At the Colorado State Fairgrounds in Pueblo, Hillary rallied voters this afternoon. The good news today was that a federal judge ordered voter registration extended by a week in hurricane-stricken Florida.
At
a rally in Pueblo, Hillary Clinton pledged to be a president for all,
not just some. Emphasizing the stakes in this election for the community
in Pueblo, one of the largest steel-producing cities in America, she
rebuked Trump’s claim that he would be a president for the working
class. Given the recent revelation that Trump buys cheap Chinese steel
rather than supporting American steelworkers, she said, “We’ve slowly
but surely uncovered how little he’s done to help anybody except Donald
Trump.”
Hillary Clinton discussed her plans to support children
and families. As a part of her plan for a fair tax code, Clinton
promised to cut taxes for middle class families, putting forth her plan
to double the Child Tax Credit for families with young children, a
policy that will increase economic mobility particularly for the Latino
community. Stressing the importance of this election, and the importance
of voting by mail, she urged the crowd to “get out and vote for the
kind of positive future we want for ourselves and our children.” A full transcript of Secretary Clinton’s remarks in Pueblo is below:
“Thank
you. Thank you. Thank you so much. Wow. Thank you so very, very much.
Wow. I am so happy to be back here and to be here with all of you. I am
thrilled. And I can’t thank you enough.
And it’s a special
privilege and pleasure to be introduced by my friend and such a great
leader, someone who has served not only this state so well but also our
country. And so I want to thank – once again, I want to thank former
Senator and former Secretary Ken Salazar. And I also want to thank
somebody else who is here who is really special and is doing such a
great job for all of you. And that is your senator. And I hope you will
get out and send him back to Washington: Michael Bennet. I also want to
recognize someone who is running a great race for Congress: Gail
Schwartz.
I was thinking – I was thinking the first time I came to
this beautiful place and had a chance to meet people from here was in
1992. I was here for somebody else, namely my husband, who was running
for president. And I know there are a lot of really young people here,
but was anybody here back in 1992?
Well, Bill and I talk about
Pueblo all of the time. And it is always a treat for either one of us
to come. And today it is especially important because we are getting
closer and closer and closer to the next election. And we are also very
conscious of the fact that here in Colorado, for the first time, you are
all going to be able to vote by mail. And this Monday, October 17th,
ballots will start being mailed to Colorado voters. Now, if you have
already registered to vote, I hope you will keep your eye open for the
mail and fill out your ballot, send it back as quick as you can. Don’t
wait to fill it out. Don’t do what I do: put it on the kitchen counter,
and then you put something else on top of it and something else. And
pretty soon you’re wondering, ‘Where is that ballot? I know it came here
a few days ago.’ So please put it in the mail so we can get every early
vote counted quickly and avoid a big backlog on election night.
And
maybe if you haven’t registered to vote yet, please do it right now.
And if you go to iwillvote.com, you can do that on your phones. You can
do that right now. You can get registered. Pretty easy, huh? Because we
need everybody to vote in this election. And we need your friends and
your family and your neighbors and everyone you can reach because this
is about something so important.
I don’t know that there’s ever
been a more serious or consequential election. And we can see that
people feel that way because across America, people are already voting
in high numbers. A lot of states have what’s called early vote. And the
numbers are bigger than anybody thought and bigger than they’ve been in
the past. Just this morning in Ohio – people began lining up last night
so that they could be sure to vote. They couldn’t wait to cast their
ballots. And by the time we’re done, we expect record numbers of people
to vote in this presidential election.
So don’t be – don’t be left
out because we need you. And, oh, by the way, if you’ve got friends in
Utah or Arizona, make sure they vote, too. We are competing everywhere.
And the polls are tightening because I think Americans want a turnout
in as big a number as possible to reject the dark and divisive and
hateful campaign that is being run by my opponent.
And your vote
could make all of the difference. I was in Florida yesterday with former
Vice President Gore. And, as he said yesterday, take it from him,
every vote counts. So don’t sit this one out.
And I’m very proud
of the campaign we have run. I am proud of the campaign Bernie Sanders
and I ran. It was about – it was about issues, not insults. We were
setting forth a positive agenda that would help America and help
millions and millions of Americans get ahead and stay ahead. And to me,
that is what we are supposed to be doing. We are supposed to bring
people together. We are supposed to unify our country. We’re supposed to
solve our problems by working together. And I know it’s been a long
race, but as soon as our primary finished, Senator Sanders and I got
together and came up with a plan to make college affordable and pay back
student debt, provide more healthcare. And we have done our best to
stay out of all of the meanness.
The other night – did any of you
see that last debate? Well, I was watching my opponent just go lower
and lower and lower. And I was reminded of what my friend and our First
Lady Michelle Obama says, ‘When they go low, we go high.’ And I want
you to know I want to be – I want to be the president for everyone. I am
tired of all the divisions and the barriers. I want to bring people
together across our party lines, across any lines that divide us, and
not just people who vote for me. I want to be the president, yes, for
Democrats but also Republicans and Independents. And I am very grateful
for all of the Republicans who are supporting me. And I am very – I’m
very appreciative of all of the newspapers that are endorsing me, some
of whom have never endorsed a Democrat before. So we’re going to keep
running this campaign. I want to give you something to vote for, not
just something to vote against. And during these next 28 days, we’re
going to crisscross our country. We’re going to be talking about what we
can do together.
But Donald Trump is taking a very different
tone. His campaign – his campaign said today that they are going to use
a, quote, ‘scorched Earth strategy’ for the remaining four weeks of
this race. Now, that just shows how desperate they are. That’s all they
have left: pure negativity, pessimism. And we’re not going to let Donald
Trump get away with it, are we?
I don’t care what he says about
me. I care about what he says about you. And I’ll tell you what. I will
stand up and defend every single person in this country from the
insults and the disrespect that we hear from him.
Now, the whole
world has heard how Donald Trump treats women and what he thinks of
women. And he is doubling down on his excuse that it’s just ‘locker
room talk.’ Well, you know what happened? It just kind of happened
spontaneously. A lot of athletes and coaches started posting on Twitter
and Instagram and Facebook – I mean, the National Basketball
Association, Major League Baseball, the NFL, and more, they are coming
together and they’re saying, ‘That doesn’t happen in our locker rooms.’
But
of course it’s not only women that he has disrespected. He’s insulted
practically everybody. He went after a distinguished federal judge,
Judge Curiel, who was born in Indiana. And Trump said, well, he couldn’t
be trusted because his parents were Mexican. He has targeted
immigrants, African Americans, Latinos. He’s targeted POWs, people with
disabilities, Muslims, and so many others. And every time he does that,
I get somebody who is worried or scared writing me a letter or talking
to me, and especially children. It’s really who Donald Trump is.
But
when you scare children, like a little boy – his mother wrote to me.
She had adopted him from Ethiopia when he was a toddler. There were a
lot of children in Ethiopia that were no longer able to live with
families. Their parents, their grandparents, were not around. And a lot
of Americans have adopted children in need like that. And this little
boy, named Felix, is now 10 years old. He’s only lived in the United
States. And his mother wrote me and she said, after hearing Donald
Trump, he turned to her and he said, ‘Mommy, will he send me back to
Ethiopia?’
That’s the kind of fear and anxiety that I hear from
immigrant families, who are scared to death, especially the children,
that Donald Trump is going to put together a big deportation force and
go door to door, school to school , business to business, home to home.
And it is hard to explain to children. And so I hope that if you know
any children who are listening and watching and hearing some of what is
said, you will reassure them. I want every boy and girl to know the
American dream is big enough for you. And there is a place in America
for you. And that in this election, we will demonstrate that America is
better than what Donald Trump says and represents.
But here’s what
I also want you to know. We have a big difference about how best to get
the economy going. Trump wants to give trillions and trillions in tax
breaks to millionaires and billionaires. That’s called trickle-down
economics. But as with anything when it comes to Donald Trump, he wants
to have the biggest tax breaks for the wealthy and corporations than we
have ever, ever had. So I believe differently. We’re going to invest in
the middle class. We’re going to invest in you, in your jobs, in your
future.
Well, you do have to feel a little sorry for them. They’ve
had a really bad couple of weeks. But part of the difference in how we
see the economy, I think, comes from our experiences. Donald grew up
the son of a millionaire. He got started in business by borrowing $14
million from his dad. So it’s not a surprise wants to keep giving back
to the wealthy because that’s his own experience.
I grew up
differently. My father was a factory worker – well, my grandfather was a
factory worker. My father was a small businessman. I know how hard they
worked, and I am grateful for the middle class life that they gave us.
And that’s what I want to make sure everybody gets. That’s why I
believe we got to get the economy working for everybody, not just those
at the top. And we’re going to focus on those issues. We’re going to
make it possible to have more good jobs in infrastructure. We need to
fix our roads, our bridges, our tunnels, our ports, and our airports.
And we need to make sure that the rich pay their fair share because
here’s what we’ve learned: Donald Trump hasn’t paid a penny in federal
income tax in years.
Now, this is all allegedly because of course
we don’t know for sure because he won’t release his income taxes. But
it’s allegedly because he lost a billion dollars running casinos. Now, I
ask you, who loses a billion dollars running casinos? Right? Do you
know how hard that is? But think about it. It means he’s contributed
zero, zero for our military, zero for our vets, zero for education and
health. And he has the gall to go around disrespecting our military. He
calls the United States military a disaster. Well, the only disaster is
somebody who can get away with paying no taxes and have the gall to run
for president and criticize all the rest of us who have done our part
to support America!
Now, you’ve all heard his slogan, ‘Make
America Great Again.’ Right? Well, that would have maybe some truth to
it if he made anything in America and if he bought things that are made
in America. There are so many examples, but let me just give you one,
which is close to your hearts because Pueblo is one of the largest
steel-producing cities in America. Right? So you know how important it
is to support our steel workers and our steel industry. Now, Trump is
the guy who went around for a year talking about how he was on the side
of workers and all the rest of it. No truth to it, but he did say it
over and over again. And we’ve slowly but surely uncovered how little
he’s done to help anybody except Donald Trump. And he has bought
Chinese steel for his buildings, not American steel. He could be buying
American steel. He should be buying American steel. If he wants to make
America great again, start by making America with American steel.
I
have a very different idea. And in addition to jobs in infrastructure,
which uses American steel, we’re going to do more on advanced
manufacturing, on technology and innovation, on clean energy jobs. And
we’re going to make the economy fairer at the same time. And here’s what
I want the young people and their families to hear. Senator Sanders and
I got together on a plan. We are going to make public college tuition
free for working families and debt-free for everyone else.
If you
already – if you already have debt because you’re trying to get your
education, we’re going to help you refinance it. It is wrong that you
can refinance a home and refinance a car but you can’t refinance your
student debt. And we’re going to make it possible for you to pay it back
as a percentage of your income. Now, based on this plan, we will save
millions of people thousands of dollars. And you can go to
hillaryclinton.com/calculator to see how much you and your family can
save because we want to liberate young people and families from the
burden of college debt.
And we’re also going to make the economy
fairer by raising the national minimum wage so people who work full-time
won’t be in poverty. And we’re going to expand Social Security for
those who need it the most, low-income seniors and widowed women. And
we are going to pass comprehensive immigration reform. I’m going to
introduce reform – I can’t wait to work with Senator Bennett. I can’t
wait to have a chance to make sure that we are working on immigration
reform from the very beginning. We’re going to finally help DREAMers
achieve their dream of following their future and becoming American
citizens.
I also think it is past time, don’t you, to guarantee
equal pay for women’s work. I started talking about equal pay years and
years and years ago because it’s not only a woman’s issue, it’s a
family issue. If you have a wife or a daughter or a sister, it’s your
issue. Right? You know that. So Donald Trump always says I’m playing
the woman’s card. And my response is pretty simple. If being for equal
pay and affordable childcare and paid family leave is playing the
woman’s card, then deal me in.
You see, I am very excited – I am
very excited about what we could do. You know, I give President Obama a
lot of credit. He inherited the worst financial crisis since the Great
Depression. I mean, I remember, because he called and asked me to come
see him shortly after the election. I didn’t know why – he wanted me to
be Secretary of State, but I didn’t know that. But I got there – first
thing he says, it is so much worse than they told us. And it was. I
mean, you remember. It was terrible. Millions of people lost their jobs,
and homes were lost, and it was just a horrible time.
Well, we
have dug ourselves out of that ditch, thanks to everybody’s hard work.
And we can’t ever go back there, because, believe me, trickle-down
economics and refusing to regulate Wall Street and the mortgage market
is what got us into that mess in the first place. And Donald Trump
wants to get rid of the new rules on Wall Street, he wants to get rid of
the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which returns money to people
who’ve been defrauded by big companies.
Well, I have a totally
different view. We’re going to keep those, and then we’re going to tell
companies that try to move jobs out of our country that if they try to,
they’re going to have to pay an exit tax and return every penny – every
penny of tax benefit they’ve ever gotten. And I’ve been very clear
about how we’re going to pay for what I want to do. It is going to be
going after the wealthy, closing the loopholes on corporations. I can
pledge to you I will never raise middle-class federal taxes. It is not
right. And what I’ve been trying to do listening around the country is
figure out what we can do to help you with what I call ‘kitchen table
issues.’ And we think you very much. But right now – thank you. You
know, I always feel so welcome when I come to Pueblo. I think I’ll come
here anytime it gets hard in the White House. What do you say?
Finally,
I want to tell you that I want to make it easier for you to raise your
kids. You know, there’s nothing more important. I’m now a grandmother of
two wonderful grandchildren: a little girl and a little boy, and there
are too many hard-working families struggling with the costs of raising
children. So right now, most families with kids get something called the
Child Tax Credit. It gives a middle-class family $1,000 per child to
help you defray the costs. I’m going to double – I’m going to double the
child tax credit. That’s another $1,000 for young kids, to pay for the
things you need, whether it’s childcare, housing, prescription drugs,
groceries, or anything else. It is just one example of the tax relief I
want to give to working families, and we’re going to make sure that it
gets to the people who need it most.
We’re going to lift families
out of poverty. In fact, the changes I’m proposing we think will
automatically help more people get out of poverty, and we’re going to
look for other ways to help you. What I’m interested in is your success.
Your futures. Your possibilities. Your dreams. I want to be a
president who makes it possible for more people to feel like they’re
really moving, and their kids are going to have better lives. That’s how
I was raised. That’s what I want for you and every single family, every
single child in America.
So we have about four weeks to go. It’s
going to be – it’s going to be a race to the finish line, my friends.
And here’s what I want to ask you. As I said in the beginning, think
about everything that’s important to you, whether it’s jobs and rising
incomes, whether it’s education, healthcare, whatever it might be.
Whether it’s protecting our rights, people who have fought so hard,
whether it’s immigration reform, whatever it might be, think about it.
Because, you know what, those issues will be on the ballot. They may not
be listed there, but you could not have two more different people
running for president than me and Donald Trump.
And I know that if
people turn out, I know if people show up, we’re going to win and we’re
going to be able to do everything I’ve talked about. And so it all
comes down to whether or not you take that ballot you get in the mail,
you fill it in, you send it back, you do everything you can to make sure
that your vote will be counted. You know, when I think about this
election, I do think about my grandchildren a lot. Yeah, you too, right?
I’ll
tell you what. For those of you who aren’t grandparents yet, it is an
incredible experience, right? And there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for
them. As I like to say, FaceTime was invented for grandparents. And you
get to check in and see how they’re doing. But more than that, what kind
of lives are they going to have, and what kind of country is going to
be waiting for them? And I know how important it is that families and
communities and our country stand behind every child, make sure every
child has a good education, school, good teachers in every ZIP code in
America. Make sure every child has the healthcare that he or she needs.
That’s why I worked to create the Children’s Health Insurance Program,
so we could take care of millions of children.
That’s why every
family deserves to have a good job with a good income, to be able to be
good providers for their kids. I got into this work so many years ago. I
went to work for the Children’s Defense Fund right out of law school.
And I spent my time trying to figure out how you even the odds for all
kids. And the reason I did that is because of my own mother. You know, I
didn’t know it when I was just a little girl, but I learned as I got
older that my mother was abandoned and neglected by her parents, and
pretty much left on her own, and then at the age of eight, holding her
little three year old sister’s hand, she was put on a train by
themselves to go to California to live with grandparents. It turned out
the grandparents didn’t really want her either. So by the age of 14, she
was working in a house as a maid and a babysitter.
But here’s
what I want you to know. It sounds pretty harsh. It was difficult. It
made a profound impression on her life. I think my mom, who lived to the
wonderful age of 92 – I don’t think there was a day that went by that
she didn’t think about being abandoned and being sent away, and pretty
much left on her own. But along the way, people were kind to her. People
helped her. The first grade teacher who brought lunch for her every day
because my mother never had any, the woman whose house she went to work
in all those years ago knew my mother wanted to go to high school, so
she said to her, Dorothy, if you get up early and you get your chores
done, you can go to high school. Now, you’ll have to come right back
home. That might sound kind of unfortunate, but for my mom it was a
gift, because she really wanted to go to high school.
And so my
mother always cared about other people. And she taught me in every way
she could that nobody, nobody is better than anybody else. Right? And
we need to show each other more kindness and support. And the last thing
– the last we need in our country are more bullies, making people feel
bad about themselves and pushing people away. We should be drawing
people toward us. We should be creating the kind of future we want for
every one of our children. That’s what I think about when I imagine – if
I’m so fortunate enough to become president – I think about waking up –
waking up – I think about waking up in the White House every morning,
trying to figure out, what can I do to help somebody else? And who can I
work with? How many families and communities across America will work
with us to come up with ideas that give every single child the chance to
live up to his or her God-given potential?
That’s what I think we
are called to do, whether you’re a person of faith or not. The American
dream is really premised on people coming together to lift each other
up. Nobody, nobody makes it alone. Everybody has somebody who helps them
along the way. So let’s pull together, Pueblo. Let’s get out and vote
for the kind of positive future we want for ourselves and our children.
God bless you. Thank you.”
