Hillary Knighted In Purple At UB, ‘We Have To Take On The Gun Lobby’

Update, speech transcript: One day after Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump visited Connecticut’s most populous city, the likely Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton addressed more than 1,000 supporters at the University of Bridgeport’s Harvey Hubbell gym, home of the Purple Knights, declaring “We have to take on the gun lobby and take on the epidemic of gun violence in America.”

“I’m going to do everything I can to make sure America’s best years are ahead of us,” Clinton told more than 1,000 supporters in the university’s gym. “You should feel that your country has your back.”

Conspicuously absent from list of scheduled speakers was Bridgeport Mayor Joe Ganim, a Democrat who applauded Clinton from a perch on a media riser. Ganim was spotted Saturday backstage at a city rally for Trump, where the mayor greeted the Republican presidential frontrunner.

“We have to take on the gun lobby and take on the epidemic of gun violence in America,” she said Sunday afternoon in a gymnasium on the University of Bridgeport campus.

Transcript of Clinton’s remarks:

Hello, Bridgeport! Hey. Thank you all so much. Thank you.

Thank you so much for being here today, and I am grateful to Reverend Stallworth for his introduction. I want to thank your two senators, Senator Blumenthal and Senator Murphy, for their support and endorsement. I want to thank the mayor and all the elected officials from here in Bridgeport. And I want to thank all of you for coming out and being with me today. I am so proud to be here at the University of Bridgeport, to be in the largest city in Connecticut. And to be talking about what we’re going to do together if I am so fortunate as to be your president, how we’re going to work to give Bridgeport the best possible future.

And I know how important it is, especially for the young people here, the students here at the university, that we are able to tell every single young person from the children who are here to the students to the people who are starting their lives and careers, that we’re going to work to make sure that you have every opportunity to fulfill your own potential–to get ahead and to stay ahead, to be part of the promise of America. That is what so many of us believed as part of the American dream, and I’m going to do everything I can to make sure that America’s best years are still ahead of us.

So I want you to imagine with me some of what we can accomplish together. Let’s imagine that we have an economy that works for everybody, not just those at the top, with enough good jobs and rising incomes.

Now, it won’t surprise you to hear me say–and it is actually true–our economy does better when we have a Democrat in the White House. It’s not ancient history that we had, in the 1990s when we did have a Democrat in the White House, we had 23 million new jobs and incomes rose for everybody, not just people at the top–middle-class families, working families, poor families. In fact, those were some really positive years in our country. The median family income went up 17 percent for everyone, and it went up 33 percent for African American families. I want us to get back into creating opportunities for all of our people, and I am convinced we can do that. We can get new jobs in infrastructure–our roads, our bridges, our tunnels, our ports, our airports, our water systems. These are good jobs. They can’t be exported. And they’re also good union jobs where people can make a good, middle-class income.

And let’s do more to bring back advanced manufacturing to cities like Bridgeport that helped to build America in the first place. And we’re going to combat climate change with clean, renewable energy jobs. Connecticut is leading the way. You have something called a Green Bank–a Green Bank that helps to fund energy efficiency and clean, renewable energy jobs. When I’m president, I want to have a national infrastructure bank that will fund these kinds of projects that will make us richer and cleaner and combat climate change and have good, solid jobs for Americans.

And let’s do more to help small businesses. They’re the backbone of our economy. They will create two-thirds of the jobs in America. And so we’ve got to support people who have the guts and determination to start small businesses. My dad was a small businessman. His father was a factory worker. And I know that whether you’re working hard in a factory or you’re working to make a small business successful, you should feel that your country has your back. And when I am president, small businesspeople, especially minority- and women-owned small businesses, will have that.

And for goodness sakes, let’s raise the minimum wage. It’s not right that people are mired in poverty. $7.25 is the national minimum wage. I support the fight for 15. I support raising the minimum wage at the federal level because I want people who are working hard full-time to feel like they’ve got a pathway out of poverty, not that they’ve worked full-time and are still stuck in poverty. We need to make work pay. That’s what it’s supposed to do in our country.

And one of the ways we can raise incomes faster than I can think of anything is to make sure women get equal pay for the work that we do. And I got to tell you, this is not just a women’s issue. This is a family issue. If you have a mother, a wife, a sister, a daughter who’s working and not being treated fairly in the workplace, that shortchanges you. I was with Lilly Ledbetter in Philadelphia the day before yesterday. She’s the woman who worked years at a factory in Alabama. She was the only woman supervisor. She didn’t find out for about 20 years that she was paid 40 percent less. Because you can still be fired for asking what somebody else makes for doing exactly the same job. So when she found that out, she was, like, dumbfounded because her performance evaluations, everything had been great. And you know what else it means? When she retired, her Social Security is 40 percent less than it should have been. Her 401(k) is 40 percent less than it should have been. So we’ve just got to be committed to being fair when it comes to making sure everybody–men and women alike–are paid fairly for the jobs that we all do.

I had a little girl in a town hall in Nevada that I called on. She said, “If you’re the girl president will you get paid the same as the boy president?” I said, well, I think so. I think that’s one of those jobs where they tell you what you have to make for it. But I want to make sure everybody is treated fairly as well. I also want to work to make sure that our education system is preparing our young people for the jobs of tomorrow. And that starts with early childhood education, which is a passion of mine. Because I want every child prepared to learn when that little boy or girl gets to school. And I want to work with our teachers to make sure that elementary and secondary schools are doing exactly the best job they can do to help as many of our kids as possible to get ahead. I am tired of teachers being scapegoated for all the ills of society. It’s time that we support teachers and give them the tools they need to do the job we ask them.

And then let’s make college affordable for everybody again. I have a plan so that you will not have to borrow money. It will be debt-free tuition. But I want to also take care of the people who already have debt. 40 million Americans have student debt. Let’s let everybody refinance their student debt the way you can refinance your home mortgage or your car payment. Let’s get those costs down and let’s have a limited period of time so that you will be paid off, and let’s stop the federal government from making money on lending money to young people to get their educations in the first place. And I’m going to defend the Affordable Care Act. Because I know what a great historic achievement this is. One of President Obama’s great accomplishments. 20 million people now have health insurance. We are at 90% of covering every American, and we’re going to get to 100.

But we’re going to make the Affordable Care Act work better. We’re going to get the costs down. The co-pays and the deductibles–we want more choices for people. And we’re going to tackle high prescription drug costs. Because they’re really beginning to eat into people’s budgets, and we’re going to fight and get the authority for Medicare to be able to negotiate for lower prices, which will make a big difference for everybody. You know, before there was something called Obamacare, there was something called Hillarycare. And my husband and I worked very hard to try to get to universal health care coverage. We were not successful. And so after it was clear we weren’t going to be able to beat back the opposition, I said, well, what can we do? And we created the Children’s Health Insurance Program, which insures 8 million kids.

And the reason I mention that is because it gave me such insight into how hard this is, but how necessary it must be that we get up and try to achieve this every day. That’s why I was thrilled when President Obama signed the bill, and why I will do everything to prevent the Republicans from repealing it, because that’s what they voted to do more than 60 times. But there are two health-related issues that we are still way behind on: mental health and addiction. I have to say, it’s heartbreaking–when you run for president–at least maybe just speaking for myself–I can shake hands with somebody, literally, for, like, 10, 15, 20 seconds, and they will share their heart. They will say to me, please do something about mental health. My brother is schizophrenic. My mother is depressed. I’m having problems. And we can’t get the help we need, because it’s too expensive or it’s not available.

Or they will say to me, please do something about the opioid and heroin epidemic. My brother was just overdosing, and I have to ask you to help. Now, you’re not going to see that in headlines. When people do the political coverage, it’s like, who said what nasty thing about somebody else? Honestly, that is not going to make us be a better country. That is not going to give us the kind of agenda that we need. So I’m going to keep talking about things that Americans talk to me about, and we are going to treat mental health the same as we treat every other kind of health problem, and there should be no stigma, and there should be enough treatment, and the same with addiction. It’s time when somebody needs help, that they can get it without having to wait months. And I’m just hoping that communities will open their hearts to doing this. First of all, we have to save lives. That’s number one. But number two, we’ve got to get beyond this terrible epidemic of addiction that is taking the lives of so many Americans. So I need your help in this. I’ll do what I can with programs and using the bully pulpit, but this has to be done community by community.

And the same is true when it comes to criminal justice reform. We need to make good on the promise of equal justice under the law. And again, I am committed to an agenda that will address a lot of the issues that we know are unfortunately making it unequal. And we have to do that. Because everybody in this country should feel, whatever your race, your ethnicity, your religion, where you live, that you’re going to be treated equally. That is one of the core values and principles of our country. And so we need more programs from the very earliest. Instead of a school to prison pipeline, we need a cradle to college pipeline. We need to reach into communities and families and provide support so that kids get off to a good, healthy start. Get the education and the opportunities they need. And we need more second chance programs so people who have paid their debt to society can get jobs, can get housing, can get education, and have a better future.

We also have to take on the gun lobby, and take on the epidemic of gun violence in America. On average, 90 people a day die from guns in our country. 33,000 people a year. We cannot go on like this. And there is absolutely no conflict between protecting the Second Amendment rights of gun owners and protecting our children, our teenagers, and other of our neighbors, family, and friends. So I’m fighting for comprehensive background checks. Let’s close the gun show loophole, the online loophole, let’s close the Charleston loophole. Let’s end the special protection that gun makers and sellers get. And I really want to commend your two senators. Both of your senators have been on the front lines of this battle against the gun lobby.

But we need to turn this into a voting issue. People need to really pay attention to how their elected officials vote. And there needs to be an enormous outcry that we can do this consistent with the Second Amendment. So please work with us, don’t be intimidated by the gun lobby. And if you have someone you know who has been killed, or maybe used a gun to take his or her own life, or maybe died in a tragic, avoidable accident, then you know exactly why we have to make this a high priority for our country. But this gun violence knows no boundaries, no borders. I have held the hands and looked into the eyes of so many families, from Columbine, and Aurora in Colorado, to Sandy Hook in Connecticut, and everyplace in between. I have been working with the Mothers of the Movement, women who have lost their children. And so many other mothers who demand action. So I’m going to make this a centerpiece of what I do as president, and together we’re going to save lives, and we’re going to make it clear we cannot stand idly by and see 33,000 people a year die.

Now, I hope that you have paid attention to what the Republicans who are running for president have been saying, because everything I have just said, they disagree with. I mean, really, they don’t believe in equal pay, they don’t believe in raising the minimum wage. Donald Trump actually says, wages are too high in America. Yeah. And they all want to repeal the Affordable Care Act. Of course, they all have insurance, by the way. And they sure don’t want to take on the gun lobby, and they’re not interested in criminal justice reform, and every time Donald Trump says one of the things he says, a lot of people are surprised or shocked. But after a while, with so many of those comments, those insults, the kind of demagoguery that we are seeing from him, you have to ask yourself, what really is at stake in this election? And one of the things that is at stake are our rights. Because the Republicans want to undermine and set back our rights, so I will let you know where I stand.

I will defend a woman’s right to make her own healthcare decisions. And I will defend Planned Parenthood from the partisan attacks it is under. And I will defend marriage equality, and work to end discrimination against the LGBT community. I will defend voting rights, and I will work to end Citizens United and its pernicious effect on our politics. I will work to hold Wall Street and anybody else accountable who is undermining our economic growth and the fair treatment that people in our country deserve. I will defend Social Security against these crazy plans to privatize it. I will defend the benefits and services that our veterans have earned, and we will not let the Republicans undermine those. I will defend the right of Puerto Rico to restructure their debts and have a chance to get out from under that pressure. I will defend and fight for comprehensive immigration reform, with a path to citizenship.

I will end the immigration raids and roundups, and breaking up families. That is not the American way. So there is a lot for us to work on together. And you have to ask yourself, when you go to vote on Tuesday, the three big questions, the tests that anybody running for president should have to meet. Number one, can this person produce positive results in your life and the life of your family, your community? I want to work with you to do just that. That’s what I’ve done my entire career. Fighting to help even the odds for people who have the odds stacked against them. And fighting for women’s rights, and children’s rights, and workers’ rights, and all of the real building blocks of our economy. So I need your help to do that. I also need your help–let me get a drink of water. I have been talking nonstop for weeks now. So forgive me while I stick a lozenge in my mouth here.

But the second big test–because, remember when you vote on Tuesday, you are voting not only for president, you’re voting for commander-in-chief. And the question is, who can protect our country and keep us safe, and lead the world? And I have to tell you, when you hear what Trump and Cruz say, it’s not only offensive, it’s dangerous. I mean, just think, we here in this part of the country–I was a senator on 9/11. We know how serious this is. How we do have to defeat terrorism, how we have to work with our police and our other law enforcement and intelligence agencies to keep us safe. So when Trump says things like, bar all Muslims from coming into the country, that is heard–that is heard not only in the arenas in which he’s speaking, that is heard around the world.

We have to build a coalition to defeat ISIS. And we have to build that coalition with a lot of Muslim majority nations. And I know how hard it is to build a coalition, because I built the one that imposed sanctions on Iran, and drove them finally to the negotiating table so we could put a lid on their nuclear weapons program. So when he says that, I’m just thinking in my head, well, he’s just made the job of the president a lot harder. To go to countries and say, okay, yes, someone running for president has insulted your religion, but you need to be in a coalition with us.

And when Ted Cruz says, hey, let’s round up all of the Muslim Americans by making sure that we have police watching all of them–the best answer to that came from the NYPD, probably the most effective and experienced counterterrorism police department, because of what they’ve been up against. And the chief of the department, when asked about what Cruz said, responded, well, that’s interesting. So what am I supposed to do with the 1,000 Muslim American NYPD police officers that we have? And Bill Bratton, the Commissioner of the NYPD really summed it up when he was asked. He said, Ted Cruz doesn’t know what the hell he’s talking about.

So, we live in a dangerous, complex world. But we have to continue to lead that world. And we have to be smart. Lead with our values in furtherance of our interests, and protection of our security. That’s exactly what I will focus on if I am fortunate enough to be your president. Working with other nations, bringing them into partnerships with us, so we will be more effective in protecting the United States, our friends, and our allies around the world. And finally, the final question you should ask yourself is, who will unify our country? And here, I think we have a very important obligation to do everything we can to bridge the divides between and among Americans today. I did that as First Lady, as Senator, as Secretary of State, trying to find common ground. And actually, whenever I have a job, Republicans actually say nice things about me. When I’m doing the work. It’s just when I’m running for or trying to get the job that they are really jumping up and down about me.

But as we go forward, if I’m the Democratic nominee, you’ll see a lot of quotations from Republicans talking about what a good colleague I am, and how I do try to find common ground. I will go anywhere to meet with anyone anytime to find common ground. Because that is the only way our democracy can work. Now, I will stand my ground on matters of principle and values, and what I think is right for the country. But I did that with the children’s health insurance program, reforming the adoption and foster care program, what we had to do after 9/11, getting healthcare for the National Guard, looking for ways to keep medicines for children safer, getting a nuclear arms treaty with Russia passed. We have a lot of evidence that it will work, but you can’t ever, ever ignore how important it is to find that common ground.

Our founders understood that none of us has all the answers in a democracy. If you want to go someplace where leaders act and like to have all the answers, go to a dictatorship. Go to an authoritarian regime. Go to a theocracy. That’s not who we are as Americans. And when people run for office on the Tea Party or whatever else, and they say they will never compromise, they are basically denying the fundamental tenets of democracy, where we get together, we make progress together. And so I’m asking for your help on Tuesday. I would be so honored and humbled to have your vote on Tuesday. And I want you to know, if you will vote for me on Tuesday, I will stand up and fight for you all the way through this campaign, all the way into the White House. Thank you, Bridgeport and Connecticut.