Please welcome the Democratic nominee for President, Vice President of
the United States of America, Kamala Harris.
Yeah.
Good evening, everyone.
Good evening.
Thank you.
Good evening.
Thank you.
Thank you, everyone.
Thank you.
Thank you all.
OK, we got to get to some business.
We got to get to some business.
OK, Thank you, all.
OK.
Thank you.
Please.
Thank you, please.
Thank you so very much.
Thank you, everyone.
Thank you.
OK, let's get to business.
Let's get to business.
All right, So let me start by thanking my most
incredible husband, Doug, for being an incredible partner to me,
an incredible father to Cole and Ella.
And happy anniversary, Dougie.
I love you so very much.
To our President, Joe Biden, when I think about the
path that we have travelled together, Joe, I am filled
with gratitude.
Your record is extraordinary, as history will show, and your
character is inspiring.
And Doug and I love you and Jill and are
forever thankful to you both and to coach Tim Walls,
going to be an incredible vice president.
And to the delegates and everyone who has put your
faith in our campaign, your support is humbling.
So America, the path that led me here in recent
weeks was no doubt unexpected, but I'm no stranger to
unlikely journeys.
So my mother, our mother, Shamala Harris, had one of
her own.
And I miss her every day, and especially right now.
And I know she's looking down, smiling.
I know that so My mother was 19 when she
crossed the world alone, traveling from India to California with
an unshakable dream to be the scientist who would cure
breast cancer.
When she finished school, she was supposed to return home
to a traditional arranged marriage.
But as fate would have it, she met my father,
Donald Harris, a student from Jamaica.
They they fell in love and got married and that
act of self determination made my sister Maya and me
growing up.
We moved a lot.
I will always remember that big Mayflower truck packed with
all our belongings, ready to go to Illinois, to Wisconsin,
and wherever our parents jobs took us.
My early memories of our parents together are very joyful
ones.
A home filled with laughter and music.
Aretha Coltrane and miles at the park.
My mother would say, stay close, But my father would
say as he smiled, Run, Kamala, run.
Don't be afraid.
Don't let anything stop you.
From my earliest years, he taught me to be fearless.
But the harmony between my parents did not last.
When I was in elementary school, they split up and
it was mostly my mother who raised us.
Before she could finally afford to buy a home, she
rented a small apartment in the East Bay, in the
Bay.
In the Bay, you either live in the Hills or
the flatlands.
We lived in the Flats, a beautiful working class neighborhood
of firefighters, nurses and construction workers, all who tended their
lawns with pride.
My mother.
She worked long hours and like many working parents, she
leaned on a trusted circle to help raise us.
Mrs.
Shelton, who ran the daycare below us and became a
second mother.
Uncle Sherman, Aunt Mary, Uncle Freddie, Auntie Chris.
None of them family by blood and all of them
family by love.
Family who taught us how to make gumbo, how to
play chess and sometimes even let us win.
Family who loved us, believed in US and told us
we could be anything and do anything.
They instilled in us the values they personified, community, faith
and the importance of treating others as you would want
to be treated with kindness, respect and compassion.
My mother was a brilliant 5 foot tall brown woman
with an accent and as the eldest child.
As the eldest child, I saw how the world would
sometimes treat her.
But my mother never lost her cool.
She was tough, courageous, a trailblazer in the fight for
Women's Health.
And she taught Maya and me a lesson that Michelle
mentioned the other night.
She taught us to never complain about injustice, but do
something about it, Do something about it.
That was my mother.
And she taught us and she always, she also taught
us and she also taught us and never do anything
half assed.
And that is a direct quote.
A direct quote.
I grew up immersed in the ideals of the civil
rights movement.
My parents had met at a civil rights gathering, and
they made sure that we learned about civil rights leaders,
including the lawyers like Thurgood Marshall and Constance Baker Motley,
those who battled in the courtroom to make real the
promise of America.
So at a young age, I decided I wanted to
do that work.
I wanted to be a lawyer, and when it came
time to choose the type of law I would pursue,
I reflected on a pivotal moment in my life.
You see, when I was in high school, I started
to notice something about my best friend, Wanda.
She was sad at school, and there were times she
didn't want to go home.
So one day I asked if everything was all right
and she confided in me that she was being sexually
abused by her stepfather and I immediately told her she
had to come stay with us, and she did.
This is one of the reasons I became a prosecutor,
to protect people like Rhonda, because I believe everyone has
a right to safety, to dignity, and to justice.
As a prosecutor, when I had a case, I charged
it not in the name of the victim, but in
the name of the people for a simple reason.
In our system of justice, a harm against any one
of us is a harm against all of us.
And explain this to console survivors of crime to remind
them no one should be made to fight alone.
We are all in this together.
And every day in the courtroom I stood proudly before
a judge and I said 5 words.
Kamala Harris for the people.
And to be clear and to be clear, my entire
career I've only had one client, the people.
And so on behalf of the people.
On behalf of every American, regardless of party, race, gender,
or the language your grandmother speaks.
On behalf of my mother and everyone who has ever
set out on their own unlikely journey.
On behalf of Americans like the people I grew up
with.
People who work hard, chase their dreams, and look out
for one another.
On behalf of everyone whose story could only be written
in the greatest nation on earth, I accept your nomination
to be present with this election and with this election.
Our nation, our nation with this election, has a precious,
fleeting opportunity to move past the bitterness, cynicism and divisive
battles of the past, a chance to chart a new
way forward, not not as members of any one party
or faction, but as Americans.
And let me say I know there are people of
various political views watching tonight.
And I want you to know I promise to be
a president for all Americans.
You can always trust me to put country above party
and self, to hold sacred America's fundamental principles, from the
rule of law to free and fair elections to the
peaceful transfer of power.
President who unites us around our highest aspirations.
A President who leads and listens, who is realistic, practical
and has common sense, and always fights for the American
people.
From the courthouse to the White House.
That has been my life's work.
As a young courtroom prosecutor in Oakland, CA, I stood
up for women and children against predators who abuse them.
As Attorney General of California, I took on the big
banks, delivered $20 billion for middle class families who faced
foreclosure, and helped pass a homeowner Bill of Rights, one
of the first of its kind in the nation.
I stood up for veterans and students being scammed by
big for profit colleges, for workers who are being cheated
out of their wages, the wages they were due, for
seniors facing elder abuse.
I fought against the cartels who traffic in guns and
drugs and human beings who threaten the security of our
border and the safety of our communities.
And I will tell you, these fights were not easy,
and neither were the elections that put me in those
offices.
We were underestimated at practically every turn, but we never
gave up because the future is always worth fighting for.
The fight we are in right now.
A fight for America's future Fellow Americans, this election is
not only the most important of our lives, it is
one of the most important in the life of our
nation.
In many ways, Donald Trump is an unserious man.
But the consequences.
But the consequences of putting Donald Trump back in the
White House are extremely serious.
Consider consider not only the chaos and calamity when he
was in office, but also the gravity of what has
happened since he lost the last election.
Donald Trump tried to throw away your votes.
When he failed, he sent an armed mob to the
United States Capitol where they assaulted law enforcement officers.
When politicians in his own party begged him to call
off the mob and send help, he did the opposite.
He fanned the flames.
And now, for an entirely different set of crimes, He
was found guilty of fraud by a jury of everyday
Americans, and separately and separately, found liable for committing sexual
abuse.
And consider, consider what he intends to do if we
give him power again.
Consider his explicit intent to set free violent extremists who
assaulted those law enforcement officers at the Capitol.
His explicit intent to jail journalists, political opponents, and anyone
he sees as the enemy.
His explicit intent to deploy our active duty military against
our own citizens.
Consider.
Consider the power he will have, especially after the United
States Supreme Court just ruled that he would be immune
from criminal prosecution.
Just imagine Donald Trump with no guardrails and how he
would use the immense powers of the presidency of the
United States, not to improve your life, not to strengthen
our national security, but to serve the only client he
has ever had himself.
And we know and we know what a second Trump
term would look like.
It's all laid out in Project 2025, written by his
closest advisors.
And it's sum total is to pull our country back
to the past.
But America, we are not going back.
We are not going back.
We are not going back to when Donald Trump tried
to cut Social Security and Medicare.
We are not going back to when he tried to
get rid of the Affordable Care Act when insurance companies
could deny people with pre-existing conditions.
We are not going to let him eliminate the Department
of Education that funds our public schools.
We are not going to let him end programs like
Head Start that provide preschool and childcare for our children.
America, we are not going back and we are charting
and we are charting a new way forward, forward to
a future with a strong and growing middle class because
we know a strong middle class has always been critical
to America's success.
And building that middle class will be a defining goal
of my presidency.
And I'll tell you, this is personal for me.
The middle class is where I come from.
My mother kept a strict budget.
We lived within our means, yet we wanted for little,
and she expected us to make the most of the
opportunities that were available to us and to be grateful
for them.
Because as she taught us, opportunity is not available to
everyone.
That's why we will create what I call an opportunity
economy.
An opportunity economy where everyone has the chance to compete
and a chance to succeed, whether you live in a
rural area, small town or big city.
And as president, I will bring together labor and workers
and small business owners and entrepreneurs and American companies to
create jobs, to grow our economy, and to lower the
cost of everyday needs like healthcare and housing and groceries.
We will provide access to capital for small business owners
and entrepreneurs and founders.
And we will end America's housing shortage and protect Social
Security and Medicare.
Now compare that to Donald Trump, because I think everyone
here knows he doesn't actually fight for the middle class.
Not he doesn't actually fight for the middle class.
Instead, he fights for himself and his billionaire friends.
And he will give them another round of tax breaks
that will add up to $5 trillion to the national
debt.
And all the while, he intends to enact what in
effect is a national sales tax, call it a Trump
tax, that would raise prices on middle class families by
almost $4000 a year.
Well, instead of a Trump tax hike, we will pass
a middle class tax cut that will benefit more than
100 million Americans.
Friends, I believe America cannot truly be prosperous unless Americans
are fully able to make their own decisions about their
own lives, especially on matters of heart and home.
But tonight in America, too many women are not able
to make those decisions.
And let's be clear about how we got here.
Donald Trump hand picked members of the United States Supreme
Court to take away reproductive freedom.
And now he brags about it in his words.
Quote, I did it and I'm proud to have done
it.
End Quote.
Well, I'll tell you, Over the past two years I've
traveled across our country and women have told me their
stories.
Husbands and fathers have shared theirs.
Stories of women miscarrying in a parking lot, developing sepsis,
losing the ability to ever again have children, all because
doctors are afraid they may go to jail for caring
for their patients.
Couples just trying to grow their family cut off in
the middle of IVF treatments.
Children who have survived sexual assault, potentially being forced to
carry a pregnancy to term.
This is what's happening in our country because of Donald
Trump and understand he is not done.
As a part of his agenda, he and his allies
would limit access to birth control, ban medication abortion, and
enact a nationwide abortion ban with or without Congress.
And get this, get this, he plans to create a
national anti abortion coordinator and force states to report on
women's miscarriages and abortions.
Simply put, they are out of their minds.
One must ask, why exactly is it that they don't
trust women?
Well, we trust women.
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.
In this election, many other fundamental freedoms are at stake.
The freedom to live safe from gun violence in our
schools, communities, and places of worship.
The freedom to love who you love openly and with
pride.
The freedom to breathe clean air and drink clean water
and live free from the pollution that fuels the climate
crisis and the freedom that unlocks all the others.
The freedom to vote.
With this election, we finally have the opportunity to pass
the John Lewis Voting Rights Act and the freedom to
vote.
And let me be clear.
And let me be clear, after decades in law enforcement,
I know the importance of safety and security, especially at
our border.
Last year, Joe and I brought together Democrats and conservative
Republicans to write the strongest border bill in decades.
The Border Patrol endorsed it.
But Donald Trump believes a border deal would hurt his
campaign, so he ordered his allies in Congress to kill
the deal.
Well, I refuse to play politics with our security.
And here is my pledge to you as president.
I will bring back the bipartisan border security bill that
he killed, and I will sign it into law.
I know, I know.
We can live up to our proud heritage as a
nation of immigrants and reform our broken immigration system.
We can create an earned pathway to citizenship and secure
our border and America.
We must also be steadfast in advancing our security and
values abroad.
As Vice President, I have confronted threats to our security,
negotiated with foreign leaders, strengthened our alliances, and engaged with
our brave troops overseas.
As Commander in Chief, I will ensure America always has
the strongest, most lethal fighting force in the world.
And I will fulfill our sacred obligation to care for
our troops and their families.
And I will always honor and never disparage their service
and their sacrifice.
I will make sure that we lead the world into
the future on space and artificial intelligence, that America, not
China, wins the competition for the 21st century, and that
we strengthen, not abdicate, our global leadership.
Trump, on the other hand, threatened to abandon NATO.
He encouraged Putin to invade our allies said Russia could
quote do whatever the hell they want.
Five days before Russia attacked Ukraine, I met with President
Zelensky to warn him about russias plan to invade.
I helped mobilize a global response over 50 countries to
defend against Putin's aggression.
And as president, I will stand strong with Ukraine and
our NATO allies with respect to the war in Gaza.
President Biden and I are working around the clock because
now is the time to get a hostage deal and
a ceasefire deal done.
Let me be clear and let me be clear, I
will always stand up for Israel's right to defend itself.
And I will always ensure Israel has the ability to
defend itself.
Because the people of Israel must never again face the
horror that a terrorist organization called Hamas caused on October
seven, including unspeakable sexual violence and the massacre of young
people at a music festival.
At the same time, what has happened in Gaza over
the past ten months is devastating.
So many innocent lives lost, desperate, hungry people fleeing for
safety over and over again.
The scale of suffering is heartbreaking.
President Biden and I are working to end this war
such that Israel is secure, the hostages are released, the
suffering in Gaza ends, and the Palestinian people can realize
their right to dignity, security, freedom, take to take whatever
action is necessary to defend our forces and our interests
against Iran and Iran backed terrorists.
I will not cozy up to tyrants and dictators like
Kim Jong Un who are rooting for Trump, who are
rooting for Trump because you know, they know.
They know he is easy to manipulate with flattery and
favors.
They know Trump won't hold autocrats accountable because he wants
to be an autocrat himself.
And as president, I will never waver in defense of
America's security and ideals because in the enduring struggle between
democracy and tyranny, I know where I stand and I
know where the United States belongs.
So fellow Americans, fellow Americans, I I love our country
with all my heart.
Everywhere I go, everywhere I go, in everyone I meet,
I see a nation that is ready to move forward,
ready for the next step in the incredible journey that
is America.
I see an America where we hold fast to the
fearless belief that built our nation and inspired the world.
That here in this country, anything is possible.
That nothing is out of reach.
An America where we care for one another, look out
for one another, and recognize that we have so much
more in common than what separates us.
That none of us, none of us has to fail,
for all of us to succeed.
And that in unity there is strength.
You know, our opponents in this race are out there
every day denigrating America, talking about how terrible everything is.
Well, my mother had another lesson she used to teach.
Never let anyone tell you who you are.
You show them who you are.
America, let us show each other and the world who
we are and what we stand for freedom, opportunity, compassion,
dignity, fairness and endless possibilities.
We are the heirs to the greatest democracy in the
history of the world, and on behalf of our children
and our grandchildren and all those who sacrificed so dearly
for our freedom and liberty, we must be worthy of
this moment.
It is now our turn to do what generations before
us have done, guided by optimism and faith, to fight
for this country.
We love to fight for the ideals we cherish and
to uphold the awesome responsibility that comes with the greatest
privilege on earth, the privilege and pride of being an
American.
So let's get out there, let's fight for it, let's
get out there, let's vote for it.
And together, let us write the next great chapter in
the most extraordinary story ever told.
Thank you.
God bless you and May God bless the United States.
I'm telling these tears.
I I'm a keep running because the we don't clean
themselves.