president that is more knowledgeable, more principled and has taken the time to educate himself on issues of national security. so the three most important things in my life are my wife and two children and i'm looking for a president that's going to keep them safe. national security is number one. i include in that boarder security and interior security. i am the author of the toughest interior security bill you'll ever read. a sovereign nation has the right to determine who gets to come here, how long you get to stay and what we'll put you through to be here. it's a right to immigrate and sovereign countries have the right to determine who gets to come and who has the right to stay. we have the right to say like grandpa at christmastime, it's time to go, time to go home. if i were not 100% certain that marco rubio is committed and principled on the issues of national security, including border security, interior security and employment security, i would be in south carolina right now and not in iowa getting ready to introduce

him. trust me when i tell you i have done my research. i am at peace that he is the best candidates on the issues that matter most to me. do you care about fiscal responsibilities and a president that puts us on the path to fiscal responsibility he's your guy. if you doubt it, go gift exchange with him next christmas. i promise you he's a fiscal conservative. i got a copy of his book, paperback. the wrapping cost more than the gift.

if you doubt that he is a fiscal conservative, exchange gifts with him next christmas. you'll find out that he is. he's also better at something that i am or ever will be. i heard him in 2010 speak on the message of conservatism in a hopeful, persuasive, aspirational way. and i'm a former prosecution. you don't want prosecutors that are hopeful and aspirational. i can't do what he does. tim scott can do it, president reagan could do it, others can do it. i can't do it. you by know that hope is important. i was reminded of that when my wife -- my wife and i went to a -- i didn't want to go but she said you have to go to your sister's wedding. it went and there's that same verse you hear in every wedding. these three things remain, hope, faith, and love and the greatest is love. we know that home and faith must be important to even be in the next sentence. it's ok to have faith that this next decade or century can be the greatest american century. it's also ok to be hopeful as you're delivering the message of conservativism.

you don't have to be angry and upset. you can be hopeful. so if you told me five years ago that i'd be in iowa getting ready to introduce the son of cuban immigrants, the son of a bartender, son of a lady who did housekeeping i would first of all tell you that's only in america and i would say are you sure that's where i'm going to with in five years? but i've analyzed the candidates and i have picked mine. you need to do the same thing. i hope and i think when you get through hearing him that you will reach the same conclusion and that he will convince you, as he has me, that he is our best hope in 2016 and beyond so help me welcome marco rubio. \[applause]

let's take the opportunity to embarrass my family. always on the new sites, always updating me on the campaign. 10. is anthony, who is we are so proud of him as well. this is dominic, who one day may stand on one of the stages. wife, we have been married over 17 years. we met in 1991. there was this cute girl living on the features. somehow i convinced her to marry me. seven years after that we have four wonderful children. have so many good friends in

south florida who don't get to see snow very often. i want to thank all of you for being here. thank you. i want to think jack, he is our campaign chairman. he is done a phenomenal job for us. we are so grateful to him and so honored by him and his hope and confidence in us. i want to thank tray for being here. he is a phenomenal public servant. trey gowdy is trying to make a difference. he is a strong and principled believer in the constitution and the liberties. i am grateful for his testimony about the campaign. i am here today because i want you to caucus for me in iowa. it is the most and port in -- most important privilege we are given in this republic. it is the most important right to be able to choose our leaders. here in iowa, you place such an extraordinary role in choosing a president.

in 33 days, when the country decides who will lead the nation in the aftermath of barack obama, i hope i earn that support. if you already are on our scene, our hope is to find more people to support us. i cannot emphasize how important this election is for america. and this is by far, the greatest nation in human history. there has never been a country like america and the history of the world. it was founded on a principle that our rights come from god, not the government. and you and i on the principles that all human beings are equal in the eyes of our creator. therefore, that is why we believe that all human life is worthy of the protection of our

laws. we were made the freest people in the history of the world. from that flows free enterprise, which made us the most prosperous people. the rest, as they say, is the history of this great country. a nation that for over two centuries has served as an inspiration to the world, and a place for millions, including my parents, came here in search of a better life. the history of america has no parallel. we are blessed to be citizens of the single greatest nation in all of human history. and yet, despite everything america is and has done, there have always been these people in american politics who do -- who view america as a flawed country, in need of radical reform. people who want government more in charge of our life. they don't trust you to make the right decisions. they don't trust me to make the right decisions for my children. people that want more government involved in our economy. they believe that free enterprise is unfair.

but only a handful of people make all of the money. everyone else is left out. they believe the only way businesses can make a profit is by exploiting workers and customers. people that have viewed those with traditional values with great suspicion. we have a president that has said people with traditional values cling to their guns and religion. people who think people with traditional values dislike anyone unlike them. we have had this view that america is a arrogant global power that needs to be humbled. we have had people that believe these radical things. problem is, one of them was elected president in 2008. now we are seeing the results of it. a government takeover of our economy, our health care system, and now trying to take over our schools. you have an all-out assault on our constitutional rights. an accession -- an obsession

with getting rid of the second amendment, and of session with the eroding our religious liberty. a foreign policy that is about betraying our allies, cutting deals with our enemies, weakening our military, and apologizing for america. the truth is, barack obama and hillary clinton do not want to fix what is going wrong in america. they want to change america. they want to change america. what you're left with is, instead of a president who has undertaken the systematic effort to redefine our country in every aspect of it. what you have now is a society where people hold views that they support traditional marriage, they call you a bigot and a hater. if you are pro-life, they say you are waging a war on women. instead of focusing on the people that are struggling and working harder than they have ever worked and making less, we

have a president that is accessed with creating more government programs, oftentimes that benefit people at refused to work. we know that isis is actively recruiting people to infiltrate into our country using the syrian refugee crisis as a cover. you say you want to restrict the refugees, they say that is hateful. we have terrorists beheading people all over the world. isis is crucifying people, carrying out attacks in paris and then bernadino. we have the runway risk of radical jihadist and the president thinks the greatest risk we face is climate change. we have the gutting of our military. we are on pace to have the smallest navy we have had in 100 years. we are on pace to have the oldest and smallest air force this country has ever had. instead of worrying about funding the men and women in uniform, we have a president who

spends more time fighting for funding for planned parenthood, for example. this is why people are so angry. this is why the people with a most money and the most endorsements that have been around longest are not winning. this is why people are so angry and frustrated at both political parties. this has been building for a while. this is why when i decided to run for the u.s. senate, the entire republican establishment in washington was against me. i ignore them. that's why right now this year, when i announced i was running for president, any of the same people came to me and said, you cannot run. it's not your turn. you need to wait. wait until what? after eight years of barack obama, this is a time for action in this election. if we get this election wrong,

there may be no turning back for america. that's why this election is so important. that's why i'm here today in hopes of earning your support in the iowa caucus. the first thing we need is a president who is in touch with what is going on in our lives, someone who clearly understands what we are facing and what we are dealing. no one running understands it better than i do because i have lived many of the same challenges our people are now facing. i want to know how is hillary clinton going to lecture me about living paycheck to paycheck, since i happen to grow up paycheck to paycheck. jeanette and i have had to live a check to paycheck. how is hillary clinton going to lecture me about student loans? i had over $100,000 of student loans just four years ago. jeanette and i happen to be raising four children in the 20th century, and we have to work harder than ever to ensure that our children grow up with the values they teach in our church, not those being rammed down our throat by hollywood and the media.

we need a president who understands what our people are facing, and i do because i have faced them, and in facing them now. we need a president who understands the that me what -- who understands exactly what must happen for us to reclaim america, reclaim the american dream, and make this nation greater than it has ever been. i understand this and will put it in place when i am in office. i will place my left hand on the bible and raise my right hand in in the air -- in the air and swear to protect and defend and uphold the constitution of the united states of america. unlike the president now, i am actually going to mean it. i'm going to appoint judges and an attorney general who will respect and protect the constitutional rights of all americans, especially the second amendment and our religious liberty. i will immediately begin the work of undoing the damage barack obama has done to america. on my first day in office, i will repeal every single one of

his unconstitutional and illegal executive orders. we will get rid of all these crazy overreaches by the employment prevention agency. we will repeal all of the overreaches. any work the federal government is doing on imposing common core, we will stop it. we have republicans out there who have supported common core. i'm going to make sure common core will never be imposed on our local school districts. we don't even need a department of education. we should close it and give it's important functions over to the treasury. we don't need federal takeovers or involvement. [applause] on my first day in office, we are going to stop any and all

taxpayer funding of abortion overseas. this is a bipartisan commitment the nation made that the president has reversed. we will change it on my first day in office and i will now -- i will announce, i will put the full weight of presidency behind it effort to call a article five constitutional convention of the states. and why? i will tell you why. because that's the only way we will ever get term limits on congress and federal judges. that's the only way we will ever get a balanced budget amendment. that's why our founders created a mechanism in the constitution for us to take control of our government and our future. i will use the bully pulpit of the white house to push for and hopefully succeed in calling a constitutional convention so we can have term limits on congress and a balanced federal budget. [applause] i will cancel barack obama's deal for the ayatollah of iran. it is a betrayal of israel.

when i'm president, we are not going to abandon free enterprise. we are going to embrace it. we will fix the tax code, they -- limit in cap regulation and produce more american energy. that means solar, wind, bio fuel, oil, natural gas. we are bringing jobs back to this country by re-embracing free enterprise and creating the best paying jobs of the 21st century. on obamacare, every republican running is against obamacare. i'm the only republican running that has ever done anything about it. in 2009, the big insurance companies cut a deal with barack obama and hillary clinton -- not hillary clinton, but nancy

pelosi and harry reid. they created a bailout fund with your money. a fund designed to bailout by -- private insurance companies who lost money under a obamacare with taxpayer money. they did that back in 2009. in 2014, i wiped out that halo -- that bailout fund and we saved taxpayers $2 billion. there are experts now saying the loss of that bailout fund may ultimately lead to the collapse of obamacare. we can only hope so. one way or the other, when i am president, we are getting rid of obamacare once and for all. [applause] trey touched on immigration. there is no one running for

president that understands immigration better than me. my father was an immigrant. my mother was an immigrant. my grandparents were immigrants. jeanette's family are all immigrants. all of my neighbors or immigrants. i grew up in a community of immigrants. i still live in a community of immigrants. no one understands this issue better than i do. here's what i know to be true. enforcing immigration law is not anti-immigrant. it is what sovereign countries do. they have a right to have an immigration law in the have a right to enforce them. when i'm president, we will. first of all, i understand the immigration issue has changed in just the last two years. it's no longer about new people coming here looking for a better life for a better job. it can no longer be a debate about what to do to get more votes in the next election. this has become a national security issue. terror groups are looking to use our immigration system to get people into this country. the issue has changed and so too must our approach. there was a time not long ago when people did not lock their

doors. they lock their doors now. the world has changed. you don't lock your doors because you hate people on the outside, but because you love the people on the inside. when i'm president, if we don't know with 100% certainty who you are, or why you are trying to come, you cannot come into america. that will be the principle that guides us. we are not going to have amnesty. if you are a criminal, you are going to be deported. sanctuary cities that flaunt our federal immigration laws will lose federal funding. we will enforce our borders. border security is not rocket science. we know what it takes to do it and we will. we need 20,000 new order agents. we need at least $4 billion of new technology so we can identify people are trying to cross illegally certain sectors of the border.

we need an entry exit tracking system to prevent these the overstays. if we do that, you will see illegal immigration, and control --, under control -- come under control dramatically. when i'm president, we will do it for the first time in 30 years, it will happen. on national security, it is the most important issue the federal government faces. there are talks of how they will carpet bomb isis. they will make the sands of the middle east glow-in-the-dark. talk is cheap. national security is not. national security is the most important thing the federal government does, and being commander-in-chief is the most important role of president will play. you cannot kill terrorist or carpet bomb them if you don't have airplanes or if you don't have bombs.

we won't be able to do any of that if we keep cutting the military. i don't understand how there can be republicans running for president who support these defense cuts and want them to go even deeper. when i'm president, we are rebuilding our military. we will ensure we remain the most powerful military in the world. the world is a safer and better place where america is the strongest military in the world. [applause] we will take care of our veterans. if you are a veteran, we thank you for your service and for being here today. when i am president of the united states, if you're not doing a good job working at the -- at the va, you will be fired. the benefits will be like the g.i. bill. the veteran will not have to chase down the benefit. you can take your v.a. benefit to any hospital, any doctor, any clinic, any provider you want to go to instead of the v.a.

because these benefits belong to the veteran, not the bureaucracy. we will have a real war on terror, not a rhetorical war on terror. which means we will find terrorists wherever they are. if we happen to capture them alive, they will get a one-way ticket to guantanamo bay, cuba, and there we are going to find out everything they know about threats to the future. -- about plots past, present or future. there is no middle ground. the sooner we take it seriously, the safer and better off we are going to be. i know that times are difficult and it is true that after seven years of barack obama, by the time we elect a new president, eight years of barack obama. it is true that america is a great country on the road to decline.

but it doesn't have to remain this way. we are not a weak nation. we just happen to have a weak president, and we are going to change that. that's why this election is so important. we cannot afford four more years like the last eight. that's why hillary clinton cannot win this election. we cannot afford to elect just any republican. it's not just a choice between two political parties. this is a generational choice, a referendum on our identity as a nation and as a will. and the question before us is, do we want to remain a special country? or do we want to be a nation in decline, the way we are right now. i'm running for president, because while america owes me absolutely nothing, i have a debt to america i will never repay. this is not just the nation i grew up been or was raised in or was born in. america is a country that literally change the history of my family. america did not become an exceptional country by accident. it became exceptional because for over 200 years, each generation did their part.

they confronted the challenges and embraced the opportunities and left the next generation better off than themselves. for 200 years, each generation left the next better off. now our turn has come. the time has come for us to do our part. that's why i'm here today to ask you for your vote at the caucuses. if i am president, we are going to re-embrace the principles that made america great. we will not just run away from, we will confront and solve the issues of our time, not leave them to my children and yours. we will embrace the opportunities of 21st century. if we do this together, we will not just say the american dream. we are going to expand it to reach more people and change more lives than ever before. the 21st century does not have to be as good as 20th century. we have a chance to make it

better. so i hope that in the time we have today i can earn your support. i know of no greater cost than what we are doing in this generation. that is ensuring that our children inherit from us what we inherited from our parents, the single greatest nation in the history of all mankind. in a moment we will begin to take your questions. we have one microphone. is there a second one? we will be happy to answer any questions you have. let's get to work. who is going to go first? ok. yes, sir. nice hat. >> in regard to obamacare, is just cutting the funding on a year basis, is that going to

eliminate the actual legislation that was passed? is there something that needs to be done besides just cutting the funding? sen. rubio: the only way to get rid of obama care is to pass a law that repeals it. when i'm president, i will sign that law. we can get around the filibuster in the senate. we can repeal it the same way they passed it. with a process called reconciliation, you don't need to know all the legalese a use in washington. we will have a majority in the house and senate that will pass it and i will sign it and obamacare will be gone. then every american will be given the opportunity to buy any insurance they want from across state lines. whether it's a refundable tax credit or money from your employer that you don't pay taxes on, you will be able to

use it to pay for health insurance the way you want to pay for it. some people want a health savings account. others want catastrophic coverage. they can buy it from any company in america that will sell it to them. it will be better for you and better or america. >> as president marco rubio, which i would like to see, how are we going to balance approximately soon to be $20 trillion and rebuild our military, which we have to do. sen. rubio: national defense is the most important thing america does. we should fully fund our national security before we pay for anything else. it's why we have a federal government. it is not the cause of our national debt.

this president has built up faster than any other president in the country. it's being driven by the way social security and medicare are structured for future generations. in florida there are a lot of people on social security and medicare. one of them happens to be my mother. i don't want anything to change for her that is negative. we don't have to change medicare and social security for her. we can leave them on disrupted for her, current retirees, people about to retire in 10 years or less. but there is no way social security and medicare will look the same for me or my children as it did for her. it either goes bankrupt, or we reform it. instead of retiring at 67, i may have to retire at 68. that is not an unreasonable request after what my parents did for me.

it's not unreasonable reform. medicare can be the option of using medicare money and using it to buy private plan that you like better. we have versions of that now called medicare advantage. we can help bring our debt under control, save social security and medicare for future generations and we don't have to disrupt it for people who rely on it now or people who are about to retire. if we don't do it, the problem gets harder to resolve. >> when you become president, what are the chances you will name trey gowdy to be your attorney general? [laughter] >> i think if he is willing to take the demotion -- no, he is

phenomenal. he would be great in anyone's cabinet. i'm not sure that's what he wants to do, but i have tremendous respect for him because he is a firm believer in the constitution of the united states. we desperately need an attorney general that believes in the constitution. it is such a unique document. other countries have constitutions. it is largely a document that says here are the powers the government has. our constitution is a document of limitation. it says here are the powers that belong to the people. the people have allowed you to have a few powers, and that is it. it's the document of limitation. we have lost perspective. so we don't have a justice department that enforces the rights of all americans under the constitution. we don't have judges that do

that either. we have a growing number of judges that believe the constitution is something to be manipulated, something to be creative with. that's the reason they gave us the constitution, so we would not have that sort of thinking. we need an attorney general that will do that. we also need judges that will do that. that's why we need term limits on the judiciary. there is no reason these people should be on there for the rest of their lives. we should have term limits for the president, for members of congress, and for the judiciary and we need to appoint people to the bench that know that their job is to interpret and apply the constitution, not manipulate it or create loopholes in it. >> you mentioned earlier your student loan debt. as president, how would you fight the rising cost of higher education? sen. rubio: i feel personally committed to the cause of dealing with student loan debt. we have so many other americans who are inheriting thousands of dollars of student loans often

for a degree that does not even lead to a job. we will make it easier to pay back the loans people already have. we will have an income-based repayment model. i would rather collect $20 a month then nothing. if you ruin your credit, you cannot buy a house, start a business, or go on with the rest of your life. they basically are with you until you die or pay them off. we will make it easier and cheaper to acquire college credit. we should have more competency-based learning. if you already learned something because you served in the military, you should give people college credit for what they've already learned.

if you served two tours of duty in the middle east, why should you have to pay to sit in class and take a course on middle eastern affairs? we will create an alternative model that allows you to acquire that learning cheaper and faster. the third thing is we will have alternatives to the student loan like the student investment plan. it allows promising students to have their tuition paid for the same way a private group would invest in employees. it's better than alone because -- better than a loan because it does not sit on your credit report, and all the risk is on the investment group, not only student. this is particularly useful for graduate students. and we will provide you with more information. we are going to provide you more information. before anyone takes out a student loan, you will be told

this is how much people make when they graduate from this school with a degree you are majoring in. so our students can make informed decision on whether the degree they are pursuing is worth their investment. it will provide ways for students to pay back their loans or perhaps even avoid them and not find themselves in the situation millions now find themselves in, which is unable to pay back the loans that have basically taken over their lives. >> i would like to ask, do you think there are any indictments coming down the road that might change the whole presidential campaign? trey gowdy: do you mean one of our people or one of their people? let me say this. that's more my old job than my

current job. i used to be a federal prosecutor and i was a state prosecutor. i'm not in a position to know the answer to that. i will tell you this, i have a lot of confidence and i might be biased toward the fbi. i worked with them for 16 years and i never once had a political conversation with a law enforcement officer. i trust the director and he's going to do his job, and he will do it well. i'm confident it will be an outcome for all americans to have confidence in. but it is important -- i get asked this at the grocery store all the time. the legislative branch has its lane. one reason i so desperately want marco rubio to win, but for conservatives to control the executive branch is for all the reasons the senator just mentioned. you pick judicial nominees, the attorney general, the united states attorneys. that's what the executive branch gets to do. it's important that we went in 2016 but i trust the folks that

are looking into that. they have more information than i do. sen. rubio: i would just say this. if a member -- i'm on the intelligence committee. if a member of my staff took classified documents and walked out of the building with them, they would be fired and prosecuted. just because you come from a powerful position or a rich

family, it should not hold to above the law. if you do that kind of thing, you are de facto disqualified from being commander-in-chief of the united states because you are reckless and irresponsible with the most important information of the united states. i personally believe what hillary clinton did with her e-mail server is something that disqualifies her from being president of the united states. there is no way someone that reckless or irresponsible should be the commander-in-chief or president of the united states. [applause] >> to piggyback on your educational reforms of college. the last time i heard you speak, you had a very good plan for vocational-technical schooling. i'm wondering if you could share that with the people because i thought that was great. not everybody is going to go to college. sen. rubio: about 30 years ago

or maybe a little longer, our public schools started lying to our students. they started telling them that vocational schools were for kids not smart enough to go to college. these are incredibly good paying jobs that are highly complex and valued jobs. when i'm president, i will be the vocational and educational president. i will use the white house and the bully pulpit of the presidency to celebrate these jobs. these are the jobs that service the backbone of entire communities in this country. it is the loss of those jobs it has destroyed cities and towns

across america. when you run for president, you drive through some of the cities and you see that been hollowed out because the factory closed. we need to bring more of those jobs back and train people to do them. the first thing i will do a celebrate these jobs that are just as good if not better than some of the four-year degree jobs. then we will make it easier for people. when i'm president, if you are a high school student and you are going to a high school or school system that does not offer quality vocational training, we will let you use the pell grant to go to a trade school while you are still in high school. that means the students can go to high school in the morning and in the afternoon, go to trade school. when they graduate at 18 years of age, they will not just be handed a high school diploma, they will receive an industry certification that says you are ready to work as a welder, pipefitter, electrician, plumber, to work in a factory. imagine a country where thousands are graduating from high school ready to work in these professions, what it would mean. that's what we're going to do. these are good jobs and we need to train more people to do it. that means we will have more people employed. [applause]

we did a poll last week. i have completely lost the philosopher vote. fortunately it's only .2% of the voting electorate. that is a joke. i want to close by saying i know you have a lot of choices. one out of six republicans is running for president, so i know it's a lot of people. we have a very talented field. none of our candidates is a socialist. none of them are under fbi investigation. but none of them understand what makes america special more than i do. it's not something i saw on a documentary or even read about in a book. i listened. my parents were not born in this

country. my father lost his mother when he was four days shy of his ninth birthday. at nine years of age, he stopped going to school and started going to work. he would work for the next 70 years of his life. he never made a lot of money. my parents never became rich or famous, and they were incredibly successful people, because they came to the one place on earth where immigrants with a limited education who were willing to work hard and sacrifice, to find a job that paid them enough to own a home, to retire with dignity, and could leave all four of their kids better off than themselves. no one running for president understands it better or will fight harder every single day not just to keep you safe but to ensure that the country your children and grandchildren

inherit is the country our parents left for us, the greatest nation in all of human history. if you are ready to sign up now, we have forms here. we ask you to fill them out so we can stay in touch with you. so that in less than five weeks here in iowa we will take the first step in replacing barack obama and reclaiming america for our children and grandchildren. thank you all, and god bless you. >> if you can learn stuff on

your own improve you have mastered a topic, why would we require you to go to school for it much mark -- for it? is faster than ever but will it open things up for innovation? honor.s an >> thank you. >> [inaudible] budgetopose a regulatory .

we would lower it in cap it and agencies have to reduce regulations. >> is not optional. >> it is a mandatory budget. if i win we will have a majority in the house and senate. leaderhe senate republican? >> when i am president we will get things done. we are playing defense overtime but we will play offense when i am president. that is what we are working on. where are your boys?

>> thank you for coming. we are ready. we have a lot of issues. [indiscernible]