Democratic presidential hopeful Kirsten Gillibrand just chatted with CNN and answered a few questions after tonight’s town hall.
We asked her five, simple questions so voters can get to know her better.
Here’s what she said:
CNN: What’s one thing about you that surprises people?
Gillibrand: “One thing that surprises people about me is that I used to speak Chinese.”
CNN: What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever received?
Gillibrand: “Never give up. Be brave. Be bold. Believe in yourself.”
CNN: What’s your favorite movie and why?
Gillibrand: “Wonder Woman ‘cause she’s kick-ass and she’s strong and bold and brave and never gives up.”
CNN: What three issues do we have to deal with right now?
Gillibrand: “A lot — global climate change, making sure we have health care as a right not a privilege, making sure people who want to be working or underemployed or unemployed have a job. Full employment.”
CNN: Name one thing that makes you different than all the other 2020 Democratic candidates.
Gillibrand: “Well I have a very different story and I come from a rural part of a state as diverse as New York. I won a 2 to 1 Republican district twice and then I brought my whole state together with the highest vote total at 72% and bring people together in Congress all the time. I actually pass a lot of legislation big bills like 9/11 health bill and “Don’t ask, don’t tell” repeal and small bills like the 18 bills that passed in the last Congress, like more money for rural broadband or more money for manufacturing.”
Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand was asked Tuesday night about her faith, specifically where it fit in the Democratic Party and if there is room for a religious left.
“Perfect question for me,” she answered. “I go to two Bible studies a week and a prayer breakfast. And so my faith is really important to me.”
She added that Democrats are better on some Christian principles than Republicans:
When she was asked if she ever felt like being a person of faith in the Democratic Party was “odd,” since conservatives in the Republican party tend to be more outspoken in their religious beliefs, she answered, “No.”
“I define myself by my faith. It centers me. It’s something that is one of the reasons why I’m running for president,” she said.
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand said she doesn’t know if the voting age should be lowered.
“I don’t know. I really don’t know. I like the idea of it because we want to inspire more young people. But I like the fact that when you turn 18, you earn this right. It’s a special right. It’s a right of passage. It’s also the time when you’re independent of your parents as a matter of law. So I like the simplicity of 18,” she said.
Gillibrand went on to say she would think about it.
Democratic presidential candidate Kirsten Gillibrand took a few moments to shake hands and talk to voters during the commercial breaks.
Check out the moment:
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand argued on Tuesday that the fact she once held an A-rating with the National Rifle Association makes her better equipped to talk to gun owners about the need for gun control.
Gillibrand, a mother of two, also said the way to reach conservatives on this issue is to make it about family and children.
“I think I can walk into any voter in a red state or a purple state or a blue state, gun owners, NRA members, and say, you do care about a four-year-old dying on a park bench in Brooklyn, don’t you,” Gillibrand said. “And the humanity of each person in this country should kick in.”
Gillibrand said earlier this year that she was “embarrassed” by her past positions on guns. She began to changed her position after she became a senator and met with Jennifer Pryear and Alberto Yard, the parents of Nyasia Pryear-Yard, a young woman who was killed in a 2009 shooting in Brooklyn.
“So, I had an A-rating as a House member,” she said in Iowa earlier this year. “I only really looked at guns through the lens of hunting. My mother still shoots the Thanksgiving turkey. But when I became senator, I recognized I had a lot to learn about my state and all of the 20 million I was going to represent.”
Asked if she would support making vaccines mandatory, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand said she needed to think about it before answering, but she added that parents need more information on preventable diseases overall.
“I haven’t thought about whether I would make it mandatory. I would need to think about that. But I do believe that parents need more information about why vaccines are so essential. Parents need to know that their child could die of preventable diseases, that they could spread a preventable disease and other children could die,” she said.
Gillibrand said she thinks vaccines save lives and that parents are just afraid because of rumors and myths.
“I think parents have been afraid. I think they’ve been made afraid by rumors and myths and, you know, fake news. So I think that we need to do a much better job of educating parents about the essential nature of vaccines. It does save lives, and I will work as hard as I can to make sure that every parent knows that vaccines are absolutely necessary,” she said.
When Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand decided to enter the race, she said she sat down with her two sons over the holidays to go over the decision.
The New York Democrat said they told her, “Yeah, mom, this is really important.” Her son, Theo and Henry, also gave advice.
She went on to say her sons have been “exceedingly encouraging and they believe in this mission.”
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand just heard from two members of the audience with health challenges who asked how she would negotiate the health care challenges Americans face. Does she support Medicare for All? Would she banish private health care companies? Here’s what she said.
“I’m for Medicare for All, and I believe the best way to get there is let people buy in, and that’s how we get to single payer over a very short transition, period,” she said, laying out her support for the a key legislative priority that has pushed the Democratic party to the left both in Congress and the 2020 presidential primary.
“Because they don’t necessarily care about which surgeries you need or which medicine you need or how many days in the hospitals you need,” she added. “Ultimately they’re for-profit companies, and they ever to care about their bottom line and their shareholders. I think that’s the misalignment in health care today,” she said.
And what for the private insurance companies?
“You have to see if they want to compete or not. I don’t think they will… If the insurance industry wants to continue to participate to offer some kind of coverage for some kind of things, they’ll have to compete for those customers. But if you let Americans choose basic medicare which is affordable, I don’t see that most Americans wouldn’t choose it,” she explained.
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand said Tuesday that her comments that former President Bill Clinton should have resigned amid the Monica Lewinsky scandal did not cost her the close relationship she had with Hillary Clinton.
Gillibrand told the New York Times in 2017 that Bill Clinton’s resignation would have been “the appropriate response.”
“I don’t think so,” Gillibrand said when asked whether the comment cost her the bond she has with Hillary Clinton, someone the US senator from New York counts as a mentor.
Gillibrand went on to say that she has talked to Hillary Clinton about her 2020 run and that the former secretary of state has given her advice.
Gillibrand added: “She’s somebody who I still admire and look up to, and she’s given a lot to this country.”
Hillary Clinton wrote the forward on Gillibrand’s memoir and Gillibrand went on to write that the former secretary of state changed her life by inspiring her to run.
“My commitment to Hillary was personal,” Gillibrand wrote.
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, after touting her voting record on standing up to drug companies, defended her decision to allow a top executive at pharmaceutical giant Pfizer to host a fundraiser for her 2020 campaign.
Sally Susman, Pfizer’s executive vice president and chief corporate affairs officer, hosted a fundraiser for Gillibrand earlier this year. Asked about the fundraiser on Tuesday, Gillibrand said her connection to Susman was personal.
“Why did you allow the Pfizer vice president to do that?” CNN’s Erin Burnett asked.
“Because she’s my friend, and she supports LGBTQ equality, she supports my beliefs,” Gillibrand said. “You don’t want to undermine an individual’s right to participate, but because you made that assumption, it’s one of the reasons we need to get money out of politics. Because it corrodes people’s belief that our democracy is strong.”
Gillibrand, in response to a question from a voter, defended her record on dealing with drug prices.
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand attempted to turn her previous conservative views on immigration into a strength on Tuesday, telling an audience that her admission that those views were wrong shows her ability to admit her mistakes.
Gillibrand held conservative views on immigration as a member of the House who represented a district in upstate New York.
“When I was a member of Congress from upstate New York, I was really focused on the priorities of my district. When I became senator of the entire state, I recognized that some of my views really did need to change,” Gillibrand said. “They were not thoughtful enough and didn’t care enough about people outside of the original upstate New York district that I represented. So, I learned.”
She added:
Gillibrand went on to say that she believes people should treat each other how they would like to be treated and was “ashamed” that she didn’t do that in the House.
“I did not do that as a House member, I was ashamed,” she said. “And so now as a senator for 10 years, I know I’m in the right place.”
Gillibrand ran and won a House seat around Albany, New York, in 2006 by attacking her Republican opponent from the right on immigration and guns, calling securing the border “a national security priority” and touting an A-rating from the National Rifle Association.
Gillibrand’s conservative record is one of the key criticisms her nascent candidacy receives from the left, but it shows how the 2020 candidate’s early strategy is to face up to questions about her record, not run away from them, believing that embracing her story and evolution on issues like guns and immigration could win plaudits from caucus goers in Iowa and convince them that she could win a general election against Trump by appealing to a spectrum of voters.
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand accused President Trump of “literally tearing apart the moral fabric of this country” at her town hall Tuesday night while speaking to her own perceived bipartisanship.
Telling an audience member that she was able to unite “the red places, the blue places, [and] the purple places” in New York together, Gillibrand predicted she could do it countrywide, too – “which is one of the reasons why I’m running for president. I believe I can bring this country together,” she said.
New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand opened tonight’s town hall with little Chinese and a brief story about her college years.
Asked to describe herself in Chinese, the Democratic presidential candidate did so, saying, “Hi. How are you?” as well as her Chinese name. A translator in Erin Burnett’s ear said her accent was pretty impressive.
Gillibrand said she learned Chinese in college and traveled throughout the country. She also lived in Beijing and shared a dorm with actress Connie Britton.
New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand just took the stage for tonight’s CNN town hall in Washington, D.C. You can watch it live in the video player above.
Democrats and Independents are sitting in the audience tonight.
Earlier today, Gillibrand tweeted about the town hall, saying she was excited to “answer voters’ questions and share why I’m running and who I’m fighting for.”
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand is running to win the Democratic presidential nomination.
The New York Democrat started her official campaign with a trip to Michigan, a once solidly blue state that Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton lost to President Trump.
Here’s what else you should know about Gillibrand:
New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand tweeted a video today showing off her batting skills in preparation for tonight’s town hall.
“Getting ready for tonight’s CNN town hall!,” she tweeted.
The Democratic presidential candidate appeared to hit the ball into center field.
Watch the moment:
Democratic presidential candidate Kirsten Gillibrand is set to face voters’ questions at a CNN town tall in Washington, D.C. tonight.
The event, moderated by CNN’s Erin Burnett, starts at 10 p.m. ET. You can watch it live on CNN or in the video player above.
Gillibrand, 52, is one of six women seeking the Democratic nomination and one of six senators running for president.
The New York Democrat launched an exploratory campaign in January, announcing it on CBS’ “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.” She officially announced her candidacy in March.
Gillibrand campaigned as a child with her grandmother Dorthea Noonan, a longtime president of the Albany Democratic Women’s Club. The New York Democrat called for former Sen. Al Franken to resign and has acknowledged her increasingly progressive stances on immigration and gun reform running counter to previous positions she held when running for the House (she served as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from 2007 to 2009, representing New York’s Capital District).
