QUESTION: I'm a freshman at Brown University. And going to college this year, I was confused with an important decision. My mom advised me one way; my dad the other. And so my question for you all is–and it's not quite boxers or briefs, but Macs or PCs?
KUCINICH: PC.
SHARPTON: A politically correct Mac.
KUCINICH: PC.
We have a question for Congressman Kucinich: You talk about the U.N. pulling out of Iraq–or you talk about the U.S. pulling out–the U.N. in–I should have been watching the video.
(LAUGHTER)
Why do you have so much confidence in the U.N.? I mean, there are those who say, look, the U.N. is already pulling out of Iraq, in the face of terror. There are those who say that the U.N. closed their eyes in Srebrenica, in Bosnia, and that they debated while a million people were killed in Rwanda.
Why are you so confident…
KUCINICH: First of all, we have to understand that the United States has not been particularly supportive of the U.N. process–we know that–over many years.
For many years, the United Nations was having trouble getting funding. And the inability to get funding had a material impact, an adverse impact, on the ability of the United Nations to do its job around the world.
As president of the United States, I've said, as you recorded, I want to get the U.N. in and the U.S. out of Iraq, because we have to acknowledge that the United States made a grave mistake in the first place in going in there, that we are–if it was a mistake to go in, it is a mistake to stay in.
And the only way that we could be safe as a nation is to reach out and to engage with the world community in the cause of international security. So the U.N. going in would mean the U.N. would handle the oil, with no privatization of the oil assets.
KUCINICH: The U.N. would handle the contract. No more Halliburton sweetheart deals. The U.N. would handle the cause of governance.
(APPLAUSE)
The U.N. would handle the cause of helping the Iraqi people become self governing again. And as we do that, we affirm the United States' intention to work with the world community. And it's time for us to rejoin the world, I think.
QUESTION: My question is this: Who were you when you were 20 years old? And did you ever think that you would run for president?
COOPER: Who is your question to?
QUESTION: Any of the candidates.
(LAUGHTER)
KUCINICH: I was a candidate for a city council in the city of Cleveland. And I determined that I wanted to serve my country by being involved in public service. I had a heart murmur. I couldn't get into the military. But I knew that my life doesn't belong to just me. It belongs, I feel, to the community. So I chose a life of public service. And I think that every person who ever serves wants to be able to help more and more people.
And so, I'm grateful to have the chance, here–actually, because a New York Times reporter had asked me, I went back to get an autobiography I wrote in the 10th grade. And I looked at it today, and I saw that in the 10th grade I said that I wanted to pursue a career in national politics because I was interested in public service.
So, what it says is this: If you have a dream in your heart about the kind of world that you want to help create, if you have the passion, trust that. It's what Emerson wrote about trust thyself. Every heart vibrates to that iron string. And when you trust that inner-knowingness, you could follow it all the way. You can follow it here. You could follow it to the career of your dreams. Thank you.
COOPER: Congressman Kucinich, where do you stand on this issue? I mean, what is your position on gay rights?
KUCINICH: As president, I would help to create a culture in America so that people could be whoever they are, because if America is about anything, it has to be about a chance for people to live out their dream and to express their own authenticity.
The question that was asked earlier by the young woman about why would young people want to pick any particular candidate, and in my case it's because the same passion that I felt at age 20 about changing the world, that fire in the heart, that fire in the spirit, that same willingness to try to change it all resides in me right now. It's that spirit rebellious that doesn't accept the status quo, that's ready to take a vision and take it to the farthest place.
If you want to rock the boat, you have to rock the boat. You have to be willing to challenge the status quo.
(APPLAUSE)
KUCINICH: And so, gays, lesbians, bisexual, transgender people under my administration would have full participation, and they would also have the right to marry.
QUESTION: My question is for Senator Edwards. You mentioned that job creation is one of the things you would do to help out our generation. Can you give some more specifics about that, how you'd go about that process?
COOPER: Congressman Kucinich?
KUCINICH: Imagine what it's like for young people who are working very hard to complete a college education and then find out–you get the diploma, there's no jobs. Under my administration, I intend to take the following steps to get this American economy moving.
Number one, cancel the Bush tax cuts that went to the people in the top brackets.
(APPLAUSE)
Number two, get the United States out of Iraq. We have to stop these misadventures around the world. We have to work with the world community. And that will save us hundreds of billions of dollars.
(APPLAUSE)
Number three, cut the Pentagon budget by 15 percent and put that money into universal pre-kindergarten.
(APPLAUSE)
Number four, take the money from the Bush tax cuts that went to the top bracket and put it into a fund to create universal college education, tuition free, for all those young people who go to public colleges and universities all across this country. We can afford it. What's our priority?
(APPLAUSE)
Number five, get the National Aeronautics and Space Administration involved in developing new energy technologies, new environmental technologies. Create a whole new America, a new economy and jobs for all, a full employment economy.
COOPER: All right, we are getting a lot of e-mail pouring in. Probably a predictable question just got asked. It is an e-mail from a viewer: “Which of you are ready to admit to having used marijuana in the past?”
And they want us to go around and ask each of you.
KUCINICH: No, but I think it ought to be decriminalized.