 Let me begin by thanking all of you for being, everybody should sit down, if that's okay. I want to thank you all for being here this afternoon and I want to thank President John Yellowbird Steele and President Steele's staff and Larny Littlehoop and Miss Uglala Lakota Nation, Santana Young Man, Afraid of His Horses, Junior Miss Uglala Lakota Nation, Courtney Littlehoop, Tate Wee, CJ Clifford, Evie Espinosa, and Mel Lone Hill. Thank you all. The reason we're here today is to try to understand what is going on in Pine Ridge and in other reservations. I know and you know there are a lot of problems here. Poverty is much too high, is that right? There are not enough decent jobs in the area, is that correct? The health care system is inadequate. We need to fundamentally change the relationship between the U.S. government and the Native American community. So today I am here not to give you a speech, but I'm here to listen, but I do want to say the following. In America today we have a massive level of income and wealth inequality. You all understand what I mean by that. We are living in a country where some people have unbelievable wealth, but a lot of other people are living in very dire poverty. In America today we have communities where real unemployment is 30, 40, 50 percent even higher. And that is why we need a federal jobs program to put millions of people back to work. In America today, many people are working for wages which are much too low, which is why we have to raise the minimum wage to a living wage $15 an hour. In America we are the only major country on earth which does not guarantee health care to all people as a right. And that means we have got to see more doctors getting out to rural areas including Indian reservations. We have got to substantially lower the cost of prescription drugs. And we have to be much more effective in dealing with problems like alcoholism and drug abuse. In my state of Vermont and up in New England we have a serious crisis with opiate and heroin addiction. And that problem exists all across this country. And we have got to significantly improve mental health treatment so that people get the health care when they need it. And to the young people who are here I want to say this. In my view we should be making public colleges and universities tuition free. Reason for that is that in many parts of this country in order to get out and get a good job you need a college education. But there are a lot of families in this country and I grew up in a family that did not have a lot of money. There are a lot of families in this country who today simply cannot afford the high cost of college. So what I want to tell the young people here is I believe that if any young kid whether it's in South Dakota or Vermont or any place else studies hard and does well in school regardless of the income of that family that child should be able to get into college. Now as many of you know our infrastructure that is our roads and I gather you have serious problems here with the quality of your roads right. And our bridges and our water systems all over America people are worried about the quality of the water that they are drinking. And we've got to make sure that when you drink water it is clean water it is pure water. We have to improve our wastewater plants. We have to improve our rail system and our airports. And that's why I believe we should invest a trillion dollars in rebuilding our infrastructure and also in building affordable housing. And when we rebuild our infrastructure we can create up to 13 million decent paying jobs which is what we need to do. Our goal is to develop a new relationship with the Native American people. As I have said all over this country the United States has learned an enormous amount and owes the Native American people a debt of gratitude that can never be repaid. And one of the most important lessons that Native Americans have taught this entire country is that human beings all of us are part of nature. And we have to live with nature coexist with nature and if we destroy nature we are ultimately destroying the human beings of this planet. And one of the areas that I am very concerned about is the issue of climate change. Climate change is real. It is caused by human activity and it is already causing serious problems in our country and throughout the world. And that means that we have to transform our energy system away from fossil fuels to energy efficiency and sustainable energies. So let me conclude by saying again thank you all very much for being here. B, we will develop if I am elected president a new relationship with the Native American people. C, what I understand the case to be that poverty here, unemployment here, substance abuse here is much much too high. And together we are going to create the jobs and the health care and the educational opportunities the people here on Pine Ridge and throughout Indian country are entitled to. Thank you all very much. What I want to do now is we are going to have some folks come up and speak for a few minutes about specific issues. Then we are going to open it up for your questions and your comments. First thought with Tati Wee who is the attorney general here. I am going to stand to the side because I feel awkward standing in front of you. As mentioned I am the attorney general for the tribe and so one of the biggest issues that we see in our communities is the high rate of recidivism. Whether it is for our tribal inmate population, our tribal members that are state side convictions or our federal inmates. Over 60% of our federal individuals that are on federal probation are violated on that probation for status offenses. Over 60% status offenses being intoxicated high on some type of drug. We are in this revolving wheel like a hamster wheel here where we are doing the same things putting people in jail and it is not effective. So we have to totally revamp the way we look at criminal justice and incorporate what we are doing to treat addiction medically and behaviorally. I am glad you mentioned the addiction because of our unique status with the federal government our treaties give us that trust and treaty responsibility to our federal partners. IHS being one of them. At what point in time will Indian health service be held accountable for the type of health care they provide for our people? When are they going to get ahead of the curve and start implementing medicine and practices and technologies that are effective for handling addiction? Can I interrupt you? What I'd like to do, let me just, if I might, to make this discussion maybe more vibrant. I want to, you stay up here, stay on, but I want to involve other people. Alright, is, why are so many people getting in trouble with the law? Can I ask that question, Tati? Alright, stand up, raise your hand, raise your hand. Let's get, my question is, the Attorney General makes a good point that you have a system that is failing. People get arrested, they go to jail, they come back, they go to jail again, right? Alright, so let's start off, help me out here. Why are so many people going to jail in the first place? Raise your hand, people, yes sir, yes sir. Alright, is marijuana a major, take the mic, take the mic, hold the mic close to your mouth. Yup. I think the federal government needs to decriminalize marijuana. Okay. Are a lot of people getting in trouble with the law because of possession of marijuana? Is that an issue? No. Alright, raise your hand, stand up here please. Paul, get the mic to him. I firmly believe that on these reservations, since we are so remote, that like this lady back here yelled, she said, Bordo. Our youth don't have much to do, let alone the adults. So they reach out for in this extracurricular activities to relieve themselves with some sort of chemical or negative influence. Next thing you know, they end up in jail. And I think that's pretty much the basis, isn't it? Poverty is a big one. Okay. Alright, you know what I'd like, and I'm going to give you the, is this okay? Okay, I just want to involve it and give you the mic. I want young, young people. Some young people. Okay, you guys, stand up, tell me why people are getting arrested. Is it true that people are bored, nothing to do? What's going on? Young lady right here, do you want to stand up? Yeah, you. There's a microphone right behind you. If you're going to stand up, hold it to your mouth. What's going on? It's like everyone's into softball, boxing and everything, and then everyone, and I'm kind of... Are you doing good? Are you doing good? Is there just not enough activities for young people? Not enough activities for everyone. Okay. Yeah, not everyone, not into everything. Okay. Good, good job. Hello. Well, like what Katie was saying, she said there is not really anything to do around here besides sports, but you know, not everyone's into sports. Some people are into skateboarding. The park, art, music, reading, but we don't really have a place to go, or those people don't really have a place to go. Like for me, I'm a basketball player and this right here is my place to go. The readers, they don't have nowhere to go. Let me ask you another, I'm going to ask you a hard question. You ready for a hard question? Yes. The kids here think that when they get out of school, they're going to have decent jobs. All right, who wants to talk about the young man with the interesting hairdo there, right? Okay. There's not enough jobs available for us because some kids are dropping out and not earning their high school diploma, but jobs out there, they require their diploma. But for us, it's hard because of where we grew up. People aren't depending on us more because of, how should I put this? Sometimes it's dependency. People think, oh, I don't have a job, I need to depend on someone else. No. Dependency is when you need the job. They need it to depend on themselves, to get themselves up in the world. Good. All right, thank you. All right, I want to get a sense here. I want to get a sense of how young people feel about the future. Are they happy with school? Are they looking optimistically to get jobs? And I'm hearing that that is not the case on many of the young people here thinking that, in fact, if they do well in school, they can go to college or is college just a distant dream too expensive? Who wants to talk to me about that? I see a young lady over there. Yes. Yes. Can we get a mic to that young lady? Stand up. Where's the mic? No, that's all right. Thank you. Hold that mic right close to your mouth. I guess our views on college and stuff, it seems kind of far. Some of us, we get, we lose motivation. We lack motivation. Sometimes it could be related to home stuff, but here too, it seems so far. Now, if I were to tell you point blank that if you did well in school, if you studied hard, I would guarantee that you would go to a public college or university. Would that make a difference in your life? Yeah, it would probably make me strive for the best that I could be, but sometimes there's no motivation. There's no hope. A lot of us think about our future and we're just like, damn, I wonder if we're going to even be there. Or I wonder if we'll make it there. Will we graduate? Will we get there? Are we going to be able to afford college? Are we going to get there and then are we going to drop out? Are we going to just be one of those people that get a chance and then we just come back home? Because that's a lot of what happens. Are you seeing a lot of your friends turning to drugs or alcohol? Yep. Myself included. Be honest. Do you want to say a word on that or not? No. Okay, that's fine. It happens. I mean, a lot of us turn to that. It's the truth. I ain't going to lie. No, that's right. Okay. Well, I appreciate your honesty. Thank you. Okay. Let's stay with the young people. Let's get other comments from young people. Anybody else? All right. Where am I seeing? All right. Thank you. Let's get a mic pulled. We get a mic turned. Well, I think that the support, first of all, should come from within the homes. We as young people see our parents, our uncles, our aunties doing drugs and abusing things. All right. Let me stop you and interrupt you. Again, I'm trying to understand what you're saying is in many households, parents are doing alcohol or drugs. Yeah. So we see it and we've grown up thinking that it's okay and that it's acceptable. So if parents are doing it, then the kids are going to start doing alcohol or drugs. Is that what I'm hearing? Yes. Okay. And I feel that if like there's more support there, then we can start believing that we can go to school and maybe if like the college tuition is free, then it's another possibility because a lot of us can't afford school. Okay. And it's like another obstacle like, oh my God, how am I going to pay for this? All right. So if I told you that if you did well in school, I mean, you're going to have to do well in school and be prepared, but if you did well in school, that public colleges and universities would be tuition free to you without making a difference in your life? I think it would make a difference. It would make me push myself to do better and to shoulders that we can do it. All right. Let me change. People can talk about anything they want to, but I want to stay maybe on education and I want you to be honest with me. Are you getting the quality education you think you need? All right. I see a young lady right there. Yes. All right. I think education on the reservation isn't what it should be. The teachers, they're... You know how drugs and everything is a problem on the reservation? Some of our teachers are like that, too, and they just don't care about the education that we're getting, and they just think that they want to be cool with the students and everything, and they're not teaching us what we need to be taught, and they're not motivated to teach either, so they're thinking if they don't want to teach us, then why would we want to learn that? Okay. Very good point. Okay. Thank you very much. Other comments? All right. I see a... Yep. A hand right here, Paul. Okay. Yep. What we need here is support... Hold them, Mike. Close to the mouth. Okay. What we need here is support from the federal government for our school systems to teach the way that we learn. I took my kids out of the public school and I homeschooled them because I didn't feel like the way they were being taught was meeting their needs. We need to restructure our education system across all Indian lands to the way that we learn. We need to bring teachers up to teach how we learn. We don't need to learn American standards. We need to learn our standards first. Okay. Good. Thank you. Okay. I see a gentleman in the blue over there. Yes. Stand up if you could, sir. I personally think that a lot of the problems on the reservation stemmed from how nonviolent drug offenders are treated in the justice system. There are a lot of people that go to prison for using drugs. I have been incarcerated for having dirty pee. And what they're doing, they're having these kids go to these federal prisons for selling marijuana and they're coming back with meth connections. And it's just the justice system isn't really meant for us. Okay. Got it. Thank you. All right. I want to stay on an issue. The lack of a lot of things is a lack of jobs and the lack of income. Is that true? All right. Who wants to talk about that? Why is it? Yes. Young man right here in blue. Yeah. Can we get a mic? Hold that mic close. I don't believe there's a lack of jobs. I just think there's a lack of motivation around here because there are over 100 ranchers that look for help every day. They go around helping, looking for help, pull people out of their beds just to get help. And they pay really well and some people are afraid to stand up to them because they don't know what to do when they go to work. And then there's no inspiration from the educated world to help us motivate us to get our education. There are some jobs available but people don't know, have the job training to know or the confidence to do those jobs. Is that what you're saying? Yes. Okay. All right. Thank you. All right. We've got a woman right back there. Paul right in front of you. If you can get that mic turned. Okay. What I would like to say actually kind of touches on all of this subject. Yet, when we bring it to the tribe myself, when I brought this back home and said, I have something that will help, I couldn't even get past the door. I developed a gun registration program that is second to none. Absolutely fraud proof using the blockchain. It couldn't, I mean, I've given it to Miss Means Office. No response. We have an ID system for the tribal IDs. Again, making them the most secure ID on the planet. Again, no one will talk to us. Okay. If you become president, would you support the tribe having a cryptocurrency? I would support getting technology and broadband of the highest quality onto the reservations of this country because I don't know how you do economic development if you don't have cell phone service and if you don't have high quality broadband. All right. What I want to do now is I want to bring up, let's see, we have, all right. Tati, did you want to conclude your remarks? Okay. Let me go to Evie Espinosa who's going to talk about health care. Evie, thanks so much for being with us. Okay. So first I want to take this time to first acknowledge Unchi Marie today's her birthday and I want to wish her a happy 96th birthday. Again, I want to thank Senator Sanders and all of you for making the time to come here and be a part of this event today. Elder once told me the most generous thing we can give of ourselves is our time and so I want to thank you and I want to thank all of you that came for that. Specific to health care, I know Senator Sanders, you have a stance that health care should be a right for all. To us it's something more than that because not only should it be a right for all but we have a legal document with this federal government that assures we are entitled to quality and safe health care and that is not being provided right now. Currently at home in Rosebud our hospital is in what's called a systems improvement agreement because they lack the ability currently to provide safe and quality care. Our emergency room was shut down in December. In 6th then 6 of our relatives have died in the back of our tribal ambulances 8 miles from the next nearest ER. That is unacceptable and it's criminal. It's destroying families. It's a modern form of genocide today. That system that is set for us to be able to go there and be taken care of and be helped, it's not that. It's destroying the people that work for it. It's forcing them to enforce policies that go against everything we believe in. It doesn't support and foster making us a stronger nation, a stronger people, a healthy people. It does the opposite. So these staff members that work in these agencies are forced to say either I enforce this policy that I know goes against everything I believe in or I give up my job. Four years ago I chose to give up my job because I could not support a system that I didn't believe in and I know was detrimental to my relatives. And so there has to be a complete overhaul of how healthcare is provided to all of us and all of our knives. Not just in Rosemount, everywhere. Not just in the Great Plains, everywhere. And to respect has to be given. It's due to what our ancestors fought for and why we have these things available for us today. It's extremely disrespectful for the agency that is in existence because of these special arrangements that were made between our governments to do a thing that they're failing so miserably. The Indian Health Service is failing. The Indian Health Service is failing miserably. The system. The system is not set up and is not compatible with providing innovative state-of-the-art healthcare delivery that is available in this country today. There's absolutely no reason why the United States of America has the highest quality of healthcare and we get the lowest quality of healthcare provided in this nation. Absolutely unacceptable. We sit here and we talk about all these negatives. All these negatives. They're all interconnected. And the root cause of that is 150, 200 years ago, our way of life, our identity was taken from us and it created this, what we have to live in and fight for today. All of that was taken for us. So how do we overcome that? We need your help. We need people like you to want to acknowledge that this is wrong from our perspective of what our history is. Help us. Spread that word and help us educate. And that means a lot that you're here today so you're getting that education. And I just, you have so much broader of a network and that's available to you that I ask that you take our voice, our what's important to us back to these people to make it a reality to fix what is going on. Your voice today was our revolution people. We're here. We're broadcasting this. Your voice will get out around the country today. And one of the issues that I feel very strongly about is just what you said, Evie, promises were made. Treaties were signed and those promises were not kept. If elected president, we will keep those promises. All right, I want to, Evie has made a very forceful presentation. I wanted to open it up a little bit if people are interested on the issue of health care. What are your experiences with the health care system? I see a hand here right in the middle. Paul, get that gentleman. If you could stand up, sir. Yeah, right. Get him a mic. No, gentlemen, right behind you. We'll get to you in a minute. Okay, health care. Yeah. All right, well, health care. Yeah, IHS don't do such a great job. My sister had scoliosis for a while. She's been to the ER multiple times. And every single time, except recently, she came back with just painkillers. So, you know, they slag it. All right, she has a serious problem and she's not getting the attention that she needs. Yeah, recently she has gotten laser surgery. So she is recovering and she's getting better. But at the time, IHS was not helping whatsoever. Okay. So, Senator, if I can just touch on it a little bit. So what he's sharing is a real-life thing that we experienced. A relative will go in to seek help for a condition and they're treated with pain medication because that is the most cost-effective way to treat that. But it doesn't address the problem. So what it does is then creates full-blown addictions. And then it overflows onto the family and the ability for that family to be healthy. This addiction caused by an entity that is supposed to be there to protect other topics. So you're saying that painkillers here are being given out in too great a number? I am saying that painkillers are being used to treat conditions that require other treatments that are readily available to everybody else in the United States. Okay. That's what I'm saying. Okay. Healthcare, woman over there, woman in black, yeah. Paul, right over there. Bernie Sanders. I feel so. This is awesome talking to you. Hey, so, you know, what's going, what I hear going on here is, of course, across the Indian country, everywhere. The example of healthcare for me would be personally is your example is you're going to Rapid City. So you got Rapid City, you got Indian Health Service in Rapid City and that hospital has not been, that's the same hospital that my mother, she's gone, bless her soul, she stayed in there during the TB time, back in the 40s, 50s or whatever it was, I remember, but they incarcerated people there for TB at one time. That hospital has never, I don't think, is still the same since the 50s. They've never improved the healthcare there at that hospital. We all are, I mean, we go in there, I personally went in there for something in my leg and came out with cough syrup. So they're not prescribed, they're not listening or whatever it is. There also is a person in the emergency room that can barely speak English. So what's happening in our country, what happens in Indian country, it's called substandard. It's been there since the 50s and 60s when our people were standing up and saying we have substandard health, substandard education, substandard. That's what the government has given us with their promises is just substandard. They have never changed it. And so all of this is just the ill of the substandard care that the government gave us. No, we had all of that in place before colonization. We had, we were well, we cared for our people. We had, we knew the trees, we knew the medicines, we knew that was all taken from us, right? And then replaced into this western medicine stuff that we never got. We never got that. We couldn't speak our languages. We never got that. They took our languages so there's major gaps in our generations that are hurting us. So we couldn't pass those secrets down to our kids to stop the suicide. And so that's where we're at. It's, you need to help raise our, from substandard thinking and care in our country, in our Indian country to raise our substandard and get rid of that word altogether somehow and raise that consciousness. Good. Thank you. Okay. CJ with CJ. All right. I'd like CJ Clifford to come up and talk a little bit about some of the issues as he sees it. Charles Tuna. You know, it's a great honor to be amongst you guys and be able to sit and talk in particular education. Some of that was covered immediately right away. And I want to thank Senator Sanders for opening it up on education. Education is a need that we have every day of our lives. You talk about inadequate funding of the Bureau of Indian Education, Bureau of Indian Affairs, Department of Interior, all the extensions that come, that is supposed to deliver the dollar to us. I don't, I have a different way of telling my story than Chairman Steele does. And what Chairman Steele is the fact about delivering beef to my people in the early days. Delivering sick beef to my people and not all the beef that was awarded to us. Well today is stands in the world of education is the same way. Today out of the dollar we receive 43 cents and the government keeps 57 cents. And I have a dollar light bill in my school systems. I can't afford to pay for that. Let alone I still got to pay for my education to my students and I got to pay my teachers. So here in the state of South Dakota and the Indian country, the average wage is far below where one of the lowest paid states in the United States of America. One of the things that has beaten us is the so-called consultation that the government puts forward in Indian country. They come here and they say we're going to consult with this item. And this item is what we brought to you. It's not what I want to talk about. It's what you're going to tell me what you're going to do and this is what we're going to do. Well today we found a way to battle that and today right now we've taken the government to task getting an education. But bringing it out with your negotiated rulemaking processes that go on through and it comes from the senator's office we need to put together a negotiated rulemaking and we'll come up with some ideas. But still even at the negotiated rulemaking level it is still top-heavy with the bureaucrats weighing in more than it allows my people to have say so are my children. So but if you can keep it open just like you did that is so beautiful to be able to ask them and lean out and ask. Not just of the panel there's so many questions. What I believe in look at the end of the day people know the problems in their own community more than Washington will know the problems. People need the resources but your point is it cannot be the government telling the tribes what to do that has to be common ground and working together and I agree. Yes and you know when we talk about the 43 and the 57 you as a senator appropriate X amount of dollars but the people that work underneath you seem to take the majority of that money. Money is not getting to the people it's going to the bureaucracy. And before we get on too far you know you talked about the treaties and one of the things in our life here is that we would as native people like to see them treaties honored. Our black hills up there that you hear about and you're learning about they're not for sale. Thank you. Thank you very much. Let's hear from Mel Lonehill. Mel. Testing one two. I got our homework to know we're a team by health. The reason I think I said was here. My language and that's my tradition culture. And the if you ask your question is that language being kept alive? Is it being taught to the children? Yes. It is. Some say no, some say yes, but we're trying hard to put those back into our education system. Okay. Okay, the thing is the infrastructure. The infrastructure nationally and locally has deteriorated. Yes. You know, it's gone to the dogs. We don't have no infrastructure here due to lack of education, management, you know, all these things that come in this circle of Lakota, it's not there, or it's there, but you know it's hard to get anything because of the education. And then the first major problem that we have here is our health care. I know there's a lot of vets out there that suffer the health care. We have the VA right here. Does the VA do a decent job? The VA hasn't done a darn thing in my words, in my opinion. And then you're locally. Evie, is that your judgment as well that the VA is not doing what it should be doing or? Our tribal members struggle very much with both systems. And to an extent, they're discriminated against because the IHS says we're a pair of last resort, go to the VA, then the VA says the same thing, and these vets who have fought for this country don't get the care that they need. Okay, Mel, could you continue? I didn't mean to interrupt you, sorry. Yeah. Okay, now you go to the VA today, all the hospitals, I think there's three floors in a VA hospital. There's three floors of secretary, secretary, secretary, you know, and here you go here, it's the same thing. The administration is top heavy, and the patients aren't cared for. If we get sick, we're flown to Rapp City, Sioux Falls, Scouts Fluff, and we're stuck over there. Let me ask you a question if I might. Anybody wants to answer it? Does the head of the Bureau of Indian Affairs come here to talk to you? No. No. The toddlers will top every in the Aberdeen area that the money stays up there, maybe 30% or 40% comes here for the infrastructure. So the bureaucracy eats up a lot of the money? Yeah. Okay, so we have the biggest, the major problem here on all the reservations, not locally here, but all Indian country. Yeah, we only get 40 cents out of a dollar to operate the infrastructure that we have here. Okay. Well, Mel, thank you very much. Senator Sanders, if I may add. Yes. For here. Exactly one year ago today, the District of Columbia DC, Washington DC enacted an educational law that says that all schools will teach Native American history in DC, but they only enforced it within the DC area. I would like to see that particular law be mandatory for all states to teach Native American. And I think what CJ and others have talked about is the need to maintain and revive Native American culture. Is that an important issue? All right. And that means making sure the young children know the language and the culture and the history of their peoples. All right. And we're not doing that to the degree we should be doing it now. And non Indians understanding that that needs it. Right. But you have so many other things. I look, look in the crowd and and every talk about that the healthcare system. I I know a young lady I would like to call on and and ask her if she would say a word or two about the healthcare system. Who was that? Miss May Rodriguez. May Rodriguez. May is a survivor of cancer. And I would like to have everybody give her a round of applause. Well, hello, Mr. Sanders and welcome to the reservation. Yes, I I I'm on Medicaid and I'm a survivor of breast cancer, ductile breast cancer. And I just thank God today by the grace of God, I'm still standing here before you and before my people. And the the way I've gone out and had to do this with getting treatment for breast cancer was having to leave the reservation. And you were unable to you were unable to get the care that you needed here right in this area. Yes. So I left the reservation. I've gone to St. Louis. I've gone to Utah and where Utah is where I and and what are people need to understand when you're on Medicaid? You can go outside of here. You can leave. But the thing is when I left, I had to, you know, let him know that I was staying with somebody in a different state in order to have that Medicaid transfer there. So I've done that. And then when I went to Utah to try to for the treatment there, which I which I received. And that's where I got the surgery and it was successful. But the bottom line, what I'm hearing you tell me is you could not get the treatment that you needed for breast cancer in this area. Right. Well, that's not acceptable. And it's not acceptable. And may I please mention another thing before I close here? When you become president of the United States, we got a lot of hurting parents here. There's a lot of injustice that is done to our people. Mr. Sanders. My son was one of them, and he was murdered in Salt Lake City, Utah. And I'm bringing this out because I was told that our chill that there's no art that it was out of our jurisdiction here to receive justice for my son. And I was told over and over again by Greg Peterman that it was out of their jurisdiction. But since when are our children out of jurisdiction? Thank you. Let me just say this. First of all, I want to thank all of the tribal leaders who have spoken. What I have heard loudly and clearly is there is a lot of pain in this community. There are a lot of people who are turning to drugs to escape the reality of their lives. There are a lot of children who may be giving up. And I want to say something to the kids if I might. I know that there are temptations out there and drugs and alcohol and everything else. That is not going to solve the problem. All right. And what we have got to do on the difficult circumstances, and I appreciate that the circumstances are difficult. You got to fight back. You got to get your lives in order and you got to fight your way through this stuff. Because if you succumb to drugs and alcohol, there is not going to be much of a future. Is that right? All right. So please, I know it is hard. And if I'm elected, you're going to have the resources that you need to get the education that will benefit your lives. We're going to do the best we can to bring jobs into this community so people don't have to turn to crime in order to earn a living. We are going to significantly improve the health care system because I think the point that Evie made is absolutely right. Treaties when negotiated and quality health care is part of that treaty. All right. And that's what we're going to do. And I think, by the way, that's true, not just for Indian country. It is true for every person in the United States of America. All right. We've got a lot of work. We've got a lot of work to do. But the history of everything is that nothing ever good happens if people give up. If we give up, nothing good happens. I want every kid here to be studying hard with the hope and expectation you will get a good education and a good job. But you have got to continue the fight to make that happen. Nothing happens if people just complain. We got to stand up, be involved in the political process. All right. Here's a promise. All right. If elected president, the head of the Indian Affairs Bureau will be here on this reservation. How's that? All right. I just want to thank again all of you for being here today, and I hope to see you again in the not too distant future. Thank you all very much.