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? Remember when insurance companies had the power to deny people with pre-existing conditions? Remember what that was like, children with asthma, breast cancer survivors, grandparents with diabetes?
So yeah, we’re not going back. We’re not going back. We’re not going back. And we will move forward.
The Fight for Freedom
Ours is a fight for the future. And it is a fight for freedom. Like the freedom of a woman to make decisions about her own body and not have her government tell her what to do. And understand how we got here.
When he was president, Donald Trump handpicked three members of the United States Supreme Court. With the intention that they would undo the protections of Roe v. Wade, and they did just as he intended. Why don’t they trust women?
Will we trust women? And when Congress passes a bill to restore reproductive freedom as President of the United States, I will proudly sign it into law. Proudly. Proudly.
Addressing Current Issues
And across our nation, in addition to that, we are witnessing a full-on assault on other hard-fought, hard-won fundamental freedoms. Let me just say something. Hold on. Hold up for a second. Hold up for a second. Let me just say something. Let me just say something. We are fighting for a democracy.
Everyone has a right and should have their voices heard. I am speaking now. But on the subject, I will say this. The President and I are working around the clock. We’ve got to get a hostage deal done and get a ceasefire done now.
The Stakes in 2024
So back to this election and Donald Trump. So in addition to the fight on the fundamental freedom to make decisions about one’s own body, I have been traveling our country and the people of Georgia know what I know. There is a full-on assault on hard-fought, hard-won freedoms and rights, including the freedom to vote, the freedom to be safe from gun violence. And an attack on the freedom to love who you love openly and with pride. And we will fight against all of that, including the freedom to live free from the pollution that fuels the climate crisis.
Here’s the thing. Generations of Americans before us led the fight for freedom. Now, Savannah, the baton is in our hands. So we who believe in the sacred freedom to vote will finally pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act and the Freedom to Vote Act. We who believe in the freedom to live safe from gun violence will finally pass universal background checks and red flag laws.
So much is on the line in this election. So much is on the line. And understand, this is not 2016 or 2020. Things are different. A lot is the same when we think about the issues, and then there is significant differences.
The stakes in 2024 are even higher. Because consider that the United States Supreme Court recently just basically told the former president that going forward he will be effectively immune no matter what he does in the White House. Now just imagine. Well, the courts are going to take care of that.
We’re going to get them out of it. We’re going to elect ourselves and everybody here in November. But I mention the Supreme Court ruling because understand what this means. Just imagine, before there was at least the threat of consequence.
Understand what it now means and imagine Donald Trump with no guardrail. Imagine what that means when you consider he has openly vowed that if re-elected on day one he will be a dictator. That he would end the independence of the Department of Justice so he could have unchecked power and seek vengeance against people who disagree with him. He even called for termination of the United States Supreme, the supreme land of our nation, the United States Constitution.
Think about what that means and let us be very clear. Someone who suggests we should terminate the Constitution of the United States should never again stand behind the seal of the President of the United States of America. Never again.
Closing Remarks
So it all comes down to this. We are all here together, spending this time together because we love our country. We love our country. We love our country. And we know the privilege and pride, the privilege and pride that comes with being American.
And I do believe it is the highest form of patriotism to fight for the ideals of our country. That is how we realize the promise of America. Georgia, for the past two election cycles, voters in this very state, you who are here, have delivered. You sent two extraordinary senators to Washington, D.C.
You sent President Biden and me to the White House. You showed up. You knocked on doors. You registered folks to vote. And you made it happen. You did that. You did that. And so now we are asking you to do it again.
Let’s do it again. Let’s do it again. So, Savannah, are you ready to make your voices heard? Do we believe in freedom? Do we believe in opportunity? Do we believe in the promise of America? And are we ready to fight for it?
And when we fight, God bless you and God bless the United States of America. Thank you.
