got health coverage for 95% of coloradans. we lifted our rural economy. we rose to the number one economy in america. then we beat the nra by enacting universal background checks. i am running for president because we need to represent washington and get things done. i have proven we can produce the progressive change washington failed to deliver. join me and we will repair the damage done to our country and be stronger than ever. >> ahead of that video announcement, john hickenlooper visited with supporters in early voting states, including a house party in manchester, new hampshire.

>> how you doing? you survived to do all of this yourself? how are you? nice to meet you, thanks for coming. oh, oh? you are kidding, that's so great. colorado, no kidding. >> i've got to go to munich. [indiscernible] long as he's healthy, i know he's in love.

>> he opened his first restaurant in denver. danny opened his in 1986. >> i can only ever look at it. >> i talk about danny all with time. we have forgotten how to serve, right? as song who has served, i -- as someone who has served, i understand with the transaction should look like and feel like.

[indiscernible] this was 15 years ago. it so muchted better. the customer comes first. just you as the manager. you, sir, for the event, you do that happily and get it taken care of. >> $4 million into a restaurant. it is all in the hands of a 21-year-old. [laughter] [indiscernible] >> imagine what dreams they will create. [indiscernible] >> i have seen you on both coasts.

[indiscernible] i know, i know. i had a feeling. [indiscernible] >> my sister was a teacher her whole life. you could not have two more different schools. it is a tightknit community. >> welcome, we are so glad you are here. >> i am delighted to be here. especially in 2020. you could to go to new hampshire, iowa, south carolina ,he states are so different emblematic of america, right?

[indiscernible] i could come out here week after week just going to cafes. [indiscernible]

>> nieces, nephews, they love it, they love what you've done. [indiscernible] >> wonderful to have you here. wish you well. i know my own inclination as well. >> we're excited. i guess this was before the battle of trenton?

something like that. >> we are going to make it. >> it was the pouring rain and he was waiting [indiscernible] and it looked like the war was going to be over. >> back in the 1980's in new hampshire, i can remember my friends saying to me that the kids had never been to a victory party. now look at what happened in new hampshire. it was so nice to meet you. [indiscernible]

>> i had a family member who had a house up there. he was the youngest of 12. >> my gosh. [indiscernible]

[indiscernible] >> you end up getting sucked in as the bartender. [indiscernible]

[indiscernible] >> they put me every place. i appreciate it. thank you for coming, i appreciate it. [indiscernible]

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>> i think we're going to do this thing now. [applause] gov. hickenlooper my real and i'm every responsibility is to promote clap first for employers. [applause] that was good. [laughter] gary and meg, thank you so much for this.

thank you for helping put this together. clearly aisa, this is jammed room. i very much appreciate that. politics doesn't happen without people willing to put in the time to make sure that everyone gets informed, invited, and there is a place that gives the opportunity to let everyone hear. i'm going to give a pretty concise, famous last words, just a quick summary of how i got into this and why i'm doing this. then i will open for questions. i'm going to spend 10 or 12 minutes just talking and hopefully 15 answering questions and then we will let you guys go back to making mischief in new hampshire. i grew up outside philadelphia. my mother was widowed twice before she was 40. she had a husband who died in

world war ii. she met my dad, he got cancer, passing away right after i turned eight. my mom was one of those people who said you cannot control what life throws at you, but you can control how you respond, whether it makes you stronger or weaker, better or worse. that kind of always stayed with me. when a kid has to raise themselves to a certain point, i wasn't that good at it. i had a rather checkered high school career. i was not a good student. i was always behind and i was lazy, too. i fell in love with geology in college and got a masters. that took me out to colorado. i was attracted by the sense of freedom and independence that the west is known for. but when i was out there, what was so profound was the history of what really made the west and it was collaboration, the

ability of people, what allowed the west to be settled was the wagon train where everyone could come together and had a role. when you think about it, the trappers, the frontiersman, the gunfights on main street, evidently there were always six you could find, could certify, six shootouts in the history of the wild west. yet there were tens of thousands of barnraisers where neighbors came together and help each other make the investment that allowed them to succeed in what was in many ways inhospitable territory. the price of gold, silver, oil, it all collapsed. everyone was laid off and i was out of work for a couple of years. i can tell you, you see that for many of the people who voted for president trump. after six months unemployed you see a different person in the mirror and you begin to distrust

some of the things you had always taken for granted. like a lot of americans it took me years, raising money, getting people to invest in this thing that people had never seen. this was 1987. my own mother wouldn't invest. and my mother was very frugal. she never bought a dress, never bought her own clothes. she washed tinfoil. tape it to the-- refrigerator door. >> shouldn't everybody? [laughter] gov. hickenlooper our rent was one dollar per square foot per year and it was pretty abandoned. we were the first restaurant to open in five years. there were half of a dozen other restaurants.

i went to them and said, we are all struggling. if we work together, maybe we can help each other and be a rising tide, and within six months we were advertising together in the denver post with a map and each location said come down to each district. we purchased pint glasses together and we started something called the brewers factory the next summer. over time, that collaborative effort really succeeded and i ended up opening brew pubs all over the midwest. i loved taking the abandoned parts of downtown and that sense of creating community in a powerful way. fast forward to 2003, long story, but i was the guy in the restaurant who always said, my customers would go after every elected official. that mayor is a bum, that city councilman is a bum. i said this is america, they are

are us. we should run for government. for office. i have never run for anything in my life. i never ran for student council. i don't want to insult the people that were probably class president, but the bottom line is that i threw myself into it for the sense that the government wasn't working for the people and i wanted to bring a kind of small business perspective to it and work together. denver is a pretty big city. before i got elected we agreed we would all work together and share water rights, build transit, solve our problems together. we had a lot of success. everyone told me that what you are in the suburbs, that's a you get elected. the people in denver are the ones who vote. i got the 65% of the vote running against talented lifetime politicians and on the re-election i got 87% of the vote.

we took that into the governor's race. i said i was going to run to be the governor of the entire state and we would be the first state to bring along the rural areas. we were 40th in job creation. i said we are going to reach out and make sure that everyone stays connected. this is one team like e pluribus unum, from many comes one. i was the first mayor in 130 years to get elected governor because no one in the city had ever used that collaborative approach. it turned out, and this is why i get to why i'm so attracted to running for president. i do not see anyone else out there who has a record of examples where they got people together, got them to lay down their weapons and achieve progressive goals. we had the oil and gas industry to sit down with a monumental -- sit down with the environmental industry, and trust me, they hate each other.

it is like the hatfields and mccoys. it took 14 months, but we have comprehensive methane regulations. we addressed every aspect of emissions. it is one of the most harmful climate pollutants you can have in we got the oil and gas industry to agree to pay $60 million to inspect everything, and make sure -- it was the equivalent of taking 20,000 cars -- 320,000 cars off the road a year in colorado. [applause] we will be the first large area state in america where every single town will have broadband. if you want everyone to share in the future economy, you have to

make a commitment that everyone deserves what is now the most basic form of communication, which is broadband. one of the funny things i have saved a bunch of emails, there were a bunch of republican farmers who were very skeptical. they looked sideways, but some supporting me because they thought it was so interesting that such a thing could happen. and now they are the ones who say to me, you got to run. we will come to iowa and talk about what you did for the rural farmers of colorado. i woke up in the middle of the night, and my wife, and you will get a chance to meet her, and she is a super smart business executive for a company called liberty media. it is about a $75 billion

company. i woke up in the middle of the night, she was awake. thank goodness because i would have woken her up and that would have been a mistake. [laughter] i said, beating donald trump is absolutely essential. for the future of this country, if not the future of the world. absolutely, right? [applause] but it is not sufficient. you cannot talk with your neighbor over the hedge over a political issue. you have to get back to the point that in that process of discussion, and the one thing i learned in the restaurant business is how to listen. if someone is angry, you repeat their words, and it helps them feel validated. that is the missing link in a lot of this. once you feel heard, people loosen up a little bit, and when you listen hard enough, you begin to trust someone, and once you trust someone, you can begin

to collaborate and get stuff done. there are too many major issues facing this country and this planet, not just climate change. climate change may be on the top of the list, if we do not fix it, nothing else will matter. but health care, i mean, let's find out how to get the universal coverage. we have to figure out how to control inflation. health care every year was going up for everybody. these are major issues, and we are fighting over some stupid wall on a border that is really not a threat. i am not saying we need to falter over border security issues, but we have bigger issues we need to address. when i was running for mayor and i had these young volunteers who were idealistic and eager and excited, for the first seven weeks, nothing happened. i stayed at 4% in the polls and they got a little cranky. [laughter] i found this article" the denver

post talking about the worst of times and the best of times. talk about the agony, the ecstasy. she asked me what is the , opposite of despair? someone said, joy. they said exactly. then she said, what is the opposite of woe? and a kid in the back said, giddy-up! [laughter] the bottom line is that almost in every case, the opposite of woe is giddyup. [laughter] [applause] any questions? no questions?

>> you have a compelling track record. a compelling message. given where we are today in politics, the vitriol, the hatred put out on a daily basis, where did you start to reverse that? you talk about symbiotic relationships and being pragmatic, and that is true, but where do you start to change this? and catch the eye and ear of all of us. you caught my daughter's eyes and ears, but where do you start? gov. hickenlooper i think you start at your first step. part of human nature is we all feel safer when we are with our own family, our own tribe, our own neighborhood, our own community. however you define that, we feel

safer there. but something special happens when you're able to collaborate with people who are somewhat different from us or from the town over. we were talking about this this afternoon, when people first settled in the west, each ranch, each farm was independent. but they had to be able to work with their neighbors for safety and security, and when they got their crops, they had to figure out how to get them to market. if pure capital denied them fair value for their crops, they would come together and collaborate to get a common good. part of what i'm trying to talk about hopefully over the next two years, or i guess i should say 19.5 months, part of that is this notion that we are stronger together when we are united. it sounds like a cliche when you talk about it. there is no magic to it.

the truth is not like a grail that will appear over and alter. altar. it has to be the fact that people are hearing what i say, and think about how it fits with their own experience, and say , huh. when i opened my restaurant, i put ads in the back, advertising my competitors. people said, this is a dog eat dog business and you cannot market our opponents. and i said, maybe our opponents is the tv set, and our job is to get people outside with their family and friends. if we do a great job, and competitive restaurants do a great job, people will go out more often. that is the pitch i made to the restaurant owners, and they bought it. and we did it, and it worked.

when i worked with the suburban mayors, and my predecessor was a great mayor, but he hated the mayor of aurora and they cannot be in the same room together. i visited him one time, and the issues were mainly personality. he was a great mayor, the mayor of aurora. and he said, your airport keeps us awake. your economic development people steel our jobs. imagine if i was the mayor of denver, and we had a joint press conference, and we were doing a big development on the border, and i made sure you got all of ink in the- the newspaper, would that make a difference? he looked at me and said, it might. [laughter] and i think that is true, right? people get locked up.

often, it is historic. the suburb in the city of denver have hated each other for 80 years. the people did not hate each other. the politicians were self-interested. government has to re-learn how to serve people, right? that is one thing you learn in the restaurant business. i cannot tell you how many thousands of plates of food i have taken out to people. that is a very powerful lesson in what government should be doing, re-learning how to make sure we are doing that. >> i wonder what you thought of the green new deal. gov. hickenlooper i have not seen a new deal in detail. i think i am the first geologist in the history of america to be elected as governor. i have a master's in environmental science.

i can tell you the time for incremental improvement has passed. we have to move rapidly, and boldly, with a sense of urgency. from what i have seen, the different aspects and initiatives that are collected in the new green deal are powerful and useful. the key is to sit down and look at which goes first, and which might go later because it will be a question of priorities. we will not have endless amounts of money. we are going to have to figure out, in real time, how we are going to address the most serious climate pollutants. and while we are talking about at howshould be looking to collaborate internationally.

you look at the deterioration of relationships. i'm not talking just between china and the united states, and i don't think it is a good idea to let china continues to take our intellectual property. every time anyone wants to do business, they have to give their intellectual property to china. we need to deal with that, but we're also not going to do a climate change by ourselves, are we? we have to stand arm and arm and elbow to elbow with all of the large countries on the globe to make sure we're all doing it together. so, we have to make sure we understand the priorities here in real-time, and get everyone working together on every continent on this planet. >> it is very compelling a you managed to unite the government in colorado. have you talked to trump supporters and unite the country? gov. hickenlooper so, your question was, it is one thing to talk to republican mayors and

democratic mayors in suburban denver, and i can tell you, those are some hardened souls, and how do you address the people who supported trump? you know, lincoln's thing where he said, he walked away from a meeting and said, i don't like that guy. i need to get to know him better. i think there is something to be said -- i think about when i was out of work for a long time. back in the 1980's and 1990's, a lot of people think it was outsourcing and opening trade barriers, but a lot of it was automation, and a lot of jobs were eliminated. the key was the government did nothing. july 7,ot laid off 1986, that is the day i opened the wine and beer brewing company.

those are pivotal moments. i went to get unemployment and , the unemployment office provided a service that was a two-hour seminar, and keep in mind, i was one of 20,000 geologists who lost their job in seven years, and no one was hiring. it was like a vacuum in the profession. you don't find geologists 58 to 68. they all got pushed out. this seminar was going to teach me how to put my resume together, and how to write a letter of application to try to get another job as a geologist, which were none. it was the fundamental nonsense of government. we did the same thing to millions of people in the 1980's and 1990's, and they felt no one

cared, and that the people in the cities turned their backs on them. this could happen again. automation, artificial intelligence, we are going to start to see big job dislocation. now we can get ahead of it. with technology where it is, we can figure out what professions are going to begin to disappear, and start training people with the skills they need to do three years before they lose their jobs. we got a $26 million grant from microsoft a year and a half ago. and we are building something called skillful.com. it will address these issues in real-time. we will have a lot of new jobs. we will need different skills. you don't have to be a master engineer to manage a robot. regular people with a little skill could do this. our challenge is to get

community college -- everyone says free college, free college -- but the business community is dying to invest in community colleges. without breaking the bank in the next year or two, we could make community colleges free and focused on what people need in business. >> speaking of agriculture, are you going to discuss marijuana policy? [laughter] gov. hickenlooper for those who do not know, i opposed the legalization of recreational marijuana. i thought there could be a spike in teenage consumption, and i remain very concerned, when you are a teenager and your brain is rapidly growing, the high thc in marijuana has a very, very high probability, even with intermittent usage, once a week,

has a high probability of taking a sliver of your long-term memory. i have a 16-year-old son, he is so sick of hearing this. your long-term memory is your iq and is how we measure intelligence. so, i thought there would be a spike, a spike in driving while high. no one had even done it before. even amsterdam de-criminalized it and created a whole regulatory system. now we are about five years into it, and all the things we most feared have not happened. it is not perfect, there is still a black market out there, and all kinds of things we are still working on, but you got to step back and look at the old system, right? what was before?

we sent millions of kids to prison. we made them felons. we made the rest of their lives almost unimaginable. for what purpose? i think i am at the point, when we repealed the beer act and made beer and alcohol legal, we pushed responsibility onto the states. when i go from denver to oklahoma, you don't find any liquor. you go through dry counties. states are the laboratory of democracy. in colorado has been that laboratory with marijuana. colorado would never go back to the old way. i tell people all the time, you should never do it for the tax revenue.

we already have cases of drug addiction. serious opioid problems, we had been able to fight back in the opioid addiction is coming down a little bit. marijuana sales tax revenue, i think we are pushing close to million we have spent to address the consequences of marijuana addiction. one thing i would put out his is make sure you identify before you legalize it, how you are going to use the money so it won't be a food fight. in colorado, we have to make sure that the money stays and focuses on the consequences of drug addiction. yeah?

>> this is a health care question. let's say we cannot do medicare for all tomorrow, what are three things you would do first given the political reality in d.c. to address price in health care? access,kenlooper: i am a huge believer in community health centers. a friend of mine started a community health center in 1972. and he got me and another guy to take are saved money and buy of building to renovate and expand his community health center, which has 220 locations in connecticut. they are the most cost-effective way to make sure we can get to a point where everyone has a medical home.

in other words, we are just about 95% covered in colorado, but how do we get that 5%? one way if you don't have any money, is free, but a place where everyone can have a medical home. overall cost, transparency. they will give you a million reasons, but hospitals and clinics should all be able to say, here is what it will cost to take your stitches out. we should be able to see what the cost is for a b plus quality hospitals in colorado have too many variations. walmart has 130,000 sku's. every color, every size. they let you know what

everything costs, right? [laughter] i'm just saying. and you should look at medicare advantage if you really want to see -- medicare isn't the best way to control costs. medicare advantage is dramatically cheaper and it allows you to do things like tele-medicine. our health care system is a business. and businesses reward where they get paid. if you keep someone from getting diabetes, you don't get paid for that. you get paid where there is a crisis, like going to the hospital. medicare advantage has all kinds of ways where you can do tele-medicine. it is a rate were doctors get compensated on keeping people well.

last, quick question. this is the last question. i know, i know, i know. you cannot deny the youth to ask a question. [laughter] the future of our country. balancing a social and environmental problem. we have done a lot to address economical problems, and you talked about the other two. what would be your solution to the biggest problems, which are climate change, jail reform and gun reform? gov. hickenlooper: that is not a short question. [laughter] why don't we pick one? we did government reform. -- we did gun reform. when we got the statistics on universal background checks, we finally got the actual statistics for colorado. in colorado, 5 million people --

there were 38 people who tried to buy a gun and was convicted of a homicide, and we stopped them. 130 people convicted of felony assault, they tried to buy guns. when you take care of your local statistics, i think that is so compelling. in terms of climate change, once you get the momentum, a lot of other gun safety things will pass. with climate change, we have to re-think how we build things and use our resources. we got the volkswagen settlement for the diesel corruption. we took a huge chunk of it and used the money to finance rapid recharging electrical stations for electric cars, and get them

all over our state. and then what we did, which was really smart, i called up my friend matt, and i said, matt, montana will use their money for electric recharging stations. do you want people to drive around wyoming? he signed on. we got all 10 western states, six republican governors to create a network of recharging stations. we have to get into that muscle of doing things together. thank you. [applause] >> i am giving john a little bit of an out as he makes his way that way. he has another event in concord. i told you he was a very nice

guy, but we do need to let the governor head out. thank you all. lisa and eric, thank you again. and thank you all for coming. thank you. [applause] >> i thought you were wonderful. really wonderful. [indiscernible] >> good luck with everything you are doing. >> well done.

>> my name is dick henry, and my uncle was here. i really liked what you said. [indiscernible] >> thank you for your insight. [indiscernible]

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>> thank you so much. thank you very much. [indiscernible] >> thank you. you are welcome back anytime. thank you for coming. we appreciate it.

good luck with everything. [indiscernible] >> congratulations. >> so glad she's going out there. i'm glad. [indiscernible] >> i agree. i think we have done a good job to this point, so i think we have to keep going. >> my son is 16. he's going to go out to college in a couple years. [indiscernible] >> how are you doing?

good to see you. notad drinks at harpoon -- harpoon, redhook. [indiscernible] which is becoming increasingly more difficult in the state for young people. a lot of restrictive voting bills. >> but the students are very well educated, active, engaged. they are working to vote. >> i'm going to come by. we will do something then. >> yeah, yeah. >> thank you. nice to see you. >> thank you. [indiscernible]

>> i went to a private school. [indiscernible] no kidding. >> thank you for coming, governor. >> doing good work. >> thank you. [indiscernible] >> we will see you at stonyfield. >> my new hampshire living room experience. >> thank you. >> ok, i'm going to let you go. >> ok. >> good to see you. [laughter] [indiscernible] >> was that you? >> it was you that i saw.

>> i apologize. >> i owe you. >> you owe me. [indiscernible] >> thank you, governor. have a great trip. see you around. >> another one that was doing all of the economic development. >> yeah, yeah, yeah. it's going great. we would love to give you kind of a tour of what were doing. >> thank you very much. [indiscernible] >> former colorado governor john hickenlooper visited manchester, new hampshire leading up to his official announcement today that he is running for president. here is