(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ANNOUNCER: There is something happening with Elizabeth Warren.
(UNKNOWN): Elizabeth Warren's popularity is gaining in the polls nationally.
ANNOUNCER: In a field full of candidates, she's the one with a plan for everything.
WARREN: I got a plan for that.
I got a plan.
I've got a plan for that.
ANNOUNCER: But does she have a plan to win in the places that made Donald Trump president?
WARREN: We're at risk in 2020, and Donald Trump puts us squarely in trouble.
ANNOUNCER: Live from Fort Wayne, Indiana, in the heart of Trump country, an "All In" 2020 candidate town hall.
WARREN: I'm Elizabeth Warren. I'm running for president of the United States. And I have a plan to do it.
ANNOUNCER: Here now, Chris Hayes.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(APPLAUSE)
HAYES: Good evening from Fort Wayne, Indiana. I'm Chris Hayes. Thank you all for being with me here at Ceruti's Bergstaff Place. The address here, appropriately enough, is 2020 East Washington Boulevard. It's a former brewery and a bottling plant back all the way back to 1903. It's our venue tonight and for a very special town hall event.
We are in the heart of the industrial Midwest here in Fort Wayne, Indiana. It's a city that's seen its fortunes rise and fall over the past century in a state that helped power Donald Trump to victory in 2016 amid his promises of protecting jobs and keeping factories open.
Now, a lot of people talk about how the Trump base is the Trump base and no one's ever going to defect from Donald Trump ever, but when you go back to 2016, you look at those 77,000 votes that cost three key states, when you look at the overperformance Donald Trump had in states like Indiana and Ohio and those swing states he narrowly eked out, the question is, are some of those voters up for play? And what would it look like if they were willing to listen or vote for another candidate?
It's the reason, I think, that Elizabeth Warren wants to co-opt some of the central economic rhetoric of Donald Trump. Donald Trump came to places like Fort Wayne and all through the industrial Midwest and said I'm going to be your protector and fighter to keep jobs here.
Well, just in the last day, in a swing through the industrial Midwest, Elizabeth Warren has unveiled yet another new plan, this one geared towards what she calls economic patriotism, an attempt to kind of recast some of the Trumpian appeals to people's material interests in many of the places of the country that have seen manufacturing go away and economic stagnation set in.
And with that, I would like to introduce tonight's guest, Senator Elizabeth Warren.
(APPLAUSE)
WARREN: Hello!
HAYES: How are you, Senator?
WARREN: Hi, it's good to see you.
HAYES: Have a seat. It's good to see you.
WARREN: It's good to see you.
HAYES: Well, the folks in this room obviously are very excited to see you.
WARREN: Well, I'm very excited to see all of them.
HAYES: So here's a question that I got from a bunch of people. We went back and forth with our people. We said, where would you like to do a town hall? We'd like to do a town hall with you. And you guys said Fort Wayne, Indiana.
WARREN: Yep.
(APPLAUSE)
HAYES: Why are we in Fort Wayne, Indiana?
WARREN: We're in Fort Wayne, Indiana, because people in Indiana understand jobs. They understand how you build an economy that doesn't just work for a thin slice at the top, but an economy that works for everyone.
But people in Fort Wayne, Indiana, also understand that leaving it to a handful of giant multinational corporations to build our economy just isn't working. You know, those big corporations, they don't have any loyalty to America. They don't have any loyalty to American workers.
They have loyalty to exactly one thing, and that is their own profits. And what we've got to do is we've got to have a government that doesn't say, hey, whatever it is that the giant multinational corporations want, let us help you. We've got to have a government that says we need this economy, we need this country to work for working people. And that's what we're going to do.
(APPLAUSE)
HAYES: You know, there's an interesting sort of message and messenger question here, right? So, you know, I think that that's a very - - that's a message I think that has some real appeal in places like this and across the industrial Midwest.
I think there are people that think -- that see you and say, oh, that's -- Elizabeth Warren is a Harvard law professor. She's a liberal from Massachusetts. And even if I like her, like, is that -- are people going to listen to that? Are you the messenger who can talk to the folks that are experiencing that in places like Fort Wayne and beyond?
WARREN: So, look, this is the 20th state I have come to, to do a town hall, 20 states plus Puerto Rico. I've done 90-plus town halls now. And it's about being out and talking to people.
You know, keep in mind, I was born and raised in Oklahoma. I have three much older brothers. I was that late in life baby, always referred to as "the surprise."
(LAUGHTER)
All three of my brothers went off and joined the military. My oldest brother was career military. He spent about five-and-a-half years in combat in Vietnam off and on. We were lucky to get him back home. My second brother was stationed overseas. My third trained as a combat medic.
Me, I had a different dream. And my dream was to become a public school teacher. Can we hear it for America's public school teachers?
(APPLAUSE)
It's all I ever wanted was to be a public school teacher. And by the time I graduated from high school, my family didn't have the money for a college application, much less to send me off to four years of school. And like a whole lot of folks in America, I don't have a real straight line story. You know, mine starts with I got a scholarship to college, yay! And then at 19...
HAYES: And you dropped out.
WARREN: I fell in love.
(LAUGHTER)
HAYES: You know, I did not know this part. Somehow -- I read a lot of it. I didn't know this part. You are 19 years old.
WARREN: Yep.
HAYES: You get a -- you're from Oklahoma. Got three brothers who joined the service. You get a national debating scholarship.
WARREN: Yay!
HAYES: Right. George Washington. Very fancy, expensive school.
WARREN: Yep, yep.
HAYES: You go there, and then you're like I'm out after a year.
WARREN: I fell in love and got married to the first husband. Never good when you have to number 'em.
(LAUGHTER)
But -- and then, after I got married, I thought that's it for me. I got a full-time job, minimum wage, answering phones. And I thought, OK, it's a good job. It's a life I chose, but it wasn't the dream, to teach school.
So here it was for me. It happened. I found a commuter college. We were living in Houston by then, or outside Houston, 45 minutes away, it cost $50 a semester. That was my chance, a four-year diploma. I hung on for dear life, and I became a special needs teacher. I have lived my dream.
(APPLAUSE)
HAYES: A huge part of your story personally, when you talk about your trajectory, which is a really remarkable one, is making a bunch of decisions buffeted against different forces, right? Can you find childcare?
One of those is whether you can control your reproductive freedom, right, for women that are making decisions about whether they're going to go to school, things like that. There was an interesting thing that happened today. Former Vice President Joe Biden came out and said that he would not support repealing the Hyde amendment. That is a provision, a federal law, that bars the federal government from funding abortion services from Medicare and Medicaid and others. You disagree with that position.
WARREN: Yes, I do.
HAYES: Is Joe Biden wrong?
WARREN: Yes.
HAYES: Why is he wrong?
(APPLAUSE)
WARREN: Here's how I look at this. I've lived in an America where abortions were illegal. And understand this: Women still got abortions. Now, some got lucky on what happened and some got really unlucky on what happened.
But the bottom line is they were there. And under the Hyde amendment, under every one of these efforts to try to chip away or to push back or to get rid of Roe v. Wade, understand this. Women of means will still have access to abortions. Who won't will be poor women. It will be working women, it will be women who can't afford to take off three days from work, will be very young women. It will be women who have been raped. It will be women who have been molested by someone in their own family. We do not pass laws that take away that freedom from the women who are most vulnerable.
(APPLAUSE)
HAYES: I should note, in the face of the Hyde amendment, though, this is -- this is not the sort of -- when you're talking about those laws in Georgia and Alabama, frontal assaults on Roe, this has been the law for a while.
WARREN: It's been the law for a while, and it's been wrong for a long time. Because it really is. It's just discrimination.
(APPLAUSE)
HAYES: But what do you say to someone who says, look, I agree with you on substance, but if you look at the polling, right, Americans have all sorts of cross-pressured moral views on abortion. There is strong support for keeping Roe v. Wade.
WARREN: Yeah.
HAYES: Right? People don't want to...
WARREN: Three out of four people want to do that.
HAYES: Absolutely. But if you say government funding abortion, the polling flips the other way, right? It's not necessarily a majority position. And what do you say to someone who says, no, this is the smart political move, if you need to win in a general election, to support the Hyde amendment?
WARREN: This is not about politics. What this is about is about health care, about reproductive freedom, about economic freedom, and about equal opportunity for all women. That's what this is really about.
(APPLAUSE)
HAYES: So then the final question I guess is, are there things -- right, I mean, it would be amazing to live in a world in which the right policy was always the best politics, right?
WARREN: Yeah.
HAYES: But it's not the world we live in. Right? I mean, I guess my question is, are there things where you think substantively that's probably the right thing to do, but 70 percent of the public doesn't like it. Or that might be a good policy, but that's going to be a very tough sell in Pennsylvania.
WARREN: Look, the way I see this, is this is what leadership is about. You really do work through what you believe is right. And you get out there, and if most of America isn't with you, then you talk about it, and you make the arguments and you listen, because maybe you don't have it right. But that's the whole point. You start with what you believe is right and then you get out there and fight for it.
(APPLAUSE)
HAYES: I want to -- let me poll the room for a second. By applause-o-meter, OK...
WARREN: Oh, you've got an applause-o-meter? OK.
HAYES: Applause-o-meter. We're improvising an applause-o- meter.
WARREN: OK. OK.
HAYES: I'm going to ask you if your top issue is health care, applause for health care as top issue?
(APPLAUSE)
How about jobs and the economy?
(APPLAUSE)
That's interesting. That's interesting.
WARREN: That's interesting.
HAYES: Climate?
(APPLAUSE)
And what about -- a lot of people say this in polling among Democratic primary voters, your number-one issue is just beating Donald Trump.
(APPLAUSE)
We're actually -- we're going to talk to a few folks who are here from Indiana...
WARREN: Good.
HAYES: ... and the area around, including a few that voted for Donald Trump...
WARREN: I'm glad.
HAYES: ... and then see what they have to say, what questions they have for you. Don't go anywhere. We will be right back with Senator Elizabeth Warren.
(APPLAUSE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HAYES: You may remember shortly after he won in 2016, but before he was sworn in, Donald Trump famously came to Indiana to the Carrier heating and air conditioning factory, along with Mike Pence, to make a big show about he personally having saved over 1,100 jobs from going to Mexico.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PENCE: Thanks to the initiative and the leadership of President-elect Donald Trump, Carrier has decided to stay and grow right here in America.
TRUMP: Companies are not going to leave the United States anymore without consequences.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: The deal was largely smoke and mirrors, and Carrier would go on to have round after round of layoffs. Hundreds of jobs did, in fact, go to Mexico, where workers make around $3 bucks an hour, and the laid-off Carrier workers who voted for Trump, like Renee Elliott, were left to fend for themselves.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ELLIOTT: I thought he was going to protect our jobs, you know what I mean? We all voted for him. And then, boom. I felt betrayed.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: And joining us here tonight, we have Renee Elliott, who you saw there. She was also in the room when the man that she voted for came to Carrier to take credit for saving her job, which then was lost. We have another Carrier worker, Frank Staples (ph), he is now out on medical leave. He was a worker at Carrier for 14 years and he wrote in Bernie Sanders in the 2016 presidential election.
We have Susan Cropper, who was laid off from her job at United Technologies after 31 years on the job. She voted for Donald Trump, as well, in 2016.
And rounding out our group, Dora Boyd, she's a single mother who works in a restaurant and voted for Hillary Clinton.
Let me start with you, Renee, because, you know, Donald Trump came to places like Fort Wayne and said very clearly, like, I am not going to let the jobs leave, he came here and said I'm not going to let Carrier leave, and then they left. What do you feel about the guy now?
ELLIOTT: I feel duped. I don't have a lot of faith in political candidates much anymore. You know, they make promises, you know, they -- they make them and they break them.
HAYES: How about you, Susan? How do you feel?
CROPPER: About like Renee. You know, I just feel like I've been betrayed, let down. I thought Trump was going to really secure American jobs, and that's just not what's happening out there at all. The jobs that were saved in the Indy plant were never going to leave to begin with.
HAYES: So you feel like it was a con?
CROPPER: Oh, absolutely.
HAYES: Senator, there are -- you know, this was one of the key parts of the appeal, I think, in certain parts of the industrial Midwest, particularly the white voters in the industrial Midwest, which was "I will save your jobs." What do you say to folks like Renee or Susan -- and there are a lot more out there, folks in Lordstown, to say, listen, you should listen to what I have to tell you.
WARREN: OK, so the thing is, you just can't wave your arms. You know that. It's that you've really got to have a plan. And I do have a plan on this.
So here's how it starts. I'm looking to make about 1.2 million new jobs, new jobs that are good jobs, that are jobs in manufacturing, that are going to be good union jobs, the kind of jobs on which people can build a future.
And here's the idea behind it. Right now we've got a climate crisis in this country and in this world. It threatens us all. Worldwide, there is about a $23 trillion dollar market for fighting back against climate change. And that's going to mean a lot of research, a lot of innovation, and a lot of manufacturing to push back against that.
My plan is to make America the leader in that fight. We doubled down, tripled down, go 10-fold on the research from where it's been before, and we say to anybody who wants to use that research, who wants to innovate around it, good for you. You can do it, but you have to produce the products right here in the United States of America. You have to build those jobs here.
(APPLAUSE)
If American taxpayers are the ones who are going to foot the bill for the research, then by golly, it's going to produce good American jobs right here. So that's one part.
One more part is a commitment to spend about $1.5 trillion in making our federal government go green. It's buy the products -- and here again, it's going to be all buy American. We are going to change our fleet of cars, we're going to bring in new products, we're going to change what happens with our buildings.
And look what that does. That not only helps improve on the climate front, but it creates demand, demand to keep those factories open, demand to expand those factories and those jobs.
And then there's one more part to it. And that is, look, even if we manage to go entirely carbon neutral by 2030, we're only about 20 percent of the world on this. There's another 80 percent. And that's where the worldwide demand for change is.
So, huge market, $23 trillion market. Right now, the Chinese spend a hundred times what we spend here in the United States marketing their manufactured products around the world. I say we're going to spend that money in the United States to market American products around the world. That's how we're going to produce these jobs.
(APPLAUSE)
WARREN: Renee?
ELLIOTT: What we're going to do -- yes, there is a climate crisis, but what are we going to do about the opioid crisis that we have going on here? There are so many. I mean, you know, it's in the inner cities and it's the younger generation and the ones my kids' age. I see everywhere. And it's so much so now that you cannot ignore it. You know what I mean? It's bad.
WARREN: So I have a plan for this.
ELLIOTT: Let's hear it.
WARREN: It's already out there. It's with Elijah Cummings, congressman from Maryland. We've got over 100 cosponsors right now between the House and the Senate.
And here's how this plan works. It starts with exactly what you said, and that is how big this problem is. You realize just something short of 200 people will die today from an overdose? It's like a plane crash. And another one tomorrow and the next day and the next day and the next day.
And here's the deal. The problem keeps getting bigger, and right now the federal government just keeps nibbling behind it. We spend a little more, we spend a little more, but the problem gets bigger.
If someone came to you who loves you and said, I know I got a problem, they have a less than one in six chance of getting the medical help that they need. Why? Not because we don't know what to do, but because right now we won't make the investment to help them. Not enough beds, not enough doctors, not enough rehab centers.
So my plan with Congressman Cummings is over the next 10 years, we're going to put $100 billion -- I've already got this paid for -- $100 billion in to hit this opioid crisis head on and bring it to its knees. We've got to save the people we love.
(APPLAUSE)
HAYES: I want to -- just -- I want to circle back around to the feasibility of these plans.
WARREN: Sure.
HAYES: I think that's a question. But, Dora, you had a question first.
BOYD: Yes, I'm a single mother. My main concern is my child. The children are the future. What is your plan for that and also for people that have to pick whether you're going to pay -- if you're going to work a full-time job to pay for childcare or if you're going to work a full-time job and hope you can rely on somebody that -- because in my perspective, everyone doesn't have an aunt like yours. So what is your plan for that?
WARREN: So, as you know, this one's really personal for me. When I got my first full-time teaching job, I had two little ones under feet. And I loved that job. I was so excited by that job.
But there I was. You know, I'm still doing dinner at 8 o'clock at night, I'm giving baths at 9 o'clock, get them into bed, and I've got three loads of laundry, and then I've got my class preps. It was hard. But I could do hard.
The part I couldn't do was when the babysitter quit, and then when the daycare center turned out to be a mess, and then when the second daycare center said, no, they were moving, and then one more and one more and one more.
And then there was the night, kids were in bed, my Aunt Bee called, and said how are you doing, honey? She's my widowed Aunt Bee from Oklahoma. And I said, fine. And then I burst into tears. And I said, I want to quit. It just -- it's like it just fell out of my mouth. You know what this is like, Renee.
And Aunt Bee listened while I cried and I cried. And finally I blew my nose, got myself back together, and she said the words that changed my life. She said I can't get there tomorrow, but I will come on Thursday. She arrived with seven suitcases and a Pekingese named Buddy and stayed for 16 years. And that's how I got to have a job.
(APPLAUSE)
But it's just like you said. If everybody in the world had an Aunt Bee, we'd all be fine. But they don't. So this is a big priority for me.
What I've got is a two-cent wealth tax on the biggest fortunes in this country, the top 0.1 percent. Anybody who's already made $50 million, the 50 millionth and first dollar, we're going to do two cent tax. They pitch in that two cents and two cents on every dollar after that.
That will give us enough money to do universal childcare for every baby aged zero to five, universal pre-K for every 3-year-old and 4-year-old, and raise the wages of every childcare worker and preschool teacher to the levels that they deserve. That's how it is.
Look, high-quality child care early on, high-quality pre-K, that's all the difference in the world. And that should not be reserved for the children of the well-to-do. That's an investment we should make in every child in this country.
HAYES: So Senator's already got -- I count three plans already that have been rolled out.
WARREN: OK.
HAYES: So there's three plans.
WARREN: I've still got more.
HAYES: I know you do. I know you do. I've been on your website. I want to talk a little bit about, like, whether the plans can be reality. Right? You can -- anyone can put something on -- Donald Trump can come to a place like Fort Wayne and say...
(UNKNOWN): And he did.
HAYES: And he did. And he could say, I am waving the magic wand and you're never going to see -- and the jobs will come back. The question is, how do you make that a reality? Can you make that a reality? I want to talk to you folks about that and the senator right after we take this quick break. Don't go anywhere.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HAYES: All right. We're back here in Fort Wayne with Senator Warren. You know, we were just talking about the feasibility of plans, OK. And promises are made by politicians all the time. They are not always kept. And part of that has to do with who has power, right, in politics.
So I want to play this clip we dug up of you in 2005. Senator Warren is not a lifelong politician. You were not -- you were a Harvard law professor at the time and you were going to Capitol Hill to testify on your area of expertise, the bankruptcy bill. And there were a bunch of politicians who were backing the credit card industry, trying to make it harder for people to be able to declare bankruptcy.
WARREN: That's right.
HAYES: And you went to testify. And you ended up going toe to toe with some of those senators who were defending the credit card industry, including one senator in particular. Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WARREN: I submit, Senator, that there are many in the credit industry right now who are getting their bankruptcies prepaid. That is, they have squeezed enough out of these families in interest and fees and payments that...
BIDEN: Maybe we should talk about usury rates, then. Maybe that's what we should be talking about, not bankruptcy.
WARREN: Senator, I'll be the first. Invite me.
BIDEN: I know you will, but let's call a spade a spade. Your problem with the credit card companies is usury rates from your position. It's not about the bankruptcy bill.
WARREN: But, Senator, if you're not going to fix that problem, you can't take away the last shred of protection from these families.
BIDEN: I got it, OK. All right. You're very good, Professor. Thank you.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: Do you remember that?
WARREN: Yes. I used to die my hair brown.
(LAUGHTER)
HAYES: What do you learn from that exchange that made you want to end up going into politics?
WARREN: That you don't get what you don't fight for. And that that's actually a good example. I got in there and fought for what I believed in. I -- over a million families a year were filing for bankruptcy at the time that that was going on. There were people who'd had terrible medical problems, people who had lost jobs for extended periods of time, people who'd been left behind after a divorce or a death in the family. And those credit card companies, they just wanted to wring the last possible nickel out of them.
Those companies were profitable in the extreme. And you know who they were making most of their money off of? Families that were just right at the edge. And they wanted to make it harder for those families when it all went just completely wrong to get a chance to get back on their feet. I got in that fight, and I'm proud to have been in that fight.
(APPLAUSE)
HAYES: But that -- that relates to the way power works in Washington. It's something you've talked about a lot. Frank, you were -- you wanted to say something before. And I want to ask you -- ask you this. I mean, when you hear Senator Warren say we're going to spend $100 billion on this and we've got a $1 trillion plan for this, and we're going to do this, like, do you think in your head, I can see that actually happening and making things better here? Or do you think to yourself, that seems unlikely?
STAPLES: It's hard to believe, because, first of all, we need to know where that money is coming from. Does that mean my taxes are going up? Does that mean the next guy's taxes are going up? Is that coming -where is that money coming from?
And the thing is, is -- we get everybody promising manufacturing is coming back. We get people promising that health care is going to get better. We get promising all this stuff, and it never happens, for a simple fact, like, on the IRS tax code. You have a 20 percent tax break for corporations that shut their companies down here and move overseas. So they get that 20 percent to move their equipment.
WARREN: Yep.
STAPLES: So, you know, we had Trump -- he come over to Lordstown, he'd come to Indianapolis, he'd come Fort Wayne, he'd come everywhere and say, hey, we're going to bring these jobs back. He told the guys in Lordstown, Ohio. Got a couple good friends over there, Chuckie Dennison and Tommie Wallacle (ph). They were told, don't sell your homes. These jobs are going nowhere.
They shut the plant down. We just lost 300 jobs at Harley Davidson in Kansas City, Missouri. They lost their jobs in May. You know, we lost Rexnord in Indianapolis. We've lost all kinds of GMs at different fabrications.
So you can sit here and tell me that you're going to produce these green jobs, you're going to produce this. But you have all these uneducated people -- and I'm not saying they're uneducated -- but they're not in that field. You know? You're saying we're going to bring these car companies back. So why don't we take the tax codes off that are given them and send them to leave? Quit giving these guys all this money.
WARREN: Frank, I'm there. This is part of the plan. You're right to ask the question, where does the money come from? Because what happened is, yeah, the guy made a lot of promises, but then they turned around and gave them even more tax breaks. And who did those tax breaks go to? They went to the biggest corporations. They kept the payments in there so, in effect, you can make money by shipping jobs overseas under our current tax code.
So here's how I propose to do this. We're going to do childcare. And, by the way, we're going to do universal technical school, college. We're going to do student loan debt. We're going to do all of this with a two-cent wealth tax. That's a tax on the $50 millionth and first dollar of the richest fortunes in this country. That's less than 0.1 percent. That's -- I'm guessing that's not you. Right? You asked where it's going to come, where it's going to come from. But the point is, it comes from there.
The other part of the money, the money we're talking about here, for doing green manufacturing, where is that money going to come from? It's going to come from a couple of places. One, we're going to take away the subsidies from the oil and gas industry.
(APPLAUSE)
The second is just what you said. We're going to take away the tax breaks for moving jobs overseas.
(APPLAUSE)
And the third is we're going to say to the biggest corporations in America that publicly report huge profits to their investors -- yes, I'm looking at you, Amazon -- reports more than $10 billion in profits and sets their CEO compensation based on that, tells the investor community, and then turns around and pays zero in taxes? No more. We're going to have all these big companies pay.
(APPLAUSE)
And here's the key. That's how we get the money. And then the question is how we spend it. We can spend it on childcare. We can spend it on student loans. We can spend it on green investment, in manufacturing right here in America.
Here's the deal. I get why people feel discouraged. But the bottom line is, this is a democracy. And in a democracy, we need our budget, our numbers to align with our values.
HAYES: But, Senator...
WARREN: And our values are not that the top 0.1 percent keeps their two cents and nobody else gets it.
HAYES: But wait a minute. But they're Mitch McConnell's values. I mean, you're not going to be elected ruler of the universe or a monarch. I mean, let's say Elizabeth Warren is the president of the United States.
WARREN: Well, say that again.
(LAUGHTER)
HAYES: No, like, they had -- I mean, they had to scratch and claw to get two Republican votes on a stimulus when the economy is going through the worst crash in 70 years, they fought them tooth and nail, they didn't give them a single vote on the Affordable Care Act, and they had 60 votes.
WARREN: OK.
HAYES: So you're walking in, you've got a website full of plans that might pencil out and people might like, but in what universe are those going to be passed?
WARREN: So that's the reason that I am here today. And it's the reason I've done 90 town halls. It's the reason that I've been to 20 states and Puerto Rico, and I'm going to more. Because the bottom line is, we've got to build a grassroots movement across this country.
(APPLAUSE)
We got to do it. It's got to be all of us. And if we do, it doesn't just help the person at the top. That's how we take back the Senate. That's how we take back the House. That's how we take back governors' offices and statehouses and city councils. We build this thing up and down the line.
(APPLAUSE)
(CROSSTALK)
ELLIOTT: (OFF-MIKE) politicians and people who are in power like that to keep their word. When they say that they're going to do something, they need to do it.
WARREN: Yes, you do. Yes.
STAPLES: And the thing is, is we need to go back where, no offense, Senator, but people like yourself and people like Paul Ryan and everybody else, they need to go back working for the American people, because we're the ones that give them their paychecks.
WARREN: I agree.
(APPLAUSE)
STAPLES: You know, we have policies in place where half of the Republicans want to raise the retirement age to 68 or 69, but yet they can retire out of Congress at 42, 45, and have health care for the rest of their life.
(CROSSTALK)
ELLIOTT: People are already...
(CROSSTALK)
STAPLES: But I'm just saying, I mean...
HAYES: No, no, I just -- I think you're getting at a point which is profound here, right, which is that the question is, can you go -- given what's happened both with Donald Trump and the nature of the structure of the American economy, and what's happened to a place like Fort Wayne and all across Indiana for decades, to come and say that they will trust you in good faith when you say we're going to bring those jobs back or we have a plan to change life here.
WARREN: So, look, we can give up. You're right. We can just totally give up and say, hey, let them have it. Or what we can say is this is the moment that we fight. I am in this fight all the way.
(APPLAUSE)
HAYES: I want to...
(CROSSTALK)
CROPPER: How do you address these small thinkers in Congress? How are you going to get them to come to your big ideas?
WARREN: So, I'll tell you how.
HAYES: It's a good question.
WARREN: I'm counting you on, Susan, and I'm counting on everybody in this room, and I'm counting on millions of people who watch this. And what I mean by that is, yeah, it takes leadership from the White House. It takes the willingness to wade straight into the fight.
But where it's really going to come from is when you build this grassroots movement, when you build this momentum, when people demand it. When people say this is the America -- I want an America that invests in little kids. I want an America that cancels student loan debt. I want an America that invests in manufacturing here in this country.
(CROSSTALK)
ELLIOTT: ... men make.
WARREN: There you go.
ELLIOTT: We need a job -- the same jobs that they do, we do them just as well...
(CROSSTALK)
WARREN: I'm with you on this, Renee.
CROPPER: I just don't see anyone in Congress or any of these high positions giving up any money.
WARREN: So...
CROPPER: I just don't see it happening.
HAYES: You're not wrong.
WARREN: But here's the deal. In a democracy, we're talking about you're asking for two cents from 0.1 percent of the people. The rest of us have a say in that. We set the tax laws. And if we're willing to get out there and fight for it, the politicians, more of them are going to fall into line.
Remember on health care, I was in the Senate when we didn't have the votes to stop the Republicans from repealing health care for tens of millions of Americans. But what happened? People from all over this country made their voices heard.
They came to Washington. People in wheelchairs came to Washington. People -- mamas pushing the littlest lobbyists, these little babies who had serious medical problems. They got right in the faces of those senators. And at the end of the day, at the end of the day, it was the people across this country who pushed and pushed and pushed. And we got the votes, and we saved health care for tens of millions of Americans.
(APPLAUSE)
HAYES: Let me ask you this. I think having watched the way these political dynamics manifest, right, it does matter whether people are willing to pick fights or not.
WARREN: Yeah.
HAYES: It really does, whether people want to -- you say you're a fighter. Do you trust that every other Democrat in this primary field is a fighter in the same way?
WARREN: I know why I'm here. I'm here because I'm a fighter.
HAYES: So that's a no.
WARREN: Look, I'm not going to...
HAYES: It's a serious problem, because it...
WARREN: But I'm not here -- I'm not here to slam other Democrats. I'm just telling it how I see it. This is the fight I believe we need.
(APPLAUSE)
(CROSSTALK)
ELLIOTT: ... is the issue is, once we do, you know, do they honor their promises? Do they honor their policies that they're going to put in place?
BOYD: So at this point, with you and your issue with Trump -- and you believed in him and he's backing you or whatever, how is your vote swaying right now? Are you uneasy? Do you know? Are you going to back her because she's saying this? Or...
ELLIOTT: Oh, trust me. When it came to -- let's -- we won't get into him, because, you know, he's the first Republican I ever voted for. And I got a lot of people to vote for him. I believed in him.
BOYD: And that was just for your job security's sake and that -- only purpose?
ELLIOTT: Oh, no, no. It wasn't just for the job security. I believed he was going to make a change, period. Just like I believed in Barack Obama when I voted for him, because I believe we needed change. You know what I mean? Now I think it's time for another change.
HAYES: More change.
ELLIOTT: I think it's time to put a woman in the White House. I think it's time to listen to what we're saying, because we are out there working just as hard as men are. We are.
HAYES: I want to thank all you good folks for coming up here. We're going to get to some questions from more people who are in the audience here in Fort Wayne right after this. Don't go anywhere.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HAYES: All right. We are back here in Fort Wayne, Indiana. I want to ask some questions of the crowd. But before I do that, Senator Warren, what is your biggest frustration with the way that the campaign gets covered?
WARREN: Too much like a horse race. This isn't a horse race. This is about the future of our country. And it's about how we see the direction we want to go. You know, I think every one of the things we talk about, we call them policy, we call them budgets. They're really about our values.
And they're a statement of what kind of a country we want to be and what kind of a people we want to be. And I wish we could do more of that in our big national conversation.
HAYES: All right. So we're going to horse -- if one of you had a horse race question, I hope you're reconsidering.
WARREN: That's right.
HAYES: Right before we go to the audience. All right, you, sir. Give me your name and tell me what your question is, if you can stand up for me.
QUESTION: Yep. My name is Austin. And my question is...
WARREN: Hi, Austin.
QUESTION: How are you doing today? My question is, climate change is real, and we're got to get going on it. At GM here in Fort Wayne is one of our largest employers. They make trucks. How do we make sure that that factory is not negatively impacted with your policies?
WARREN: Oh, good question. Good question.
HAYES: Great question.
WARREN: So here's how we have to think of this. We've got to know what the goal is. This is what the Green New Deal is all about. It tells us two things. It tells us that this is an emergency, and it tells us where we've got to head.
And it's a lot like for me what it was like for landing on the moon, right? John F. Kennedy set the goal, he said I want to be on the moon, he set a time that he wanted to do it. People looked left, looked right, said, gee, I don't know how we land on the moon.
But what did we do? We invested in science. We innovated like crazy. And we counted on American workers. We do those three things right here in America, we can not only clean up our country and clean up our planet, we can actually build a manufacturing future for the United States of America. And that's good jobs right there.
(APPLAUSE)
HAYES: But there's -- just to follow up on that, right? It's a great question, right? Because, look, there's -- if they're making big trucks that get 14 miles a gallon, right, like that factory is either going to have to shut down or be remade. And there's industries like oil extraction and natural gas that are -- there's no way to make them green, right? I mean, there are going to be some folks that lose jobs in those industries.
WARREN: Look, what there's going to be is a lot of change. But that's how America has always flourished. We didn't make ourselves into a country that said, well, this works, we're stopping right here. We have always been a country that has innovated, that has changed.
You know what really troubles me right now is the way this administration keeps trying to deny science across the board. Listen, that's not going to work.
(APPLAUSE)
That's why my plan starts by increasing by tenfold the amount of money that we put into scientific research and R&D. That's how we start building a future. And then we innovate around that.
But here's the hook in it that makes it different from where it was in the past. We don't just say to giant corporations, you know, like we did to Apple, you all, taxpayers, you paid for the basic technology to develop that science, that technology that led to those fancy phones. And then where did Apple go build them? In China.
So what this plan says is American taxpayers will make the investment, because we believe in building a future, but then you want to harvest that investment, you want to make big bucks on it? Great. It's a $23 trillion market out there. We want you to do it. But you're going to do it by building those plants and having those jobs right here in the United States of America.
(APPLAUSE)
HAYES: Please tell me your name and your question.
QUESTION: Hi, Senator. My name is Courtney Tritch.
WARREN: Hi, Courtney.
QUESTION: Hello. When I ran for U.S. Congress in 2018...
WARREN: Yay!
(APPLAUSE)
QUESTION: Thank you -- everyone wanted to know, rightly so, how I would work across the aisle. And that's so important. But what I want to know is, what is the one issue or piece of legislation that you feel so strongly about you would not compromise on it?
WARREN: Oh. So, let me put it this way. I believe in working across the aisle when that lets us get things done. And can I do a really short version of this? Forty million Americans have hearing loss, but fewer than one in six actually gets a hearing aid. And the reason is because they cost a bazillion dollars. And most people need two, and they're not covered by insurance, and they're not covered by Medicaid.
OK. So what do they do? They do without. Why are they so expensive? And the answer, it's one more market that doesn't work. That is, a handful of manufacturers have control of that market and have driven up prices.
So I had an idea and a plan to say what we're going to do is manufacture -- let anybody who wants to manufacture hearing aids, certain safety standards, sell them across the counter in drug stores. Think about it. You can buy glasses. You can go pay for more or you can buy glasses in a drug store. And a lot of people get help.
I checked this out with doctors and scientists. They all say that would work great, and it would drive the price down from thousands of dollars to hundreds of dollars.
So I had this idea. And you know what I did? The first person I called is a Republican. I explained the deal to him, and he said, what? And I explained it again.
(LAUGHTER)
And he said that's a fine idea. Sign me up. And I called another Republican, he said sign me up. I called another Republican. He said sign me up. We did this under the radar screen. Now, at one point, the NRA came out in opposition.
(LAUGHTER)
I kid you not.
HAYES: It's true.
WARREN: But the point is, we got it through, and next year, people are going to be able to buy hearing aids over the counter, across the aisle.
(APPLAUSE)
So now, can I finish Courtney's question, though?
HAYES: Yeah.
WARREN: I do want to say on this, though, Courtney -- and I was glad to do that. We made some changes in the bill. But when we're talking about things like health care coverage, I'm not going to compromise when people say I want to take away health care coverage from 30 million people, because I'll tell you what, we'll just take it away from 15 million, and that's going to be OK.
Health care is a basic human right. We fight for basic human rights.
(APPLAUSE)
So I'm in all the way. Thank you, Courtney. Thank you.
HAYES: So, Senator, I want to introduce you -- this is TJ Bray (ph).
WARREN: TJ?
HAYES: Yes. He worked at the Carrier plant. And there was coverage of him on NBC asking Donald Trump to save the jobs at Carrier. That was what prompted Donald Trump to tweet about it and come down. You're a Trump voter. I think you're still inclined.
QUESTION: No, I didn't vote for Trump.
HAYES: Oh, you're not. OK.
QUESTION: No, no, no.
(APPLAUSE)
HAYES: What is the -- are you -- what would you like to ask the senator?
QUESTION: Well, hi.
WARREN: Hi, TJ.
QUESTION: I am TJ. I'm from Indianapolis. I worked at Carrier. I still do. I'm a 17-year employee. Thankfully, my job was saved. I'm also with the United Steelworkers Union Local 1999.
WARREN: Go Steelworkers.
QUESTION: So my question to you is, I really don't know much of your history with labor and organized labor. So what can we expect to see your support of organized labor and how we can get that brought back up in this country?
WARREN: OK. So let me do this two ways. The first is, you know, I told you about all three of my brothers, military, first one was career. Second one came back and worked construction. And he got a good union job, a good union job that let him support a family and put three kids through school, and he has a pension today because he had a good union job. We want to have good jobs in America, then we need stronger unions.
(APPLAUSE)
The second is, I'll do -- just a little bit on the policy side, and that is to say we got a real problem in this country, and that's a handful of giant corporations that have so much power, they just roll wherever they want to roll. They roll over their employees. They roll over their customers. They roll over their communities.
We need structural change. And the way we get structural change is we need more power back in the hands of employees. That means make it easier to join a union and give unions more power when they're in negotiations.
(APPLAUSE)
Unions built America's middle class. Unions will rebuild America's middle class.
HAYES: Thank you so much, TJ. There is a question over here I want to get to on something that we cover on the show sometimes. Say your name and your question.
QUESTION: Hi, Senator. My name is Erin.
WARREN: Hi, Erin.
QUESTION: How are you?
WARREN: I'm good. How about you?
QUESTION: Good.
WARREN: Good.
QUESTION: My question for you is, do you believe still that impeachment is the right path forward? And why or why not?
WARREN: Yes, I do.
(APPLAUSE)
And understand this, Erin. I didn't decide to run for president so that I could get into a big debate over impeachment. I decided to run because let's go to beat that guy, right, straight-up.
But the deal is, the Mueller report came out, and the afternoon it came out, I sat down and started reading it. And I read it all afternoon. And I read it all night. I read it into the next morning, all 448 pages.
I got to the end, and there were three things that were just, man, there's no avoiding them. Part one, a hostile foreign government attacked our 2016 elections for the purpose of getting Donald Trump elected. Part two, then-candidate Donald Trump welcomed that help. And part three, when the federal government tried to investigate part one and part two, Donald Trump as president delayed, deflected, moved, fired, and did everything he could to obstruct justice.
If he were any other person in the United States, based on what's documented in that report, he would be carried out in handcuffs. Now...
(APPLAUSE)
Now, I took an oath of office not to Donald Trump, not to any president. I took an oath of office to the Constitution of the United States of America. And that Constitution says no one is above the law, including the president of the United States.
I get that this is politically tough. I get it. But some things are bigger than politics, and this matters for our democracy, not just now, but under the next president and the next president and the next president. We have a constitutional responsibility here, and that's to start this impeachment proceedings.
HAYES: Let me ask you.
(APPLAUSE)
I want to ask you a final question here. We got about a minute left.
WARREN: Sure. OK.
HAYES: I hear this from people. They say, I like Elizabeth Warren.
WARREN: Good.
HAYES: She seems smart. She's got a lot of ideas. But I just don't know. I feel like Trump would beat her. I feel like he just doesn't work. I don't know, are people going to vote for -- what do you say to people that say I like you on the substance, but I'm worried about your electability as the nominee for the Democratic Party?
WARREN: You know, I remember when people said Barack Obama couldn't be elected. I remember when people said Donald Trump couldn't be elected.
HAYES: That's also true.
(LAUGHTER)
WARREN: And here we are. Elections are about getting in there and fighting for it and making clear to the American people what you stand for. I got in this race because an America that keeps working better and better and better for a thinner and thinner slice at the top just isn't going to work. We can't sustain this.
I am in this fight to make this America, to make our government in Washington work for everyone else. That's my job. That's why I'm here.
(APPLAUSE)
HAYES: Senator Elizabeth warren. I want to thank all the folks here in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Thank you, Senator. Thank you, Senator, very much.
To our wonderful hosts here, to all the people in Fort Wayne, Indiana, you did an amazing job hosting us. Thank you very much. That does it for "All In" this evening. "The Rachel Maddow Show" starts right now. END
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