about 2:30 eastern time. 1:30 des moines time. later this afternoon michael bennet at 4:00 eastern time. he will be followed immediately after that by senator bernie sanders and new york mayor did -- mayor bill de blasio. c-span head over to the campaign 2020 bus and take your calls. some of the sights and sounds of the state fair, everything on a stick including of course a staple of iowa, corn on a stick with plenty of salt and butter and a lot of calories. there are more than 200 food vendors at the iowa state fair venerating on average about $4 million for the state fair. the initial state fair dates back to 1854. you can also get the corn in a cup. everything you want at the iowa state fair. the average price is between four dollars to $10. we will watch this for just a moment. coming up from yesterday, senator kamala harris.

use --e coverage can continues from des moines, iowa.

>> corn on a stick, pork on a stick, deep-fried oreos, any kind of eyes scream or drink you would imagine. it's all available at the iowa state fair. we hope by now you're getting hungry for some of the food out there at the state fair, which continues for the next week or so. you can go to the iowa state fair website for more information. the admission fee is about nine dollars for an adult. we will be back live. next from yesterday, california senator kamala harris.

>> the state fair. on the soapbox. i'm so excited to be here and thrilled and i just want to thank everyone here because this is one of the great american traditions. and this is really about what we know about who we are and so i just want to thank you all. good morning. good morning. it's great to be with you. let's just get started. i've only got 20 minutes. i could go on for hours but i've got 20 minutes so here it is. know this is an inflection moment in the history of our country. in time that is requiring us each as individuals and collectively to look in a mirror and ask a question. that question being who are we?

know part ofe all the answer to that question is we are better than this. so this is a moment in time it is requiring us to fight for the best of who we are and fight we will and this is not a new fight for us. we as americans have always been in the business of fighting for the best of who we are and fighting for our ideals. i will tell you, i'm a daughter of fighters. my parents met when they were active in the civil rights movement in the 1950's -- 1960's. a sister and i grew up around bunch of adults who spent full-time marching and shouting about this thing called justice and the heroes of this movement where the lawyers who understood how to translate the passion of the streets to the courtrooms of our country and remind folks of that promise we articulated in

1776 that we are all equal and should be treated that way which is what inspired me to want to become a lawyer. so we are fighters and we are born fighters. i was raised also by a mother. she was all of five feet tall. if you ever met our mother you would have thought she was 10 feet tall. and she was fierce. she was the kind of parent who would say to us, you may be the first to do many things. make sure you are not the last. she would say don't let anyone tell you who you are. you tell them who you are. she said your life should be judged based on service to others, not self-interest. she was tough. if you ever came home and our house complaining about something our mother would look at you with a straight face, one hand probably on a hip, and she would say, well what are you going to do about it?

decided to run for president of the united states. there you go. talk for a moment about the current occupant of the white house. shall we? it's context. so here's a guy who came into office on a slogan that was about make america great again. ,hich of course for many of us again exactly for home. but also it is backward thinking. it caused us all to ask you, back to what? back for the voting rights act? back for the civil rights act? back before the fair housing act? back for federal minimum wage? back before roe v. wade? because we are not going back. we are not going back. and he came in office making all

kinds of promises to folks and in particular working people. everyone from farmers here in iowa to autoworkers. came in making all kinds of promises about how he was going to help out work people and then what did he do. he passes a tax bill benefiting the biggest corporations in this country. then what happens. engages in a so-called trade policy that was trade i tweet. oren out of his fragile ego in a way that was about unilateral action that has resulted in farmers here in this great state looking at bankruptcy, soybeans rotting in bins. it is expected that hundreds of thousands of autoworkers may be out of work by the end of the year because of his so-called trade policy. i call it the trump trade tax. and here's the thing. he betrayed a lot of people. of people.lot so this obviously is an election

about what we need to do to turn the page. but it is also about recognizing that we have to fight for the america we believe in also knowing that we reject the voice that he has provided that has been about sowing hate and division among us. we reject that. it is not reflective of who we are. and i know it to be true. i know who we are. we all have so much more in common than what separates us. and the way i think about it is what i called the 3:00 in the morning thought. the thing that wakes you up in the middle of the night. because here's the deal. for the vast majority of us, when we make up -- wake up in the middle of the night thinking that thought, it is never through the lens of the party with which we are registered to vote. for the vast -- vast majority of

lenst is never through the of some simplistic demographic some pollster put us in. us for the vast majority of when we wake up thinking that thought it usually has to do with one of just a very few things. our personal health, the health of our children or at parents. for so many can i get a job, keep a job, pay the bills, retire with dignity? for our students, can i pay off those student loans? it for so many families, can i help my family member get off their opioid addiction? the vast majority of us have so much more in common than what separates us. and that is part of the strength of who we are as a nation. that in ouright for fight is born out of that knowledge and so yes we must turn the page and this election is about more than that because obviously dude got to go.

so the point then is, let us also think about writing the next chapter. in doing that together. and writing the next chapter based on the america we believe in. whereerica we believe in we say should only have to have one job to have a roof over your head and put food on the table. and america, we believe in where we say it is not ok that as of today in america almost half of our families cannot afford a $400 unexpected expense. it is not reflective of the america we believe in. when a 99% of the counties in this country if you are an minimum wage worker who can't afford market rate for a one bedroom apartment. it is not ok that last year 12 million people had to take out a loan of on average $400 from a

payday lender at an interest rate often in excess of 300%. that is not the america we believe in. in the america we believe in i will tell you, when we win this election we are going to change the tax code as follows. for families that make less than $100,000 a year, they will get up to a $6,000 tax credit that you can take him at up to $500 a month it will make all the difference between those families getting through the end of the month or not. believe in, wewe will recognize that one of the things that keeps people up at night is the education of their children and in the america we believe in, we will pay teachers their value. because right now in america we are looking at a situation where teachers on average are paid 11% less then similarly educated professionals. i have met more teachers here in iowa and around the country working two or three jobs.

94% of teachers are coming out of their own pocket to pay for school supplies. there are only two groups of people raising our children. thents, often with assistance of grandparents and aunties and uncles, and our teachers. we must pay them their value. so in the america we believe in, we will put in place the first in our nations history federal investment in closing the teacher pay gap. that's $12,200a, a year. $12,200 a year in many places is a year worth of mortgage payments. that's a years worth of grocery bills. means putting a significant dent in student loan debt which is one of the greatest barriers to our kids coming out of school and and enjoying a profession for which they have a passion. in the america we believe in. elementary, middle

and high school students will not have to go to school and endure a drill during which they are taught about how they need to hide in a closet or crouch in a corner in the event there is a mass shooter roaming the hallways of their school. those children of ours who come home at night and ask, why did we have to have that drill? to which of course our response is because there are supposedly tears in washington, d.c. -- leaders in washington, d.c. who have failed to have the courage to reject a false choice which suggests you are either in favor of the second amendment or you want to take everyone's guns away who have failed to have the courage to agree. fine if you want to go hunting, but we need reasonable gun safety laws in our country including universal background checks and a renewal of the assault weapons ban.

and so in the america we believe in mitch mcconnell doesn't call us back to vote on a bill, then when we are elected, i will give the united states congress 100 days to pull their act together on this and put a bill on my desk for signature and if they do not, i am prepared to take executive action to put in place a comprehensive background check atfirement to require the to take the licenses of gun dealers who violate the law and by executive action to ban the importation of assault weapons into our country. take action. in the america we believe in, we will agree that access to health care should be a right of everyone's and not a privilege of just those who can afford it.

so we will put in place knowing this is one of the issues that keeps people up at night, we will put in place a medicare for all plan which i have proposed which will offer everyone health care without regard to's. put the insurance companies in check so there will be no deductibles, no co-pays. we will still have access to either a public or private plan and expand services and benefits because in the america we believe and we know that this is a human rights issue. it is a civil rights issue. it is a moral issue and we must do better. in the america we believe in, we will agree that one of the issues that keeps us up at night is the security of our homeland. and we need to have a commander-in-chief who understands her greatest priority is concerning herself

with the safety and security of our nation. as opposed to the current commander-in-chief who on the issue of the fact of russia's interference in the election of president of the united states prefers to take the word of the russian president over the word of the american intelligence community. who on the subject of an american student who was tortured and later died, prefers to take the word of a north korean dictator over the word of the american intelligence community. that on the subject of a journalist who was assassinated, a journalist who had american credentials, prefers to take the word of the saudi prince over the word of the american intelligence community. we need a new commander-in-chief.

so i will say this. i know that a lot of us over the last two years and some have been wondering how is this all going to turn out. what's happening. throwing objects at that inanimate object called a television. going through individual and group therapy trying to figure it all out. but here's the thing i want to remind all of the friends. 2020, let ustoward remember that one of the greatest strengths about who we are as a nation and as a people is that by our very nature, we are aspirational. are a nation that was founded on noble ideals.

the ideals that were present when we wrote the constitution of the united states and all of its amendments and the bill of rights and the declaration of weependence and those words spoke in 1776 that we are all he will and should be treated that way. we are aspirational. eyed. also clear we have not yet reached those ideals. but the strength of who we are is we always fight to get there. and so fight we will. and fight we must. fight that iss a born out of optimism. this is a fight that is born out of knowing what can be and believing in what can be unburdened by what has been.

onlyis a fight that is not for the soul of our country. of lovea fight born out of country. this therefore is a fight we will win. thank you, iowa. thank you. thank you guys. inc. you very much. thank you, iowa. -- thank you very much. thank you, iowa. i've got a couple minutes. >> august 28 is the anniversary of king's i have a dream speech. what are you going to do? why are you as a candidate uniquely qualified to march the and smash down trumps bloody sunday walls? >> why mi uniquely qualified to get the job done? well i'm going to let you say that.

>> why are you, senator harris, uniquely qualified to march through and smash down trumps bloody sunday wall? of what needs to happen is this. to get through entering the next page, to write the next chapter, we need to be able to successfully prosecute the case against four more years of donald trump and i think it will take a prosecutor to do that. and we've got a rap sheet. and it's long. let's look at the evidence. benefits the top 1% and the biggest corporations in america to the point that 60 of the vic's corporations in the united states paid no taxes last year. here paid no taxes last year? let's talk about the trade policy that is resulting in direct time to working families in america. let's talk about a policy that is about putting a in cages and

separating children from their parents in the name of border security when in fact was it is is a human rights abuse being committed by the united states government. let's talk about a failure to recognize and our farmers and everybody here knows it, climate change is real. it is a crisis. it is caused by human behaviors which can be changed without much change to our lifestyle. it represents an existential threat to who we are as human beings and we can do something about it instead of the current occupant of the white house who is pushing science fiction instead of science fact to our collective peril. he talks about wind turbines. here in iowa, you guys are a leader in this. 40% of iowa's electricity comes from renewable energy. you are a model but we've got the guy in the white house saying wind turbines cause cancer. i love governor inslee's line. he says, turbines don't cause

cancer. they cause jobs. so we've got to be able to prosecute case against him. and i'm going to tell you something. the pundits will talk about and compare and i think overly compared 2016 to 2020. 2020 will not be 2016. 2020 will not be 2016. there is now i call it a rap sheet. there is now a lot of evidence that has spoken to the american people who know those who believed in him were betrayed. who know that we expect that the person who occupies that most precious seat which is our government, not his. we are a government for the people, by the people, of the people. we expect that the president of the united states will always know that when she has this

microphone in her hand, it is a very very powerful force. and must always be used not to be people down but to lift people up. that's who we are. up thank youe is guys. thank you. >> barbara. where are you? >> i'm curious what you think with executive action. the criticism that that kind of executive action uncle sam in some kind of litigation. >> we've done an analysis of it.

theress invests in president certain authorities and among them is the authority to be concerned about what passes for commerce and in any event we've done the legal research on and i'm not concerned about it. i'm sure there will be challenges but it's strong. the bottom line is this. preparednessd my to take executive action is just frankly because i'm set up. congress has done nothing. even at this most latest tragedy. we may bring people bad, we may do something and all of these baby steps. people don't have time for this. and we keep having tragedy after tragedy. somebody asked me, maybe this tragedy will spur some action. this tragedy is as tragic as each one we've seen and there has been no action over many many years. so i am prepared to take executive action and to actually do something and i believe and i'm pretty confident that it will pass constitutional muster.

>> do you think the president is a white supremacist and how can you fight white supremacy legislatively? >> let me tell you the concern i have with that question and it's being asked a lot. it begins and ends with the question and the answer to that as opposed to recognizing the long history in the united states of this as an issue. the issue of hate. prosecutor, handled hate crimes. as the attorney general rolling the california department justice i was publishing crime reports every year. this is not new in america. hate is not new. hate that takes the form of racism, anti-semitism, homophobia, trans phobia, islamophobia is not new in our country. i will not participate in a conversation that simplifies

this issue without recognizing one, the history. speaking truth about it and recognizing that it happened for this guy was in the white house, it will continue after this guy in the white house. he is certainly planning -- fanning the flames of hate. if we are going to have this conversation, let's have it in a meaningful way. when we have seen everything from what happened in power wait to the tree of life synagogue to charlottesville to what happened in el paso, we should all be having a conversation that is partly looking in the mirror to save where have we been on this and what are we prepared to do. so part of it has to be we have to unlike what this administration's president has done and i've been talking about this for months and months which the resourcesown on domestic terrorism. they just shut it down. putting support into

and acknowledging that it is real and must be treated as what it is, domestic terrorism. so immediately i would completely reform that perspective around the priority. microphonebout the that the president has paid which in a profound way informs perception about a certain issue. perception about an issue like race or religion or sexual orientation. and then just go down the list. used theresident has very precious tool of that microphone in a way that has been in my opinion about the officee power of of the president of the united states and highly irresponsible obviously.

first of all, i love being in iowa. each time i come i really do gain a lot from it. i gain perspective from it and there's certainly momentum in our campaign. we have over 65 staff in iowa. there are people in this race who have had national profiles for many years. i'm still introducing myself to people. and it will be a process. and with each step that we take we are gaining ground and building momentum and i feel good about it. >> the fbi investigating jeffrey epstein's suicide. how does this happen when you're supposed to be on suicide watch and how can we get justice? trackedually have deaths in custody when i was

attorney general and there are a lot of issues to unpack in that. i think the case is obviously very new and we will see what the circumstances are. i have no inside information about it. certainly when we are talking about what we are doing in prisons there is a lot of reform that is needed. and that relates to everything i have worked on for years around what we need to do to end solitary confinement of not only adults but minors. to dois the work we need around incarcerated women that i have been a champion on including the fact that in the united states we still have places where women are shackled during pregnancy and childbirth. so there is a lot of work to do across the board in terms of oversight and accountability as it relates to prisons. i will also say on that subject that we have to understand that this administration has really supported also private prisons and when i'm elected i will shut them down. i will shut down private detention centers because we never want to be in the business of having united states taxpayer

dollars go to an industry that by its very business model is about profiting off the incarceration of other human beings including what i saw when i went to homestead, florida which was a private detention facility that currently houses 2700 children in a private detention facility which means that your taxpayer dollars are going to fund the profit of the incarceration of children. >> trade is important. you have opposed tpp and nafta. what is your solution? >> let's just talk about the current state of affairs. donald trump has conducted trade policy by tweet. -- iowa making all kinds of promises to farmers and he has betrayed them. in a unilateral way clearly without considering the harm

that would result from what he market tost cut off a our farmers that they've been cultivating for well over a decade. and so now they are looking at bankruptcy with soybeans writing in bins. on the issue of trade, let's just step back for a moment and also remember trade by definition means there's more than one party. because you are trading with somebody else. and usually there are a few parties involved. so we have to conduct trade policy in a way that acknowledges there are many relationships and many folks who are going to be at play in that. will conduct trade policy in a way that understands the negotiation and leverage we have with our allies around the world. tode policy is always going be about protecting american workers and having those as part of our priorities and it is for that reason and so many others that i am not in favor of nafta

2.0. iowa sent president obama to the white house twice. timeam going to spend my in iowa and work on earning the support of every island. iowan. my agenda is born out of my fundamental belief that the vast majority of us have so much more in common and that people want a president who is a problem-solving president and the problems are the problems that keep them up at night. that's why i call it my 3:00 a.m. agenda. it's about health care. it's about can i get a job and keep a job. it's about their children and education. it's about issues like trade and these are my priorities and i know that they speak to the vast majority of us regardless of the party with which they are

registered to vote. >> do you believe that walmart should stop selling guns and secondly back on jeffrey epstein, do you also support a congressional investigation into his suicide and crimes? >> i don't know enough about the epstein case to comment on it. i just heard about it. on the issue of walmart, they should stop selling guns. i do believe that. we need background checks. let's just start with that. and we need people to be responsible in the way that they are selling them. that everyone needs to stop selling them. we need to have checks and balances on that. if they participate in background checks, then fine. but right now they are not. fair.ve got to go to the >> california senator kamala harris yesterday taking

questions from reporters and speaking out the political soapbox as they are calling it. an area set aside at the state fair for the more than 20 candidates, mostly democrat although we did hear from former massachusetts governor bill weld as he vies for the republican nomination. the crowd is gathering for tom steyer who will be speaking in about 10 minutes. we want to hear from you. if lines are open especially you live in iowa. (202) 748-8002. he will join us live on the campaign 2020 bus to take your phone calls. we will hear from senator michael bennet. he is scheduled to speak at 4:00 eastern time followed by senator bernie sanders and new york mayor bill de blasio. he will also join us on board the c-span bus. john is joining us from iowa.

good afternoon. will you be participating in the caucus? >> i don't know. enthused now after listening to kamala harris this morning. hadn't really paid too much attention to her but she made a very positive impact on me in terms of what she said and how she said it and her genuine enthusiasm for getting things back in the direction that i as a democrat think we should be in a lot of ways. so i'm feeling like i may be in the kamala harris number one spot as far as who i am favoring at this point in time. i just wanted to share that. i'm an iowa voter listening to c-span now rerunning yesterday's soapbox presentations. >> we are alive today. let me ask you about the two front runners.

senator elizabeth warren and former vice president joe biden. do either of those candidates appeal to you? >> yes. that i've had occasion to see and hear biden more often and i feel more familiar with him because he's grown more and has acquainted with and more comfortable with warring -- en over the last six months and may be cooling off on biden over the last couple months. but harris county put it herself i feel in my reaction to what she did on the soapbox at the fair yesterday. >> thanks for the call. we are going to move on to carl from florida as we look at a live view of the iowa state fair. the rain has stopped. cloudy skies.

temperatures expected to reach the low 80's before the end of the day. a cooler day than we have seen over the last couple of days. carl. good afternoon. >> good afternoon pete i'm watching the same thing as you. i think you should keep kamala harris off the tv. all she does is downgrade out president of the united states and plus the other democratic party. if they don't like it they can go somewhere else. they don't have -- you know. i don't understand why there's 20 candidates against one president since day one since he started they've been on him trying to pick up trash from his past and everything else before he was even president. they haven't given him a chance to be president because he has his mind on all his other horse crap.

and i can't wait until trump is reelected. >> thanks for the call. >> and they are helping him out. these democrats are helping trump out. >> thank you, carl. lee not roles and any other type of food you would want at the iowa state fair. more than 200 food vendors and the crowd estimated to be over a million people before the fair ends. it runs over 11 days. we heard from the democratic candidates on thursday. former vice president biden and steve bullock. theeard from five of candidates today. we will continue to watch the scene at the iowa state fair. the soapbox getting underway in just a couple of minutes with tom steyer and a reminder that he will be joining us onboard the c-span campaign 2020 bus. our live coverage continues from des moines, iowa.

>> we have a few minutes before tom steyer speeds -- speaks. let's get back to your phone calls. vincent. very plainhink it's and evident and i'm not going to go into a long dissertation. just as a worker and retiree in florida, we do cooperate with the independence and the democratic side and the independents and conservative voters here in florida. but we need to have a united badt because times were before these people running for office. we have heard from the federal

level on both sides, the democratic and republican, yours is a local problem. it's not within our purview. we are on the federal level. that's a local issue. which we don't have positive legislation in each state. we don't have a united front. >> ok. let's go to hollywood joining us from austin, texas. thoughts about this campaign and what we are seeing in iowa? on.hanks for having me i've been following the 2020 camping and it kind of reminds me of -- >> we will go to robert in minnesota. >> i was listening to kamala harris and she was asked a question at the end about her thoughts on whether walmart should stop selling guns and her answer was yes. but that she began to qualify that and she said that is if they decide to participate in

the background checks. i wanted to clarify that any gun dealer, walmart or any other dealer in the country is required to go through a background check before they can sell a firearm. so walmart and every gun they sell does have to go through a background check. each of the candidates has 20 minutes. they can use that time for a straight speech or remarks or q&a. the crowd is gathering for tom steyer. the rain has stopped. chris, quick comment before we go back to the soapbox area. >> yes. thank you. this is chris from california. i in general want to thank c-span for access to and coverage of our democratic process but specifically today for introducing me and the rest of the country to a republican option. i didn't think i would be

calling a republican phone line until about 20 minutes ago when i just saw the weld. great realistic views and positive ones that i believe many of us can rally around and thank you. >> thank you, chris. state fairo the iowa and remarks by businessman and >> basic rule is iowa. do not hold them up. be nice to each other. filled with cheer. cheering isn't so nice. give people space if they need to move around. one last thing as a secret. humans have to clean up. behind,eave something another human has to do more work or let's not make that happen. without further ado, tom steyer. [applause] tom