for me because we have to have the right leader in the white house. secondly, on this blueprint, restore the character of our nation. stand for life and religious liberty. religious liberty is under assault in this nation. by know, i really was struck the fact that president obama went to visit the mosque. good for him. but i've never heard president obama stand up and talk about the endless acts of violence against jewish synagogues in this country. i am never heard him talk about the genocide that is going on in the middle east against christians. in the last time i looked, this ritual government is suing the little sisters of the poor in the supreme court because they want the federal government through obamacare to be able to tell a set of catholic nuns how to practice their religion.

folks, this is where we have come to. our own government is suing the little sisters of the poor in the supreme court because the government thinks they know best how to practice religion. we have to take our country back. but let me assure you, as a person of faith, my faith has seen me through bad times. a battle with cancer, the death of our daughter. my faith has seen me through bad times. i know people of faith, people of sincere faith, whatever the their face, -- people of sincere face are better leaders because faith gives us humility to faith is important in a leader. faith tells us that anyone of us can fall and anyone of us can be redeemed. of ustells us that each are equal in the eyes of god, and that gives us empathy and

humility, and both of those are important in a leader. faith gives us optimism as well. we know there is a better way, we know there is a better place, we know people can rise to the occasion. in addition to spending for religious liberty and life, i will stand up and proclaim my faith because i think, folks, we need more prayer in public life, not less. [applause] yes? mic.iorina: ok, share my how's that? you are doing awesome. you wrote it down. how about we read it together? ok. ok, this is corda.

awesome job it she has a question -- "you were in charge of a business. what can i do to grow up to be a leader?" corda that is a great question. ,let's hear it. [applause] so, corda, here is the answer. anyone can lead. anyone can lead. because you know what leadership is? leadership is about unlocking potential in other people. leaders are made, not born. anyone can lead. if you want to be a leader, you will be. you can't let other people you can't -- let other people tell you you can't. you can't let other people tell you to sit down. you can't let other people to tell you to settle for the way things are. know what you are made of. and, corda, i can tell what you are made of, so aim high. [applause]

ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for coming this morning. i want to leave a little time so we can shake hands and take pictures, and if you didn't get questions answered, please go on to carlyforpresident.com. i've pretty cool search engine, pretty cool website, doesn't look like anybody else. you are not going to see a bunch of policy papers. what you will see is me talking to you because i think that is more accountable and more responsive than some paper written by somebody else. please come on up so i can meet as many people as possible and take your picture to i want to tell you, i have a little rule -- it seems fair, i think it one picture, one vote. one picture, one vote. --izens, stayed with me stand with me. we've got to take our country back. [applause] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2015]

[captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] model.astic role goodiorina: fantastic please tell everyone you know what happens in new hampshire. number generation -- [indiscernible] thank you very much. ms. fiorina: thank you so much. tell everyone you know. >> carly? ms. fiorina: yes, ma'am. >> you are amazing. ms. fiorina: tell everybody come help me get >> this was posted on facebook this morning. a teacher. her son liam. ms. fiorina: oh, yes, from the parade! >> would you sign it for me? ms. fiorina: sure.

l-i-a-m. >> best of luck to you. ms. fiorina: all right, get everyone you know to vote for me. votes are better than luck. >> thank you. ms. fiorina: thank you so much. where is your camera? thank you. i didn't expect a gift. thank you. thank you so much. how are you? say hi to jane, my girlfriend surviving breast cancer. ms. fiorina: hi, jane. >> she has been your supporter from day one. ms. fiorina: thank you. is that all right? you want this one? ok, votes are better than luck. keep going. keep going, keep going. >> you are going to do great. ms. fiorina: ok, that's a vote,

right? those are the rules. yeah, the light -- i think that light is so br ight. >> can you saying this for me? ms. fiorina: ok, so that's three votes. you got to go get me 2 more. go get me 2 more. thank you, ma'am. ms. fiorina: there you go. >> we need it -- ms. fiorina: yes, we do. you fight for me and i'll fight for you. thank you. thank you so much. thank you for coming. all right, find out there for me. >> got to go on facebook -- [indiscernible]

-- fiorina: we're going to >> thank you. ms. fiorina: thank you. ok, talk to everybody you know. >> this is for this young lady. congratulations. ms. fiorina: thank you. you are going to vote for me, right? >> and so do we all. ms. fiorina: yes, exactly, we are going to help each other. nice to meet you. ok, we've only got another minute or so. ok. all right. here you go. yes. ms. fiorina: all right, thank you, pauline. thank you. all right, help me. all right, thank you. >> we are ready.

ms. fiorina: all right, thank you. vote. >> thank you. ms. fiorina: all right, thank you. hello, how are you? hey, how are you? awesome. all right, i've got to see your favorite. ok? thank you so much. thank you for coming. get the word out. ok. sorry, we are out of time here/ >> can you -- ms. fiorina: sorry, you are turning into the photographer. thank you. all right. >> can i get my wife -- we can make that

work but it would be easier if you got a new phone. thank you. you know the rules. >> you got the vote. thank you so much. ms. fiorina: you're welcome. all right, thanks. all right, come on. that means a vote from all of you, right? all right. thank you. ms. fiorina: thank you, guys. all right, thank you. nice to meet you. i know you are working hard out there. >> signatures first. ms. fiorina: yes, ok. corda did so good. >> voting for you in the texas primary. ms. fiorina: is that where you are from? >> and from chicago. ms. fiorina: here we go. ok, there you go. thank you, croda, great to meet you.

all right, sorry, guys, i got to go. you've been standing there. who has her camera -- your camera? >> carly fur >> carly fiorina in manchester, new hampshire. more opportunities for you to a in with your thoughts ahead of the new hampshire primary. we will open up our phone lines in just a bit. let's get right to your calls and here from washington. sharon is on the republican line. yes, i'm really appalled by this decision not to have carly in the debates. host: the abc decision, the abc network? caller: yes, i'm appalled with that. seems like they had 11 of the first panel, 7 or so on the

other. what is their problem? are they afraid of this moment? host: newburgh, indiana come also republican caller. hi there, anne. the same'm calling for reason. i'm not sure why they are leaving carly fiorina off of the debate, and if i understood her right, i heard hillary say the other night that she was the only woman running for president. she might've said the only woman democrat, but i don't think that it is fair that abc's leaving carly out of this. campaignly fiorina's and her supporters busy on twitter today talking about that very issue. some other tweets from the campaign. here is ben carson from today. host: from bernie sanders, who

use our earlier on c-span, he is doing a conference call with reporters. host: barbara bush is in new hampshire for her son jeb. we will show that you in a bit. o'keefe of "the washington post." host: let's go to fort bragg, california -- john, are you in, when you, republican coloring? -- caller? caller: yes, i am. thank you for including me. congratulations for giving carly airtime, absolutely. whens being disrespected she is actually the very best candidate we have for president. let folks, i want to know we are covering carly simon again tomorrow morning.

she will be in new hampshire right here on c-span could go ahead with your comments. caller: yeah, thank you, i'm going to watch for sure. she is great, absolutely great. we need her to i listened to the top 45 selected by whatever and they are just, they don't have it. the argument talk and think they are something else. carly is for real. she is absolutely the one person that would be great for our country to bring us back. that is my comment, thanks again for the airtime. host: let's hear from a democratic caller. leigh, go ahead. caller: i think she sounds real great. i would like to ask a question -- i guess is not what this is for. host: is that it? caller: i guess that's it. thank you. host: california, independence line. alan, go ahead. fromr: i'm calling

california and i have to say this the first time i've actually felt emotional about , and forho has a heart the first time i see logic and common sense. there's absolutely no reason she is not in the debate, period. she needs to be there. host: coming up tonight at 7:00 we will show you bernie sanders and hillary clinton. lots of new ads in the campaign. here is a look from the clinton campaign. >> when republicans were going after president obama, they were coming after me, his attorney general, in the cabinet i served with hillary clinton. i've known her for almost 25 years. this is a woman who has fought her whole life for children, to protect civil rights, voting rights. today hillary is pushing hard for tougher gun laws and police accountability. if you want to make sure republicans don't take us backwards, help hillary move us forward. ms. cohen: i'm hillary clinton and i approve this message. by the way, bernie sanders

and hillary clinton speaking tonight at the nafta democratic party fundraising dinner -- new hampshire democratic great fundraising dinner. that is on c-span at 7:00 eastern and that will be live. a look at the latest ad from the bernie sanders campaign. from postal workers to nurses that he has been endorsed for real change. bernie sanders, endorsed by friends of the earth action as a bold, fearless voice for the planet. "the nation" endorses bernie saying "you can trust sanders because he doesn't know his political career to the financial overlords." "nashua telegraph" says "he is not beholden to wall street money." "he is genuinely outraged by the treatment of ordinary americans as long as we can remember." senator sanders: i'm bernie sanders and i approve this message. host: we are getting your thoughts before the manager primary.

-- new hampshire primary. host: in burbank, washington. independent caller. caller: put me down for having carly on the debate coming up. she has got all the potential of being up there the rest of them do. host: democratic caller in birmingham, alabama. what o are your thoughts as the primaries close? caller: i'm calling because carly fiorina don't need to be on the debate stage. you know why? if they are going by your percentage for the debate, she is not in the percentage to be on the stage. electionsant to rig to have 70 on the debate stage and they are not supposed to be there. i want to make this disease -- you don't never have none of hillary on. we saw carly free arena -- we

saw carly fiorina on both c-span channels. a rally withd women today and we had a look on the other channels -- host: you are asking why you aren't having hillary on, hillary clinton? what is your question? caller: my question is, i was very offended that c-span did rally withillary's the women today at the wider vca -- ywca. you had carly fiorina on both my c-span channels. i have c-span1, 2, and 3. no hillary. that was very important. host: we will have hillary tonight at 7:00 eastern with bernie sanders and we are covering an event of a hillary clinton's tomorrow night. 7:00 p.m. on saturday, she is at portsmouth. our coverage continues on sunday with marco rubio at 10:45 in the morning and donald trump at 1:00 eastern. thanks for your call.

lauren, virginia, next, and fred, who was a republican caller. caller: i'm retired military, retired department of defense senior manager, and i'm also a christian. i want to say this. carly fiorina has, regardless of who like to the statement and who doesn't -- we are looking for people who are going to to build ornd going and sustain this country on the biblical principles for god. to -- isy is right going to live in this country and they are going to live under the constitution and the laws and the covenants and the statutes and the ordinances and the commandments of god -- host: fred, who is that candidate for you? fiorina is -- i

oistened to her and i'm very pr for her philosophy. i am pro-philosophy of carly fiorina. host: let's hear from a new hampshire caller, nancy. good afternoon, go ahead. caller: good afternoon. have rights. carly you have the right to choose who you put on the debate screen. i as a citizen of new hampshire have a right to hear those who have earned the percentages to get on that screen. host: nancy, have you gone out to see any of the candidates in prison? -- in person? caller: yes, i have. host: all of them? caller: yes, i've seen top, i've uz, i'vely, i've seen cr seen bush, and i've seen -- oh.

host: nancy? caller: i see most of them. host: thanks for that. george is also in new hampshire, nottingham, new hampshire. have you seen any of the presidential candidates? caller: not personally. i've seen them on the air a lot. the problem is i just watched a movie about garfield where he ended up taking on all of the establishment with all the money and ended up winning and becoming president. unfortunately, he got assassinated. the problem there, i decided i wasn't sure who i was going to vote for, and now that they are shafting carly on this thing, i'm going to vote for carly. host: george, appreciate your comments. more "road to the white house" coverage tonight. bernie sanders and hillary clinton speaking at the new hampshire democratic party fundraiser, and that will be like thing on c-span, heading into a weekend full of "road to the white house" coverage.

atsaturday, carly fiorina 10:00 eastern. hillary clinton in portsmouth, new hampshire, at 7:15. on sunday, marco rubio in bedford, 10:45. 1:00 p.m. eastern, donald trump could all of that live and on c-span. when to let you know a tweet from wmur radio in new hampshire. barbara bush has been campaigning for jeb. host: jeb bush spoke last night in new hampshire and was introduced by his mom. >> jim adams and senator judd gregg. [applause]

>> ladies and gentlemen, will you all please rise for the pledge of allegiance. i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> hoorah! >> thank you, jim. it is a pleasure for kathy and i to be here in derry tonight. we are big fans of derry and especially the robert frost home across the street. we have spent a lot of time trying to keep it preserved. it is a special night for us to be back in derry. it is an extraordinary night for us to have the opportunity to introduce to you two people. the first person i want to talk about is the person i think

should be the next president of the united states. [applause] >> like all of you, kathy and i have been looking at all the candidates because that is our job. we are from new hampshire. that is one of our jobs that as representatives of new hampshire. we take it seriously as a state, and you folks do obviously, because you are here tonight. we put forth three tests. number one, can the person when? i think it is time we had a republican conservative president. [applause] number two, is the person substantive on the issues? does he have thoughtful approaches to the complex things we face today, like national security and how we protect our social security? and number three, can he govern? that means not standing in the corners and shouting, it is getting in the middle of the ring and working. jeb bush meets all that criteria

in spades. [applause] so it is our special privilege to introduce one of the great americans, somebody who has made a huge difference in millions of lives across our country, who epitomizes what it is to be a public servant, along with her husband, and that is barbara bush. let me welcome, on behalf of derry, barbara bush and her son jeb bush, the former governor of florida. [applause] ["barbara ann" plays] [applause]

ms. bush: it's great to be back in new hampshire. can you hear me? >> yes! ms. bush: great to be back in new hampshire. we have had such wonderful times here. you have the values and beliefs that we bushes believe in. you are givers, you are great. just wonderful to be here with the world's nicest man. [laughter] [applause] ms. bush: to see the greggs again, to see my friend nancy, and to see all of you, i did not plan on this, but jeb is the nicest, wisest, most caring, loyal, disciplined -- [laughter]

ms. bush: not by me. [laughter] ms. bush: but he is not a bragger. we don't allow that. [laughter] ms. bush: but he is decent, honest. he is everything we need in a president. [applause] ms. bush: his dad and i are very proud of him. ladies and gentlemen, the next president of the united states, jeb bush. [applause] mr. bush: thank you, mama. thank you all. thank you. you can sit. everybody can sit. thank you all very much. wow. mom, my crowd size is normally

not this large. [laughter] mr. bush: i wonder why. it is such a joy to be with friends, to be with my mother, who i adore, who is an inspiration. i cannot tell you in the probably 90 versions of town hall meetings i have done all across this state, how many times people came up and said, "your mother, i love your mother. i love your mother." [laughter] [applause] mr. bush: over and over again. she is not as great as everybody thinks she is, i can tell you that, but -- [laughter] [boos] mr. bush: i jokingly say that, when we were growing up in midland and houston, mom was fortunate to not have a child-abuse hotline available, because the discipline of learning right and wrong was her doing. my dad was this perfect, idyllic

man who to this day is the greatest man alive. [applause] mr. bush: but she was the one who taught us right and wrong, i can promise you that. it has worked out pretty good. all the mistakes i have made have been my own doing. it is a delight to be with you all. to kathy and judd gregg, thank you for your leadership in this state. this is really the first family of new hampshire. [applause] mr. bush: you think about people that run to the challenge, or the people who cut and run. you can basically divide politicians into those two camps. judd gregg is not a cut and run guy, is he? he solves problems. if you can find a way to build a bipartisan consensus to fix something, he would do it. and he made a difference in

improving the quality of life of people in new hampshire and the country, and we need to restore that sense of problem solving in washington, d.c. again. judd, i thank you for your leadership. [applause] mr. bush: because we do need someone who actually has had some experience. eight years ago, last monday, barack obama won the iowa caucuses. i was watching it at home with columba, i was going, wow, this guy can bring it. he can deliver a speech. look, i am a committed conservative, but he spoke about no red states, no blue states, only the united states, and it was inspirational, and he won. in retrospect, now that we are in the eighth year of the obama administration, there was nothing in his background that would suggest that he was a leader. think about it. he was a community organizer.

he was a state senator. not of great note. he was two years a united states senator with no bills or no sponsorship of anything significant to his name. his life was organized around his own ambition, and he won. and then instead of creating a unified purpose for our country, he divided us up. today, we are worse off because of that. we are less secure because of that. today income is in decline because of that. 6.5 million more people are living in poverty because of that. we need someone who has proven leadership to fix the mess in washington, d.c. fast-forward to three nights ago in the iowa caucuses, the three leading contenders on the republican side. think about their proven record of experience. donald trump? [faint chuckles] mr. bush: i will leave it at that. [laughter]

[applause] mr. bush: two gifted freshman senators that can deliver a great speech. very talented, don't get me wrong. one is a close friend. but what in their background would suggest that they can make a tough decision? that they would run to a fire to put it out? that they would figure out a way to solve problems because they have been confronted with those challenges in their life? we are living in dangerous times. we need someone with a proven record who has a steady hand. we need someone who is serious about solving problems. we need someone whose ambition is to serve others, not to serve their own ambitions. [applause]

mr. bush: and yeah, i am part of the establishment. i am part of the establishment because i am barbara bush's son. i embrace that each and every day. that doesn't bother me a bit. [applause] mr. bush: i am proud of my dad, i am proud of my brother, i am proud of being a bush. [applause] mr. bush: but like all families, we are a little different. if you have a sister and a brother, you are probably not the same. my life journey started out in a different way. i felt madly in love with columba from mexico when i was 17 years old. i mean, head over heels, madly in love. we are now going on 42 years of marriage. [applause] mr. bush: my life can be defined kind of b.c. and a.c., before columba and after columba.

thank god the statue of limitations ran out on the bc part. [laughter] mr. bush: ac has been built around moving to miami, starting a business that became the largest commercial real estate company. 32 years in the private sector, where i have learned to sign the front side of a paycheck and understand what government regulations mean, how hard it is for people to make ends meet, and how tough it has become with an administration that believes shifting power to washington, d.c., is the way you create prosperity with the exact opposite has taken place. i got to serve as governor of the state of florida, a purple state, the largest swing state in the country, with lots of people moving in and out, and i applied conservative principles, sometimes when they were not popular. i stood my ground, i apply these

principles. i brought people towards our cause. the net effect was that people benefited. in florida, we have a balanced budget amendment. that works, i can promise you. when i left office, we had a surplus of $8 billion more than when i started, $9 billion of reserves. we need a balanced budget amendment for the federal government so that washington begins to live within our means, just as every other state has. [applause] mr. bush: in florida, they called me veto corleone, because i vetoed 29 line items in the -- 2500 separate line items in the budget. i was an equal opportunity vetoer. is the powerful republican committee chairman mandeville, had a line item that did not go

through the process, where he was porking out, i vetoed that. they did not matter to me, because the basic concept is that government cannot grow faster than our ability to pay for it. if you believe that, we need a line-item veto power in washington, d.c. [applause] mr. bush: in florida, we eliminated lifetime employment protections for state workers, which is the wrong approach, but it was dangerous to do this politically. i had thousands of volunteers who tried to defeat me in my reelection because god forbid that would spread across the land. you might see the tire mark here, the little scar. [laughter] bush: taking on the seiu was not easy to do. but we ended up reducing the government workforce by 13,000, 11%. but florida led job growth, seven out of eight years. 1.3 million jobs were created. don't you want that in washington, d.c.? [applause]

mr. bush: and the place that i would start regarding career civil service reform is the department of veterans affairs. here's the deal. here's the deal. [applause] mr. bush: this bureaucracy of 340,000 people, this is a monstrosity, the largest health care system in the world, and all likelihood, that is there to provide care for men and women in uniform who come back. the covenant is that they are and it ise of, not working the way it should. that's not to say there are not dedicated nurses, doctors, and clinicians in the department of veterans affairs. there certainly are. but interestingly, there is a shortage of care providers but massive numbers of bureaucrats. last year, the department gave out $140 million of bonuses for all sorts of reasons, including taking veterans off waiting lists. that sounds like a good idea

because that was a scandal from two years ago, where they had this big long list. here is the deal. unfortunately, in some parts of the country, the waiting list was taken down, but veterans did not get care. veterans died. and only three people have been fired. when i am president, heads will roll in the department of veterans affairs. [applause] mr. bush: a couple of weeks ago in a town hall meeting, a woman got up and said my dad had a heart condition, and it was dangerous, so i had to drive all the way to boston to get him care because there is no veterans facility here. my response is, we should expand options of private providers. if a veteran wants to see his own doctor, if a veteran wants to go to a clinic in his own neighborhood, if a veteran has an emergency, they should be

able to go to the emergency room as close as possible to keep them safe. [applause] mr. bush: turning the culture in washington, d.c. is important, because then people will be able to trust our government. if it is smaller and focused on serving the people of this great country, we will go back to the business of creating high sustained economic growth, which we desperately need. and i know how to do this, because i have done it in the private sector and i have done it as a governor. we tore down the barriers. we led the nation in small business growth. personal income in my time crew 4.4%. the government grew by half of that. people were optimistic about the future. they could pursue their own dreams in their own way, as they saw fit. that is the american way. america does bottom-up better than top-down, and we need to shift power away from washington as fast as possible and put it

in the hands of families and businesses. we will rise again, i promise you that. [applause] mr. bush: none of this is going to matter unless people believe that we are safe. today, we are living in dangerous times, and our country is not safe. we have a president who does not believe america's leadership in the world is a force for good. he is wrong, he is desperately wrong, because let me tell you, without american leadership, when we pull back, we see what happens. we talk big but don't act, we see what happens. when we call russia a regional power, and 30 days later they invade ukraine because we have done nothing, we see what happens. when we say we are pivoting to asia, and the chinese build a military facility 100 miles off the south china sea because they don't see any pivoting, and our allies wonder why they are

talking about pivoting, and the rest of the world is kind of offended that we pivoted away from them to go to asia, you see what happens. when you call isis the jv team and allow for a creation of a caliphate the size of indiana with up to 40,000 -- you are from indiana? it's the same size. [laughter] i saw the elbow. [laughter] [applause] mr. bush: unlike indiana, there are 40,000 battle tested terrorists that are organized to destroy western civilization. the ic our weakness -- they see our weakness as freedom and they attack it every single day. in the past year, there have been 17 plus attacks in 17 countries inspired by isis, or directly organized by them. isis is not the jv team. you cannot contain isis. you have to destroy it in the caliphate if we are going to be kept safe. [applause]

mr. bush: look, i have had a front row seat watching history unfold. i am also a student of history, but i have this unique position. i have seen now it is done right. i worked for ronald reagan to get him elected. i worked and saw my dad worked with helmut kohl to bring about the end of the cold war and see russia and germany unified in a way that has created stability for europe. i have seen my brother show his dogged determination to leave iraq secure. i know how to do this. it is not about trash talking. it is not about talking about carpet bombing. just for senator cruz's edification, carpet bombing, you don't need to do anymore. we have precision weaponry. you don't have to destroy innocent people. [applause] mr. bush: we have left the 1960's and 1970's.

we are now in a 21st-century world where we need military superiority based on technological advances. we need to make sure we rebuild our military in a 21st-century way, where our special operators are given more resources, where the marines are given more resources so that more than half of them are defined as ready when they are based here in this country. we need to rebuild our air force. the pilots are younger than the planes. the b-52 was launched and inaugurated in the truman era. this is a serious time, and we need a serious leader to rebuild our military not to use it, but to keep the peace. ronald reagan was right in that -- peace through strength is the means by which we create a more peaceful world. [applause] mr. bush: the final thing is

something that makes me take -- tick more than politics, it's that i believe that life is a gift from god, divinely inspired. that we all have a purpose and a meaning in this world. imagine a country where everybody reached their full potential. wow, i mean, right now so many people are held back because of an addiction, or because of the lack of ability to rise up. young people saddled with debt student debt on their backs, , making it hard to have the first step forward. small businesses are closing more than being open. if you believe like i do that this is divinely inspired, then it is the duty of people in public life to tear down the barriers, not to say get in line because life is not fair, you have liabilities, i will manage them. i will create another spending program. we will tax the successful people because that's why you are not successful. that does not work. we are spiraling downward with that philosophy. what we need to do is build

capacity so that people can earn success in their own fashion, and all the interaction amongst us together will create more prosperity, benefits, love, and compassion than any other government program ever created. that's what i believe in my heart. [applause] mr. bush: in order for that to happen, we need a servant leader. we don't need the big dog on the stage, barking out stuff, insulting people. we need someone who has a proven record, who has a servant's heart. last year, i met a young woman from jacksonville, florida. she told me her story. she has come up here to campaign for me. it warmed my heart. she was born on the other side of the tracks, this terminology that i find so un-american, to be honest. i yearn for the day where it does not matter what zip code you were born in. it is how you live your life in

pursuit of your own dreams that defines her success. that is america at its best. [applause] mr. bush: the woman was a third grader when i implemented the policy that was considered radical at this time, but nobody has done it as dramatically as florida, which is ending social promotion in third grade. this insidious idea that you are functionally illiterate as a third grader, you go to fourth grade, and somehow there will be some miracle that you will learn math even though you cannot read the book. or you are going to learn history even though you cannot read. too many kids in florida at the time, more than 1/3 of the kids, were defined as functionally illiterate. it is what my dad called the -- it is what my brother called the soft bigotry of expectations. it still exists all across this country, and it is shameful. this precious girl was held back two years. i imagine she was angry, but her godmother found out about the

florida corporate tax scholarship program, a program that i created along with the florida legislature that is the largest voucher program in the country. 80,000 low income kids go to private schools because i took on powerful interests and i won. [applause] mr. bush: and the girl got to go to a christian school. i wasn't there, but i know it to be true, that the first week, her teacher put her arm around her and said, i love you, you can do this. jesus loves you. it was a christian school, so that was allowed. still is in florida. you can do this. we can do this together. you are capable. you have the capacity to do whatever you want. and the girl overcame the two years of being held back. she was the first in her immediate family to graduate from high school and college.

and now, she is getting a masters at the university of south florida. [applause] mr. bush: you know what? i never asked -- i think she is going to support me. [laughter] i think she is. she campaigned here. in new hampshire, you never know until the actual vote because -- [laughter] you all wait until the last moment, but in her case, i am certain she is going to support me. but i have never asked her if she is a republican or a democrat. that's not the point. we need someone with a servant's heart, that does not focus group things, that does what's right, that focuses on building strategy so everybody can lift up again. by the way, the only way of a conservative is going to win the presidency is to campaign with their arms wide open, with joy in their heart, with a positive message. that's the only way. [applause]

mr. bush: if you are tired of the dividers, of the angry voices, of the profanity, of the loud voices, instead of uplifting messages that bring us together -- [applause] mr. bush: then you have this extraordinary opportunity. you live in new hampshire. you can change the course of any campaign anytime you want. you don't have to say the pundits have figured it out. in fact, you will figure it out for the pundits. that is the amazing thing. [applause] mr. bush: people in new hampshire set the agenda for the next part of this phase, this journey of electing a president, and i trust you. i trust you because you take the time to learn. you understand the heartbeat of the candidates. you understand if they are

sincere or playing games. you challenge us. you make us walk on the hot coals. you frustratingly never commit when i asked. [laughter] mr. bush: sometimes you do, but a lot of times you don't. so all i can say is that i trust you, and i do have faith in you, and this has been an extraordinary journey for me, and i ask for your support. [applause] mr. bush: ok. we have a microphone there, and a microphone back there, and a microphone there. yes, sir.

she will hold it so you don't hold it hostage in case someone gets crazy. [laughter] >> first of all, i want to thank you and your mother for visiting our town tonight. [applause] i'm going to start you off with a foreign-policy question. this year, the primary coincides with the beginning of chinese new year. please discuss your philosophy in dealing both from a commerce and military perspective with china. mr. bush: we need complete engagement. one of the things i think my brother got right was having hank paulson have this dialogue across the spectrum of all policy. my experience with china was limited to -- since 2007, i started visiting there three or four times a year to learn. i had never been there. i am kind of an old-school guy. i don't like communists. [laughter]

mr. bush: i had a hard time going to communist countries. [applause] but this is a very important relationship. a very important relationship. you can see how misunderstandings can create real problems. here is a story that kind of exemplifies that. right after president obama got reelected, he had a summit with president xi in palm springs, and it was a big deal. i was there when the summit was taking place, right after that. mrs. obama did not go to the summit. that was a massive offense to the chinese. every meeting i went to, it was like, why are you insulting our glamorous first lady? why are you doing this? this is a big sign of disrespect. look, mrs. obama was probably taking care of her children in a pressure cooker called the white house, two teenage kids. there is a legitimate reason why she would not make it. my guess, i am almost 99.999%

sure that she did not organize around insulting this important relationship, but nobody thought that. they all thought the opposite. it embedded me, that we have to have full engagement with the chinese. they are our adversary, they are not our ally, and there are lots of conflicts that have to be far worse if we don't engage. and then we need to make sure if they do things that are egregious against our interests, like hacking into the office of personnel management, 23 million files in the hands of the communist chinese right now, that there are consequences. that we don't slap them on the hand. that we have the ability to use cyber warfare in the same way that they do, that they know that there will be a consequence when they take the action, try to steal our intellectual property, or hack into our systems. when they act provocatively, we

need to engage with our allies. it is an important relationship as it relates to our own national security. and as it relates to the economy, it is also important, which is why trump's idea of a 45% tariff across the board, you know, give me a break. that would create a global depression. it will create a loss of millions of jobs in this country. it will destroy our economy. and it will be retaliated against immediately. this is not the kind of response to anything. we need to be serious about this. i think it is important, perhaps the most complicated and important relationship that has to be managed going forward. yes? >> governor, thank you -- whoa!

[laughter] here we go. i am a wildlife biologist in new hampshire. our moose numbers are down about 50% over the last decade as our winters have grown shorter. basically, when the female falls off in april, the babies hatch, we are loose until next winter. also, today was 60 degrees. i live about 20 miles north of here. in when it is above 20 degrees, wintertime the moose lay down , and do not feed, so consequently our female moose are producing fewer calves. i am looking for a republican to vote for next tuesday who is willing to take climate change in a serious manner and be forward thinking. i'm hoping i can vote for you. [applause] mr. bush: i have four grandkids, and this is the third moose i have gotten in town hall meetings. [laughter] [applause] mr. bush: i need one more.

i am looking for number four. this one is going to prescott in austin. george and vivian have already gotten theirs. the question is a good one, because i live in miami, where if you have four inches of rising tide, you have an impact on the quality of our water. our water supply would be in peril. in high tides, you can have severe flooding. it is not as egregious as -- president obama talked about how miami beach is underwater. well, no, mr. president, i guess you haven't been down there, someone told him that maybe. it's not that bad. overall, if we don't plan for these things and adapt, there could be serious repercussions as it relates -- you know, different places will have different impacts. i think climate is changing. it is inconceivable to me that 5 billion people on this planet don't have an impact on that, and that we should be planning over the long haul to deal with it.

here is what i worry about. what i worry about is about our plans, such as today that the president proposed -- i don't think he's doing this unilaterally. maybe he is, he does that a lot. he has proposed a $10 tax on a barrel of oil, all of which will be passed on. the people who get hurt by that are working people, who right now are struggling. the people who are hurt by that are those with declining incomes right now. disposable income in this country is down $2300. the challenge is to figure out ways to make sure we don't hurt working people in trying to solve this problem. the better approach would be for the government to spend money on research and development, to identify the next generation of renewable energies, or other disruptive technologies that will allow us to consume less energy and yield a good result. that is a better approach than trying to pick winners and losers in the market, or trying to pick through venture capital.

of. solyndra was an example that doesn't work. carbon emissions have declined by 10% in the last decade because of an explosion of natural gas. basically, it's a glance call. -- it supplants coal. that seems to be a good result, but nobody seems to celebrate that. you want to find economic growth and protecting the environment to be the intersection that you are trying to find. that's what we did in florida. look, in florida, there is a bipartisan consensus about protecting the environment. like here, you love your natural environment for two reasons. one, it is beautiful. extraordinary. the leaves changing in the fall, i have never seen anything like it. i've never been up here that time of year. it is knockdown gorgeous, beautiful. florida survives because of our natural beauty as well. we are stewards of our environment because 95 million people come to visit us. it is the reason we don't have

an income tax, probably the reason you don't have an income tax. people come to visit. they spend their money. so protecting the national environment is important, because that is our responsibility. as stewards of the environment. it is also important for economic purposes, and finding a way to find a win-win is what we should be doing. [applause] mr. bush: what do you think? [laughter] mr. bush: i'm making progress? mr. bush: see what i say? yes, sir. we've got a mic coming. >> first of all, i want to thank you for falling out the respectability scorecard. second of all, i wanted to know, it seems that people with mental

illness and the addicted are being treated by being sent to prison and jails instead of eating the actual help that they need. what would you do as president to change that? mr. bush: great question. i am proud of my record, by the way, in support of people with different abilities, developnmental and physical. it is informed by my faith in many ways, and as governor of florida, we have made great progress. we were at the bottom of the pack, and we have risen up, and i am proud of it. it is why i didn't apologize when i called donald trump a jerk -- mr. bush: when he disparaged people with disabilities. it is just not right. that is not the america i

believe we all should embrace. this challenge of addiction and mental health, it is important that you have both together. in many cases, in my personal experiences, these are dually diagnosed. it is hard to know which is the catalyst for the other. the journey that columba and i have done as loving parents with our daughter that suffered with addiction, you could go to one psychiatrist and get one diagnosis and go to someone who is equally smart at an equally good school, and they could have a dramatically different approach. there are people in this room who have gone through this challenge of addiction -- alcohol abuse, opiates, heroin. these are troubling times.

mental health has a serious element of this as well. i think we need to look at this as an illness, that it needs to be treated, so that people who struggle with addictions have a network of people they can rely on. secondly, our criminal justice system has to recognize that there has to be second chances. this is a bigger issue at the federal level than the state level. 50% of people that are serving time in our federal penitentiary's are doing it for drug-related crimes. personal use. and that has to change. and this is a place where you would think -- there are a growing number of people on the

right and left who believe we need to change this. you would think that if we have a leader who acknowledges that there are people on the right who agree, that they would posit this divide and go at it. i would be like a pig in slop in washington. why would you wait? instead, the president is using the clemency process, rather of going to congress, finding people who are conservative who believe it is time to modify our mandatory minimum sentencing guidelines. there are huge numbers of people agree with that, but this is what the lack of leadership does. we can solve this program. as governor of florida, we created a strategy. my first week in office, we had a summit of 500 people, and we had prevention advocates, treatment providers, mental health advocates, and law enforcement all in a room, and we created a strategy. and we acted on that strategy. we had action items, and every year we would adapt the strategy

based on the results, and we measured the effectiveness. it was like running a business. if you don't measure things, you don't care. my wife was the madrina of the prevention caucus. she helped create different coalitions, and it worked. we saw reductions. we expanded drug courts across the state. my daughter went to drug court. you know, i have been to a lot of graduations. perhaps the most meaningful graduation for me was when she graduated from drug court, because it isn't easy, but it gave her a second chance, because had she not graduated she would have gone jail. having that consequence was a powerful incentive for her. thankfully, like a lot of other people because of the health -- help that we have provided and others have provided, noelle

has been drug free for more than 10 years. >> governor, it appears accountability in public schools is in decline, both at the federal and state level. what is your vision for getting more kids to graduate career college ready, when today the majority of them simply do not graduate? mr. bush: i am being generous, about 80% graduate with a piece of paper that says, i am a high school graduate. half of those are not college or career ready. we dumb it all down to make everybody feel good, but the net result is, check the remediation rate of entering high school seniors into community colleges in new hampshire, and you will find that it is not dissimilar to florida. more than 50% are we doing high

school math or high school reading. and career readiness, forget it. it is not remotely close. i got politifact-ed, have you heard of that? the journalists are like judges, and they give you ratings. the ratings are like pinocchios. i got a couple of pinocchios for saying we have spent more money than any country in the world. belgium and luxembourg are ahead of us. i apologize. i apologize to the mighty jurists who came up to that. that's where we are. in florida, we challenged that by grading schools based on student learning. in florida, we challenged the notion that you are passed along even though you can't read. we have had the greatest gains in reading of any state. florida's hispanic kids are two

grade levels ahead of their counterparts in other parts of the country. there was a test called the nation's report card. we were six out of 50. there is no one thing. we have the most ambitious school choice programs, both public and private. we raised standards. that's important. we made assessment important, that you had an accurate assessment tool. that's important. we rewarded improvement. if you show improvement in letter grade, you get 100 bucks per student more. it is amazing. you provide incentives for other people, people seem to get it. the largest bonus program for teachers in the united states is the school recognition program. we turned the system upside down.

we were 50th out of 50 in the graduation rate. we could not even say, thank god for filling in the blank for the worst state. everybody else in the country said, thank god for florida, they are 50th. so we are now above the national average. this is a state where 50% of students qualify for free or reduced lunch. the federal government can play a role in providing money for reforms, but it cannot be the national school board. i am passionate about this. i visited 250 schools when i ran in 1998. i learned so much about the dedicated nature of teachers, and i learned about a system that was economically organized around the interests of adults. it changed how i talked about this. it did not change my passion for disruption, because we need to disrupt as fast as we can and reward the excellence that takes

place and have no tolerance for the mediocrity that takes place in classrooms. assume that students can learn. it does not matter what zip code they were born in. every kid can learn. we should not lower expectations because we will get a bad result. but it is hard in the federalist system to make this a national priority. you would think everybody would consider this to be the right thing to do. i know that people move to florida now because our schools were significantly better than they were when i started. yes, sir. one other thing, people say, what about common core? common core is higher standards than those that existed in prior states. here's what i believe about common core. it should not be imposed by the federal government. there should be no requirements from the federal government on content curriculum or standards, directly or indirectly.

they should have nothing to do with it. someone is smoking in here. lighting up in the school. >> how are you going to kill our country's debt by the time you are out of office? mr. bush: i don't know if i can kill the debt. if you are looking for that, you are not going to find it. i will be honest with you. $19 trillion of debt, you can reduce the deficit to the point where our economy is growing and our debt remains static, which means that ultimately we will be solvent. that would be the objective. you can do that in eight years if you are serious. what is interesting, this is my fifth town hall meeting in a row where a child, a young, smart person, has asked me this question, or their dad, on behalf of their two sons. it is the right question to ask at your age, because if we don't

do anything, the debt will overwhelm everything else. it is the number one national security issue. if you are concerned about the mentally ill, infrastructure, drug discovery, education. whatever the program is, the $19 trillion of debt and growing deficit is the biggest problem we face. so i appreciate the question. four things we could do to move toward a balanced budget -- high growth. 4% growth compared to 2% growth. we will create more revenue because taxes are earned by prosperity, right? and less demands on government. if you are having a growing economy, people can get jobs. secondly, we need to fix the entitlement programs. this is the time where i pull out the booklet. we have laid out specific proposals on how to preserve and

protect social security for those that are counting on it now, and reforming it over a period of time make it solvent. same thing with replacing obamacare and replacing -- with a conservative -- same with medicare, to protect it so it will exist 10 years from now, because it won't. we need entitlement reform. we need to have career civil services reform, which means that the overall cost of government needs to shrink. it is hard to do that when you have lifetime protections. government workers make 40% more than their private sector counterparts for lifetime jobs. like-kind jobs. that is not fair. i think we need civil reform.

and finally, we need to shift power back as -- i'm a 10th amendment guy. do you know what the 10th amendment is? have you studied that? go look it up. it is an important one. it basically says that states have the power to govern, and if it is not empowered by the states, the federal government does not have the powers that we have given them. we need to shift the power back to the states. much of the environmental policy should be given back to the states. if you talk about the moose population, i am sure people here care more about that than the people inside washington. those are the four things that get us closer to a balanced budget. but i think we need a balanced budget amendment to the constitution as well, which would require the states to convene that. yes.

what does bdt mean? >> [inaudible] mr. bush: sounds like a good idea. >> definitely a good idea. my husband was diagnosed with cancer 20 years ago. my son was recently diagnosed with the precursor that will lead up to colon cancer, and will need to have surgery in the future. what will you do for research to help prevent cancer, m.s., all those other diseases that need more research? mr. bush: there are a couple of places where i think we should be spending more money. and everything else, we have to figure out how to spend less. the place where we need just been more money is defense, national security. it is research and development for alternative energy sources and drug discovery, and space. because of national security,

and also, our country should be more aspirational. i think the space program symbolizes that, that the technologies and discoveries that you can find in space have a direct benefit for our country. but it also has a national security implication. it also allows us to be dreamers. the space program has been really good. those are the places we need to spend more money. as it relates to drug discovery, there had been big increases in the national institute of health. it has now been cut because of the sequester. we need to restore those cuts. can we be more efficient? yeah, because the cost is doubling like, every 10 years, and the time for drugs are to be approved is also doubling. that cost is borne by all of us. apart from cancer, which my mom and dad had been actively

involved in, the other places we need to spend money -- if you want a moon shot, a moon shot to the brain would be a nice place, to deal with addiction. why are some more prone when others are not? what about alzheimer's and dementia? just a show of hands, people that you know, family members who have dementia. yeah, it's -- yeah, my mom-in-law is 94 years old, and she is just a total gift from god. she has dementia. last time i saw her, she recognized me for the first time in 10 years. all of a sudden, she came back. when i get to miami eventually, she might not remember me again. it's a challenge. there are no new medications for dementia. how about autism?

you take these issues about the brain, we are not advanced at all. all of these should be a commitment for sure, and i wish your boy well, and your husband. yes? >> thanks for talking with us tonight. the internet has become critical to both our economy and also doing well in school. what i am wondering is what you would do as president to make sure that all americans have access to high-speed internet at an affordable cost in both rural and urban areas. mr. bush: the programs are available. they can be reformed. there are proposals under way. when i was in the private sector and not unemployed and running for president -- i was working on working with technology companies in california to dramatically

expand broadband in schools. that is the one place to do it, where some states have done extraordinarily, others have lagged behind. it is uneven, to say the least. a national effort like this could be done without a massive cost. this is not the hardest thing in the world to do. but there has to be a strategy. you have to go at it. the effort that i saw that would be the most cost effective was one that was based in san francisco, where they had identified the shortfall. sometimes, you talk about broadband into the school, but they have identified that it has to get into the classroom as well. that extra 100 yards can be more expensive, but you can do this wirelessly. you don't have to wire the classrooms again, and you can save a lot of money. what bothers me about the regulation of the internet is the obama administration's rule,

using a 1935 law to regulate access to the internet. i think that will stymie the investment in broadband. this control orientation of washington is dangerous. the problem did not exist. they are regulating something that is not a problem. now they will stymie tens of billions of dollars. this control orientation is dangerous. yes, sir? >> i would like to say hello to barbara bush. mr. bush: you want to come shake her hand first? >> i will do it after.

i would like to ask a question. i worked for myself for 50 years. i'm still paying social security, taxes, and you are always talking about increasing the social security age. nobody is ever talking about taking from the government employees. their retirement age is 55, 60 years old. when is somebody can start talking about that? you just said it, you just started talking about it. why should i pay taxes at 73 years old so somebody can retire at 55? mr. bush: you got that right, brother. here is the answer to your question. this will be a fight.

this will be a fight. the castro brothers are not going to change because obama has given them diplomatic relations. i will not change because we legitimize the regime. public unions will not give up what they have got without a fight. i will fight. in your case, what i propose that hopefully will warm your heart is that once you reach retirement age, which you are are way past -- you are working for business, right? you are self-employed. you pay the 13% or whatever payroll tax into the social security.

once you reach retirement age in my plan, you don't pay it. you keep it. you have already reached retirement age. im am still paying taxes for federal employees to retire at 55. mr. bush: one, helping you in the interim while we fight the public unions, which has to be done. just by attrition, the federal employee -- maybe because they retire early -- you can reduce the workforce by 10% just by not hiring new people, just by attrition. a lot of the cost structure will go down as well, because this is not performance based. it is longevity based. you get more money by being there longer. you get better benefits by being there longer. i propose a three-for-one deal. you can reduce the government workforce by 10% if you can do

that. >> hi. my name is james. i was wondering what you are going to do on immigration. a lot of politicians have made that a big part of their campaign. mr. bush: some politicians don't have plans, but said they are going to build a wall and make mexico pay for it. are you talking about that plan? that is not a plan. that is an emotion. that is appealing to people's legitimate anger. people are mad because the rule of law has not applied. i totally get it. we need a plan. we don't need people preying on people's fears and anger. that does not solve the problem.

mr. bush: any immigration plan requires controlling the border. period, over and out. there are two parts to that. half of the illegal immigrants come with a legal visa and overstay. a pretty extraordinary number if you think about it. not many people focus on this. you have to have entry and exit visa biometrics, which the congress has funded and the administration has not implemented. you need additional administrative capacities to identify where these folks are so they can be politely asked her to leave. they have a six-month visa, they should go home. if they want to come back, they should get another visa. this is not that complicated. on the border, we should build additional fencing where appropriate. there are places on the border where if you build a wall, u.s. citizens would be on the other side of the wall. that is not going to work. parts of our border are so rugged that you can't build a wall unless it was at an extraordinary cost. use gps technologies. there has been dramatic expansion of that technology. use drone technology. back to the public unions for one moment to make you feel even

angrier about this, the border patrol has negotiated agreements that make it hard for forward leaning towards the border. we have border patrol agents 40 miles off the border. they are not on the border. unless someone can explain to me why that is a good strategy, changing that, so that we have more forward leaning nature. we can control the border. we need to create a strategy, invest in it, and act on it. we need to eliminate sanctuary cities. this insidious idea -- the federal laws ought to be upheld, plain and simple, particularly when by not doing it you are endangering communities. in san francisco and many other cities, they are openly violating federal law because they can. that is just wrong. you can withhold federal law enforcement dollars. we need an e-verify program that is verifiable, so that when businesses hire someone they know they are here legally. we need to narrow the number of

people coming by family from legal visa to spouse and minor children. today we have adult siblings and adult parents, and it is called chain migration. 85% of all legal immigrants come that way. it's not the most optimum way for us to jumpstart our economy. in fact, immigration can be a drain or it can be a contribution to our society. we should aspire to make it a contribution, so changing that is part of it. and finally, the part that gets people all riled up is what do we do with the 12 million people here illegally. you can pound your chest all you want and say we are going to create an environment so bad for people that we create self- deportation. i don't know how you target misery. >> make them a citizen. mr. bush: i will get to my plan here in a second.

or you can say we are going to deport them as one candidate said over two years, a half a million people. we have half a million people going through our court systems today across the country. it would double the number of people going through our court system. it would cost hundreds of billions of dollars. i don't see that being practical. or you could say come out of the shadows, pay a fine, learn english, work, don't receive federal government assistance, no crimes or you are deported, and over an extended time, you earn legal status. you don't earn citizenship. you earn legal status where you're not cutting in line. that to me is the conservative alternative, a practical conservative alternative they could be implemented, and that is what i believe and have supported. >> thank you for coming. i want to say that is my son

connor, and he is a huge fan. ask your question mom, and i'll do the signature -- >> you've touched on the lot of topics that are important to me, alzheimer's, disabilities, increased cases of cancer and things like that. i don't want to sound like a conspiracy theorist, but i'm wondering if -- when you become president, what you will do to make sure our foods are labeled properly so that people who want to avoid genetically modified foods can? mr. bush: it is a good question. first of all, i'm guilty when i'm not home. i do the shopping. that has been broken since i haven't been back in three weeks. normally i go shopping and love to look at all the labeling. it has been an explosion of new things. this is one of the examples that if people decide to do something

together, the government has to react and adjust. i sense just watching this new kind of explosion of organic foods and foods that have all these different variations in the industrial model we are used to do, i don't consider it a conspiracy at all. i think this is growing consumer awareness, and that will change our behaviors about how we go about this. the challenge, like everything, is, how do we do this where working people can actually access the food? how do we do this so that it doesn't cost 30% more than the lower cost variation? the private sector will adjust and figure out ways to lower the costs, but i would not mandated because people are struggling right now. if you want to create more demands on government, we already have 47 million people receiving food stamps, from 20 million people to 47 million literally in 12 years. it has been an explosion.

so anything you do to increase demands on government because people can't afford what your mandate is i would be cautious about that. i would think increasing consumer awareness and health, exercise and food are the two things you can control to live a healthy lifestyle and not be sick. it is good for our economy when people aren't sick. it is good for your pocketbook when you are not sick, and it is certainly good to have access to the kind of food that keeps you healthier. it really isn't a conspiracy. it is a growing movement i find really intriguing. yes? you like that back there? >> thank you. first of all, i want to thank your mother for her early and unfailing support of family literacy. mr. bush: yeah. >> i am a physician, and i

attended a conference this afternoon at the baptist church regarding addiction. i learned there that 40,000 people died last year of overdoses in this country. i practiced in a very rural area in virginia, where we have a tremendous problem with addiction, both due to illegal and prescription drugs. two companies have been heavily implicated in this problem. one of them is the manufacturer of oxycontin. and they have admitted they lied about the addiction potential of their product and have pushed it on physicians and patients. this has been one of the major prescription drugs that has caused overdoses. i might add that of the three candidates i have heard, each of you have had a relative or

friend who has been involved in drug addiction problems. even to the point of dying. one of my family members also died of a drug overdose last year. the second corporation that is implicated in this is a mega-bank, and they have admitted to laundering money for the drug cartels to the point where they actually modified their teller windows to accommodate the cash boxes of the cartel members. i think you know the name of the bank. mr. bush: no, i don't. >> hsbc. mr. bush: now i do. >> nobody in any of these companies has gone to prison or been prosecuted. i think this reflects a wider problem of white-collar crime, and i'm wondering if you are going to appoint an attorney general and direct him or her to approach white-collar crime with

the same seriousness and vigor that they have approached the low-level drug prosecutions? mr. bush: that is a good question, both of those. the answer to that is, yes. to simplify this, here is another challenge for your profession. i have been told, and maybe you can confirm this, that 90% of all the painkillers prescribed in the world are prescribed in the united states. and so, put aside -- i don't know the name of the manufacturer of oxycontin. it is prescribed by a doctor. the fda just approved this last year -- they allowed opiates to be prescribed for children. we have changed our attitudes about pain and how we have manage pain to the point where we have legitimized addictions that then create the escape into this gatereate

into which now we see the heroin epidemic playing out. i think there needs to be a across-the-board review about how we deal with pain, how we deal with companies that are abusing whatever relationship they have, hsbc. if the executives of that company knowingly did this to profit, poisoning our communities, there should be more than just a civil penalty. there should be criminal violations, for sure. so are you aware -- am i close to that? >> i do not know the exact number. if i may add on to this, i believe this also reflects the corrupting influence of lobbying and money in the political process whereby these doctors -- mr. bush: doctors prescribing pain medication? >> absolutely, because these companies are allowed to send detailed people with very poor regulation, they are allowed to pay physicians to give supposedly educational conferences to push their products. i mean, it is a real problem. i think it just reflects the

general corruption of the political process in this country. mr. bush: i would say that doctors have a disproportionate responsibility for this in that they don't have to prescribe. but they do. do in amounts that are creating now this gate into heroin addiction that i think there should be growing awareness of. here is one solution. we should have prescription drug databases that are accessed, protecting privacy and all that, prescription drug databases that people can see, law enforcement can see. we have it in florida, and we have seen a dramatic reduction in doctor and pharmacy shopping. there are doctors getting reimbursed with medicaid that have 100x more prescriptions. then it gets in the market, and they sell these pills are great -- at great profit.

there are ways to monitor this so that the isolated cases that create a disproportionate amount of the problem can be monitored as well. >> [indiscernible] in most cases. mr. bush: in new hampshire you don't have it. >> living on a border, as i did, we weren't able to catch people who were crossing over. mr. bush: thank you. yes, ma'am. >> we have time for one more. mr. bush: hang on, we have got to -- >> i have been in medicine one way or another my whole life. mr. bush: yes ma'am. >> i am appalled at the allowance of the internet and the tv advertising of prescription drugs. painkillers, prescription drugs of all kinds, promises made to patients, patients who go to the doctor, put the doctor on the spot. if he does not prescribe the patient, the drug company loses.

they've got pressure on the doctor to use that drug. but the doctor doesn't really want to, but he is in a spot. what if the patient comes back to him and says, so and so took it and she is cured? why didn't you do it for me? and so the physician is caught between advertising -- mr. bush: that's a good point. >> i would like to see advertising of prescription drugs eliminated. mr. bush: ok. that is a good point. all i know is that when i go see my doctor, i don't convince him of anything. he tells me what i'm doing wrong, and i am supposed to salute. one more. yes? welcome back. nice to see you. i've missed you. you know, i feel offended that you haven't come to any of my events recently.

>> [indiscernible] mr. bush: he is a nice guy. he is unusual. he is a good man. >> we talked a lot about domestic events, but i'm wondering about what you are going to do about the caliphate. i have heard that you are in favor of funding and arming the kurds. mr. bush: i did this in august prior to the attacks in paris and san bernardino, so i consider this to be an issue before it became the number one issue in the minds of voters. and the strategy i laid out was to arm the kurds, but not with the kind of weaponry that would allow them to be more effective in their fighting, to embed our troops are did there inside the iragi military,

to give them training and a backbone, if you will, because ultimately when we leave, there needs to be a secure iraq without isis there. we need to reengage with the sunni tribal leaders that did create in partnership with american troops the surge that led to a fragile, but secure iraq. we need to get the war fighters off the backs of the military. this is really damning when you consider the fact that there are multilayers of approval for launching ordnances, sorties when they leave the bases. half of the missions go back without dropping their ordnances because there are all these additional approvals that i think are inappropriate, and so do the people who have advised me on this that understand how that part of the world works.

we need a no-fly zone in syria, safe zones in syria, to protect the innocent people in syria that are being starved to death by bashar al-assad or enslaved by isis. this is one of the greatest humanity and that humanitarian tragedies that exist. 4 million refugees have left the country, grading and stability for the world. we need to deal with it there and build a sunni-led army with the middle eastern support so that you can have a stable, moderate syria that would allow for this void to be filled once and not for all with something more peaceful. we can win militarily, but will never win unless we create the ultimate stability, which requires american leadership. america's the only country in the world that can lead in this regard. this is the fallacy of the obama administration, the

incrementalism, the belief that we are part of the community of nations, no, no, we lead. we are not the world's policeman, but we have to lead. no one else can do this. thank you all very much. god bless you. [beach boys' "barbara ann" plays] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2016] ♪

hampshirein the where mr. bush has finished his town hall.

it is down to the wire for these candidates. what do you see in the pitch to the voters tonight? >> a lot of enthusiasm. it is crunch time, and this is the time to use it. r governor bush, the asset is his mother. >> did you have a sense that her presence changed him? >> he was more upbeat, a little more -- very genuine, but there was more strength to what he had to say, more conviction and dedication in his voice. >> your colleague tweeted that barbara bush is beloved. i'm wondering how that will translate next tuesday. israel presents enough to convince people who have been on

the fence that they should vote for governor bush? >> that is what the operative say. some people do not realize they she was going to be here, and they were excited. that shows that the family support is pretty strong, that they are fans of his father, brother, and of his. >> one of the challenges to place well? it,he governor mentioned getting under cited voters to commit to his -- undecided voters to commit to his campaign. it comes down to the wire, so it is pushing to get those folks to come down to the wire to decide his favor. >> what would your lead be? >> about barbara bush tonight. >> the mood of the electorate is what? >> there is a variety of words

you can describe. people are angry, some people are frustrated. dispassionate, which is why they are on the fence, and you think a word, and i feel like i have heard it. tomorrowle weather morning. everybody hopes it does not snow tomorrow. thank you. >> thank you. >> we will talk to some of the room tonight. you are from londonderry? like to see all the candidates living in new hampshire. we get a unique situation. our state has such a large say in this process.

>> how does governor bush fare? he said something to the effect that i'm part of the establishment, and that did not go across well with me. >> who is your top choice? >> ted cruz. i like it he is a straight shooter, and he will not back down. he is against the ethanol mandate, and he still won in iowa. he has got a lot to offer. he is the conservative direction i would like to see the country go in. >> are you glad you came tonight? >> yes. i am fortunate i live in such a state >> are you new hampshire born and bred? >> i've been here since 2008,

before that massachusetts. >> have you participated in every time and gone out every time the presidential candidates have been here? >> ever since i was 18, i voted in every election. local, national. i voted in everything. >> thank you for talking to us. coming up next, a mother and son. what is your name? >> eight and. -- aiden. >> what you think about what you saw tonight? >> i like him. his idealism, taking down isis. instead of president obama's leading from the back. he wants to go forward into it more. >> why does isis concern you? how old are you? >> 14. and it concerns me because the freedom of them, they don't have as much freedom. if they come over here, we could lose our freedom.