Remarks by President Biden at a Reception for the Democratic National Committee | Eastern North Carolina Now

    When I showed up at the first G7 meeting with all the major economic powers, I sat down - and we were in Great Britain, in England - and I sat down, and I was sitting between as he used to go, "Boris!" The former prime minister was an interesting guy. And - (laughter) - no, he's not a bad guy. But - and Macron and - and Schmidt [sic] and, you know - I mean, Scholz - what am I talking about?

    And one of the things I said - I said, "America is back." And Macron looked at me. He said, "For how long?" (Laughter.) I seriously had to think about it.

    What do you think we'd say, we'd think if we left here, went inside and the way through, and one of the CNN or C-SPAN was on, and they showed a picture of several thousand people storming the British Parliament, knocking down the doors of the parliament, going in, and ransacking the place and killing several police officers? What would we think? I'm not - I'm being deadly earnest now. What would we think about the state of the world and the state of not just Great Britain, the state of the world in Europe?

    Well, Madeleine Albright was right about a lot of things, one of which was: We are the essential nation. The rest of the world, like it or not, does look to us - they're not always happy - but they look to us: What - what are we going to do?

    And so, I think is really important for not only our security - economic, political, physical security - but also for some stability in the world as we begin, as things are changing so rapidly - that the United States gain control of where it is and knows - know who we are.

    One of the things that I think as we - I believe with every fiber of my being - and I wish I could say I was new to this, but I've been doing this a fair amount of time - is that I believe there's not a damn thing in the world America can't do if we set our mind to it. No, I - I mean it. (Applause.) But we have to do it as the United States of America - the United States of America. There's nothing beyond our capacity - nothing beyond our capacity.

    And so one of the things that I - everybody said: Why did I have - why have I had so much so much focus on - on, for example, cancer and the curing of cancer and Alzheimer's?

    Well, I don't - I'm beginning to think - and I've learned that American people have sort of lost confidence that we can do anything. We got to do - we got to demonstrate we can do big things again - big things again, not think small. Do big things again.

    And it's totally - and that's why I put together an outfit called ARPA-H, where we put billions of dollars into special research facilities at NIH that is separate that - to deal with cancer, Alzheimer's, and to deal with it in a way that the - even though there's a lot of decent folks and brilliant people in the pharma industry, they don't want to spend the tens of billions of dollars - millions of dollars to try to find the answer to some of these. Not because they don't want to, but it's not a great bet. It's not a great bet.

    So, I guess what I'm trying to say is: There are certain things that I've been convinced that the vast majority of the American people have agreed with for a long time. But special interests have prevented us from being able to make the kind of progress we should make.

   

    For example, the idea that in the United States of America, we're not in a situation - why do we continue to pay the highest price for prescription drugs of any nation in the entire world - the entire world? Nobody else is close. Why? Well, because we've been unwilling to - we've been unable to take on a major interest. Pharma is a great - a big interest. No one has ever beaten pharma.

    We have a situation now where, for example, anybody - I'm not asking you for a show of hands, but any of you have type two diabetes and need to use insulin, or a child who does? Well, it can range between $641 a month to $1,000 a month. It costs 15 bucks to make and produce, because the - a particular company is selling it. They didn't come up with the patent. An individual invented it and didn't even patent it because he didn't - he wanted it to be available. But it costs now enormous amounts of money.

    Well, we finally got - I finally was able to convince the Congress that we should insist that for anyone on Medicare, that you in fact are able to be in a situation where you don't have to pay more than $35 for a vial of insulin for your diabetes or whatever else you need it for. (Applause.) Because it's the only outfit in the world that cannot compete to set price and say we're not going to pay more than a certain amount.

    We had a provision in there also that said that, in fact, anyone - anyone who needs the insulin should not have to pay more than that. My Republican friends knocked the second part out. Knocked the second part out.

    But my point is this: People are beginning to focus on the things that really do make a difference, really do make a difference. We're in a situation where - as I said, take a look at the environment. Well, guess what? Granted, I didn't get everything I wanted, but I recently called for $520 billion over this period of time; we got $368 billion. But it's going to change the nature of how we deal with climate in a major way. (Applause.)

    So, I guess - I guess the point I'm trying to make is: I think the American people are beginning to realize - if you look at the polling data and the rest - it's beginning to change - that for -

    Let me give you an example: I've spent - the first year, I had to spend an awful lot of time abroad. So I spent an enormous amount of time in Europe trying to put NATO back together again; an enormous amount of time spending in the Pacific with trying to put South Korea and Japan back in the field again; put together the Quad between - with Australia, India, the United States, and Japan, dealing with the Indian Ocean being open, et cetera - a whole lot of things. And I spent a lot of time with the ASEAN countries. I spent weeks - and I spent with the - the inner - the inter-American initiative we have.

    You know, we're in a situation where - and I'll stop with this. I know this is even boring me at this point. (Laughter.)

    But - but, look, here's the deal: Today, there are 15 percent fewer democracies in the world than there were 10 years ago. Fifteen percent of the world fewer - fewer actual democracies in the world than there were before. How do we sustain peace and stability if that's the case?

    We put together a - a package, as I said, for infrastructure: roads, bridges, Internet, highway, et cetera - airports, ports. Well, we put more money into that than any time - one - $1.4 billion - 1 trillion 400 billion dollars. And we're going to rebuild the world. Because what happens? We've all of a sudden, because - and we learned about what - what the pandemic does. We learned about this whole notion of what's available in one part of the world better be available in the other part or you can't get it built.

    For example, a major reason for inflation last year was the cost of automobiles. Why did they go up so high? They didn't have the computer chips to build the automobiles, so fewer automobiles were built, fewer trucks were built. The price went up, and then went up exponentially. So we put together a CHIPS Act, we call it. The CHIPS Act.

    And we - we're starting to - we used to invest 3 - 2 percent of our entire GDP in pure research and - and - just pure research. Well, now we do 0.7 percent. Well, where would we have been if we were only investing in 0.7 percent for the last 25 years? China now is investing more on pure research than the United States is.

    And so, I guess what I'm saying is that I think there's enormous, enormous, enormous opportunities that we have. You know, it's the - but this is not your father's Republican Party. This is a different deal. And there's an awful lot of really standard, good, decent Republicans.

    For example, the reason I'm not going to be able to stay long as I'm going to go to a major rally for the Democratic gubernatorial candidate and Democratic candidates. (Applause.) Two thousand people are supposed to be in this gym that I'm going to.

    And, you know, you have your gubernatorial candidate, the Democratic candidate, in - in this state who is also a veteran and a Rhodes Scholar and a busi- - this is a guy who made the point that his opponent is not really fit for the office, joined by the sitting Republican governor of the state pointing out that this is a MAGA Republican. This is not a traditional conservative Republican; this is a different deal.

    And so, you know - and then along came the - a guy I know well, because I've worked with him for so long, and even he's not as extreme as some - some of these folks are. But the Republican Leader of the Senate, he was able to, quote, "pack the Court" legitimately by putting more people on the Court - the Supreme Court. And when what do we get? Roe v. Wade gets thrown out after 50 years - 49 years and 9 months - changing.

    And you have a man that I didn't support when I was chairman of the Judiciary Committee saying that - on the Court - saying - but we want to make it clear: It's not just about Roe and choice. It's about - it's about marriage - same-sex marriage. It's about contraception. It's about a whole range of things that are on the docket.

    If in fact we don't win this election, we lose the House and Senate, mark my words: You're going to see a nationwide effort to provide for the ability of wiping out the ability to have choice across the board, not just in terms of individual states - red states - but across the board.

    Now, fortunately, I'll be President - if my health maintained, I'll be President for at least two more years, and I'll veto it. But the point is: What are we talking about now? We're talking about things that - no exceptions: rape, incest. No exceptions whatsoever.

    If you cross a state line to get medical help or get a prescription or a particular drug, you're going to be arrested. That's what's happening now. That's the fight going on. So everything is sort of up in the air in the minds of an awful lot of people. And I think that what we have to do is be very clear: Our team has to show up and, quite frankly, vote, just simply vote. (Applause.)

    And, look, let me sort of cut to the chase here. Rick Scott, the - who heads up the ultra-MAGA agenda for the Republicans, he's the head of the Senate campaign committee for the Republicans. He's introduced - and I'm going to be showing this; I have a big chart I'm taking to this next event. He said - he thinks everyone in America should pay taxes - not more taxes - everyone in America should pay taxes. All those folks making less than $100,000 a year, if they have some exemption, they should have to pay net more taxes. Average increase expected to be $1,200 bucks for every American under that amount.

    Well, beyond that, he says that we should try to be in a situation where we - Congress, every five years, has to affirmatively vote to maintain Social Security, which you paid for your whole life. You have to affirmatively vote. It comes up - if it's not positively voted for, it's gone, it's eliminated. And you think I'm making this up; it's not. It's the only written Republican platform so far.


    And so, you're out if in fact you do not - and what that means: Every five years, it's up on the chopping block, because under the Senate rules, you can do everything from cut it, alter it, change it, eliminate it possibly. It's unlikely they can eliminate it. And then, on top of that, that - Medicare and Medicaid on top of it.

    And so, folks, we're in a situation where the distinguished senator - and I say that lightly - (laughter) - Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, he thinks that - he says that when the Senate - when Republicans regain control of the Senate, if that were to occur, they're going to go back again for the 38th time or so and repeal Obamacare, repeal the ACA.