At a voter registration event in Las Vegas on Tuesday,
Hillary Clinton thanked UNITE HERE for their endorsement and reiterated
her commitment to fighting for working families as president, repealing
the Cadillac Tax, and passing comprehensive immigration reform with a
path to citizenship. Pointing to Trump’s history of battling against
unionization at his Las Vegas hotel, Clinton pledged to build an economy that works for everyone—not just those at the top
Clinton
also highlighted a new voter registration drive to get more than 3
million Americans to register or commit to vote in this November’s
election. She featured an online voter registration tool in both English and Spanish, and encouraged supporters to volunteer for a voter registration shift. Clinton’s remarks, as transcribed, are below:
“Wow, didn’t Celia do a great job? Let’s give her another round of
applause. I am so excited to be here with all of you, and to have this
endorsement of such a diverse group of hardworking people who are the
backbone of our economy, not only here in Las Vegas and Nevada, but
across the United States. And I promise you that I will be your champion
in the White House.
I want to endorse someone you know well
because you also worked to elect him, to nominate him. That is Ruben
Kihuen. I’ve got to say, Ruben is someone who I admire and like so
much. You’ve got to get him elected to Congress so he and I can work
together in 2017.
I want to thank Ivana and Ted and […] and all of
the officers and everyone who is here, because this is an important
moment for my campaign. We are going to work together to turn back the
tide – the tide of negativity, the tide of violence and bigotry and
bullying. I know that Donald Trump fought against you at his Las Vegas
hotel. I was with you twice in front of the property on a picket line.
Because I believe we have got to recognize that unions have helped to
build the strongest middle class in the history of the world. I have
supported your efforts here and in Atlantic City. I was there about a
week and a half ago, visiting another picket line, in front of another
property that Trump used to own and the new owners are refusing to
recognize the union.
This is no way, my friends, to grow the
economy, to give people a chance to have their own dreams fulfilled –
and I know Las Vegas is full of dreamers. Whether you’re working in a
hotel on the strip or whether you’re in some other role and job, you
expect when you make a contract with somebody, that they fulfill it,
right? You expect, under our law, when you win an election to unionize,
they negotiate. But that’s not Donald Trump’s way. He not only
refuses to negotiate with you, he actually refuses to pay bills of
businesses that provide services and goods for his properties. He stiffs
– he stiffs small businesses, contractors, workers too. Why, just here
in Las Vegas, he refused to pay $400,000 to a local drapery company.
Somebody who had a contract and thought, “Okay, I’ve got a contract.
I’m going to provide the draperies,” and when the time came after the
work was done, and Trump and his officials said, “No, we’re not going to
pay you.” So that small company had to close their factory.
I
got to tell you, this is par for the course. Even I have been
surprised. This goes way beyond politics, where you criticize
somebody. That’s fair game. But his record of exploiting people, of
mistreating them by refusing to pay up, whether you’re a union worker
with UNITE HERE, you’re a small businessperson, you’re an investor – it
doesn’t matter to him. He’s going to try to avoid paying what he
should. Now, he thinks that’s smart business. I think it’s
disgraceful. And you can hear what they’re saying. I don’t know if any
of you subjected yourselves to watching the Republican convention last
night. This is a very smart group of people. Well, you didn’t miss
anything. They don’t have a single idea about how to put people to work
– how to grow incomes, improve education or health care. Not a single
idea. Their ideas are all about turn the clock back, stop the progress
we’ve made.
Well, I’ll tell you what, I want to make the biggest
investment in new jobs since World War II. I want to get incomes rising
again. I want to make college debt-free for all of you […]. I want to
help you if you’ve got student debt to pay it back at a lower rate […] I
want to rewrite the rules so that companies actually share their
profits with employees. It’s time we end them shipping off jobs and
profits overseas. I want to make sure that the corporations and the
super-rich in particular pay their fair share of taxes, and that means
I’m the only candidate who ran for president this time who said over and
over and over again, I will not raise taxes on the middle class.
And
we are going to work to change our policies to support the way families
live and the jobs they do in the 21st century. And that includes why
I’ve called on Congress to repeal the Cadillac tax on your health
benefits. But I got to be clear with you. We can’t do any of this
unless we win. It doesn’t do us any good being here in July, applauding
and yelling about Donald Trump and his terrible ideas if we don’t get
out and win.
Yesterday our campaign launched a nationwide drive to
register 3 million more people (applause) who we will ask to commit to
vote in November. We are having over 500 registration events just this
week across America. We are creating an online, one place to go, voter
registration tool in both English and Spanish. We are having labor
mobilization weekends starting in August because I know there’s nobody,
nobody, better at organizing and mobilizing than Unite Here. I am going
to fight for every vote in this state, in every part of this state. And
with your help, we are going to win this state in November.
So
here is what I ask of you. Please, get others to sign up for voter
registration. Come to one of our offices here in Clark County, across
Nevada. Bring friends. Bring five friends. And here’s what I want you
to tell your friends. We are hiring people. We are hiring people to
work on this registration effort. If you know somebody who’s interested
or you are interested, go to HillaryClinton.com/jobs because we’re not
leaving anything to chance.
I was thinking about coming back out
here for today, and I was remembering all of the great times that I had
here in Las Vegas. And yeah, what happens in Vegas. But also, I was
thinking about all the people who helped in the caucus, all the people
who were there on the front lines, working so hard. (Applause.) I was
thinking about all the hotels that I visited, all of the back of the
house cafeterias and workrooms that I visited. And I was thinking of
coming here to this training facility and seeing the pride on people’s
faces as you learn your trade. I was so touched because what I’ve seen
here are hard-working people, people who do their very best to get ahead
and stay ahead. You deserve an economy that works for everybody, not
just those at the top, and you deserve a government that works for
everybody, not just those at the top.
So we’re proud of this. In
America, whether you’ve been here 10 generations or 10 weeks, in America
we don’t tear each other down. We lift each other up. In America, we
don’t build walls. We build bridges. In America, we work together
because we know we are stronger together, just like all of you know. In
this union, you are stronger together. I want everybody in America to
know. Let’s pull together. Let’s set forth. I journey to the future
with confidence and optimism. Let’s make sure we bring everybody along.
That
is what is at stake in this election. With your help, we’re going to
win this state. We’re going to win the election in November. And then
we’re going to go on and work to make the future […]”
