Senator Elizabeth Warren (D) continued her presidential campaign in Iowa with a town hall at Simpson College in Indianola on Sunday afternoon.

Senator Elizabeth Warren (D) – town hall – Indianola, Iowa – October 20, 2019

In a presidential campaign tour de force, she spoke at length, took questions, and then stayed and stood for selfie photographs with a very long line of supporters. Close to 500 individuals attended the event.

Senator Warren’s final remarks to the town hall audience, right before she exited the stage for a press gaggle and for audience selfie photos:

Senator Elizabeth Warren (D):…I got the issues you all brought up. I am deeply grateful, uh, that you all come out here on a Sunday afternoon. Uh, the weather was nice. Uh, we got a big decision to make in 2020. And that decision is gonna come right through Iowa. And I am deeply grateful for the time you invest in getting this right. Um, a nation owes you a great thanks. So, thank you Iowans. Thank you [applause][cheers]

The issue that we talked about today and other ones that I talk about, they’re hard. How we’re going to educate our children. Uh, how we’re gonna make sure that everyone gets access to health care. How it is that we’re going to protect seniors who rely on Social Security. By the way, my Social Security bill will lift nearly five million people out of poverty and put a lot more flexibility into the budget for millions more.

Uh, what it means to cancel student loan debts. Uh, we didn’t even get to talk about how we reduce the cost of housing and increase the housing supply across the country. Um, climate change. Very, very difficult. Uh, lots of pieces of that have an effect us.

When I made the decision to run for President I was working on most of these issues. In fact, I’ve worked on many of these issues for pretty much all my grown up life. And I started talking about it right here in Iowa. And I went back to Washington and people would say to me, experts, uh, also known as Senators [laughter], uh, they’d say to me, what you’re talking about is too hard. It’s got too many pieces to it, it’s too complicated, it’s got, uh, it’s just too hard. Uh, go with somethin easier, get some vague generalities, uh, smile more. [gasps][laughter] That’s, that’s how people run for President. Uh, and I always said, thank you.

But, here’s what I thought of them. What do you think the naysayers said to the abolitionists? Too hard, give up now. What do you think they said to the suffragettes just a little over a hundred years ago? They said, too hard. With men, right? What did they say to the early union workers? [voice: “Too hard”] Too hard. Quit now. What did they say to the foot soldiers in the civil rights movement? [with audience] Too hard, quit now. What did they say just a decade ago to the LGBTQ plus activists who wanted equal marriage? [with audience] Too hard, quit now.

But none of them quit. They fought back. They got organized, they built a grass roots movement, they persisted [applause][cheers], and they changed the course of history.

This is our moment in American history. Our moment to dream big, fight hard, and win.

Thank you. [applause][cheers]

Previously:

Senator Elizabeth Warren (D) – Town Hall – Indianola, Iowa – October 20, 2019 (October 20, 2019)

Senator Elizabeth Warren (D) – Town Hall Q and A – LGBTQ – Indianola, Iowa – October 20, 2019 (October 21, 2019)

Senator Elizabeth Warren (D) – Town Hall Q and A – Climate – Indianola, Iowa – October 20, 2019 (October 21, 2019)

Senator Elizabeth Warren (D) – Town Hall Q and A – Higher Education – Indianola, Iowa – October 20, 2019 (October 22, 2019)

Senator Elizabeth Warren (D) – Medicare for All – Indianola, Iowa – October 20, 2019 (October 22, 2019)

“…the cheapest possible way to make sure that everyone gets the health care that they need is Medicare for All…”

Senator Elizabeth Warren (D) continued her presidential campaign in Iowa with a town hall at Simpson College in Indianola on Sunday afternoon.

Senator Elizabeth Warren (D) – town hall – Indianola, Iowa – October 20, 2019

After her extensive remarks, she took questions. After the question and answer session she spoke on Medicare for All:

Senator Elizabeth Warren (D): …I didn’t get a question today, uh, about Medicare for All. I want to say a word about it before we go any further.

And, there is this, every single person who is running for President of the United States on the Democratic side right now knows that families are getting crushed by the cost of health care.

They also know that the cheapest possible way to make sure that everyone gets the health care that they need is Medicare for All. And that’s why I support Medicare for All, that’s why I’m there.

What I see, though, is that we need to talk about the cost and I plan over the next, uh, few weeks to put out a plan that talks about, specifically, the cost of Medicare for All and, specifically, how we pay for it.

You know, right now, the cost estimates on Medicare for All vary by trillions and trillions of dollars. And the different revenue streams for how to fund it, there are a lot of them.

So, this is something I’ve been working on for months and months. And, uh, it’s got jut a little more work until it’s finished. But I want to bring this out.

But, here’s the promise I make to you, and make every chance I get, and that is, I will not sign a bill into law that does not reduce the cost of health care for middle class families, because it is the cost of health care that is hurting and the cost of health care is what they care about. And because they care about it, I care about it.

So…[applause][cheers]

Previously:

Senator Elizabeth Warren (D) – Town Hall – Indianola, Iowa – October 20, 2019 (October 20, 2019)

Senator Elizabeth Warren (D) – Town Hall Q and A – LGBTQ – Indianola, Iowa – October 20, 2019 (October 21, 2019)

Senator Elizabeth Warren (D) – Town Hall Q and A – Climate – Indianola, Iowa – October 20, 2019 (October 21, 2019)

Senator Elizabeth Warren (D) – Town Hall Q and A – Higher Education – Indianola, Iowa – October 20, 2019 (October 22, 2019)

Senator Elizabeth Warren (D) continued her presidential campaign in Iowa with a town hall at Simpson College in Indianola on Sunday afternoon.

Senator Elizabeth Warren (D) – town hall – Indianola, Iowa – October 20, 2019

After her extensive remarks, she took questions.

A question and response on Higher Education:

Question: …My thoughts have been about higher ed. Um, this is an institution that’s pretty key in this community. [Senator Warren: “Yeah.”] Um, has suffered a lot of, uh, layoffs and tumult. [applause] And I also feel like there’s a higher ed arms race. I’m a parent of two high school students. Um, I, I don’t like that you have, that prep, ACT prep is required, that celebrities can have people take children, their children’s tests for them. And that, you were talking about the billion, you talk about the billionaires, that they can donate to each of the Ivy Leagues that they like, that’s not available to me.

Senator Elizabeth Warren (D): Um, you’re talking about a great thing. I mean you really are. You’re talking about how the system is rigged. And, and I talk about how it’s rigged in Washington. But the consequences of that are felt all they way through. How, how the children of those who are…rich get one chance, and another, and then another, and then another, and then another, all cushioned by their folks’ money. While other kids, if they’re lucky, may get one shot. May get one shot.

So, let me just pick up on this, okay. If you want to finish the question, it’s okay, but I think I know where you’re going [crosstalk]…

Question: I guess, I guess, I guess I’m thinking what are those things to make this not be contests. And for middle class people to be not spending money, or, be spending money that realistic, do not have. So that their kids [crosstalk]…

Senator Elizabeth Warren (D): So their kids get a chance, too.

Question: Yeah, there we go.

Senator Elizabeth Warren (D): So, here’s how I see this. The story I told you about me? I fell of the track. Right? I came from a family with no money. I fell off and I didn’t have a family that could pick me up. They couldn’t get me started and they couldn’t pick me up when I fell off.

But, the American taxpayer, they invested enough in giving me a chance. They invested, way back when, in schools that cost fifty dollars a semester. Okay, it was plain vanilla. It didn’t have a lot of, uh, issues you described as the arms race. It didn’t have a lazy river. [laughter] Uh, but it, it had a really good career education. And that was enough that I got to be a public school teacher. And that was my foot in the door….still available to me in terms of a law school. A chance to enter a profession, on price, okay, no longer maybe a waitressing job, four hundred fifty dollars a semester, yeah, probably.

Look, here’s how I see it, we’ve built the right structures and people thought it should be it. And not just the first chance, that if you follow the path willy nilly. You actually got a second chance, you’ve actually got a third chance. It’s there, those pathways I was talking about earlier. The bridges have narrowed and it’s got a lot of on-ramps. And recognize that some people fall off and they’ve got to get back up on…But that’s how we’ve got to build this. And understand this, we’ve got to build it that way for our kids. We also have to build it that way for the future of our country.

When you think about what it’s going to mean to be the leader of the world in the twenty-first century, how does a country lead the world? Man, the one resource that its got is its human beings. If we educate a quarter of them, we’re just taking a lot of our assets and just not taking advantage of what they can do. If we educate half, we’ll do a little better. If we educate three quarters, we’ll do a lot better. And if we educate all of them, and remember, when I say all I mean all of them, I mean kids who test through the roof and I mean kids like the kids I worked with, who didn’t, but who had something to contribute. We invest in every one of our kids, from the time they’re babies, we get those early education experiences for them. You know, rich parents are doing this for their kids. They don’t wait until the kids are in, uh, kindergarten age to be able to send them to school. They’re sending them at twelve months, at eighteen months, all these, they always have cute names to them, but they’re sending them…And it’s because they understand those babies are learning, learning, learning early. We make that investment, that’s how we build those opportunities.

And then, just to appeal to your inner wonk, if you will go to elizabethwarren.com there’s a lot in it in the education part that’s down at the, really down in the weeds about how we get some accountability back. That our schools really are focused on making sure that we’re getting the kids through school. Not just in the front door, that we’re getting them through school. That they really are able to have, uh, uh, jobs on the other side. It’s got a lot in it. And it’s, and it’s about, not only them, it’s about being realistic, not punitive.

If you’re going to educate kids who come from backgrounds where people weren’t using a lot of words, uh, people who had to use, uh, cheaper child care where they herded a bunch of kids in front of a TV set because it was the best they could do.

We’ve gotta have the resources to be able to make up that difference for our kids.

So, for me, this is about building the future, building the future and realizing the path..is through our children. It’s also about living or values, every single day. And all have value, as a country we should be investing in all of them… [applause]

Previously:

Senator Elizabeth Warren (D) – Town Hall – Indianola, Iowa – October 20, 2019 (October 20, 2019)

Senator Elizabeth Warren (D) – Town Hall Q and A – LGBTQ – Indianola, Iowa – October 20, 2019 (October 21, 2019)

Senator Elizabeth Warren (D) – Town Hall Q and A – Climate – Indianola, Iowa – October 20, 2019 (October 21, 2019)

Senator Elizabeth Warren (D) continued her presidential campaign in Iowa with a town hall at Simpson College in Indianola on Sunday afternoon.

Senator Elizabeth Warren (D) – town hall – Indianola, Iowa – October 20, 2019

After her extensive remarks, she took questions.

A question and response on Climate:

Question: …um, the climate crisis. [Senator Warren: “Yeah.”] There’s not an Iowan, not an American, not an Earthling, human or non-human for whom this doesn’t represent an existential crisis. And yet it’s inexplicably and inexcusably missing from the wider conversation, both on the stump and on the stage. And I know you agree with this because you spoke so well to it today and I know you agree with this because you have a plan for that. In fact, you have several. And they’re quit robust and good. What I worry about is that, uh, the voters don’t understand how essential that plan is to all your other plans, and, in fact, to all of their plans. So my question is, can we count on you to raise that, the climate crisis, to the forefront of the election where it belongs? And, if so, what will that commitment look like?

Senator Elizabeth Warren (D): Okay. So, first answer is yes. [cheers][applause] Yes and. And, here’s, here’s the point I want to make ’cause Ryan’s right. Uh, go to elizabethwarren.comto to look at the climate stuff. It’s got a lot in it. Including the latest piece I just rolled out which is about environmental justice. About how it is that black children and black brown children are more likely to have breathed pollution from before they born and all through their lives. And suffer health consequences and diminished future opportunities because the dumps are located near their neighborhoods. Because industrial growth…because the trash that’s spewed into the air and poisons that are thrown into the water have been closet to their neighborhoods. So, when we think about environmental issues there a whole lot of pieces on this we have to think about. And we can’t do them as afterthoughts. We can’t do environmental generally as afterthoughts, but we can’t do these four pieces, including environmental justice. So I urge you, as we talk about this to pick up the different pieces.

I’ll give you one more that I just think is critical. We all are talking on stage, all the Democratic candidates, about how much money we’re going to invest. Me, too. I’ve got a lot of ways to invest money. Uh, I’ve got a green manufacturing plan that is going to produce about one point two million good factory jobs. Green jobs that are going to help us save the environment. Union jobs that are going to help families rebuild economically. I hope you’ll take a look at that.

Because another piece we have to be willing to talk about, many folks are not, and that is the role of regulation. Think about it this way. There are just three industries that produce seventy percent of the carbon we throw into the air…The first one is housing and buildings, right, our housing and buildings. The second one is cars. And the third one is electricity, how we produce electricity. So I’ve got a plan. I picked this up from Governor Jay Inslee ’cause I think it’s such a terrific plan. [Voice: “Yeah!”] [applause] By 2028 new building has a zero carbon footprint. By 2030 all new cars and light duty trucks that are produced, zero carbon footprint. And by 2035 all electricity that is produced, zero carbon footprint. Three regulations in place and we cut our carbon emissions by seventy percent by 2035. [applause][cheers]

That’s not all we need to do, there’s much more. We need to think about this globally, which I do. I’ve got a lot of plans around this. But here’s the part I want to go to just to pull this back together. Noting is going to happen so long as Washington remains as corrupt as it is. So anyone who tells you, oh I’ve got great plan and number A, terrific plan number B, and fabulous plan number C, and isn’t willing to say I’m going to beat back the influence of the big polluters, of the carbon based industry, of the Koch brothers, it’s not gonna happen.

Oh, there may be some bills that get passed that have wonderful names. Right. Like clean up everything and the future only…[laughter] and unicorns. [laughter] Right?

But to make real change we have got to beat back the corruption in Washington. We have got to beat back the influence of money.

So, you ask me what’s it going to look like? And the answer is, all I can talk about is corruption. [applause] I will absolutely…[applause][cheers]

And when Mark Zuckerberg doesn’t like it, too bad for Mark Zuckerberg. [cheers][applause]

But, it is about having the courage to call out the corruption. And let me tell you one other, just how this is going to fit together. It’s that we’ve got to attack the corruption head on. So that we can disrupt it. So we can put it on its back feet. So that we can start making the changes we need to make, and I mean making them fast, on every single possible front. It is absolutely critical that we do this. I want to say a lot more about this. It’s the reason, also, that I’m in the fight. Say, I’m going to get rid of the filibuster on the first day. Otherwise those guys, the money interests will continue to have a veto over everything that comes through Congress.

We simply cannot afford this anymore. We need to make change starting January 2021. We need to make it fast. We need to make it right. And we to be in this fight, all of us, all the way. [cheers][applause]

Previously:

Senator Elizabeth Warren (D) – Town Hall – Indianola, Iowa – October 20, 2019 (October 20, 2019)

Senator Elizabeth Warren (D) – Town Hall Q and A – LGBTQ – Indianola, Iowa – October 20, 2019 (October 21, 2019)

Senator Elizabeth Warren (D) – town hall – Indianola, Iowa – October 20, 2019

The question and response:

Question: …Last Summer, uh, I spent some time in the Philippines, for, and, uh, one of the things I noticed was the number of, uh, LGBTQ in the Philippines that were very free to express who they were and be who they were without any fear. And so, when I come here I see so many that have to hide. And so, just my one question, there, you know, what more could you hope to do for our LGBTQ?

[….]

…to marry an immigrant, uh, this coming Summer. I’d like to invite you to come. [cheers][applause]

Senator Elizabeth Warren (D): Well, let me know what the dress is, whether I can wear my sneaks or we’re really gonna go for it. Okay, sounds great. Thank you, Michael. And thank you for being here.

Um, so. let’s start the question about our LGBTQ youth. Uh, What do we do to provide better support? For me, this, this starts at a foundational place. And that is the statement of our values. What kind of a country we want to be, what kind of a people we want to be. The thing? This is very straightforward. I believe in the worth of every single human being in this country. [applause][cheers] And I believe we can support that in a million ways, large and small. But let’s start, I’ll talk about it in just a second, let’s start with where we are right now. And that is, we have a President who traffics in hate…It is a strategy, a strategy, and the strategy is, turn people against people. Turn people against people. Turn white against black and brown. Turn, uh, um, straight against gay, and particularly trans, and particularly trans people of color. Um, turn Christian against Muslim. Turn everyone against immigrants, particularly black and brown immigrants. And his hope is that enough people are fighting with each other, nobody will notice that Donald Trump and his corrupt buddies are stealing this country blind. [applause][cheers]

And here’s the benefit we’ve got as we start rolling into 2020, it’s about what we’re out there fighting for, but it’s also how we’re fighting. How we are building a grass roots movement together to pick up each others’ fights. Not to state, well, that’s your fight, and then your fight is the other one, and your fight is about Social Security, your fight is about student, that’s ’cause you’re different ages, your fight is about what’s happening in criminal justice where there’s such a heavy race component. It’s to say, no. We’re gonna pick up each others’ fights. We’re all gonna make this America that works, not just for a thinner and thinner slice at the top, we’re gonna make this an America that works for everyone. That is our goal…[cheers][applause].

So, I have, as you’re not surprised, lots of plans around LGBTQ plus, and LGBTQ plus youth. Uh, LGBTQ plus youth are more likely to be homeless. We need to put real resources in. And that means counselors, sending people into the field…in the streets, so that we can help families, and places for people to go, if that’s what they have to do.

Uh, it’s powerfully important that every policy we think about we take a step back and think about how it’s felt by people of different sexual orientation, different identification, uh, people who are non-binary. How does it, how does it work? And nowhere is that more true than for our youth.

So, it’s about health care, it’s about immigration, it’s about every time we want to make sure as a country that we’re building opportunity, that opportunity is not a narrow bridge, that you gotta be just one way, to cross that bridge. That it’s a bridge that’s got a whole lot of on-ramps to it for a whole lot of people. ‘Cause, here’s the deal, we are a country that will be the country of our best values when every single one of our children is valued, gets a good education, and has lots of opportunities available to them. [applause][cheers]

Previously:

Senator Elizabeth Warren (D) – Town Hall – Indianola, Iowa – October 20, 2019 (October 20, 2019)