Here is the full transcript of Tim Walz’s speech at a campaign rally in Las Vegas, Nevada on Saturday, August 10, 2024.
Listen to the audio version here:
TRANSCRIPT:
Wow, wow, wow, hey. Wow. Wow. One more time for Tilly. Thank you!
Well, hello, Las Vegas. Now, I know some of you spent the week googling Minnesota a little bit, and to figure out who these Minnesotans were. Here’s the one thing I can tell you about us. We spend about half our lives talking about the weather.
It’s what we do. So I want to say thank you to all of the people since I’ve been here to remind me that it’s a dry heat outside. So is your damn oven, but you know, it’s melting like a snowman outside. But look, this is incredible, and I want to say a thank you to a few folks I had the privilege of working with when I served in Congress.
You have two of the best senators you could ever hope for. Senator Cortez Masto and Senator Rosen, just as a side note, there’s lots of commonalities here. It may not be the weather. We walk on water half the year.
Minnesota and Nevada Similarities
It’s so damn cold, but that’s what we are. But we have something in common. Both Minnesota and Nevada have two women senators, and that’s a pretty good thing. A huge thank you to Congressman Horsford, Congresswoman Lee, and a longtime friend I served with, Congresswoman Titus.
Grateful. A special thank you is for what I’m looking at right here. To every one of you who took time out of your busy lives. You didn’t need to be here.
There’s many things you could have been doing. You chose. You braved 108-degree heat. I can’t even believe I’m saying that, just to be here.
And I have to tell you, I understand because of the heat, they had to shut the door early and turn thousands of folks away. But don’t worry, we’re going to be back a lot. All the things, you got babysitters, you had to do everything. You came here for something bigger than yourselves.
For one simple, eloquent, and beautiful reason. You love this country. USA! USA! USA!
I’m so incredibly proud to be on this ticket, and I want to give a big shout-out with the support of a special group tonight. Culinary Workers Union 226! We’re here for that love and the end of this road.
Remember, 87 days. Rarely in your life do you get an opportunity in 87 days to change the trajectory of not just today or tomorrow, but for generations around the world. And I keep saying this, we can do anything for 87 days, and my mantra is, we’ll sleep when we’re dead.
We’ll sleep when we’re dead. Because when you wake up on that 88th day, you’re going to get to say, welcome, Madam President Harris. This is a leader that wakes up every day to try and do things for the American people.
Harris’ Accomplishments
She took on the predators, the fraudsters, the transnational gangs, stood up against the greed of corporate interests, stood with working people in organized labor, and never failed to reach across the aisle if it meant improving people’s lives. I was taught a little something about that commitment, too.
I was born in a small town in Nebraska where community was a way of life. There’s some Nebraskans in the house. You think I’m kidding. You think I’m kidding. 400 people, 25 kids in my class, 12 were cousins. That’s small town. That’s small town. But you know what?
My parents and my community taught me generosity towards my neighbor and to work for the common good. My dad was a chain-smoking Korean War-era veteran who, two days after my 17th birthday, took me down to sign up to join the National Guard. I was proud for the next 24 years to wear the uniform of this country.
Thank you to every single one of you who wore that uniform. And I have to tell you, like my dad before me and millions of others, the GI Bill gave me a shot at a college education. And just like Tilly, my dad was a teacher.
Family of Educators
My older brother was a teacher. My sister was a teacher. My younger brother was a teacher. And we married teachers. The privilege of my lifetime was spending two decades teaching in public schools. And you might have heard coaching football to a state championship.
Don’t ever close that yearbook. That’s my pro tip. Look, my students and my players are the ones who encouraged me to run for office. They saw in me what I hope to instill in them.
A commitment to a common good. And something so important, the belief, as each and every one of you came here as a single person, a single person can make a difference. Can make a difference.
Political Journey
Never planned my life to run for office, but I think my life prepared me well. And when my neighbors asked if I’d run for office, I was pretty clueless. I did not know that the district I was running in had only had one Democrat since 1892.
But my community graced me with the opportunity to represent them in the United States Congress for 12 years. Where I had the privilege of serving as the ranking member on the VA committee, working with Republicans to pass the most extensive veterans package since the GI Bill.
Bipartisanship
I learned the art of compromising without compromising my values. And now, as governor, I bring all those experiences together to tackle the most pressing issues. As governor, I bring all those experiences together to tackle the most pressing challenges we have in the great state of Minnesota.
Now each of you came here, you came here because you love the country. You came here because you know how fantastic a leader is going to walk out those doors in a minute or two.
The person that you see bringing everything to us.
But just be very clear here, Donald Trump sees the world very differently than all of us here. Each of you talk about service. Donald Trump knows nothing about service.
Trump’s Self-Interest
It’s pretty hard to provide service to others when you’re too busy looking out for only yourself. Again and again and again, Donald Trump made decisions to weaken this country to strengthen his own hand. He mocked our laws, he sowed division and chaos amongst our citizens, and that’s to say nothing of his record as president.
He froze in the face of the global COVID pandemic, and our neighbors died because of it. By not addressing COVID, by not addressing COVID, he drove our economy into the ground. And I just want to set the record straight because facts do matter and there’s not an alternate set of facts.
Here’s one for you, violent crime was up during the Trump presidency. And that’s even not counting his crimes. Some of you, some of you gray hair or no hairs in here can actually remember a time when Republicans actually talked about freedom and believed in it.
Not these guys. These are the guys that believe government should be free to invade your exam room with your doctor. I’m sure it’s true here in Nevada as it’s true in Minnesota.
We respect our neighbors’ rights to make their own personal choices. We don’t have to agree with them or make the same choice, but we know that this nation, things work best when you mind your own damn business. I don’t need any help, I don’t need any help from those guys telling me which books to read.
I sure the heck don’t need any lecture about morality from those guys. And the last thing they can mind their own damn business is I don’t need any help from them talking about my family. And this is where it gets personal, where they want to dictate things like IVF and reproductive care.
Personal Experience with Fertility
I know there’s a lot of you out there, this is the most personal choices we have. When my wife and I decided to have children, we spent years going through fertility treatments. And I said, I remember, we have somebody to help, do you have water?
Alright, thanks for helping your neighbors. I remember those waiting for the phone calls, you’d go through the treatments, I would have my neighbor come over to have to give shots to my wife and things like that. And the phone would ring and you would just hope so highly that it would be good news.
Emotional Toll
And then when you found out the treatments didn’t work, it was a darkness that could blot out the sun. So I have to tell you, it wasn’t by chance when that phone call finally came and we found out we were going to welcome our daughter into the world. We named her the most powerful word in the universe, hope.
Hope. So when you hear Kamala Harris and I talk about freedom, we’re very clear about this. We mean the freedom to make your own health care decisions. And that your children should be free to go to school without worrying about being shot dead in their classroom.
Gun Control
Look, again, I know Nevada is a lot like Minnesota. In Minnesota, we believe in the second amendment, but we also believe in common sense gun violence law. Vice President Harris believes education should be a ticket to the middle class, not crippling student loan debt.
And we come here today because in 87 days, we’re going to settle our political differences not through violence, we’re going to settle it by beating them at the ballot box. So look, I keep saying this, this is a pretty simple thing here, this election is about the choice, about what direction this country will go in.
And I want to be clear, I know very clearly that I am preaching to the choir, but here’s my words for you, the choir needs to sing. The choir needs to sing. So the other day I was saying this, I started out by saying, don’t believe Donald Trump when he plays dumb about 2025.
But then I remembered, you don’t believe him on anything because that’s what you shouldn’t believe. But look, I coached football for enough years, when somebody draws up a playbook, they plan on using it. And when they do, they’ll restrict our freedoms.
When they do, they’ll do what they’ve done, they’ll rig the economy so that the middle class gets nothing and the rich get richer. If this guy gets an opportunity again, he won’t only pick up where he left off, it will be much worse than it was last time.
Threats to Social Programs
He’ll gut Social Security, pull your health care, underfund public schools, all of it. That’s damn right, damn right, we’re not going back. We’re not going back, we’re not going back, we’re not going back, we’re not going back.
Look, this guy’s not fighting for you or your family, he doesn’t give a damn. And his running mate shares his dangerous and backward agenda. I said this, all of my friends, we went to Yale, had billionaires fund our career, and then we write a book trashing our neighbors that raised us.
Come on, we’re better than that, we’re better than that. And I said it, I want to be clear, I didn’t call anybody names, I spent enough years in that lunchroom to know bullies when I see them. I just made a very clear observation that they seem to be really concerned about.
Unpopular Policies
I pointed out that taking away reproductive freedoms, banning books, raising the price of insulin, trying to hurt labor unions, nobody’s asking for that weird crap. No one’s asking for it. Here’s the good news, we do the work.
This is about the future. We do the work, none of that’s going to happen. Vice President Harris believes in those freedoms.
She knows that every single person should get a chance at the middle class. She believes in something so beautiful, the promise of America. It’s that simple, the promise of America.
Gratitude to Harris
Madam Vice President, I want to say thank you for putting the trust in me to be your running mate. And I want to say, she has done so much, and with you together, it’s reminded us about something. It’s reminded us that this work can be about goodness.
It can be about smiling. It’s tough work, but we can be happy doing it. And Kamala Harris has done something that we will forever be grateful for her.
She has brought out the joy in our politics. Join me in welcoming the next President of the United States, Kamala Harris.
