Thank you all very much for being here tonight and thank you for being part of a political revolution.

Thank you for being part of a campaign which is not only going to win the Democratic nomination, which is not only going to defeat Donald Trump, the most dangerous president in modern American history, but with your help is going to transform this country and, finally, create an economy and government that works for all Americans, and not just the one percent.

Today, I want to welcome you to a campaign which says, loudly and clearly, that the underlying principles of our government will not be greed, kleptocracy, hatred and lies. It will not be racism, sexism, xenophobia, homophobia and religious bigotry. That is what the Trump administration is about, and that is what we are going to end.

The principles of our government will be based on justice: economic justice, social justice, racial justice and environmental justice.

And let me tell you what justice means:

It means that we will no longer stand idly by and allow 3 families in this country to own more wealth than the bottom half of America while, at the same time, more than 22 percent of South Carolina children live in poverty, veterans sleep out on the streets and 30 million Americans have no health insurance.

It means that we will no longer accept 46 percent of all new income going to the top 1 percent, while millions of Americans are forced to work 2 or 3 jobs just to survive and over half of our people live paycheck to paycheck, frightened to death about what happens to them financially if their car breaks down or their child becomes sick.

It means that we will no longer accept a situation in which low-income workers at Walmart are forced to rely on food stamps to feed their families, while the Walton family is now worth nearly $170 billion.

It means that we will no longer accept CEOs of large corporations making over 300 times as much as their average workers, while life expectancy in America has gone down for a third year in a row.

It means that will no longer accept a situation in which the top 25 hedge fund managers on Wall Street make nearly double what 140,000 kindergarten teachers in America earn and millions of kids go to over-crowded and under-funded schools.

We will no longer accept a situation in which, in the wealthiest country in the history of the world, our younger generation will have a lower standard of living than their parents – lower wages, higher personal debt, unaffordable housing, less mobility. I have 4 kids and 7 grandchildren. Downward mobility is not acceptable to me, and it’s not acceptable to the American people. This campaign is about moving our people up, not down.

Together, we are going to create a political system which is based on the democratic principles of one person – one vote – and end a corrupt system which allows billionaires to buy elections. Yes. We are going to overturn Citizens United and move to public funding of elections.

As many of you will recall, when we first launched our campaign in 2015, very few people took our campaign seriously. The ideas that we were talking about then were considered by establishment politicians and mainstream media to be “radical” and “extreme” – ideas, they said, that nobody in America would support.

Raising the minimum wage to a living wage. Too radical. Guaranteeing health care to all as a right. Too radical. Creating up to 15 million jobs by rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure with a one trillion dollar investment. Too radical. Aggressively combatting climate change. Too radical. Reforming our broken criminal justice and immigration systems. Too radical. Not having a super PACs or being dependent in the rich for campaign contributions. Too radical. Ending the power of super delegates at the Democratic Convention. Too radical.

Well, a funny thing happened. In 2016 we won victories in 22 states around the country, 13 million votes, over 1700 delegates at the convention and more votes from young people – black, white, Latino, Asian American and Native American – than Trump and Clinton combined.

And, by the way. Those ideas that we talked about 4 years ago that seemed so very radical at that time. Well, today, virtually all of those ideas are supported by a majority of the American people and have overwhelming support from Democrats and independents – and they’re ideas that Democratic candidates from school board to president are now supporting.

We’ve come a long way in the last few years. Now we are going to complete what we started. We’re going to turn our vision and our progressive agenda into reality. We are going to bring justice to America.

Today, we say to the private health insurance companies, whether you like it or not, the United States will join every other major country on earth and guarantee healthcare to all people as a right. All Americans are entitled to go to the doctor when they’re sick and not go bankrupt after staying in the hospital. We will no longer accept the absurdity of paying almost twice as much per capita on health care, while we have a lower life expectancy and worse health care outcomes than many other countries.

The goal of health care must be to provide quality care to all in a cost effective way, not tens of billions in profits for the insurance companies and outrageous compensation packages for CEOs. In 2017, the top 65 healthcare CEO’s made $1.7 billion – including $83.2 million to David Wichmann, the CEO of UnitedHealth Group and 58.7 million to Mark Bertolini, the CEO of Aetna. We need a health care system that invests in disease prevention, doctors, nurses, dentists and rural clinics. We don’t need a system which makes insurance companies and their CEOs super rich.

Yes. We will pass a Medicare for all single-payer program. Health care is a right, not a privilege. And, by the way, our legislation improves health care for seniors by providing coverage for dental care, hearing aids and eye glasses.

Today, we say to the pharmaceutical industry, that you will no longer charge the American people the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs, the result being that one out of five Americans cannot afford the prescriptions their doctors prescribe. Seniors in this country should not have to cut their pills in half. The outrageous greed of the pharmaceutical industry is going to end. We are going to lower prescription drug prices in this country.

Today, we say to low wage employers: Stop paying your workers a living starvation wages. Here in South Carolina, and throughout this country, workers are trying to get by on 8, 9, 10 bucks an hour, and you can’t do it. Yes. We are going to raise the federal minimum wage to a living wage – $15 an hour. Nobody who works 40 hours a week in this country should live in poverty. And yes. We’re going to make it easier for people to join unions, not harder.

Four years ago, when we talked about the idea of a $15 an hour minimum wage, it seemed like an impossible dream. Well, since then, we have successfully pressured Amazon and Disney to raise their minimum wage to $15, and just today Costco raised its minimum wage to $15 an hour. We have also seen 5 states pass $15 an hour legislation and, just a few days ago, the U.S. House Committee on Labor and Education reported out a bill that will raise the federal minimum wage from $7.25 an hour to $15 an hour. And, I believe, that bill will pass the full House within the month.

That bill is going to come to the Senate. Please tell your senators, Lindsey Graham and Tim Scott, that workers can’t make it on $7.25 an hour. We need a $15 an hour federal minimum wage.

And by the way. Today we say to corporate America that artificial intelligence and robotics are not going to be used just to throw workers out on the street. This exploding technology must serve human needs, not just corporate profits.

Today we say to the American people that we will rebuild our crumbling infrastructure: our roads, our bridges, our rail system and subways, our airports, our water systems and wastewater plants – and when we do that we create up to 13 million good paying jobs. And when we talk about clean water, I am particularly mindful of states like South Carolina where water systems serving hundreds of thousands of people here have failed state inspections and not complied with safe drinking water laws. This is not acceptable.

Today we say to the parents in this country that you and your kids deserve quality, affordable childcare. The children are our future, and they deserve the best possible head start in life with a high quality, universal pre-K program.

Today, we say to our young people that we want you to get the best education that you can, regardless of the income of your family. Good jobs require a good education. That is why we are going to make public colleges and universities tuition free, and substantially lower the outrageous level of student debt that currently exists.

And this is an issue of particular relevance to South Carolina. A recent report found South Carolina students collectively have the largest student debt of young people in any state in America — the average South Carolina student graduates with more than $26,000 of debt. That’s the average. That is not acceptable — and it’s going to change under a Bernie Sanders administration.

Today, we say to our senior citizens, that we understand that you cannot live in dignity when you are trying to survive on $13,000 or $14,000 a year in Social Security benefits. My Republican colleagues want to cut Social Security but we have some bad news for them. We’re not going to cut Social Security benefits. We’re going to expand them.

Today, we say to Donald Trump and the fossil fuel industry that climate change is not a hoax but is a massive threat to our country and the entire planet – and we intend to transform our energy system away from fossil fuel and into energy efficiency and sustainable energy and, in the process, create millions of good paying jobs. Today, we are here in Charleston, which is ground zero in the fight against climate change. You are already seeing the effects of climate change in coastal erosion and destructive tidal floods. Let me be clear. All of us have a moral responsibility to make certain that the planet we leave to our children and grandchildren is healthy and habitable. And I intend to make that happen.

Today, we say to the prison-industrial-complex that we are going to bring about real criminal justice reform. We are going to end the international embarrassment of having more people in jail than any other country on earth. Instead of spending $80 billion a year on jails and incarceration, we are going to invest in jobs and education for our young people. No more private prisons and detention centers. No more profiteering from locking people up. No more “war on drugs.” No more keeping people in jail because they’re too poor to afford cash bail.

And by the way, when we talk about criminal justice reform, we’re going to change a system in which tens of thousands of Americans every year get criminal records for possessing marijuana, but not one major Wall Street executive went to jail for destroying our economy in 2008 as a result of their greed, recklessness and illegal behavior. No. They didn’t go to jail. They got a trillion-dollar bailout.

Today, we say to the American people that instead of demonizing the undocumented immigrants in this country, we’re going to pass comprehensive immigration reform and provide a path toward citizenship. We’re going to provide legal status to the 1.8 million young people eligible for the DACA program, and develop a humane border policy for those who seek asylum. No more snatching babies from the arms of their mothers.

Today, we say to the military-industrial-complex that we will not continue to spend $700 billion a year on the military – more than the next ten nations combined. We’re going to invest in affordable housing, we’re going to invest in public education, we’re going to invest in rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure. We’re not going to invest in never-ending wars.

Today, we say to the top 1 percent and the large profitable corporations in this country – people who have never had it so good — that under a Bernie Sanders administration we’re going to end the massive tax breaks and loopholes that you currently enjoy.

We will no longer accept the absurd situation where large corporations like Amazon, Netflix and General Motors pay nothing in federal income taxes after raking in billions in profits. We will no longer tolerate the situation in which the wealthy and large corporations stash billions in tax havens throughout the world.

Trump gave 83% of his tax breaks to the top 1% and large corporations. In our administration, that will end and the wealthy and multi-national corporations in this country will start paying their fair share of taxes. We are going to end austerity for working families, and provide some austerity for large, multi-national corporations.

Brothers and sisters: We’re going to defeat Donald Trump not because I am a billionaire or because we have a super PAC funded by billionaires. We’re going to win this election because we will put together the strongest grassroots coalition in the history of American politics.

Donald Trump wants to divide us up by the color of our skin, our country of origin, our gender, our religion and our sexual orientation. We are going to do exactly the opposite. We are going to bring our people together – black, white, Latino, Native American, Asian American, gay and straight, young and old, men and women, native born and immigrant.

We are going to bring our people together for an unprecedented grassroots effort, which, I am happy to tell you, already has over one million people signed up as volunteers.

And I know something about grassroots politics. It’s something I’ve been doing my whole political life and it’s something I do kind of naturally. You see, I did not come from a super wealthy family, like Trump, a family which gave him millions of dollars to build luxury skyscrapers, casinos and country clubs. I did not come from a family that sent me to an elite private school. I was educated in public schools. I did not come from a family that gave me a $200,000 allowance every year beginning at the age of 3. As I recall, my allowance was 25 cents a week, about $12 a year.

Unlike Donald Trump, I did not come from a family of privilege that prepared me to entertain people on television by telling workers: “You’re fired.” I came from a family who knew all too well the frightening power employers can have over ordinary working people.

As you all remember, a few months ago, Donald Trump boasted about shutting down the government and leaving 800,000 federal employees without income to pay their bills. That I guess when you are a billionaire you may not understand what it’s like to be in a family that lives paycheck to paycheck, and needs money to pay the mortgage, the light bills and put gas in the car to get to work.

My family lived paycheck to paycheck. I know where I come from, and that’s something I will never forget.

Our campaign is about fundamentally ending the disparity of wealth, income and power in this country. But as we do that, we must also address the disparity within the disparity – the outrageous levels of racial disparity that currently exist. Today, in terms of financial well-being, the average black family has one tenth the wealth of the average white family and a much higher percentage of black workers earn low wages than than whites. Social mobility for blacks is also much worse than for whites. Today, in terms of health care, the infant mortality rate in black communities is more than double the rate for white communities, and the death rates from cancer and almost every other disease is far higher for blacks. Black women are three and a half times more likely to die from pregnancy than white women. A much higher percentage of African Americans are without insurance than whites.

Today, in terms of environmental protection, minority communities around the country are exposed to drinking water below safety standards.

Today, in terms of financial services, redlining prevents black owned businesses from getting loans, and predatory lending results in higher interest rates in the African American community.

Today, in terms of criminal justice, African-Americans are twice as likely to be arrested, and almost four times as likely to experience physical force in an encounter with the police. Today, Black men are sentenced to 19 percent more jail time for committing the exact same crime as white men, and African Americans are jailed at more than 5 times the rate of whites.

Today, in terms of education, African American school districts have lower levels of funding, lack the level of new technology that white school districts have, and often attract less experienced teachers.

In terms of voting rights, we all know what’s going on. We have a Supreme Court that gutted the Voting Rights Act, and Republican governors all over the country who are working overtime to deny people of color, young people and poor people the right to participate in the democratic process.

Let me be clear. When We are in the White House, we are going to address not only the disparities of wealth and income that exist overall in our nation, but we will address racial disparities as well. We are going to root out institutional racism wherever it exists.

Whether it is a broken criminal justice system, or massive disparities in the availability of financial services, or health disparities, or environmental disparities, or educational disparities, or racist voting laws – our job is to create a nation in which all people are treated equally. That is what we must do, and that is what we will do.

And one way to do that, by the way, is to support South Carolina Congressman James Clyburn’s 10-20-30 legislation. He believes, and I agree, that at least 10 percent of federal funds should go to communities in which the poverty rate has been 20 percent over a 30 year period. In other words, the most distressed communities in this country – black, white, Latino, Native American or Asian American. In the richest country in the history of the world we must address poverty in a bold and aggressive way.

Brothers and sisters: There is going to be a lot of campaign rhetoric over the next many months. Let me take this opportunity to be as specific as I can be about what a Bernie Sanders presidency means.

When We are in the White House, we will enact a federal jobs guarantee, to ensure that everyone is guaranteed a stable job. There is more than enough work to be done in this country. Let’s do it.

When We are in the White House we will not only end the decline of rural America, but attack the problem of urban gentrification and build the affordable housing we desperately need all across this country.

When We are in the White House, we will move aggressively to end the epidemic of gun violence in this country and pass the common sense gun safety legislation that the overwhelming majority of Americans want. People who should not have guns, will not have guns.
When We are in the White House, we are going to protect a woman’s right to control her own body. That is her decision, not the government’s.

Make no mistake about it, this struggle is not just about defeating Donald Trump. This struggle is about taking on the incredibly powerful institutions that control the economic and political life of this country. And I’m talking about Wall Street, the insurance companies, the drug companies, the military-industrial complex, agri-business, the prison-industrial complex, the fossil fuel industry and a corrupt campaign finance system that enables billionaires to buy elections.

These powerful special interests are going to spend a lot of money to try to defeat us. But we have something they don’t have: the power of the people.

Brothers and sisters: We have an enormous amount of work in front of us. But this what I believe. If we stand together, if we don’t allow Trump and his friends to divide us up;

If we stand together as black and white, Latino, Asian American and Native American. If we stand together as gay and straight, men and women, native born and immigrant. If we stand together as rural and urban – north, south, east and west.

While it is true that the powerful special interests have unlimited amounts of money, thousands of lobbyists and the ability to buy and sell politicians – we have something they don’t have. We have the people.

If we understand that there really is no such thing as blue state or red state, but states throughout the country where working people are struggling to survive.

If we stand together, this country has an extraordinary future. Let’s make it happen.