The following is an excerpt from the transcript of the Vice President’s remarks at the Democratic National Convention. It’s worth reading again …
THE VICE PRESIDENT: In many ways, Donald Trump is an unserious man. (Laughter.) But the consequences of putting Donald Trump back in the White House are extremely serious. (Applause.)
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 — (Applause) — and separately found liable for committing sexual abuse.
And 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.
AUDIENCE: Booo —
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Consider the power he will have, especially after the United States Supreme Court just ruled that he would be immune from criminal prosecution.
AUDIENCE: Booo —
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Just imagine Donald Trump with no guardrails.
AUDIENCE: Booo —
THE VICE PRESIDENT: 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. (Applause.)
And we know what a second Trump term would look like. It’s all laid out in Project 2025, written by his closest advisers. And its sum total is to pull our country back to the past. But, America —
AUDIENCE: We are not going back!
THE VICE PRESIDENT: — We are not going back. (Applause.) We are not going back. We are not going back.
AUDIENCE: We’re not going back! We’re not going back! We’re not going back!
THE VICE PRESIDENT: 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 preexisting conditions.
We are not going to let him eliminate the Department of Education that funds our public schools. (Applause.)
We are not going to let him end programs like Head Start that provide preschool and childcare for our children. (Applause.)
America, we are not going back.
AUDIENCE: We’re not going back! We’re not going back! We’re not going back!
