Administration of Joseph R. Biden, Jr., 2022

December 2, 2022

The President. Well, first of all, I'd have done a hell of a lot better everywhere if I had her introduce me every place I go. [Laughter]

Folks, look, the reason I'm here is because it's really important that we reelect a really decent, honorable man who's running for reelection in 2 yearsâjust 2 years ago, in Georgia, andâReverend Raphael Warnock.

And you know, when I got elected, I was a kid. I got elected when I was 29 years old to the

U.S. Senate. And everybodyâand I ran in a year when I defeated a fellow who ended up, quite frankly, endorsing me the second time I ran, but had been the longest officeholder in the Stateâa guy named Caleb Boggs, a decent, moderate Republican.

And they'd say, "Well, what's the secret?" If I won, there had to be some special secret. [*Laughter*] "And what do I have to know if I'm going to run?"

And I said: "One thingâwhat are you willing to lose over? Have you figured that part out?

If you haven't figured out what's so important you're willing to lose over it rather than compromise on it or give up on it, then you shouldn't run. You should get involved in another line of work, because you can do a hell of a lot better financially, you can have less pressureânot necessarily less pressure, but less public opinion watching over your shoulder."

And that's exactly what the woman who just introduced me is all about. She tells you what's on her mind, she knows what she speaks of, and she understands.

And I also want to point out that I think one of the best people I've ever worked withâand I mean this sincerely, I spentâI know I don't look it, but I've been around a long time. [*Laughter*]

I spent 36 years in the United States Senate, and I've never worked with anybody that I respect more, that I trust more, and that is more on your side when he says it than that Senator right there. He's not a bad guy. He's hiding under that picture. I don't know what that painting is. But Ed Markey is the reason why a lot of what we've gotten done in this last 2 years has gotten done.

But look, why are we all working so hard?

And by the way, where is Peterâthe new Senator from Vermont? There you are, Peter.

Good to see you.

I remember Peter ran early inâI think it wasâwhat?â'76âwas it?âwith Pat Leahy.

Representative Peter F. Welch. I worked with Pat Leahy.

The President. You worked with Pat then.

Rep. Welch. In the first campaign.

The President. In that first campaign. And I went up to New Hampshire to campaign for Pat.

And the issue was: Pat was too young to be a Senator. And I was 2 years younger than Pat, campaigning for him. [*Laughter*] And he won in spite of it.

But congratulations, man. I'm really happy you're going to be in the Senate.

Look, you know, we haveâI have nice remarks here prepared by my staff, and they're good.

But the fact of the matter is thatâwhy is it so important, since we have 50 Senators alreadyâ which means that the Vice President, every time she votes, she wins. Why is it so important?

Well, you know, it's important because 51 means there's no longer 51 Presidents. When you have 50 Senators, everyone is a President. Everyone can make a judgment on what they want to do or not do andâand they can block whatever is coming up.

And they're all good people. They're all good people. Joe Manchin is a good person; he really is. But Joe has a different view, and he represents a different constituency than most of us do, especially on environmental issues. And the same way with the Senator from Arizona.

But my point is thatâyou know, I've tried to make a case thisâI believedâas some of you know, because some of you do know, thatâI believed we were going to do just fine this last election. I believed from the beginning we were going to do fine. I thought we were going to win. Matter of fact, but for the fact we had a little change in reapportionment in the State of New York, we'd be up by three, not down.

And the reason I did is because elections are aânot a referendum on the individual running; they're a choiceâa choice, a choice. And the choices that we had to makeâwe were running against three hundred and, I think, fifty-some people or thirty-some people on the other team who, in fact, were election deniersâdid not really respect the institutions, literally.

I know I got criticized very harshly for making a speech in the summer down at Independence Hall aboutâdemocracy was under siege. There was a threat to democracy on the horizon, for real. And then I did that again about 3 weeks before the general election.

But the fact of the matter isâbecause I went all over the country, and I could tell people were literally worried about whether or not the institutions would hold. You know, we have three equal branches of Government, where there was notâthat's not the way our opposition thinks of it.

And by the way, you know, I'veâwhen I was the United States Senator, I had a reputation for getting things done with Republicans. And I got an awful lot done.

But this is not your father's Republican Party. This is a different breed, a different breed of cat, for real. There's still some really decent, honorable men and women in the United States Senate who are Republicans. But there's also those who really think the institutions are not to be respected that much, for real.

I'm even worried aboutâand I was chairman of the Judiciary Committee for years and years, and voted on more Supreme Court Justices than any man that's living today. And the fact of the matter is: The Court has changed, not just in terms of its ideology, but in terms of its politics, the way it deals with things.

You wonder about whether or not the way in which the Republicans want to take a look at the institution of the Presidency under the last President andâthe once-and-future President, in his view.

You also take a look at what theyâthe idea they have about the Congress and what their responsibilities are.

And so we need a little bit of insurance. We need a little bit of insurance for not only the things we've done, but so much more we have to get done.

Folks, look, because of the help of your two Senatorsâand I'm not being solicitousâwe got a lot done. But the things we got done, people don't even know yet because a lot of it doesn't take effect yet.

For example, when you, in fact, decide you're going to rebuild Americaâânot figuratively, literallyâwith a $1 trillion 200 billion infrastructure legislationâwe used to haveâbe rated the second best infrastructure in the world. We'reânow we're rated number 18 in the world, in terms of our infrastructureâtrains, planes, buses, highways, internet, the whole thing, bridges.

I mean, we'reâI went down the list of the number of bridges in your State that are in disrepair; that areâneed real help; that haven't had anything done to them. Go across the countryâthe same way.

I was at Logan. We're putting millions ofâtens of millions of dollars into Logan just to bring it up to snuff.

I remember when I wasâwhen I was the Vice President, I landed at LaGuardia. And I walked into LaGuardia, andâin Air Force Two andâthe small Air Force One. And I landed and I found myself walking in, and there was a sign going through the lobby. The escalator was down. It said, "Will be repaired in 4 months." [*Laughter*] Not a joke. The United States of America.

If I blindfolded you and put you in an airport in Beijing and in New York, and took the blindfold off and asked you where you were, you would say the opposite. You would think you were in America in Beijing and Beijing in America.

And so the generic point I'm making is, there's so much we have to get done, but we have such enormous opportunities. And it's only starting to kick in now.

And people don't know that when you take out that intersection thatâwhere more people have been killed because of pedestrian crossings or moreâor highways where you have bridges that are collapsing, and so on. They don't know it until you start to take them down and fix them. And we're just getting started, because we've now had only a portion of that money that has been released.

And those of you who are business men and women, you know that people want to build their factories and their facilities where they can get their product to market the quickest.

And so my point is, there's a lot to comeâa lot to come. The same way with the environmental legislation. Everybody thinks it's just about generic things we're doing. Well, guess what? It's estimated the average person in America will save $1,500 a year if in fact they take advantage of the tax credits for their ability to deal with everything from putting new doors and windows on their homes, to having subsidized their solar panels.

And by the way, windmills don't kill people. [*Laughter*] They don't cause cancer, like the last guy thought.

But my generic point is, there's a lot coming with the legislation we passed relative to health

care.

You know, I'll bet every one of you know somebody who has type 2 diabetes and needs

insulin. Well, the average cost of insulin on a monthly basis was $400 a yearâI mean, a monthâ sometimes as high as $18â$800 a month, depending on where you live.

Well, it costsâthe guy who came up with the insulin didn't patent it because he wanted it available to anybody and everybody. And the total cost of manufacturing that is $10âTâEâNâ

$10. Package itâanother $4. So it costs a maximum of 15 bucks. Andâwhat's happening.

I was in Virginia, campaigning for a candidate in the early summer. And a woman stood up and asked about insulin, and she started to cry. She said: "I have two daughters with type 2 diabetes. And I have to splitâI have to share the insulin. I don't have the money. I don't have the insurance to be able to handle it." Thisâfor God's sake, this is the United States of America.

And so I can go down the list. And so a lot of this is just going to kick into gear now. The insulin price goesâpeople are going to, all of the sudden, decide: "Oh, my God, Biden was right. I mean, he actually said it only going to cost me 35 bucks." And they start paying it. And they're going to go, "Whoa, I didn't realize that was really true."

I could go down the list of the other things that these folks helped us pass.

The point I'm making is that elections are a choice. And this is the mostâthis Republican Party today is the most devoid of any serious ideas that I've ever dealt with.

And I'm notâyou know, I got criticized, remember, when I ran for President, saying I'm running for three reasons. One, to restore the soul of America, decency, and honor.

Two, to rebuild the Americanânot trickle-down, but from the middle out and the bottom up. When the middle class does well, the wealthy do very well and never get hurt andâand the poor have a shotâand people have a little breathing room, as my dad would say. At the end of the month, they got just a little spaceâa little space.

And soâbut the third thing I said: We're going to unite the country. You rememberâthe press is in the room. They understandably, legitimately, beat the living hell out of me for saying that'sâthat's theâ"Biden's the old guy here. That's how it used to be. It can't be that way anymore."

Well, if we can't unite this country, we're in real trouble, we're in desperate trouble, because democracies only can function when you gather consensus. And so what we did this last time out and what's happening down in Georgia right now is that we have to make it clear to people thatâ what are the other team for?

Not a joke. If I asked you ifâand you allâbecause of your generosity of helping candidates, you're all in a position to be able to do relatively well. If I said, "I'll tell you what, I'll bet you 500 bucks you can't, in the next 15 minutes, sit down and write out aâwhat's the Republican platform." [*Laughter*] No, I'm not being facetious. I'm being deadly earnest. It's about whatever we're for, they're against.

Look at what they want to repeal. They want to repeal everything. The first thing they said they want to doâthe first thingâis get rid of the Affordable Careâexcuse meâget rid of the legislation passed that has the environmental money in it and has the money dealing with Medicare being able to negotiate.

Why is Medicare the only outfit in the world, unlike the VA and others, that cannot negotiate prices that they're going to pay for product, saving the American public?

And by the way, all the stuff we didâI want to remind youâI love my Republican friends talking aboutânot the Republicans in the Congress talking about the "big-spendin' Democrats."

I lowered the deficit $1 trillion 400 billion this year. This year. The largest ever occurred in American history. Three hundred and fifty billion last year, after inheriting a disaster of a $2 trillion tax cut, not a penny of which was paid for.

So I guess my point is, the reason I need, we need Raphael Warnock is we can't have this hanging on a thread every single vote we have. Every single vote we have on anything consequential hangs on a single thread. And we no longer control the House, by just a handful of votesâliterally a handful of votes.

But there's enough serious-moving Republicans in the House that you're going to findâ they're going to have a difficulty holding them all together on serious things that we can get passed.

And so, again, there's so much toâI should just hush up and let you ask me questions. But the bottom line is: There's so much we can get done. There's so much we can get done for the American people, and none of it is radical. There's noâthis radical "big-spendin' Democrats."

Like I said, the deficit was highest it's ever been under Trump and was cut the greatest of any administration in American history under the Democrats the last 2 years.

And soâand look, I know we still have to worry about inflation. And it's a legitimate concern. And the possibility of some suggesting that weâthe Fed may continue to put pretty harsh restrictions on interest rates or increasing them in order to bringâmake sure we don'tâbut guess what? In the meantime, we're havingâwe have the most steady job creation of any administration since Johnson's administration.

Unemployment is still at a 50-year low. We're in a situation where the GDP is growingânot exorbitantly but manageable.

It's a debate whether or notâwhat we can do, how much more we can do and not haveârun into a recession. But so far, a lot of folks have been preaching gloom and doom, and it hadn't happened yet. Doesn't mean it won't happen.

But look at gas prices. Remember how badly I was criticized when I saidâand I got the support from Warnockâsaying that, "Well, all you're going to do is going to release several million barrels of oil from a Petroleum Reserve." Well, guess what? Thatâ[*inaudible*]âmillion barrels of oilâwhat's the price of oil nowâgasoline at the pump?

For example, down in Georgia, which we're going to be talking about this, the average family has gone from an average cost of $4.98 or $4.87âdon't hold me to the exact numberâI don'tâI'll lookâlook at my notesâbut the highâthe high 4's to $2.88. If you have a family with two automobiles, you're saving yourself 170 bucks a month.

There's more than one way to deal with family inflation. My dad used to say, "At the end of the day, what do you have left after you pay yourâall your monthly bills?" So, if you have a child that needs insulin, it is a significant reduction in inflation for that family if it goes from

$400 to 15âto 35 bucks.

If the gasoline price comes down and stays down, I don'tâI can't guarantee anything, but it has to continue to come down. And guess what? The major oil industry has made more money than any time in all of history.

Exxon made sevenânineâ$17.9 billion in one quarterâmore than they've ever made.

They're not passing it on, because they're saying they're not going to, in fact, reignite their refineries because they're afraid Biden's eventually going to take us to zeroâzero emissions, in terms ofâbut that's going to takeâno matter what, that's going to take at least 5, 7, 8 years before we get there. We're going to still need energy.

My generic point is, there's so much at stake in this upcoming electionâthis next 2 years. So much at stake.

Now I can'tâas was I hadâwell, I don't want to, with the press here, name the names, but the Republicans who came to see meâthe future leadership of the House. And they were telling me what they could do, what they were going to do.

And I said, "Yes," and I faceâI was sitting at theâat the desk in the room. And I just went like this.

[*At this point, the President held up a pen.*]

[*Laughter*] And they said, "What are you doing?" I said, "A pen. Veto." [*Laughter*] "Veto."

But that notâthat can stop bad things, but it can't start them. It can't generate them.

And soâand if you'reâif you had Raphael Warnock here, you'd see he's a manâforget whether he's a man of faith or not; he isâbut he's a truly decent man. Truly decent, honorable man.

And the fellow he's running against isâbased on just what he's done and saidâis someone who is a very different breed than he is. Doesn't deserve to be a United States Senator. Doesn't deserve to be a United States Senator.

And so we're haveâwe have a race that's of extreme consequence. That's the best way for me to put it.

I'm taking too long to talk. But look, you know, everything we've done, from passing the PACT Actâeverybody says, "What's the PACT Act?" Well, you know, there's about 3 million military people who've been breathing that air from those burn pits. My son was one of those. It's not about my son, but my son was one of those.

My son was the attorney general of Delaware, volunteered to go to Iraq for a year with his National Guard unit, and came homeâwent one of theâon all the tests they do, one of the fittest guys in theâin his unit, and came back with stage-4 glioblastoma. Fought like hell. Never complained.

But I've visited in and out of Iraq and Afghanistan over 37 times. And he lived within, probably, 200 yards, in Camp Liberty, of theâone of those burn pits.

A burn pit is about the size of football field, 8 to 10 feet deep. And they burn everything in there from fuel to poisonous material to rubber toâI mean, across the board. And it's just like you all learned about that from 9/11, what happened to those firefighters breathing that toxic air.

And so weâwe had a question of whether or not we were going to get the burn pit legislation passed. Was that going to pass? Were they going to spend the money?

So all it does is sayâjust like we did with Agent Orange finallyâit's hard to prove that the reason you have the disability you have is because of Agent Orange, but if you were exposed when it was dropped on your head, it was assumed that there wasâthat was the reason for your illness.

Well, the sameâall this does is say they're going to provide forâhelp the families of VA help forâthis is someone who comes home having been exposed to a burn pitâhave their billsâ their medical bills paid for; and if they passed away, have their benefits that flowed for them fromâfor education, be able to flow to their children.

But my point is, these are things that used to be supported byâoverwhelmingly by Republicans as well as Democrats. Now they ended up having enough to vote for it.

But the whole point I'm trying to make is, we have a chanceâno, let meâI'll end it this way. And I apologize to my colleagues; they've heard me say this for a while.

I really think we're at an inflection point in American history, not because I'm President or anybody who's in office. One of those times in history where the things that we do the previous 4 years or 3 years, the next 5 or 6 years are going to determine what the country looks like for the next 50 years, literally.

And the world is changing. All across the worldâthe world, it's changing. And what we do matters a great deal. What we do matters a great deal.

Imagine 4 more years of the last guy coming up. I can tell you, I spent most of my career dealing with foreign policy. The rest of the world doesn't understand.

I'll conclude by giving an example. The first Gâ7 meeting of the largest democratic economies in Londonâin England, after I got elected, in February. And I sat down and I said, "America is back." And the comment wasâonly heads of states sitting thereâ"For how long? For how long?"

And then one of them pointed out, without naming himâpointed out to me: "What would you say, Mr. President, if you went to bed tonight here in southern England, woke up the next morning and find out a couple of thousand people had stormed the British Parliament, crashed through the doors of the House of Commons, two cops were killed in the meantime, to try to overcome the outcome of an election? What would you think?"

And, really, ask yourself: What would you think, sitting here in America? What would you think about the future of England? Well, you know, a lot of people out there wonder whether or not we're going to return to what was chaos internationally before. And so I think that we have not only enormous opportunities, but enormous obligations. Obligations.

And one of the things I've learned, even though Iâfor a long time wasâI was Vice President for 8 years and did a lot of foreign policy for Barackâwhen the President of the United States walks in the room, everybodyâeverybody raises their head. Not becauseâI don't mean meâwhoever the President is.

Because as Madeleine Albright said, "America is the indispensable nation." It is the indispensable nation. And so we've got to continue to be able to lead and lead in a way that takes the world in a direction that is democraticâdemocratic values that are upheld.

And I know, as I said, I got criticized for talking about the demise of democracy in front of these guys. But it matters. It matters.

And we can straighten thisâwe can be in a position, if we continue these next 2 years and nail down what we started, we're going to be in a position for the next 10 to 20 years where America is going to be in pretty good shape.

Any rate, thank you very much.

NOTE: The President spoke at 5:41 p.m. at the residence of James M. and Catherine D. Stone. In his remarks, he referred to Sen. Elizabeth A. Warren, who introduced the President; Sen. Kyrsten

L. Sinema; House Minority Leader Kevin O. McCarthy; Georgia Republican senatorial candidate Herschel Walker; and former President Barack Obama. The transcript was released by the Office of the Press Secretary on December 3. Audio was not available for verification of the content of these remarks.

Categories: Addresses and Remarks : Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee reception in Boston, MA.

Locations: Boston, MA.

Names: Harris, Kamala D.; Leahy, Patrick J.; Manchin, Joseph A., III; Markey, Edward J.; McCarthy, Kevin O.; Obama, Barack; Sinema, Kyrsten L.; Trump, Donald J.; Walker, Herschel; Warnock, Raphael G.; Warren, Elizabeth A.; Welch, Peter F.

Subjects: ; 2022 midterm elections; Bipartisanship; Cancer research, prevention, and treatment; Deficit and national debt; Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee; Energy efficiency and weatherization, homes and buildings; Environmental exposures in war zones; Federal Reserve system; Gasoline costs; Georgia, senatorial runoff election; Global supply chain disruptions, efforts to address; Group of Seven (Gâ7) nations; House minority leader; Inflation; Infrastructure improvements; Insulin cost controls; Job creation and growth; Manufacturing industry, domestic

investment; Massachusetts : Democratic Party events; Massachusetts, President's visit; Medicare and Medicaid programs; Military families; Oil and natural gas, domestic production; Prescription drug costs, reduction efforts; Solar and wind energy; Strategic Petroleum Reserve; Tax Code reform; Veterans health and medical care; Vice President.

DCPD Number: DCPD202201094.