After a morning in Washington, Hillary met up with Tim Kaine for a
campaign event at the Ernst Community Cultural Center in Annandale,
Virginia.
During an organizing event in
Annandale, Virginia, Hillary Clinton and Senator Tim Kaine discussed a
vision for an America that is stronger together and an economy that
works for everyone—not just those at the top. Clinton affirmed her
ambitious economic vision, reiterating the
five bold economic goals she
has set out on the economy. Pointing to Trump's dangerous, divisive
vision for our country, Clinton said, "This would be a good reality show
but it is just so serious and it has gone on and on that we have got to
take what he says at face value. Maya Angelou said, ‘When someone shows
you who they are, believe them.’"
Senator Tim Kaine discussed his experience
working with Clinton and highlighted her broad array of accomplishments
and qualifications for the presidency, saying, "So I think we all know
that when it comes to our leadership in the world, trash talking ain’t
enough; we need a bridge-builder and we’ve got a bridge-builder in
Hillary Clinton."
Clinton and Kaine's remarks, as transcribed, are below:
HILLARY CLINTON:
“Thank you! Thank you Northern Virginia! It
is such a great treat for me to be back here and to have this chance to
appear with your great Senator, a former governor, a former mayor of
Richmond, Tim Kaine! I appreciate so much the leadership that he has
shown for this state and now he is doing the same in the Congress and he
is working with the three members of Congress who are here: Gerry
Connolly, Bobby Scott, and Don Beyer. We thank them for their service.
And I really love what Tim said. I liked the three questions he posed.
Think about it. Because you really are conducting a giant job interview
to decide who you want to be your president. For your community, for
your family, for your state and our country and indeed, yes, the world.
So I think what Tim said really is worth
considering. Do you want a ‘You're fired’ or ‘You're hired’ president?
Do you want a trash talker or a bridge builder? I like that one a lot.
Do you want a ‘me first’ or ‘a kids and family first?’ And I really
appreciate Tim laying out the choice like that. Because make no mistake
about it my friends, this is one of the most consequential elections in
our history — certainly in my lifetime — where we are being asked to
choose whether we go forward into our future with confidence, optimism,
and hope, or whether we give in to bigotry and bluster and bullying. And
at some point that will be the decision every voter faces.
And so I am grateful to have the support of
leaders here in this great commonwealth.Your wonderful senator Mark
Warner, your governor Terry McAuliffe. In recent years Virginia has had
Democratic officeholders who have really worked together to build the
economy, to create more opportunities. So it's a special delight to be
here with Tim and others who have really paved the way for Virginia to
continue to play the important role in our country.
I have to say I just saw “Hamilton.” A
great, great musical. I saw it for the third time if you don't tell
anybody. And I hope you all listen to the soundtrack. I hope you get to
see it when it comes to Washington. It's going to travel probably around
the country for the next century. But it tells us some important
lessons. You look at our founders — Virginia gave us a bunch of them.
You look at them. They did not all agree. They did not even all like
each other. But here's what they did. They worked together and they set
the most outrageous, unbelievable goal that they were going to transfer
these colonies into a nation that could stand on its own with the rest
of the world. What an outrageous idea. Who could think that that could
come to pass? And there is a song in this play where George Washington,
who did something nobody expected. He stepped down.
He could have stayed as the great
Revolutionary War general who fought for and obtained our independence
as our first President. He probably could have stayed as President for
as long as he was alive. But he said, ‘Wait a minute. We are a different
creature. We've got to go about this in a way that gives real credence
to our aims. So no, I'm stepping down.’ There's a hilarious song by the
King of England who can't believe it, what is he doing? Nobody steps
down.
And in stepping down, Washington said, ‘he
eyes of history are on us.’ We've gone through some hard times, as Tim
said. I was in Springfield yesterday and, the old State House where
Abraham Lincoln gave a speech reminding Americans that a house divided
against itself cannot stand. And we are now in a way facing the kind of
existential challenge that President Lincoln faced. But we're facing
some of our own, aren't we? Are we going to be coming together or
falling apart? Are we building walls or bridges? Are we creating
opportunity to lift everyone up or are we scapegoating and finger
pointing and trying to marginalize groups of Americans?
Because if you listen to the presumptive
Republican nominee, that is the campaign he is running. Everything Tim
said is absolutely on the mark. So here's what I'm asking all of you, to
think hard about what we can do together, because yes, we are stronger
together. When we set goals for America, when we listen to each other.
And I have set, I have set five big goals. We need more good-paying jobs
and we need to provide opportunities for more hard-working Americans.
So we're going to invest in our
infrastructure: our roads; our bridges; our tunnels; our ports; our
airports; our electric grid; our water systems. And we're going to be
the clean energy superpower of the 21st century. Unlike Donald Trump,
who thinks climate change is a hoax, we think it's an opportunity as
well as a problem. And an opportunity that smart, innovative people in
Virginia, particularly young people, can address by creating new
businesses and jobs.
I want to grow the economy so that we have
greater prosperity and I particularly want to pay attention to those
parts of our country that aren't as fortunate as others. Coal Country,
Indian Country, inner-city neighborhoods. I want us all to rise
together. This is not just about some people, it needs to be about all
of America.
And while we grow together, we will become
fairer too. That's why I want to raise the national minimum wage so
people working full-time are not left in poverty. I got to tell you
Donald Trump thinks wages are too high. I honestly don't know who he
talks to. Well, yes he does say he mostly talks to himself, that's true.
He was asked, ‘Well who are your advisors on foreign policy and
national security.’ He goes, ‘Well, I mostly consult myself.’ This would
be a good reality show but it is just so serious and it has gone on and
on that we have got to take what he says at face value. Maya Angelou
said, ‘When someone shows you who they are, believe them.’
And in addition to raising the minimum
wage, we are going to do more for small business, particularly
women-owned and minority-owned small business. And yes, I do believe, it
is way past time to guarantee equal pay for women's work. I have to
tell you, there are some people, and I know, I know, there are some
people who basically say, ‘This is not a problem anymore.’ Well, if you
have a mother, wife, daughter, or sister who is not being paid equally,
it is your problem. It's your family's problem, it's America's problem.
Just the other day, there was a story of a
young 17-year-old girl who went to work in a pizza restaurant, she was
really excited. It was in Kansas. Because it was her first real job. I
remember those days. When I had my first real job. Not just babysitting
and things like that, but a real job.
So she goes and she works and another one
of the people working is a boy she knows from high school, also 17 years
old. And they're talking one day, and she tells him how happy she is to
be earning $8 an hour. He says, ‘Well, I am making $8.15 an hour.’ So
she goes to the manager. She goes, ‘He's never had a job like this
before. We are the same age, we have the same education.’ I think she's
been listening to my speeches. ‘So why is he making 15 cents an hour
more?’ The manager fired them both.
And that's legal. That's why when I talk
about equal pay, it really requires that we find out whether or not
people of the same experience, same education, same qualifications are
being paid the same. Now when I talk like this, I know, Donald Trump
says, ‘Oh, there she goes again. Talking about equal pay. She's playing
the woman card.’ Yes! I see! I see you waving your woman card! Yes! I
love it! Deal me in! Deal me in! That's exactly right!
So when I think about ‘You're hired,’
that's exactly what I want us all to be focused on. Creating more jobs,
raising incomes for people, beginning to reduce inequality in income by
making sure that our economy works for everybody, not just those at the
top. That will be my highest priority, among the very first things I do
when I am your President come next January. Now, I'll tell you what else
we have to do, because I still believe education, at places like this
great community college, is essential to growing the economy and
creating opportunity.
So here's what I want to do. I want to make
community college free. Just here in Virginia, that would affect about
108,000 students. Because here's how I figure, the more education, the
more skills that people get, and it's not just young people, mid-career
people, people changing careers, maybe people whose jobs have moved on, I
want you to see the community college as your gateway to a new
opportunity that you can take advantage of.
And here's what else I want to do. I want
to make four-year public colleges and universities debt-free so
middle-class, and working, and poor families can afford to go. All
across America I heard about how hard it is for young people to afford
to go to college, stay in college, and graduate. I saw this back years
ago when I was teaching at the University of Arkansas, and I met a lot
of students who scraped together the money they needed for tuition, but
then something happened, there was a sickness in the family, the old car
they drove to go back and forth from the country to school broke down,
their childcare arrangements collapsed.
And they couldn't go on. So we started
something called the Arkansas Single Parents Scholarship Fund. And we
have now provided emergency funding for more than 35,000 students to be
able to stay in school, graduate from school. I want us to do everything
we can to send out three messages. First, we want every child in this
country to succeed. And that's why we want early childhood education and
universal pre-kindergarten, and we want good schools in every zip code
in America.
And number two, we're not going to tell
every student you have to go to four-year college. That's just not fair
and it's not right, and you know what, there are a lot of jobs out there
that require skills. So what we want is for more young people to be
supported and mentored in getting those skills at community colleges, at
apprenticeships run by labor unions and businesses. Because we're going
to have a lot of jobs, jobs from building infrastructure to coding.
Creating new apps. I don't know who created Pokémon Go, but I’m trying
to figure out how we get Pokémon Go to the polls.
And number three, I don't want family
income to stand in the way of any student succeeding. And as Tim said,
Anne his wonderful wife, is the education commissioner here in Virginia,
and that's exactly what she's working on to open the doors of
opportunity. So I get pretty excited about this. I am aware that every
so often someone will write or say, ‘Ah you know, there goes Hillary
Clinton with her plans. She has a plan for everything.’ Well I didn't
know you could run for president and say ‘I have a plan I'm not going to
tell you. But believe me, it's great, it's huge. You'll love it.’ I
didn't know you could run for president and say that. I kind of thought
when you ran for president, since I do think it's like a big job
interview, you owed it to people to tell them what you want to do.
And I think it will help if we actually run
on an agenda of what we want to accomplish, so the Congress knows it,
everybody is aware of it, and you all hold me accountable for it. So
that's exactly what I'm doing, and when it comes to education we are
going to concentrate on making early childhood, elementary and secondary
education, community college, training programs, and four year college
and universities available, affordable to everyone. And by the way we're
going to help you refinance and pay down the debt you already have to
get that off your back. And then people say to me ‘Well, okay. How are
you going to pay for it?’ Well we're going where the money is. We're
going to where the money is. That means we're going to raise taxes on
the wealthy and those who can afford to pay to lift up our country.
I want us to make sure that the wealthy are
paying their fair share. Because that's who has benefitted the most.
And even since the Great Recession, most of the wealth has gone to the
top couple of percent of folks. Now we in America do not begrudge
success, but we also know we've got work to do here to give more people
the chance to be successful, and therefore we are going to have this
kind of support for education that's going to give people the chance to
go forward and that will require raising taxes on the wealthy. But I'll
tell you this. I am the only candidate who ran in either primary who
said, ‘I will not raise taxes on the middle class.’ And I mean it and I
won't do it.
And we're also going to try to provide more
incentives so more companies will not only create jobs in America, but
bring jobs back from overseas so people can work here, in Virginia, and
across the country. And finally we are going to focus on the way people
actually live today. You know, it is not the 1950s. You have two parents
working, lots of times you have one parent. You have young people
trying to get started and get ahead.
And I do believe, and Tim's absolutely
right about this, I do believe that there is nothing more important than
supporting our families and supporting our children, and now, yes, my
grandchildren. So, I want us to be willing to look at the stresses we
are putting on families. Some of the most obvious ones are in those
early years with a newborn, trying to figure out how you're going to go
back to work when you have no paid sick days. You have no paid vacation
days and you have no paid family leave.
And you're trying to bond with this baby.
You're trying to get this baby fed. You're trying to find a safe place
to take care of this baby, so you can go back to work to keep a roof
over your head. We make it just about as hard as any place in the world
for families to do that.
And so, here's what I believe. I believe we
need to join the rest of the advanced economies and have paid family
leave. So my friends, we are, we are going to have a great convention in
Philadelphia. I have no idea what's going to happen in Cleveland. It's
going to be -- it is going to be entertaining, I'm sure. If you're into
bigotry, bluster, and bullying. If you're into drawing lines between
Americans. If you're into insulting groups of Americans. If you're into
saying you don't want to let Muslims in the country. You want to round
up and deport 11 million people with a quote ‘deportation force.’ If you
enjoy seeing women demeaned.
I spoke today for LULAC, a distinguished
Latin/Latino organization. Sometimes my smart research people give me
information, and I find it hard to believe at first. I go back, I say,
did he really say this? They come back, they show me where he said it.
In one of his Miss Universe contests. You know that he says qualified to
be Commander-in-Chief because he took Miss Universe to Moscow. And
another time, he was introducing contestants, and he introduced a
beautiful Latina woman as ‘Miss Housekeeping.’ I mean, really, doesn't
it just [inaudible] your mind? You just go, ‘Who said that? Did he
really say that?’
Remember though, when someone shows you who
he is, believe him. So part of our challenge, my friends, is to keep
this campaign about the future. Keep it about what we want to do
together. Recognize we are stronger together. We will be better united
than divided. That we are going to work to make sure that America has
its best days ahead of us. We're going to make sure every child has a
chance at the American dream. And we're going forward, not only
strongly, but with pride, confidence, optimism. And we're going to win
in November. Thank you, all.”
TIM KAINE:
“[…] I think we might have labor in the
house. Labor! With jobs […] And I heard that we had a wonderful
presentation from a great example of our DREAMers earlier. Give it up
for the DREAMers. And to […] right here. I kid you not. I kid you not,
[…].
We’ve got fantastic elected officials. If I
named them all, that would take up the entire speech. But I’ve got to
say to our members of Congress right here – to Don Beyer, Bobby Scott,
Gerry Connolly. Give them a big round of applause.
So are we ready for Hillary? I think that’s a yes. I think that’s a yes. Wow.”
AUDIENCE: “Hillary! Hillary! Hillary!”
TIM KAINE: “We hope that it is.
Estamos listos para Hillary. Estamos listos para Hillary. So a little
bit of a vocabulary lesson. If you want to say ‘ready for Hillary’ in
español, it’s, ‘Estamos listos para Hillary.’ Estamos listos. When this
great group of grassroots folks around this country, before Secretary
Clinton decided that she was going to run, formed and chose the name
‘Ready for Hillary’ – and a lot of them are right here in Virginia,
right? It was very exciting for me that they chose that name, and let me
tell you why. ‘Ready for Hillary’ – powerful phrase, and we were so
excited when she got in the race.
But if you say it in Spanish, it’s ‘Estamos
listos para Hillary.’ Estamos listos. And the word “ready” in Spanish
is a little bit different than the word “ready” in English. So if we
say in English “we’re ready for Hillary,” it usually means we’re waiting
or it’s kind of about the time or you’re ready to go to the store,
something like that. But when I went to Honduras, the best compliment
you could pay to someone was not to say they were inteligente; nobody
would have said that about me – intelligent. It was not to say that they
were guapo or guapa, beautiful. It was not to say that they were […].
It was to say that they were listo, to say that they were ready.
Because in Spanish, in Honduras, what ‘ready’ means is more than just on
time. It means well prepared, bien hecho. It means you’re ready to
get on the battlefield, you’re ready to fight. You’re somebody that can
be counted on.
And so we were – and we were ready for
Hillary because Hillary is ready for us. Hillary is ready for
Virginia. Hillary is ready to be president. Hillary is ready to be our
leader. Hillary is ready to make history. And that’s why we’re ready
for Hillary.
Secretary Clinton just came from a very
tough day yesterday in Springfield, Illinois. I hope you had a chance
to hear her talk about very difficult issues of violence and division
and fear and anxiety, but also of hope and unification. It was the kind
of speech that you, frankly, don’t want to have to give, but tough
things happen and then leaders have to rise to the occasion – and she is
a leader. She is a leader. And so she went – she went to Springfield,
a city that’s really important in our history, and she laid out the
right way to lead, which is about bringing us together. And I know
she’s going to talk about that. What I want to do is just ask you three
quick questions, and then I’ll introduce Secretary Clinton. And I’m
asking you questions because this is a college. I mean, this is like a
test, alright?
The questions are about the presidency and
they’re about our nation. So here they are – on the economy: Do you
want a ‘you’re fired’ president or a ‘you’re hired’ president? Right?
Okay. Now, what is Donald Trump known for? ‘You’re fired.’ In fact, I
predict after this whole thing is over, what will be remembered about
the failed candidacy of Donald Trump is ‘you’re fired’ and maybe one
other phrase: ‘Trump U.’ Okay? But he’s a ‘you’re fired’ guy –
outsourcing jobs, stiffing contractors, being against minimum wage,
being against equal pay for women, fighting with labor. He’s a ‘you’re
fired’ guy, and if you want a “you’re fired” president, well, you’ve got
a choice. But we’re making a different choice. We want a ‘you’re
hired’ president. A ‘you’re hired’ president.
It starts with fairness, equal pay for
women, raising the minimum wage so that you can live on it.
Infrastructure and building and creating jobs and growing this nation
and doing it in a fair way, education from pre-K to post-grad to a
debt-free college plan. Anybody out here like debt-free college?
Alright. I told Secretary Clinton that Virginians were pretty smart, so
they – you guys seem to know that, you know, like a ‘you’re hired’
president is better than a ‘you’re fired’ president. Okay?
So we’ll go to question two: America’s role
in the world. Now, this is important to all of us. And the president
embodies us in the world, so do you want a trash-talker president or a
bridge-builder president? That’s what’s at stake. Donald Trump trash
talks women, he trash talks folks’ disabilities, he trash talks – he
trash talks Latinos. To him it doesn’t matter – to him it doesn’t
matter if you are a new immigrant or you’re a worker who’s been here for
a long time or a DREAMer or if you’re a Latina governor of New Mexico
or if you’re a federal judge. If you’re a Latino, he’s going to trash
talk you. He trash talks faiths, like Muslims, and wants to have a
Muslim ban. He trash talks allies and leaders around the world. He
trash talks alliances that the U.S. has like NATO. I’ll tell you one
that gets me steamed: Donald Trump wants to be commander-in-chief.
Donald Trump is a guy who wants to be
commander-in-chief who has said repeatedly the American military is a
disaster. Hold on a second. 1.6 million young men and women volunteered
to serve in a time of war now stretching 15 years, and you have the
guts to call them a disaster? I mean, I don’t want somebody who trash
talks our troops and treats them with disrespect and contempt. He even
said about John McCain, who worked with Senator Clinton on the Armed
Services Committee and has high praise for her as an Armed Services
Committee member – Donald Trump said about John McCain that he was no
war hero because he was captured and was held as a prisoner of war.
So it’s – you want the trash-talker? What
about the bridge-builder? What about the bridge-builder? What about the
bridge-builder who served on the Armed Services Committee and worked to
make us strong and worked to respect troops and worked to build up and
support military families and worked to build alliances, and our
nation’s better as a result?
What about the bridge-builder who was our
diplomat-in-chief when President Obama came in? And President Obama
said, ‘I’m going to restore diplo’ – isn’t it good to have a president
who is willing to restore diplomacy again? And when he said, ‘I’m going
to restore diplomacy,’ after it was let to atrophy for eight years, and
he said, ‘I have to pick the one person who can go into any room in the
world and be a face of American leadership in the world as we restore
diplomacy,’ and he asked Senator Hillary Clinton to be Secretary of
State.
So I think we all know that when it comes
to our leadership in the world, trash talking ain’t enough; we need a
bridge-builder and we’ve got a bridge-builder in Hillary Clinton.
Last question – character. Do you want a
me-first president, or a kids and families-first president? Now,
me-first – I mean, Donald Trump – again, Trump U, right – sets up a
bogus college named after capital ‘H’ himself. Takes a lot of people’s
hard-earned money making promises to them, and they end up with
something that’s less than the paper it’s written on. And for him,
that’s a success. Well, that’s great.
But what about all the people that got hurt
along the way? He doesn’t care about them. Me first. Every other
presidential candidate for decades has given their tax returns so the
American public can know something about them. No, but Donald Trump is
different. He’s not releasing his tax returns, and he even said why
last night. He got asked on an interview and the reason is, ‘Well, it
could politically hurt me.’ You think? You think?
When you see that this guy doesn’t want to
pay the taxes to support all the things like Northern Virginia Community
Colleges, or the troops that he trashes – he doesn’t want to pay the
taxes to support them – when you see that he doesn’t have a record of
supporting charities he promises that he does, but he stiffs them,
that’s a way then to reduce it; that’s a me-first thing. And then some
of you saw on TV a couple weeks ago when the Brexit vote passed and the
English pound was taking a beating, and he happened to be in the United
Kingdom, he said, ‘Hey, great, if the pound gets hit, more people will
come to my golf course.’ Me first.
I don’t want a me-first president. I want a
– I want a kids and families-first president. Secretary Clinton – and I
have to admit to some partiality here, because I like in you what I
like about my wife Anne, who is the Secretary of Education in Virginia
When – yes – when Secretary Clinton was growing up in Illinois and she
got exposed to a Methodist youth group, and exposed to the big
challenges outside in the big outside world, like we all do when we’re
young, you can make a decision about whether you make those problems
your own or whether you try to avoid them.
And she decided at a young age, I want to
make those challenges my own, and as a lawyer, working with the
Children’s legal Defense Fund; First Lady of Arkansas; doing so much
great stuff as Secretary of State making the empowerment of women and
children a fundamental pillar of American foreign policy in every nation
in the world.
But also, you’ve seen probably the ads that
talk about her role as First Lady and making sure that 8 million kids
in this country have health insurance today – SCHIP – it’s an amazing
accomplishment. The problem with those ads is that the ads are too
short. It only tells half the story. It tells getting over the finish
line and getting the job done, and 8 million kids have health
insurance. But remember this, when you ask yourself about the character
of somebody who should be a leader: She was the leader in a
way-ahead-of-its-time effort as First Lady to try to get comprehensive
health insurance done.
And she happened to have the fate of
working with a pretty tough Congress that didn’t want to do it. Now,
that sounds kind of familiar, I don’t know – and so she – they worked so
hard to do that, and they couldn’t get it over the finish line with the
comprehensive healthcare that they wanted to do. But did this leader
say, ‘Okay, well, sorry. Let’s go on to the next issue?’ Did she say,
‘Well, I like kids and families, and there’s all these uninsured kids,
but I guess we can’t do anything?’ No.
They went back, and they dusted off, and
they’d taken a licking but they said, ‘We’re not going to give up
because maybe we can’t get everything, but maybe we can make sure that
every young kid in this country will have health insurance, and when
their parents go to sleep at night, they will at least go to sleep with
the peace of mind knowing that if something happens to their children,
there’s going to be medical care for them.’ That’s the kind of leader,
that’s the kind of character, and that’s why you want her as president.
So I – and now I’m going to introduce her.
Look, this is a tough time. This is a time of a lot of anxiety, and
Secretary Clinton spoke to that yesterday in Springfield. She’s been
speaking about it during her whole career, and here’s the danger in a
time of anxiety and it’s a danger that we’re seeing. We’ve seen a lot
in Virginia and Virginia politics – times of anxiety, people are afraid,
people worry about the state of the world.
Man, one political strategy – and Donald
Trump is just pulling this playbook, dusting it off, and he’s doing it –
is try to divide people against one another, pit people against one
another, play on people’s fears. And look, we know that too well in
Virginia. There’s been many decades of politics like that in our state
and, frankly, pretty much all over this country, and it can work at
times if we’re not diligent. But that’s not what leaders do.
What leaders do when times are tough, and
there’s some fraying, and there’s some challenges, and there’s some
means of communications that have been cut off, and some channels that
aren’t being used, and some dialogue that needs to happen – what leaders
do is they don’t sugar coat or whitewash the challenges, but they just
walk right out among them, walk right out into the challenges and
embrace them, and bring people together.
That’s what the best leaders have done in
this country since we started, and that’s what we need right now. And
that’s why I’m so glad to present to you our great friend and the next
president of the United States, Hillary Clinton.”
