Biden Speaks at Campaign Event in Philadelphia

Thank you, thank you. Thank you, Dr. Moma, for that introduction, and for sharing your story with us. Did you all see Joe last night?

(00:15)
Wasn’t he on fire? I was so proud of him. He gave such a strong speech, and set out a clear vision of where we’ve been and where we’re going. It’s great to be home. As most of you know, I’m a Philly girl. I grew up in Willow Grove, just north of the city, and probably like most of you, I spent my summers watching the Phillies with my dad. Of course, in the fall, we were always watching football, and the Eagles. Yes. Speaking of the Eagles, can we give Jason Kelce a round of applause? We’re going to miss him, aren’t we? Last night, Joe showed the world what I see every day. It’s what drew me to him when we first met, I think, honest to God, Joe, 50 years ago. At that time, he was a heartbroken father who had endured unspeakable tragedy, but he was keeping it together for our family. The senator who put one foot in front of the other because he knew his constituents were counting on him. The man who placed his faith in a power greater than himself, because when you go through that type of pain, there’s no choice but to recognize your powerlessness in the face of God’s providence. Joe rebuilt our family with compassion, love and strength, and as your president, he’s rebuilt our nation with that same character. Joe knows how serious the stakes are in this election. Courts that are stripping away our most basic freedoms, MAGA Republicans that are trying to drag us back to a dark and dangerous place, extremists waging battles over our bodies, our choices, and our futures. We are the first generation in half a century to give our daughters a country with fewer rights than we had.

(03:24)
Joe is working tirelessly to defend our freedoms, our future, and our democracy. I wouldn’t wish the tragic events of the last several months on any American president, but I’m so grateful that Joe is our president during these uncertain, tumultuous times. He isn’t just the right person for this job. He is the only person for this job. Joe wakes up every morning thinking about how he can make the lives of Americans better. Donald Trump wakes up every morning caring about one person and one person only: himself. He tears people down and pits us against one another. He mocks women’s bodies and devalues our existence.

(04:41)
Here’s the one thing that really gets my Philly up. As the daughter of a World War II veteran, Navy veteran, and the mother of an army soldier, Donald Trump insults our veterans and disparages those who died in war, calling them losers and suckers. How dare he? Donald Trump is dangerous to women and to our families, and to our country, and we can’t let him win. We can’t wake up the day after the election like we did in 2016, terrified of the future ahead of us, thinking, “Oh my God, what just happened? What are we going to do now?” No, we must meet this moment as if our rights are at stake, because they are; as if our democracy is on the line, because it is. We must reelect Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, and that starts here in this room, with all of you. Please help me welcome my husband, the 46th President of the United States, Joe Biden.

I think I should go home now. Hello Delco. I’m Joe Biden. I’m Jill Biden’s husband. Thanks to the elected officials here today, including someone, I keep telling her, I think we’re related. Our family’s coming from the same county in Ireland, Representative Scanlon. Where is she? There you are. She’s doing a hell of a job representing this district. If you’re tired, you probably watched my address last night. I got my usual warm reception from Congressman Marjorie Taylor Greene. In my address, I spoke about how far we’ve come since we took office. I talked about how much is at stake. Folks, our freedoms really are in the ballot this November. Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans are trying to take away our freedoms. That’s not an exaggeration. Well, guess what? We will not let him. We’ll not let him.

(08:18)
Last night, in the U.S. Capitol, the same building where our freedoms came under assault on January 6, we talked about another Alabama. 14 months ago, she and her husband welcomed a baby girl thanks to the miracle of IVF. She scheduled treatments to have a second child, but the Alabama Supreme Court shut down IVF treatments across the state, unleashed by the U.S. Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v Wade. She was told her dream would have to wait. What her family has gone through should never have happened.

And folks, do you know why it happened? I’ll tell you why. One reason: Donald Trump. He came to office, determined to overturn Roe v. Wade. In fact, he’s bragged about it repeatedly, that he’s the reason it got overturned. He got his wish, and states are passing bans, criminalizing doctors, forcing rape and incest victims to leave the state to get care. And now Republicans and Donald Trump want to pass a national ban on the right to choose. Period. Well take it seriously, folks, because that’s what they’re heading for. Hear me loud and clear. This will not happen on my watch. The decision to-

Four more years. Four more years. Four more years.

Thank you. The decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court majority wrote, “Women are not without electoral power or political power.” Clearly these bragging … Anyway, those bragging about overturning Roe v. Wade have no clue about the power of women in America. No clue. They found out when reproductive freedom was on the ballot in 2022 and 2023, and they’ll find out again in 2024. I mean this from the bottom of my heart when I say I thank Vice President Harris for leading on this issue and so many others. In Pennsylvania, I have a message for you. Send me to Congress that I can support this right, and I promise you, if we take back Congress, we will restore Roe v. Wade as the law of the land.

(11:17)
Look, I came to office determined to get us through one of the toughest periods in our nation’s history. And we have. I inherited an economy that was on the brink. Excuse me. Now our economy is the envy of the world. 15 million new jobs in just three years. That’s a record in American history, unemployment in a 50-year low, 800,000 new manufacturing jobs and counting. As I said when I started, where’s it written that we can’t be the manufacturing capital of the world again. Wages are up and inflation is coming down. Inflation has dropped from 9% to 3%. We made so much progress.

(12:02)
So now let’s talk about the future we can build because we have more to do. Look the future where the days of trickle-down economics are over and the wealthy, the biggest corporations begin to pay their fair share. God love them. For example, Americans pay more as a pharmacist can tell us, a doc can tell us for prescription drugs than anywhere else in the world. It’s wrong. And I’ve been fighting the pharmaceutical industry since I was in the Senate for over 30 years. But guess what? We’re ending it. The law I proposed and signed, no one, not one Republican voted for it, but we finally beat big pharma. Instead of paying $400 a month, for example, on insulin for seniors, they only have to pay 35 bucks. And by the way, it only costs $10 to make. They’re still paying, they’re still getting a big profit. Well, look, I’m not stopping there. Let’s cap the cost of insulin at $35 a month for every American [inaudible 00:13:12].

(13:17)
I finally beat big pharma and now we’re giving Medicare the power to negotiate lower prices for prescription drugs just like the VA does for our military. This doesn’t just save seniors money, it’s saving taxpayers billions of dollars, cutting the deficit. Now it’s time to give Medicare the power to negotiate lower prices for even more drugs. It’s going to save the taxpayers another $200 billion, we already saved $160 billion off your taxes because Medicare doesn’t have to pay that bill. Folks, starting next year, the bill I got passed, we’re capping the total prescription drug costs for seniors on Medicare at $2,000 a year, even for expensive cancer drugs that cost 10, 12, 14, 15,000 a year.

(14:07)
And my goal next year, let’s do that for all of America. All of America. Let’s cap prescription drug costs of $2,000 a year for everyone. And folks, the Affordable Care Act is still a very big deal. Over 100 million Americans can no longer be denied health insurance because of preexisting conditions. But Donald Trump has announced he wants to repeal the Affordable Care Act as Republican colleagues tried 49 other times in the last … Since Obamacare was passed. But it’s not going to happen on my watch.

(14:52)
Look, I’m also working to bring down the cost of housing. I’m proposing an annual tax trade that will give Americans $ 400 a month over the next 2 years to put toward their mortgage if they are buying for the first home, or if in fact they’re moving to a larger place because they’re afraid they’re going to lose the mortgage rate they have. But guess what? But I can’t guarantee it. But I bet you, I bet you those rates come down more because I bet you that that little outfit that sets interest rates, it’s going to come down. It’s going to come down. Folks, we’re cracking down on big landlords who break antitrust laws by price fixing and driving up rents. Now, Congress need to pass my plan to build and renovate 2 million affordable homes and apartments and bring those rents down.

(15:52)
By the way, [inaudible 00:15:56], that’s cost a lot of money raising the deficit. Guess what? We cut the deficit, we cut the deficit. $1 trillion. The last guy ballooned the deficit. We passed the budget deal that will cut another trillion dollars over the next decade. They kept trying to get out of it, but they finally agreed. And now it’s my goal to cut the federal deficit by 3 trillion more by making big corporations very wealthy. And I’m a capitalist man [inaudible 00:16:27]. You can go make a million bucks, make a billion, good for you, but pay your taxes. We have 1,000 billionaires in America, 1,000. Guess how much, what their tax rate is? 8.3%. Anybody want to change the tax rate with them? Think about that. 8.3%. Billionaire Donald Trump. You sure as hell do? Look, Donald Trump enacted a $2 trillion tax cut when he was president, overwhelmingly benefited the very wealthy and exploded the federal deficit, exploded it.

(17:16)
We cut the deficit and we added more to the national debt than any president in his term in all of history, and under Donald Trump. These guys talk about, oh … Too many corporations raise their prices and pad their profits charging you more and more for less and less. That’s why we’re cracking down on corporations engaged in price gouging and deceptive pricing. Looks like companies that you wouldn’t notice, they thought you wouldn’t notice, but if they give you the same size bag of potato chips with about 20% fewer potato chips. No, by the way, that’s not a joke. Some of you may have seen, there was a TV thing on how Snickers bars,

… same exact price… Don’t hold me to the exact number, but like 20% less bar. No, I’m serious. Congress needs to sign Bobby Casey’s bill to stop shrinkflation. Stop it. These are the family I grew up in and these are kitchen table issues.

(18:23)
I’m also getting junk fees for those hidden fees added at the end of your bills without your knowledge. My administration just announced we’re cutting credit card late fees from $32 to $8. By the way, I’m not being arbitrary. The law says they can charge for late fees what it costs them to collect it. It does not cost anywhere near $32, but they make, over time, over that period, billions of dollars. Literally, it stunned me. You got 450,000 people paying those late fees, and they charge… They end up paying over $2 billion. The banks and credit card companies don’t like it. Why? I’m saving American families $20 billion a year with those junk fees by eliminating them. 20 billion.

(19:14)
And by the way, I grew up in Scranton and Claymont, Delaware, they’re the two places I grew up. And you know what? It made a difference in my household if you had to pay an extra 50 bucks a month, a hundred bucks a month for things. It wasn’t fair. It matters, and so does this. Folks, does anybody think the tax code is fair?

No.

No, I mean it. I’m serious. I don’t. I’m going to keep fighting like hell to make it fair. Under my plan, nobody making less than $400,000 a year, which I’d never made until I became president, will pay one penny in additional tax. Nobody. Not one penny.

(20:05)
Big corporations will finally have to begin to pay their fair share. No, really, this is just fairness. It’s about fairness and decency. We’re not making this stuff up. In 2020, you may remember this was a big fight I had with the Republicans. In 2020, 55 of the largest corporations in America made $40 billion in profit and paid zero in federal taxes. Well, I was determined to change that. And guess what? Not anymore. Thanks to the law I wrote and signed, big companies now have to pay a minimum of 15%. It’s only 15%. It’s still less than working people pay in federal taxes. This time we’re going to raise the minimum tax to corporations at least 21%. And so every billion-dollar corporation finally begins to pay their fair share.

(21:09)
Look, I want to end tax breaks for big pharma, big oil, corporate jets, massive executive pay that gets deducted. Look, as I said, there are a thousand billionaires in America and their federal tax rate is 8.2%. I said three before. That’s far less than the vast majority of you pay. No billionaire should pay a lower tax than a teacher, a sanitation worker, a nurse. That’s why I proposed, not the highest tax, the minimum tax of 25% for billionaires, just 25. And guess what? Know how much money that would raise over the next 10 years? $500 billion. And imagine what that could do for America and for our future. It could cut the deficit, it could provide for child care. There’s so much that we need to do and not raise the deficit.

(22:11)
Let’s invest and let’s continue to invest in the future by confronting the climate crisis, not denying it. I don’t know, since I’ve been president, I’ve gone with all the folks from my administration, I’ve flown over those wildfires out west and in the northwest and the southwest, literally in a helicopter, all of them. And guess what? It’s burned down more timber and more housing than what comprises the entire state of Maryland. We’re taking the most significant action of climate ever in the history of the world. They said I couldn’t get it passed. We got $369 billion passed for climate change and still cut the deficit

(23:08)
And America’s safer today when I took office. The year before I took office, murder rates went up to 30% nationwide, the biggest increase in American history under the last guy. And now, through the American Rescue Plan, which every Republican voted against, I might add, I made the largest investment in public safety ever. Last year, murder rates saw the sharpest decrease in history. Violent crime fell to one of the lowest levels in more than 50 years. I’m ramping up federal enforcement for the Violence Against Women Act, which I proudly wrote so we can finally end the scourge of violence against women.

(23:54)
These guys fought taking away guns from domestic abusers. I don’t know where they… We beat the NRA when I proposed and signed the most significant gun safety law in 30 years. Now we have to beat NRA again. I’m demanding a ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. I did it once. And pass universal background checks, repeal the immunity that protects gun manufacturers… Look, imagine if tobacco had the same limitations companies that gun manufacturers. The only major industry in America you cannot sue is gun manufacturers. Think about that. Imagine if that had been the case with tobacco how many more people would be dying of cancer.

(24:55)
Look, there’s a lot more to say, but I’m keeping you standing too long.

Four more years, four more years, four more years, four more years, four more years, four more years, four more years.

I was watching on television last night, about two in the morning after we got back to the house, the house, the White House. Still hard to think of it as home. I had the TV on and there was a Fox News commentator saying, “Biden is changing from trickle-down economics to build from the middle out and the bottom up. He’s going to ruin America.” Ruin America? We have the strongest economy in the world right now. Like I said, and I mean this sincerely, and I believed it my whole career, finally got it done: If we focus on the middle class, first of all, they’re the heart and soul and sinew of the country. If you focus on them and give them an even chance, the poor have a way up, and the wealthy still do very, very well. Still do very well. As I said, I’m a capitalist. But capitalism, when it turns to engaged in non-competition, it ends up being just stealing.

(26:46)
Let me close with this. I know you’re thinking that I couldn’t have been around very long. When you get to be my age, certain things become clearer than ever before.

I know the American story. I’ve seen it again and again in contests between competing forces, the battle for the soul of this nation. Some of you may remember when I ran in 2020, I got criticized by the press for saying I was running for three reasons. One, to restore the soul of America. Two, to build a middle class so we can begin to grow again and everybody have an even chance. And three, to unite the country. They’re still my goals. They’re still my goals.

(27:47)
Because the soul of the country is who we are. Look, did you ever think, those of you who are over 40, did you ever think we’d be in a situation where we talk to each other like we talk these days? Why you see things that we see that no matter how tense things were, they were really tough in other parts of our history. Where you ride down the street and there was a Trump banner with an FU on it and a six-year-old kid putting up his middle finger. Did you ever see, no, I’m serious. Did you ever think you’d hear people talk the way they do? It demeans who we are. That’s not America.

(28:33)
Those between, look, those of us who want to pull America back into the past and those who want to move into the future. My lifetime has taught me to embrace the future. I mean it sincerely. Freedom, democracy, a future based on the core values that have defined America. Honesty, decency, fairness, equality. Just treating people just fairly. No, I really mean it. We don’t always live up, but that’s the American creed.

(29:05)
Donald Trump sees the story differently. He sees a story of resentment, revenge, retribution. I’ve been working like hell to unite Europe, NATO, and make sure Ukraine doesn’t get crushed by this dictator in Russia.

(29:25)
You know, the fact is that you have a president who literally has invited Putin to do what it wants, do what the hell it wants. It could come into Ukraine. He thinks Putin is a strong, basically decent guy. You know who he’s meeting with today down in Mar-a-Lago? Orbán of Hungary. Who stated flatly he doesn’t think democracy works, he’s looking for dictatorship. Only member of NATO. That’s who he’s meeting with. I see a future where we defend democracy, not diminish it.

(30:13)
I see a future where defend our freedom, not take them away. I see a future of the middle class has a fair shot and the wealthy pay their fair share. I see a future for the planet move from the climate crisis in our country and away from the gun violence that we have so much. I see a future America remains the beacon of the world.

(30:40)
I’ve been doing foreign policy since I was a kid in the Senate. I was chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee and I’ve gone now, I spent over almost 200 hours with the leaders of Europe, the heads of state. I know them all. I’ve known them well. Guess what? You know what every one of them says to me virtually except Orbán? I’m serious. As we leave these meetings, well indirectly, they grab my arm and they pull me aside. I’m serious. They pull me aside and say, he can’t win again because my democracy, I mean their country, my democracy is at stake. My democracy is at stake.

(31:19)
Folks, above all, I see a country for all Americans, a future for all Americans, a presidency for all Americans because I believe in America. I believe in you, the American people. We just have to remember who in the hell we are. We’re the United States of America. There’s nothing, nothing, nothing beyond our capacity if we do it together. Thank you, thank you, thank you for taking the time to be here. Thank you.

(31:57)
By the way, she talked about how she fell in love with me. I had to ask this woman five times to marry me. Five. Finally, the fifth time I was down in South Africa trying to see Nelson Mandela when I was a senator. I came back to her apartment in Wilmington, Delaware, and I got off the plane. I knocked on the door. I said, Jill, you got my Irish up. I’m asking you one more time. Only one more time. Not when, but will you marry me? She goes like this, okay. I’ll tell you what. She did it. Married a Philly girl.