You know, when I talk about the need to create a political revolution in this country,
and when I talk about the fact that this is not just an election to elect a president,
but to build a grass roots movement which will demand that congress
represents the people of this country, rather than a handful of billionaires.
What I am talking about in fifty states in the country
is what C.C.I. is doing right here in Iowa. Guys, thank you very much.
You are doing it. You are bringing people together from all walks of life
 to say that government can not be continued to be dominated
by wealthy campaign contributors and big money interests.
Thank you for being a model for America.
What this campaign and our political revolution is about, 
is saying that there is something profoundly wrong in this country.
When the middle class continues to disappear,
when people work longer hours for lower wages,
when we have the highest rate of childhood poverty of any major country.
And at the same time almost all new income and wealth
are going to the top one percent. That's wrong.
Together we're going to change that.
What we have now is a rigged economy attached to a corrupt campaign finance system.
You know, when I began this campaign people said,
"Well Bernie, you're a nice guy, you comb your hair really well,
you're a GQ dresser. But despite all of those redeeming qualities
 you can't win because you don't have a Super-Pac."
And what I said - and I'm the only candidate running
for the Democratic nomination to say this -
I don't want a Super-Pac because I don't represent
the interests of billionaires and corporate America.
So what we did, and to be very honest with you
it has blown me away - what we have done is gone
gone out to the middle class and working families of this country
and said we need fundamental changes in our economy
in our political life, in our criminal justice system,
in immigration. And I'm gonna fight for that but I need your help.
And you know what else happened over the last 8 and a half months?
We have received two and a half million individual contributions,
more than any candidate in the history of the United States of America.
So we have already accomplished an important part
of the political revolution and we've shown the establishment
that you can run a strong, and I believe, winning campaign
without being dependent upon millionaires and billionaires.
Working people can do it.
What this campaign is ending the disgrace of the U.S. being
the only major country not to provide health care to all people
as a right.
Thank you, nurses.
What this campaign is about, is saying we will end
the disgrace of having more people in jail than any other country
And those people incarcerated, as everyone knows, are disproportionately
Black, Latino and Native American.
We are gonna bring about real criminal justice reform for a broken
criminal justice system.
And what we are also going to do is tell Alexis and her family
that they no longer have to live in the shadows.
We're gonna pass comprehensive immigration reform and a path towards citizenship
for 11 million undocumented.
And what this campaign is about is to tell the billionaire class
they cannot have it all.
They are gonna start paying their fair share of taxes.
We are gonna have a trade policy which represents the needs
of working families, not the CEOs of large corporations.
We are going to expand Social Security, not cut it. 
And yes, together we are going to take on the fossil fuel industry.
And we are going to transform our energy system
away from fossil fuel, away from the Bakken Pipeline,
away from Keystone pipeline
into energy efficiency and sustainable energy. Thank you very much.
[Crowd chanting: Bernie, Bernie, Bernie...]
Senator Sanders, as you know we're going to hear from some incredible grassroots leaders
with questions for you, as well as two esteemed journalists.
And to begin the questions we have Anthony Newby from Minneapolis.
Hello Senator Sanders. My name is Anthony Newby from Minneapolis, Minnesota
with a group called NOC and we've got about a hundred folks in the room today.
We want to thank you so much for coming. I want to first
start by saying, welcome to the Midwest. Welcome to Iowa.
And thank you, I have not decided who I'm voting for yet. But I want to thank you
for being a candidate who's been the most unapologetic in my lifetime
on taking on corporate interests and I want to thank you for that.
We came to Iowa from Minnesota with about one hundred other folks.
Twenty-five leaders from Black-lead organizations from throughout the Midwest.
We came for a few reasons. Number one, to develop a long
term racial justice strategy. We know that the Midwest has some of the most glaring
disparities in the country. We need to put together a long-term plan.
Number two, to address the prison-industrial complex, which you mentioned
in your opening statement, it can not continue. The over-policing can not continue.
And need to put together a plan anchored in our communities to solve it.
The last is to put an agenda in front of the candidates to help inform and influence
the presidential election. I want to talk a little bit about the policing piece
that's happening in the Midwest. Many of us from the organizations I've mentioned
have faced high profile cases of police violence and police killings.
The names that you will recognize are Tamir Rice, Michael Brown,
Tony Robinson, Laquan McDonald, Rekia Boyd, Betty Jones,
and Jamar Clark in Minnesota.
When I say Jamar Clark, many of the folks who knew him, family, friends
and others are in this room today. Raise your hands or say "Aye"
if you know Jamar Clark or know of him or are demanding
justice in his case.
[Crowd: Aye!]
There was an occupation that followed the death of Jamar Clark.
That occupation involved taking over a police precinct,
shutting down freeways, shutting down malls, shutting down airports.
This is happening in cities all over the Midwest as you well know.
Following that occupation, some local elected officials in
Minneapolis decided to carve out from the budget six hundred thousand dollars to go directly
to a police station that was directly responsible for the death of Jamar Clark.
To reinforce the police station, add reinforced glass, windows, fences and barriers
to keep the police safe.
The community rallied to block that funding
and that proposal was pulled because of many of the folks in this room
who demanded no more investment in a system that's broken.
My question Senator Sanders is, our black and brown communities throughout the Midwest
are in absolute crisis. We need a president willing to take big
bold action in the moment. On behalf of the great folks of Iowa
and throughout the Midwest, we're asking you to follow the
model that began at the 4th Precinct in Minneapolis in honor of Jamar Clark
and divest from the tools of mass incarceration and punitive law enforcement
and create a massive jobs and infrastructure bill.
Cut the cord on things that don't work and commit two hundred billion dollars,
not a million or a thousand or six hundred thousand, 
We want a president who will commit two hundred billion dollars or more
and invest in the health of our communities.
Can you make that commitment today?
No, I will invest a trillion dollars in rebuilding.
OK, all right. This is the story.
Thanks very much Anthony. All right, here's the story.
youth unemployment today is off the charts.
African American unemployment and underemployment is fifty
one percent. So what I think, you want a radical idea?
Maybe we invest in education and jobs rather than jails
and incarceration.
I want, here's another radical idea, instead of having more people in jail
than any other country, how about having the best educated
workforce in the world.
Now we talk about jobs. Real unemployment in this country
is not five percent, it's close to ten percent, youth unemployment off the charts.
I've introduced legislation that will make happen, if president,
a one trillion dollar investment for a five year period to rebuild
our crumbling infrastructure.
Not everybody wants to go to college. We need plumbers, we need electricians.
As we transform our energy system away from fossil fuel
we need people installing solar panels, insulating homes.
In every speech that I give, Anthony, in every speech,
what I say is that it is more important
for our kids to have jobs and education than to be
hanging out on street corners. All right? So yes,
when I talk about a political revolution in transforming America
there will be a huge focus on the needs of our young people
and creating a full employment economy.
No more tax breaks for billionaires.
I want follow up on this.
Senator Sanders I'd like to follow up on Anthony's question.
We love the one trillion dollar number and that's music to our ears.
The question is will you target that investment of
a trillion dollars to the communities both urban and rural
with the highest rates of unemployment and concentrated poverty?
Absolutely. If we are talking about addressing the crisis
of youth unemployment and high unemployment in general, by definition
it means that we need to target that money to the
communities that need it the most.
And it is not just, and I mean, rebuilding our infrastructure, hiring teachers
rather than firing teachers but also helping small and medium sized
businesses in minority communities who are more likely to hire
minority kids, is a priority as well.
Next, Senator, we're going to from Angela McCall from St. Louis.
Thank you, Senator Sanders. Hello, I'm Angela McCall from St. Louis, Missouri.
Several years ago I was a full-time college student working a part-time job
while taking care of my daughter. I got behind on paying a bill and decided to
visit one of those neighborhood payday lending companies.
I was approved for a loan, however, I did not realize that the extremely high
interest rates would result in having to take out two additional loans
from two other payday lending companies to help pay each one back.
As a single mother, my financial shortfall was exploited by these
payday lending companies. I got caught up in the system that
made things worse for ,my family's quality of life, my ability to
to pay child care, medical expenses, student loans.
Payday lending loans have been intentionally directed towards poor people and
communities of color.
That's not right. 
To bring relief to these communities, we need to have better regulations of
the financial systems that do not cause economic injustice or pray on poor people
but will instead invest in making affordable loans available to
everyone. No one should feel that the only option is
to take out predatory loans. Building wealth should be the
focus. We need an administration that will protect us from economic
violence and injustice. Senator Sanders,
what would you do to insure that the Consumer Financial Protection
Bureau and other financial regulators interact with communities that have been
stripped of wealth by abusive, predatory lending and chronic disinvestments?
Thank you very much, Angela.
Angela if I might, let me just tell you a brief story. About two months ago I
went to a community in Baltimore, largely African American,
and extremely poor. Unemployment about fifty percent, most of the building shuttered up.
And you know what was amazing - in fact that was the community where Freddie Gray
came from - and what was amazing when you go into that community
is you can not find a grocery store.
The only places you find are these little shops where they're selling you booze
and potato chips. And you know what else you can't find? A normal bank.
Can't find a bank. The only financial institutions are payday lenders.
So what do we gotta do? The payday lenders as all of you know are involved in usury
in this country.
And anybody who studies religion whether it's Christianity, whether it's Islam,
whether it's Judaism, anyone who knows anything, is that in all cases usury is
regarded as a sin.
So we will fight for usury legislation limiting the interest rate
that any institution can charge.
And this is not just the horrific behavior of the payday lenders.
Some of you are paying off on credit cards, fifteen, twenty percent, right? 
All right so we're going to deal with that. Second of all - twenty-four percent?
[response inaudible]
OK. Second of all, we need to break up the huge financial institutions
on Wall Street,
re-establish Glass-Steagall and create a financial system
which works for consumers, small and medium sized businesses. Third of all,
to be very specific about your question, Elizabeth Warren and I have worked
on an issue which I think is a very interesting one.
If you are living in a low-income community and if there are no normal
banking outlets in your community, you know what I think the alternative is?
Not the payday lenders, we gotta get rid of them. The alternative is to say to the United States Postal Service
which has offices in almost every community in America, that we will use the Postal Service
to get involved in basic banking services.
If you want to cash a check you shouldn't have to pay fifty percent or whatever the heck it is,
some outrageous interest rate or fee to cash that check. You should be treated
as if you would in a wealthier community and there was a real bank. Second of all, if you want to make
a modest loan, I'm not suggesting they get involved in big time banking, but they can get
involved in basic banking which will provide a very, very significant alternative
to these payday lenders and their horrific practices.
Thank you, Senator. And I appreciate the particular name-dropping of Senator Warren
We happen to share the same last name. I think we're related. So I appreciate that. We're going to hear next from
Rekha Basu. She has two questions for you. Give Rekha some love from the Des Moines Register everybody.
Welcome Senator Sanders. It's good to see you again. Hillary Clinton, who is regrettably
not here today,
made the claim yesterday that when President Obama wrote his op-ed about not being able
to support someone who doesn't back his gun control measures, he was
referring to you. Her campaign has cited five votes that you cast against
the Brady Bill as well as several to prevent gun violence violence victims from
seeking damages against gun manufacturers. You suggested previously that
your votes have reflected pro-gun attitudes in Vermont, which you represent.
But some of your opponents wonder, where is that fierce, independent-mindedness
that you show on every other issue when it comes to guns.
And could you talk to us about where your heart is and you evolution on this?
So let's set the record straight in a political season, all right?
Occasionally in political seasons records get distorted.
Record, in the state of Vermont we have one Congressperson.
1988, when I was mayor of Burlington, I ran for Congress. I ran as an Independent,
I'm the longest serving Independent in the United States Congress.
But I ran against a Democrat and a Republican. And you know what the gun people in that
in that election said in 1988? Vote for the Republican, vote for the Democrat, don't vote for Bernie Sanders
because he believes we should ban the sale of assault weapons.
I lost that election by three points. That was back in 1988.
When I uniquely, among candidates for that seat, came out for
a ban on assault weapons. Number two. I know I'm being attacked
for being a stooge for the NRA, well some stooge. I have a D minus
voting record, lifetime voting record from the NRA.
Not quite a stooge.
Number three. As a member of the House and the Senate
I have voted for instant background checks and I
absolutely agree with what the president is trying to do in his
executive order 
which is the deal of a very common sense approach.
And that is right now why we try to improve and expand the
instant background check with the goal that the vast majority of the
American people support, that making sure that nobody should not own a gun
is able to buy a gun. That's the goal. The problem is right now this situation
where in gun shows and on the Internet, people can circumvent
the instant background check. I think that is absurd. And I have voted
to end the gun show loophole and I want to see a situation
where every person who purchases a gun in the United States of America undergoes an
instant background check. I don't think that's a radical idea.
Fourthly, right now you have a situation where somebody can walk in to
a gun shop, go through an instant background check and legally purchase
a gun. Walk out of the door and then sell those guns
to criminals. That's called a person being a straw man. I want to make the straw man
process be a federal law, I want to make sure that straw men are prosecuted
for violating federal law. People should not legally buy guns and then sell them
to criminals.
Fifthly. I get calls in my office as I'm sure other Senators and Congressmen do,
from folks who say, you know, my brother I'm really worried about.
I don't know what he will do to himself or to other people. And yet we're searching frantically
and we can not find mental health treatment that we can afford when we need it.
And we need a revolution in how we do mental health.
So I believe, by the way, coming from a rural state that has virtually no gun control
that I am uniquely positioned to bring about a consensus of the American people.
not everybody is is going to agree, it's a divisive issue, but I believe I am in
a unique position to put together a consensus of the American people
who will come together and say, we will do everything that we can
to end the horrendous mass shooting that we are seeing
that we will do everything we can to make sure guns do not get into the hands
of people who should not have them.
Thank you Senator. I'm going to shift gears for a minute and talk about foreign affairs.
In particular the role of U.S. foreign policy when it comes to upholding human
rights and women's rights internationally. So I'm wondering what you think that role should be
and whether you believe in situations like Boko Haram in Nigeria, kidnapping school girls
or the Taliban's repression of women in Afghanistan, or honor killings, mass rapes,
female fetuscide, female genital mutilation, child marriage, in various parts of the world.
Should they ever warrant direct U.S. intervention, and I'm talking about any kind of intervention,
military intervention, withholding of foreign aid, diplomatic pressure?
And how would you balance the line between necessary global pressure and
heavy-handed intervention on behalf of populations in sovereign states that
don't have a voice?
That is an excellent question. It's a difficult question and it can't be answered simply.
I think what makes our country great
is that we have had a history for so many years,
a far-from-perfect history for sure, but a history which has stood up and fought
for human dignity. We have failed n many ways.
But we have also been a beacon of hope for people all over the world, and as president
I once again will shine that torch as high as I can to say that the United States of America
believes in human dignity, and we believe in social justice
and we believe in equal rights, and we wll end and help countries all over the world
end all forms of bigotry, and prejudice. That's what I want the United States to be
seen as. That country, all over the world.
Now I will also say, and broaden your question a little bit, that we talk about foreign affairs.
In a very dangerous and ugly world you should all know
that you're looking at a former Congressman who heard what George W. Bush
and Dick Cheney and others said about the need to invade Iraq.
I listened to them and I believed they were not telling the truth.
I voted against the war in Iraq.
And to answer your question about military intervention and regime change,
What I believe is we've got to learn the very painful lesson
of the war in Iraq. And what that lesson is to me is that the United States of America
can not and should not do it alone. We cannot do it alone.
And what that means, not only on the issues you have raised but broader issues,
that we have got to work in coalition, broad coalition. It can not just be America.
It can not be just our young men and women engaged in perpetual warfare in the Middle East
as some of our Republican colleagues want.
So when you're looking at an unimaginable organization like ISIS
whose barbarism includes sexual slavery, I don't think they think of women as
second class citizens, probably as tenth class citizens. All right, and what we
think about a group like ISIS, what we understand, at least that I understand is 
ISIS must be crushed and destroyed but it must be done by coalition.
And what do I mean by that? I mean the United States must work with other major powers,
U.K., France, Germany, including Russia. And what we must also do is understand what
King Abdullah of Jordan has recently said. And he said that yes, terrorism is an international issue
but that it is primarily a Muslim issue because ISIS and the other groups
have hijacked Islam and have converted it into something which it is absolutely not.
And the fundamental responsibility for defeating ISIS, according to King Abdullah of Jordan
is Muslim troops on the ground supported by the major powers.
And that is what I believe. So to answer your question, we have got to do everything that we can
to end bigotry and discrimination against women, against gays, against other minorities.
But I will also at the same time do everything that I can to see that the United States does
not get involved in never-ending warfare in the Middle East.
Thank you.
Senator Sanders, we're going to bring the issues back to domestic issues and particularly an
issue facing not only this next questioner in the South, but around the country.
Next we'll hear from Keisha Saffol from Alabama. 
Hi. My name is Keisha Saffol and I have the best job in the world.
I think we have the most important job on the face of this earth. And probably the least respected job.
I own two child care centers in Dothan, Alabama.
My centers are not traditional centers in that they're open six days a week and they're open
until midnight. And this is based off my good and bad experience as a single parent.
In my former lifetime I was a news producer. And I worked every shift, first second and third.
I just found from my experience that the places that were open the hours I needed
were in bad neighborhoods and I just felt like I had to sacrifice quality.
And I didn't understand why my daughter deserved 'less than' because her mom had to work after six o'clock.
And so for me, because I couldn't afford quality day care, it was never about finding a good
child care center, it was about choosing the lesser of the evils. 
So one night I got off work with my then two-year-old by my side
and we were mugged. And it was horrific.
I walked away from TV news altogether. That's what I went to school for.
That's what my degree is in. And I came back to Alabama to work in my mother's day care center
and I went to work on my master's. We started this child care center. Today we're the largest
privately-owned child care center in our area.
So I understand as a parent how difficult it is to be able to afford quality child care.
I understand as a preschool teacher how incredibly low our wages are
and how terrible the benefits, if you even lucky to get benefits are.
And as a child care provider I understand how difficult it is to provide high quality
care and pay your workers real wages. My question to you, Senator Sanders is,
how can we change child care in America in a way that'll be beneficial to the teachers,
to the parents and to the child care providers? 
First of all, I gotta give this lady a hug.
You touched a subject, I know we've got to get out of here within an hour, but she really gets me going here.
I can go on for about five hours on it. 
I hope Jane's not upset that you're kissing other folks.
Keisha, first of all thank you so much for the extraordinary work you are doing.
When I talk about a political revolution, when I talk about thinking big,
when I talk about radically transforming our priorities in this country
what you said is exactly what I mean.
When I was mayor of the city of Burlington, when I was elected, you know what the very first meeting
that I held, which is when I ended up meeting my wife Jane by the way, she was interested in children's issues as well.
We talked about children. And out of that came, to make a long story short,
what was I think then and probably now, one of the largest child care centers
in the city of Burlington, after school programs for our kids, a community center for kids
to play their loud and terrible music.
[laughing]
But it was a very successful effort. A Little League program in the low income area of our state.
A kids' newspaper, etc., etc. But let me talk about what Keisha was saying.
I talk about how crazy the priorities are in this country. 
Every psychologist who studies the issue understands the most important
years of a human being's life in terms of emotional and intellectual development
are zero to four. 
That's a fact. So think for a moment what we do in this country.
As Keisha just said, all over this country, including my home state, it is very hard for
working families to find high quality affordable child care or Pre-K.
What you find is that, and Keisha touched on this as well,
you find that many of the people hired in child care making what, nine or ten bucks an hour?
Not even that. They're making less than McDonald's workers
and we are entrusting them with our children in the most important years
of their life. You can make the case, I will make the case that people who work with three-year-olds
are doing more important work than college professors do.
Now that I've lost the college professor vote, 
So what do we do? What we do is understand we're not living in
the 1950s when dad went to work and mom stayed home with the kids.
Right now, I don't know the exact number but, something like eighty or eighty-five percent of
moms are not staying home with their kids because they can't afford to. 
They are out working. So our job is to understand that when we talk about education
in America you're not talking about first grade through high school.
You're talking about zero through university level.
Ultimately, Keisha, and I'm not promising we can do this in the first year,
but ultimately what we should do is expand public education.
Right now I have a proposal to make public colleges and universities tuition-free.
But on the other end, equally important is to create a day, it won't happen tomorrow,
it's an expensive proposition, but it must happen. And the goal must be
to make sure that every working parent with kids in this country
to publicly-funded high quality child care.
You know, everything gets tied together.
As we all know one issue is related to another issue, related to another issue.
If we have real unemployment in this country of almost ten percent,
if we have kids hanging out on our street corners, what about creating
many hundreds of thousands of jobs by training our young people
to work effectively in child care centers all over this country.
Keisha, thanks again for what you're doing. It is one of the major issues that,
by the way, we never talk about. Very rarely do we talk about. Thank you for bringing that up.
Senator, next we're going to hear from Ross Grooters, one of Iowa's own.
My name is Ross Grooters and I
Try this for the third time.
My name is Ross Grooters. I've worked as union locomotive engineer for over a decade now.
We all know that unions have been at the front of the fight for better wages
and working conditions. Similarly, environmentalists have
been at the front to f the fight to protect the health and safety
of our communities and our planet. Unfortunately opponents of both labor and environmentalists
work to pit the two against each other.
As a union member and environmentalist, I've worked with Iowa CCI Action,
and Railroad Workers United, a rank and file caucus of railroad workers
to do both. To put the health and safety of our communities
and our working economic conditions together and first.
So nationally what that's looked like is organizing across the country with
other environmentalists, labor, and railroad safety
and environmental conferences, along with my fellow environmentalists.
Here in the state of Iowa what that's looked like is protecting our
land, water and resources so that we can oppose
harmful big oil land grabs like the Bakken Pipeline across our state.
As you know, Senator Sanders, there are movements
all over the world to transition away from fossil fuels dependence.
As president, what will you do to support the people working to protect
the future of our planet, while still insuring quality economic opportunity
for working people?
Ross, Thank you.
And Ross, you're absolutely right that there are reactionaries who want to pit
those of us who are environmentalists against those of us
who are pro-labor and understand the need for decent paying jobs.
But you know and I know there really is not a contradiction. So two things.
We have introduced what I am quite confident is, is the most comprehensive
climate change legislation in the history of the United States Senate.
And what that does is not only impose a tax on carbon, to provide major disincentives
for the production of greenhouse gases, but what we also do is put a
huge amount of money into helping people who, one way or another, are
impacted by the transformation of our energy system.
So we have got to protect those workers who may lose their jobs.
Now in terms of railroads what I will tell you, if we create
a state-of-the-art rail system we will create a whole lot of jobs
and, by the way, significantly cut back on carbon emissions.
The bottom line is, I believe if we are sensitive and sensible 
we can transform our energy system, we can create millions of decent paying jobs
in the process and we can protect those workers who are impacted by
the transformation. That's my goal.
Senator, our next questioner is Arique Aguilar from greater Minnesota.
Hello.
I'm Arique Aguilar. I'm from the greater Minnesota area and
I'm a U.S. citizen being punished physically, spiritually,
emotionally and psychologically by the broken immigration system
as it is today. My husband works over fifty hours a week to provide for my family
and I'm home caring for our two-year-old son.
With the suffocating fear that at any moment my husband can be
deported. I still remember
that something as simple as dropping him off at day care was catastrophic
for our family. I got the phone call
that my husband had been pulled over
taking our son to day care. He was in the back seat and I was too far
with the only Minnesota drivers license to save my family.
I can remember overhearing the police officer saying, "I'm gonna take
you in. And I'm gonna place your son in child protection services". As if that was a solution 
to the problem.
That was a direct threat to my family's stability
and I'm tired of living under the fear 
that I will be pushed into being a single mother,
that my son will be forced to live without his father,
and that my husband has to fight tooth and nail to be
be a father to our son. And I want to know, Bernie Sanders,
what are you going to do alleviate this very real fear
that is hanging over undocumented families
and the citizens that love them?
Thank you very much for your willingness to share with us
what is a very personal experience. Let me answer it this way. For a start
I worked closely with President Obama and agree with him on many issues.
I do not agree with him on his policy toward deportation.
Number two. As soon as I possibly can
we will provide legal protection for eleven million
undocumented people in this country.
I will do my best to get congress to pass comprehensive
immigration reform. But if they don't do their job,
I will use all thwe powers that the president has to protect undocumented people.
And thirdly. As president of the United States I will do everything I can
to stand up to the Donald Trumps of the world and their bigotry,
and their xenophobia and their desire to turn one American
against another person.
Now the Trumps of the world and other demagogues like this
understand that the rich get richer and everyone else gets poorer
when you divide people up. So have a Trump, who for years, was insulting
the African American community by telling us the the president of the
United States was an illegitimate president, not born in America.
And then you have, and by the way, stirring the fires of racism in
the process, right? Think about. The president of the United States won
pretty strong vote, re-elected, pretty strong vote,
and you got Trump and others going around "Oh he's not a legitimate president".
You know, funny thing about that. My dad was born in Poland.
I'm the son of an immigrant. Nobody has ever asked me
for my birth certificate. Maybe it has something to do with the color
of my skin as opposed to Obama's skin.
So you've got the Trumps of the world try to divide this country up on racial lines
by suggesting our president is not legitimate.
And then he comes up with the brilliant idea that all the people coming
over from Mexico are criminals and rapists and drug dealers.
So we're supposed to hate Mexicans. Then his next brilliant idea is
we've got to prevent Muslims from coming into this country
and that we're supposed to hate Muslims.
That type of demagoguery has gone on, he didn't invent it,
it's gone on for hundreds of years. It's called scapegoating minorities
and we're supposed to hate people because they're a little bit different than we are.
Our job is to stand together, to be united, not divided. 
And with our unity to, in fact, take on the people who are really wrecking
the middle class today and that is not Latinos
who are picking tomatoes for eight bucks an hour, I can tell you that.
Next up we're going to hear from George Zornick from The Nation magazine.
Senator, thank you. I'd actually like to follow up on that issue.
As you know, around Christmas time the Obama administration stepped up
deportation raids for families that came from Central America, particularly
child migrants. You wrote to the White House and asked for temporary
protected status for these migrants. I'm curious if you were to
become president, what your criteria would be for granting that status,
because theoretically over four or eight years there'd be unforeseen
crises and other groups asking for that protection. So, how would
you evaluate their claims and who would you grant it to?
Good question.
This is what I think. What this country has historically been about
is a beacon of hope. It sounds rhetorical,
it sounds overly dramatic but it's true. All over the world people look to the United States.
The Statue of Liberty. They fled oppression. Came to a country of freedom and democracy.
Now what you're talking about is the fact that people have fled
Guatemala, Honduras, other countries 
where communities are literally being run by the drug cartels.
What we know is that some people who have been forced to go back
have been killed. So if you're asking me what my status is,
what a refugee status is in general, it says that when somebody is
forced to flee their country because they and their families are
are unsafe back home, they could be killed, they could be illegally imprisoned. 
That to me is what refugee status is about. And I think we have the moral
responsibility to protect those people. That's what I think.
Senator, next we're going to hear from Eugene Lin from Chicago.
My name is Eugene Lin. I'm from Chicago, Illinois.
Illinois is sinking into economic catastrophe because of
budget cuts. And I am a hard working, college educated American whom budget cuts could kill.
I receive Medicaid which helps pay for my depression treatments.
And I'm very precariously employed at an underfunded homeless shelter
where I help the homeless get back to school and find jobs.
So my state-funded shelter turns people away and lays staff off
every month because decades of tax dodging by Illinois' 
wealthiest broke our state budget. Which corporate Republicans
and Democrats alike refused to balance the budget by refusing
to tax the one percent more. 
Instead, they shut shelters like mine, they cut Medicaid programs like mine.
And they de-fund every public good.
Rich people and corporations abuse our political system.
Seeking profit, they buy public office like our own Governor Bruce Rauner did
with thirty million dollars of his own finance capitalist cash.
And then they push budget cuts. And then they push tax laws
that lift their profits but stifle the kinds of targeted investment strategies
we've been talking about today. So all of this is called austerity.
Senator, how will you fight big money in elections? And how will you
raise revenues to fight big money's austerity politics?
Thank you, Eugene. 
The story that Eugene is telling about Chicago is a story being told all over America.
You know it. What we have is massive income and wealth inequality.
Eugene, I know you know, that over the last thirty years in
this country, there has been a massive transfer of wealth.
A redistribution of wealth from the middle class to the top one tenth of one percent
who have seen in that thirty year period a doubling of the
percentage of wealth they own.
Middle class is shrinking, real wages are going down,
the percentage of wealth owned by the top one tenth of one percent
has doubled. 
What I believe is that now is the time to reverse that trend.
So we have a series of proposals and we'll have more
thought which demands that the wealthiest people and the largest corporations
start paying their fair share of taxes in our country.
Right now you have major corporations
making billions of dollars a year in profit who are stashing their money
in the Cayman Islands and Bermuda and other tax havens, and in a given year
not paying a nickel in federal taxes. OK?
We are going to make them pay their taxes. That's a hundred billion
dollars a year.
We are going to impose a tax on Wall Street speculation.
That is an enormous amount of money.
And we have other proposals which will bring in a very substantial
sum of money into this country, which will go back
to the states and the cities to create jobs at to protect the most
vulnerable people in this country.
But the bottom line is as I said earlier, if I am elected president
the billionaire class will know hat the day in which they
have it all is over.
Thank you, Senator. One last question.
Senator Sanders, thank you for your patience. We have
one last question for the afternoon from Jerome Dillard from Madison, Wisconsin.
Good evening. My name is Jerome Dillard and I came here to day from
Wisconsin. I am a member and an organizer with
EXPO, EX Prisoners Organizing.
And I'm also a representative of the Formerly Incarcerated Citizens and
Convicted People Movement and their families. A national organization
with many different organizations across the nation.
I stand before you to today as a formerly incarcerated citizen
who served two terms in both our federal prison system
and in state prisons. And I want to say, during that period
of my life I witnessed hundreds and hundreds of young men
coming through the prison doors, some with extremely long sentences
for drugs. And others just cycling in and out of that system.
It is through that experience that I began to do the work that I do.
And many of our young people in this nation and in my community
do not even feel they are a part of America.
They dare to dream and once individuals are tagged with arrest and conviction
records, their opportunities come few and far apart.
I can say, being an impacted person who once was a returning citizen,
I understand the barriers of returning to my community.
after hundreds of applications, I never got a call back.
Eventually I did wind up wit a dishwasing job.
Truth.
I know that nibety percent of the employers do background checks
and the result of that is many individuals, families and
communities are being discriminated against
and left in poverty.
I know that President Obama took an initiative, used
his executive authority to ban the box.
My question question to, Senator Sanders is,
when you are elected, will you use executive authority,
I would say in the first hundred days,
to ban the box for those corporations who have contracts
with the federal government?
Yes.
Jerome, thank you very much for the enormously important work
you are doing. You guys have assembled quite panel here of
people doing fantastic work.
Very impressive panel.
OK.
What Jerome is touching on is a huge issue.
And it has to do with the fact that, A, we have so many people in prison,
and then, B, they get out, and people get out and they don't have, they can't get jobs.
So if you can't get a job and earn an income you know what?
There is a real likelihood you're going to go back to your old
environment and end up back in jail again. Not too bright.
So I think the answer to your question is, yes we've got to give people
a fair shot at getting their feet back on the ground again,
getting back into their communities again and earning a living.
And let me touch on another issue.
There are many, many hundreds of thousands of people
who are felons in this country who served their time
but don't have the right to vote.
I don't have the exact number in my head, but it's a shockingly high number
of African American men who have lost their right to vote and participate
in American democracy. Now i believe
if somebody does his time, he's paying the price, he doesn't lose
his democratic rights to participate in our society.
Please join me in thanking Senator Bernie Sanders for joining us today.
Thank you!
[crowd chanting: Bernie, Bernie...]
