Read here the full transcript of Vice President Kamala Harris’ speech to a crowd at a rally in Savannah, Georgia on Thursday, August 29, 2024.
Listen to the audio version here:
TRANSCRIPT:
Opening Remarks
Good afternoon, Savannah. Good afternoon. Oh, good afternoon. Oh, it’s good to be back in Savannah.
Good afternoon. Can we please hear it for Caitlin and her incredible leadership? Look, when I look out at our young leaders like Caitlin, I know our future is so bright. It is so bright.
I want to thank Mayor Johnson. Thank you for yours. There you are. We’ve been hanging out for the last two days. Mayor, I thank you so very much for your leadership. Thank you. Congresswoman Nikema Williams, the chair of the Democratic Party of Georgia, for your friendship and your sisterhood. And to all the leaders with us today, good afternoon, good afternoon. Good afternoon.
I also bring greetings from our president and a great friend of the state of Georgia, Joe Biden. And let us also send our love to the great president from the state of Georgia, Jimmy Carter.
Countdown to Election Day
So, Georgia, I love you back. I love you back. And we have 68 days to go until this election. 68 days to go.
I think you all have spent your time here, sacrificing all your other obligations to be here together, us as one community, knowing we all have so much more in common than what separates us. And I thank you for taking that time. And listen, so we’re here to speak truth. And one of the things that we know, this is going to be a tight race until the very end.
So let’s not pay too much attention to the polls, because we are running as the underdog. And we have some hard work ahead of us. But we like hard work. Hard work is good work. Hard work is good work. And with your help, we are going to win this November. We are going to win this November. Yes, we will.
My Career and Commitment
Look, Georgia, let me say, I’m no stranger to tough fights. Before I was elected Vice President, before I was elected a United States Senator, I was an elected Attorney General and before that, an elected District Attorney. And before that, I was a courtroom prosecutor. So every day in the courtroom, I stood proudly before a judge and I spoke five words: “Kamala Harris for the people.”
My entire career, I’ve only had one client, the people. I stood for women and children against predators who abused them. I took on the big banks and delivered $20 billion for middle-class families who faced foreclosure. I fought against cartels who traffic in guns, drugs, and human beings. And I stood up for veterans and students being scammed by big for-profit colleges. For workers who were being cheated out of the wages they were due. And for seniors facing elder abuse.
I will tell you, those fights were not easy. And neither were the elections that put me in those offices. But we never gave up. Because the future is always worth fighting for. Always.
The Fight for America’s Future
And that is the fight we are in right now, a fight for America’s future. We fight for a future with affordable child care, paid leave, and affordable health care. And on that last subject, let’s finally expand Medicaid in Georgia. So people can take their child to a doctor or go to an emergency room without going into medical debt.
We fight for a future where we build what I call an opportunity economy. So that every American has the opportunity to own a home, to start a business, and to build wealth and intergenerational wealth. And a future where we lower the cost of living for America’s families.
Taking on Economic Challenges
When I was Attorney General, I went after price-fixing schemes. And, love you back, love you back. And I will tell you, when we get this done together, my friends, and when I am President, I will take on the bad actors who exploit a crisis to rip off consumers on everyday items. To rip off consumers on everyday items like groceries.
I will take on big pharma and cap the cost of prescription drugs and insulin for all Americans. I will take on the high cost of housing and work with developers to cut the red tape and build millions of new homes. And I will give 100 million Americans a tax cut including $6,000 to families during the first year of their child’s life. Understanding folks just need a little help from time to time.
It’s not about just getting by, it’s about getting ahead. $6,000 in the first year of a child’s life to help pay for that car seat or the crib or the baby clothes. And unlike Donald Trump, I will always put the middle class and working class families first. Always.
I come from the middle class, I know what I’m talking about.
Contrasting with Trump’s Agenda
And Savannah, but we have some work to do, okay? We got some work to do because we know Donald Trump has a very different plan. He has a very different plan.
Just look at his Project 2025 agenda. Right. If he is elected, Donald Trump intends to give tax breaks to billionaires and big corporations. He intends to cut Social Security and Medicare. And he wants to impose what in effect is a national sales tax on everyday products and basic necessities. And it will cost, the economists will tell you, it will cost a typical American family nearly $4,000 a year.
So Georgia, on top of all of this, if Donald Trump wins in November, he intends to end the Affordable Care Act. To take us back to a time when insurance companies, we’re not going back. We’re going forward. And the reason we know we can’t go back, to your point, the reason we know we can’t go back, on the issue of the Affordable Care Act, remember what that was like before we had the Affordable Care Act?