Tyler Perry at Harris Rally: In ‘Trump America,’ There’s ‘No Dream That Looks Like Me’
Tyler Perry was one of the celebrity speakers to pull up to Georgia Thursday to encourage voters in the swing state to vote for Vice President Kamala Harris. During his speech, the esteemed film director spoke about his journey through homelessness and slammed Donald Trump for his lack of support for Black Americans during his presidency and well before it.
In his speech, he recounted how he once booked a room in the Trump Hotel since the businessman seemed so revered in rap lyrics. “I wanted to feel that specialness,” Perry said. But, he said, he later did his research on the man and realized the kind of person Trump really is.
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“I found out about a discrimination lawsuit against him and his father because they didn’t want people like me in their building. I found out about him taking a full-page ad out on young black men in the New York Times. I found out about the birther lie,” Perry said. “There are undertones there and there are echoes there that we all had to pay attention to.”
“I watched him when he won the presidency. I watched him say that there were good people on both sides when Neo-Nazis were screaming, ‘Jews will not replace us,'” he continued. “I watched him from the Central Park Five to Project 2025.”
“What I realized is that in this Donald Trump America, there is no dream that looks like me,” he concluded. “We want a president who believes that this American dream is for everyone, and that President is Kamala Harris.”
Perry, who said he’d cast his ballot for Harris on Thursday, recalled a quilt his grandmother had made him years ago, likening it to the United States. “When I think of America, we are my grandmother’s quilt, we are all shapes, sizes and colors, but we are one. It was so important for me to stand with a candidate who understands that we as America are a quilt, and I could never stand with a candidate who wants America to be a sheet.”
After Perry, President Barack Obama took the stage, as he called out Trump’s narcissism and his inability to lead. “I get why people are looking to shake things up,” Obama told the crowd, acknowledging hardships American citizens are currently facing. “What I cannot understand is why anybody would think that Donald Trump will shake things up in a way that is good for you, because there is absolutely no evidence that this man thinks about anybody but himself.”
“Donald Trump is a 78-year-old billionaire who has not stopped whining about his problems since he walked down that golden escalator nine years ago, and when he’s not complaining, he’s sending out crazy tweets, he’s trying to sell you stuff,” he added.
The former president also referenced the claims John Kelly had made to the New York Times this week regarding Trump’s preference to “the dictator approach to government.” Obama warned that under another Trump presidency, he won’t have any advisors to stop them and that he’d be “surrounded by people who are just as loony as he is.”
“America is ready to turn the page,” Obama said. “We’re ready for President Kamala Harris. This is a leader who has spent her life fighting on behalf of people who need a voice, who need a champion. If you elect Kamala Harris, she will not be focused on her problems, her ego, her money, she’s going to be focused on you.”
After Obama, the Democratic presidential nominee took the stage as she directed part of her speech to young people and first-time voters who are “impatient for change,” and are fighting for keeping schools safe and combatting climate change.
“Generations of Americans before us led the fight for freedom and now the baton is in our hands,” she said. “And so I’d like to speak, in particular to all the young leaders that I see here this evening. I see you, I see you, I see you. And to you, I say, you all have grabbed the baton. I’ve seen what you do, and I see how you are doing it, because you are rightly impatient for change.”
Earlier in the night, actor Samuel L. Jackson also spoke out, and Bruce Springsteen called on voters in the battleground state to vote for the current vice president while casting Trump as an “American tyrant.” As he took the stage to perform Thursday, Springsteen said that he wants “a president who reveres the Constitution, who does not threaten but wants to protect and guide our great democracy, who believes in the rule of law and the peaceful transfer of power, who will fight for a woman’s right to choose, and who wants to create a middle-class economy that will serve all our citizens.”
Springsteen confirmed earlier this week that he’d be headlining a series of shows in the major swing states ahead of the election in two weeks. He’d formally endorsed Harris and her running mate, Minnesota governor Tim Walz earlier this month, stating that they “are committed to a vision of this country that respects and includes everyone, regardless of class, religion, race, your political point of view or sexual identity, and they want to grow the economy in a way that benefits all, not just a few like me.”
Outside of Obama and the entertainers, Georgia Sen. Raphael Warnock also spoke Thursday evening, telling the crowd that “we are connected, that we need each other, that they are not enemies within.” He added: “We need everybody, we need all hands on deck.”
Harris has garnered the support of many celebrities across the music and entertainment industries, including Megan Thee Stallion, Taylor Swift, Charli XCX, and Cardi B among many others. Trump has received support from the likes of Elon Musk, Russell Brand, and Rob Schneider, though he’s also had scores of artists calling for him to stop using their music at his campaign rallies.
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