Administration of Joseph R. Biden, Jr., 2023

March 13, 2023

The President. Thank you. Thank you for the comment about the book, Allan. I appreciate it.

And tell your wife I said, "Thank you for all the preparation." It's never easy. Everybody says, "No problem." You have to work like the devil to get it done. [*Laughter*]

And I want to thank all of you for not just the help, but for taking the time. Your time is more valuable than anything else. And thank you for doing this. I really mean it.

You know, I heard you had read the book. The book is "Promise Me, Dad." It's about my son. And my sonâmy number-one son who should be the one standing here as President, not me. He was the attorney general in the State of Delaware.

And he volunteered to go with his unit to Iraq for a year. And he wasâhe came back. He was near one of those burn pits. I was in and out of Iraq over 26 times, and thoseâyou know the burn pits I'm talking about? Thoseâthey're 8 to 10 feet deep and the size of football fields that burn everything in it from combustibleâanyway. And an awful lotâjust like those firefighters, you know, on 9/11. Well, he came back. He went one of the fittest men in his unit, came back with stage four glioblastoma.

And I know a lot of you haveâas you came through the lineâtalked to me about cancer and how important it was to deal with it. And there's nothing likeâyou lose someone to cancer, it's like losing a piece of your soul, losing a part of you.

Andâbut I hope you foundâanyone who's had a lossâthe thing that I found, which is that, you know, they neverâit never goes away. It becomes part of you. And I find myself askingâ for real, MomâI find myself asking myself, in important decisions I have to make: "What would Beau do? What would Beau do?"

And so thank you for acknowledging you read the book. And I want to thankâyou know, and I'm not sure I rescued you from Sacramento, but thank you for being here, Senator. [*Laughter*]

And I also want to thank Scott Peters for being here. You know, I've served with an awful lot of Members of Congress. I served in the United States Senate for longer than I'd like to admit. I was proud to be in there for 36 years. And you can make distinctions among the people you serve with.

And the highest compliment I can give any member of theâthat stands for public office is they have absolute integrity. Absolute integrity. This man has integrity from the tip of his shoes to the top of his brow. And it matters. It matters. You knowâ[*applause*].

I mean this sincerely: You only haveâwhen you'reâwhen you're in public life, you only have one thing for certain that you can offer, and that is: Are you a person of your word? Can people count on what you say? And will they stand there?

I was 29 years old when I got elected to the United States Senate. And I came from aânot a poor background, but a modest background. My dad never had a chance to go to college. We lived in a three-bedroom home, a split-level home with aâwith four kids and a grandpop. Andâ but weâwe were fine. It was when we were developing suburban areas, and they're building 60 homes alike. That kind of thing.

And the interesting thing was thatâwell, for my dad, it was always aboutâat any rate, I ended up running for office against a man in 1972âwhen I was 29 years oldâwho was a decent man. Matter of fact, he endorsed me the second time I ran. He was aâthis ain't your father's Republican Party. This is when there were other Republicans. And he was very much involved in the environmental movement and a lot. Anyway, a good man.

And Nixon won my State by 65 percent of the vote. And I won by a whopping 3,100-vote majorityâa plurality. And that's because I haveâyou guys are only missing one thing. You got three brothers together like I did, but we had a sister who was smarter and better looking than all of us. And she managedâ[*laughter*]âshe managed all my campaigns.

And so, when I ran and I won, everybody would say: "Well, you're 29 and you meet a guy who wasâyou beat a guy who was very popular. What's your secret?" Every time anyone was going to run for officeâand I mean this is certainly; my word as a Bidenâthey'd say: "What'sâ what's the secret? There must be something special. Because how the hell did you win?" And I'd sayâyou know, I'd just look at them.

And finally, I figured out whatâand this is what I like about Scottâisâyou know, I said: "The secret you have to communicate to people is, what is worthâwhat are you worthâwhat is worth to you to lose? What's worth losing over?" Because if you don't know what you're willing to lose over, then you should be in another business. It doesn't mean you're bad or good. Just, you can make a lot more money doing other things. You can do a lot of things without a lot of grief. But what's worth losing over?

And, folks, there's anotherâand that's what you are, pal.

Representative Scott H. Peters. Appreciate it.

The President. No, I reallyâno, I really mean it. I really genuinely mean it.

And we have different politics these days, as you've all observed. You know, you may remember this. In theâafter the 2020 election, which, finally, even Fox News is admitting I won. [*Laughter*]

Butâ[*laughter*]âyou think I'm kidding. [*Laughter*]

But you know, it wasâafter that election, I predicted we were going to do well in the off- year election. We were supposed to get clobbered. We were supposed to lose in 2022 overwhelmingly, and I was sure we weren't going to lose. Andâbecause I think the American public has moved to a place where they're genuinely worried about our democracy. Not a joke. That's not hyperbole.

And I made a speech at Independence Hall saying, "Democracy is at stake." And I was very, very graphic about what was at stake. And we only lost by five votes, and we shouldn't have lost that. They were in New York State. And we actually picked up Governor seats.

My point is this: The American public, I think, knows what they want. Andâbut we have allowed, because of the nature of howâand I know the press is here, and there's good folks in the press. TheâI think if you've gotâpull them aside, like I get pulled aside and ask them honestly, you know, "What's it like being in the press these days?" Not a joke. "What's it like being in the press these days?" And it gets kind of hard. It gets kind of hard.

And soâyou know, and people tune in to what they want to hear. Everybody, if you'reâif you're a moderate to liberal, you want to look at MSNBC. That's the only thing you'll watch on cable. If you're conservative, you'll turn to Fox. And it's just getting too narrow what we're doing.

And I think the American public is a lot more united on critical things than we give them credit for, but it's awful hard these days to overcome, understandably, the cynicism and the like.

You know, I just think thatâyou know, we've made some historic progress in the last 2 years. No matter whether I were President or not, it happened. We made historic progress. We've created 12 million new jobs, more thanâ[*applause*]ânoâthat's more jobs in 2 years than any President has created in 4 years. We've created 800,000 new manufacturing jobs. Eight hundred thousand.

Where is it written that we won't be the manufacturing capital of the world again? Where does it say that?

But we acted like that wasn't the case because we allowed certain things to happen. It was really easy in the past forâand I hope I don't offend anybody, but I am going to just say what I believeâit was really easy before, because what would happen is: Corporate America, beginningâand I come from the corporate State of the world; more corporations in my State than every other State in the Union combined. Okay? And I won 36 years in a row. So I'm notâI'm a capitalist; I'm not anticorporation.

But what happened aboutâit started about 20 years ago. It started to findâchase labor costs. And so a lot of corporations decided it was better to go find jobs overseas, which are cheaper laborâand import the products.

Well, I decided we should change that dynamic. We should be importing thingsâwe should be importing jobs from overseas and sending product overseas. And that's begun to happen, because we're no longer looking for theâthat formula.

When I announced for the Presidency of the United States in 2020, I said I was running for three reasons. One was to restore the soul of this country. And Iâthat was not, againâto use the word twiceâhyperbole. That wasâthe dialogue had degraded so much, the way we talked to one another, the way weâwe described one another in politics.

You know, I remember Iâmyâafter my son had died, I decided I was never going to run for public office again. And so I got aâI became a full professor at the University of Pennsylvania. And they set up the Biden Institute, and I could hire people that I brought from myâthe former administration. And I was able to do that. And I enjoyed it.

But when I saw those folks coming out of the woods, literally, down in Charlottesville, Virginia, carrying torches, and singing the same anti-Semitic vile that was sung in the thirties in Germany, with swastikas, and accompanied by the White supremacistâthe Ku Klux Klan, the leader. And a young woman was killed. I talked to her mom. A young woman was killed.

And the last guy who had this job, they asked, "Well, can you describe what happened?" He said, "Well, there were two groups of very good people. There were two very good groups of people." And that's when I decided that I had to do something.

And what happened wasâthen I concluded that I just wasn't going to do it, because I knew how mean and ugly the race would be, because things have gotten meaner and uglier. And I haveâI had two children left and four grandâfive grandchildren. And what happened was that I decided I just couldn't do it.

We have a tradition in our family. Not a joke. Any child can ask for a family meeting. It only has occurred about 10 times from the time of my fathers, but I really mean it. If there was something serious on their mind, they're taken seriously.

So I got a phone call from my eldest granddaughter, named after my deceased daughter. And Naomi called. And she was, at that time, a senior at Columbia Law School. She said, "We'd like to have a family meeting, Pop." And then I had one who was a senior at the University of Pennsylvania, one who was a freshman at the University of Pennsylvania. And the one is with me

tonight, who is myâthe love of my life, Natalieâmy deceased son's oldest. She's going to be a freshman at Penn next year. And my sonâmy grandson, little Hunter Biden.

And so we had the meeting in the library with just Jill, me, and myâat that timeâI have six now, I had four grandchildrenâor, excuse me, five grandchildrenâthree granddaughters andâ four granddaughters and a grandson. And they started to tell me why they thought I should run.

And my granddaughter said, "Well, you know, Daddy would want you to run, Pop. Daddy would want you to run." I said, "It's going to be too mean, honey."

And I ended upâwithout taking you through it allâmy youngestâHunter, who is now justâwas atâjust last night his 18th birthdayâ17th birthday. He took out his cell phone, and he said, "Pop, we know it's going to be mean," and showed me a photograph on the cell phone of me walking out of the memorial mass for my son Beau where there are 2,000 people who showed upâwith my hand on a straightâhand on a flag-draped coffin. He won the Bronze Star, the Conspicuous Service Medal. He was a hell of a guy. And I had my arm around my sonâthe way I put my armâI had my arm around my grandson like thisââ

[*At this point, the President put his hand on the shoulder of an audience member.*]

ââwhen we're walking. And my other hand was on the coffin. And the caption in theâon theâI got to know which unit it was onâsaid, "Biden molests another child." He said, "We know it's going to be ugly, Pop."

And that's when I decided to go ahead and run. Because, look, folks, that's not who we are.

That is not who we are as a people. I don't believe that for a second. It's a distinct minority and it's been given too much license, but that's not who we are. And so I decided to run.

And when I did, I decided the best thingâthere are certain things that areâyou know, as I said, back when I told you why ran in the first placeâthere are certain things worth losing over. There are certain things worth losing over. It's not worth the job if you have to support things you really don't think are correct.

If it's a toss-up, I go with what the public opinion is. But if it's anything else, I go with what I think.

And so what happened was, we were told we couldn't do anything in a bipartisan way. But guess what? We passed more major bipartisan legislation than anybody has in the recent past. We, first of all, passed the first piece ofâmajor piece of legislation, which bailed out every State, county, and city in America; it was almost $2 trillion, without a single Republican vote. But it broughtâit kept us from emptying our nurses and hospitals and making sure we had first responders andâbecause the cities and counties didn't have the money from taxâfrom tax revenue to pay to keep them onâon the job.

And then, what we did was we sat down and, you know, made sure that we began to focus on the Inflation Reduction Act, which we put in, for example, a $369 billion investment in climate, because it is the existential threat to humanity.

Our grandchildren and great grandchildren are either going to live lives that are decent and honorable and good, or they're going to be in real trouble. If we let theâif we go to about 1.5 centigrade aboveâdegrees above where we are now, we're done; there's no way to turn it around, according to the scientists that tell us.

And so we passed that. And then weâwhat we did was we decided to focus on inflation because it was bad. And we brought down inflation 30 percent since the summer. Gas prices are down more than $1.50 from their peak.

And NATO united in Europe isâunder Ukraineâto do with Ukraine. Remember, when the war started, I was unfortunatelyâbecause I had access that I made sure that I was going to not reveal what the intelligence people call "sources and methods"âwho said it or did it. But I gotâI got clearance from the intelligence community. And remember, I said that those 158,000 people along the border, those Russians on the Ukrainian borderâI said they're going to invade. Because I wanted everybody to know we knew what was happening. And they invaded. The largest invasion since World War II. Over 185,000 Russian troops invaded.

And so, because he counted on the fact that NATO was not going to hold, NATO would split, we wouldn't all agree. Well, I've spent literally over 1,800 hours dealing with all those NATO leadersâas recently as today, by the way, with one of them, from Great Britainâholding us together, not because of me, but just working it. Because I'm convinced that if we stay together, they cannot succeed.

And so the end result of all that is that Putin was of the of the mind that he was going to be able to break NATO and split the alliance and that's when everything would begin to fall apart.

Well, folks, you see what's happening to those Ukrainians. They're a brave people. God love them, as my mother would say. God love them. They're doing a remarkable job. And now you have 144 members of the United Statesâofâexcuse me, of the United Nationsâsaying that the Russians are dead wrong, they're engaged in serious genocide that's going on in that country.

They don't say "genocide"âwar crimes.

But the point I'm making is that there was a miscalculation. And so we've all stayed together. And the end result has been that NATO isâthey're still hanging on. Who knows what exactly is going to happen from here on in. That's another issue.

But the point is that we held democracies thatâwe held the democracies together, all of us. And so, in addition, we passed the most significant bipartisan gun safety law in 30 yearsâ

ghost guns and other things. But you know, you may remember, I got in a lot of trouble because, 15 or 20 years earlier, I'm the guy that passed theâI was the guy that wrote the assault weapons ban and limited the number of bullets that can be in a clip. Who in God's name needs a 100-bullet magazine on a gun for any reason other than to kill people?

And so it passed. And violent and mass murderers went down significantly in that 10 years, from the early nineties, when we passed it, until the first Republican administration came along, and they couldn't get the votes to keep it.

But the point is, we gotâfor 30 years, we got nothing done on guns. Well, now we got the gun law passed, and it's helping. But I'm not going to rest until we pass the assault weapons ban and aâand a limitation on the magazines that are existing.

And so, you know, it used to be that we were the ones who wereâwe spent 2 percent of our GDP on research and development as a nation. We used to be number one in the world. Now we're number nine in the world. China used to be number eight in the world. Now they're number one in the worldânumber two in the world.

We are the nation of innovation, research and development. But we stopped investing in both of those things, not onlyâI'm going to get to it in a secondânot only in terms of medicine, but in terms of everything.

And so, when we passed that bill, we passedâIâwe wrote a bill that was called the CHIPS and Science Act. The CHIPS and Science Act has attracted a commitment of $300 billion in investment from around the world and here in the United States. The first major initiative to build these computer chips, which are the sizeâlittle size of the tip of your little finger and are

extremelyâneeded for everything, from automobiles to your new refrigerators and every major initiative we have going on.

Well, guess what? We weren't able to get them during the pandemic because we were importing them from Asia, South Asia; we were importing them from other places, and we couldn't get them.

And that's whyâfor example, the reason why inflation spiked 2 years ago is, we couldn't buy any automobiles. The cost of automobiles went up so high because they didn't have the computer chips to make our automobiles. And so the end result was we got this passed.

Andâfor example, the first major initiative is a $20 billion investment by Intel, just about 20 miles, not even that far, west of Cleveland, in a thousand acres of what I call the "field of dreams." They're going to build two "fabs," they call them.

It's going to take a total of 12,000 workers to do it; 7,000 construction workers making a union wage. I make no apologies for that. And number two, 5,000 people are going to work in these fabs. You know what the average salary of these fabs are going to be? A hundred and thirty thousand dollars a year. And you don't need a college degree.

And that'sânow, we have commitments for $300 billion for that investment. We just announced the same thing up in Syracuse, New York; Poughkeepsie, New York; out inâand Arizona and New Mexico. It's going to be all over the country.

And we're going to put people to work, and we're going to be the beginning of the supply chain, not the end. And we're going to make it available everybody, to other countries as well. But you're just not going to be on the short end of that supply chain any longer. And it's beginning to have a real impact. It's going to create thousands of good-paying jobs.

In addition to that, what we did was, we passed the infrastructure law. You know, how can you beâyou all know, if you ever get involvedâand I can tell anybody who works at the State legislature or anywhere elseâyou want to attract a business, what do you have to do? First question they ask you: "How close is the nearest port? Where'sâwhat's the access to highway or rail? What's the"âand it goes on. Because they want to make a product they can get to market as quick as possible.

How can you be the leading country in the world with a second-rate infrastructure? We used to rank number one. Now we ranked number 15 in the world. How did that happen? What do we do?

So guess what? We're creating thousands upon thousands of good-paying jobs. And we're investing in everythingânot just roads and ports and bridges, which we're doingâbut also high- speed internet that's available and safe and cheap for everyone in America, making sure that you don't have toâif you have toâif you have another shutdown on the schools for whatever reason, you don't have to pull in front of the McDonald's parking lot to connect to the internet so your kid can do their homework. Not a joke.

A gentleman told me he is both a doc and a cattle rancher. Well, if you want to be able to know when to sell your cattle, man, you got to do itâyou have to have internet to be able to beâ to know when the best time is. There's a whole range of things.

My generic point is simple: We have to have the best infrastructure in the world if we're going to have the best economy in the world. And, again, it creates thousands of new jobs, good jobs.

And by the way, we're investing oneâand it's bipartisanâ$1 trillion 200 billion over 10 years. Remember last guy around, we talked about "Infrastructure Week" and it never occurred?

We got "Infrastructure Decade"âInfrastructure Decade" to modernize this country in a way that used to be back when we led the world.

And so the point I'm making is, there's so much within our power that we can do. And we're in a situation where, you know, theâas IâI won't even get into the Inflation Reduction Act again, but there's so many things. And we're doing all thisâat the same time in the last 2 years, I cut the debtâwe cut the deficit by a larger number than any President has ever in history: $1.7 trillion. That year, we spent $1.7 trillion less than we spentâI mean, and for all these programs.

And one of the ways we did it is, we started to ask people to pay their fair share, just their fair share. And, for example, there wereâin 2020, there were 54â55 Fortune 500 companies. Good folks. I'm a capitalist, as I said. But you know, capitalism without competition is not capitalism. And just pay your fair share.

So there were 55 companies that made $40 billion and didn't pay a single penny in tax. And I did a horrible thing. I suggested they should have to pay a minimum of 15 percent. That's less than the people putting on this meal for you pay in taxes. And guess what? It paid for it all.

And so my point is this: My dad used to have an expression. He'd say that: "Don't tell me what your value. Show me your budget, and I'll tell you what your value." Don't tell me what you value. Show me your budget, and I will tell you what you value.

Well, I introduced my budget last week, and it reflects what I value. And "everyone deserves a fair shot" is my basic value.

And I said, you know, one ofâthe second reason I ran was to rebuild the backbone of the country, the middle classâbuild it from the middle class out, and the poor have a way up, and the wealthy still do very well. Still do very well.

And so, you know, our Tax Code should be fair. And we should build an economy, as I said, from the middle out and the bottom up, and that's what I would think would be fiscally responsible.

So we just have very different views this new MAGA Republican group. And I saidâI used the phrase twiceâit's not your father's Republican Party. This a different deal. I know Republican Senators who served here, and they'reâand a they'reâa lot of them are friends I've had now.

Nine Republican Senators I used to serve with come in and say: "I agree with you, Joe. But if I say anything, I'll lose in a primary. I'll lose my seat." Not what you call a "profile in courage," but at least in honesty.

And so what's happening? For example, the House Freedom Caucus in the House of Representatives, they just introducedâtheir budget. It cuts veterans benefits. It won't cut subsidies for Big Pharma.

For example, when we passed the Inflation Reduction, we said for the first timeâyou know, as you all know, because a lot of docs and people are concerned about cancer in hereâone of the things that is at stake is, we pay the highest drug prices of any major nation in the world, the highest by a longshotâby a longshot. And the only thing the law says that Medicare and the Government can't negotiate for prices for is in Medicare. The only one.

And so we finally said, "No, no, no, you're going to be able to negotiate with Medicare." Because like the Germans and otherâother countries have, there's a limitation on how much you can spend.

And by the wayâso, for example, I'll bet every one of you know someone who has stage 1 or stage 2 diabetes. Raise your hand if you know anybody who has that. You need insulin. It's been around for 100 years. It costs $10 to manufacture it. And it costs, if you package it and the

whole deal, you can argue as much as $13. So guess what? We passed a law and set the price at

$35 instead of $4- to $600 a month. It saves people's lives. It saves people's lives.

And every year for the next 5 years, we're going to be able to take 10 more drugs and put them on the market that, in fact, Medicare is going to say we're going to pay no more than a, b, c, or d.

Well, guess what? Eli Lilly decided they're going to only charge $35 now, and they're one of the largest producers of insulin. Well, the likelihood that anybody is going to be able to continue to charge four, five, six hundred bucks is not likely. And so we're beginning to make some progress.

But the point of it is that if in fact youânow, you not only cut prices for the patient. Guess what? This year, you're going to saveâMedicare, the government is going to reduce the deficit by $160 billion. Hear me? And not only is it the right thing to do for people, it cuts the deficit by

$160 billion. $160 billion. Because Medicare doesn't have to pay out that $160 billion to pay for the higher prices.

Soâbut, folks, there's aâthere's an awful lot. There's an awful lot thatâthat we can do.

And here's the deal. You know, if you look at what the MAGA Republicans do, I also think it's long past time we should stop subsidizing Big Oil. We're not going toâwhy subsidize Big Oil?

And the second thing is that we also haveâyou know, corporate America. You remember whenâRonald Reagan, your former Governor here? Well, guess what? He wanted to reduce, and he did reduce, the tax rate from 36 percent for corporations to 28 percent. If we did even 21 percent, which is supposedly now, we'd raise billions and billions of dollars to pay for all the research I want to talk about.

But look, the new Republican budget in House includes zero deficit reduction. Matter of fact, it willâweâwhen folks talk about, we have no intention of letting the extremes of one partyâand they are the extremes. They're not the majority, but they will be able toâI think, in Houseâbe able to be successful in terms of what they're going to do.

But the point is that what we're going to do is make sure that they have to make their case. They say that we're the big spenders. Well, if we just implement what we already passed, weâ we're going to winâjust what we've passed, nothing else. If we didn't pass another thing. It continued to reduce the deficit and the impact on so many other things.

Look, the stakes are too high for our economy, for our democracy, for our standing in the world. And I intend to build on the progress and finish the job we set out to do.

And let me conclude by talking about something I care a lot about. When I was Vice President, the President allowed me to set up a Cancer Moonshot to begin to make real focus. Because, for example, certain childhood cancersâthe major companies don't want to invest anything in it, because there's not that much to make. If you only have 200,000 people dying of that cancer, it's not goingâthey're not going to put a lot of money into it, and so on.

A lot of you, I'veâreferenced your concerns to me about cancer when you came in as I met you. Well, you know, the idea isâthis Cancer Moonshot, I've revived asâas your President. I brought it back.

And what we're doing here is, Iâyou know, there's a thing called DARPA in the defense budget. It's the thing that gave us geopositioning. It's the thing that gave us all those things that we need that are the cutting-edge elements of the Defense Department. And I've been very involved in foreign policy and defense for a long time.

And I thought to myself, why don't we have an ARPAâARPAâHâthe Department of Health and Human Services? Why don't we invest the same kind of money to deal with cancer?

So, so far, I committed we're going to spend $5 billion. We haveâwe've committed 250â

$2.5 billion so far, and another $2.5 billion next year. Well, that's a hell of a start.

And again, without being critical of any drug company, who's going to want to invest all the money they need to invest in if the return is not can be significantly higher than their investment? Can't blame them.

So I think we should be funding this ARPAâH, the Department ofâat Health and Human Services. And I think we canâwe've significantly reducedâyouâmany of you in this room have significantly reduced cancer deaths now. We're turning some cancers into chronic diseases and be able to be maintained. And there are a number of cures that are on theirâon the edge.

Look at what happened with Jimmy Carter. Now, heâIâhe asked me to do his eulogy.

I'mâexcuse me, I shouldn't say that. I've spent time with Jimmy Carter. And it's finally caught up with him, but they found a way to keep him going for a lot longer than he was anticipated to go because they found a breakthrough. Immunotherapy is incredibly important. And you know, whether it's for brain cancer or anything else, I am aâI've been the recipient of the good work of many of you here. I have two cranial aneurysms, one major embolism. Took the top of my head off the second time, Mom, because they said they couldn't find a brain the first time. [*Laughter*]

But all kidding aside, it's amazing what our neurosurgeons are able to do and neurologists are able to do. Amazing. And I believe we canâmy goal is that we cut cancer by 50 percent in the next 25 years at the maximum. And I think we can do it, and we can turn a lot of cancersâ [*applause*].

But here's the deal, you know, and I'll end with this. I'm sorry to go on too long, but I'm fairly passionate about this issue.

You know, I just think we have to remember it's never been a good bet to bet against America. It's never been a good bet to bet against America. And I think it's time we finish the job. The stakes are too high for our economy, for our democracy, for our standing in the world. And I intend to build on the progress and finish the job we started.

I've long said that there's nothing beyond our capacity. I've never been more optimistic in my whole career, and I mean this sincerely. Everybody said, "Why the hell would you be with the way things are?" And I've never been so optimistic of what we can do. I mean it from the bottom of my heart.

We're at an inflection point in human history.

I had a professor who used to say: "An inflection point is, you're going down the highway at 60 miles an hour, and you take a hard right 20 degrees. You can never get back on the course you're on." That's where we are on climate, on health care, on international relations, on so many things.

We can determine where we go from here, but we've got to remember who the hell we are. We're the United States of America. There is nothingâI mean nothingâbeyond our capacity when we do it togetherâwhen we do it together. And I'm determinedâI'm determined to see that done no matter what happens.

And, folks, the fact is that I think if you take a look at the data. The vast majority of the American people agree. There's noneâof the substance of things I've raised is there any opposition to. But the opposition is going to make my case a little easierâI can say with the press here, before they leaveâbecause they're going to present an alternative. Their budget is going

toâand, so far, what they've introduced is going to increase the deficit by about $3.7 trillion. So you know, I mean, what are they going to cut?

Any of you watch the State of the Union? I wouldn't blame if you hadn't. Well, you were there.

Well, I'll conclude with this story. I was standing in the State of the Union and I must tell you, I've been aâin the Congress for so long, I feel comfortable standing before, just like IâI made many speeches before the Congress.

And I was laying out what I was going toâdoing. I said, "And there's a desire to cut Social Security and Medicare." And the distinguished lady fromâ[*laughter*]âfrom Georgiaâthe mountains of Georgiaâstarted yelling, "Liar! Liar! Liar!" And that generatedâby the way, the last time anybody did that, they got censured for doing it. Okay? And then five or six others started: "Liar! Liar! Liar!"

And I said, "You don't want to cut Social Security and Medicare?" "No, we don't." I said, "Everybody who doesn't"âand I never thought I'd negotiate with the whole Congress. [*Laughter*] I said, "Anybody in thisâin the Congress here who doesn't want to cut Social Security and Medicare, stand up and holler." And they all stood up hollering, "We won't cut it." And then I polled them. They were all on camera. [*Laughter*] So I hope they keep their commitment and not cut it.

But my generic point is, there is a lot we can do. There's a lot we can do. We can do it fairly without overtaxing people, without making itâwith just being fair. Just giving people an even shot. That's all this is about. And I think the public is going to be there.

With your help, you're going to allow me to be in the game and the DNC to be in the game.

So thank you, thank you, thank you.

NOTE: The President spoke at 6:47 p.m. at the residence of Allan and Megan Camaisa. In his remarks, he referred to Sen. Alejandro Padilla; former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke; Susan Bro, mother of Heather D. Heyer, who was killed in a vehicular attack in Charlottesville, VA, on August 12, 2017; Prime Minister Rishi Sunak of the United Kingdom; President Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin of Russia; former Presidents Donald J. Trump and James E. Carter, Jr.; and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene. He also referred to his sister Valerie Biden Owens, brothers James

B. and Francis W. Biden, and granddaughters Finnegan J. and Roberta M. "Maisy" Biden. The transcript was released by the Office of the Press Secretary on March 14. Audio was not available for verification of the content of these remarks.

Categories: Addresses and Remarks : Democratic National Committee Reception in Rancho Santa Fe, CA.

Locations: Rancho Santa Fe, CA.

Names: Biden, Finnegan J.; Biden, Francis W.; Biden, James B.; Biden, Naomi K.; Biden, Natalie P.; Biden, R. Hunter, II; Biden, Roberta M. "Maisy"; Bro, Susan; Camaisa, Allan; Camaisa, Megan; Carter, James E., Jr.; Duke, David; Greene, Marjorie Taylor; Owens, Valerie Biden; Padilla, Alejandro; Peters, Scott H.; Putin, Vladimir Vladimirovich; Sunak, Rishi; Trump, Donald J.

Subjects: Broadband and wireless technologies; California, Democratic Party event; California, President's visit; Cancer research, prevention, and treatment; Carbon emissions, reduction efforts; Corporate tax rates; COVIDâ19 pandemic; Democratic National Committee; Federal deficit and debt; Gasoline costs; Global supply chain disruptions, efforts to address; Gun control efforts; Gun violence, prevention efforts; Inflation; Infrastructure improvements; Insulin cost controls; Job

creation and growth; Manufacturing industry, domestic investment; Medicare and Medicaid programs; North Atlantic Treaty Organization; Prescription drug costs, reduction efforts; Research and development; Russia, conflict in Ukraine; Russia, President; Semiconductor manufacturing; Tax Code reform; Ukraine, Russian invasion and airstrikes; United Kingdom, Prime Minister; Virginia, 2017 civil unrest and violence.

DCPD Number: DCPD202300193.