Administration of Joseph R. Biden, Jr., 2023

January 31, 2023

The President. Thank you very much. Stacey, thank you as well. Appreciate it. And, particularly, thank your daughter for permission to be here. [Laughter]

You know, this is what in our business we call a busman's holiday. The leader of the Senate has to listen to me again. [*Laughter*]

Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer. Alwaysââ

The President. Meaning the Senator from Jersey has to be there in the back corner. If I were you, I'd check if that door opens so you could sneak out. [Laughter]

And who else is here, the elected officialsââ

Audience member. Kirsten.

The President. By the way, she is the best thing New York has got going for it. And by the way, she changed the law and the military, in terms of how women are treated in the military. It's a big deal.

Look, let me say that one of the things thatâwhen I ranâand a lot of you helped me when I announced back in 2020âI said I was running for three reasons. One was to restore the soul of America. And the second one was to rebuild the country from the middle out and the bottom downâthe bottom up and the middle out, because that way, the poor have a shot, the middle class do well, and the wealthy still do very well. And thirdly was to unite the country.

The third is turning out to be the hardest thing to do. But we're getting there. We're getting there. And there's an awful lot that we'reâand by the way, I wouldn't have been able to do any of the things that were referenced a moment ago without the Democratic representatives who are in here. And I mean that sincerely.

They not only helped; they went to war for me. They went to war for the positions we took.

And it's paying off. I mean, you know, we've created, like you said, more jobs than any administration has in 2 years. We have 750,000 new manufacturing jobs.

Like I said earlier today, where is it written that we can't be the manufacturing capital of the world? We are exporting product and importing jobs, as opposed to exporting jobs and, you know, the other way around.

So there's a lotâbut there's a lot more to do, because there's a lot of people that are still being left behind in areas of the country that are feeling alienated by where they are. And a lot of it has to do with sins of the past and hard feelings that exist, because for a whileâit reminds me a little bit of when I got elected when I was a 29-year-old kid in 1972.

I became a close friend with George McGovern. But you remember, we wereâthere was aâthe liberals in those days were referred to as "limousine liberals." We didn't pay nearly as much attention to working class folks as we used to. And the same thing is happening today.

You look atâand we were just talkingâI was just being instructed. But she did a pollingâ data that was done: "Why is the country so divided? Why do we remain divided?" And look how divided we are based on geography.

You know, one of the reasons why, with your help, I won in 2020 was I was able to bring back a significant number of women who were in suburbia. They used to almost all workâor vote for us. And not enough, but a fair number of blue-collar workers. But blue-collar workers used to always be our folks. They were with us from the beginning. They were the people who thought we cared most about them.

Well, right now, you know, the favorability of most Democrats is in the 60s among college- educated people. And people without a college education, it's closer down in the 40s and below, because a lot of people think we left them behind. And it has to do more with attitude andâthan it does with policy.

And so we've gone out of our way, with Chuck's great help in the Senate, to try to focus on these folks.

For example, today we announced that, with the Recovery Actâexcuse me, with the infrastructure bill that we passed, we're going to, over time, spend $16 billion renovating the entire transportation system here in New York City.

But it's going to have a profound impact on everything thatâfromâyou know, look, this is not your father's Republican Party. [*Laughter*] This isâno, I really mean it. This is a different breed of cat. These guysâI mean, they have been straight outâI know the press is here; they've heard me say this beforeâthey say they want to get rid of Social Security. Now, thereânow I'm told that the leader is saying, no, he didn'tâthey don't mean that. [*Laughter*]

They want to get rid of Social Security and Medicare. Theyâbecause they want to cut the deficit. They want to make sure we can moveâmoving toward dealing with the national debt.

Well, I'd just point out that the last guy who was President increased the national debt that was over 225 years and increased the entirety of that debt by 25 percent in 4 years. In 4 years. The 2 years since we've been in power, we've reduced the national debt, so far, $1.7 trillion in 2 years. The debt, $1.7 trillion.

And we still grew the economy. But we did it because we paid for everything. We paid for everything, and we grew the economy at the same time.

We're finding ourselves in a situation where you talk about this party denying the existence of climate change. That is not true. Well, you ought to have traveled with me on at least 16, 17 helicopter flights around America where I've literally watched more timber burn to the ground than the entire State of Missouri. As you go through everywhere from New Mexico all the way up to Idaho and all the West Coast. And it's just incredible the damage being done.

And you know, we have aâif we don't stay under 1.5 degrees Celsius increaseâwe're going to have a real problem. It's the single most existential threat to humanity we've ever faced, including nuclear weapons. And so we have a real big problem.

We inherited a foreign policy that said thatâ"America first," which basically put America last. We lost more of our friends and allies than any time in modern American history.

We are at a point where, much to myâas I know Cory and others know, much of my time has been spent just putting back together the NATO alliance, the European Union, our relationships with Japan and South Korea, what's going on in the South Pacific.

I mean, I've spent literally hundreds of hours, either in person and/or on Zoom, with these world leaders putting them back together. And they're together, because they understand that America is back.

I showed up at the first meeting of the Gâ7, when I got elected President, in England. And I sat down, and I said, "America is back." And Macron looked at me said, and he said, "For how long?" [*Laughter*] No, for real. "For how long?"

You know, we had significant divisions within Europe about what we're going to do not just about Ukraine, but about unity overall. What was the role of the European Union? It wasâit turns out it's a great adjunct to everything we're doing, if we do it correctly. But, in fact, the last guy said it was a problem; weâit shouldn't exist, it shouldn't be around.

So I guess what I'm saying is that it was a pretty low bar to climb over, but there was an awful lot ofâan awful lot of ground to be made up.

And you think that what would happen is that there would be a little bit of, as we Catholics say, an epiphany in the Republican Party. Well, instead it's been the exact opposite. They've just doubled down.

Look at what the present leader of the Republican Partyâa decent man, I thinkâ McCarthyâlook what he had to do. He had to make commitments that are just absolutely off the wall for a Speaker of the House to make in terms of being able to become the leader.

I can't imagine, Chuck, you making one of those commitments. [*Laughter*] *Leader Schumer. *It took us one vote, and it was unanimous. [*Laughter*] *The President. *Well, beyond that, lookââ

Audience member. I voted twice. [Laughter]

The President. Beyond that, look, you know, Iâwhen I got electedâand I'll end this in a little bit. But to yourâwhen I got elected when I was a kid, when I wasâI wasn't old enough, as Karen Adler's family remembers, because her dad helped me out early onâwas I found myselfâ I was only 29 years old; you had to be 30 to be sworn in. But I got elected before I was 30. But at time to be sworn inâ17 days later, I became eligible to serve.

And because I won so young, and I won against a guyâhe was a decent man; he supported me the next time I ran. His name was J. Caleb Boggs. He was a mainstream Republican. He was one of the guys who was very deeply engaged in setting up the situation in terms of the affordableâexcuse me, the environmental legislation. He was a decent guy.

But I'd always get asked by every new person running for officeâin Delaware, particularlyâif it was their first time. They'd say, "What's the secret?" There had to be a secret if I won and if I was something special. And I said: "There is a secret. One, what do youâwhat's worth losing over to you? Have you figured out what's more important than having the job? What do you worthâwhat's worth risking losing over?" Because people can smell it. People can tell when you really mean it.

And there are certain changes that under no circumstance would any of us in this room make the kind of commitments that the Republicans are making now.

And the ideaâfor example, I don'tâI don't think anybody shouldâI think you should beâ will be a millionaire and a billionaire in America. Just pay a little bit of your fair share. Just pay your fair share. Not an exorbitant amount. Nothing overâyou know, there's no oneâin the proposals I've put forward, no one making less than $400,000 would have a penny in their taxes raised. And there'sâno one is going to be paying, like in days past, 60 percent or anything like that in taxes. We're talking in the 20s, in the 30s percentile, depending on income.

But these guys literally are proposing, unless they changed their mind againâproposing doing away with the IRS. Now, that sounds good, right? [*Laughter*] Except one thing: They

wantâhere'sâthey want to replace with a 30-percent sales tax. A 30-percent sales tax, whichâ meaning somebody who's a schoolteacher, a firefighter, or a cop would be paying more in taxes than you pay in this room, each one of you. Not a joke. And 30-percent sales taxâeverything from your house to your car to your eggs that you purchase.

So I don't know what's gone haywire here with this Republican Party. But there's two things that I think we have to run on: what we stand for, what we did, and what we need to do more of, and what we're unwilling to do under any circumstances.

And part of that is to make clear to the Republicanâto the country that we are not going to tolerate or put up with these MAGA Republicans, these Republicans inâyou know, more than justâthe Trump Republican Party. Thirty percent of thatâ30, 35 percent of that party is Trump's party. And he has a very different view.

And by the way, I can assure you windmills don't cause cancer. [*Laughter*] And so on. I mean, but think of the bizarre things that are still being proposed.

So there are enough Republicans, I believe, thatâand Chuck has done itâthat we can get help from on important things.

Leader Schumer. Yes.

The President. And there's enough Republicans in the House of Representatives now who, on very critical things, will vote with Democrats when they start talking about the really crazy stuff. But we can't take our eye off the ball. We can't take our eye off the ball.

And I'll conclude by sayingâthere are a couple things we have to do. We didn't get enough done on education this time out. The idea that allâis anyâlook, for example, whenâwhen weâ one of the reasons why we became the most powerful nation in the world is we were the best educated nation in the world, because at the turn of the 20th century, we were the only nation in the world that had universal education. Other countries had better higher education than we did. For example, in England and other places, on balance, it was better, but never overall, because we thought that 12 years of free education was necessary.

If we were doing it all over today, did anybody think we'd start and say 12 years is enough for 21st centuryâthe second quarter of the 21st century? All the data shows, over the last 10 years, of great universitiesâand I won't go into the specific details, butâpoint out that if you're in a situation where you're going to a school, no matter what your background, no matter what home you came from, if you start off in school at age 3âreading, writing arithmeticâas opposed to daycareâdaycare is better than not; I'm not being critical of daycareâyou increase by 56 percent the chance you'll get through 12 years of school and go on to either an apprenticeship or 2 years in college.

Now, what are we doing? Our Republican friends voted against that ideaâthe idea that we shouldn't have access to 2 years of postâhigh school, either as apprenticeships and/or for community college. We can not only afford to do that, we can't afford not to do that. It's critical that we, in fact, improve our education system.

And by the way, that includes, believe it or not, paying teachers more. [*Laughter*] You know? No, Iâno, I mean it.

You take a look prescription drug costs. Now, you know, I mean, even people who have means find themselves in real difficulty in terms of prescription drugs, in terms of the cost.

I remember when my son Beau, before he diedâhe hadâhe has ankylosing spondylitis, and he had a particular drug at the time they were taking. And it wasâhe took a shot; it was twice a month. And it cost $3,000 a shot.

Now, he had a larger family. We could all help out. But the idea of someone paying $3,000.

Now, it's nowâwe've gotten that under control, that piece.

But the idea we payâfor example, what we're goingâwhat's going to happen in 2025, just likeâfor example, the prescription drug costs for seniorsâit should be for everyoneâwho are onâin fact, need insulin for type 2 diabetes, it's gone from an average of $400, as high as $800 a month, depending on the insurance you have, to $35 a month. And guess what? They're still making 350â[*inaudible*]âpercent profit. It costs 10 bucks to make it and another 2 bucks to package it.

And there was a patent thatâthe guy who decided, when he invented the drugâthe insulinâhe didn't even patient it because he wanted it available. Well, guess what? It makes no sense, drug companies charging multiple multiples of that.

And so we have to be in a situation where we haveâand by the way, the beginningâwe got passedâwith the help of the men and women in this room, we got passed aâa drugâyou cannot raise your price of a drug beyond the cost inflation now, or else what's going to beâbecause what's going to happen is the Federal Government coming to take aâcharge you the differenceâ the drug company.

And in addition to that, anybody who is in a position where they have drug costs, beginning in 2025, no senior will have to pay more than $2,000 a year. Some of the cancer drugs, as you all know, are $14-, $15,000 a year. They'll not have to pay more than $2,000 a year.

Concluding pointâand I realize I'm rambling a bit here. The concluding point I want to make to you is, it's really important we let people know what we've done. Let people know. Because we haven'tâwe haven'tâit's only just kicking into place. We essentially promised people that insulin would be 35 bucks.

Well, we passed it 6, 8 months ago. It only kicked in in January. I'm finding people calling and saying: "My God, my insulin was only $35. It's a gigantic difference." And by the way, there are 200,000 young kids who have type 2 diabetes. And a lot of parents have no ability to pay for theâ[*inaudible*].

So I was in this town meeting not long ago, and I think it was in rural Virginia, and a woman stands up and says: "I have two daughters. They both have it. I can't afford the drug, so weâwe cut it in half. We cut it in"âI mean, there's justâthere's so many things, but we can now go out and make our case. And what I've done: I've set up an inter-Cabinet now that is called the "Implementation Cabinet." The existing Cabinet members whose job is to just do nothing but let people know what we have already doneâwhat we've already done.

I'm sorry, I'm going to stop because I'm making you all cough. [*Laughter*]

But at any rate, so there'sâthere is a lot more to be done. And if we do just a little bit more in education and a little bit more in terms of health care, a little bit more in terms of what we're doing in terms of the environment, and a whole hell of a lot more on what we're going to spendâ spending at one point $2 trillion for infrastructure for the next 10 years. And we're creating thousands and thousands of good-paying jobs.

And by the wayâby the way, I don't know where it's written that says we can't be the manufacturing capital of the world again. We used to spend 2 percent of our entire GDP on research and development investing in America. It's now 0.7 percent.

One of the reasons why I was able to attract $300 billion in investment for semiconductor factories and construction is because we have the best workers in the world.

The Japaneseâtheâa Korean company is investing over $100 billion. I asked "why" when I met with the CEO from South Korea. He said, "Because you have the best workers and the safest environment in which to do what you have to do."

So there's a lotâwe underestimate what we have. And I'm going toâI'm determinedâ determined to make it better.

I have been doing this a long time, but I've never, never, neverâmy word as a Bidenâbeen more optimistic about the prospects for America not only leading the world, but increasingâ being the most economically viable nation in the world again.

That's what we can do. I'm going to, as my mother would say, "hush up, Joe." I'm talking too much. [*Laughter*] Thank you.

NOTE: The President spoke at 2:31 p.m. at the residence of Jeffrey A. and Stacey Gillis Weber. In his remarks, he referred to Sens. Cory A. Booker and Kirsten E. Gillibrand; former President Donald J. Trump; President Emmanuel Macron of France; and philanthropist and activist Karen

R. Adler. Audio was not available for verification of the content of these remarks.

Categories: Addresses and Remarks : Democratic National Committee fundraiser in New York City.

Locations: New York, NY.

Names: Adler, Karen R.; Booker, Cory A.; Gillibrand, Kirsten E.; Macron, Emmanuel; McCarthy, Kevin O.; Schumer, Charles E.; Trump, Donald J.; Weber, Stacey Gillis.

Subjects: Cancer research, prevention, and treatment; Climate change; Community colleges; Democratic National Committee; Early childhood education; Education, global competitiveness; Federal deficit and debt; France, President; Group of Seven (Gâ7) nations; Infrastructure improvements; Insulin cost controls; Job creation and growth; Manufacturing industry, domestic investment; Natural disasters, climate change impacts; New York, Democratic Party event; New York, President's visit; Prescription drug costs, reduction efforts; Russia, conflict in Ukraine; Semiconductor manufacturing; Senate majority leader; Speaker of the House of Representatives; Tax Code reform; Teachers; U.S. diplomatic efforts, expansion efforts; Ukraine, Russian invasion and airstrikes; Vocational and technical education programs.

DCPD Number: DCPD202300070.