 What I believe today is that change never takes place from the top down. It takes place when people, by the millions, sometimes over decades and sometimes over centuries determine that the status quo, the world that they see in front of them is not the world that should be. And they come together. And sometimes they get arrested. And sometimes they're on a picket line. And sometimes they die in the struggle. And what human history is about is passing that torch on from generation to generation to generation. A people who pick up the torch that may have begun hundreds or literally thousands of years ago. And young people stand in front of the world today and say, no, this is not the world that I am comfortable with. This is the world we are going to change. There are major, major, major issues that confront us today. And we need your help. We need the idealism and the energy and the intelligence of millions of people to join us in the fight to make America the kind of country we know it must become. I'm Bill McKibbin from here in Vermont, and I'm happy to welcome you to the start of this new revolution. Now, revolution is reasonably hard work. Bernie's given us an enormous gift with his endless stamina, with his drive and with his principle. He's provided momentum, which is the most valuable commodity that there could be. He has proved, proved like no one ever before him, the set of ideas about the world that many of us hold about fairness and about equality and about the future, that these are not fringe ideas, that these are ideas in the absolute center of the American heart. Now it's our job to make sure that this momentum keeps building. Bernie's America's most popular politician. Partly, partly that's down to his glamor and charisma. But partly it's because of this set of issues and ideas that he has come to embody and that we're going to have to embody. And look, if we're going to do anything about racial injustice and about economic inequality and about climate change, the great linked issues of our time, we're going to have to do all kinds of things. We're going to have to organize. We're going to have to march. We're going to have to protest. There's going to be civil disobedience. A shout out tonight to those brave people, our brothers and sisters on the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation and the Dakotas standing up against the Dakota Access Pipeline. They are real heroes. So we're going to have to do all those kind of work. But on even numbered years, when it turns toward autumn, one of our jobs is to elect champions. Not just people who will vote the right way most of the time, but people who will be champions. When we're in the trenches, when we're fighting desperately to win a battle like the Keystone Pipeline, these champions are absolutely crucial. That's what Bernie's done for decades. Long before he made his first run for the presidency, he was there in the Senate and in the House fighting, fighting, fighting like crazy. We need many, many Bernie's and we need them at every level of our political system from the very local to the very national. So that's what tonight's about. You're going to be meeting and hearing about some of these people. Some of the 50 or 100 champions that are going up on the Our Revolution website. And my great privilege is to introduce just one of them. My neighbor here in Vermont, Mari Cortes, who's a union activist. Mari's a union activist. She's a nurse and she's the next state representative from the fighting fourth district in Addisyn County. Mari, many thanks. So honored to be here tonight and to have worked with Bernie Sanders for a number of years in Vermont as a union activist and most recently as a volunteer during his historic presidential campaign over the last year and a half. My story is like so many of yours out there. I work hard at my job as a nurse and I was proud to help organize our union at my hospital where we were able to negotiate an impressive first contract that respected nurses and continues to improve the quality of care for our patients. But over the years, I have become increasingly frustrated that too many politicians didn't stand up and fight for the ordinary person. So when Bernie ran for president, I knew that his campaign would be an opportunity to show the country that politics can be done differently. That people can run for office and stand up to big money interests and fight for the interests of ordinary people and that our collective voices and wisdom as people who care deeply about this country and the planet at this critical point in history must be heard. Bernie's campaign has shown without a doubt that there is a strong desire on the part of ordinary Americans to have a progressive economic agenda and that you can gain popular support not by moving to the center, but by putting forward bold progressive policies that deal with the underlying problem of economic inequity. The proposals like raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour and supporting free tuition at public colleges and universities and calling on the very rich and large corporations to pay their share are ideas that American people are ready to support. So proved that you don't have to rely on big money to fund your campaigns that you can go to the people and raise small contributions. $27 at a time and have a success raising enough money to be competitive. Bernie's campaign ignited a fire in this country that told me that as someone with bold progressive principles I was right to run for office and I am proud to say that two weeks ago as a progressive Democrat I won the Democratic primary for the state legislature in my Vermont legislative district. And as I went door to door I witnessed the vibrant hope for transformational politics because so many have Bernie's vision for social justice close to their heart just as I do. I also want to thank an amazing organization that I'm a founding member of and that's Rights and Democracy and Rights and Democracy is moving forward helping the people's movement in Vermont and New Hampshire and without their assistance, their assistance was critical for a family campaign and many other campaigns. But like all of you I know there is so much more to be done to realize the progressive changes that we all support. And so it gives me a great deal of pride to introduce our inspiration United States Senator Bernie Sanders. It is nice to be home. I'll begin by thanking the many hundreds of Vermonters who are here and across the street in our senior center for coming out tonight and let me thank the tens of thousands of people who are watching this stream, live stream in every state of the country and let me say hello to my family and my wife Jane and my kids for being here as well. Mostly I want to thank everybody who is here and who is watching the program for your help on the presidential campaign that we just completed. For those who know me well they know it is not my personality to look backwards. I always kind of want to look forward. But I do think it is important to say a few words about what we accomplished together because by understanding what we accomplished we will know where we have to go in the future. As I have said a million times and what I believe in the essence of my soul is that real change never ever takes place from the top on down. It's not some guy signing a bill. It always takes place from the bottom on up when millions of people come together and demand fundamental change in the country. And I want you all to remember, remember your history, remember the struggle of millions of American workers to stand up and fight for trade unionism, to fight to end child labor and the other terrible things that were happening in workplaces all over this country. Think back about the civil rights movement and the millions of people who engaged in that struggle some of whom were killed, some of whom were beaten, some of whom went to jail to create a country in which all people have the right to vote, have equal opportunity, a country in which we abolish racism. Think about the struggles of the women's movement and remember that 100 years ago, no time at all from an historical perspective, 100 years ago today, women did not have the right to vote. They did not have the right to get the education or the jobs they wanted and deserved. 100 years ago, but women stood up all across this country and with their male allies said very loudly and clearly that in this country women will not be second-class citizens. Bill McKibbin and I want to thank Bill and Marie Marie for their introductions. I think all of you know that Bill McKibbin, our fellow Vermonter, is not only one of the important environmental leaders in our country, he is one of the important environmental leaders in the world in the fight to combat climate change, which in my view is one of the great global crises facing this planet. And Bill will be the first person to tell you that real change in the environmental movement will only come about when not only in this country but all over this world people stand up and they tell the fossil fuel industry, sorry, your short-term profits are not more important than the future of our planet. And as Vermonters, we are all proud of the leading role that our small state has played in the fight for gay marriage and gay rights in general. But that struggle, that struggle took place and succeeded to a significant degree because once again all over this country the gay community and their straight allies said that in America people must have the right to be able to love whoever they want regardless of their gender. Millions of people engaged in that struggle. Now that is how change in this country has always taken place and in my view that is how change will always take place. Now our campaign, as you all know, took on virtually the entire Democratic Party establishment and I mean the entire Democratic establishment and I want you all, because this is what grassroots success is about and I want you to think about this, we went into states where the senators were opposed to us, governor was opposed to us, virtually everybody and the legislature was opposed to us and in some states we won and we won those states with landslide victories. Our campaign received over 13 million votes, we won 22 states and we lost a few by a hand. We ended up with about 1,900 pledge delegates at the Democratic National Convention, that is 46% of the total. On the other hand we didn't do quite as well with the super delegates, but that's another story on something we will be dealing with in the future. And here is what I think is most important. We won overwhelming support in I believe every state in this country where we competed from young people, people 45 years of age and younger. And by the end of the campaign we were winning good majorities not only from white young people but from black youth, Latino youth, Asian American youth, Native American youth all across the board. Now here is the importance of that. The importance of that is that when you capture by large majorities the young people of this country it means that our ideas, our vision is the future of this country. Further, as many of you know, we helped write the strongest and most progressive Democratic platform in the history of the United States of America. While we did not get everything we wanted, it is fair to say that that document is an extremely progressive document. And let me also say this, if anybody thinks that that document and what is in that platform is simply going to be resting on a shelf somewhere accumulating dust, they are very mistaken. We are going to bring that platform alive and make it the blueprint for moving the Democrats forward in Congress and all across this country. And here is what we have also accomplished. And I want everybody involved in the campaign and who supported us to take enormous pride in this accomplishment. We changed the conversation regarding the possibilities of our country. That is what we changed. We redefined what the vision and the future of our country should be. And that is no small thing. And what our campaign showed, making the establishment very, very unhappy. And that is a good thing. What our campaign showed the world is that the American people are prepared to stand up to a corrupt campaign finance system, a rigged economy, a broken criminal justice system, and the global, global threat posed by the fossil fuel industry that is destroying our planet through their carbon emissions. Let me just give you a very few, just a few concrete examples of how we have changed how the American people think and what their views about the future should be. All of you remember that just a few years ago, just a few years ago, if somebody were to jump up and say, you know, I think that given the crisis in student debt in this country, given the crisis in the lack of affordability for college, you know, I think that we should make public colleges and universities tuition free. If somebody had said that two, three years ago, what somebody else would have responded is, you're crazy. That's too radical for the United States of America making public colleges and universities tuition free will not happen in our lifetime. Well, guess what? As of today, there are Democratic candidates all over this country running for the Senate, running for the House. And you know what they're campaigning on, making public colleges and universities tuition free. And also dealing with the horrific situation facing millions of Americans in terms of outrageously high student debt. That is now mainstream. Now, I was able to work with Secretary Clinton, didn't get her 100% on board, but she is now out there talking about a proposal to make public colleges and universities tuition free for every family in America earning less than $125,000 a year, 83% of our population. You know what? That is a major step forward. Let me give you another example of what we accomplished. Not alone. It wasn't only us, great organizations all over the country working with us, working independently. Anybody in this room five years ago, not a long time ago, had said, you know, Bernie, I think we should raise the minimum wage, you know, above the starvation minimum wage of seven and a quarter to 15 bucks an hour. If anyone had said that, everybody else would have said, $15 an hour. You're out of your mind. You want to more than double the minimum wage. Can't be done too radical, impossible. Well, guess what? Right now, all across this country, we have cities and towns passing legislation for 15 bucks an hour, and you have Democratic candidates all over this country running on a platform of raising the minimum wage to 15 bucks an hour. And think, think, think about what that will mean for millions of workers today. During this campaign, I talked to the people working at McDonald's, working at Burger King, making $7.25 an hour. I'll never forget meeting a woman in Nevada, a single mom, with tears streaming down her eyes saying, Bernie, I don't know how my daughter and I are going to make it on the $10.45 an hour that I make. We raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour. Millions of Americans will no longer be living in poverty. Single mothers will be living in dignity. And that is what we've got to do. Now, in terms of how far, how far we have driven the debate and changed the mindset of millions of people, I want you to consider this. There was a poll that came out just last week, new poll. And it said that 54% of Republicans, Republicans now understand that in order to combat income and wealth inequality, people earning more than $250,000 a year should be asked to pay more in taxes. Those are Republicans. So while their leadership talks about huge tax breaks for billionaires, Republicans at the rank and file level, working people who are Republicans, understand that we cannot continue going forward with a kind of grotesque level of income and wealth inequality that we have. That's Republicans. Let me give you another example. Another example of what we've accomplished. Three, four years ago, as some of you will recall, there was a massive effort led by some Wall Street billionaires, virtually all the Republicans and some Democrats, who said, you know, we're going to have to cut social security. That's what we're going to have to do, cut social security for the elderly, for the disabled. And some of us in the Senate and some of the House came together and you said, over our dead bodies, you will cut social security. And we fought back and we worked with senior groups all over this country. And people don't know it. I do. That we were a half an inch away a few years ago from, in fact, passing legislation that would have cut social security. Very, very close. But we fought back. And now, guess what? No Democrats and actually fewer Republicans are talking about cutting social security. The debate now is about how much we will expand social security benefits. And a few months ago, I was very pleased when President Obama came on board and also indicated his support for expanding social security benefits. Let me give you another very concrete example of the kind of success we have had. As the campaign progressed, I talked more and more about a broken criminal justice system. A system which today has more people in jail in the United States of America, some 2.2 million people than any other country on Earth. 2.2 million people in jail. We're spending $80 billion a year locking up fellow Americans. And in a long criminal justice platform that we had, one point that we made is, and I'm proud to have been the very first candidate to make this point of this campaign on board. What was the first? And the point that we made was that corporations should not be making a profit by locking up fellow Americans. In other words, we have got to put an end to private prisons and private detention centers. Some of you may have heard just last week, the U.S. Department of Justice announced that it was moving away, was going to end its relationship with private prisons in this country. And Congressman Raoul Grahalver of Arizona and I are working very hard to have that same principle applied to detention centers as well. As all of you know, our campaign fought the fight to have the United States join the rest of the industrialized world and guarantee healthcare to every man, woman, and child as a right, as a right. It is totally absurd that we end up spending almost twice as much per capita on healthcare as through the people of any other country at the same time as 28 million Americans still have no health insurance and 38 million, including many I'm sure in this room, who are underinsured with high deductibles and high copayments. Further, we campaigned very hard on the need to end the outrageous greed of the pharmaceutical industry and industry where the top five drug companies last year made 50 billion dollars in profit at the same time as one out of five Americans who go to their doctor and get a prescription cannot afford to fill that prescription. That is, you talk about crazy. Talk about crazy. A system that we have today allows people to go to the doctor because they are sick, they get a diagnosis, they can't afford to buy the medicine their doctor prescribes. I have talked to seniors in Vermont and all over this country who cut their pills, prescription drug pills in half because they don't have the money to afford the outrageously high prices that they have to pay. That's what we campaigned on. The truth is Secretary Clinton does not support a Medicare for all single-payer system. That's the fact. But what we did end up coming to an agreement on which I think is a significant step forward is she is now on record and is talking about and prepared to fight for doubling the funding for community health centers all over this country. Doubling the funding because of the many crises that we face in health care one of them is that our primary health care system is a total disaster. People cannot find a doctor that they can't afford to go to in some locations in this country. I was in a county in Mississippi. There are no doctors. So by doubling funding for community health centers which now provide health care access for health care, dental care, low-cost prescription drugs and very importantly mental health counseling. Doubling that we will and I'm going to push this very hard create virtually universal primary health care in America. Every person regardless of income will be able to at least get into a doctor's office. That's no small thing. And Secretary Clinton agreed with me that it is important to substantially increase funding for the National Health Service Corps and that is the federal government which provides debt relief for those doctors and dentists and nurses and psychologists and medical personnel who are prepared to serve in underserved areas. Triple funding for that. So I don't want to suggest to you that this is a solution to the health care crisis. It's not. In my view Medicare for all single-payer is where we have got to be. But if we can double funding for community health centers it will be an important step forward. Let me touch on another issue of great importance to the people of this country. As somebody as a former congressman now a senator who voted against every major trade agreement from NAFTA to CAPTA the permanent normal trade relations with China to fast track over the Trans-Pacific Partnership I am pleased to tell you that we are seeing a real change in the attitude of the American people toward our disastrous trade policies. In the not so distant past a majority of Americans thought that our trade agreements had resulted in positive changes. Today that is not the case and the American people understand that we have lost millions of decent paying jobs as corporations shut down in the United States in Vermont and all over this country and run the cheap labor countries all over the world. Polls now show that a majority of the American people understand that we need real change in our trade policy. Now I have worked with President Obama over the years on a number of issues and he is a friend of mine and the issue of the TPP the Trans-Pacific Partnership his support, very strong support for that proposal is dead wrong. I intend I intend to work with trade unions all over this country environmental groups all over this country religious groups all over this country to do everything that I can as Vermont Senator to defeat the TPP when it comes up in Congress in the lame duck session. Now the TPP TPP as is always the case is supported by Wall Street it is supported by corporate America it is supported by all of the big money issues but I believe that if we stand together we can in fact defeat it if and when it comes up in the lame duck session and let me just say a few words about this issue and I want to say a few words about it because it often does not get a lot of attention on the media the study done I think a year ago which showed that in television trade issues are almost never ever talked about what the TPP is about and what previous trade agreements were about are forcing American workers to compete against people who make pennies an hour it is about corporations to go from country to country in search of the cheapest possible labor they can find our disastrous trade policies have cost us millions of good paying jobs and it is part of the race to the bottom instead of uplifting people all over the world people are becoming poor also within the TPP there is a provision called the investor state dispute system anyone heard of that? not a sexy issue it is of enormous importance unbelievably what that provision says is that a foreign investor i.e. a major multinational corporation can go to an international tribunal made up of three corporate lawyers if they believe that their future profits were harmed as a result of a governmental decision you follow what i'm saying it is so crazy it is hard to imagine right now let me just give you a few examples of what that means in a very concrete sense right now as you know President Obama killed the keystone pipeline which was the right thing to do and he did it and many of us urged him to do it i think i was the very first senator out there in opposition to the pipeline he did it because he understood that excavating and transporting some of the dirtiest fuel in the world would accelerate the crisis of climate change he did the right thing but as a result of the investor state dispute system in NAFTA do you know what's happening right now TransCanada the owner of the keystone pipeline is suing the taxpayers of the united states for 15 billion dollars because they believe that decision impacted their future profits can you appreciate how insane that is now you can argue people can argue about the keystone pipeline most of us are opposed to it and we applauded the president for killing it others support it that's called democracy we have different points of view but the idea that a major multinational corporation can sue us for 15 billion dollars because the president made the decision that he thought right tells you what trade agreements are all about they are designed to protect corporate profits and hell with the environment human rights healthcare or the needs of the people and that is why the TPP has got to be defeated I will tell you one other example I know you are going to think that I am not telling you the truth because this is so insane but it is true Uruguay tiny, tiny, tiny country in Latin America they elected a president who was an oncologist some guy who is concerned about cancer and what he did is put together a very strong anti-tobacco campaign among other things what they did to do because tobacco kills what they did is had on the cigarette packages really ugly stuff about disease lungs or disease lips making it very clear that if anybody wanted to buy that package of cigarettes they were endangering their health big time that's what they did and it was a successful campaign well guess what happened Philip Morris was very upset they make money by poisoning children and people and creating cancer for those people and Philip Morris was very upset that their profits were being impacted because they could no longer cause cancer to the people of Uruguay and they went to an and are there right now in an international tribunal telling that tribunal that because the government of Uruguay try to protect their children from getting cancer they were losing profits and that they were entitled to a settlement from Uruguay can you believe how crazy that is it is exactly criminal and that is why we have got to defeat the TPP and is why we have got to rethink trade policies in this country so that they work for working people here for poor people all over the world and not just the CEOs of large multinational corporations now having said all of that let me say something else and that is tonight I think the question on the minds of a whole lot of people is okay we ran a great campaign we woke up the American people but where do we go from here and that's kind of what tonight is about so tonight I want to introduce you to a new independent non-profit organization called Our Revolution which is inspired by the historic Bernie 2016 presidential campaign over time Our Revolution will involve hundreds of thousands of people these are people who will be fighting this level for changes in their local school boards in their city councils in their state legislatures and in their representation in Washington not only that they will be involved in major ballot items dealing with campaign finance issues environmental issues healthcare issues, labor issues gender related issues and doing all that they can in every way to create an America based on the principles of economic, social racial and environmental justice a new a new very diverse board of strong progressive men and women from across this country is now being put together under the leadership of Larry Cohn somebody who worked very hard on my campaign and Larry was as some of you may know for many years the president of the communication workers of America one of the largest and most progressive unions in this country Jeff Weaver the campaign manager of our presidential campaign will be the president of the organization and Shannon Jackson will be the executive director Jeff has worked with me for most of the last 30 years since he first volunteered to work on a gubernatorial campaign that I was running way back in 1986 and I will never forget Jeff walking in the door and he had really very very good qualifications he had just been expelled for he had just been expelled from Boston University for protesting the racist apartheid policies that then existed in South Africa I thought those were pretty good qualifications for the job Years later Jeff became my chief of staff in Washington and in fact as Vermonters know managed my first senate campaign back in 2006 and Shannon did a great job as my assistant and point person throughout this campaign Shannon gets things done and I'm sure he's going to do a great job in his new position now as a United States senator I will not be directing or controlling our revolution but I have the utmost confidence that this leadership team and the board being assembled shares the progressive values we all hold and I expect very big things from them and from all of you who join with them to carry the political revolution forward and let me speaking only for myself tell you what to me the political revolution means and it means to me nothing less than the transforming of the United States of America the transformation of our country into a society in which we will not continue to have a handful of billionaires controlling our economic political or media life if you think back on the history of our country you understand that this nation has never been about oligarchy and we must our generation must never allow oligarchy to become the governing doctrine of our nation Americans, our goal must be to elect progressives at every level and I want to mention just a few of the progressive candidates who our revolution will be supporting and there will eventually be over 100 of them in every region of our country candidates from the school board to the United States Senate Vernon Miller a Native American is running for the school board in Nebraska and let me tell you we need hundreds of candidates all over this country to run for school board so I wish Vernon the best of luck Jane Kim is a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and she is running for the state senate in California by the way their state senate districts are like the equivalent of the entire state of Vermont so it's not a small thing you know I campaigned with Kim when I was in San Francisco and she will be a great addition to the California state senate when she is elected Mari Cortes who we just heard from our very own Mari who already knows Mari I've known Mari for many years she is a nurse she is a trade unionist and she is going to win her seat in Addison county so we are very appreciative Zephyr Teachout I think Zephyr grew up in Vermont and she and she is now running in a very tough race for the US Congress in New York state and she will be taking on a very very well funded gentleman somebody who just received a half a million dollar check from a hedge fund manager and we all look forward to seeing Zephyr in the United States Congress Russ Feingold is an old friend of mine Russ is a former United States senator from Wisconsin and if I have anything to say about it Russ is going to be back in the United States senate where he belongs now I just mentioned these five names to give you a flavor to give you an example of what we are trying to do in fact there are other candidates for Congress other candidates for state legislature the senate and the house in various states that we are supporting there are five that I mentioned but in fact at the end of the day as I understand it our revolution will be supporting over 100 candidates now in addition to candidates running for office there are other issues out there that we have got to address and that is we can shape governmental policy by supporting major ballot initiatives in recent states throughout the United States not every state has statewide ballot initiatives we don't hear in Vermont but many states do there are about 125 statewide ballot initiatives coming up in November as I understand it our revolution will be focusing on seven key initiatives which are of enormous importance to the particular states that are involved but also significant for the entire country in my view there is nothing more important that we can do as progressives than overturn the disastrous Citizens United Supreme Court decision right now right this moment as we speak the Koch brothers the second wealthiest family in America extreme right wing family with millions of dollars to make certain that the U.S. Senate and the House remain in Republican hands in addition to that especially given the assault on voting rights by Republican Governors all over this country we have got to move toward automatic voter registration the simple truth should be that in America if you are 18 years of age or older you are registered to vote end of discussion in Alaska in this election there will be a proposal called measure one which will bring 50,000 new people into the voter registration files in that state almost immediately 50,000 for a small state like Alaska is a lot of people that is the kind of epit we need to see succeed in Alaska and all across this country we want more people participating in the political process we want to make it easier for people to vote not harder so supporting this initiative in Alaska is a smart move I think in California which is a little bit larger than Alaska in California there is a proposition 61 which will address one of the major healthcare crises facing this country and that is I mentioned earlier the outrageous cost of prescription drugs what California is proposing is that their state government not pay any more for prescription drugs than the veterans administration does and the veterans administration pays less than almost anybody in America because they negotiate costs with the pharmaceutical industry if that proposal can pass in California and by the way the pharmaceutical industry is gearing up to the tune of tens of millions of dollars to try to defeat that because they know its significance but I am glad to see that there is going to be a major effort to try to pass that important ballot item in the state of Washington there is a proposal that will be on the ballot that has the voters there going on record against citizens united and that is something that I think should be supported further there is an important ballot initiative in Colorado which calls for a single payer healthcare system it is absurd it is beyond belief that here in America we remain the only major country on earth not to guarantee healthcare to all people if that proposal can win in Colorado I believe that idea will spread around the country and our revolution is as I understand it supporting that ballot item and obviously in the months and years to come our revolution will be involved in one important fight after another we have got to stand with our brothers and sisters all over this country in the fight to reform a broken criminal justice system and for comprehensive immigration reform and also to end the injustices that are currently taking place against the Native American people all over this country Shannon is going to come up in a moment and he will describe to you the enormous amount of work that has to be done to support these 100 plus candidates and the ballot items and that's what Shannon is going to do in a second but let me just conclude on a personal note and I speak on behalf of Jane and my whole family and thanking all of you for the love and support you gave us all over this country as I have said many times election days come and go but the struggle for justice continues thank you all very much thank you senator and thank you for the honor of our lifetime being a part of your campaign and now stepping into my new role as executive director of our revolution thank all of you here in person this is an incredible turnout and everyone across the United States in all 50 states in Puerto Rico I appreciate the 2600 house parties we had and 40,000 people that have tuned in ahead of time and more than 200,000 people that tuned in on Facebook live additionally Free Speech TV has broadcast this live on their networks to millions of viewers all throughout the nation so I would like around applause for them it is critically important that we work together in these coming months and years to continue this struggle right now I would appreciate if you in your house parties in this room your phones and goes to ourrevolution.com my apologies that is ourrevolution.com slash act and fill out the form to continue to be involved communication is the most powerful tool democracy has we have seen the strength utilizing communication and organizing success all over the world from the Arab Spring to Bernie 2016 and this is exactly what we want to use to continue to be connected with you in a moment now I will describe the ways we are going to move this forward the direct action we are going to do but I would really appreciate if you could sign up at ourrevolution.com slash act by completing the form we are going to be telling you about innovative ways to be involved with canvassing actions whether this is for the progressive champions some that the senator introduced during his speech such as Vernon Davis a Native American teacher in Nebraska who was teacher of the year and now is running for school board or many others we have David Zuckerman in the room tonight running for lieutenant and governor in Vermont the entire field of candidates that ourrevolution will be endorsing will be slowly announced throughout the coming weeks and months up to election day as we take into consideration the many factors that makes a progressive champion please go to our website and be involved and use this as a resource center in addition to finding the candidates that we know and have seen along the campaign trail and appreciate their support and want to share that with you we would appreciate your suggestions so please stay in contact with us through the website and through our staff to make sure that we are aware of who in your community is worth endorsing secondly one of the tools that we have always used and that we utilized on the campaign was through the incredible volunteer activities you, many of you in this room, many of you across the nation excuse me came out we made millions of calls we knocked on millions of doors and it was because of our constant communication we are going to be doing both direct action calling congress to have them take action on certain things whether it's a TPP or it's bills in congress or take care for all we are going to be persuading them traditionally like we usually do by calling them directly we are also going to do the reverse of that using during the campaign we use the term feel the burn so similar to that the fire needs to be spread we are going to call into communities and spread the word so it's not just us and our passion that's progressing these causes it's you and spreading it to your neighbors and people that aren't aware of the issues we are also going to continue to utilize social media we are going to have innovative effective social media campaigns similar to the one we launched today about prescription drugs on snapchat please sign up so we can work together to spread our messages far and wide additionally on our website we will be telling you about rallies and national days of action so that we can in the coming months take down the TPP thank you very much sometimes it's important to play defense in the coming months between now and October 1st as the senator described the TPP will be up we will have a complete plan of action that will involve phone calls canvassing spreading the word and rallies and marches that will need to be spread everywhere so please become involved there is much left to do that we need to accomplish and I believe that together we can do anything as the senator has commonly said in his speeches when we come together there is nothing we cannot accomplish with our diverse board whose active and members of active social progressing communities themselves they are going to help us stay true to our values and ensure this is an organization dedicated to supporting the millions of grassroots supporters and organizers and we together will make incredible waves in senator sanders address he listed many of the achievements of the last years I truly believe this is just the beginning with your help we can grow this movement so that all levels of government from school board up to congress hear our message and see it delivered we can take down the TPP once and for all we can rally behind the ballot initiatives that senator so gracefully put that range from Alaska to California to Maine we need to get behind these issues in innovative solutions to the problems at hand and they need our help to pass them finally we can do this only if we come together campaigns end revolutions ender please sign up at ourrevolution.com and be a part of our next chapter of the political revolution our revolution thank you again I look forward to the future we create together and at this time please join me in our final video of the evening which has many of the key people who have evolved in our continued campaign thank you