Welcome back to the show, Senator.
-Thank you. -What a time to have you on.
Um, in the past week and...
week or so, it has felt like
there has been an onslaught on women's rights in America.
Is it an overreaction that people are have... having
when they say this feels like the beginning of the end,
or is it truly a dire situation for women to be in?
It is truly a dire situation.
It's been an all-out attack.
30 states have tried to pass laws, or are passing laws,
or have passed laws to undermine women's reproductive freedom.
And they're trying to take away women's civil rights
and our human rights, uh,
-and their goal is to overturn Roe v. Wade. -Right.
And it's something that President Trump is doing,
and the Republican Party, and they don't want women
to make the most intimate personal,
life-and-death decisions, uh,
for their own bodies and their own families.
As-as a lawmaker, uh, do you have an insight
into how this has become so politicized?
Because it feels like, at one point in America,
it really did feel like it was between a woman and her doctor.
I mean, even Reagan said that at some point.
He says, it's intimate, it doesn't involve... l-legal.
You know, it's not... it's not lawmakers' decision to make.
When did you feel the shift?
What changed it in America?
President Trump has emboldened, uh, right-wing Republicans.
He's emboldened them with the nomination
of Justice Gorsuch and Kavanaugh.
Uh, and this was something he ran on and said he would do,
-and it's exactly what he's doing. -Right.
Uh, he's basically taking away our basic human rights
to make those decisions about our families--
when we're having children, how many we're having,
under what circumstances.
And they're criminalizing women's decisions
and criminalizing the doctors who provide that care.
Right. When you... when you look at the lawmakers themselves,
people have criticized the idea that 25 men can create a law
that literally will never affect their bodies.
Do you think there's a new way
that we could think about making laws where you go like,
"Maybe some laws shouldn't be written by men,
"because men have no clue
about what is actually happening in a woman's body"?
Yes, I mean, I think this is...
shows why I've worked so hard over the last seven years
to elect more women to Congress.
Uh, we still, uh, have you know,
woefully inadequate numbers of women.
We have to get to 51% to represent the actual diversity
-of our country. -Right.
We need more women in leadership.
We need to lift up women's voices,
and women need to fight.
They need to fight like everything
that they care about as... is at stake, because it is.
It's a life-or-death issue for many women.
When you... when you look at that,
as a... as a life-or-death issue,
as someone who is running for president of the United States,
um, whether you get the job or not,
what do you think people need to be looking for in a president?
Because you do have, let's say, almost half of the country
who believes that abortion should be outlawed
-or-or is deeply immoral. -It's not half.
-70% of America believes in Roe v. Wade. -Right.
Believes that women should have this fundamental decision
about their lives.
But at the same time, I think it's 49% of women say
that they're conflicted or they think that it should be
in some way monitored or.. you know,
they say it's gone too far in certain states, et cetera.
How do you then govern an entire country
where people disagree that much on that level?
How do you ... how do you convince them,
is what I'm saying, as a leader?
I think this country deserves a president who's brave,
someone who will stand up to do the right thing
even when it's hard, especially when it's hard.
And that's why I'm running for president,
because I will lift up women's voices,
I will do the hard things.
I will talk to folks in every part of this country,
whether it's red, purple or blue,
about their values and about what's right for America.
-Right. -And I can tell you,
women deserve basic civil rights in this country,
and they deserve to make these fundamental decisions
about their bodies and their families with their doctors.
And I don't think this is something
that we should back down on.
And I hope that women continue to fight,
because since President Trump's been elected,
women have been marching.
The 2018 election cycle was about women running for office
and winning, getting the women's votes out.
So women are on fire, and if this is a fight
that President Trump wants with the American people
and America's women, it's a fight he's gonna have,
and it's a fight he's gonna lose.
(cheering, applause)
Let's, um...
Let's switch gears for a second
and talk about some of your plans for how you think
America could change the way elections are run.
Because, in effect, we are dealing with the effects
of how the elections operate in the country.
One of the more interesting proposals you've made
is the Clean Elections Plan.
Can you explain what that is?
There's a lot of political corruption.
We all know Washington's broken,
and we know that anything we want to accomplish,
whether it's a Green New Deal
or health care as a right and not a privilege,
or affordable day care, universal pre-K,
there's always something or someone standing in the way,
and it's the greed and corruption in Washington.
And so I want to get money out of politics.
I want to restore our democracy
to the hands of the people, and the way you do that
is through publicly funded elections,
and that's what this Clean Elections Bill will do.
What does that mean, "publicly funded elections"?
It means that if you agree to a Clean Elections platform
and you will not take any contributions over $200,
then you are eligible for any voter in America
to be able to donate to your campaign
through Democracy Dollars.
You would make $200 available
for every federal election for every voter.
And you would then be going to every community
-to ask for support. -Right.
You wouldn't just be going to the wealthy individuals,
-Right. -and you wouldn't have the Koch brothers
spending $300 million to change outcomes of election.
It would mean every person in America, every voter,
would have the same power as a Koch brother.
So you're saying fundamentally what would happen
-is you'd have federal dollars, -Mm-hmm.
and then every voter in America would have a $200, like, spend,
and they would get to say, "I give this to you,
I give this to you," and that determines how much you get
-as a candidate. -Correct, for every federal election.
And you'd have safeguards to make sure
people qualify to do this.
-Right. -But it basically democratizes our democracy.
It restores the power to the hands of the people,
away from the special interests.
Because you just look and see how Washington works.
If you really want health care as a right and not a privilege,
you've got to take on the insurance companies
and the drug companies that spend millions of dollars
on lobbyists and on television ads
to make sure their voice is louder than yours.
So we need to get the money out of politics
-to restore our democracy. -Let me ask you this.
(applause)
It feels like there has been, like, a groundswell of people
embracing small-dollar donations.
-Mm-hmm. -Is there a possibility or is there a world
where Democrats say: "You know what,
"we're not gonna wait for a law to pass,
"we're just gonna make that a rule amongst ourselves,
"we don't take money from corporations,
"we don't take money from special interest groups,
"we're just gonna run on the money of the people
and hope that our platform gets us to where we need to be"?
Well, that's why I'm not taking any corporate PAC money
in this presidential campaign.
I'm not taking any federal lobbyist money.
I'm not taking any fossil fuel money.
And I'm not having an individual super PAC.
And if you like this, please go to kirstengillibrand.com
and support me!
(cheering, applause)
That's exciting.
Getting the money from the people,
for the people, to run your race.
-Thank you so much for being on the show. -Thank you, Trevor.
Senator Kristen Gillibrand, everybody.