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Must Read Transcript - Biden Stumps For Candidates

Must Read Transcript - Biden Stumps For Candidates

FAIRMONT CITY - The political event at the Ironworkers Local facility held last Wednesday to support congressional candidate Brendan Kelly who is running against incumbent Mike Bost, had former Vice President Joe Biden as the key speaker. Besides Biden, candidates JB Pritzker, Kwame Raoul and the Democratic candidates for lieutenant governor and state treasurer spoke to show their support. U.S. Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., who isn't on the ballot this year also made an appearance.

The event was reminiscent of times past political events with beer flowing and BBQ cooking. The following is a transcript of Vice President Biden's remarks to the crowd. It's a great read and is an interesting message reflecting on the political tensions we are seeing.

Apologies for the inaudible portions as we didn't have a recording directly from the mic.

Must Read Transcript - Biden Stumps For Candidates

KELLY:  In the face of repeated unspeakable personal tragedy throughout his life, he has always had the courage to keep going. And as dark forces try to tear this country apart, he is all over this country. Speaking to the power and showing the courage to keep going. And we need encouragement now. Because it is not enough to be right, we learned that in 2016. It is not enough to be right we have to fight. So do you have the courage to knocking on doors...  

[INAUDIBLE]

[APPLAUSE]

Do you have the courage to fight for what's right?

[APPLAUSE]

So let's give a fired up, Southern Illinois welcome to the man who is here to help us keep going, Vice President, Joe Biden.

[APPLAUSE] 

[MUSIC] 

[APPLAUSE]

Must Read Transcript - Biden Stumps For Candidates



VP BIDEN:  My name is Joe Biden

[APPLAUSE]

I'm Katherine Eugenia Finnegan Biden's son. And I'm here for Kelly.

[APPLAUSE]

Thanks, Let me begin by saying that you got one heck of a ticket running this time. And it matters, it matters, they all complement one another. The fact of the matter is that I've been all over the country, and I've been to a bunch of races. And during this past week, a lot of what's going on has sort of sunk in. A lot of people, ordinary, extraordinary as well. Three times this week the forces of hate have made their mark. They terrorized our fellow Americans because of their political beliefs, because of the color of their skin and because of their religion. Seriously explosive devices they've been sending to mail to a bunch of us in the last administration and to our children. Cold blooded murder of two African Americans in a Kentucky supermarket because they were black. And then the worst anti-Semite hate crime in our nation's history massacred 11 people, Jewish worshippers in a synagogue that I know well in Pittsburgh. And, you know, we have to start to recognize that words matter.  

[APPLAUSE]

Words matter. 

[APPLAUSE]

You know folks, our political opponents are not our enemies, they're our opponents. The press is not the enemy of the people.

AUDIENCE: No!

VP BIDEN:  Before there were Democrats or Republicans or Independents. I never thought I'd have to say something like this. Before we're Democrats, Republicans, Independents, we're Americans.   Right?. 

[APPLAUSE]

[INAUDIBLE] I know sometimes these days it feels like the anger and the hatred. Viciousness is likely to overwhelm the system. But you know, it's on our leaders to begin to change the tone, dial down the temperature.

[APPLAUSE]

And restore some dignity. [INAUDIBLE]

[APPLAUSE]

Must Read Transcript - Biden Stumps For Candidates



[INAUDIBLE] I know the American people. And each and every one of us has an opportunity to make changes and tell them, each and every one of us. We have to change the way we treat each other. The way we look at each other. The way we communicate to each other on the Internet. You know, the way we interact. It really matters. It sets a tone for our children, it sets a tone for everything. And again, the way we treat each other is what matters. And we can and we will overcome this moment. We'll overcome together-

AUDIENCE: Yeah.

VP BIDEN:  But by being the very best version of ourselves.

And it starts with us, it really does start with us. The version of America that I see. The America that is worthy, it sounds corny to be referred to as that being that shining city on the hill. You know I've campaigned for a lot of folks this year and a lot of folks in my career. But this year more than anything else I've seen one thing. Today, more than ever in my entire career, Florida to Washington State, to California to New York, Minnesota, Tennessee, Kentucky, Alabama, all the states I've been to. People are desperately looking for men and women who have character.

[APPLAUSE]

People who are authentic. People who treat everyone like my father and sister with some dignity and some respect. People who do something strange these days, tell the truth.

[APPLAUSE]

Regardless of the substance of political views, people are looking before they get even to the subjects views, is this a decent, honorable person? You know, and you have one of those folks, one of these down here. The guy has more character in their little finger than most people have in their whole life. The big guy sitting behind me.

Must Read Transcript - Biden Stumps For Candidates



[APPLAUSE]

I feel kinda comfortable because I'm in [INAUDIBLE] house.

[APPLAUSE] 

You all are the folks I grew up with in my neighborhood. You're the people who are my friends my whole life. You've been my supporters. And, regardless of our previous backgrounds, our ethnic makeup, we've all sort of come from the same place. A sort of basic fundamental value of decency, covering each other's backs, having each other's backs when there's a problem. And Brendan's grandfather served as a police officer. Great Uncles were firefighters. Sounds like my neighbor. And what happened is that they learned all the things that you learned. In my neighborhood the measurement of who you were was is if you got jumped by three guys or five guys and only one left. You jumped in to help even though you knew you were going to get your rear end kicked. Right? I'm not joking. I'm not trying to be wise guy, I'm being a literal, I'm being literal. It's about having each other's backs. So folks look, here we are in a time when the values that we were raised to believe in as kids, the values of honor, and honesty, courage, commitment, integrity. These values that have driven Brendan's entire career. They've driven the life the vast majority that of the young man you're looking at up there.

AUDIENCE:  Right.

VP BIDEN:  Including the time he was the Saint Clair county's state's attorney office as a prosecutor. Brendan took on a fight that was near and dear to my son Beau. My son Beau was the attorney general for the state of Delaware, a major in the United States Army and deployed in both Kosovo and then in Iraq for a year. A bronze star, a conspicuous service medal, a lot of other awards. [INAUDIBLE] He, his passion, was protecting children against abuse.

And one of the things that first attracted me to Brendan was when he was a prosecutor he created the children's justice division. Going after the most heinous crime imaginable, abuse of children. 

AUDIENCE: Go Brendan! 

Must Read Transcript - Biden Stumps For Candidates

[APPLAUSE] 

VP BIDEN: [INAUDIBLE] You know, if not the best, one of the very best Senators ever to serve, Dick Durbin. 

[APPLAUSE]

I can't imagine how many time Dick you've been told that was gonna cost you your career. And you done it. The way you stood up to the banks, the way you stood up to special interests, [INAUDIBLE].

[APPLAUSE]

I know. I think it must be contagious in this neck of the woods because Dick told me he went to high school not far from here. 

[APPLAUSE]

So I don't know what the hell they're teaching them but I hope they keep teaching it. 

[APPLAUSE]

And you got a Lieutenant Governor and gubernatorial candidate who are here as well. JB's a guy who lives by the lessons his parents taught him, even though they passed away much too soon. This is a guy you can count on. Whatever he says he'll do, whatever he says he'll do, he does, he does it. 

[APPLAUSE]

[INAUDIBLE] I can tell you there's too few people left like that who [INAUDIBLE]. Used to be when someone shakes your hand and said I'm there, you can count on them. Now what Dick and I get is when I was Vice President going up on the hill, "I'm with you", and then you go for vote and they say "but I didn't understand that there was gonna be the following... In other words, I didn't understand I'd have to take some heat for this vote. So folks, it really gets down to not a joke. And Juliana's the same way. It's all about character, simple character. And the fact of the matter is that more than anybody else, Brendan and Juliana and JB have that character. And folks, I think all we must know in our gut that this election is bigger than ordinary politics. There's something different. This election really matters. It really matters, and the fact of the matter is that we're in a situation where the character of the country is on the ballot.

[APPLAUSE]

Must Read Transcript - Biden Stumps For Candidates



In a way that that [INAUDIBLE] in my lifetime. Folks, we're unlike any other country in the world. America's unique. Because America was an idea, an idea. You can't define for me what an American is based on race, ethnicity, where you come from, the color of your skin. You're latest background. You can't do it, really try. You cannot do it. I can describe almost every other country in the world based on those criteria. But Americans, the only thing that unites us, is our ideals. And things, Democrats and Republicans, we're all basically subscribing to the ideals. And you know what, the fact of the matter is it's kind of simple. Basically fairness, decency. Respect the notion of equality. As corny as it sounds, we hold these truths self-evident. All men are created equal, and God [INAUDIBLE]. We don't always live up to it.

[APPLAUSE]

We don't always live up to it. And unlike the [INAUDIBLE] every day, we have never given up on that. We have never given up. And based on these values it's how we run ourselves. Integrity and decency, respect, giving no safe harbor to hate, leaving nobody behind. Understand there's certain things you commit to that are bigger than you.  

You know there's a conservative columnist named David Brooks. And he's written a lot about this thing. And he points out, and he says the moral fabric of society is invisible. The moral fabric is necessary, but invisible. Some use their public position to dissolve that moral fabric so they can have more open space for their own selfishness. Think about what's going on now in the White House and other places. The idea is that these values are not paramount. It's easy then to abuse other people. It easy to divide us. It's easy to, then, make us a nation that is split down the middle. And when that happens, what happens? The most powerful interests in the world are able to fill that vacuum. And that's exactly what's going on. This is a new phenomenon in America. It mentors still fear and division. Folks, I have respect for our Republican opponents, I do. And the fact of the matter is that our Republican opponents are as Dick will tell you, every time we would have a disagreement on the hill by now. [INAUDIBLE] against discrimination, the Obama by the administration. I'd be the guy that go to the negotiation, and you this. And make [INAUDIBLE]. And you all remember getting it done because these guys knew as much as I disagreed with them I respected them. I didn't question their motive, because when you question someone's motive you can never get to an agreement. If I say you're in the pocket of or you're a liar, you're a cheater and you're whatever, questioning their motive which you do. There's no way to get to an agreement. But lately it seems as though of many of our Republican colleagues are [INAUDIBLE]. 

They're spending more time protecting the President than they are protecting the Constitution.

[APPLAUSE]

And by the way, [INAUDIBLE] campaign spending, and they way this president was acting when he got such a shrinking base of Republicans. They worry about losing primaries. But the truth is it's party over country rather than standing up to the phonies who are coming today.

[APPLAUSE]

Must Read Transcript - Biden Stumps For Candidates



This is not to your father's Republican party. Barack and I, when Trump won, we decided we should give him space to set up his administration and give him the year to get settled in. To anticipate. 

When we went in we had no organizational structure in place. Because W knew that we had strong disagreements with W, with President Bush. But he gave us a chance to setup our administration. But after Charlottesville, I couldn't remain silent any longer. I came out of the-

[APPLAUSE]

And I [INAUDIBLE] and demanded [INAUDIBLE], where I said, we're in a battle for America's soul. And I think that's where we are. Hate is on the march. To what? White supremacists? Neo-Nazis carrying swastikas singing the same exact anti-Semitic bile that was sung and spoken in Germany in the 30's. And then confronted by decent honorable people saying no, not in my city, not on my state. And then the conflict that occurred, and then the President of United States making a moral equivalence between those racist and Neo-Nazis, and the people who are opposing them. That's not happened before in the United States of America.

[APPLAUSE]

Must Read Transcript - Biden Stumps For Candidates



That's not happened with the President of the United States.

[APPLAUSE]

And our children are listening, our children are watching, and it matters significantly about what kind of country we are. The American Psychological Association releases an annual report called Stress in America once a year. These are all the psychiatrists and psychologists. It's a major organization. They just put out this year's report, and they call generation Z, the people made up the designation between the ages of 15 and 21 years old, and it's reported that they have the worst mental health conditions of any generation. 91% of Generation Z, the people listening said they have physical symptoms such as depression, anxiety, associated with the stress they feel. Folks, the words that are being spoken matter. They are sinking into the psyche of our children and our silence is complicit. But folks, we will not be silent.

[APPLAUSE]

They showed [INAUDIBLE] and the first thing you have to do is change this political climate for the children's sake and the sake of all America. The second thing we have to do is what we're just talking about. We've gotta restore above the bargain. There used to be a basic bargain in America. The bargain was if you contribute to the well-being of the outfit you work with you got to share in the benefits. 

AUDIENCE:  Yeah.

VP BIDEN:  That bargain has been broken. It's been ripped apart. 

Must Read Transcript - Biden Stumps For Candidates

[APPLAUSE]

That's the bargain that Democrats and Republicans used to subscribe to. But there's been a war declared on our neighbor's house for the last 20 years. Folks, folks, labor as it was just pointed out by Brendan, labor built the middle class. That's not hyperbole, they built the middle class. 

[APPLAUSE] 

[INAUDIBLE] ...the dues they paid, the picket lines they marched, the way in which they engaged in getting what is due them they also are the only ones who benefitted every American worker.

AUDIENCE:  That's right.

VP BIDEN:  Does anybody think that there'd be a 40-hour week if not for labor?

AUDIENCE:  No.

VP BIDEN:  Those non-labor folks, they owe so much. Overtime pay, weekends off, the list goes on. Non-union workers only have these rights because of the sacrifices of people like the people in this building. 

[APPLAUSE]

You deserve [INAUDIBLE] congressman who'll have your back.

[APPLAUSE]

And people tell me I'm always referred to by my friends and critics alike as middle class Joe. It's not meant as a compliment, it means I'm not sophisticated.

[LAUGH]

But I'm pretty damned sophisticated about what built the company, I really am. And by the way, when the middle class does well, the wealthy do very, very well.

[APPLAUSE]

And the poor have a way up. The middle class isn't a number. I have a number of economists who still work for me. I have 44 people who work for the various foundations I'm running. And by the way, I don't get any respect at home, but I am a professor.

[LAUGH]

Must Read Transcript - Biden Stumps For Candidates



At the University of Pennsylvania, but the mail still comes Dr. Jill Biden and Joe Biden.

[APPLAUSE]

What is the [INAUDIBLE]

Being middle class is being billed as being able to buy a home and not have to rent it. It's about being able to send you kid to a local park and know they're going to be able to come home safely. Send them to a local public school where if they do well they're going to be able to get into college or something after high school. Whether it's an apprentice program or college. It's about being able to take your geriatric mom home when your dad dies and hope that your children never have to take care of you. That's what the middle class is all about. It's about just a little bit of peace of mind, just a little bit of breathing room. Because being clobbered [INAUDIBLE] When we moved from Scranton, Pennsylvania, if you listen to Barak, you'd think I climbed out of a coal mine with a lunch bucket.

[LAUGH]

For real.

[LAUGH]

But my dad was a high school educated white collar worker, who was a well read, decent man. But when everything died in Scranton, there was no work. So he left. And I remember making the longest walk, and some of you've had to make that walk. The short flight of stairs to your child's bedroom and say, honey, you can't go back to the same school. You can't play on that little league team. You can't, you're gonna have to leave the church choir because Daddy or Mommy lost a job. We have to move, we gotta try something else. Well my dad made that walk in my grandpop's house and left us with our grandpop for a year. Came home almost every weekend. I remember him saying, it was only 157 miles. But to me that was like going to the moon. And it all turned out, it all turned out. He got a job, at first not such a great job. Was able to get an apartment for us. And we were able to move eventually three years later, finally moved into a house. You know I lived a normal, middle-class life. Three bedroom house with four kids and a grandpop living with us. A split level home, and it was good. It was good, and every time anyone in our family, where you're in recession or anyone in the neighborhood lost a job, my dad would use a simple refrain on me and my three siblings. He said, remember, Joe, a job is my word of the bible spoken. A job is about a lot more than a paycheck. It's about your dignity. It's about respect. It's about your place in the community.

[APPLAUSE]

Must Read Transcript - Biden Stumps For Candidates



It's about your sense of self worth. And then you say it's about being able to look your kid in the eye and say honey, it's going to be okay and mean it. Still so many people that Brendan knows are left behind. They still can't look their kid in the eye with certainty and say, honey, I guarantee you, it's gonna be okay. Folks, the fact of the matter is that we've got a lot to do. But we are totally within, totally within our capacity to do whatever needs to be done. The fact is that it's not just about economic justice, it's about economic and political stability. And we have two jobs as Democrats. Some people get mad when I say this. Everybody knows who Donald Trump is.

Even those who support him know who he is. He's got an awful lot of Republicans who are doing all that tax cut who would not want him to go anywhere near their family or have their children try to emulate him, but they're still supporting him because they get this gigantic tax cut. But everybody knows who he is as a man. The question is, they're waiting to see and they're beginning to see now who we are, who we as a party.

[APPLAUSE] 

I think we have two jobs. And I watched our incredible candidates around the country speaking to both of them. The first thing we have to do, is we have to restore dignity to the political discourse. And the second thing we do is we have to restore that basic bargain. And it starts with the right to bargain for your own worth. You labor guys have been clobbered by the courts and by everything else going on. There's been, I made a speech 18 years ago to the AFL-CIO convention, not even that long ago, 12 years ago. And I said understand, and some thought I was exaggerating, that the Chamber of Commerce has declared war on labor's house. You're the only thing that stands between the barbarians at the gate and [INAUDIBLE] at the gate. You're the only, only, only ones we have. And so folks, what happened though is while we were fighting to try to stay alive, organized labor, so many things happened that I bet a lot of you don't know, and you're really informed folks in terms of what's happening.

Must Read Transcript - Biden Stumps For Candidates

 

Do you realize that 40% of the workers in America are gonna have to sign a non-compete clause during their lifetime for a job. Now most of those people, it makes sense to sign a non-compete clause. If you're working for Google and you're trying to hire at Amazon and you're going to carry your secrets. But up until a couple of months ago there was a requirement that if you work for Jimmy Johns making sandwiches, you had to sign a non compete clause you wouldn't walk across town and go to the next town and get a job at McDonald's making ten cents more. Not a joke. Dick, in Texas, the non-compete clause from the folks who run, and who have the big oil trucks that go in and refuel the bulldozers and highway equipment, there's a requirement JB, that if in fact if you had that job you cannot do that job for any company other than the one you're working for within 100 miles of where that is.

You can't go bargain for your own worth to get a better job. Now there's only one reason for that. To suppress wages, greed. No no, and a lot of people don't know it. What you do know about it is Dick's been breaking his neck in the Senate and helping us and our administration when we were there, is if you're an hourly worker, you're entitled to overtime. You work. But there's a thing called reclassification. They classify you as management. You don't get overtime. So you're stacking Ragu spaghetti sauce in a supermarket, you control the person who runs the motorized cart to bring the cases of Ragu over and they make you a manager. You don't get overtime. You know what that cost hourly workers last year? $1.6 billion. It would be in their pockets. That's the difference between fixing the sink when it's broken. That's the difference between being able to make sure you can get four new tires instead of riding on bald tires to go another 10 thousand miles. At least that's how it was in my house. There's a kind of decision to be made. It was whether or not you were able to pay the home insurance on time. These are things that matter in people's lives. But there has been an wholesale attack on the right of people to bargain for their own self worth, on education. Brendan knows this, because he talks about it all the time. Does anybody here think twelve years of education is enough to compete in the 21st century?

It's difficult to remember every time for the eight years Barack was President how he loved... He wouldn't tell me ahead of time. He turned to me and said Joe will do the following...

[APPLAUSE]

Must Read Transcript - Biden Stumps For Candidates



We have an $86 billion recovery package. Joe "Sheriff" Biden will take care of it. He never told me he was going to tell me to do that. Or you know, Joe's going to do the moon shot at mission control. He never told me and every year there was something. But the good news about this, by the way is that he is truly one of my closest personal friends.

[APPLAUSE] 

His two daughters and my number of two and  three granddaughters have [inaudible] plans in the same small class for the last 12 years, the last 10 years. They vacation together, they show up at each other's homes, They are at my house, they are, it's family. All those memes you see are basically true.

[LAUGH] [APPLAUSE]

I wanna make it clear, he made the first friendship bracelet, not me.

[LAUGH] [APPLAUSE]

But the truth of the matter is that he asked me to do a study. And with your sister who led it, Penny. I went to her first when I got the assignment. And to find out and do a report on what are gonna be the jobs of the future in the United States of America. We took a year to do it. The end result was, without taking you through the detail, no serious economist has questioned it. Six out of ten jobs by 2020 are gonna require something beyond a high school degree. Just to have a job, not a good job, just to have a job. And so, what's this guy's opponent doing? What's the President doing? What's the present Governor of this state doing? Eviscerating education. You know, we know that if you come from a working-class home with no books or you come from a middle-class home where parents have books, the kid from the working class home hear 3 million fewer words spoken by the time they get to kindergarten. Talk about an incredible disadvantage. And we know that somewhere around 70% of the brain is totally formed by the time they are there. There's no debate about this stuff anymore. These guys don't even think of early education. They're not even thinking about what they do to improve opportunity. So right up on two classes, a professional class and others. If you're lucky enough to get into a program that's the right program, you get to go to college and so on. You're miles and miles ahead. And it's not because you're smarter, it's because you have more opportunity. Healthcare. Millions of Americans know, millions know and understand what the Affordable Care Act means to them. The lives it saved, the peace of mind it brings. They could tell you one of the only arguments Barack and I had, I thought we should Take a victory lap when you passed it.

But in fairness to the President, he pointed out, he says, "Joe you always say, everything but locust has landed on my desk, we don't have time to take a victory lap."

Must Read Transcript - Biden Stumps For Candidates

So no one knew what the Affordable Care Act was. I was up in...  People didn't know. Until the Republicans started to take it away. And all of a sudden, all of a sudden, we figured out, my God, I'm in trouble now. My mom used to say when I was in my mid-teens how worried dad was. How he would go to bed at night staring at the ceiling thinking, God if I get cancer we lose everything, because the company he worked for lost their health insurance benefits. Just peace of mind and know that if something happens to me I don't lose everything. My family's doesn't lose everything. But look, the fact of the matter is if Brendan talked about it, everybody else did. And I said it today, I'll say it again, these Republicans are either simply not telling the truth or they're really stupid.

[LAUGH] [APPLAUSE]

It is not possible to cover pre-existing conditions without everybody being in on the deal. I know they won't care. Now, look at what the President's saying. He's saying, I guarantee you we Republicans guarantee pre-existing conditions are governed in some...

AUDIENCE:  It's a lie. A lie! 

VP BIDEN:  But here's the deal guys, it matters to people's lives. Like Dick, we went through some tough times losing kids. We understand what it is when your child, your husband, your wife, or yourself has a serious, serious medical condition. Costs are astronomical. I dropped out of a presidential race because I had two cranial aneurysms and an embolism. The bill was over $900,000 for over seven months in the hospital. But I had insurance. Imagine, imagine where my family would be if I didn't have insurance. Same with my son. But folks, pre-existing conditions affect 24 million people in the United States of America. Actually, that's not true I think it's much larger than to come home in [INAUDIBLE]. It's much larger now. I think it's even bigger but the point is it affects a lot of people, which means they can't afford to have health insurance, health coverage. They can't afford it.

[INAUDIBLE] secret that Dick and JB know about, as well as Brendan. They went ahead with this heinous tax bill which has no socially redeeming value, it really doesn't. OK. By 2027, over 91% of all the tax cuts will have gone to the 1%, and most of that for the one-tenth of 1%. So it's unfair, we all know that. But here's the deal. The reason they did that was twofold. One, it gave them gigantic tax cuts, but it gave them an excuse to eliminate three things they never liked. Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. Now you think I'm exaggerating, because always, you always talk about, Republicans always say, mainstream Republicans always say, the Democrats always say they don't support Social Security, they don't support Medicare. Well here's the deal. One of the reasons why we gotta take back the House in guys got to be there. It just follows. Already, the chairman of the budget committee in the United States House of Representatives introduced a proposal to cut $560 billion in Medicare. Over half a trillion dollars Take note, mark my words. If we don't win back the house, they will pass it, they will pass it. What does make your mother and your father and the people who busted their neck their whole life? Then secondly, you had Mitch McConnell, Republican leader say-

Must Read Transcript - Biden Stumps For Candidates



AUDIENCE:  Boo!

VP BIDEN:  We have his $1.9 trillion debt. That's what caused this now. The reason they're justifying these massive cuts is we have a debt created by the tax bill that created $1.9 trillion in additional debt. Not a single economist will tell you we can sustain that debt over the next ten years. So we gotta cut. It's like that old bad joke about Willie Sutton. He said, Willie, why do you rob the bank? He said, that's where the money is.

[LAUGH]

Well now the only place they can go to get giant chunks of money is in the Medicare you pay for, the Social Security we paid for, and Medicaid. That's what's happening. So this is part. These guys don't do stuff by accident, this is pretty damn well planned out. So folks, that's why we have to win back the House. [INAUDIBLE]

[APPLAUSE]

[INAUDIBLE] affect people's lives. [INAUDIBLE] simple abuse of power [APPLAUSE] And the one thing the Democratic party stands for is we cannot stand, we abhor the abuse of power. There's a man raising his hand to a woman, or a government taking advantage of their citizens, or the wealthy taking advantage of the working class. 

[APPLAUSE]

Must Read Transcript - Biden Stumps For Candidates



And folks, we have to [INAUDIBLE] more accomplished in this country. We have to do it now. That's our responsibility. And I'm an optimist, not because I'm naive because I know the history of the journey in this country. Every single solitary time we give ordinary people an even chance, they have never, never, never let their country down. And I'm so sick and tired of Republicans, even Democrats walking around like, woe is me, what are gonna do? My God, we have such a problem. Folks, there's not another country that's a patch on our jeans, not even close. We have the world's largest economy, the wealthiest nation in the history of the world. We are energy independent. We have the strongest military in the world. We have more great research universities in America than all the rest of the world combined. As my professor wife would say, Google it, you'll find out I'm telling the truth.

[APPLAUSE]

By the way, those cameras you are holding up, they came out of a research of the university, not out of a company. I remember a guy that runs a little outfit called Google. He asked me whether or not I would fight to get more pure research money. I remember when he testified before the joint committee. I said, "Yes." At one point I turned to him, I said, "You mind telling these guys where you got the algorithm for Google? " He kind of put his head down. I said, "Tell them." He said, "Stanford University." I said, "Tell them who paid for it." He said, "You did."

Must Read Transcript - Biden Stumps For Candidates



[APPLAUSE]

Now look, I think it's good that these corporations can take these discoveries and turn them into something positive. But folks, no other country's close to us. We have the most agile venture capitalists in the world. Our workers are literally three times as productive the workers are in Asia. So folks, no other nation can match us. There's nothing beyond our capacity. When did we get to the point where we doubt that there's nothing America can do? I was raised to believe there's not a damn thing we can't do.

[APPLAUSE]

Must Read Transcript - Biden Stumps For Candidates



There's nothing we are incapable of doing. And that's the God's truth. We're the most incredible folks in the world because we've been able to cherry pick the best of every culture in the world. We have the brightest and the best that exists. So folks, as Dick will tell you, I've spent more time with Xi Jinping than any world leader, because that's what Barack wanted me to do, to get to know him, and I did. I spent over 24 hours with him, 25 hours, and he would trade places in a heartbeat. You're worried about China. China does not have enough energy now or in the near term, number one. Number two, China doesn't have enough water, hear me, water. They have over $0.5 trillion project trying to figure out how to turn around one of their major rivers, so that their people have enough water to drink. Somewhere between 35 and 45% of their arable land is polluted with cadmium. It's not able to produce any crops. Have you been to Beijing or looked on the television? You ever see anybody walk around with other than a mask on their face? They're dying of lung cancer four times the rate that Americans are. In the next decade, more people in China... and I'm not proud of this, it's wrong, but more people in China will contract cancer than all of the rest of the world combined, hear me? All of the rest of the world combined more people will come down with cancer in China My god, folks, they have a 2,000 year debate going on between the South China sea and the mountains in the West. They're a divided country, they have a kleptocracy. Like a kleptocracy, the so called princelings who run the political apparatus who the Xi Jinping regime is trying to make sure that he cleans it up because he knows that folks aren't gonna stand for it much longer. My god, China. China I want them to do well. When I said that to Xi Jinping he asked why. I said so we can sell you more products.

Must Read Transcript - Biden Stumps For Candidates



We're the reason for their stability. Good folks. The idea that China would eat our lunch? Not even close. And by the way, raise your hand if you think the EU is our competitor economically. Folks, it's time to remember who the hell we are. It really is.

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The only thing strong enough to rip America apart is America itself. We've seen it start, and we've gotta make sure it stops now. 

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Must Read Transcript - Biden Stumps For Candidates

That's what truth is all about. Let's make things fair, we gotta fight, we choose hope over fear, we choose you in your division, we choose allies your enemies, we choose a vibrant future over the of darkness in our past trying to hang on. Folks, we can do this, we can do this. 

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Must Read Transcript - Biden Stumps For Candidates
Must Read Transcript - Biden Stumps For Candidates
Must Read Transcript - Biden Stumps For Candidates
Must Read Transcript - Biden Stumps For Candidates

 

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