Administration of Joseph R. Biden, Jr., 2024

January 30, 2024

The President. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Sean, thanks for that introduction. And thank you, Kelly, forâkeep raising Sean. [*Laughter*] And, Fred, for being such good friends. I really mean it.

And thanks to all of you for your support.

Let me start with the simplest message: From the bottom of my heart, thank you. You're the reason. You're the reason I'm President. I came from a backgroundâdidn't have much time to practice, but I was a trial lawyer. Spent a little bit of time before I got into politics almost accidentally.

But it was the right decision for me. You're the reason Kamala Harris is a historic Vice President. And you're the reason Donald Trump is a defeated Presidentâformer President.

And you're the reason we're going to make him a loser again. [*Laughter*]

Folks, look, you're all lawyers who care deeply about the rule of law. You're on the frontlines of fairness and justice in defending our very democracy. It matters.

In 2020, I ran because I thought everything in this country that it stood for, believed in was at stake. I said at the time when I ranâand initially, people looked at me like, "Are you serious?"âI said, "We're going toâI'm running to restore the soul of America."

You know, and they'd say: "What do you mean? What do you mean, Joe? What do you mean when you say democracy is at risk? What do you mean when you say we're in a battle for the soul of America?"

Well, people don't ask me that question anymore. I don't think today anyone doubts democracy is at stakeâwas at stake in 2020. And thank God, because of the supporters like you, we won.

Just think back to the mess Donald Trump left this country: a pandemic and the economy with ragingâwith only a couple thousand people being haveâhaving been vaccinated; an economy that was reeling.

Look how far we've come. We vaccinated the vast bulk of America. We got through that pandemic with less than 200 millionâwith less than 2 million people being vaccinated when I came to office. Today, 720 [270; White House correction] million Americans have gotten COVID vaccine.

We created a record 14 million new jobsâbrandnew jobsâto get the economy going strong again. And we passed the American Rescue Plan, which put $14â$1,400 checks in people's pockets at a time of enormous need. And, on top of that, $300 checks per child per month in hardworking families in America and thousands of dollars for people's pockets through a real crisis.

And, folks, guess what? It grows the economy. It doesn'tâit's notâdoesn't cost the taxpayers money. It grows the economyâeconomic growth. And I said that at the time. You stuck with me, and it turned out to be true. We've demonstrated it. That money helped cut child poverty in half in America.

You know, we know we have to do more, and not everyone is feeling the consequences yet of the investments in progress. But the headlines in the papers are trying toâfinally breaking through here.

Inflation is now lower in America than any other country in the worldâany other country in the world. And in recent weeks, we started seeing real evidence that the American consumer is feeling real confidence in the economy that we're building.

Just this morning we learned that consumer confidence surged to its highest level in over 2 years. The Washington Post headline this weekend said, quote, "Falling inflation and rising growth give U.S. the world's best recovery"â"the world's best recovery."

Let me tell you who else is noticing this: Donald Trump. He recently said, "When there's a crash, I hope it will be in the next 12 months." The [former; White House correction] President of the United States hopes the crash will be the next 12 months. It's unbelievable. I think it's close to un-American. How can anyoneâespecially a former Presidentâwish for an economic crash that would devastate millions of Americans?

Here's what he really means: Donald Trump knows our economy is really strong and getting stronger. And almost every major economist in the world is pointing to America as a success story. He knows that while it's good for America, it's bad for him politically if we continue to succeed.

Trump also is the one President who doesn't want toâhe said, "I don't want to be like Herbert Hoover." That's what he said. But I've got bad news for him. As I told him earlier, he's already Herbert Hoover. [*Laughter*] He's the only President, other than Herbert Hoover, who has lost jobsâmore jobs than he hadâhe had fewer jobs when he left office than when he came to office. Yes, Donald "Herbert Hoover" Trump. [*Laughter*]

But look, I promisedâ[*applause*]. For the bulk of my career, I spent in the United States Senate, taking on Big Pharma. You realize you have a prescription for any drug you need from prescriptionâproduct made in America, I can take you to Toronto, to Paris, to London, to Brussels, anywhere in the world, and get you that product for somewhere between 40 and 60 percent less than it costs here.

And I tried like the devil to take on Pharma through Medicare. We spend billions of dollars a year on Medicare payments, paying Pharma for the drugs we provide for the elderly. But guess what? We didn't make it until now. I said we'd beat them, and we finally did.

Have anybody you knowâI'm not asking you to raise your hand if you're a diabetic, but you know somebody who is a diabetic, raise your hand. It used to cost 400 bucks a month or more for that insulin. It's now $35 a month.

And by the way, they're still making three and a half times what it cost them to make it. It costs $10 to make that insulinâ$10. And the guy who invented it didn't patent it because he wanted everybody to have access to it. If you add in the cost of making it up and packaging it, maybe as high as $12 or $13. They're still makingâyou know, $35 a month.

And by the way, initially, when I got it passed, I had got it passed for everybody, not just people on Medicare. But guess what? My Republican friends blocked it. They didn't think people should be able to get it unless you're on Medicare. They didn't vote for that either.

But here's the dealâhere's the dealâwe're saving the taxpayers billions of dollarsâbillions of dollars. Not only is a person paying 35 bucks a month now instead of 400 bucks a month or moreâguess what? It means the taxpayer is not writing a check to the drug company from Medicareâbecause of Medicare for Federal tax dollars to pay for that.

And by the way, when we did it, we ended up being able to cut the deficit, not raise the deficit.

But with your vote in 2024, we're going to make sure everyone qualifies.

Out-of-pocket costs for seniors for all prescription drugs whenâthe first bill we passedâis going to be limited to $2,000, no matter how expensive their total prescriptions areâbeginning in 2024.

The reason for thatâI know this is a very sophisticated audienceâunfortunately, you know people are paying 10-, 12-, 14-, 15,000 bucks a month for cancer drugsâcancer treatment. Well, no one is going to have to pay more than a total of $2,000 a month. It matters.

I promised we'd ease the accumulation of student debt in America, what millions of Americans carried during the economic crisis of the pandemic andâ[*inaudible*]âthe mike doesn't workâ[*inaudible*]âthe consequenceâ[*laughter*].

Look, the fact is that we're making real progressââ

Audience member. Your mike is not working.

Audience member. Now it is.

The President. Can you hear me now?

Audience members. Yes.

The President. Well, we found another way to help those folks. The Supreme Court said I couldn't forgive student debt. Well, guess what? I went back and I found a way to do it legally without them questioning anything.

We've now forgiven the debt of more than 3.7 million peopleâ$130 billion in relief and counting.

I fixed what's called the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program. It said that if you were in public serviceâwhether you're a teacher, a firefighter, nurse, social worker, et ceteraâyour loan could be forgiven if you paid for 10 years in a row and never missed a payment. Well, guess what? Now that's happening. And public servicesâand we're able to forgive that debt.

It's changing people's lives. And by the way, it's growing the economy. What are those kids doing? What are those youngâthey're not so young anymore, many of them. They are in a situation where they can now finally have a downpayment for their first home, they can begin to start that new business, they can take care of accumulated debt. It's takenâit's having a profound impact.

By the time I took office, the program had been in place for nearly 15 years, but because of red tape, only 7,000 people had even been helped by this program. But thanks to those reforms, instead 700,000 people have had their debt forgiven since then.

Look, and all of you lawyers know how lucky America would be when I kept the promise to appoint the first Black woman to the United States Supreme Courtâand I kept itâJustice Ketanji Brown Jacksonâ[*applause*]. [*Inaudible*]

And my introducer pointed out I've appointed judgesâa lot of judges. I've servedâI was Chairman of Judiciary Committee for a long time. It's critical.

We've now appointed over 174 judges to the Federal court. We've appointed more Black women to the Federal Court of Appeals than every other President in the United States history combinedâcombined.

And we put trial attorneys on the benchâtrial attorneys on the bench, and we put public defenders on the bench, and, like I said, we have 171 brandnew judges on the Federal courts.

Folks, we have a lot more work to do. But I've never been more optimistic about our future.

And I really mean that sincerely.

Look, for example, thanks to the bipartisan infrastructure law, which I signed, there are now 40,000 infrastructure projects underway in America with a lot more to come.

Remember, Trump had "Infrastructure Week" every weekâ[*laughter*]âand never built a thing? Well, we're building our roadsârebuilding our roads, our bridges, our ports, our airports. And we're bringing affordable high-speed internet to everywhere in Americaâeverywhere.

We're ripping out every lead pipe that's been in place in America so every child can turn on the faucet, drink what they need to drink without worrying about brain damage.

We passed the most significant gun safety law in a decade. And I will not stop until I once again been able to win the assault weapons ban. I blocked it once; it came back. We're going to ban assault weapons in America. There's no need for them.

And we're saving the planet with the most significant investment in climate change ever anywhere in the history of the worldâliterally anywhere. In my Presidency, we tripled the sales of electric vehicles. We built a national network of 500,000 EV charging stations. We put on the path to cut carbon emissions by 50 percent by 2030. That's the trajectory.

Now imagine the nightmare if Trump is returned to office.

The recent deadly school shooting in Perry, Iowa, where three kidsâthree people were killed, including one sixth grader and a school principal. What did he have to say? It's hard to believe what he said. He saidâwhen they asked him what he thought about it, he said, quote, you've just got to "get over it."

I'm not making this up. It's almost unbelievable. You've just got to "get over it." But we're not going to get over it. We're going to stop it. We're going to stop it.

Trump and his MAGA friends want to repeal the historical climate legislation. Well, maybe they don't think this climate change is real. But the rest of us know sure in hell it is real. And now, after trying and failing more than 60 timesâ60 times with he and his MAGA friends in the Congress to get rid of the Affordable Care Actâguess what? He's at it again.

And by the way, people don't have a lot of money and need insurance. They would not be able to get any of this insurance because they have a preexisting condition but for the Affordable Care Act. That's the only reasonâthe only reason people with preexisting conditions, and they want to take it away.

And seniors in Florida and all across America should know this: Trump and his MAGA friends are determined to take away the $35 a month insulin, which we just got passed in law, as well as a $2,000 cap on prescription drugs.

Instead of saving Social Security and Medicare, Trump wants once again to give another billion dollarâmultibillion dollar tax cut to the super wealthy and big corporations.

I come from the corporate State of the world, Delaware. More corporations in Delaware than any other Stateâallâevery other State in the union combined. I'm not anticorporation, but they should at least pay their fair share. Just pay their fair share.

And by the way, you know, we now haveâwe now haveâit's not a bad thing, per seâwe now have a thousand billionaires in America. You know what their average tax rate isâFederal tax? Eight point two percent. Eight point two percent.

If they just paid 28 percent, which is less than all you are payingâif they just paid 28 percent, we'd have $40 billion to do a whole lot of things that would save a lot of money, save a lot of programs, reduce taxes overall for everybody else.

Trump and his MAGA friends are determined to take away your freedoms as well. They've alreadyâdoing it with voting rights. They're under attack. You see it every day, everywhere in the country.

Trump is now bragging about having overturned *Roe *v. *Wade*â"I'm responsible for overturning *Roe *v. *Wade*"âtaking away a woman's freedom to choose.

Now, they're planning, beyond that, a national ban. The MAGA Republicans are saying there's going to be a national ban on abortion across every State in Americaâban.

Well, guess what? I made it real clear: If the MAGA Republicans try to pass a national ban to the right to choose, I will veto it.

And if you electâreelect me and Kamala with a Democratic House and a bigger Senate majority, I'm going to restore *Roe *v. *Wade *as the law of the land across the board. I'm serious, and I believe we can do it.

Look, let me close with this. Trump and his MAGA friends are dividing us up, not uniting us; dragging us back to the past, not leading us to the future; refusing to accept the results of a legitimate election.

I mean, I sitâif you can hold a secondâI just sit in my office. I walk down a little hall, and there's a little dining room there. He sat in that dining room for hours watching what happened on January the 6th. Just watching. It's called insurrection.

And Trump says, quote, he'sâand he's seeking to, quote, "terminate elements of the United States Constitution," threateningâthreatening ourâto embraceâand he embraces political violence.

Look, the one thing about an American democracy that's clear: Violence is never, never, never appropriate in anâin an electoral process. But he talks about it, threatening our very democracy.

Folks, the truth is there are lies and there is truth. We have to make clear where we standâ that we stand with the truthâand we'll defeat his lies.

We have to make clear that, in America, we still believe in honesty, decency, treating people with some dignity and respect.

My dad used to have an expression, for real. My dad was a hard-working guy. He was a well-read man who didn't get to go to college because of what happened because of World War

II. And he'd always say, "Joey"âthis is the God's truth, my word as a Biden. He'd say: "Joey, a job is about a lot more than a paycheck. It's about your dignity. It's about respect. It's about being able to look your kid in the eye and say, 'Honey, it's going to be okay,' and mean it."

We believe everybody deserves a shot. Everybody deserves an even shot.

That's why I decided, instead of trickle-down economicsâthe reason why it's working and you have major, major mainstream economists agreeing with me nowâthat the best way to build America is from the middle out and the bottom up. Because when they do that, then theâwhat you have is, you have the poor have a shot and the wealthy still do very well.

And you know, let me end by saying we'reâI found the easiest way to describe where I think we are. We're unique in all the world. And that sounds like chauvinism about America, but

we are the most unique country in the world based on our founding. Every other countryâevery other countryâin the world is based on ethnicity, religion, geography.

The United States is based on an ideaâthe only Nation in the worldâand it's: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all women and men are created equal, endowed by their creator with"âwe've never lived up to it. We've never fully walked away from it.

In America, we leave nobody behind. We believe everyone deserves just a fair shot. That's all. And we give hate no safe harbor. We believe in America.

And we know what's at stake. We have to keep the White House. We have to keep the Senate. We have to win back the House and win up and down the ticket in local offices.

Because here in Florida, you've had a real dose of "Trump-ism," andââ [*At this point, the President made the sign of the cross*.]

[*Laughter*] Unusual guy.

But here in Florida, we have to organize, mobilize the vote. I think we can win Florida. I think the Democrats can win in Florida.

And when we do that, we'll be able to look back and say something that few generations are able to say: When American democracy was at risk, like it is now, we saved it.

We just have to remember who in God's name we are. We're the United States of America, for God's sake.

There's nothing beyond ourâyou know, I mean this sincerely. Nothing beyond our capacity when we work together. Nothing. Nothing, nothing, nothing.

We're the onlyâthinkâabout this: We're the only Nation in the world that every crisis it's gone through we've come out stronger on the other end than we went inâthe only nation. It's because of you, the American people.

We stand up. We fight back. And we understand that the institutions we inheritedâcalled the Constitutionâreally matter. They're the guardrails of allowing us to do what we have to do in a fair way.

So, with your help and, as my grandfather would say, "with the grace of God, the goodwill of the neighbors, and the crick not rising," we're going to win in 2024.

Thank you. Thank you, thank you. I appreciate it. I really do. Thank you, thank you, thank

you.

NOTE: The President spoke at 2:07 p.m. at the Pelican Club. In his remarks, he referred to Sean

C. Domnick, shareholder, Domnick Cunningham and Yaffa, and his wife Kelly; Fred Cunningham, shareholder, Domnick Cunningham and Yaffa; Ahmir Jolliff, who was killed in the shooting at Perry High School in Perry, IA, on January 4; and Dan Marburger, principal, Perry High School, who was wounded in the shooting and died as a result of his injuries on January 14; and Dylan Butler, suspected gunman in the shooting, who died of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot. Audio was not available for verification of the content of these remarks.

Categories: Addresses and Remarks : Campaign reception in Jupiter, FL. Locations: Jupiter, FL.

Names: Butler, Dylan; Cunningham, Fred; Domnick, Kelly; Domnick, Sean C.; Harris, Kamala D.; Jackson, Ketanji Brown; Jolliff, Ahmir; Marburger, Dan; Trump, Donald J.

Subjects: 2021 civil unrest and violence at U.S. Capitol; 2024 Presidential election; Abortion; Broadband and wireless technologies; Cancer research, prevention, and treatment; Climate change; Corporate tax rates; COVIDâ19 pandemic; COVIDâ19 vaccines; Economic improvement; Economic stimulus legislation; Electric vehicle charging infrastructure, improvement efforts; Federal court nominations and confirmations; Federal deficit and debt; Federal student loans, partial forgiveness; Florida, Democratic Party event; Florida, President's visit; Gun violence, prevention efforts; Health insurance, access and availability; Inflation; Infrastructure improvements; Insulin cost controls; Iowa, shooting in Perry; Job creation and growth; Medicare and Medicaid programs; Prescription drug costs, reduction efforts; Public Service Loan Forgiveness program; Social Security program; Supreme Court Associate Justice; Tax Code reform; U.S. Supreme Court opinion overturning 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade; Vice President; Voting rights, protection efforts.

DCPD Number: DCPD202400057.