 Good morning. Good morning. How are you great? What a joy. I was telling her backstage so that I think she's probably the first senator ever to be Courageous enough to come on a museum stage. So thank you, and I want to thank you for your extraordinary service to our nation And you know I want to get right into the questions since these are all power Conversations and we're moving fast throughout the day And really just give you the platform to talk about your stories and really storytelling Could be a theme of your leadership your life in politics deep listening Courageous action those are the themes so I thought we'd start from the beginning and I think it was your first major move When you came to the Senate when you worked on the repeal of don't ask don't tell Well this job of public service is really about being able to listen hear other people's stories understand what they're going through and then be able to empathize with them and fight for them and What happened with don't ask don't tell is I had a girlfriend who was a lawyer like me? Both practice law at the same time and she had a client and his name was Lieutenant Dan Choi and he said will you please sit down with him? I said of course and When I sat down with this person he told me about how horrible it was for him to serve in the military Devoting his life to his military. He was attracted to the character and dedication and all the qualities They thought the military service was about but because he was gay. He was told that every day He had a lie. He had to lie about who he was who he loved what he cared most about and he felt it was crushing his soul And his story really impacted me and I thought gosh, you know if I'm gonna do anything in the Senate I should at least try to do this and so I started talking to my colleagues and say we really need to repeal don't ask Don't tell it's corrosive. It's discriminatory. It's affecting 10% of our language speakers are being denied the ability to serve thousands in mission critical areas and Over time we were able to tell those stories and that's what brought people together to be able to finally repeal don't ask Don't tell because these are men and women who are dying for our country And they shouldn't be told no based on who they love right? That's right And so speaking of the military you also listen to stories of young women who came to see you to talk about sexual assaults in the Military so one of the committees I serve on is the armed services committee And I'd heard about this issue that there were challenges for women serving when they were overseas They couldn't get abortion treatments if they needed them and I didn't understand what the issue was and so many people came up to me and said Kirsten you need to look into this There's this issue of sexual assault in the military and it didn't really sink in until a friend of mine finally Handed me a film and said you need to watch this it's called the invisible war And so I watched it and it literally broke my heart because these were men and women who were being brutally raped while Serving in the military then when they tried to report the crimes they were disbelieved And then worse than that they were retaliated by their chain of command and for reporting those cases And so this became something that I wanted to focus on and the more survivors I met with the more determined I was to tell their stories and really take on the military and said you need a Criminal justice system is worthy of the sacrifices that these men and women are making every day And it's been a battle. I've been fighting for about five years and we've had two votes We've gotten more than half the Senate both times But it's still not enough because the status quo the generals the hierarchy They just want to preserve the status quo and they're unwilling to change and all we want to do in our bill is just Take that decision of whether to go to trial whether there's been a crime committed out of the hands of a commander Who might have biases and who isn't trained and put it into the hands of trained military prosecutors so you could have basic professionalism and I'm still fighting this battle, but we will get there because The stories of these men and women are so compelling one of the things I love is that I think it was during the first hearing you had Their stories before the commander was able to speak. Will you talk to us a little bit about that? So typical hearing in Washington, especially in the armed services all the generals get to talk first all the top brass And so in this first hearing because I was the chair of the personnel subcommittee I said I want to have the first panel be survivors And all those generals had to sit in the row in the back row waiting for their turn so they could hear those survivors testimonies and You'd be shocked about how hard it was to do that that it was such a breach of protocol but it's about listening to the people were supposed to be representing and Feeling what they're going through and then doing something about it, you know speaking of these these moments You've been very vulnerable at times, you know you once you hear these stories. It seems to me as I've watched you over the years You become so impassioned. Yeah, you know, this is really You know, this is really a leader who feels great great empathy And so recently, you know with Trump's nominee for the EPA Did anybody see her testimony on the if you haven't seen it? It is really something to behold So will you talk a little bit about that? Well, so most recently I voted against Scott Pruitt because he as Attorney General of Oklahoma sued the EPA over a dozen times every single time on behalf of the polluter never once on behalf of families or Communities that were being poisoned. So you can't even See him as a qualified nominee, but most recently We had the guy who's going to be head of chemicals reviewing chemicals and deciding what poisons our air and water and I was so infuriated because Families from upstate New York who are being poisoned today by PFOA Toxic chemicals that are in their water and these families They don't know what level safe because we've never done the science and the testing to say what is actually what will cause cancer? What will what will harm you and these moms are literally having to bathe their children? Cook in those this water Drink this water and not knowing if it's safe And I just was so upset because I didn't think this man could possibly understand How upset those families would be if you don't have the money to move Imagine if the water that came out of your faucet, you didn't know if it was poisoned Imagine if the bath that your baby's being bathed in you don't know if it's safe It's just I was so frustrated because I didn't think he could ever empathize with them And his job up until that point was to work for chemical companies to say very high rates of these chemicals were safe In fact this one chemical he said two thousand times what the EPA said was safe was safe. So he's a shell He's just somebody who's not Caring about What the effects of his decisions are and so I told their stories in a way that I hope he paid attention. Well Regardless, he didn't become appointed. So, thank you So one of the things I want to ask you going off a little bit off course, but to follow this what do you do in such a divisive period and So much cynicism about How do you build? How do you create change? So fight for goodness Complicated so there's two things I feel like I'm doing right now on on the one hand I'm constantly trying to push back when President Trump tweet something or comes up with a new policy statement or is taking on DACA kids or Taking on the transgender troops or trying to undermine freedom of religion with his Muslim ban or taking on the free press or the independence of the Judiciary any time he's doing that. I'm pushing back as hard and as loud and as as effectively as I possibly can so it's a constant battle In trying to speak truth to power and say what you are saying and doing is wrong morally wrong against our values against our constitutional Democracy against everything we stand for but then my day job is still to reach across the aisle I have to always be looking for co-sponsors talking to Republicans about the problems They want to solve in their space and finding that common ground and so I do that every day So for example, I have a bill with John McCain right now to deal with the opioid crisis That he believes his state my state seven days is enough for acute pain He shouldn't be given a 30 day or 60 day or 90 day supply for a wisdom tooth or a pole muscle Which is unfortunately happening all across this country and so no matter what the issue is I find a Republican to work with whether it's foster care and adoption with James Langford or Doing a 9-11 deep dive of cyber to find out How do we protect our electoral system for 18 and 20 with Lindsey Graham? So I can do that So it's just a constant, you know Offense and defense here when policies are being offered by the president They're toxic and then constant reaching across the aisle building bipartisanship finding common ground to serve our constituents I mean our job is still to make get things done and to make a difference You know if you were to follow the news you wouldn't think that there was any bipartisan action Most of these things I believe if we got a vote on them we'd pass them, but the climate's still very toxic I mean the first ambition of this this Last nine months has been to put in Trumpcare to repeal Obamacare That's been a very divisive toxic fight and but for the grassroots I mean the grassroots people like you people like everyone we know standing up demanding action You know being in states like Maine and and Alaska and Arizona to say no, this is devastating You can't take away, you know these Medicaid coverage You can't take away the coverage for pre-existing conditions, but for all that advocacy we would have Trumpcare today And that's what gave the courage to John McCain and live and Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins to stand up and say no And now we're on a another toxic Tax bill that's literally just gonna give more and more money to the wealthiest among us and to the most successful companies It's not the kind of tax reform we need we need middle-class tax cuts. We need tax cuts that help people and so Eventually we'll get off this stuff and can move on to maybe any of the bipartisan bills that we have ready There we have bills on infrastructure on common-sex tax reform like Making child care tax deductible or tax credit that's kind of stuff. We could all agree on so that's ready. It's just Actually, I want you to do it You've been a big advocate for family leave. Where are we at with family leave? Well So I believe this country needs paid family leave and I believe that because every industrialized country in the world already has it and it's an artificial drag on the economy women are Going to lose $320,000 in their lifetime because we have no paid leave men $280,000 in a lifetime and what it means is is when anytime there's a life event whether it's your mother who's sick and dying whether It's your spouse who's ill whether it's a child Who's who's injured or whether it's a new baby if people don't have the opportunity to ramp off their careers for a short Period of time to meet that family need they're going to be stuck in between a rock in a hard place They're either going to have to quit that job and go without an income to meet that family need if they can or They have to stick it out continue to work because they can't afford to quit and not be able to be with that infant or be with That mother when she's dying that's the truth of the matter and every family it's going to have life events whether you're male or female and We should be rewarding work in this country And if you reward work and if you create the structural support so people can work to their highest ability to their highest Talents then you're going to have a stronger economy But we don't do that when you're constantly forcing women and men to be ramping off and ramping on and once you ramp off You rarely get to ramp back on at the same seniority or salary that when you laugh That's just the reality of it and it's a huge women's issue It is and it affects low-wage workers enormously and as you may know two-thirds of minimum wage workers are women So it's those young women who are getting minimum wage who have have no child care if they have a child and and will either have to quit and go on Public services or they find some informal care, but that informal care is never high quality early childhood education It's it's more often just informal care that works or doesn't work And if your caregiver sick then you miss work and then you get fired because you don't have any sick days or vacation days So let's pause for a second. How many of us knew that two-thirds of minimum wage workers are women? Very few of us. Yeah That's news to get out there policies would overwhelmingly help women even though their gender-neutral would help everybody So, you know, you care greatly about families and that's often an approach you take with the Senate in terms of the Environment and gun control all sorts of things. It was surprising to me and exciting to me to see you get behind medical marijuana There are probably some marijuana users in the audience not perhaps perhaps one never knows medically of course and So will you talk to us about the the the rights for medical marijuana? Yeah, so it was not an issue I was going to focus on at all because I didn't really have a context for it except for not wanting my children ever to smoke marijuana and so So that wasn't my thing But I sat down with some families whose children have really serious seizure disorders And when you meet a mom and dad whose child has a hundred seizures a day And they tell you when we give our child CBD oil Which is derived from marijuana and it doesn't have the THC doesn't have a high that those seizures stop that they have maybe One or two a month not a hundred a day and that this medical treatment is Transformative for their child's ability to learn to talk to walk to ride a bike You don't understand how the federal government can be the one standing in the way of your child getting the medicine they need it's disgraceful and When you then have a hearing in the Senate and you realize the person who's testifying against medical marijuana is being paid by the Opioid industry then you begin to see the picture and you begin to see what is this actually about it's about money and it's about power and it's about profits and There's always something behind the scenes which is what I have to look for and figure out What am I actually up against but we are in a crisis in this country and no child no patient no veteran No person with glaucoma no person with PTSD no person who has MS should be denied medicine that they know works and When you talk to our elected officials and you talk to the people in charge they'll be like oh, it's just a gateway drug It's has no medical use well That's just not true and just because the United States hasn't done the research to prove the medical impacts Europe certainly has Israel has and we have tons of data that shows this has real medical impacts and so Under the president under President Obama's administration. I was still fighting with the DEA still fighting with HHS They didn't want to do this and I'm telling you it's a corrupted system And so we have to push back and fight back and I'm gonna continue to do it under this administration, but it's wrong As somebody with glaucoma I completely agree with you as well But so I want to talk about gun control for a second so that before you were senator I understand you had an NRA rating of an A and now you have an NRA rating of An F. We're so proud of you Talk to us, you know, it's a very serious issue between Sandy Hook, Las Vegas Every day, you know every week in the streets of Brooklyn throughout our cities These are these are big issues talk to us. Is there any hope for reasonable gun control laws in this country? Well, the American people support reasonable gun control laws even NRA members support reasonable gun control laws If you asked America, do you support universal background checks over 70% will say yes Do you support banning military style assault weapons? Yes. Do you support banning them military style clips with lots of with a hundred rounds? Yes, do you support having anti trafficking bill? Yes, but the only people who don't support this stuff is the gun manufacturers and I have to say there is a big difference between capitalism and greed and you cannot find a better example than the gun Manufacturing industry because they want to produce guns at all costs regardless of the impact on society or on crime rates Or on death of young people. They literally do not care and I can tell that because today Their number one goal in lobbying is to make sure that we have silencers more readily available They're called suppressors in the gun industry and if you talked to law enforcement They said that's a horrible idea because we have technology Let's use in this city that's used across America that have a gunshot We could actually locate from where the shots made, but if you more often have suppressors on these weapons It's gonna be harder to do that So they do not care about self-safety and well-being and so I think this issue is only gonna change if more of us speak Out particularly women. I think if you sit down with a mom who had her four-year-old get shot at a park in Brooklyn There is no excuse for doing nothing and I think if every woman in America decided this is my issue in red states and purple States and say I don't believe that children should be slaughtered in our parks around our country I do not believe someone should be able to get an automatic weapon and walk into Sandy Hook elementary school I think it changes and I just think it's a moral issue that is all about money And if we don't stand up to it, it will never change and so I think it has to be our number one issue It really was unbelievable that after Sandy Hook there was no change and So let's talk about change for a second because you're a big believer in the grassroots and here at the Brooklyn Museum And probably everybody in this audience We believe that culture is a big part of policy change that without you know culture You don't have social change that leads to the policy and political change that we need to see for a more just equitable Society and so talk to us a little bit about your views especially in these incredibly Difficult and demoralizing times. Yeah, what can we do? What must we do? I think it's up to all of us I think it's all about the grassroots and I can tell you why I've been recently studying the suffrage movement about women what they did a hundred years ago to achieve the right to vote and These women were fearless. They never gave up. They never grew weary They knew that everything they cared about whether it was violence against women in the home Whether it was the ability to own property Well, there's the ability to keep your kids if your husband left you and divorced you all of these things were Fundamental existential issues for women about what they wanted to control in their lives And they realized the only way to get there was to earn the right to vote and so women literally worked their whole lives They're whole lives Susan B. Anthony Elizabeth Cady Stanton They never got to see the right to vote, but they dedicated every waking hour to achieving that right the younger generation workers of Ida B. Wells and Alice Paul and Mary Church Terrell they started organizing differently. They started doing marches. They started doing Where they would just literally stand outside the White House for a hundred and fifty days in a row and then we're jailed for months Because they were just literally standing in front of the White House with a sign saying votes for women. When will you? When will you give women justice and it is shocking to me that? they persevered for so long and so intensely and so when I look to the grassroots today, it's it's the same It's the same level of intensity that I've ever seen it really started for me with the women's march If you just know like if you looked at the march and you saw How powerful that march was that intersectional moment where it didn't matter what you were marching for it Didn't matter if you were marching for reproductive freedom or LGBT equality or black lives matter or clean air and clean water It just mattered that you were marching and that you put a sign up and you stood for that sign my still favorite sign was the grandma sign that said I can't believe I'm still doing this but It it resonated to me personally because that's really what our democracy is made up of this is Only time our democracy works is when people are willing to march willing to stand up willing to speak out And so if people are willing to keep up this activism over the next year over the next two years the next four years Change will happen. We will be able to flip the house in 2018. We will be able to defeat Trump in 20 People are willing to be heard on all the issues that they care about and again. It doesn't matter which issues your issue It just matters that you're willing to fight for it to the end and not get tired and not grow weary So, you know, here you are talking Talking about the power of protest Also a leader who has gone across the aisle as we've discussed Is this a time period where we need every strategy? Do you think there are some strategies right now that are going to be more effective than a Others for change. I think speaking out is the most important strategy and it doesn't matter how you do it So it doesn't matter if you just come to a event like this It doesn't matter if you show up at a town hall used Instagram Twitter or Facebook Calling your congressman calling your senator Tweeting at Mitch McConnell when you're upset with them all of that works like it's all it all works Like you just need to keep being heard on whatever platform of every stage you can possibly find That is the most important thing we could do and and if you're willing run for office I mean honestly, we need to change the players list and if you're willing to run you should run and What I've heard from Emily's list is about this time of the year We'd have about a thousand candidates running we have 18,000 women running this cycle By the way, it does not go unnoticed In this institution the only art museum to have a feminist center. We celebrated our 10th anniversary last night That the largest majority of people who purchase tickets to join this conference for women and it does is not lost on me It's been women judges who have fought against DACA and so many other things. So go womanhood But at any rate so you have a lot of issues coming up last question like lots of things if there were Three top issues you wish as a community we would really focus on what would they be? What are the most important ones? I would focus on national pay leave as our biggest long-term struggle to create income any Co-op to deal with income inequality and create more opportunity. I would fight for Puerto Rico. Please fight for Puerto Rico It is such an urgent urgent urgent urgent issue and they need a Marshall plan I mean nothing short of a Marshall plan is needed. It's a it's like a hundred billion dollars of Rebuilding their infrastructure their electric grid all their major industries. The biggest industries were lost tourism Pharmaceuticals and and agriculture destroyed so they can't even create a tax base They can't even create the ability people to earn a living So I would pick those two as is my top two issues right now because it could not be more Worrisome to me personally. Oh, and I'll just add the third do not let us pass Trump care ever ever ever ever So if the next time they bring it out It's gonna be we're gonna have to fight even harder because and that means millions of people don't have access to health care Yeah, so any last words of inspiration from our great senator just keep fighting and don't give up It's all about you and we say the same to you and we're there to back you up. Thank you very much