On Wednesday, something really special happened in Las Vegas. I joined with my friend and hero, Gabby Giffords, and the student activists from March for Our Lives to host a presidential candidate forum. Nine of the leading Democrats running in 2020 came and talked to hundreds of anti-gun violence activists about their plans to make our nation safer from the epidemic of gun deaths plaguing our country.

It wasn't a debate - each of the candidates got about half an hour to talk on stage with MSNBC's Craig Melvin about the details of their anti-gun violence plans. As someone who was a fairly lonely soldier during the early days on the modern anti-gun violence movement, it was pretty amazing to listen to all our presidential candidates proudly talking about their bold plans for change.

I was so excited to help host the forum, and I want to give you a behind-the-scenes view of what it was like to be at the center of this groundbreaking event.

Doing Maddow Was a Bad Idea

I arrive on Tuesday night, and on my cab ride to the hotel I have a long conversation with the driver, who explains how he is working 80 hours a week, making less than $10 an hour, and just went on Medicaid to get insurance for his infant daughter. He tells me how his company makes him forge his timesheets when pick-ups slow down to make it seem like he is taking extended, voluntary breaks. The company does this so they don't have to pay him during this time, and they make it clear that if he doesn't list his downtime as "break time," there will be consequences. He tried being an Uber driver for three years, but said the business model is a fraud - he got no health care, and ended up spending much of what he made on car purchases and maintenance. He is panicked and tired and worn down by an economy that doesn't reward hard work anymore. He works 12 hour days and savors the short hours he gets to spend every day with his seven-month-old daughter - the only time he isn't working or sleeping. He tells me that he is supporting Andrew Yang because of Yang's focus on helping those who have been displaced by the sharing economy and technology. Our conversation is heartbreaking, but it's a reminder of why I'm a Democrat. We cannot keep leaving people like him behind.

I arrive at the hotel to learn from my Communications Director, Jamie, that I've been booked to appear on Rachel Maddow's show about thirty minutes after I arrive. I love going on Rachel's show, and she has given me an amazing platform over the years to talk about my work on gun violence and building a more progressive foreign policy. But as I sit down in the chair at the Las Vegas studio, Jamie starts listing off all the impeachment-related news that has broken since I took off five hours ago from Washington. The State Department IG has announced an emergency briefing for congressional staff; Ukraine has entered into a new agreement with Russia; Rudy Guiliani is doing more Rudy stuff. As I listen to Rachel running through this avalanche of breaking news through the tiny microphone shoved into my right ear, I realize that I made a mistake. I simply cannot process all of this in such a short period of time in order to provide any kind of cogent analysis. I struggle through her three questions - two of them related to news I just learned about five minutes ago - and I head back the hotel to join a small dinner for the top supporters of the Giffords organization, at which I am due to give remarks.

My Neighbor Gabby

I get up early Wednesday morning to head to the forum venue so I can appear on MSNBC (who is the media partner for the forum) to plug the day's events. The first question I am asked is about my colleague Bernie Sanders, who was admitted to the hospital the night before with a heart ailment and will not be at the forum. "What more can you tell us about Bernie's condition?" Craig Melvin asks me. I know he has to ask - that's the breaking news of the moment - but I give my friend (and constituent) Craig a look as if to say, "C'mon - you think Bernie texted me this morning to give the inside scoop on his stent procedure?"

At around 9:30 am, I walk up on stage with Gabby Giffords and David Hogg and Ariel Hobbs from March for Our Lives to kick off the forum. I note how Gabby and I first met when we were elected to Congress together in 2006 and had offices right next to each other in the attic of the Cannon House Office Building. I'm so proud of the powerhouse organization she has built, and I get to spend a ton of time with her over the course of the day. This makes me so happy.

I've agreed to sort of act as the host and spokesman for the forum. I'll open and close the forum on stage with Gabby, spend time with all the candidates backstage before and after their appearances, and I will do endless TV, print, and podcast interviews over the course of the day to promote the forum. After coming down off stage, I head off to speak to a few dozen reporters about the importance of the event. It's hard to overhype the significance of the forum. It was just a few years ago when the conventional wisdom held that Democrats who wanted to win a national election had to keep their mouths shut about gun violence. Now, there are few issues that motivate swing voters more than guns (exit polls show that after health care, guns was the second most important issue to anyone who voted for Democrats in 2018), and Democrats running for president are tripping over themselves to show how strong and bold their gun reform proposals are. I helped Giffords and March for our Lives get the candidates to agree to all come to Vegas and appear at this forum, but honestly, it wasn't that hard.

Mayor Pete, Julián, Cory and Elizabeth

Pete Buttigieg is one of the few 2020 candidates that I don't know, so I'm eager to spend some time with him. Unfortunately, one of my interviews conflicts with his time on stage, so I only catch a bit of his remarks, but we do get to catch up for a few minutes backstage afterward. Julián Castro has a bad cold, and I can tell the pace of the campaign is wearing him down. But once he hits the stage, any sign of a lingering illness disappears. Cory Booker is one of my closest friends, and we spend some time chatting backstage before he goes on. I tell him he is required to drop my name at least three times during his remarks, and he complies by telling everyone in the audience to buy my upcoming book about violence in America. I quickly tweet out that I didn't ask him to do that!

Elizabeth Warren hits it out of the park, making the case passionately that the gun lobby's power in Washington is symbolic of how broken the political system is. How can 90% of people who want universal background checks not get their way, just because one political interest group opposes the measure? After Elizabeth's speech, we break for lunch, where I am due to give remarks again. As I'm waiting to go up on stage, pint-sized heroine Emma Gonzelez (of the famous "I call B.S." speech after Parkland) taps me on the shoulder and gives me a big hug. It's just so amazing to see all these kids helping to run this forum, further proof that they have taken a leadership role in the movement.

I haven't seen Emma in a while, so I want to know what she's been doing with her life. "What are you up to, Emma?"

She smirks. "I'm eating a blueberry muffin."

Beto, Joe, Amy, Andrew, and Kamala

I get asked a lot about what I think of Beto O'Rourke's plan to pass legislation requiring the government to buy back assault weapons. I tell folks that I haven't endorsed that idea, but I appreciate Beto's authentic, genuine passion on this issue. And that's what comes across so clearly to me, listening to all the candidates. They all have a personal connection to gun violence - they've met the family members left behind; many have been on the scene for the worst of these cascading massacres. I've been so struck by how emotional their testimony is, and no one is more passionate on this issue than Beto.

I get to chat backstage with Vice President Biden for a while, and I tell him about all the Republican Senators who have quietly approached me to find a path forward on a background checks bill. It's true - the proof of the strength of our movement is that Republican members of Congress really don't want to stand for reelection in 2020 without having passed a background checks bill. I congratulate Biden for releasing a detailed anti-gun violence plan and tell him to keep it up.

That's Why I'm In This T-Shirt

After I finish up wrapping up the forum, I head outside to appear on Anderson Cooper's show on CNN. The cameraman has set up right outside the main door to the forum, right at the moment that everyone is leaving. The commotion is super distracting, and my gun policy staffer Lauren courageously tries to bar people from leaving through the door closest to the camera as I go live on the air. Cooper doesn't want to talk guns - he wants to talk about the latest breaking news on impeachment. I've been wearing an anti-gun violence t-shirt all day, so I try to work it into one of my first answers an explanation as to why I'm appearing on live TV in a t-shirt from Las Vegas. But luckily, he does work in a question on guns at the end, and I get the chance to push back on President Trump's new argument that impeachment will stand in the way of his work with me and others to get a deal on background checks. I reassure Cooper that I'm still willing to negotiate a gun bill - if it doesn't happen, it will be Trump that walks away.

After a short break at the hotel, I head off to do one last television appearance, this time on Lawrence O'Donnell's MSNBC show. This time, I've taken the time to catch up on the dizzying pace of the day's news, and I feel much better about my performance. He sneaks in a question about gun violence too, which makes me feel good.

Everyone with the Giffords organization and March for Our Lives seems thrilled with the event, and I certainly share their excitement. In my opening remarks, I tell the audience that the great change movements you read about in the history books are not the ones that gave up when their cause was met with failure or adversity. The great change movements that get chapters written about them in history books are the ones that do not give up when they don't meet early success, confident that the righteousness of their cause will prevail over time. In the years after the Sandy Hook massacre, our movement was young and still getting its footing, and often I felt very alone in pushing anti-gun violence measures in Congress. Now, our movement is more powerful than the gun lobby, and this forum, with nine candidates for president eager to curry favor from anti-gun violence activists, is the proof. And I'm so excited to have played a role in pulling it off.


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