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Erin Burnett Outfront
Awaiting Speeches By Biden, Kaine and Obama; Third Day of the Democratic National Convention. Aired 7-8p ET
Aired July 27, 2016 - 19:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[18:59:56] SEN. HARRY REID (D), NEVADA: Middle-class families, fighting to give your kids a better life. Democrats stand in your corner. Americans fighting for the equality and respect our nation promised you. We're in your corner. New Americans risking everything to get here and then fighting to make it here, we're in your corner. You're the ones fighting the hardest fights. You're the ones who need leaders in your corner. Leaders like my forever friend Bernie Sanders.
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
Leaders like Catherine Cortes master who's going to help Democrats take back the Senate. Leaders who never back down and oh, do we love Tim Kaine. We really do.
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
Leaders who have had your back their whole life like Hillary Clinton, the most qualified and prepared candidate in the history of America.
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
In a few months I'll be stepping out of the ring one last time, but Democrats will always, always be in your corner so together let's keep fighting, together, fighting the good fight. Thank you very much.
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: The retiring Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid. Our coverage continues right now with Erin Burnett.
ERIN BURNETT, CNN ANCHOR: And we are live at the Democratic National Convention where the conversation turning this hour to national security and gun violence. Welcome to all. I'm Erin Burnett. This is a special edition of OUTFRONT.
Tonight, Democrats trying to convince voters that Hillary Clinton is the leader needed to protect them during very dangerous times. President Obama is going to be here vouching for his former secretary of state focusing on her character and specifically on her record. Vice President Joe Biden also is a headliner tonight. We are told he is going to be making an economic argument for electing Hillary Clinton and the vice presidential nominee Tim Kaine will come out really for the first time, many in the country have seen him sharing his personal story and we'll see of course if he embraces the traditional VP role of attack dog and goes after Donald Trump. That would be a big question tonight.
My panel is with me as we get ready for these crucial big speeches. And David Chalian, we are going to hear from President Obama specifics about Hillary Clinton's record, but he is not going to be afraid to come out and mention Donald Trump specifically quite a few times.
DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: That's right. And by the way, he hasn't been afraid in the last several weeks that we've heard from him to talk about Donald Trump by name. But you know, we've heard that he's going to talk about what it is to work with Hillary Clinton every day, work with her in the situation room, really validate on that. Yesterday we heard Bill Clinton talk about the courtship and Hillary's fights throughout all of her life and now, we're going to learn about the modern-day Hillary Clinton and what she does day in and day out working for the American people and that's the argument that Barack Obama wants to make, I'm sure. We will also hear a bit about Barack Obama's legacy.
BURNETT: Right.
CHALIAN: Remember, he launched his career at the Democratic National Convention in Boston 12 years ago on this day basically his national career.
BURNETT: Right.
CHALIAN: And now we're going to hear from him on his way out of the White House.
BURNETT: So, Kayleigh, we're also going to hear from the President that he is going to address not just the base and his court supporters that he needs to rally and excite about Hillary Clinton, but he is going to say in one of the excerpts we have from the speech address men who took pride in hard work and providing for their families who now feel forgotten. That sounds like a very direct and specific outreach to voters that he thinks could be looking at Donald Trump.
KAYLEIGH MCENANY, DONALD TRUMP SUPPORTER: It's a direct reach to the Donald Trump base because we heard Donald Trump appeal to constituency last week, when you heard his son say Donald Trump was very pouring concrete. There's a whole segment of society, the middle class, blue collar workers who feel like they've been left behind under seven, eight years of Obama. So, it's going to take in admitting. I understand his economic times are hard in justifying what he's done. And I think it's going to be very hard to tell people who are suffering wages, people who are losing jobs to trade that they should elect four more years of Obama given the precedent.
BURNETT: This is the group Bakari that Joe Biden has always effectively spoken to and I would imagine tonight when they say he's going to making, giving an economic plea that that is a group Joe Biden is going to be personally reached to, as well.
BAKARI SELLERS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, there is no better person to connect with that rust belt-type group demographic than Joe Biden. BURNETT: Right.
SELLERS: But what Joe Biden is going to also tout is that although we do know wages are low, although we do know that people are still struggling today that we are on the right track. We are now coming back from the depression that George W. Bush put us in. We are nearly 80 months, approximately 80 months of private sector job growth. You know, the unemployment rate has been cut. The stock market is nearly double. I mean, those are things that you can be proud of, but you can still say and Joe Biden can have that empathy unlike most.
Joe Biden can come, he is from Scranton, right down the street, he can come and say I feel your pain. I anticipate that Joe Biden and Barack Obama, Tim Kaine and even Mayor Bloomberg will be able to make a robust push to voters especially the white voters here in the rust belt that Hillary Clinton is having a hard time with.
[19:05:20] BURNETT: You mentioned former Mayor of New York Michael Bloomberg and he did consider an independent run. Look, it's not going to surprise anyone that he in one sense he's here because he endorsed Barack Obama last time. He's obviously a huge proponent of gun control, but yet he is going to be here and he is trying to speak to that independent voter. The voters that he thought he could have won over. How much pressure is on him tonight?
DAN PFEIFFER, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, I don't know if there's pressure. I think he runs two things. As an independent he can speak to independent voters, but also as a businessman. Donald Trump's entire case for why he should be president is his business record. And Michael Bloomberg as a businessman can stand up there and explain why that is, why he, Donald Trump, specifically himself is not a great businessman and not someone who is qualified for a president of the United States. That's a powerful (INAUDIBLE) from someone that Donald Trump's own class of billionaires.
BURNETT: Own class of billionaires. David Chalian, also spent -- as vice mayor of New York, would have work with Donald Trump, seen him applying for all sorts of permits. I mean, this would be a very personal knowledge of his business acumen.
CHALIAN: There is no doubt about it, he will be speaking from a very personal experience, knowledge with Donald Trump. They've had tons of interaction in their life.
BURNETT: Yes.
CHALIAN: So, it could be an effective argument against him. I think, though, the appeal to the Independents is the -- for me, the big highlight because I'm not sure listening to one billionaire bash another billionaire is the most effective message I think, but making that appeal to Independents that he doesn't fit into one party and why he's choosing Hillary Clinton. That could be an --
BURNETT: And Kayleigh, then we're talking about Tim Kaine. And obviously a lot of pressure is on him tonight. But he also, you know, Hillary Clinton picked a white male as her running mate. All right? She could have done something very different and she picked a white male. Tim Kaine also has the opportunity tonight to reach out to that Donald Trump base, and he's going to sure try to do it because he comes from that crucial swing state of Virginia.
MCENANY: That's exactly right. That's why she chose him. She struggles among white males. So, Tim Kaine is a definite effort to court those voters and they are so crucial. If you think about Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Ohio, if Donald Trump was able to turn those four states in the rust belt, he wins the election, he makes up the deficit between Romney and Obama. So, it is so crucial that they're able to reach this class of voters.
BURNETT: And Bakari, Dan, this room, is also going to be crucial and their response to Tim Kaine. Right? I mean, there are some, the Bernie Sanders cadre among them who were not thrilled with this pick.
PFEIFFER: I think Tim Kaine is going to do great in this room. This is a group of people who are going to very much like him. If anyone saw the rally he did with Hillary Clinton right after he was announced, he blew the doors off, he's incredibly charming and is one of those genuine people in politics I've ever had the chance to work with. And so I think he will do very well up there. He's very comfortable in his own skin and self-effacing and I think he will be excellent.
BURNETT: And in just a couple of moments we'll going to start hearing from one of the big themes of tonight, and part of national security is going to be veterans. We'll going to hear from Representative Ruben Gallego and veteran, Marine Corps, served in Iraq, six years in the Marine Corps going to speak with what we anticipate will be a very fiery speech taking on Donald Trump very directly on an issue Donald Trump has tried to make. David Chalian central of course which is veterans' affairs. He is going to be doing that. And then we will going to hear from the wife of an army helicopter pilot who died in Iraq. So these can be very powerful moments.
CHALIAN: And up until this point of convention, we have not heard a ton on the national security front. We're more than half ways, you know, half ways through the conventions. So, I do think Hillary Clinton needs to start trying to play defense against all of that work that Donald Trump has done.
BURNETT: And that is exactly what we're going to hear right now.
Representative Ruben Gallego speaking right now.
ANNOUNCER: Please welcome Representative Ruben Gallego from Arizona.
REP. RUBEN GALLEGO (D), ARIZONA: Thank you. Thank you. These days some people call me, Congressman. But the proudest title I've ever had is that of United States Marine. I served -- I served in the legendary Lima Company 325 out of Ohio, deployed alongside me the son of Latino immigrants where Native Americans, African-Americans, Midwestern white boys and I know this comes as a complete shock to Donald Trump, but Muslim-Americans, as well.
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
When we were kicking in doors looking for insurgents in Iraq, we didn't care about each other's race or religion. We fought together. We laughed together, and we mourned together. Patriotism, service and sacrifice, keeping your word. Those are the values of the United States Marine Corps. Those are American values. Those are not Donald Trump's values. Donald Trump is a man who questions the loyalty of those who served our country without ever himself serving. That's not patriotic.
[19:10:11] Service and sacrifice, Donald Trump says about Senator McCain, he, quote, "likes people who weren't captured." As a marine, as an Arizonan, as an American, I am offended. When it comes to honoring the service of our troops, Trump businesses fired them for missing work because of their duties. That's not just illegal, it's immoral. Instead of keeping his work to veteran, he's used them as an excuse to back out of a debate and then failed for months to deliver on the donations he promised to those veterans.
One of my fellow marines called Trump University a complete con. I'd say the same thing about Donald Trump himself.
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
Donald Trump is a scam artist. He is trying to pull off the ultimate scam pretending he cares about veterans. Hillary Clinton is the real deal. She fought for the post-9/11 G.I. bill while in the Senate to send our veterans to college. She extended health insurance to America's reservists and she has a real plan to combat veterans' homelessness. Meanwhile, when Trump saw disabled veterans legally selling merchandise in front of his properties, he said their work was seriously downgrading the area. Let me tell you something, Donald, our veterans don't downgrade your real estate. They upgrade our country.
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
Donald praises dictators and insults our allies. His foreign policy would be based on false bravado and bluster. I know the importance of the commander-in-chief who makes thoughtful decisions with the most important power they have to send our men and women in uniform into battle. We need a president who honors the service of our troops abroad, and who respects their sacrifice when they come home, a leader who will provide steady leadership and protect American values. We need Hillary Clinton as the next president of the United States. Thank you!
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
(DNC VIDEO PLAYING "SHE'S WITH US")
JAMIE DORFF, WIFE OF ARMY PILOT KILLED IN IRAQ: If I had to describe Pat in one word it would be loving. We grew up together, we got married when we were 21. He was a family one. He was able to stand with us, he was just eating it up especially when Brisa was born. Whatever he could do to help and protect, that's what he wanted to do. It's one of the reasons why I fell in love with him. And he realized that he could do that and fly if he joined the army.
He took that job very seriously, but any time he was home he answered to that little girl. We were his world. Patrick was in Iraq in 2004. His unit was called out to do a search and rescue. Patrick crushed trying to save the lives of others. That was just the kind of person he was. I was numb. Lost my husband, I lost my best friend, I lost my best friend, and my daughter lost her dad.
Losing Pat really shook our foundation. It was just me and Brisa and I was, like, okay. What do we do now? Hillary Clinton's actions in the Senate released some of the financial stress. It enabled me to focus solely on me and my daughter, to heal and give her a stable home. What Hillary has done for our family and other military families, words can't even describe it. She understands what our country needs. Twelve years ago she understood what our families needed. She has the gumption to get things done and that's exactly what you want in our president.
ANNOUNCER: Please welcome Jamie Dorff from Leandro, Texas.
[19:15:01] DORFF: Thank you. Thank you.
I will never forget the moment I heard that Patrick's helicopter did not return. In an instant, the life I knew was destroyed. The partner I loved, gone. My daughter's father taken away forever. I never felt more scared or alone than I did then. I wondered what Christmas and birthdays would look like, but half the country away a United States senator was looking out for me and countless others like me. Her name was Hillary Clinton.
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
You see, before Hillary took office the families of fallen soldiers received $12,000 and yet, when you need to bury your best friend, when you need to raise a child on your own, when you need to rebuild your life from rubble $12,000 doesn't go far. Hillary understood so she did something about it. Without fuss or fanfare she worked across party lines. She led Congress to increase survivor benefits to $100,000, and it made all the difference in the world. Looking back on it, I didn't even realize who was responsible, and when I did learn about Hillary's work, I didn't see her as a Democrat or a Republican. I simply saw a fighter for people like us, for families like mine. She stood up for the principle that a family's personal tragedy must not be a financial tragedy, as well. Today, my daughter is finishing high school.
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
She's completing -- I'm completing my degree in Emergency Crisis Management committed to serving my country in the best way that I can, and our family is making it, step by step, day by day. Hillary Clinton has fought for families like mine each and every day of her career. This is a woman who I've never met, whose life could not be any more different than my own, but who has stood with my family and me over and over again. Hillary has always been with me in bad times and in worse, and that's why I am with her. Thank you. (CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
BURNETT: A powerful speech by Jamie Dorff, her husband killed while serving in Iraq, very powerful about her and her daughter whatever your politics are.
Coming up, the Democrats are rolling out some of their heaviest haters tonight. President Obama here touting Hillary Clinton's credentials to be commander-in-chief. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:21:53] BURNETT: And we are back. Live at the Democratic Convention here in Philadelphia. President Obama going to be addressing the nation tonight telling voters why he thinks Hillary Clinton should be the keeper of his legacy, and as we get ready for that speech, we are going to be hearing in just a moment from someone who is running against Hillary Clinton in this process. Martin O'Malley, the former governor of Maryland is going to be speaking, a man who is not being afraid to go after Donald Trump in the past calling him a bigot, a racist, a fascist, we will see whether we hear that sort of language and tone from Martin O'Malley tonight. A man who got out after Iowa, but waited quite a long time, David, to endorse Hillary Clinton, very -- to do so, did not actually do that until June.
CHALIAN: That's right. And it was never really clear what Martin O'Malley's rationale was for his candidacy or what he had and yet he stayed in this through the first voting contest before he came to the conclusion that reality was there was no (INAUDIBLE).
BURNETT: Yes. And I mean, the big question of course is, tonight, does he go after Donald Trump and aggressively so. As I said, he has not been afraid to do so in the past.
CHALIAN: At all. From the very beginning. He's been an aggressive fighter and he's been on the trail for Hillary Clinton in some key states.
BURNETT: And so now let's listen to Martin O'Malley.
MARTIN O'MALLEY (D), FORMER PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Thank you. Thank you.
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
My fellow Americans. My fellow Americans, president of the United States is the toughest job in the world, and I come here before you as a man who knows Hillary Clinton well. I have worked alongside her, and I have competed against her, and I'm here to tell you that Hillary Clinton is as tough as they come.
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
She will stand up to ISIS. She will stand up to the Russians, and with Tim Kaine at her side she will never stop fighting for our children and our families because Hillary Clinton knows when our families are strong America is strong.
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
Now Donald Trump, he's a different story. He will not fight for us. He feeds off of economic fears and failures, stirs up false divisions and ancient hates, turns anger into a political weapon, but my friends, anger never fed a hungry child, did it? Anger never protected a family's home or sent a kid to college. Anger never built a great republic I say to hell with Trump's American nightmare. We believe in the American dream!
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
[19:25:12] We believe, as Hillary Clinton believes, that no American family who works hard should have to raise their children in poverty. Donald Trump, on the other hand, has actually said, quote, "wages are too high." Wages are too high. Really, Donald? I'll tell you what's too high. College tuition is too high.
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
I'll tell you what's too high. The cost of child care. That's too high.
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
The number of American children who live in poverty, that's too high.
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
Donald Trump's opinion of himself, that's way too high.
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
You see, actually Donald, American wages in fact are too low. Our economy isn't money. It is people. It is all of our people and Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine will fight to make sure that every family who is willing to work hard can actually get ahead again in America.
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
On climate change, like you and me and in fact, like our children and our grandchildren, Hillary Clinton believes in science. She understands that climate change is not only a real threat. It's also the greatest job creation opportunity to come to the United States in a hundred years. Now Donald Trump, on the other hand, does not believe in science. He says, and again I quote, "the concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese." I'll tell you what, if the Chinese were really capable of designing some kind of diabolical farce to hurt America, they wouldn't invent global warming. They'd invent Donald Trump.
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
This much we know for sure, Donald Trump has been a bully his whole life, but here's what I learned in elementary school on the playgrounds. Bullies are really just cowards in disguise.
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
The America we love does not engage in torture. The America we love does not build walls and shameful for-profit prisons. The America we love does not lock up women and children in disgraceful immigrant detention camps.
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
Unlike that immigrant-bashing carnival barker Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton understands the enduring symbol of the United States of America is not the barbed wire fence, it is the Statue of Liberty!
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
And so, my fellow Democrats, anger and fear had their moment last week, but now it is our time. Time to stand up for each other, stand up for our shared promise, stand up for the goodness and the hope in every American heart. It's time to put a bully racist in his place and a tough woman in hers, the White House, Hillary Clinton, Tim Kaine, forward together, stronger together, the country we carry in our hearts is waiting!
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
BURNETT: Cheers here in Philadelphia for the former Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley, really rousing people. We will going to make a turn now here to a big theme of the night, climate change. Sigourney Weaver is going to be introducing this topic, and here she is.
SIGOURNEY WEAVER, ACTRESS AND ENVIRONMENTALIST: Wow! You guys are a dazzling sight.
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
[19:30:09] I am here tonight, like you, because of my passionate commitment to our amazing democracy. And as an American, I am also deeply concerned about my family's future, indeed, about our shared future as a nation because that future is at risk. You see, when we talk about greenhouse gasses and warming temperatures, deadlier droughts, even more destructive storms, what we're really talking about is people.
They're the people you're going to see in a few moments, people whose lives are affected by climate change right here in America right now. Like a rancher in Texas who is losing his herd of cattle because there's no grass for them to eat or a farmer in Kansas whose crops are dying because there's no rain or my fellow New Yorker, a mom in New York City who lost her young daughter in Sandy in a flood made far worse by rising sea levels.
Can Donald Trump look these people in the eye and tell them climate change is a hoax? And that there's nothing we can do? That he doesn't care about their pain. This is a moment when we, as a nation have to decide whether we will
ignore the facts and allow people to continue to suffer or whether we will come together to do what's right because as we all know, when Americans come together, there is nothing we can't accomplish.
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
Hillary Clinton, she gets it. She cares. She is committed. She understands that taking a stand against climate change, it's not about politics. It is about -- it is about our moral obligation to one another and to our children and to the generations that will one day inherit this beautiful earth.
It's --
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, DNC VIDEO)
NARRATOR: We all know it's happening. It's real. It's happening now.
(MUSIC)
NARRATOR: The droughts, the storms, the floods, the fires, the record heat waves. This is not something we've seen before.
GOVERNOR ANDREW CUOMO, NEW YORK: There is a wake-up call here. There is a reality that has existed for a long time that we've been blind to.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This breaks my heart.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We shouldn't have to be going through this. It's not our fault.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I thought it was just another dry spell and we'd be out of it, but it's more than a dry spell.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The harvest was done in Kansas almost by the time it normally started. It was like someone had flipped a switch. And it quit raining, and it got warm and it just stayed that way.
NARRATOR: Crops are failing, food prices are rising, communities are threatened. Our children are at risk.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: 2015 was the worst wildfire season on record with more than 10 million acres burned.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Because of global warming mountains will now melt earlier each year and when that happens, the ground dries up earlier, too.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How much is global warming?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You can't deny the fact that it is getting warmer and dryer.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It had over the last century.
[19:35:01] It was an extra foot of sea level largely as a result of climate change.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She said, "Mommy, hold me. I'm scared." And I did, I held her and then a wave started coming up over me. I felt the water rising and we went under, and I knew I lost her immediately because I knew she couldn't get up and go.
ANDREW FARLEY, PASTOR: I'm a Christian. I'm conservative in many ways, and I also believe that climate change is real. A thermometer is not Republican. Thermometer is not Democrat.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Eventually, Miami will be under water. It's just a matter of when.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The sea level is going to rise and Miami won't be here when it rises.
LT GENERAL JOHN CASTELLAW, USMC (RET): There is no doubt that climate change is a threat to our national security.
GEORGE H.W. BUSH, FORMER PRESIDENT: We all know that human activities are changing the atmosphere in unexpected and in unprecedented ways.
POPE FRANCIS: If I may use a strong word, I would say we are at the limits of suicide.
NARRATOR: This is the painful reality of a world radically altered by climate change. It's not reality TV. Make no mistake. Trump's reckless denial of climate change is dangerous, a threat to your livelihood, your safety, your children, and the prosperity of this nation.
DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: All of this with the global warming and a lot of it's a hoax. It's a hoax.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's no doubt in my mind the damage from Sandy was worse because global warming caused the sea level to be higher.
TRUMP: I am not believer in climate change.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We used to have sea foods back then. And now we don't.
TRUMP: We're going to cancel the Paris climate agreement.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The same people that don't want to believe in that science believe in science when they need to take a pill.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We're getting warmer faster and faster and headed into unknown future than we've ever put ourselves in before.
TRUMP: Speaking of global warming. Where is -- we need some global warming. It's freezing! JAY INSLEE, WASHINGTON GOVERNOR: We are the first generation to feel
the sting of climate change, and we are the last generation that can do something about it.
HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: As Americans, we face challenges head-on. Our country is ready to tackle the challenge of climate change. Together, we can make America the world's clean energy super power.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I heard you say that you think they're beautiful because of what they symbolize.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Because of what they represent, the ability to generate electricity without putting carbon in the air.
CLINTON: We can run our homes, our cars, our businesses on clean power, and create millions of new jobs doing it. Half a billion solar panels across the country in the next four years and enough renewable energy to power every home in America within the next ten.
I'm not going to let anyone take us backward. Deny our clean energy future or hand our children a dangerous world destabilized by climate change. Together, we can do this for our future, for our children.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(APPLAUSE)
ANNOUNCER: Please welcome, Governor Jerry Brown from California.
(MUSIC)
(AUDIENCE CHANTING)
GOV. JERRY BROWN (D), CALIFORIA: Thank you. Thank you.
As we just saw, climate -- that sounds good. But I've only got five minutes, so I have to get going here. As we just saw, climate change is unlike any other threat we humans face. It's overarching and affects the entire earth and all living things. It's slow. It's relentless and is subject to irreversible tipping points and vast unknowns.
Combating climate change, the existential threat of our time will take heroic effort on the part of many people and many nations. Make no mistake, climate change is real. The vast majority of world leaders and climate scientists like those at NASA and the Department of Defense indeed, almost anyone who chooses to think believe in the science of climate change and sees the moral imperative to take action.
[19:40:05] But you wouldn't know it by listening to Donald Trump. Last week at the Republican convention, for 76 long and painful minutes, Trump conjured up a host of dark threat, but never once mentioned the words "climate change" or "global warming". What do you expect? Trump represents a party with officials who have
banned state employees from even using those words in Florida, and who else knows where else.
Donald Trump says global warming is a hoax. I say Trump is a fraud.
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
Trump says there's no drought in California. I say Trump lies.
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
So it's not surprising that Trump chose as his running mate, a man who denies there's such a thing as evolution. Rarely in American history have two parties diverged so profoundly, even the know-nothing anti- immigrant party of the 1850s did not stray this far in the sheer ignorance and dark fantasy as have the Republicans and their leader Donald Trump.
Our candidate Hillary Clinton couldn't be more different. While Trump talks and talks and talks, Hillary does stuff. She fights for us on the big issues. As secretary of state she paved the way for the historic Paris Climate Agreement, an agreement which 200 nations including China and India enthusiastically embraced.
And Mr. Trump, he says the world be damned, I'm tearing it up! Hillary is the one who launched the Climate and Clean Air Coalition, a group of nations taking action to reduce black carbon and other super climate pollutants which caused severe heart and lung damage.
And from her first day in office, President Hillary Clinton will do what's needed to combat climate change and lead the clean energy revolution. And yes, we do need a revolution and we're going to get one.
We know something about that in California. We have solar, wind, zero-emission cars, energy efficiency and yes, a price on carbon. We are proving that even with the toughest climate laws in the country, our economy in California is growing faster than almost any nation in the whole world.
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
Mr. Trump and those who live in climate denial say otherwise. They tell us we have to choose between saving the economy and saving the planet. Donald Trump and the climate deniers are dead-wrong, dangerously wrong. What America needs today are not deniers, but leaders, not division, but common purpose, not bombast, but bold action.
That's why we need Hillary. And that's why the American people will choose her as the next president of the United States!
Thank you! Thank you!
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE) ERIN BURNETT, CNN ANCHOR: Governor Jerry Brown talking about climate change as this night now turns to another crucial issue for the Democrats, gun control and gun violence. We're now going to hear from survivors and families of those killed in the massacre in Orlando beginning with an introduction from Lee Daniels, the producer and director, a very vocal Clinton supporter, you see him here along with as I said family members and survivors of those killed in the Orlando massacre.
Here is Lee Daniels.
LEE DANIELS, FILM & TELEVISION PRODUCER: I'm here because the next president of the United States invited me.
I was a little scared at first. I wondered if Hillary really knew who I was. Not just the work I do in entertainment, but who I really am.
Who is Lee Daniels? Does she know that my sister is under house arrest? Does she know that my brother Maynard (ph) is in jail? Does she know that my nephew is in jail? That my cousins are in and out of jail? That my father was a police officer, shot and murdered right here in Philadelphia when I was 15? Does she even know that I've been to jail?
That's the America I know, and still I rise.
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
It hit me like a brick. Hillary knows me. She knows me, and that's what gave me the courage to come and speak in front of you all tonight. Hillary has stood with families of people, who died due to gun violence. She's helped turned their heartache into action. I wish she was around for me when my dad died.
Hillary understands our right to bear guns, but wants to stop guns from getting into the wrong hands.
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
You guys, 33,000 Americans die each year from gun violence. That's 90 people a day. Enough.
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We need to take action, and we need to take action now. There's only one candidate willing to take down -- take on gun violence -- excuse me, there's only one candidate willing to take on the gun lobby and keep our families safe. I'm bad at this teleprompter stuff.
And for that, millennial who comes from where I come from, who doesn't think that you have a voice, you do. And ain't no choice. This is the most important election of our lifetime. Come November, vote for her.
May God bless you, Hillary Clinton, and God bless America.
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
CHRISTINE LEINONEN, MOTHER OF ORLANDO NIGHTCLUB SHOOTING VICTIM: It takes about five minutes for a church bell to ring 49 times. I know this because last month, my son Christopher, his boyfriend Juan and 47 others were murdered at a club in Orlando.
Christopher was my only child. As I used to tell him, you can't do better than perfect.
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He had so many friends, two of whom are here tonight representing hundreds and hundreds more. All his life, he brought people together. In high school he won the Anne Frank Humanitarian Award for starting the gay/straight alliance.
Christopher's paternal grandparents met and fell in love in a Japanese internment camp. So, it was in his DNA that love always trumps hate.
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(CROWD CHANTING)
[19:50:39] Christopher -- Christopher was a big Hillary supporter. That's why I'm here so that I can tell you about the day he was born.
At the time, I was a Michigan state trooper. When I went into labor, the hospital put my off-duty gun in a safe. I didn't argue. I know common sense gun policies save lives.
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
The weapon that murdered my son fires 30 rounds in one minute, and Orlando city commissioner pointed out the terrible math. One minute for a gun to fire so many shots, five minutes for a bell to honor so many lives. I'm glad common sense gun in place the day Christopher was born, but where was that common sense the day he died?
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
I never want you to ask that question about your child. That's why I support Hillary Clinton.
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
I love you. Love you.
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
BURNETT: An incredibly moving speech, I think it's safe to say, people were in tear, whatever your political affiliation, an incredibly moving speech by Christine Leinonen, her son killed in the Orlando Pulse shooting attack.
We're now going to hear from Senator Chris Murphy, a Democratic senator from Connecticut. Of course, Sandy Hook, the horrible tragedy that took place there. He's been an advocate for gun control in the Senate.
Let's listen to Senator Murphy.
SEN. CHRIS MURPHY (D), CONNECTICUT: Thank you.
There are days when I wish I hadn't been there. There are moments when I try to forget the things that I saw, the things that I heard that soul-crushing morning at the firehouse in Sandy Hook, Connecticut. The grief and the unending mind-altering, paralyzing sorrow that comes with losing a child to gun violence. It is unimaginable and only those who live it know it.
In Newtown, Connecticut, families of 20 first graders and their six teachers, they live with it every minute of every day, and across the country, each day unbelievably, 90 families join them. My oldest son is the same age as those kids in Sandy Hook. He just finished first grade. My wife and I are the same age as those parents, and I am furious.
I am furious that in three year years -- in three years since Sandy Hook, three years of almost daily bloodshed in our cities, the Republican Congress has done absolutely nothing to prevent the next massacre. It stokes inside me a sense of outrage that I've never felt before, and that's what drove me to stand on the floor of United States Senate for 15 hours to demand change.
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[19:55:03] And I'm here -- and I'm here today because I want a president who shares that same sense of outrage, outrage that the gun lobby fights to keep open glaring loopholes that 90 percent of Americans want closed, outrage that a suspected terrorist can walk into a gun store and walk out with a military-style semiautomatic weapon.
Now, Hillary Clinton, she didn't have to make fighting gun violence the centerpiece of her campaign. Frankly, I'm sure people told her that it wasn't worth the political risk, but she held firm. She stood up to the NRA and Hillary Clinton pledged to take Washington back from the gun lobby.
And Donald Trump -- and Donald Trump when he sees gun violence devastating our communities, it's just like everything else, he sees it as an opportunity. Another opportunity to convince Americans that they should fear one another, another opportunity to do the bidding of the gun lobby.
Listen, 90 percent of Americans want our background checks system strengthened and expanded to cover more gun sales so that dangerous weapons don't fall into the wrong hands, but Trump says that in his first hour in the Oval Office, he'll roll back safeguards that we already have. And even more sinister, Trump said that by the end of his first day in office he'll mandate that every school in America allow guns in their classroom. Think about that for a moment.
Of all of the things that Donald Trump could have promised to do on his first day in office, he chose weakening background checks and putting guns in elementary schools. This -- this is a fate that we cannot accept. And so, my friend, there is no reason to feel helpless about the horrifying trajectory of cascading massacres because you know what? We can change this. Smart gun policy like background checks, it can make this country safer.
Now, I stood on the floor of the United States Senate for 15 hours because I had had enough. Enough of children dying in our classrooms! Enough of the nightly bloodshed on our city streets! Enough of our police officers being outgunned, ambushed and cut down in the line of duty! I've had enough!
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And friends, it is time to take Washington back from the gun lobby. And I know just how to do it. I want you to start. I want you to start by texting the word "laws" to 47246. You're going to learn there about the dangerous loopholes in our gun laws. You will turn yourself into an activist. And then you're going to go and elect Hillary Clinton as the next president of the United States because she is a leader who has the empathy and the guts to declare with every fiber in her being that we have had enough! Thank you!
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "SHE'S WITH US")
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: My wedding was one of the last things I planned with my mom. It was a very bittersweet day because it was all just one big reminder of the giant hole where she used to be.
My mom was my best friend. My mom was very much the type of principal who knew the name of every child in that school. She knew their siblings, and she knew their parents, and she probably could tell you how many dogs and what breed they were.
On the morning of December 14th, I got an emergency alert that said there's a shooting at Sandy Hook. I grabbed my purse, and I grabbed my keys, and I just went storming to the car. I just kept thinking this isn't real, you know? Like, I knew that I was going to wake up from a bad dream.
And we waited and waited and waited, and they told us if you're in this room it's because your family member is not coming out.
And it wasn't until the first time I saw it in writing -- age 47, Dawn Lafferty Hochsprung, female, deceased. Cause of death: multiple gunshot wounds -- did I realize my mom didn't die. My mom was murdered, and that made me angry.
