wouldn't have to buy in that's a big difference because Barack Obama's vision was not to leave 10 million people uncovered he wanted every single person in this country covered my plan would do that your plan would you do not have to buy in they do not have to buy you just said that you just said that two minutes ago you just said two minutes ago that they would have to buy in you said they would have to buy to buy in if Spalla fire you are you forgetting what you said of Maddox and being four what you said just two minutes ago I mean I can't believe that you said two minutes ago that they had to buy in and now you're saying they don't have to buy you're forgetting that look grandmother who has no money she will automatically and radically enrolls people regardless of whether they choose to opt in or not if you lose your job for instance his his health care plan would not automatically enroll you you would have to opt in my health care plan would that's a big difference I'm fulfilling in fulfilling the legacy of Barack Obama and you're not I would be surprised to him Andrew yang this is why presidential debates are becoming unwatchable this reminds everybody of what they cannot stand about Washington scoring points against each other kind of poking at each other and telling each other that you're my plan your play look we all know that's called the Democratic primary election [Applause] it's an election but a hundred house divided cannot stand that is not how we know we're on the same team here we know we're the same team we all have a better vision for healthcare than our current president and I believe we're talking about this the wrong way as someone who has run a business I know that our current health care system makes it harder to hire people makes it harder to give them benefits and treat them as full-time employees you instead pretend they're contractors it's harder to change jobs it's certainly harder to start a business the pitch we have to make the American people is we will get the health care weight off of your backs and then unleash the hopes and dreams of the American people senator I am Asian so I know a lot of doctors and they tell me that they spend a lot of time on paperwork avoiding being sued and navigating the insurance bureaucracy we have to change the incentives so instead of revenue and activity people are focused on our health in the healthcare system and the Cleveland Clinic where they're paid not based upon how many procedures they prescribe shocker they prescribed fewer procedures and patient health stays the same or improves that is the pitch the American people senator Booker closed out this discussion thank you very much there are a lot of people watching at home right now listening to us that are afraid because they are in crisis they don't have health insurance their health insurance doesn't go far enough they can't afford their prescription drugs look I'm clearing what I believe I believe in Medicare for all I believe it's the best way to rationalize the system but dear God I know that every one of my colleagues on this stage is in favor of universal health coverage and comes at this with the best of intentions and I'll tell you there is an urgency right now in this nation everybody feels it and as a person who has an ideal I know we cannot sacrifice progress on the altar of purity because people in my community they need help right now they have high blood pressure right now they have unaffordable insulin right now and this must be a moment where we as Democrats can begin to show that we can not only stake and stand our ground but find common ground because we've got one shot to make Donald Trump a one-term president and we cannot lose it by the way we talk about each other or demonize and degrade each other we can walk and chew gum at the same time if I am the leader I will work toward the ideal of health insurance health coverage being a right for all Americans but every single day I'll join with other Democrats to make progress happen in our nation for the people that are struggling and suffering today candidates Thank You Lindsey Davis thanks George since we're here at an HBCU I'd like to start with young black voters several recent polls indicate their number one concern is racism this campus this state and this nation are still raw from that racially motivated attack on Latinos in El Paso now we know that the racial divide started long before President Trump and President Obama but each of you on this stage has said that President Trump has made that divide worse congressman O'Rourke coming to you first why are you the most qualified candidate to address this divide you know I called this out in no uncertain terms on August third and every day since then and I was talking about it long before then as well racism in America is endemic it is foundational we can mark the creation of this country not at the 4th of July 1776 but August 20th 1619 when the first kidnapped African was brought to this country against his will and in bondage and as a slave built the greatness and the success and the wealth that neither he nor his descendants would ever be able to fully participate in and enjoy we have to be able to answer this challenge and it is found in our education system where in Texas a five-year-old child in kindergarten is five times as likely to be disciplined or suspended or expelled based on the color of their skin in our health care system where there is a maternal mortality crisis three times as deadly for women of color or the fact that there's 10 times the wealth in white America than there is in black America I'm gonna follow Sheila Jackson leaves lead and sign into law a reparations bill that will allow us to address this but we will also call out the fact that we have a white supremacist in the White House and he poses a mortal threat to people of color all across this country [Applause] I want to commend bethlo for how well he has spoken to the the passion and the frustration and the sadness after what happened in his hometown of El Paso he's done a great job with that look a few weeks ago a shooter drove 10 miles inspired by this 10 hours inspired by this President to kill people who look like me and people who look like my family white supremacy is a growing threat to this country and we have to root it out I'm proud that I put forward a plan to disarm hate I'm also proud that I was the first to put forward a police reform plan because we're not going to have anymore laQuan McDonald's or Eric Garner's or Michael Browns or Pamela Turner's or Walter Scott's or Sandra bland here from the Houston area we need to root out racism and I believe that we can do that because that doesn't represent the vast majority of Americans who do have a good heart they also need a leader to match that and I will be a president that matches that senator Booker you have said quote the real question isn't who is or isn't a racist it's who's going to do something about it senator what do you plan to do about it well first and foremost I want to hit that point because we know Donald Trump's a racist but there is no red bag of courage for calling in that race is amygz ist's the question isn't who in who isn't a racist it's who is and isn't doing something about racism and this is not just an issue that started yesterday it's not just an issue that we hear a president that can't condemn white supremacy we have systemic racism that is eroding our nation from health care to the criminal justice system and it's nice to go all the way back to slavery but dear God we have a criminal justice system that is so racially biased we have more african-americans under criminal supervision today than all the slaves in 1850 we have to come at this issue attacking systemic racism having the courage to call it out and having a plan to do something about it if I am President of the United States we will create an office in the White House to deal with the problem of white supremacy and hate crimes and we will make sure that systemic racism is dealt with in substantive plans from criminal justice reform to the disparities in health care to even one that we don't talk about enough which is the racism that we see in environmental injustice and communities of color all around this country in your own community you've also said that anyone who votes to reelect President Trump is at best looking the other way on racism does that sort of talk alienate voters and potentially deepen divisions in our country I believe what's deepen divisions in the country is the conduct of this President and we have a chance to change all of that look systemic racism preceded this president and even when we defeat him it will be with us that's why we need a systemic approach to dismantle it it's it's not enough to just take a racist policy replace it with a neutral one and expect things will just get better on their own harms compound in the same way that a dollar saved compound so does a dollar stolen and we know that the generational theft of the descendants of slaves is part of why everything from housing to education to health to employment basically puts us in two different countries I have proposed the most comprehensive vision to tackle systemic racism in every one of these areas marshaling as many resources as went into the Marshall Plan that rebuilt Europe but this time a Douglass plan that we invest right here at home to make sure that we're not only dealing with things like the over incarceration of black Americans but also black solutions entrepreneurship raising to 25 percent the target for the federal government to do business with minority-owned businesses investing in HBCUs that are training and educating the next generation of entrepreneurs we can and must do that but that means transcending this framework that pits us against each other that pits a single black mother of three against a displaced auto worker because when I come where I come from a lot of times that displaced auto worker is a single black mother of three we've got to say that and bring people together also a concern for people of color is criminal justice reform senator Harris you released your plan for that just this week and it does contradict some of your prior positions among them you used to oppose the legalization of marijuana now you don't you used to oppose outside investigations and police shootings now you don't you've said that you've changed on these and other things because you were quote swimming against the current and thankfully the currents have changed but when you had the power why didn't you try to effect change then there have been there have been I'm glad you asked me this question and there have been many distortions of my record let me be very clear I made a decision to become a prosecutor for two reasons one I've always wanted to protect people and keep them safe and second I was born knowing about how this criminal justice system in America has worked in a way that has been informed by racial bias and I could tell you extensively about the experiences I and my family members have personally had but I made a decision that if I was going to have the ability to reform the system I would try to do it from the inside and so I took on the position that allowed me without asking permission to create one of the first in the nation the initiatives that was a model and became a national model around people who were arrested for drugs and getting them jobs I created one of the first in the nation requirements that a state law enforcement agency would have to wear cameras and keep them on full-time I created one of the first in the nation trainings for police officer on the issue of racial bias and the need to reform the system was I able to get enough done absolutely not but my plan has been described by activists as being a bold and comprehensive plan that is about ending mass incarceration about taking the profit out of the criminal justice system I plan on shutting down for-profit prisons on day one it will be about what we need to do to hold law enforcement including prosecutors accountable and finally my plan is about making sure that in America's criminal justice system we D incarcerate women and children that we end solitary confinement and that we work on keeping families intact and as president of the United States knowing the system from the inside I will have the ability to be an effective leader and get this job complete thank you senator Harris senator Klobuchar eight years as a prosecutor in Minnesota there were dozens of incidents where black men were killed by police critics say that too often you sided with police in these cases the ACLU is legal director in Minnesota has said that you showed no interest in racial justice do you wish now that you had done more that's not my record we are here at a historically black college and I think of an alum of that college Barbara Jordan in something that she once said she said what the people want is simple they want a country as good as its promise and that same can be said of the criminal justice system so when I was there the way we handled these police shootings I actually took a stand to make sure outside investigators handled them I took on our major police chief in Minneapolis but in the prosecutor's office they were handled with the grand jury that's how they were all handled across our state I now believe it is better for accountability if the prosecutor handles them and makes those decisions herself that aside I am proud of the work our staff did for hundred people in our office the cases that came to us african-american community that came to us they said there was no justice for their little kids there was a kid named Byron Phillips that was shot on his front porch no one had bothered to figure out who did it when I came into that office we worked with the community groups we put up billboards we found the shooter and we put him in jail we did the same for the killer of a little girl named Aisha Edwards who was doing her homework at her kitchen table and was shot through the window what changes did we make go after white-collar crimes in a big way diversify the office in a big way work with the Innocence Project to make sure we do much better with eyewitness ID and as a senator and as your president I will make sure that we don't just do the first-step Act when it comes to criminal sentencing that we move to the second step Act which means the 90% of people that are incarcerated in local and state jails let's reduce those sentences for nonviolent offenders and let's get them jobs and let them vote when they get out of prison thank you you all believe that the war on drugs has put too many Americans behind bars Vice President Biden do you have a plan to release many nonviolent drug offenders from prison senator Booker says that your plan is not ambitious enough your response first of all let me say that when I came back from law school I had a job with a great a big time law firm and left and became a public defender because my state was under siege when dr. King was assassinated we were occupied by the National Guard for ten months I've been involved in beginning as a young congressman as young a councilman I introduced legislation to try to keep them putting a sewer plant in the poor neighborhood I made sure that we did deal with redlining banks should have to lend where they operate etc the fact of the matter is that what's happened is that we're in a situation now where there are so many people who are in jail and shouldn't be in jail the whole means by which this should change is the whole model has to change we should be talking about rehabilitation nobody should be in jail for a non-violent crime as when we were in the White House would release 36,000 people from the federal prison system nobody should be in jail for a drug problem they should be going directly to a rehabilitator billet ation centers not prisons we I'm the guy that put in the the drug courts to divert people from the criminal justice system and so we have to change the whole way we look at this and we put people in prison we have to equip them that when they get out nobody who got in prison for marijuana for example immediately upon being released they shouldn't be in there for mister that should be a misdemeanor they should be out and their record should be expunged every single rights should be returned when you finish your term in prison you should be able not only vote but have access to Pell grants have access to be able to get housing have access to be able to move along the way I've laid out a detailed plan along those lines and the fact is we've learned so much more senator Booker 45 seconds to respond um our criminal justice has been so savagely broken there's no difference in America between blacks whites and Latinos for using drugs or dealing drugs but if you're african-american you're almost four times more likely to be arrested and incarcerated destroying your life and so much of this comes down to privilege we have a criminal justice system that Brian Stevenson says treats you better if you're rich and guilty than if you're a poor and innocent and so I have challenged this whole field we can specifically and demonstratively now show that there are 17,000 people unjustly incarcerated in America and all of us should come forward and say when we are present in the United States when I am president I states we will release them and let me be specific I joined together and led in the United States Senate the only major bipartisan bill passed under this present for criminal justice reform that has already led to thousands of people coming out of jail if 87 members of the United States Senate says that these sentences are way too long and we changed it but we didn't make it retroactive we could literally point to the people that are in jail unjustly right now everyone on this stage should say that we are going to give clemency to these 17,000 people and I challenge you don't just say big statement back it up with details of the people in prison right now looking for one of the most sacrosanct ideals of this nation which is liberty and freedom we need to reform this system and we must do it now every day thank you lindsay i want to turn to the deadly mass shootings here in this country and of course we are all mindful tonight of where we stand we are here in texas tonight where 29 people have lost their lives in just the last month alone el paso which we've discussed in odessa and I know there are survivors from El Paso right here in the hall tonight Vice President Biden I do want to direct this to you because we all remember Sandy Hook 26 people died in that school 20 of them children those first graders would be in eighth grade today at the time there was a groundswell in this country to get something done President Obama asked you to leave the push for gun control you have often pointed to your ability to reach across the aisle to get things done but four months after Sandy Hook a measure to require expanded background checks died on the Senate floor if you couldn't get it done after Sandy Hook why should voters give you another chance done before I'm the only one up here's ever beat the NRA only one ever beginner and nationally I'm the guy that brought the Brady Bill in the in the focus and became law and so that's number one number two after Sandy Hook a number of things happen it went from a cause to a movement look what's happened now mother's the organization Mothers Against Violence this in what gun violence we've seen what's happened again now we have all these young people marching on Washington making sure that things are going to change there has been a sea change those proposals I put forward for the president had over 50% of gonna of gun of members of the NRA supporting them and overwhelmingly the rest of the people supporting him now the numbers are much higher because they realize what I've been saying and we've all been saying is correct over 90% of the American people think we have to get assault weapons off the street period and we have to get buybacks and get them out of their basements though so the point is things have changed and things have changed a lot and now what's happening is and by the way the way beto handle excuse me for saying better with congressman that's all right that's as good way he handled what happened in his hometown is meaningful but look in the eyes of those people to see those kids to understand those parents you understand the hardened but this we are all ready to do this mr. vice president you did bring up assault weapons here you did bring up assault weapons here and many of you on this stage that talked about executive order senator Harris you have said that you would take executive action on guns within your first 100 days including banning imports of ar-15 assault weapons that's right President Obama after Sandy Hook more than 23 executive actions and yet here we all are today in recent days former Vice President Biden has said about executive orders some really talented people are seeking the nomination they said I'm going to issue an executive order Biden saying there's no constitutional authority to issue that executive order when they say I'm going to eliminate assault weapon saying you can't do it by executive order any more than Trump can do things when he says he can do it by executive order does the vice president have a point there some things you can many things you can't let's let the senator answer well I mean I would just say hey Joe it said as saying no we can't let's say yes we can [Laughter] because I'll tell you something the way that I think about this is I've seen more autopsy photographs than I care to tell you I have attended more police officer funerals than I care to tell you I have hugged more mothers of homicide victims than I care to tell you and the idea that we would wait for this Congress which has just done nothing to act it's just it is it is overlooking the fact that every day in America our babies are going to school to have drills elementary middle and high school students where they are learning about how they have to hide in a closet or crouched in a corner if there is a mass shooter roaming the hallways of their school I was talking about this at one of my town halls and-and-and-and this child it was eight years old probably came up to me it was like it was a secret between the two of us and he tucked on my jacket and he said I had to have one of those drills it is traumatizing our children El Paso and Beit Oh God love you for standing so courageously in the midst of that tragedy you know people asked me in El Paso they said you know cuz I have a long-standing record on this issue they said well do you think Trump um is responsible for what happened and I said well look I mean obviously he didn't pulled the trigger but he's certainly been tweeting out the ammunition Harris Thank You vice president Godwin do you still stand by what you said on an executive who said was the question speak to constitutional scholars if in fact we could say by the way you can't own the following weapons period it cannot be sold anymore check with constitutional scholars I'm gonna I'm gonna work down the road here but I do want to come to congressmen or work because I know this is personal to you El Paso is your hometown some on this stage have suggested a voluntary buyback for guns in this country you've gone further you said quote Americans who own ar-15s and ak-47s will have to sell them to the government all of them you know the critics call this confiscation are you proposing taking away their guns and how would this work I am if it's a weapon that was designed to kill people on a battlefield if the high-impact high-velocity round when it hits your body shreds everything inside of your body because it was designed to do that so that you would bleed to death on a battlefield not be able to get up and kill one of our soldiers when we see that being used against children and in Odessa I met the mother of a 15 year old girl who was shot by an ar-15 and that mother watched her bleed to death over the course of an hour because so many other people were shot by that ar-15 in Odessa in Midland there weren't enough ambulances to get to them in time hell yes we're gonna take your ar-15 your ak-47 I'm listening to the people of this country the day after I proposed doing that I went to a gun show in Conway Arkansas to meet with those who are selling ar-15s and ak-47s and those who are buying those weapons and you might be surprised there was some common ground there folks who said I would willingly give that up cut it to pieces I don't need this weapon to hunt to defend myself it is a weapon of war so let's do the right thing but let's bring everyone in America into the conversation Republicans Democrats gun owners and non-gun owners alike make a point on Richmond thank you I want to bring in senator Klobuchar on this because you've often talked about your uncle and the proud hunters back home in Minnesota so I wanted to get your response to congressman or work tonight where do you stand on mandatory gun buybacks I so appreciate what the congressman's been doing and I want to remind people here that what unites us is so much bigger than what divides us everyone up here favors an assault weapon ban everyone up here favors magazine limitations which by the way would have made a huge difference that that was in place in El Paso in that store where all those ordinary people showed such extraordinary courage and certainly in Dayton Ohio where in 30 seconds one man guns down innocent people the cops got there in one minute and it still wasn't enough to save those people that's what unites us you know what else unites us and I'll tell you this what unites us is that right now on Mitch McConnell's desk our three bills universal background checks closing the Charleston loophole and passing my bill to make sure that domestic abusers don't get ak47 senators babies gonna get and I personally think we should start with the voluntary voluntary buyback program that's what I think David but I want to finish this because if you want action now if you want action now we gotta send the message to Mitch McConnell we can't wait until one of us gets in the White House we have to pass those bills right now to get this done senator Klobuchar it spare another innocent life thank you thank you I want to turn to Senator Booker because you have said just this week about guns and about the candidates on this stage that the differences do matter those were your words you have argued if you need a license to drive a car in this country you should have a license to buy a gun gun owners would not only have to pass a background check they would have to obtain a federal license to buy a gun this would require as you know Congress to pass legislation if Democrats can't get universal background checks how would you get this done and can you name one Republican colleague of yours in the Senate right now who would be on board with this idea so background checks and gun licensing these are agreed to by over whelming ly the majority for Americans 83% of Americans agree with licensing this is the issue look I grew up in the suburbs it was about 20 years ago that I came out of my home when I moved to inner city Newark New Jersey and witnessed the aftermath of a shooting it's one of the reasons why shooting after shooting after shooting in neighborhoods like mine for decades this has been a crisis for me it's why I was the first person to come out for gun licensing and I'm happy that people like better or workers showing such courage now and coming forward and also now supporting licensing but this is what I'm sorry about I'm sorry that it had to take issues coming to my neighborhood or personally affecting Beddoe to suddenly make us demand change this is a crisis of empathy in our nation we are never going to solve this crisis if we have to wait for it to personally affect us or our neighborhood our community before we demand action you want to know how we get this done we get this done by having a more courageous empathy where people don't wait for this hell to visit upon their communities they stand up and understand the truth of what King said that injustice any there is a threat to justice everywhere but I will lead change on this issue because I have seen what the carnage creates in communities like mine because we forget national shootings these mass shootings are tragedies but the majority of the homicide victims come from neighborhoods like mine nobody has ascended to the White House that will bring more personal passion on this issue I will fight this and bring a fight to the NRA and the corporate gun lobby like they have never seen before senator Booker thank you a quick follow-up though because Americans watching tonight know the reality of Congress in Washington I asked you have a Republican colleague in the Senate who would be on board with this idea to get this done you know if that was the attitude when Strom Thurmond had the longest syllabub filibuster ever on civil rights if it was this idea that we can't get it done because of the situation in the Senate I'm looking to lead a movement the number one reason why governments are formed is to protect the citizenry think about this we have had more people die due to gun violence in my lifetime then every single war in this country combined from the Revolutionary War till now this is not a side issue to me it is a central issue to me that is the kind of fight because the majority of homicide victims we've a mass shooting every single day in communities like mine we must awake at a more courageous empathy in this country so that we stand together and fight together and overwhelm those Republicans who are not even representing their constituency because the majority of Americans the majority of gun owners agree with me not the corporate gun lobby it is time for a movement on this issue and I will lead it Thank You senator Warren I want to you next because you have actually said in recent days that there are things you can get done with Republicans in the Senate what can you get done on gun control so let's start by framing the problem the right way we have a gun violence problem in this country the mass shootings are terrible but they got all the headlines children die every day on streets in neighborhoods on playgrounds people die from violence from suicide and domestic abuse we have a gun violence problem in this country and we agree on many steps we could take to fix it my view on this is we're gonna none it's not gonna be one and done on this we're gonna do it and we're gonna have to do it again and we're going to have to come back some more until we've taught the number of gun deaths in this country significantly but here's the deal the question we need to ask is when we've got this much support across the country ninety percent of Americans want to see us do I like registration want to see us do background checks want to get assault weapons off the ground off the streets why doesn't it happen and the answer is corruption pure and simple we have a Congress that is beholding to the gun industry and unless we're willing to address that head-on and rolling back the filibuster we're not going to get anything done on guns I was in the United States Senate when 54 senators said let's do background checks let's get rid of his salt weapons and with 54 senators it failed because of the filibuster until we attack the systemic problems we can't get done reform in this country we've got to go straight against the industry and we've got to change Congress so it doesn't just work for the wealthy and well-connected so it works for the people senator Warren thank you you bring up eliminating the filibuster which means you would need simply a simple majority in a Republican Senate to get something done I want to turn to senator Sanders on this because you've said before of this if Donald Trump supports ending the filibuster which he's talked about himself you should be nervous would you support ending the filibuster no but what I would support absolutely is passing major legislation the gun legislation the people here are talking about medicare-for-all climate change legislation that saves the planet I will not wait for 60 votes to make that happen and you could do it in a variety of ways you could do that through Budget Reconciliation law you have a vice president will in fact tell the Senate what is appropriate and what is not what is in order and what is not but I want to get back to a point that Elizabeth made and that in fact in terms of gun issues and picking up on Gauri and bado and everybody else what we are looking at is a corrupt political system and that means whether it is the drug companies or the insurance companies or the fossil fuel industry determining what's happening in Washington or in this case you got in NRA which has intimidated the President of the United States and the Republican leadership I am proud I am proud that year after year I had an F rating from the NRA and as president I will not be intimidated by the NRA senator Sanders thank you there's a lot about what's been happening here in in Texas only a few weeks ago the deadliest massacre of Latinos Latinos in modern US history happen in this state no paso so the fear among Latinos and you know this is very real so let me start with an issue that is causing a lot of division in this country immigration Vice President Biden as a presidential candidate in 2008 you supported the border wall Shane unlike most Democrats I voted for 700 miles of fence this is what you said then you serve as vice president in an administration that deported 3 million people the most ever in US history did you do anything to prevent those deportations I mean you've been asked this question before and refused to answer so let me try once again I referred to say tonight that you and President Obama made a mistake about the poor tations why should Latinos trust you Latinos should look at is comparing this president to the president we have is outrageous number one we didn't lock people up in cages we didn't separate families we didn't do all of those things number one I'm to number two by the time this is the president came along with the daca program no one had ever done that before mr. president sent a legislation to desk saying he wants to find a pathway for the 11 million undocumented in the United States of America this the president has done a great deal so I'm proud to have served with him what I would do as president is several more things because things have changed I would in fact make sure that there is we immediately surged to the border all those people are seeking asylum they deserve to be heard that's who we are we're a nation says if you want to flee and your friend oppression you should come I would change the order that the president just changed say women who were being beaten and abused could no longer claim that as a reason for asylum and by the way retrospectively you know the 25th anniversary of the Violence Against Women Act is up the Republican Congress has not reauthorized it let's put pressure on them to pass the Violence Against Women Act now you didn't answer the question did you make them no did you make a mistake with those deportations the president did the best thing that was able to be done it's about you I'm the vice president and state's secretary Castro would you want to respond but you know and let me put this in context because your party controlled the White House and Congress in 2009 and didn't pass immigration reform and this broke a promise made by President Barack Obama to Latinos so why should voters Fross Democrats now I mean now it is even more difficult as you know because you need Republican votes in the Senate so are you willing for instance to give up daca or give up a path to citizenship or even agree to build a wall in order to legalize 10.5 million undocumented immigrants Jorge thank you very much for that question and you look I agree that Barack Obama was very different from Donald Trump Donald Trump has a dark heart when it comes to immigrants he built his whole political career so far on scapegoating and fear-mongering and authorizing migrants and that's very different for Barack Obama but my problem with Vice President Biden and Cory pointed this out last time is every time something good about Barack Obama comes up he says oh I was there I was there I was there that's me too and then every time somebody questions part of the administration that we were both part of he says well that was the president I mean he wants to take credit for Obama's work but not have to answer to any questions let me just say that I would I was the first candidate in early April to put forward an immigration plan you know why because I'm not afraid of Donald Trump on this issue I'm not gonna backpedal I'm not gonna pretend like I don't have a my own vision for immigration so we're not going to give up Dhaka we're not going to give up protections for anybody I believe that on January 20th 2021 we're gonna have a Democratic president we're gonna throw out Mitch McConnell and John Cornyn and have a Democratic Senate and a Democratic House and we're gonna pass immigration reform within the first hundred days as president 25 seconds I did not say I don't stand I stand with Barack Obama all eight years good bad and indifferent that's where I stand I did not say I did not stand with him okay senator Warren hundreds of children have been separated from their parents at the border and recently in Mississippi we saw the largest immigration rate in a decade you want to replace ice the agency in charge of rounding up undocumented immigrants so how would you deal with the millions of immigrants who arrived legally what overstay their visas and how would you stop hundreds of thousands of Central Americans who want to migrate to the US well I start with a statement of principles and that is in this country immigration does not make us weaker immigration makes us stronger I want to see us expand legal immigration and create a pathway to citizenship for our dreamers but also for their grandparents and for their cousins for people whose overstayed student visas and for people who came here to work in the fields I want to have a system that is a path to citizenship that is fair and achievable down at the border we've got to rework this entirely a system right now that cannot tell the difference in the threat posed by a terrorist a criminal and a 12 year old girl is not a system that is keeping us safer and it is not serving our values mr. young wait we need I want to add one more part on this because I think we have to look at all the pieces why do we have a crisis at the border in no small part because we have withdrawn help from people in Central America who are suffering we need to restore that help we need to help establish and re-establish the rule of law so that people don't feel like they have to flee for their lives we have a pricess that Donald Trump has created and hopes to profit from politically we have to have the courage to stand up and fight back mr. yang it is true that in the last few years we have seen the most severe anti measures from putting kids in cages to limiting an asylum for people fleeing gangs and domestic violence but it is also true that about 1 million immigrants enter the US legally every year so are you willing to raise the number of legal immigrants from 1 million to 2 million per year and should there be a merit system as president from bonds yeah he said it ok sorry my my father grew up on a peanut farm in Asia with no floor and now his son is running for president that is the immigration story that we have to be able to share the American people if you look at our history almost half of Fortune 500 companies were founded by their immigrants or children of immigrants and rates of business formation are much higher in immigrant communities we have to say the American people immigrants are positive for our economic and social dynamism and I would return the level of legal immigration to the to the point it was under the obama-biden administration I think we have to compete for talent and I am the opposite of Donald Trump in many ways he says build a wall I'm going to say that immigrants come to America because if you come here your son or daughter can run for president the water is great and this is where you want to build a company build a family and build a life this country has been a magnet for human capital for generations if we lose that we lose something integral to our continued success and that is where I would lead as president I've got the pit roundabout okay I can defeat eight out of ten Latinos in Texas for another mass shooting targeting them this is according to a new Univision poem president Rome has called Mexican immigrants rapists and killers try to ban Muslims from entering the country and separated children from their parents his supporters have chanted build a wall and send her back do you think that people who support president from and his immigration policies are racist anyone who supports this is supporting racism as a seismologist sincere the only people though who actually buy into this president's hateful rhetoric around immigrants are people who don't know any we have an opportunity to build an American majority around immigration reform in my community a group of conservative Republicans rallied around an individual a beloved local individual who was deported when he went into ice to try to get his paperwork sorted out because they never thought it would happen to him in some of the most conservative rural areas of Iowa I have seen communities that embraced immigration grow and it's why part of my plan for revitalizing the economies of rural America includes Community Renewal visas that would allow cities and towns and counties that are hurting not only for jobs but for population to embrace immigration as we have in my city you know the only reason that South Bend is growing right now after years of shrinking is immigration it's one of the reasons we acted not waiting for Washington to create city issued municipal IDs so the people regardless of immigration status in our city had the opportunity to have the benefits of identification we have an opportunity to actually get something done but we cannot allow this to continue to be the same debate with the same arguments and the same clever lines often among the same people since the last real reform happened in the 1980s we have to actually engage the American majority around the opportunities for not just growth in small communities but our values values with welcomed values of faith that all argue for us to manage this humanely and in a way that marries our values with our laws Congress Easter veteran a preventable death in an interview eight months ago you were asked what to do with a so-called over sales people who come with a recent density and you said I don't know do you have an answer now I do and if you read the rest of that article in The Washington Post I talked about harmonizing our entry/exit system with Mexico in the same way that we do with Canada I think that could help us to keep a handle on visa overstays but I think the larger question that we're trying to get at is how do we rewrite this country's immigration laws in our own image in the image of Houston Texas the most diverse city in the states of america in the image of El Paso Texas one of the safest cities in the United States of America safe not despite the fact that we are a city of immigrants safe because we are a city of immigrants Cano somos Kasich Adamo's asegurar nuestras comunidades us lopez necesitamos strata cada persona con respeto EDI nadar I will lead an effort to make sure that we rewrite our immigration laws in that way never caged another child make sure that there is accountability and justice for the seven lives lost under our care and our custody but also face the fact that Democrats and Republicans alike voted to build a wall that has produced thousands of deaths of people trying to cross to join family or to work a job that we have been part of deporting people hundreds of thousands just in the Obama administration alone who posed no threat to this country breaking up their families Democrats have to get off the back foot we have to lead on this issue because we know it is right legalize America begin with those more than 1 million dreamers make them US citizens right now in this their true home country and extend that to their parents their sisters and their brothers and ensure that we have a legal safe orderly system to come to this country and add to our greatness here turn now to NASA security and the forum that has such a direct impact here at home the u.s. relationship with China trade and president Trump's tariffs we received more than a hundred questions from viewers one you know how all of you are gonna handle these tariffs see mr. yang let me begin with you would you repeal the tariffs on your first day in office and if so would you risk losing leverage in our trade relationship with China I would not repeal the tariffs on day one but I would let the Chinese know that we used to hammer out a deal because right now the tariffs are pummeling producers and farmers in Iowa who are absolutely nothing to do with the imbalances that we have with China a CEO friend of mine was in China recently and he said that he saw a pirated US intellectual property on worker workstations to the tune of thousands of dollars per head and he said one how can my workers compete against that and to think about all the lost revenue to American companies so the imbalances are real but we have to let the Chinese know that we recognize that President Trump has pursued an arbitrary and haphazard trade policy that has had victims on both sides so no to repealing the tariffs immediately but yes to making sure we come to a deal that addresses the the concerns of American companies and American producers mayor Pete let me take that question let me take that question you because have you've seen President Trump's tweets he says what's going to happen here is the Chinese eaters gonna wait him out so they can get a Democrat who they can take advantage of how do you think about China we've seen President Trump call President Xi both an enemy and a friend well the president clearly has no strategy you know when I first got into this race I remember President Trump scoffed and said he'd like to see me making a deal with Xi Jinping I'd like to see him making a deal with Xi Jinping is it just me or was that supposed to happen in like April it's one more example of a commitment not made when that happens on the international stage people take note not just our competitors our adversaries but also our allies take note of the inability of the United States to keep its word or follow through on its plans and when that happens there are serious consequences we saw it at the g7 the leaders of some of the greatest powers and economies of the world sitting to talk about one of the greatest challenges in the world climate change and there was literally an empty chair where American leadership could have been the problem is this is a moment when American leadership is needed more than ever whether it's in Hong Kong where those protesters for democracy need to know that they have a friend in the United States or anywhere around the world where increasingly we see dictators throwing their weight around the world needs America but it can't be just any American would you have the terrace I would have a strategy that would include the tariffs as leverage but it's not about the terrace look what's going on right now is the president who has reduced the entire China challenge into a question of of tariffs when what we know is that the tariffs are coming down on us more than anybody else and there's a lack of a bigger stress then on Cobra you've actually supported the tariffs on steel what we've got right now though George it's not a focus tariffs on steel what he has done here he has assessees tariffs on our allies he has put us in the middle of this trade war and he is treating our farmers and our workers like poker chips in one of his bankrupt casinos and if we are not careful he is going to bankrupt this country one forecast recently says that it has already cost us 300,000 jobs all right there is soybeans that are mounting up in bins all over the Midwest in my state of Minnesota and in Iowa so what I think we need to do is to go back to the negotiating table that's what I would do I wouldn't have put all these tariffs in place and I wouldn't have had a trade policy where on August 1st he announces he's going to have tariffs on 300 billion dollars of goods on August 13th he cuts it in half a week later he says he's going to reduce taxes the day after that he says he's going to do it the leaders of the world are watching this and it undermines our strength as a nation and yes we want fair trade but we must work with the rest of the world and he has made a mockery of focused trade policy which I think means enforcement like we've done in northern Minnesota passing bills getting President Obama to do more on that so that our workers can benefit so we are importing exporting goods and making sure that is a competitive policy where our goal is that we are making things inventing things and exporting to the world he is defeating that goal secretary Cass are you actually in one of the previous debates identified China is the most serious national security threat to our country I want to pick up on what senator Klobuchar was saying though she'd said she'd go back to the negotiating table the question is what do you do for leverage where do you get it well look I agree with those who have said that this erratic haphazard trade war is hurting American families as senator Klobuchar said 300,000 American jobs it's estimated that its cost $600 to the average American family just a couple of days ago 60% of Americans said that they believe that were in for a recession next year so when I become president I would immediately begin to negotiate with China to ratchet down that trade war we have leverage there I also believe though that we need to return to a leader when it comes to things like human rights we have millions of we Gers for instance in China that right now are being imprisoned and mistreated and in North Korea this president is elevating a dictator we need to stop that we need to return to ensuring that America leads again on human rights when it comes to this trade war I would immediately begin ratcheting that trade war down we have leverage in that discussion senator Warren let me bring you in on this this conversation President Obama signed the trans-pacific partnership in part it was designed to rein in China to bring China in to some kind of regulation what do you think he got wrong so our trade policy in America has been broken for decades and it has been broken because it works for giant multinational corporations and not for much of anyone else these are giant corporations that shoot if they can save a nickel by moving a job to a foreign country they'll do it in a heartbeat and yet for decades now who's been whispering in the ears of our trade negotiators who have shaped our trade policy it's been the giant corporations it's been their lobbyists and their executives the way we change our trade policy in America is first the procedures who sits at the table I want him to go she a trade with unions at the table I want to negotiate it with small farmers at the table I want to negotiate it with environmentalists at the table I wanted to go she ate with human rights activists at the table and you asked the question about leverage if I can just respond to that one the leverage are you kidding everybody wants access to the American market that means that we have the capacity to say right here in America you want to come sell goods to American consumers and you got to raise your standards you've got to raise your labor standards and you've got to raise your environmental standards so our companies could compete on a level playing field we can use trade not to undermine American workers and not to undermine American farms and not to undermine small businesses in this country we can use trade to help build a stronger economy senator Harris how would you how would your trade policy different from President Obama's well first of all I have no criticism of that more than just looking at where we are now which is that we've got a guy in the White House who has been erratic on trade policy he conducts trade policy by tweet frankly born out of his fragile ego it has resulted in farmers in Iowa with soybeans rotting in bins looking at bankruptcy when we look at this issue my trade policy under Harris administration is always going to be about saying we need to export American products not American jobs and to do that we have to have a meaningful trade policy I am NOT a protectionist Democrat look we need to sell our stuff and that means we need to sell it to people overseas that means we need trade policies that allow that to happen you asked earlier about China it's a complicated relationship we have to hold China accountable they steal our products including our intellectual property they dub substandard products into our economy they need to be held accountable we also need to partner with China on climate and the that presents we need to partner with China on the issue of North Korea I am on and I think the only person on this stage the Senate Intelligence Committee in the Senate Homeland Security Committee we need a partner on the issue of North Korea but the bottom line is this Donald Trump in office on trade policy you know he reminds me of that that guy in The Wizard of Oz you know when you pull back the curtain it's a really small dude okay I'm not even gonna take the bait there is a reason why in the last 45 years the average American today despite an explosion of Technology and worker productivity is not making a penny more that he or she made 45 years ago and one of the reasons is that for decades we have had disastrous trade policies and I gotta say to my good friend Joe Biden Joe and I strongly disagree on trade I helped lead the opposition the NAFTA PNTR which cost this country over four million good-paying jobs and what happened is people who had those jobs ended up getting other jobs making 50 percent of what they made in manufacturing so Trump obviously has a new clue Trump thinks that trade policy is a tweet at 3 o'clock in the morning what we have got to do is develop a trade policy that represents workers represents the farmers in the Midwest and elsewhere will losing billions right now because of Trump's policy a trade policy which understands that if a companies shuts down in America and goes abroad and then thinks they're gonna get online to get a lucrative federal contract under Bernie Sanders they got other guests coming Vice President Biden invoked your name yeah well look we're they're gonna make policy or China's gonna make the trade the rules of the road we make up 25% of the world economy we need another of 25% to join us and I think Elizabeth senator Warren is correct at the table has to be Labour and ask the table have to be environment the fact of the matter is China the problem isn't the trade deficit the problem is they're stealing our intellectual property the problem is they're violating the WTO they're dumping steel on us that's a different issue than whether or not they're dumping agricultural products on us in addition to that we're in a position where if we don't set the rules we in fact they're going to find ourselves with China setting the rules and that's why you need to organize the world to take on China to stop the corrupt practices that are underway senator Booker close out this room sure there's one point we're really missing on the stage right now which is the fact that Donald Trump's America first policy is actually in America isolated in America alone policy from trade to battling China to the crime global crisis of climate change the challenges in the Middle East he is pulling us away from our allies out of the Iran deal out of the Paris climate Accords and on trade he's deciding to take on China while at the same time taking on tariff battles with all of our allies you literally have him using a national security waiver to put tariffs on Canada now look I'm the only person on the stage that finds Trudeau's hair very menacing but they are not a national security threat we cannot go up against China alone this is a president has a better relationship with dictators like do tart a and Putin that he does with Merkel and Makran we were the strongest nation on the planet earth and our strength is multiplied and magnified when we stand with our allies in common cause and common purpose that's how we beat China that's how we beat climate change on the planet Earth and that's how our American values are the ones that lead on issues of Trade and workers rights George thank you I want to turn now to our troops overseas into America's longest war in Afghanistan u.s. talks with the Taliban are dead according to the president secret talks at Camp David have been canceled before they could happen many of you have waited on that already so I want to move past that tonight to what all of you have promised on the campaign trail many of you on this stage have said you'd bring the troops home in your first term others have said in your first year senator Warren we all know the presidency is much different from the campaign trail President Obama wanted to bring the troops home President Trump promised to bring the troops home and you have said of Afghanistan let's help them reach a peace settlement it is time to bring our troops home in your words starting right now would you keep that promise to bring the troops home starting right now with no deal with the Taliban yes and I'll tell you why what we're doing right now in Afghanistan is not helping the safety and security of the United States it is not helping the safety and security of the world it is not helping the safety and security of Afghanistan we need to bring our troops home and then we need to make a big shift we cannot ask our military to keep solving problems that cannot be solved militarily we're not going to bomb our way to a solution in Afghanistan we need to treat the problem of terrorism as a worldwide problem and that means we need to be working with all of our allies our European allies our Canadian allies our Asian allies our allies in Africa and in South America we need to work together to root out terrorism it means using all of our tools it means economic investment it means expanding our diplomatic efforts instead of hollowing out the State Department and deliberately making it so we have no eyes and ears in many of these countries we need a foreign policy that is about our security and about leading on our values senator Warren a quick follow on that because top US leaders military leaders on the ground in Afghanistan told me you can't do it without a deal with the Taliban you just said you would you would bring them home what if they told you that would you would listen to their advice I was in Afghanistan with John McCain two years ago this past summer I think it may have been Senator McCain's last trip before he was sick and I talked to people we did we talked to military leaders American and local leaders we talked to people on the ground and ask the question the same one I asked on the Senate Armed Services Committee every time one of the generals comes through show me what winning looks like tell me what it looks like and what you hear is a lot of home because no one can describe it and the reason no one can describe it is because the problems in Afghanistan are not problems that can be solved by a military I have three older brothers who have served in the military I understand firsthand the kind of commitment they have made they will do anything we ask them to do but we cannot ask them to solve problems that they alone cannot solve we need to work with the rest of the world we need to use our economic tools we need to use our diplomatic tools we need to build with our allies and we need to make the whole world safer not keep troops bombing in Afghanistan etre Warren thank you I do want to stay on this and I want to turn to Mayor Buda judge because you're the only veteran on this stage who served in Afghanistan we heard in recent days from General Joseph Dunford the chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who said in recent days I'm not going to use the word withdrawal right now it's our judgment the Afghans need support to deal with a level of violence if he's not even using the word withdrawal would you put your promise to bring troops home in the first year on hold to follow the advice you know I served under general Dunford way under general Dunford in Afghanistan and today September 12th 2019 means that today you could be 18 years old old enough to serve and have not been alive on 9/11 we have got to put an end to endless war and the way we do it is see to it that that country will never again be used for an attack against our homeland and that does not require an open-ended commitment of ground troops let me say something else because if there's one thing we've learned about Afghanistan from Afghanistan it's that the best way not to be caught up in endless war is to avoid starting one in the first and so when I am president an authorization for the use of military force will have a built-in three-year sunset Congress will be required to vote and a president will require be required to go to Congress to seek an authorization because if our troops can summon the courage to go overseas the least our members of Congress should be able to do is summon the courage to take a vote on whether they ought to be there by the way we also have a president right now who seems to treat troops as props or worse tools for his own enrichment we saw what's going on with flights apparently being routed through Scotland just so people can stay at his hotels I'll tell you as a military officer the very first thing that goes through your mind the first time you ever make eye contact with somebody that you were responsible for in uniform is do not let these men and women down this president is doing exactly that I will not mayor Buda judge thank you I want to turn to Vice President Biden because the concerns about any possible vacuum being crated Britain being created in Afghanistan if you pulled the US troops out has been heightened by what we've seen in recent days on the ground in Iraq when you were Vice President President Obama turned to you to bring the troops home from Iraq you have said on the campaign trail quote I made sure the president turned to me and said Joe get our combat troops out of Iraq there was a major drawdown of US troops and then Isis seized by some estimates 40 percent of the territory in Iraq he then had to send thousands of troops back in was it wrong to pull out of Iraq that quickly and did the move actually help Isis take hold no it wasn't wrong to pull up I want to answer Afghanistan question I've been in and out of Afghanistan not with a gun and I admire my friend for his service but I've been out of Afghanistan I think more than anybody on this on this and it's an open secret you report a long time ago George that I was opposed to the surge in Afghanistan the whole purpose of going to Afghanistan was to not have a counter insurgency meaning that we're gonna put that country together it can not be put together let me let me say it again it will not be put together it's three different countries Pakistan owns the three counties there's the three provinces and the East they're not in part of the connie's run it I will go on and on but here's the point the point is that it's a counterterrorism strategy we can prevent the United States from being the victim of terror coming out of Afghanistan by providing for bases and assists the Pakistanis provide basis for us so to airlift from and to move against what we know we don't need those troops there I would bring them home and Joe dumb for it's a fine guy but this has been an internal argument we've had for eight years with regard to with regard to Iraq the fact of the matter is that you know I should have never voted to give Bush authority to go in and do what he said he was going to do the AUMF was designed he said to go in and get the Security Council to vote 15 to nothing to allow inspectors to go in to determine whether or not anything was being done with chemical weapons or nuclear weapons and when that happened he went ahead and went anyway without any of that proof I said something that was not meant the way I said it I said from that point on what I was argued against in the beginning front once he started to put the troops in was that in fact we're doing it the wrong way there was no plan we should not be engaged we didn't have the people with us we didn't have our lines we didn't have allies with us etcetera and it was later when we came to in office the Barak turn the president turned to me and said Joe when they said we had a plan to get out he turned to the whole Security Center Joe will organize this get the troops home my son spent a year in Iraq and I understand it made and we were right to get the combat troops out the big mistake that was made which we predicted was that you would not have a circumstance where the Shia and the Kurds would work together to keep Isis from coming from moving in mr. vice president thank you I want to turn to senator Sanders on this because the concern over Afghanistan is very similar to what we saw in Iraq when the troops came out Isis filled that vacuum what do you make of people out there who are worried that if we pull out US troops too quickly from Afghanistan it will create safe haven all over again like the plotters of 9/11 let me answer that but let me just comment on something that the vice president said you talked about the big mistake in Iraq and the surge the truth is the big mistake the huge mistake and one of the big differences between you and me I never believed what Cheney and Bush said about Iraq your voted against the war in Iraq and helped lead the opposition and it's sad to say I mean I kind of had the feeling that there would be massive destabilization in that area if we went into that war is the former chairman of the Senate Committee on Veterans Affairs want to pick up on pizza we cannot express our gratitude to all of the men and women who have put their lives on the line to defend them defend us who have responded to the call of duty but I think also I am the only person up here to have voted against all three of trumps military budgets I don't think we have to spend 750 billion dollars a year on the military when we don't even know who our enemy is I think that what we have got to do is bring this world together bring it together on climate change bring it together in fighting against terrorism and make it clear that we as a planet as a global community will work together to help countries around the world rebuild their struggling economies and do everything that we can to rid the world of terrorism but dropping bombs on Afghanistan and Iraq was not the way to do it senator Sanders thank you I want to take this to mr. yang you share the stage as you know when we talk about troops in Iraq and Afghanistan with a vice president who was in the Situation Room with senators who are on the Senate Armed Services the Foreign Relations committees with an Afghanistan veteran who is on the stage tonight as you share the stage with these candidates what makes you the most qualified on this stage to be commander-in-chief I've signed a pledge to end the forever wars we've been in a state of continuous armed conflict for 18 years but does not the what the American people want we have to start owning what we can and can't do we're not very good at rebuilding countries and if you want proof all you have to do is look within our own country of Puerto Rico we've spent trillions of dollars to unclear benefits lost thousands of lives and thank you Pete for your service and the goal has to be to rebuild the relationships that have made America strong for decades I would lead our armed forces with restraint and judgment what the American people want is simply a president who has the right values and point of view and they can trust to make the right decisions when it comes to putting our young men and women into harm's way and that's what I would do as president mr. yang thank you for hey thank you very much vamos a hablar de américa latina you haven't been asked about Latin American the previous debates so let's begin senator Sanders one country where many immigrants are arriving from is Venezuela a recent UN fact-finding mission found that thousands had been disappeared shorter and killed by government forces in Venezuela you got me that Venezuela does not have free elections but still you refuse to call Nicolas Maduro addicted or a dictator can you explain why and what are the main differences between your kind of socialism and the one being imposed in Venezuela Cuba and Nicaragua well first of all let me be very clear anybody who does what Maduro does is a vicious tyrant what we need now is international and regional cooperation for free elections in Venezuela so that the people of that country can make it can create their own future terms of democratic socialism to equate what goes on in Venezuela with what I believe is extremely unfair I'll tell you what I believe in terms of democratic socialism I agree with what goes on in Canada and it's Scandinavia guaranteeing health care to all people as a human right I believe that the United States should not be the only major country on earth not to provide paid family and medical leave I believe that every worker in this country deserves a living wage and that we expand the trade union movement I happen to believe also that what to me democratic socialism means is we deal with an issue we do not discuss in a way not in the media and not in Congress you got three people in America owning more wealth than the bottom half of this country you got a handful of billionaires controlling what goes on in Wall Street the insurance companies and in the media maybe just B maybe what we should be doing is creating an economy that works for all of us not 1% that's why understanding of democratic social secretary I said you wanted to say respond 45 seconds sure thank you for hey I'll call Maduro dictator because he is a dictator and what we need to do is to along with our allies make sure that the Venezuelan people get the assistance that they need that we continue to pressure Venezuela so that they'll have free and fair elections and also here in the United States offer temporary protected status TPS to Venezuelans that is something that the Trump administration has failed to do for all of his big talk about supporting the Venezuelan American community he has failed I will not I also believe that we need to do things like a 21st century Marshall Plan for Honduras El Salvador and Guatemala so that people can find safety an opportunity at home instead of having to make the dangerous journey to the United States and under my administration we're gonna put renewed focus on Latin America it makes sense they're our neighbors and we have a lot of things in common it also makes sense that because we have a country like China that is going around the world to places like Africa and Latin America making their own relationship strengthening those the United States need to strengthen its partnerships in Latin America immediate leadership and I will senator Booker let me ask you about Brazil after the recent fires in the Amazon some experts suggested that eating less meat is one way to help the environment you are a vegan since 2014 that's obviously a personal choice but president from pan brazil's president of also narrow are concerned that climate change regulations could affect economic role so shoot more americans including those here in Texas and in Iowa follow your diet you know first of all I want to say no actually I want to translate that into Spanish no [Applause] look on let's just be clear the factory farming going on that's assaulting this corporate consolidation the agriculture industry one of the reasons why I have a bill to put a moratorium on this kind of corporate consolidation is because this factory farming is destroying and hurting our environment and you see independent family farmers being pushed out of business because of the kind of incentives we are giving that don't line up with our values that's what I'm calling for but I want to I want to switch because we don't have karate to debate stage we were talking about Afghanistan and in Iraq it annoys me that we had a conversation about our troops overseas and we didn't say one word about veterans in our country we have a shameful reality in America that we send people off to war and they often come home with invisible wounds hurts and harms they're disproportionately homeless you hear stories about women waiting for months for gynecological care through the VA it is very important that as we as a country understand that we are not gonna solve every problem with this outrageous increased militarism that we also make sure that we stand up for the people that stood for us we end our national anthem with home of the brave it's about time we make this a better home for our bravest congressman or or hurricane Harvey hit this town two years ago and not only is the Amazon burning Greenland is melting at a record pace the last five years have been the hottest ever recorded and we have a viewers question about this what meaningful action will you take to reverse the effect of climate change and can we count on you to follow through if your donors are against it yes we will follow through regardless of the political consequences or who it offends because this is the very future of our planet and our ability for our children and grandchildren to be able to survive on it we will make sure that we get to Net Zero greenhouse gas emissions no later than the year 2050 that we are halfway there by 2030 that we mobilize five trillion dollars over the next ten years to do that that we invest here in Houston Texas with pre-disaster mitigation grants to protect those communities that are vulnerable to flooding given the fact that this town has seen three five hundred year floods in just five years you'd like to think you're good for 1500 years but you're not they're coming faster and larger and more devastating than ever we're also going to make sure that we free ourselves from a dependence on fossil fuels and embrace renewable wind and solar energy technology as well as the high-paying high-skill high-wage jobs that come along with that and then we're gonna pay farmers for the environmental services that they want to provide planting cover crops keeping more land under conservation using no-till farming regenerative agriculture can pull carbon out of the air and can drive it and sequester it into the soil that's the way that we're gonna meet this challenge and we're gonna bring everyone into the solution many of you want to comment let's let's producing we can go very fast senator Klobuchar thank you this is the existential crisis of our time it's you know that movie The Day After Tomorrow it's today we have seen a warming in our world like never before we're seeing flooding in the Midwest flooding in Houston fires in the West and I think having someone leading the ticket from the Midwest will allow us to talk about this in a different way and get it done on day one I will get us back into the international climate change agreement on day two I will bring back the clean power rules that President Obama had worked on day three I will bring back the gas mileage standards you can do all that without Congress which is good on day four five and six I will working with Congress and mayors and business people all over the country introduced sweeping legislation to get at that 2050 goal and on day seven years most arrests but I won't senatorial we need to do if we're gonna get at climate change we have to take this on as a crisis that's happening right now and it's a warrant route American foreign policy be base are on the principle of climate change yes we need to work on every front on climate change it is the threat to every living thing on this planet and we are running out of every time the scientists go back they say we have less and less time than we thought we had but that means we've got to use all the tools one of the tools we need to use are our regulatory tools I have proposed following governor Inslee that we by 2028 cut all carbon emissions from new buildings by 2030 carbon emissions from cars and by 2035 all carbon emissions from the manufacture of electricity that alone those three will cut our emissions here in the United States by 70% we can do this we also need to help around the world to clean but understand this one more time why doesn't it happen as long as Washington is paying more attention to money that it is to our future we can't make the changes we need to make we have to attack the corruption head-on so that we can save our planet senator Ohio is 45 seconds when I think about this issue it really is through the lens of my baby nieces who are one and a half and three years old when I look at what is gonna be the world if we do nothing when they turn 20 I am really scared and when I've been in the United States Senate for now the last two and a half years and I look at our counterparts the Republicans in the United States Senate they must be looking at their children and then when they look at the mirror I don't know what they see but it's a lack of courage and this this is an issue that yes it represents an existential threat it is also something we can do something about this is a problem that was created by human behaviors and we can change our behaviors in a way that saves our planet I've seen it happen in California I took on as the Attorney General of California I ran the second largest department of justice in the United States second only to the United States Department of Justice I took on the big oil companies and we saw progress if any of you have been to Los Angeles 20 years ago you'll remember that sky was brown you go there now the sky is blue and you know why because leader just decided to lead and we took on these big fossil fuel companies we have some of the most important and strongest laws in the country and we made a difference in my point being I've done it before and I will lead as president on this issue because we have no time the clock is tipping ticking but we need courage and we need courageous leadership we can get this done mr. yang so to follow up on what Elizabeth said why are we losing to the fossil fuel companies why are we losing to the gun lobby in the NRA and the answer is this we all know everyone on the stage knows that our government has been overrun by money and corporate interests now everyone here has a plan to try and curb those corporate interests but we have to face facts money finds away money will find its way back in so what is the answer the answer is to wash the money out with people-powered money my proposal is that we give every American a hundred democracy dollars that you can only give to candidates and cause that you like this would wash out the lobbyists cash by a factor of eight to one that is the only way we will win and as someone running for president I'll tell you there's a people on one side and the money on the other the only way for us to win is if we bring them together thank you mister yeah [Applause] now about education mr. gang will stay with you here in Houston the school district is facing yet another year of spending cuts like schools across the country the system faces many challenges one of them thousands of students are leaving traditional public schools and going to charter schools you're the most vocal proponent on this stage for charter schools you've said that Democrats who want to limit them are quote just jumping into bed with teachers unions and doing kids a disservice why isn't taxpayer money better spent on fixing traditional public schools let me be clear I am Pro good school I've got a kid one of my little boys just started public school last week and I was not there because I was running for president so we need to pay teachers more because the data clearly shows that a good teacher is worth his or her weight and gold we need to lighten up the emphasis on standardized tests which do not measure anything fundamental about our character or human work but here's the big one the data clearly shows that 65 to 70 percent of our students outcomes are determined outside of the school we're talking about time spent at home with the parents words read to them when they're young stress levels in the house income type of neighborhood we're putting money into schools and educators know this we're saying you're a hundred percent responsible for educating our kids but you can only control 30 percent they all know this the answer is to put money directly into the families and neighborhoods to give our kids a chance to learn and our teachers a chance to teach now Ruby just 35 seconds to us step one is appoint a Secretary of Education who actually believes in public education I believe in public education and in order to strengthen it some things are very complex for preparing for a future where knowledge is at your fingertips but we got to teach more to do with critical thinking and social and emotional learning some of it is extremely simple we've just got to pay teachers more and we've got to lift up the teaching profession I was think of a story from South Bend of friends who hosted exchange students from Japan they had a student one year who wanted to be a teacher and they kept in touch with her when she went back to Japan into college she took the exam to try to become a teacher in a society that really regards teachers and compensates teacher as well and she came up just short so you know what she did since she was academically good but couldn't quite make the cut to be a teacher she had a fall black fallback plan she became a doctor that is how seriously some countries treat the teaching profession if we want to get the results that we expect for our children we have to support and compensate the teaching profession respect teachers the way we do soldiers and pay them more like the way we do doctors senator warren to use mr. Yang's term are you just jumping into bed with teachers unions you know I think I'm the only person on this stage who has been a public school teacher school teacher since I was in second grade and let's be clear in all the ways we talk about this money for public schools should stay in public schools not go anywhere I've already made my commitment I will we will have a Secretary of Education who has been a public school teacher I think this is ultimately about our values I have proposed a two-cent wealth tax on the top one-tenth of 1% in this country that would give us enough money to start with our babies by providing Universal childcare for every baby age 0 to 5 universal pre-k for every three-year-old and four-year-old in this country thank you so is the wages of every childcare worker and preschool teacher in this country cancel student loan debt for 95% of the folks at Thank You senator strengthen our unions this is how we build an America that reflects our values not just where the money comes from with the billionaire's in corporate exec senator Harris 45 seconds we spun my first grade teacher mrs. Francis Wilson god rest her soul attended my law school graduation I think most of us would say that we are not where we are without the teachers who believed in us I have offered in this campaign a proposal to deal with this which will be the first in the nation for federal investment in closing the teacher pay gap which is thirteen thousand five hundred dollars a year because right now in our public schools our teachers ninety four percent of them are coming out of their own pocket to help pay for school supplies and that is wrong I also want to talk about where we are here at TSU and what it means in terms of HBCUs I have as part of my proposal that we will put two trillion dollars into investing in our HBCUs for teachers because because because one as a proud graduate of a historically black college and university I will say I will say that it is our HBCUs that disproportionately produce teachers and those who serve in these many professions but on the senator but this is a critical point if a black child has a black teacher before the end of third grade there are 13 percent more likely to go to college if that child has had two black teachers before the end of third grade there are 32 percent more likely to go to college so when we talk about investing in our public education system it is at the source of so much when we fix it that will fix so many other things we must invest in the bank several senators and I strongly believe you can judge a society based on how it treats its children and we are facing on this issue [Applause] guess what you're guessing alright here's the answer we are the wealthiest country in the history of the world and yet we have the highest child poverty rate of almost any country on earth we have teachers in this country who are leaving education because they can't work two or three jobs to support themselves which is why under my legislation we'll move to see that every teacher in America makes at least $60,000 a year what we will also do is not only have universal pre-k we will make public colleges and universities and HBCUs debt-free and what we will also do because this is an incredible burden on millions millions of young people who did nothing wrong except try to get the education they need we are going to cancel all student debt in this country by imposing a tax on Wall Street speculation Thank You senator mr. vice president to you and talk to you about inequality in schools and race in a conversation about how to deal with segregation in schools back in 1975 you told a reporter I don't feel responsible for the sins of my father and grandfather I feel responsible for what the situation is today for the sins of my own generation and I'll be damned if I feel responsible to pay for what happened 300 years ago you said that some 40 years ago but as you stand here tonight what responsibility do you think that Americans need to take to repair the legacy of slavery in our country well they have to deal with in the book there is institutional segregation in this country and from the time I got involved I started dealing with that redlining banks making sure that we are in a position where look talk about education I propose that what we take is those very poor schools the title one schools triple the amount of money we spend from fifteen to forty five billion a year give every single teacher a race of equal race of getting out the $60,000 level number to make sure that we bring into the helpless astutely the teachers deal with the problems that come from home the problems that come from home we need we have one school psychologist for every 1,500 kids in America today it's crazy the teachers are a kind I'm married to a teacher my deceased wife is a teacher they have every problem coming to them we make sure that every single child does in fact have three four and five-year-olds go to school school not daycare school we bring social workers into homes and parents to help them deal with how to raise their children it's not that they'll want to help they don't want they don't know quite what to do play the radio make sure the television the excuse me make sure you have the record player on at night the phone make sure the kids hear words a kid coming from a very poor school or a very poor background will hear four million words fewer spoken by the time they get there there's so much no I'm gonna go like the rest of them do twice over okay here's the deal the deal is that we've got this little backwards and by the way in Venezuela we should be allowing people to come here from Venezuela I know Medora I've confronted Medora number two you talked about the need to do something in Latin America I'm the guy that came up with seven hundred and forty million dollars to see to it those three countries in fact changed their system so people don't have a chance to leave y'all actin like we just discovered this yesterday Thank You mr. vice president secretary Castro thank you very much well that's that's quite a lot but you know I grew up in one of those neighborhoods that folks have talked about in a neighborhood that was grappling with the legacy of segregation in fact into public school districts that were involved in a 1973 Supreme Court case challenging how Texas financed its schools and I know that today our schools are segregated because our neighborhoods are segregated now I have an education plan like a lot of folks up here that would pay teachers more that would recruit diverse ranks of teachers that would invest in our public schools but I also believe that we have to connect the dots to uplift the quality of life to invest in housing opportunity to invest in job opportunity to invest in community schools that offer resources like parents able to go back and get their GED and healthcare opportunities and those things that truly truly ensure that the entire family can prosper those are the types of things that we need to do in addition to lifting up our public schools you asked a second ago about charter schools look it is a myth that charter schools are better than public schools they're not and secretary well I'm not categorically against charter schools I would require more transparency and accountability from them than it's required right now senator Booker coming to get out it was sixty five years ago this year that the Supreme Court outlawed racial segregation in public schools yet for millions of students of color today's segregation remains a reality non-white districts typically received $2,200 less per student than those in white districts this means older books less access to computers and often worse outcomes what is your plan to address segregation and I'm not just talking about the achievement gap but I'm talking about the opportunity gap in education so I'm hearing a lot of conversations on the stage that and the way we talk about communities of color look I live in a black and brown community below the poverty line I've lived in public housing projects almost for a decade and saw the anguish of parents who are just so deeply frustrated that they don't have a school that serves their genius I think I'm the only person on the stage even though I had no formal authority as mayor to run a school system I stepped up and took responsibility for our schools and we produce results a lot of folks here talking about raising teacher salary we actually did it in Newark New Jersey and we didn't stop the hair yeah we closed poor performing charter schools but dagnabbit we expanded high-performing charter schools we were a city that said we need to find local solutions that work for our community the results speak for themselves we're now the number one city in America for beat the odds schools from high poverty to high performance strategies like investing in our children work and I'll tell you this I am tired of us thinking about these problems isolated disconnected from the other issues that's why my friend secretary Castro is a hundred percent right we are in the reality we are right now because vice president overtly racist policies not 400 years ago just in my lifetime that we're redlining communities dis investing in communities and more than just that my kids are not only struggling with racial segregation and housing and the challenges of underfunded schools but they're also chata struggling with environmental injustice if you've talked to someone who's a parent of a child has had permanent brain damage because of lead you'll know this is a national problem because there's over three thousand jurisdictions in America where children have more than twice the blood lead levels of Flint Michigan thank you so if I'm president United States it is a holistic solution to education from raising teacher salary fully funded special education but combating the issues of poverty combating the issues of racial segregation combating the issues of a criminal justice system it takes parents away from their kids and dealing with environmental justice as a major pillar of any climate policy and we are back now for a final round of questions one question for each candidate we're going to reverse order from the opening statement and candidates the question is on the quality of resilience no president can succeed without resilience every president confronts crises defeats and mistakes so I want to ask each of you what's the most significant professional setback you've had to face how did you recover from it and what did you learn from it Vice President Biden I I never counted any professional setback I have as a serious setback there's things that are important things are not important [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] we're going to clear the protesters now this one minute [Applause] [Music] senator Biden will start the clock again [Music] [Applause] [Music] I'm sorry we're sorry go ahead there's setbacks in there setbacks and I think the most critical setback that can occur to anyone is to lose well my dad had an expression said Joey it's not a question of succeeding and whether you get knocked down and so quickly get up and and you say never explained and never complain did I go on to say that the only obligation that really matters the most important thing is family it so I was raised to believe that that was the center of everything family and I could be judged on based how you treat your family and and how you went from there and I took you know Kierkegaard said faith sees best in the dark right after I got elected my wife and daughter were killed in an automobile accident oh my and my my two sons are badly injured and I just been elected not sworn in and I lost my faith for a while I came back and then later when my son Beau came home for a canned with a terminal disease and a year later a year and a half later losing him was like losing part of my soul but the fact is that I learned that the way you deal with it is you deal with finding purpose purpose in what you do and that's why I hope I hope he's proud of me today because he wanted to make sure I didn't run for president but I stayed engaged because when you get hit badly whether you're losing a job or you're raising a family like my dad where you have to make that longest walk up the stairs to tell your kid you can't live here anymore dad lost his job you know we've all went through that some form or another and it just takes it just for me the way I've dealt with it is finding purpose and my purpose is do what I've always tried to do and stay engaged in public policy and but there's a lot of people and through a lot worse than I have get up every single morning put their feet one foot in front of another without the help I had the real heroes out there president Senator Warren I mentioned earlier I've known what I wanted to be since second grade I wanted to be a public school teacher and I invested early I used to line my dollies up and teach school I had a reputation for being tough but fair by the time I graduated from high school my family didn't have money for a college application much less to send me off to four years at a university and my story like a lot of stories has a lot of twists and turns got a scholarship and then at 19 got married dropped out of school took a minimum-wage job thought my dream was over I got a chance down the road at the University of Houston and I made it as a special needs teacher I still remember that first year as a special needs teacher I could tell you what those babies looked like I had four to forty six year olds but at the end of that first year I was visibly pregnant and back in the day that meant that the principal said to me we should be luck and hired someone else for the job so there I am I'm at home I got a baby I can't have a job what am I gonna do here's resilience the law school and the consequence was I practice law for about 45 minutes and then went back to my first love which is teaching but let me get into fights it gave me new tools and the reason I'm standing here today is because I got back up I fought back I know what's broken I want to be in the fight to fix it in America thank you sir senator Sanders me means growing up in a rent-controlled apartment in Brooklyn New York the son of an immigrant who came to this country without a nickel in his pocket professional resilience means to be judged running for US Senate in Vermont getting 1% of the vote running for governor and getting 2% of the vote finally becoming mayor a Burlington Vermont with ten vote margin what resilience means to me is that throughout my political career I have taken on virtually every powerful special interest in this country whether it is Wall Street whether it is the insurance industry whether it is the pharmaceutical industry whose corruption and greed is killing people today whether it is a military industrial complex or a prison industrial complex and I feel confident that given a lifelong record I've taken on powerful special interests of standing up for the working families of this country that I will be able to take on the greed and corruption of the corporate elite and create a government and an economy that works for all of us not just the 1% Thank You senator Sanders senator Harris you know every office I've run for whether it be district attorney or Attorney General I was told each time it can't be done they said nobody like you has done it before you're nobody is ready for you when I ran for da I won and became the first black woman elected DA in a state of 40 million people in San Francisco when I ran for attorney general of California I was elected I didn't listen and I was the only black elected woman black elected Attorney General in the state in the country and each time people would say it's not your time it's not your turn it's going to be too difficult they're not ready for you and I didn't listen and a part of it probably comes from the fact that I was raised by a mother who said many things that were life lessons for me including don't you ever let anybody tell you who you are you tell them who you are and when I look around the town halls that we do in this race for president United States and I look at the the the meetings that we do in the community meetings and I see these little girls and boys sometimes even brought by their fathers and they bring them to me and I talked to them at during these events and they smile and they're full of joy and their fathers tell them see don't you ever listen and let anybody ever tell you what you can or cannot be you have to believe in what can be unburdened by what has been senator Harris thank you very much mayor bootie judge you know as military officers serving under Don't Ask Don't Tell and as an elected official in the state of Indiana when Mike Pence was governor at a certain point when it came to professional setbacks I had to wonder whether just acknowledging who I was was going to be the ultimate career-ending professional setback I came back from the deployment and realized that he only get to live once and I was not interested in not knowing what it was like to be in love any longer so I just came out I had no idea what kind of professional setback it would be especially because inconveniently it was an election year in my socially conservative community what happened was that when I trusted voters to judge me based on the job that I did for them they decided to trust me and reelected me with 80% of the vote and what I learned was that trusts can be reciprocated and that part of how you can win and deserve to win is to know what's worth more to you than winning and I think that's what we need in the presidency right now we have to know what we are about and this election is not about any of us up here it is not about this president even though it's hard to talk of anything else some days it's about the people who trust us with their lives a kid wondering if we're actually going to make their schools safe when they've learned active shooter drills before they've learned to read a generation wondering whether we will actually get the job done on climate change and if we hold to that then it doesn't matter what happens to each of us professionally together we will win a better era for our country Nambu the judge thank you miss yang I was an unhappy lawyer for five whole months and I left to start a business and I'm gonna share with you all one of the secrets to entrepreneurship if you want to start something tell everyone you know you're going to do it and then you don't have a choice you put your heart and soul into it and even though I did that my company flopped had its mini rise and maximum fall I lost investors hundreds of thousand dollars still owed a hundred thousand in school debt my parents still told people I was a lawyer it's a little easier so I remember lying lying on my floor looking up wondering how'd it come to this eventually I picked myself back up I kept working in small growth companies for another ten years and eventually had some success then after I did have some success I still remembered how hard it was how isolating it was how it feels like your friends no longer want to spend time with you and so I spent seven years starting and running a nonprofit that helped train young entrepreneurs around the country including Shaun when who's here in the audience tonight who left left his gilded Wall Street job to be to become a food entrepreneur in San Antonio Sean I hope I made the process a little bit easier for you than it was for me but the goal of my campaign is to make this an economy that allows us to live our human values and aspirations thank you thank you mr. yang so my biggest professional setback is embarrassing because a lot of folks know about it I with a bunch of tenant leaders in Newark New Jersey in 2002 took on the political machine and boy did they fight back I had tires on my car / or campaign offices were broken into my phones were tapped it became a spectacle and we lost that election and here's a bit of advice everybody if you're gonna have a spectacular failure have a documentary team there to capture it because it made for an oscar-nominated documentary called street fight but then unfortunately another setback it lost in the Oscars to a movie called march of the dagnab penguins for crying out loud the people in my community living in the projects told me don't give up on the people and the people won't give up on you create bigger and bolder coalition's and you're gonna win and you know what we came back four years later and one the largest lopsided victory in our city's history but more than that the lesson was there we didn't give up we were taking on America's toughest problems from crime to poverty and we transformed our city creating tens of thousands of new jobs the biggest economic expansion in our city and as I said before turned around our school system there's more work to do but I haven't given up on the people I still live in that community but this is the big lesson my staff and my friends and my community told me if you want to go fast you may have won the mayor's race but that's not what life is about there's an old African saying that says if you want to go fast go alone but if you want to go far go together the lesson I learned of resilience is to trust people because the power of the people is always greater than the people in power and the test of America right now it's not a referendum on Donald Trump it's a referendum on us and who we are and who we're gonna be together we need to use this moment in history to unite in common cause and common purpose and then there's nothing we can't do together as a nation senator Booker thank you Patterson award thank you George everything that I've learned about resilience I've learned from my hometown of El Paso Texas in the face of this act of terror that was directed at our community in large part by the President of the United States that killed 22 people and injured many more we were not defeated by that nor were we defined by that the very thing that drew that killer to us is the very thing that helps us set the example for the rest of this country we don't see our differences as disqualifying or dangerous we see them as foundational to our success to our strength and to our security and to our safety yesterday I was visiting with one of those victims he's the head coach of the fusion this is a girls soccer team of 10 and 11 year old girls his name is Luis he was shot in the legs multiple times he was shot in the side multiple times he's still healing from his wounds in the hospital but from his hospital bed he's still trying to coach the fusion girls soccer team memo his co coach is still fighting for his life right now at Del Sol Hospital those two men Jessica and Marcela their wives they exemplify resilience to me and and when we end this scourge of gun violence in this country when we finally confront the racism that exists in America when we're defined not by our fears but instead by our aspirations and our ambitions it will be in large part I think thanks to the example that El Paso has said Thank You senator club which are my challenges and resilience have brought me up here I grew up with the dad who struggled with alcoholism his whole life and after his third DWI he had a choice between jail and treatment he chose treatment with his faith with his friends with our family and in his words he was pursued by grace and that made me interested in public service because I feel like everyone should have that same right to be pursued by grace I then got married my husband's out there somewhere hopefully smiling and our daughter and our daughter was born I had this expectation we're gonna have this perfect perfect birth and she was really sick and she couldn't swallow and she was in out of hospitals for a year and a half but when she was born they had a rule in place that you got kicked out of the hospital in 24 hours she was in intensive care and I was kicked out and I thought this could never happen to any other mom again so I went to the legislature our state legislature not an elected official and mom and I advocated for one of the first laws in the country guaranteeing new moms and their babies of 40 at our hospital state and when they tried to delay the implementation of that law I brought six Fred pregnant friends to the conference committee so they outnumbered the lobbyists two to one and when they said when should it take place they all raised their hand and said now that is what motivated me to go into public service and when I got to that gridlock of Washington DC and got to work and pass over a hundred bills and I know a lot of my friends here from the left but remember I am from the middle of the country and I believe if we're gonna get things done that we have to have someone leading the ticket with grit someone's going to not just change the policies but change the tone in the country and someone who believes in America and believes it from their heart because of where they came from that everyone should have that same opportunity senator thank you secretary Castro and thank you George to hold head to Lindsay and to David and all of y'all for tuning in tonight in many ways I shouldn't be here on this stage you know gastro is my mother's name and was my grandmother's name before her I grew up in a single-parent household on the west side of San Antonio going to the public schools eventually my brother Joaquin and I became the first in our family to become professionals and when I got home I took a job at the biggest law firm in town I was making $100,000 a year in the year 2000 a few months later I got elected to the San Antonio City Council and the City Council at the time was only paying a thousand 40 dollars a year so everybody had another job and my job was at the law firm well a few months after I got elected the law firm got a client and the client wanted those of us on the City Council to vote for a land deal the land deal was that they wanted to build a golf course over our water supply because we relied on an underground aquifer I didn't think the Environmental Protection Plan was strong enough so I wanted to vote against it and my constituents wanted me to vote against it but under the ethics rules for lawyers in Texas because believe it or not lawyers have ethics rules you can't just go against the interests of a client so I was stuck on the one hand I wanted to do the right thing on the other hand my livelihood my student loans my new house payment my car payment depended on me shutting up being conflicted out so one day I walked into my law firm and I quit my job and then I went and I voted against that land deal on the City Council you know it was the first test that I had and I think back to that because often times we think of politics and you think of politics is dirty or corrupting I wondered before I went in it whether it would change who I was and I was proud that when that first test came that I stood up for the people that I was there to represent and not for big special interests there's nobody that gets tested more in a position of public trust than the President of the United States this president has failed that test but I want you to know that if you elect me president I won't I won't serve anybody except you and your family and together we can create on America that's better than ever thank you very much Castro thank you to all candidates there's a great debate I think we learned a lot tonight thanks to you thanks to Texas Southern University for hosting us tonight it was a great crowd [Applause]

Channel: ABC News

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Keywords: democrat debate, democrat candidates, 2020 presidential election, 2020 presidential candidates, third debate, houston debate, abc news debate, joe biden, cory booker, pete buttigieg, julian castro, kamala harris, amy klobuchar, beto o'rourke, bernie sanders, elizabeth warren, andrew yang, news, politics news, politics, 2020 democratic primaries, watch the full debate, where can i watch the democratic debate, full episode, live stream, PoliticsPresidentialCampaigns

Id: 2UWVO0Trd1c

Length: 153min 27sec (9207 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 13 2019