--- title: Al Smith Dinner: Read Hillary Clinton's Speech Transcript description: Hillary Clinton spoke at the Alfred E. Smith charity dinner in New York City on Thursday night. Read the full transcript of her remarks here canonical: https://time.com/4539979/read-transcript-hillary-clinton-speech-al-smith-dinner/ author: TIME Staff article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-10-21T08:47:28.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-19T07:45:26.582Z article:section: Politics og:title: Read Hillary Clinton's Al Smith Dinner Speech og:description: The white-tie affair is an election-year tradition og:url: https://time.com/4539979/read-transcript-hillary-clinton-speech-al-smith-dinner/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4f33901f21298543/6988ab00ab6d773cd06aba44/gettyimages-615945036.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Donald Trump And Hillary Clinton Attend Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Read Hillary Clinton's Al Smith Dinner Speech twitter:description: The white-tie affair is an election-year tradition twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4f33901f21298543/6988ab00ab6d773cd06aba44/gettyimages-615945036.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Read the Transcript of Hillary Clinton's Speech at the Al Smith Dinner by [TIME Staff](https://time.com/author/time-staff/) ## TIME Staff Oct 21, 2016 8:47 AM UTC  Hillary Clinton speaks at the annual Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner at the Waldorf Astoria, Oct. 20, 2016 in New York. Hillary Clinton speaks at the annual Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner at the Waldorf Astoria, Oct. 20, 2016 in New York.Spencer Platt/Getty Images by [TIME Staff](https://time.com/author/time-staff/) ## TIME Staff Oct 21, 2016 8:47 AM UTC Democratic Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton spoke Thursday night at the 71st Al Smith dinner in New York City. Read the full transcript of her remarks below. --- > “” --- ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4539979/read-transcript-hillary-clinton-speech-al-smith-dinner/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4539979/read-transcript-hillary-clinton-speech-al-smith-dinner/"},"headline":"Read the Transcript of Hillary Clinton's Speech at the Al Smith Dinner","datePublished":"2016-10-21T08:47:28.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-19T07:45:26.582Z","description":"The white-tie affair is an election-year tradition","url":"https://time.com/4539979/read-transcript-hillary-clinton-speech-al-smith-dinner/","keywords":["Hillary Clinton","2016 Election","transcripts"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4f33901f21298543/6988ab00ab6d773cd06aba44/gettyimages-615945036.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"TIME Staff","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/time-staff/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4f33901f21298543/6988ab00ab6d773cd06aba44/gettyimages-615945036.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Donald Trump And Hillary Clinton Attend Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner","caption":"Donald Trump And Hillary Clinton Attend Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner","creditText":"Spencer Platt/Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4539979/read-transcript-hillary-clinton-speech-al-smith-dinner/","name":"Read the Transcript of Hillary Clinton's Speech at the Al Smith Dinner"}}]}] ```