In Coral Springs, Clinton Calls on Americans To Reaffirm Our Values At the Polls
At a voter registration rally in Coral Springs, Florida, Hillary Clinton urged Americans to register to vote and go to the polls in November to reaffirm the values that make our country great. Hillary Clinton is dedicated to an America where we are all “Stronger Together” and where our economy works for all, not just those at the top. But Donald Trump has called America a nation in decline, has a history of disparaging comments about women and has disparaged anyone who has questioned him, Clinton said, adding, “My opponent believes America is in decline. I’ve never heard such a dark and divisive, terrible image of our country coming from someone running to be president of the United States. When he talks, I lots of times don’t even recognize the country he’s talking about. And why are we already great? Well, it is not just because of the size of our economy or the size of our military. It is because of our generosity; it is because of our ingenuity; it is because of the diversity of our country.”
Clinton’s remarks, as transcribed, are below:
“Thank you! Whoa! Thank you so much. And I am so happy to be here in Coral Springs, in Broward County, in the great state of Florida! And I know there’s a big overflow crowd in the next building over. I think they can see and hear us, but I wanted to thank them for being part of today’s event.
And I’ve got to recognize Joshua Simmons, who just introduced me. He is a civics teacher at Pompano Beach Middle School, and boy, are his students lucky to have him and his enthusiasm. And I want to also commend him for talking about his mother and how hard she worked, and his sister who he helped to raise. We really are stronger together, and that starts in families and neighborhoods and communities.
Well, you heard from a lot of my friends who represent you, starting with my great friend and former colleague, your Senator Bill Nelson. And I am looking forward to working with Bill as we make sure to continue the progress that will move us all forward together. And I sure hope Florida sends some reinforcements to the Senate and elect Congressman Patrick Murphy. I think Florida deserves a full-time senator, don’t you? And I want to thank my friend, someone who has just worked her heart out not just for her constituents but for Democrats across America – Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz. And another great friend of mine going back more years than we care to remember – I’m so pleased he’s here with us – Congressman Alcee Hastings. And I know that Congressman Ted Deutch, who represents this district – is over in Israel for the funeral of a great, great man, Shimon Peres, and I want to thank Ted for all of his support and his hard work.
Before I get started and really talk about everything that’s at stake and what we have to do the next 39 days to make sure we win this election, I wanted to say a few words about the tragic passing of Jose Fernandez. When he left Cuba, he did not speak a word of English. He didn’t let that stop him. He pursued his dreams. He wanted to and he became one of the best baseball players that Miami has ever seen. And he never forgot where he came from. He worked hard to give back to the community that had given so much to him. Jose’s life really embodied the American dream, and at 24 years of age, he was just getting started. I’m sure you join me in saying that our thoughts and our prayers are with his family, with his fans, and everyone whose life he touched during his extraordinary career.
I also want to mention another resident of Coral Springs, and that’s a man named Bob Levinson. My heart goes out to Bob’s family. He disappeared in Iran more than nine years ago, and it is long past time for the Iranian regime to provide us information about his whereabouts and let him return home to his family.
Now, did any of you see the debate the other night? Well, I think it was pretty clear there are two very different choices for our country based on two very different visions of the kind of America that we want to have. My view is we are already great, and if we work together, we will become even greater in the years ahead. I believe America is an exceptional nation. My opponent believes America is in decline. I’ve never heard such a dark and divisive, terrible image of our country coming from someone running to be president of the United States. When he talks, I lots of times don’t even recognize the country he’s talking about. And why are we already great? Well, it is not just because of the size of our economy or the size of our military. It is because of our generosity; it is because of our ingenuity; it is because of the diversity of our country. I think our diversity is one of our strongest assets.
This morning, I laid out my plan for more national service so that more people of all ages can serve America, serve their communities. Because America is great, when you really strip it all down, because America is good. And we can’t ever forget that.
I have laid out specific plans about how we’re going to make our country even greater. I’ve actually got a book here with Tim Kaine, my running mate. I have this old-fashioned idea: if I’m asking you for your vote for president, I should tell you what I’m going to do. I shouldn’t just talk in generalities and use rhetoric and never answer questions about what we can do, but to lay out how we’re going to make the economy work for everyone, not just those at the top.
That means new jobs – new jobs with rising incomes, jobs in infrastructure, jobs in advanced manufacturing, in innovation and technology, and yes, clean, renewable energy jobs.
My opponent’s only infrastructure plan is to build a wall. I love that he went down to Mexico and he choked. He didn’t even raise it. He’s been going around telling people for months, ‘We’re going to build a wall and we’re going to make Mexico pay for it.’ So he’s sitting with the president of Mexico and he doesn’t even bring it up. He finds it a lot easier to insult women than to talk to the president of Mexico about building a wall. I mean, really, who gets up at 3 o’clock in the morning to engage in a Twitter attack against a former Miss Universe? I mean, he hurled as many insults as he could. Really, why does he do things like that? I mean, his latest Twitter meltdown is unhinged, even for him. It proves yet again that he is temperamentally unfit to be president and commander-in-chief. I have said it before and I’ll say it again: A man who can be provoked by a tweet should not be anywhere near the nuclear codes.
So I’m going to keep talking about what we can do together after this election. Getting those new jobs. And I’ll tell you, another area I want to emphasize is small business. As I said the other night, my dad was a small businessman. He made a lot of sacrifice and he worked really hard to give us a good, solid, middle-class life. I’m really proud of that. And I’m sure glad he never got a contract from Donald Trump, who stiffs small businesses, doesn’t pay his bills to people like my dad. But we need to do more to get small business started and growing – here in Broward County, throughout South Florida, across the state, and beyond.
So as we grow the economy, we also have to make it fairer. I want prosperity to reach everyone, not just the privileged few. So we are going to raise the minimum wage because if you work full-time, you should not still be in poverty. And you know, two-thirds of all minimum wage workers are women, most of them supporting kids. And if you work full-time on a minimum wage job, at the end of the year you’ve made $15,000. I think we can do better. And I think we should because we want everybody to have a chance to get ahead and stay ahead and go as far as their hard work and talent will take them.
Something else we’re going to do is we are finally going to guarantee equal pay for women’s work. Now, this is not, my friends, just a women’s issue. If you have a mother, a wife, a daughter, a sister, who is working, it’s your issue, too, to make sure she is paid fairly. That will raise family incomes.
And then the third thing I want to do is to make sure – to make sure – more companies share profits with the workers who helped to create those profits in the first place. The other night at the debate, one of my guests was Mark Cuban. He was sitting in the front row. And one of the reasons I was proud to have him there is he believes in profit-sharing. He’s always, in his companies, shared profits. And by the way, he is a real billionaire. And when he sold his first company, he shared the profits from the sale and 300 people who worked for him, who helped to make him a success, became millionaires. I want to lift up and use as examples business leaders like that, not somebody who stiffs contractors, who doesn’t pay dishwashers and painters and plumbers and glass installers and architects and marble installers and so many else, but somebody who has the right attitude, that we’re stronger together in business just like we are in government and America.
And the other thing we have to do more of is to make sure that we help deal with some of the stresses that American families are facing. It is hard to balance family and work, isn’t it? I think we can do better. I want to see us have paid family leave, earned sick days, affordable childcare, and affordable college that includes tuition-free and debt-free college.
Now, after the primary was over – and Senator Sanders and I ran a tough primary, but you know what? I was really proud. We ran a campaign based on issues, not insults. He and I got together and we said, okay, what are we going to do to make sure that more young people can actually get a college education? Because right now, it’s way beyond what a lot of families can afford. And if you go into debt, you come out of it with so much debt that remains a burden on you.
So the other day Senator Sanders and I were up in New Hampshire together, and we were rolling out our plan. And it’s pretty simple. You can go to my website, but let me just tell you briefly. If you are in a family that makes less than $125,000, you will not pay tuition to go to a public college or university. And if you make more than that, you will pay what you can afford, but you will not have to borrow money because it will be debt-free for you to go. And we put together a calculator on my website. You can go to hillaryclinton.com/ calculator and you can see how much you will save, how much your child or your grandchild would save under this plan.
But I also believe a four-year college degree, which is an important part of getting an education to get ahead, should not leave you mired in debt. So we are going to help you refinance your debt, get the interest rates down, and if you’re willing to do public service, national service, we’re going to forgive your debt over time.
But not everyone has to go for a four-year degree. I want every person, not just young people but people who are looking for a different opportunity or may have to retrain – I want to everybody to have a chance for a good, solid job. I think we made a mistake when we took vocational education out of high school. We need to put technical education back into high school.
And we need to make sure that community colleges are free so that young people starting in high school can take courses at community college to get the training they need for a good job. And I want to see business and labor unions working together for real apprenticeship programs – not the kind that lead to being told, ‘You’re fired,’ the kind that lead to being told, ‘You’re hired.’
Now, I’m excited about this. I really am. I am confident and optimistic about our country. We never get anything done if all we do is get down in the mouth and feel bad and complain and try to blame somebody for something else. That’s not who we are as Americans. We need to lift ourselves up, and we need to roll up our sleeves to get to work to make sure that future is what it should be for our country.
And while we’re doing that, we’re going to make sure that our country’s safe and that America provides strong and steady leadership around the world. Sometimes, when I listen to my opponent, it kind of seems he doesn’t know who our friends are versus our adversaries. He has this weird fascination with dictators. He’s kind of signed up for the Vladimir Putin wish list. He doesn’t care whether NATO falls apart, and he is really cavalier about other countries getting nuclear weapons. He said he doesn’t care. Let Japan, South Korea, even Saudi Arabia, get a nuclear weapon. Whoa! That’s the kind of dangerous, reckless talk that people around the world pay attention to.
As I told him in the debate – he actually said, ‘Well, we may or may not defend our allies in Asia.’ Words matter. And America’s word matters. We have to be reliable and trustworthy. People have to count on us. And we’ve got a lot of work to do around the world. We need to work hard for peace and prosperity. We need to tackle climate change together.
Climate change is real. Florida knows that. My opponent thinks it’s a hoax created by the Chinese. And what that means is he would not be able to take advantage of the economic opportunities that climate change presents. You see, some country’s going to be the clean energy superpower of the 21st Century. I think it’s going to be either China, Germany, or us. I want it to be us, and it can be us if we make up our minds for that to happen. Let’s deploy a half a billion more solar panels. Let’s produce enough clean energy so that every home in America can be powered by it. There’s so much we can do together. And that means we’ve got to work with other countries and we’ve got to demonstrate that we support our allies, whether they’re in Europe, the Middle East with Israel, or Asia, that we stand with those who stand with us.
And then, finally, one of the next priorities that I have if I am so fortunate enough as to be your president is to bring our country together. I’ve got to tell you, look, disagreements, political disagreements, that’s fine. That’s who we are. I don’t know any two people in America who agree on everything politically with each other. And I’ve known, been fortunate enough to know, a number of our more recent presidents. I didn’t always agree with them either, including my husband. But I’ll tell you this: Republicans and Democrats alike, I never doubt they were trying to put the country’s interests first. They were trying to bring people together, not pit us against each other. And one of the things I will do from the very beginning, the very first day of my administration –”
AUDIENCE MEMBER: “Day one.” HILLARY CLINTON: “– is to make them day one – you’re right – is to make sure everybody in the country knows I’m the president of every American, every single person.
Now – so in order for me to do any of this, anything that’s in this book and making sure that it’s paid for by the wealthy and corporations who have to pay their fair share finally, all of that, depends upon whether we win in November. The stakes could not be higher. So here is what I am asking all of you. How many of you know you are registered to vote? So we need to get everybody to be registered at your current address by October 11th. If you’ve moved, you may need to reregister. Here’s how you can find out if you are registered. You can go to iwillvote.com, iwillvote.com. You put in your name. You put in your address and make sure you’re registered. If you need to get registered, we have volunteers here. Right? And they will – they have – they have clipboards. We’re kind of low-tech about it. They have clipboards. They can help you get registered right here and now or, as I say, you can go to iwillvote.com and check your registration. And, remember, you can vote by mail startingOctober 24th here in Broward. And the other thing you can do is convince everybody you know to make sure they’re registered and to help them know how to vote by mail so they could get their vote in without making any fuss or inconvenience.
So make no mistake. This election is going to be close. They always are. So every call you make, every door you knock on, every person you register could make the difference. So I’m asking you to go ahead and text JOIN, text JOIN, J‑O‑I‑N, to 47246 to get involved or go to hillaryclinton.com. And you can volunteer and become involved. If we win Broward County by as big a margin as we should win it, we win Florida.
And, like I say, I’m not just excited about winning an election. I’m excited about doing the work. I’m excited about listening to Americans. I’ll continue to travel our country. I’ll be here in Florida so much you’ll get sick of me because I want to be a good partner for Florida. I mean, Florida is already suffering from climate change, and you have a governor who ordered the state government never to say the word or write the phrase. That’s kind of hard to believe. So there’s a lot we’re going to do together: jobs, rising incomes, opportunities. And that’s what gets me excited.
So here’s what I hope you will do. When you leave here, if somebody says, ‘Where were you this afternoon?’ you say, ‘Oh, I went to a rally for Hillary Clinton.’ If they say, ‘Oh, that’s great,” get them registered. If they say, ‘Oh, my gosh. How can you do that?’ if they’re seriously thinking about voting for my opponent, stage an intervention, really, because, remember, remember, friends don’t let friends vote for Trump. And what we believe and what we’re going to prove on November 8th is love trumps hate. Thank you all so much.”
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