that moderate conservative side of the party. but biden is not falling too fast right now so it's a battle of those top four at the moment. >> david chalian, thank you very. i want to hand it offver to eri for the cnn town hall with former vice president joe biden. good evening from iowa, welcome to cnn democratic presidential town hall with former vice president joe biden. i'm erin burnett. we are live at burnel college, just 84 days from the iowa caucuses when democratic voters will get their first day in the 2020 election. as the contenders go all in here in iowa, former vice president biden is here to make the case he is the best candidate to defeat president trump. tonight he'll take questions from iowa democrats and independents who say they plan to participate in the democratic

caucuses. many of them are unity sided. please welcome former vice president joe biden. >> thank you, erin. >> great to see you. great to see you. >>. [ applause ] >> we got a good crowd. >> great crowd. good to be back. >> good crowd on a poll night. >> thank you. >> are you ready? >> ready, get set, go. >> so let's get started and get straight to our audience. vice president, of course today is veterans day and we honor all those who serve and have served this great country. the first question we have tonight is from dave degner, served in the u.s. army reserve for nine years and spent 15 years as a truck driver. he's currently running for state senate here in iowa and is the democratic party chair and is teaching at a local community

college while attending the university of northern iowa full time. go ahead with your question. >> how do you have time to even come and ask a question? god love you. thank you for your service. >> i'll make time for you, mr. vice president. as she said, as a 42-year-old veteran who enlisted before 9/11 and served until 2004, i am unable to utilize gi bill benefits for 15 years. the veterans at that discharged after january 2013 get those benefits to life thanks for the forever g.i. bill. would you, if elected, extend those benefits for all veterans so people like myself can go back to school or enroll in job training later in life if our situations required it? >> yes, i would attempt to do that. number one, we owe you big. the fact of the matter is own 1% of our population serves. we only have one sacred obligation and it not hyperbole,

one saek krcred obligation to pt those who serve and make sure they have everything they're entitled to and so the answer is yes. >> thank you. [ applause ] >> all right. our next question, mr. vice president, is from kate nash, she's from marion iowa and is an admission counselor at cornell college. go ahead. >> i come from a military family. my brother is a veteran, served two tours in iraq. so many of our veterans do not receive proper mental health care when they return and end up on the streets. how do you plan to fick this x issue? >> you probably do know more veterans are committing suicide than are being killed in battle. it has to stop. one of the things that president obama and i did when we dealt with the homelessness of veterans, we said we were going

to end it, make it a gigantic priority. i would make sure every single solitary veteran when they pick up that telephone and they need help, there's help available to them immediately. we added 1,600 doctors and 4,000 nurses in our term. we need to provide more services, not fewer. more services for those veterans that are coming home and they're entitled. i carry in my pocket and i won't do it now and i have my schedule every single day, lists everything in my schedule and has a little black box in it and lists in it u.s. daily troop update, u.s. troops died, 6,900. every single one of these people left behind an entire community. these fallen angels deserve all our respect. 52, 954 wounded. guess what, 300,000 that have

come home from these wars with post traumatic stress and they're not getting the services they need. so the combination of being aible to able to increase the amount of money we are al kalocating to the v.a. my son did a year in iraq. we lost him but he came home and one of the things we should be looking at is those burn pits that are there. it just like, you know, when all the firemen in new york wheent down to 9/11 and so many got cancers, particularly brain cancer. that's what's happening. iraq with brain cancer.home from there's a direct connection between those burn pits and taking in that -- all that toxin that's available. and we should say anybody who was anywhere near those burn

pits, teahat's all they have to show and they get covered, all their health care covered. there's a lot we have to do but i think the public is ready to do it now because so many people have direct connections with somebody in the 9/11 generation that served, that it's real and we have to move on it now. >> thank you, mr. vice president. >> i want to bring in andrew tucker, a junior here at grinnell college. >> all downhill from here. >> thank you. it infuluenced new discussion about the number of troops we have overseas. do you think we can have the same level of protection by

allowing more diplomacy. >> one, we don't need large standing armies abroad. that is not what we need. particularly in the middle east. particularly from the mediterranean to the gulf. we don't need that. but we do need special forces in small array of people that we have put together with other 69 countries we worked with to deal with stateless terrorism and unstable areas of the world because we can't do it all by ourselves. the other thing we should be doing is strengthening our alliances instead of embracing au auough autocrats and dictators like this president does and poking our finger in the eye of people of nato and japan and far east. we should be embracing them because we need them to help us deal with the reality of what the new world is. we're going to be dealing with unstable countries, stateless terrorists and we can't be the

world's policemen. we need them with us so i think we need troops abroad but in small numbers. we only had several hundred troops taking care of all those kurds and 11,000 of them died fighting isis and winning and we abandoned them. did you see the looks on those soldiers when they were coming up in those tanks and up-armored humvees? people were standing there saying help me, help me. you can see in their faces how they felt so, so, so badly that they were leaving and look what's happened. who's going to trust us? >> you know, you're eluding to obviously your criticism of the president's decision to pull troops out of northern syria but also in your answer you touched on your -- you don't want endless wars. you talked about not wanting that. >> yes. >> when you look around the world right now, mr. vice president, we currently have 200,000 service members stationed around the world, in the mediterranean through the middle east, 63,000 troops in

the middle east alone. so where would you look first to start bringing them home? >> let me make a clarification. we don't need large numbers of combat troops conducting wars in areas like afghanistan or iraq, et cetera. we don't need that. that's not what's necessary. we do need -- we do need bases and stations around the world, we do need people that are stationed in nato. we do need troops that are stationed in the far east, in asia dealing with the concerns that -- they act as a sign saying not here, the united states is here. we are going to dissuade you from doing anything irrational. but the fighting troops out there shooting, the special forces folks, are needed to deal with the stateless actors.

if we pulled our troops out of everywhere from gaum to australia and everywhere in between, that would be a green light for china to continue to try to take over significant areas of territory by their mere presence we have to make sure we enforce international rules and sea lanes and skies, et cetera, that we're going to make it clear you got to go through us to change it. that is important to have troops dispatched around the world but not combat troops engaged in active wars. >> we are just two days away, of course, as we all in this room now and as you know from public impeachment hearings from president trump. our next question is from will freeman, an associate professor here at grinnell. he said he supports you for the nomination. will, go ahead. >> welcome, sir. >> thank you. >> i feel like our country and all we stand for has been

hijacked by a pesh who i view as decidedly unamerican. he is not a reflection of what this country stands for. will the current impeachment process convince independents that the president has to be northbound or could this backfire on the democrats? >> well, to answer the question, the simple answer is this. the house has no option. it has to enforce the constitutionwhether or not it turns out to work or not work or whether or not it turns out that he should or shouldn't in asking other countries to engage within our politics that is a violation, that is a problem that we have to look at. [ applause ] >> and so it may or may not -- [ applause ] >> i've been there for two impeachments, coach, and they're not pretty. and it not anything i wish the

country to have to go through, but we have to maintain the constitutional principles that exist. here's what will happen. if the case is made as strongly as it's being saying we got to do something here. >> everybody says the house will in fact indict, impeach, and the senate will never move. i don't buy that it will depend on what their constituency says. if you're a republican in a republican area and you have a republican representative and you think the president has my

job is just to go beat them. >> so you remember of course and many of you i'm sure also saw "the new york times" op-ed written by the anonymous senior trump official. so that person has now written a book called "a warning." comes out next week and just tonight we've gotten an excerpt. i just wanted to share it with you. >> uh-oh. >> in is about. those of us who have seen these sorts of wreck less that he wanted to help combat corruption was barely believable to nen around him. the president had apparently learned nothing from the you for donald trump fwlflt he is given. what to you make of this picture behind the scenes in the white

house? >> i didn't write it but i could have. look, i think that's -- every single it including your network and others, have looked at this, have said there's absolutely zero basis to the accusation that i abilitied in any way appropriately or that my son didthis is all about trump trying to create a diversion. and if? sff i know hi. there as not been a scintilla evidence ♪

i think there's overwhelming evidence that this was about -- let me put this another way. can you ever think of a time when i sit sfrk two things i've learned in the last couple weeks. with twrrk number two, this guy trump nt want me to be the nominee. >> so vice president biden, the house republicans have ask pr your son hunter is on. want are in the -- what's your feeling that hunter should speak for thetory pr we have a

president who to serve in that office. are in. >> mr. president, you're worried about corruption? release some of yours. release some of yours! [ applause ] >> this is -- and by the way, those -- and, look, it going to sound -- you're a really talented reporter and you follow things very closely. you've been to many of these places we're talking about, physically -- i remember when you were in egypt you reported there. this is prul tess to avoid focus on him pes that's what this is all about. i'll be darned if i'm going to let us take our eye off the ball. did trump commit impeach abable

that's what it all about. >> well, mr. president, release your tax returns, show us what >> you mentioned having been there for prior peoplements and declan o'reilly are. >> reporter: mr. vice president, having experienced the watergate era, what's the significance of the executive branch defying congress al subpoenas and congress al oversight for the fshto -- even if everybody liked trump when he did these things, you have to respond because it breaking down the walls, the separation of power wall.

when i was asked early on did i support impeach, i said let say. go the president phone calls and doesn't respond and it gives them more power. and the idea that he gets a lawyer to send to the united states congress, i cooperate in way way. no president has done that. as my mother would say, who died and left him king? no, i really mean it. there are three equal branches of government, equal. equal equal. and he is feep. >> so you or what did to you,

plp mr. president than those and poll tex today as gotten so mean and ugly and dirty and if the and not focusing at all on trying to put things together instead of disdegreeing on stub stangs, you go to it has become so, so difficult for republicans to be able to, unless they have real courage to stand you and take on the president even if they think he should be ten out because he such if somewhere between 30 and 35% of the electorate, which is the bulk of the republican party. ands i -- i'll give you an

example. when we nominated a supreme court justice and it was decided they wouldn't even hold a hearing for him that, injury justice, the reason i recommended him to president obama, was that he, in fact, had gotten 35 republicans to say great things about him and he was a really serious person. i called 12 republicans and said what are you doing? 12 of my colleagues in the senate -- do you realize what you're doing to the constitution? they say we know, joe but i'm in a state where in in fact the koch brother drop in $10 million, $12 million, i will lose a primary. if you notice republicans lose pro primaries in red and purple states. it's not about courage, clearly not. but they know what they were doing was wrong. with trump out of the way, i predict to you now, my 89 opponents running for the

nomination are going to say something different. but let me say i honest to god believe with trump out of way, you're going to find people screwing up a lot more courage than they had before to say, okay, okay, i can move now, i have more leeway. because look what he does. you got jeff sessions in alabama saying, please, don't say anything negative about me, mr. president. i know you don't like me. come on. this is just -- the politics has gotten just so out of whack. but it's going to come back in whack, this guy. anyway -- >> all right. we're going to take a brief break, everyone. please stay with us we'll be back with more from the former vice president, joe biden, live from iowa right after this. >> announcer: this cnn town hall

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welcome back to the cnn democratic town hall with former vice president joe biden. we are live at grinnell college.

i want to talk to you about something that's deeply personal for you and for many americans and that is loss, deep, deep personal loss. in 1972 your wife and infant daughter were killed in a car crash and your sons injured. as a parent it's impossible to imagine. four years ago you lost your son beau to brain cancer. now, throughout your public life and throughout this campaign, mr. vice president, wes have seen you and heard you connecting to people through personal grief, you've heard those personal stories in public. what does it mean to you that people have taken comfort in sharing some of these deep personal tragedies with you? >> well, you know, i have -- a lot of people have suffered more than i have. and i have been really -- sounds bizarre to say -- that i had an

incredible family. when i lost my wife and daughter, i had my brother and sister, and my mom was there to help me raise my kids and when i lost beau, i had my son hunter and my daughter ashley. when you're the recipient of someone's understanding and empathy, you understand how it can help and it's just impossible, although sometimes it's hard to not share it with others. when people come up to me often, as you've observed is they come up and they'll walk up to me and all of a sudden a man or woman will just grab me and hug me and say i just lost my son, lost my daughter, tell me, am i going to be okay, am i going to be okay? what people really want to know is when they go through these -- how many of you have lost someone to cancer that you love,

that's close to you, a husband, wife, son or daughter? raise your hands. look at that. and, you know, what it teaches you is a lot of things. i was a single parent for five wree years. i'm not sure i would have fully understood how difficult it is, with all the help i had. my mother used to use an expression. she said out of everything bad something good will happen if you look hard enough for it. and i watched the relationship that i had with my two boys, it was like a steel belt running through our chest after they lost their mom. i watched the relationship my sons -- surviving son and daughter have with one another. so, you know, and the other part is, i'll just conclude by saying everybody's different but what i found is the way you overcome enormous tragedy is you got to find purpose in your life.

purpose. and a purpose is best utilized if it relates to something that related to what the person you lost cared about. so, for example, yesterday i was at a -- i went home to delaware and i was at a run for the beau biden foundation when she felt he was overwhelmingly concerned about the abuse of children. he had a chance to become the united states senator but he stayed and wanted to prosecute one of the sear yrial child abu, 160 some young girls or boys he penetrated ages between 1 and 7. and so we had to run to make sure we dealt with those issues. so i get up, like many of you do with the loss you have, and think to myself for real, no the a joke, is he proud of me today, is she proud of what i'm doing?

is this -- and so i found i think they're just part of me and it's the way i've dealt with it. i promise you and you know it happens to me hundreds of tiles on t -- times on the trail, people just want to know can i make it, can i make it? am i going to be okay? there will come a time if anybody of you are going through it where the thought of the person you lost will bring a smile to your lip before it brings a tear to your eye. that's when you know you're going to be able to make it. but it's hard. it's hard. it gives me some -- it gives me some sense of purpose when i'm able to be of some help. >> i know that those words -- [ applause ] >> those words do mean a lot to people. as a form are unitarian

universalist church minister, go ahead with your question for the vice president. >> vice president biden, thank you for being here. >> thank you. >> a year ago, my professionally successful, beloved girl friend had a brain injury from lack of oxygen after a cardiac arrest. she remains charming and loving and funny. she's also permanently disabled with a 15-minute memory span. this has made me a health care voter. not just for her as an individual but for all of her friend and family who need to know that she's going to be cared for for the rest of her life. >> absolutely. >> so i want to know from you rather than a plan, what are your fundamental values that will inform your decisions about health care for the people of our country. >> what will inform my decision is you can be guaranteed, my word as a biden, you can be

guaranteed i will protect your families as if they're my own. i've been there. i've been there. when they say there's only a few minutes left, say good-bye. you know, it's -- most of it is about being able to have peace of mind, peace of mind. everybody, everybody has to be in a position where they know that if they -- something happens to them, the person that are leaving behind is going to be okay, be taken care of the rest of their lives because so many people are in that position. i sat there when they told me that beau had stage four glee

glioblastoma and i kept thinking to myself other than being with him as much as i can, what do i do? i remember having dinner with him, he was home, he was the attorney general of the state and he was insisting his finish his term. it was in november, he died in may. he outlived the expected time. and he looked -- he asked the kid, his wife to take the kids upstairs. they lived about a mile from me. my wife and i were there. he looked at me and he said, dad, i'm going to be all right no matter what happens, but promise me, dad, promise me, dad, my word as a biden is promise me you'll be okay. i said, beau, i will. it's the first time i heard him come to terms with his death and the way he did, his pending death. and he said but, dad, promise me, give me your word as a biden, you'll be okay, you'll be okay, meaning -- i knew what he meant. he didn't mean a run for office. he knew i'd take care of his kids and his family, but he

worried that i would turn inward, turn inward and just not participate anymore. andpromised. i wasn't sure i could keep the promise at the time. what happens with that friend of yours, you look at her and say what happens if i'm not here? what happens? who is going to be with her? and so i could give you policy answers but the personal answer is you've got to be in a position where that friend of yours is going to it be able to live her life in whatever comfort remains as long as is reasonable for her to be able to do it in terms of the physical condition. and that means, you know, for example, you are know what we know? we know if you have a provider that in fact is a family member, you are much, much -- not professionally, you are much better for that person who is suffering through whatever the

problem is. they can handle it better. that's why we should be paying -- we should provide tax credits for people who stay home to take care of their loved one because they're the one moss ha -- ones who have the greatest impact on their physical health, their mental health, their attitude, that keeps them from being panicked. i just think it's all about just holding on. people just want to know, want to know. hope never dies. hope never dies. and the moment you're alone the hope fades and that's when it is absolutely terror. and so i'm not sure i'm inningsing your question but that's how i feel about it and i think the health care plans have to be available so your friend for the rest of her natural life gets all the care she needs and has the comfort that she's not isolated and left alone. there's nothing worse, all of you know when you have a problem

and being completely alone. alone. it saps -- it saps the nature of human beings to be alone, i think. >> our next yquestion also touches on this issue of health care and joshua is an assistant professor of anthropology here at grinnell, currently supports senator bernie sanders. what is your question? >> sure. many wealthy and not-so wealthy questions have decent health care and free or low-cost college tuition. some of the current democratic candidates endorse similar health and higher education plans. as they explain them, these plans seem doable and you appear to endorse the goals. please state the reasons ideologic ideological, logistical or otherwise why you won't fully support trying to achieve them.

>> good question. [ applause ] >> first and foremost, the thing you must do in public life is be honest with the public. it's going to cost over $30 and 40 trillion over ten years. the entire federal budget on a yearly basis is less than what it will cost to provide for health care for all it will take somewhere between four and ten years for it to come into being. people can't wait. i believe the plan i propose, which is building on obamacare and providing a public option that is available for anyone significantly reducing the cost of getting in the exchange, my plan costs $750 billion, it would immediately cover everybody in america, allow you to keep your private plan if you

wanted it, if you wanted it. the thing that bernie's plan does is that you either have to have his plan or no plan. period. nothing. you cannot choose. a lot of these people have gone out and they've negotiated with their employers a significant health care plan that they've given you salaries for, they've given up part of their income for and they like it. they should be entitled to choose to keep it if they wish. if they don't wish to keep it, they can buy into the public option that i propose affordable and it can happen immediately. i can get it passed. and if you take a look -- excuse me, if you take a look, the vast majority of the people who you have to go into the congress, you to get things done. it matters that you can actually deliver on what you say. for example, i this i nk we sho have free community college,

cutting in half the cost of a college education. everything below from high school to two years of community college, including trade school. we can afford to do that quickly and we can get it done. i believe we can forgive a significant portion of the student debt by reducing from 10% to 5% the payback rate now and in addition to that, if you engage in public service, you in fact can have $10,000 a year debt removed from -- taken off the books and for five years. the average inat the timdebtedn about $38,000. we can do that. but to come along and say you're going to fund a $35, 34, $40 trillion plan in ten years, $1.7 trillion in student debt will be forgiven for all universities, i can understand, i think we can get to the point where we can have four-year public universities covered. but why should in fact these people out here pay for the fact

that my kids had a significant debt but they went to yale and they went to penn and they went -- for incredibly high tuitions? why should that be free? so there has to be some correlation between you being able to do what you say and level with the american people. health care is the single most important thing you all face. and what -- i mean, don't you think you're entitled to know whether or not your taxes are going to go up higher than the benefit than you will get, significantly higher? that's what almost every single study professor you know says. you know it says that. and so how do you explain that? well, you should stand up and do at least what bernie did and say, yup, it's going to cost 7.5% more in your withholding tax and on top of that a 4% to 5% tax increase. but that makes sense. but that only gets you halfway

there. there's a little bit of truth in lending here. >> senator warren has said she's not going to be raising those taxes. she has a different plan. you talked about her support for medicare for all last week. you attacked her. i think it's a fair word. the quote was from you it's just an elitist attitude about you're either my way or the highway. >> let's get something straight. she attacked me. she went out and said biden -- she didn't use my name any more than i used hers. she said biden is a coward. biden -- biden is in fact in the pocket of. biden is -- and she went down the list of saying i should be in a republican primary. >> she did say you were in the wrong primary. >> what do you call that? what do you call that? so i responded by saying -- here's what i said. it's not about hersh it, it's a the attitude that exists.

if you disagree with me, you must be bad. we can disagree. i respect your view. i was talking about you go home and tell everybody, people are busting their neck at the kitchen table conversations going on tomorrow morning like in the house i was raised in and you say by the way, i know you don't think we should raise your taxes on this but this is good for you. this is good for you. what do you mean? where does that come from? >> what specifically is elitist about how she's pursuing medicare for all? >> the attitude that we know better than ordinary people what's in their interest. i know more than you, let me tell what you to do. and it wasn't she's elitist, the attitude is elitist that people can't make up their own minds. you like your health insurance but you shouldn't have your hae health insurance, we're going to give you something better. that is an attitude you're telling me it's my way or the highway. it not about hersh it's about the attitude out there.

it attitude that we know best, you do it my way. where i come from growing up in a middle class neighborhood, the last thing i like was people telling my family and me what we should know, what we should believe as if somehow we weren't injured, that because we didn't have money we weren't knowledgeable. i resent that. i wasn't talking about her, i was talking about the attitude. if you don't agree with me, get in the other party. i'll more of a democrat from my shoe soles to my ears than anybody running in this party. >> including her? >> including everybody, okay? one thing i've never had to wonder about is where i believed and where my ideology was and where i come from and why i'm in this and why i'm fighting. it's because the people like i grew up with, many of whom, in fact, didn't have college agree

degre degrees. most of the people i grew up with their parents did go to college but they were as smart and decent and honorable as anybody else. it's one reason i feel so francly to have power in unions. that's the only point. it no the about her. it's about the attitude that's out there. imagine if i said to her you should be in a socialist primary. biden is being bum, bum, bum, bum, bum. you'd all say that. you know it. >> well, do you think she should? >> no. i think the plan being offered is not an irrational plan but tell us what it means for people. tell us the truth about what is going to happen. maybe you don't know. maybe they really don't have any idea what it's going to cost. but raise your hand here,

anybody, and you, professor, if you are think that you can in fact have medicare for all in the next five to ten years and not raise taxes on middle class people. what do you think? that's unfair to do to you. >> he doesn't have a mic anymore. i'm sure he has an opinion, he's a professor here. >> we will take a brief break and be back with more from the former vice president right after this. where we all want more energy. but with less carbon footprint. can we have both? at bp, we're working every day to make energy that's cleaner and better. and we see possibilities everywhere.

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welcome back to cnn's democratic presidential town hall with former vice president joe biden. we are live from grinnell college right here in iowa. now, vice president biden, you just told our dana bash you all were together in new hampshire just the other day, that you welcome the former new york city mayor michael bloomberg's entry into the race. but what do you think about his apparent strategy to skip the first four contests, including the caucuses right here in iowa? >> is that possible? [ laughter ] i -- look, one thing, i'm going

to leave it to the prognosticators to psych out what is good politics, bad politics. i just think that we'll see. michael is a talented man, has a little bit of money, and can be engaged as long as he wants. but i just think that the way the system is set up now, there are four gates you have to get through to get to super tuesday and on, and they are iowa caucus, new hampshire primary, nevada caucus, and south carolina primary. and so i just think it's the way it's been, and we'll see what happens. but that's a judgment he has to make. >> all right. i want to bring in peggy hugin. she's a photographer and journalist. >> hello. russian interference in elections and governments worldwide is alarming to me, particularly the role that social media has played in the attacks. how will a biden administration

protect our democracy for future generations? >> well, two things. one, you're obviously under no illusion like the president is that russia did not engage and continues at this moment to engage in our politics, which is a violation of our sovereignty. and i t the fact that facebook, for example, would take down the ads, the bots that -- for example, i know that putin doesn't want me because thousands of bots were used to try to attack -- attacking me. and i just think that social media has to be more socially conscious of what is in important in terms of our democracy. and part of that is a little truth in lending here and making sure that everything is not about whether they can make a buck. it requires the journalistic

responsibility you have -- you can't do what they can do on facebook. you can't do what they can do and just say anything at all, then not acknowledge when you know something is fundamentally not true. i think it's a little out of hand, and i, for one, think we should be considering taking away the exemption that they cannot be sued for knowingly engaging in promoting something that's not true. [ applause ] >> all right. we're going to take a very quick break. we'll be right back with more from our president town hall right here in grinnell, iowa. stay with us. we'll be right back.

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welcome back to cnn's democratic presidential town hall with former vice president joe biden. we are live on the campus of grinnell college in iowa. i want to bring in jessica is t st. john. she teaches english as a second language. she's also a veteran who served tours in both iraq and afghanistan. please go ahead. >> hello, mr. biden. how do you plan to help veterans who served honorably but then

were deported back to their native country? >> bring them back. not a joke. [ applause ] it's outrageous. it's outrageous what they did. outrageous what the president did. and, look, one of the greatest honors i had -- i've been in and out of afghanistan and iraq i guess total about 20 times. i was in the palace, and i think my wife, the second lady, was the only person to go into combat zone. went over. you know for? we swore in 120 soldiers and sailors in ofwa palace, none of whom were american citizens, all who had volunteered from silver stars to bronze stars to purple hearts. and you should have seen the looks in their faces as each one of them came up. that's why we're who we are, the country we are. we are a country of immigrants, and they serve, and they should be treated the same way. [ applause ]

>> what's your dog's name? >> victor. >> okay, victor. i got two german shepherds at home, victor, but i had a black lab too. >> he definitely knows his name. tomorrow the supreme court, mr. vice president, will hear a case that will impact the fate of dreamers here in the united states. i want to bring in thomas condit. he used to work in manufacturing right here in iowa, and he has a question about daca, deferred action for childhood arrivals. >> good evening, mr. vice president. >> good evening, tom. >> institutions such as grinnell college often have some student who's are undocumented. assuming the current administration does not end the program in the next few months, what are your plans to address daca? >> they are americans now. they should be treated as americans now. no, i really mean it. [ applause ] what i don't get -- i don't get, and i met hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of daca students.

what they don't get, what this outfit doesn't get -- can you imagine you're 9 years old and mom is going to take you across the line, across the border illegally, and you're going, no, mom. leave me here. i'm going to stay. come on. what are we talking about? we're going to send these children back to places they don't have any idea about? many of them don't even speak the language anymore. it's bizarre. they are americans now. they should be treated that way, and we should find a pathway for citizenship for -- >> here in iowa tonight, one of many states that is feeling the ongoing effects of the trade war with china. let's bring in alicia addleman, a student and stay at home mom from marshalltown, iowa. good evening. how will you protect iowa's agricultural industry in the long term, which was suffered

under the current administration's trade war with china, beyond bailouts and subsidies. >> we're going to end that trade war with china. it's the wrong war. what they're doing is stealing intellectual property. they're violating international norms. it's not about not allowing american products to be sold in their market or them selling here. that's number one. number two, we should be moving in the direction of keeping our word that we had on ethanol and renewable fuels. that has created billions of dollars, $2 billion of growth in this state, and we should be making farmers the recipients of a climate change plan where they get paid to absorb carbon. they get paid to absorb carbon. [ applause ] there's much more to say but i only have a little bit of time. i have a whole plan, well, on rural america that t