do does not understand anything about contemporary american politics. let me be as straightforward as i can and tell you one of the first major priorities of the sanders administration will be to overturn this disastrous citizens united supreme court decision. [applause] senator sanders: our campaign talks about the need to reform a corrupt campaign finance system. we talk about the need to end a rigged economy and create an economy that works for all of us, not just the 1%.

we talk about a broken criminal justice system, a criminal justice system in which we have more people in jail than any other country on earth, largely black and latino. --and native senator sanders: and native americans. [applause] senator sanders: let me tell you briefly a story, the kind of encapsulates everything we talk about in this campaign. what a rigged economy and corrupt campaign finance system and a broken criminal justice system is about. some may have read in the last few weeks large wall street financial institutions like goldman sachs have reached a settlement with united states government. in the case of goldman sachs, it was for $5 billion.

other banks have reached larger settlements with the government. obviously the reason they are , reaching these settlements is because they were selling subprime mortgage packages to investors and the american people that were worthless. they reached a $5 billion agreement with the u.s. government. to a significant degree the business model of wall street happens to be fraud. point number two -- when we talk about political power in america, where the average american says, why should i vote? i have one vote. koch brothers are going to spend wall street is spending this $900 million. money. no one hears my pain. no one is concerned about my life. i'm not getting involved in the charade. don't ask me to vote. i will tell you one of the

things that angers the american people is that today some kid in minnesota will get picked up for possessing marijuana, he or she will get a police record which will stay with them for the rest of their lives. but executives on wall street, whose greed and recklessness and illegal behavior ended up driving millions of people out of their homes, not one of those executives on wall street will have a police record. that is not what criminal justice is supposed to be about. [applause]

a sanders administration will bring back justice to a criminal justice system whether you are rich or poor. you will get equal treatment under the law. when we talk about the issues facing the american people, when we understand why it is people are working so many hours for such low wages, it should be clear we have got to raise the minimum wage to a living wage, $15 an hour. [applause] when we talk about equitable wages, i hope every man in this room will stand with the women in the fight for pay equity for women workers.

i know i will not shock any person in this room by telling you every now and then, once in a while there is a bit of hypocrisy in politics. i know you are shocked, dismayed to hear this, but it is true. let me give you an example. they say we hate the government. government is the worst thing. it is terrible. it is awful. we're going to get the back.ment out of your we will cut social security.

we will do away with the epa. we will cut nutrition programs. government stinks. we are going to get it out of your life. except when it comes to a woman's right to choose. [cheers and applause] sanders: in that case, my republican colleagues love state and federal government and want the government to make that decision for every woman in minnesota and america. i will do everything in my power as president of the united states to beat back those attacks on a woman's right to choose. [applause] senator sanders: when republicans talk about family

values, what they are also saying is that every gay person in this country should not have the right to get married -- i disagree. [cheers and applause] sanders: we live as everybody here knows in a highly competitive, global economy. 150 years ago workers in this country achieved a huge breakthrough. what they managed to accomplish which we take for granted is public education. they said we don't want our kids at six or seven or 10 to be working in factories or on

farms. we want them like the rich kids to be able to get a decent education. they fought and succeeded in creating great public schools all over america. this is the year 2016 and in my view, it is time to rethink public education. to understand in many respects a college degree today is the equivalent of a high school degree 50 years ago. [applause] senator sanders: that is why i believe that when we talk about public education, we should demand that every public college and university in america be tuition free. [cheers and applause] sanders: the other part

of that equation, this is quite unbelievable, if you are prepared to think outside of the box, outside of the status quo, all over this country, i'm sure in this room here -- you have people dealing with incredibly oppressive loads of student debt. i'm talking about people paying $50,000, $100,000, $400,000 of student debt which they will be paying off for decades. i keep running into families where mom is not only paying off her daughter's student debt, she's paying off her own student debt of 20 years ago. in america, we should not be punishing people for the crime of trying to get an education. we should be rewarding people, encouraging people to get that education.

that is why i believe we should allow people with student debt to refinance their loans at the lowest possible interest rate they can find. [applause] some of my opponents, and some of the corporate media says you are giving out all this free stuff. you are santa claus. you are a wonderful guy. how are you going to pay for it? you've got to be sensible. how are you going to pay for this idea? i will tell you how we are going to pay for free tuition and lowering student debt. we will impose a tax on wall street speculation. [applause] when wall street crashed, and i was there in the senate, wall

street went begging to the american people and the u.s. congress, bail us out. bail us out. well, congress did. now it is wall street's turn to help the middle class of this country. [applause] when we talk about a corrupt campaign finance system there are many examples that i could give you about how campaign-finance impacts public policy. probably the easiest one would be to deal with climate change. i'm a member of the senate environmental committee and the senate energy committee and i've talked to scientists all over the world.

the debate is over, climate change is real, it is caused by human activity, and it is already causing devastating problems in our country and around the world. [applause] as president, i would leave -- lead this country, working with china and india and russia and countries all over the world to take on the fossil fuel industry, to transform our energy system away from fossil fuel to energy-efficiency and sustainable energy. here's the point i want to make. how does it happen? i'm being as deadly serious as i can. how does it happen if the entire scientific community agrees climate change is real and it is causing devastating problems, and will only get much worse in

years to come? how does it happen we have a republican party which almost unanimously -- few exceptions -- rejects science? how does it happen not one republican in a debate or in any other format will say what everybody knows to be true? climate change is real and we have to transform our energy system to save this planet from r future generations. how does that happen? not one republican candidate will say that. the answer is, on the day that republican candidate says it, he will lose his campaign funding from the koch brothers, from exxon mobil, and the fossil fuel industry.

that is what a corrupt campaign finance system is doing in this country. in my view, we judge a nation -- and i know paul wellstone said it better than i -- we judge a nation not by a number of millionaires and billionaires we have, but by how we treat the most vulnerable people in our country. people who cannot defend themselves. that is a sign of a great country. [applause] nobody in this room should be proud of the fact that we have the highest rate of childhood poverty of almost any major country on earth. nobody should be proud or accept

that millions of seniors and disabled veterans are trying to ,et by on $11,000, $12,000 $13,000 a year. that is not what america should be about. that is why i believe we must lift the cap on taxable income coming into the social security trust fund. and expand social security benefits. [cheers and applause] senator sanders: my legislation i introduced would raise taxable taxes for people earning $250,000 or more. top 1.5%. and expand and extend social security for another 58 years and expand it such that seniors now living on less than $16,000

will get $1300 more. that is the least we can do for the people who helped build our country and raise us. my friends, my vision for -- my friends, people say my vision for america, my ideas are just too radical. they are not radical. the only thing that is radical is the fact that the insurance companies and the drug companies, and the fossil fuel industry, and wall street, and the military-industrial complex -- they are standing in opposition to what we have to accomplish. it is not a question of what we should be doing. i believe, i have always believed my entire adult life,

that health care is a right of all people, not a privilege. [cheers and applause] senator sanders: i'm on the committee that wrote the affordable care act. we made real progress but we can do better. so the issue in front of us is , not what we know we should do. there is widespread agreement on that. it is whether or not we have the courage to stand up to the billionaire class, to stand up to wall street, to stand up to the drug companies, and all of those people today exercising in enormous power at the expense of ordinary americans. what the political revolution is about is the belief that yes,

when we stand together, we know -- when we do not allow the trumps of the world to divide us up, there is nothing we cannot accomplish. i ask you to join the political revolution. thank all you very much. [cheers and applause] ♪ clinton: hello, minnesota. it is wonderful to be here, reunited with so many people l, in a statee df with such a long, proud, tradition. so many minnesotans have

inspired us with principled leadership. hillary clinton: talking with him about what we wanted to see happen to improve the lives of the people we represented, and i thought a lot about him in the last month. he was a true progressive who wanted to get things done. he wanted to make progress, and i miss him and i thank you for sending him to serve. adding to that list, there are many of user tonight, someone else i served with spent a lot of time sitting in the back row

as the first term senator, and your to -- your terrific governor. [applause] there is a lot to be said about mark. you know how effective he has been, how he has stood against the tide of tea party republicanism. minnesota, under his jobership, has the highest growth record in the united states. [applause] but knowing market, that is not enough. he wants now to focus on what can be done to create more jobs in places that are not yet seeing that kind of economic growth. from the iron rate to kids of determined that he is going to make progress everywhere in your state. i want to thank his terrific

lieutenant-governor, tina smith. [applause] and i want to thank my two friends and former colleagues, your two senators. [applause] what treasures they are because you get to see them all the time. they are actually working their hearts out stumping across the country for me everywhere they go. people are just blown away. they want to know more about them, they want to know what they can do to try to elect impressive senators like them. are great friends, and they are even better public servants. the mayors, the members of congress representing you, all of the state and city officials who pour their hearts into serving the people of minnesota

and our country every day, i thank you. now, we have come together at an important moment. when i started this campaign last april, i knew we were facing challenges as a country. talking to families across america has made it even clearer to me. it is appalling to encounter the indifference and neglect that i saw firsthand when i went to flint last sunday. those children and their families have been poisoned with lead in their water because their governor wanted to save money. [boos] when i meet with the home health aide in nevada, who has been

taking care of other people's years, andfor 40 learned she has never earned enough to put away even one penny for her own retirement, there is something wrong. it is also wrong that the cashier i met in new hampshire is paid less than her son for doing the same job at the same company where she is actually worked longer. and i will tell you what else is wrong. it is wrong that american companies play legal tricks to sell themselves on paper to companies overseas to avoid paying their fair share of taxes here at home. [applause] now the most egregious example , of that is a company from

wisconsin called johnson controls. johnson controls makes auto parts. when the economy crashed in 2008, they along with the auto companies came to washington asking for help. in fact, they went from office to office, republican's response was let the whole auto industry die. take all those millions of jobs in those communities and let them just die. president obama and the democrats in congress listened, constructed a program to help provide financial support to the companies and suppliers and others. and it worked. it worked so well that those

companies paid back the u.s. treasury ahead of time. what has happened in the last month? johnson controls announced they are turning their back on america. they are pretending to sell themselves to a company in europe. they are pretending to move their headquarters. they are moving their profits to ireland. in order to avoid paying taxes to the government and the people that helped them in their time of need and cap to their company going. called anriends, is inversion of the tax law. i call it a perversion and we are going to shut down those abuses when i get into office. [applause] there is no wonder people are a

-- angry they have every reason , to be. but they are also hungry. they are hungry for solutions they can count on. now, we have heard a lot about washington and wall street in this campaign. i want to get secret unaccountable money out of , politics, as much as anyone, in fact probably more than most. a little known fact, citizens united was about a right-wing attack on me. one of many over the years to try to undermine and push back the views and values i have a espoused. on the first day of my campaign , i said we are going to overturn citizens united.

we will use supreme court appointments, and if necessary i will lead a constitutional amendment to get control back over the financing of political campaigns. [applause] i have also made it clear we can't let wall street threaten mainstreet again. no bank should be too big to jail, no executive too powerful to jail. and we have the authority now to do that. thanks to president obama, your senators and others, the toughest regulations on wall street since the 1930's were passed in the dodd frank bill that gives the government the authority to go after any bank that poses a systemic risk.

so that is available. it has to be used if appropriate. and i will use it. but i want you to understand this. after we get anything we can to get control again over the financial industry, get control again over campaign finance, we can't stop there. we need to get jobs growing and incomes rising. too many americans can't find a good paying job no matter how hard they try. people haven't had a raise in 15-16 years. we need a bold national mission to create jobs in clean energy and infrastructure. we need a deal with high college costs and student debt. they are holding so many young

people back from starting their lives. and yes we need to create more , jobs for young people because being out of work at the start of your career can have lifelong repercussions. earlier today in south carolina, i shared my plan to help move 46,000 unemployed minnesotale here in and across the country, because it is not enough to be against things. yes that is important. , but america, we are the nation that gets things done, that charts the future, that makes a difference in the lives of the people of this country. [applause] we need an agenda to unleash the innovation of our entrepreneurs and small businesses. so we have to tackle the economy.

we have to tackle the barriers economically that stand in the way of people getting ahead. but there are other barriers holding americans back. . o african-american families who face discrimination generation after generation. have just a fraction of the wealth of white families. they get denied a mortgage three times as often. they face other challenges in health and education. that is a barrier. that is a barrier that stands in the way of their dreams and aspirations.

having $11,000 in wealth compared to the median white house old of $40,000 is an indictment. but also a reflection. of the deeply entrenched discrimination that is faced. think about the crisis of so many young black people dying after encounters with police jamar to mark clark -- clark, shot and killed a few months ago not far from where we sit tonight. think about immigrant families lying awake at night listening for a knock on the door in the united states of america. working in the shadows, vulnerable to unscrupulous employers.

think about all of the women in our country still fighting for equal pay, still struggling to get access to reproductive care while americans go after planned parenthood again and again. think of all the new parents struggling to take care of that newborn baby, maybe a sick relative, when their job doesn't offer paid leave. i want to applaud governor dayton for his proposal for paid parental leave here in this state. [applause] it is the right thing to do. and we have to do it across our nation. talk about schools in low income communities like the one i visited in south carolina today. they are part of what is called the corridor of shame.

along i-95, schools crumbling and decrepit. they don't have the resources, the teachers to help young people get the best possible education. by the lettered that several of you signed last week asking the white house to , allocate more funds for schools that educate native american kids right here in minnesota. [applause] if i am fortunate as to become your president, i will be your partner every single day, in working with you to serve all of minnesota's children. now all of us know, don't we? need realnow that we

solutions to the challenges we face? i'm running to tear down all the barriers that hold people back across our country. and i am not making promises i can't keep. every once in a while -- [applause] a day comes along where we make something big and extraordinary happen all at once. but in my experience, that is not how we make change most of the time. to make change happen over and over again, you have to keep working at it. you have to keep fighting for it day after day. and if you get knocked down, you get right back up. [applause] i remember back in the early 1990's, i was working day and

night to pass universal health care. you know, before it was called obamacare, it was called hillarycare, and we face a lot of the same obstacles and criticism. you know, the drug companies and the insurance companies. they went right at us, which right at me. we didn't get what we wanted. yes, we were knocked down, and we were set back. but by then i had traveled , across america. i had met countless americans who had been denied health care coverage. they didn't have enough money. they had a pre-existing condition. they hit a lifetime limit. i remember being in the

children's hospital in cleveland talking to a group of parents with very sick children. they were telling me what it was like to have a child who needed a lot of medical care. and not be able to guarantee that they could have that provided. know, i'm aaid, you successful businessman. i actually run a business. i provide health care to my employees and their families. but i can't get health care for my two daughters who have cystic fibrosis. he said i go from insurance , company to insurance company. i tell them, i can pay something. give me what i can pay for. please. the answer is always the same, no. i said what do they tell you?

the last you know , meeting i had, i was talking to the agent making the same case of that i have made so many times before. said, looked at me and he you don't understand. we don't ensure burning houses. this man looked at me with tears in his eyes and he said, they called my little girls burning houses. i couldn't get that and other stories out of my mind. and when we didn't get everything we wanted, when we got knocked down, i said we have to figure out how we make progress as much as possible. so i got to work with democrats and republicans to find common ground, to provide health care's most vulnerable among us, our children.

we were able to pass the children's health insurance program which now is a lifeline , for 8 million kids across america. [applause] i never gave up on the dream of universal health care, not for a second. and 8 million kids, as great as it was, it was not everything we wanted. but it was real. it was achievable. it made a profound difference. and i could not bear the thought that we would leave children without health care, even a single day longer than we had to. that is why i was thrilled when president obama passed and signed into law the affordable care act. that has been a goal of the democratic party since harry truman.

[applause] it is helping so many people right now. we have 90% coverage. 10% short of universal coverage. no more denials because of pre-existing conditions. [applause] young people up to the age of 26 can be on their parents policy. women no longer pay more for our insurance than men. and no more lifetime limits. [applause] so yes, i'm going to defend it. i know how hard it was to accomplish. i want to improve it. get the costs down. make sure we get to 100% coverage. and do everything i can to rein in prescription drug costs by going right at the drug companies requiring them to

negotiate for lower prices with medicare, and going after predatory pricing, which we have seen in the last months result in price increases of 4-5000% -- 4000% to 5000% overnight. i learned from my family and my faith to try to do all the good you can, as long as you can, for as many people as you can. when you see people hurting, or being treated unjustly, and you think you can help them, maybe make their lives better, you have got to do it. especially when you are someone who has had blessings. who, yes, has been knocked down, but able to get back up.

that is why i say with all my onrt, we are going to build the affordable care act. we are not going to plunge this country into some national debate, where we would have to go from 0% to 100%. we are going to take on the drug companies. we are going to take on the costs. we are going to finally achieve universal coverage. so yes we are going to do all of , that. [applause] because so many people with families depend on us doing that. that is the path forward, not a divisive debate. about the shape of what could be done, a whole system that will stop us in our tracks, create gridlock, and not move us forward. here is my promise to all of you. i will work harder than anyone,

actually, to make changes that improve lives. together we will build on the progress we have made under president obama, to break all the barriers that hold americans back. i was very honored after running a hard campaign against senator -- then senator obama to be asked to serve as his secretary of state. the trust that he placed in me the opportunity that we had to , work together -- on behalf of our foreign policy and national security, it was an enormous privilege. and i had a front row seat in watching him do what needed to be done in responding to the financial crisis. i don't think he gets the credit he deserves for saving our economy from the horrible ditch that the republicans drove us

into in 2008. [applause] i think he has shown great presidential leadership in dealing with the implacable opposition of the right-wing and the republicans of the tea party. [applause] i think millions of americans are better off because of his presidency. so i yes will build on the , progress he has made because i am a progressive who actually likes to make progress. [applause] you know, those of us who are grandparents know the older you get, funnily enough, the more you start thinking about the future. imagine tomorrow, where hard work is honored and rewarded

with rising income, where we produce enough renewable energy to power every home in america and create millions of a good jobs doing it. where education lifts you up and student that does not drag you down. where entrepreneurs can start and grow with small businesses. imagine a tomorrow where every american knows religion or sexual or or oidentity. they will have an equal shot at achieving their dreams because this is their country too. [applause] tomorrow where gun violence no longer stocks our country and elected officials stand up to the gun lobbyists and not get intimidated. [applause]

imagine a tomorrow where america is safe at home and strong in the world. want forhe tomorrow we our children and our grandchildren and for our country. so, when you go to caucus on march 1, i hope you will ask , who can you count on to break down every barrier, not just some? and think about this. think about this as you go. yes, wall street and the financial interest along with drug companies, insurance they know they have too much influence, and i will fight every single day to even the odds. even if we were able to get rid of all of that undue influence tomorrow, we would still have

the cruel negligence we saw in flint. we would still have the kind of we havelim demagoguery seen in this campaign which must and. we would still have so many forms.in we would still have powerful voices denying privacy, opposing every single comment with gun safety reform, and we would still have republican idea to ripping apartgues the american middle class with their attacks on workers rights, the right to organize, to stand up, to be part of a union for better wages and working condition. [applause] , i am not a single issue candidate, and this is not

a single issue country. [applause] president who can do all parts of the job on behalf of the americans, that believes in basic propositions about our country with each and every american to have a chance to have their own god-given potentials. only then can america live up to its potential. with your help, we can still build a future together. 1.ase, join me on march thank you for everything you are your confidence and optimism go into the future that we shape. thank you very much. [applause]

announcer: our road to the white house continues when former president george w. bush joins republican presidential candidate jeb bush at the campaign rally in charleston, south carolina. we have coverage beginning at 6:00 eastern on c-span. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2016] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] road to the white house began in iowa. and then we moved to new hampshire, a long and rich history. now we really begin to test the candidates and their message. we move south to south carolina. and then to the party caucuses in nevada for the democrats and republicans. more than likely we will see a number of candidates probably drop out of the race so the field will then narrow. and we move into early march, super tuesday, the start of winner take all primaries. it will be critical, and the

delegate count continues. we get a better sense of whose message is resonating and who is on the path to the nomination. announcer: the six remaining republican residents of candidates were in greenville, south carolina saturday evening for a debate seen alive on cbs. the primary is held this coming saturday. this is courtesy of cbs, an hour and 40 minutes. ♪ we don't win anymore, we don't make good deals anymore. >> my philosophy on islamic radical terrorism is simple, we win, they lose. >> the world is safer when we are the strongest military in the world. >> i believe we have an obligation to help people that live in the shadows. >> we can putea