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Joe Biden

president of the United States since 2021
(Redirected from President Joe Biden)

Joseph Robinette "Joe" Biden, Jr. (born November 20, 1942) is an American politician serving as the 46th president of the United States since 2021. A member of the Democratic Party, Biden previously served as the 47th vice president from 2009 to 2017. He represented Delaware in the United States Senate from 1973 to 2009. On June 21, 2024, President Biden announced he was withdrawing from the 2024 presidential election.

We must rekindle the fire of idealism in our society — for nothing suffocates the promise of America more than unbounded cynicism and indifference. We must reclaim the tradition of community in our society. Only by recognizing that we share a common obligation to one another and to our country can we ever hope to maximize our national or personal potential. We must reassert the oneness of America. America has been and must once again be the seamless web of caring and community. – Joe Biden
That’s no malarkey, that's a fact. Taglines

Quotes

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1970s

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  • I do not buy the concept, popular in the ’60s, which said, ‘We have suppressed the black man for 300 years and the white man is now far ahead in the race for everything our society offers. In order to even the score, we must now give the black man a head start, or even hold the white man back, to even the race.’ I don't buy that. I don't feel responsible for the sins of my father and grandfather. I feel responsible for what the situation ls today, for the sins of my own generation. And I'll be damned if I feel responsible to pay for what happened 300 years ago.
  • Unless we do something about this, my children are going to grow up in a jungle, the jungle being a racial jungle with tensions having built so high that it is going to explode at some point.
    • Busing of schoolchildren (Jun. - Jul. 1977): hearing before the Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, Ninety-fifth Congress, first session, on S. 1651.
  • I don't want anybody to give me credit for sharing any point of view George Wallace has. There are some people who oppose busing because they are racist, but the vast majority of the American people — the people of Delaware — oppose it for the same reason that the architect of the concept now opposes it.

    Professor Coleman, an educator, first suggested the possible benefits of busing in a 1966 report. Now in 1975 Coleman says, "Guess what? I was wrong. Busing doesn't accomplish its goal." We should be concentrating on things other than busing to provide for the educational and cultural needs of the deprived segment of our population. But we've lost our bearings since the 1954 "Brown vs. School Board" desegregation case. To "desegregate" is different than to "integrate."

    I got into trouble with Democratic liberals in 1972 when I refused to support a quota-system for the Democratic National Convention.

    I am philosophically opposed to quota-systems; they insure mediocrity. The new integration plans being offered are really just quota-systems to assure a certain number of blacks, Chicanos, or whatever in each school. That, to me, is the most racist concept you can come up with; what it says is, "in order for your child, with curly black hair, brown eyes, and dark skin to be able to learn anything, he needs to sit next to my blond-haired, blue-eyed son." That's racist! Who the hell do we think we are, that the only way a black man or woman can learn is if they rub shoulders with my white child? The point is that if we look beyond the "old" left to the "New Left," almost all the new liberal leaders and civil rights leaders oppose busing.

1980s

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1988 Presidential Campaign

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  • I started thinking as I was coming over here, why is it that Joe Biden is the first in his family ever to go to a university?
    Why is it that my wife, who is sitting out there in the audience, is the first in her family to ever go to college? Is it because our fathers and mothers were not bright? Is it because I'm the first Biden in a thousand generations to get a college and a graduate degree that I was smarter than the rest?
    [Of his Irish ancestors] Those same people who read poetry and wrote poetry and taught me how to sing verse? Is it because they didn’t work hard? My ancestors, who worked in the coal mines of northeast Pennsylvania and would come up after 12 hours and play football for four hours? No, it's not because they weren't as smart. It’s not because they didn’t work as hard. It’s because they didn’t have a platform upon which to stand.
    • Quoted in "No Time to Cite Source, He Says : Biden Stirs Row by Using Lines From Briton’s Talk" Los Angeles Times (September 13, 1987)
    • Speech plagiarized from a speech delivered by British Labor leader Neil Kinnock in May 1987. Biden explained to the Los Angeles Times: "It was a two-minute closing [...] There wasn’t a single thing wrong with what I did. The only thing that made it happen was time--the absolute two minutes. . . . If I'd have thought, I would have attributed it to him." On September 24, Biden withdrew from the presidential campaign: "And I am no less frustrated for the environment of Presidential politics that makes it so difficult to let the American people measure the whole Joe Biden and not just misstatements I have made." See "Biden Withdraws Bid for Presidency in Wake of Furor" The New York Times (September 24, 1987)

1990s

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  • Biden took on the idea that Hill's failure to come forward with complaints suggested that the incidents did not occur. "I wonder how many tens of thousands of millions of men in this country work for a boss who treats them like a lackey, tells them to do certain things, and stay on the job, and we never ask, 'Why does that man stay on the job. . . , ' " he said. "I don't know why we have so much trouble understanding the pattern of a victimized person."
  • Every time Richard Nixon, when he was running in 1972, would say, 'Law and order,' the Democratic match or response was, 'Law and order with justice' — whatever that meant. And I would say, 'Lock the SOBs up.'
  • The truth is, every major crime bill since 1976 that’s come out of this Congress, every minor crime bill, has had the name of the Democratic senator from the State of Delaware: Joe Biden.
  • If Haiti, a God-awful thing to say, if Haiti just quietly sunk into the Caribbean or rose up 300 feet, it wouldn’t matter a whole lot in terms of our interest.
  • You and I both know, and all of us here really know, and it's a thing we have to face, that the only way, the only way we're going to get rid of Saddam Hussein is we're going to end up having to start it alone — start it alone — and it's going to require guys like you in uniform to be back on foot in the desert taking this son of a — taking Saddam down. You know it and I know it.
  • But I respectfully suggest, Major, that the responsibility is slightly above your pay grade, to decide whether to take the nation to war alone, or to take the nation to war part way, or to take the Nation to work half-way. That is a real tough decision.
  • Look, you have probably the only three people in Washington here who think we should go straight to Belgrade and arrest Milošević but let's not kid each other - we're the only three people. The rest of this is malarkey. The Republican Congress won't even vote for the bombing, the NATO forces won't even go along with the idea of ground troops and whether or not the president will or will not is not relevant, the question it seems to me is what is the definition of victory. We sat in this program before, the definition of victory was all the troops out of Kosovo, the Albanians back in Kosovo and a NATO-led force in Kosovo. That's not total victory, that's not the victory I want, that's not the victory John wants, I've been saying we should go in, on the ground, we should announce there's going to be American casualties, we should go to Belgrade and we should have a Japanese/German-style occupation of that country and we should have public trials in order to strike away this mask of the Serbian victimization so the people of Serbia know what's happened. It's the only thing that will ultimately work but that's not what anyone but the three of us have been talking about from the beginning. So when the president says he's not for total victory he's not for what we're for but he never was nor was NATO nor is anybody but the three of us.

2000s

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2000

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  • Alan Cranston understood power not as a reflection of status but as a tool with a purpose.
    • Meet the Press (2000-12-31)

2002

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  • Saddam Hussein's pursuit of weapons of mass destruction, in my view, is one of those clear dangers. Even if the right response to his pursuit is not so crystal clear, one thing is clear. These weapons must be dislodged from Saddam Hussein, or Saddam Hussein must be dislodged from power.
    • US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, 2002-07-31, quoted in Tara Golshan and Alex Ward (15 October 2019), "Joe Biden’s Iraq problem", Vox 

2003

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2004

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  • Hell, I might be president now if it weren't for the fact I said I had an uncle who was a coal miner. Turns out I didn't have anybody in the coal mines, you know what I mean? I tried that crap — it didn't work.

2005

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  • Mr. President, today, in his speech to the National Endowment for Democracy, President Bush gave a vivid and, I believe, compelling description of the threat to America and to freedom from radical Islamic fundamentalism. He made, in my view, a powerful case for what is at stake for every American. Simply put, the radical fundamentalists seek to kill our citizens in great numbers, to disrupt our economy, and to reshape the international order. They would take the world backwards, replacing freedom with fear and hope with hatred. If they were to acquire a nuclear weapon, the threat they would pose to America would be literally existential. The President said it well. The President is right that we cannot and will not retreat. We will defend ourselves and defeat the enemies of freedom and progress.

2006

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  • It's going to be very difficult. I do not view abortion as a choice and a right. I think it's always a tragedy, and I think that it should be rare and safe, and I think we should be focusing on how to limit the number of abortions. There ought to be able to have a common ground and consensus as to do that.
  • I voted for a fence, I voted, unlike most Democrats — and some of you won't like it — I voted for 700 miles of fence,... And the reason why I add that parenthetically, why I believe the fence is needed does not have anything to do with immigration as much as drugs. And let me tell you something folks, people are driving across that border with tons, tons, hear me, tons of everything from byproducts for methamphetamine to cocaine to heroin and it's all coming up through corrupt Mexico.
  • You cannot go to a 7-11 or a Dunkin Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent ... I'm not joking.

2007

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  • I'm running for president because I think that, with a lot of help, I can stem the tide of this slide and restore America’s leadership in the world and change our priorities. I will argue that my experience and my track record — both on the foreign and domestic side — put me in a position to be able to do that.
    I would respectfully suggest to you that the Democrats out there understand I am the only person with a plan that can get out of Iraq without our interests in the region not falling apart.
  • I'm not exploring. I'm in. And this is the beginning of a marathon
    • Referring to his choice not to set up an "exploratory committee" and instead enter the race directly; interview on ABC News after announcing candidacy for the 2008 Democratic president nomination (January 30, 2007)[citation needed]
  • There's good reason to be excited. You have the first woman running who is qualified, and a very attractive African-American who has demonstrated crossover appeal. I got involved in politics 40 years ago during the civil rights movement, so yes, it's an exciting thing.
  • The average voter out there understands that the next president is going to have to be prepared to immediately step in without hesitation and end our involvement in Iraq. It's very difficult to figure out how to move on to broader foreign policy concerns without fixing Iraq first.
  • People ask if I can compete with the money of Hillary and Barack. I hope at the end of the day, they can compete with my ideas and my experience.
  • I don't think John Edwards knows what the heck he is talking about. John Edwards wants you and all the Democrats to think, ‘I want us out of there,’ but when you come back and you say, ‘O.K., John. What about the chaos that will ensue? Do we have any interest, John, left in the region?’ Well, John will have to answer yes or no. If he says yes, what are they? What are those interests, John? How do you protect those interests, John, if you are completely withdrawn? Are you withdrawn from the region, John? Are you withdrawn from Iraq, John? In what period? So all this stuff is like so much Fluffernutter out there. So for me, what I think you have to do is have a strategic notion. And they may have it—they are just smart enough not to enunciate it.
    • Speaking on Edwards' position for immediate withdrawal of about 40,000 American troops from Iraq (February 5, 2007), reported in the New York Observer
  • Tim Russert: But, senator, we have a deficit. We have Social Security and Medicare looming. The number of people on Social Security and Medicare is now 40 million people. It's going to be 80 million in 15 years. Would you consider looking at those programs, age of eligibility—
    Joe Biden: Absolutely.
    Russert: —cost of living, put it all on the table?
    Biden: The answer is absolutely. You have to. You know, it's— one of the things that my, you know, the political advisers say to me is, "Whoa, don't touch that third—" Look, the American people aren't stupid. It's a real simple proposition. [...] Social Security's not the hard one to solve. Medicare, that is the gorilla in the room, and you've got to put all of it on the table.
    Russert: Everything.
    Biden: Everything. You've got to.
  • [T]here's only three things he mentions in a sentence: a noun, a verb, and 9/11.
    • About Rudy Giuliani, Democratic primary debate (October 30, 2007)

2008

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  • Like millions of Americans, they're asking questions as profound as they are ordinary. Questions they never thought they would have to ask: Should mom move in with us now that dad is gone? Fifty, sixty, seventy dollars to fill up the car? Winter's coming. How we gonna pay the heating bills? Another year and no raise? Did you hear the company may be cutting our health care? Now, we owe more on the house than it's worth. How are we going to send the kids to college? How are we gonna be able to retire? That's the America that George Bush has left us, and that's the America that George -- excuse me, if John McCain is elected president of the United States.
  • When we kicked — along with France, we kicked Hezbollah out of Lebanon, I said and Barack said, "Move NATO forces in there. Fill the vacuum, because if you don’t know — if you don’t, Hezbollah will control it." Now what’s happened? Hezbollah is a legitimate part of the government in the country immediately to the north of Israel.
  • Vice President Cheney has been the most dangerous vice president we've had probably in American history. The idea he doesn't realize that Article I of the Constitution defines the role of the vice president of the United States, that's the Executive Branch. He works in the Executive Branch. He should understand that. Everyone should understand that. And the primary role of the vice president of the United States of America is to support the president of the United States of America, give that president his or her best judgment when sought, and as vice president, to preside over the Senate, only in a time when in fact there's a tie vote. The Constitution is explicit. The only authority the vice president has from the legislative standpoint is the vote, only when there is a tie vote. He has no authority relative to the Congress.
  • No, Barack Obama nor I support redefining from a civil side what constitutes marriage. No, we do not support that.
Promises to Keep (2008)
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First, that nobody, no group, is above others. Public servants are obliged to level with everybody, whether or not they'll like what he has to say. And second, that politics was a matter of personal honor. A man's word is his bond. You give your word, you keep it. – Joe Biden
  • He wanted me to understand two big things: First, that nobody, no group, is above others. Public servants are obliged to level with everybody, whether or not they'll like what he has to say. And second, that politics was a matter of personal honor. A man's word is his bond. You give your word, you keep it. For as long as I can remember, I've had a sort of romantic notion of what politics should be- and can be. If you do politics the right way, I believe, you can actually make people's lives better. And integrity is the minimum ante to get into the game. Nearly forty years after I first got involved, I remain captivated by the possibilities of politics and public service. In fact, I believe- as I know my grandpop did- that my chosen profession is a noble calling.
    • Pages xv-xvi
  • We all know- or at least we are told continually- that we are a divided people. And we know there's a degree of truth in it. We have too often allowed our differences to prevail among us. We have too often allowed ambitious men to play off those differences for political gain. We have too often retreated behind our differences when no one really tried to lead us beyond them. But all our differences hardly measure up to the values we all hold in common... I am running for the Senate because... I want to make the system work again, and I am convinced that is what all Americans really want.
    • Pages xvi-xvii
  • Full disclosure: I do not have absolute faith in the judgment and wisdom of the American people. We're all human, and we can all be misled. When leaders don't level with citizens, we can't expect them to make good judgments. But I do have absolute faith in the heart of the American people. The greatest resource in this country is the grit, the resolve, the courage, the basic decency, and the stubborn pride of its citizens.
    • Page xx
 
I wasn't built to look the other way because the law demanded it. The law might be wrong. – Joe Biden
  • I wasn't built to look the other way because the law demanded it. The law might be wrong.
    • Page 42
  • I had no place to go. It was up or out.
    • Page 58
 
It wasn't enough to have ideas; I had to know my facts. I had to demonstrate command from the minute I started running. I understood that was the test I had to pass. – Joe Biden
  • I knew I had to be sure-footed about the issues I was talking about. When you're twenty-nine years old, who the hell is going to think you're credible? It wasn't enough to have ideas; I had to know my facts. I had to demonstrate command from the minute I started running. I understood that was the test I had to pass.
    • Page 63
  • The fabric of our complex society is woven too tightly to permit any part of it to be damaged without damaging the whole.
    • Page 64
  • I didn't argue that the war in Vietnam was immoral; it was merely stupid and a horrendous waste of time, money, and lives based on a flawed premise.
    • Pages 65-66
  • When seagull droppings landed on my head at a campaign event at Bowers Beach two days before Election Day, I chose to read it as a sign of a coming success.
    • Page 73
 
I didn't argue that the war in Vietnam was immoral; it was merely stupid and a horrendous waste of time, money, and lives based on a flawed premise.
  • The first few days I felt trapped in a constant twilight of vertigo, like in the dream where you're suddenly falling... only I was constantly falling. In moments of fitful sleep I was aware of the dim possibility that I would wake up, truly wake up, and this would not have happened.
    • Page 80
  • Most of all I was numb, but there were moments when the pain cut through like a shard of broken glass. I began to understand how despair led people to just cash it in; how suicide wasn't just an option but a rational option.
    • Page 80
  • I liked to go at night when I thought there was a better chance of finding a fight. I was always looking for a fight. I had not known I was capable of such rage. I knew I had been cheated of a future, but I felt I'd been cheated of a past, too. The underpinnings of my life had been kicked out from under me... and it wasn't just the loss of Neilia and Naomi. All my life I'd been taught about our benevolent God. This is a forgiving God, a just God, a God who knows people make mistakes. This is a God who is tolerant. This is a God who gave us free will to be able to doubt. This was a loving God, a God of comfort. Well, I didn't want to hear anything about a merciful God. No words, no prayer, no sermon gave me ease. I felt God had played a horrible trick on me, and I was angry. I found no comfort in the Church. So I kept walking the dark streets to try to exhaust the rage.
    • Page 81
 
I kept trying to tell people that just because I was young didn't mean I could speak for all young people.
  • I kept trying to tell people that just because I was young didn't mean I could speak for all young people.
    • Page 84
  • A better man might have handled the situation with more grace than I did. A better man would have been able to separate his personal life from his career.
    • Page 87
  • There is a great deal of pressure, in the one particular area at least, to prostitute our ideas, if not our integrity.
    • Page 93
  • Sleep was like a phantom I was too tired to chase.
    • Page 96
  • A convicted felon who had strong family ties, a stake in the community, and an education might get probation, while a man who had few family ties, little stake in the community, and little education might draw a ten-year sentence for the same crime.
    • Page 122
  • The system wasn't working, and I thought it was time to err on the side of a new model. What might work, I thought, was a system that promoted personal accountability, consistency, and certainty. Congress could say people who committed the same federal crime, under the same circumstances, were going to jail for the same amount of time. We could give judges a narrower set of sentencing guidelines to work with, and felons would be required to pay the same price. We'd be judging the crime, not the person.
    • Page 123
  • I think I instinctively understood that my most important duty was to be a target. People were desperate to vent their anger, and if they could yell at a united States senator, all the better. Part of being a public servant, I came to understand in 1978, was absorbing the anger of people who don't know where to turn. If I couldn't solve the problem for them, I had to at least be an outlet.
    • Page 127
  • As I pushed through to the podium, I could hear people murmuring under their breath: "There he is... Goddam Biden.... Kill the sonofabitch." And these were my voters- working-class Democrats.
    • Page 127
 
It required a lot less energy, intelligence, and competence to run against government than to try to make government work.
  • It required a lot less energy, intelligence, and competence to run against government than to try to make government work.
    • Page 134
  • Just because our political heroes were murdered does not mean that the dream does not still live, buried deep in our broken hearts.
    • Page 141
  • No matter how well intended our country is, we cannot expect other nations to trust us as much as we trust ourselves.
    • Page 145
  • I, too, believe there are natural rights that predate any written political or legal documents; we have these rights merely because we're children of God.
    • Page 178
  • I believe all Americans are born with certain inalienable rights. As a child of God, I believe my rights are not derived from the Constitution. My rights are not derived from any government. My rights are not denied by any majority. My rights are because I exist. They were given to me and each of my fellow citizens by our creator, and they represent the essence of human dignity....
    • Page 194
  • My own father had always said the measure of a man wasn't how many times or how hard he got knocked down, but how fast he got back up.
    • Page 208
 
I, too, believe there are natural rights that predate any written political or legal documents; we have these rights merely because we're children of God.
  • There is never a time when a president can act to stop a tragedy from occurring without being held politically accountable one way or the other. If he does it and fails, he's wrong. If he does it and succeeds, he was never right because it didn't happen. If we go in and stop an act of genocide, we can't prove what we stopped.
    • Page 281
  • I learned later that the surgeon who put Dole back together after he was so badly injured in World War II was an Armenian whose family had deep memories of the genocidal campaign the Turks had waged against them.
    • Page 281
  • The carnage was over, but there was still a bitter taste in my mouth.
    • Page 284
 
For the world to follow, we must do more than rattle our sabers and demand allegienace to our vision simply because we believe we are right. We must provide a reason for others to aspire to that vision. And that reason must come with more than the repetition of a bumper-sticker phrase about freedom and democracy. It must come with more than the restatement of failed policy. It must come with the wisdom to admit when we are wrong and resolve to change course and get it right.
  • In spite of the president's phone call, I remained a vocal critic of the Bush administration's foreign policy priorities through that summer because I didn't trust most of the people he had around him. The civilians in the Department of Defense were unlike any I'd ever seen. They seemed to think our nation was so powerful that we could simply impose our will on the rest of the world with almost no ill consequence. It seemed to me that Rumsfeld and his chief deputy at Defense, Paul Wolfowitz, were so totally in thrall to that conservative think-tank-generated ideology that they were steering the president down a dangerous path. And they were so intent on overturning President Clinton's foreign policy initiatives that they were losing sight of the bigger goal, which was keeping America safe at home and engaged in doing good in the world.
    • Page 298
  • These were al-Qaeda fighters, the first I'd ever seen up close, and they looked like badasses. As I passed on the outskirts of the grid, many of the prisoners stared directly at me. None of them cowered. I've been in a lot of prisons, but these guys showed a ferocity and a hatred unlike any I'd ever seen.
    • Page 321
  • Given Iraq's strategic location, its large oil reserves, and the suffering of the Iraqi people, we cannot afford to replace a despot with chaos. It would be a tragedy if we removed a tyrant in Iraq only to leave chaos in its wake.
    • Page 335
  • I made a mistake. I underestimated the influence of Vice President Cheney, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, and the rest of the neocons; I vastly underestimated their disingenuousness and incompetence. So George W. Bush went to war again, and just the way the neocons wanted him to- without significant international backing.
    • Page 342
  • Things never got better, and Rumsfeld and Cheney never got any wiser. It became increasingly clear that those two men had eroded our country's claim to any moral high ground by flouting the Geneva Conventions. They forced policy decisions that allowed the hideous prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib in Iraq and encouraged the mistreatment of Muslim prisoners at our facility in Guantánamo in Cuba. I wasn't shy about hammering Rumsfeld.
    • Page 351
  • It was that hard; I still feel that way. But I believe that President Bush failed to lead. History will judge him harshly not for the mistakes he made- we all make mistakes- but for the opportunities he squandered.
    • Page 352
  • For the world to follow, we must do more than rattle our sabers and demand allegienace to our vision simply because we believe we are right. We must provide a reason for others to aspire to that vision. And that reason must come with more than the repetition of a bumper-sticker phrase about freedom and democracy. It must come with more than the restatement of failed policy. It must come with the wisdom to admit when we are wrong and resolve to change course and get it right.
    • Page 353

2009

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2010s

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2010

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2011

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  • ISIS has nothing to do with Islam.
    Let me tell you one or two things about Islam.

2012

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  • Look, I am Vice President of the United States of America. The president sets the policy. I am absolutely comfortable with the fact that men marrying men, women marrying women, and heterosexual men and women marrying another are entitled to the same exact rights, all the civil rights, all the civil liberties. And quite frankly, I don't see much of a distinction beyond that.
    • In response to the question, "You're comfortable with same-sex marriage now?" Meet the Press (May 6, 2012)
  • I resent when they talk about families like mine that I grew up in. I resent the fact that they think we're talking about envy: it's job envy, it's wealthy envy; that we don't dream. My mother believed and my father believed that if I wanted to be president of the United States, that I could be, I could be vice president! My mother and father believed that if my brother or sister wanted to be a millionaire, they could be a millionaire! My mother and father dreamed as much as any rich guy dreams! They don't get us! They don't get who we are!
 
Full disclosure: I do not have absolute faith in the judgment and wisdom of the American people. We're all human, and we can all be misled. When leaders don't level with citizens, we can't expect them to make good judgments.
  • Make sure of two things. Be careful — microphones are always hot, and understand that in Washington, D.C., a gaffe is when you tell the truth. So, be careful.
  • Even the oil companies don't need an incentive of $4 billion to go out and explore. As my grandpop would say, 'They’re doing just fine, thank you'.
  • We got a real clear picture of what they all value. Every Republican's voted for it. Look at what they value and look at their budget and what they're proposing. Romney wants to let the — he said in the first hundred days he’s going to let the big banks once again write their own rules, 'unchain Wall Street'. They're going to put y'all back in chains.

2013

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  • It's harder to use an assault weapon to hit something than it is a shotgun, okay?
    So if you want to keep people away in an earthquake, buy some shotgun shells.
    ..
    And so what would happen is the response time, in fact, may have saved one kid's life.
    Maybe if it took longer, maybe one more kid would be alive.
    ..
    I'm making the argument this way:
    There's no sporting need that I'm aware of that has a magazine that holds fifty rounds. None that I'm aware of. And I'm a sportsman.
  • You can’t talk about the civil rights movement in this country without talking about Jewish freedom riders and Jack Greenberg. You can’t talk about the women’s movement without talking about Betty Friedan. I believe what affects the movements in America, what affects our attitudes in America are as much the culture and the arts as anything else. [...] It wasn’t anything we legislatively did. It was ‘Will and Grace,’ it was the social media. Literally. That’s what changed peoples’ attitudes. That’s why I was so certain that the vast majority of people would embrace and rapidly embrace. Think behind of all that, I bet you 85 percent of those changes, whether it’s in Hollywood or social media are a consequence of Jewish leaders in the industry. The influence is immense, the influence is immense. And, I might add, it is all to the good.
  • The Jewish people have contributed greatly to America. No group has had such an outsized influence per capita as all of you standing before you, and all of those who went before me and all of those who went before you ... You make up 11 percent of the seats in the United States Congress. You make up one-third of all Nobel laureates ... I think you, as usual, underestimate the impact of Jewish heritage. I really mean that. I think you vastly underestimate the impact you’ve had on the development of this nation.

2014

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We need .. a constant unrelenting stream of immigrants. Not dribbling: significant flows. (2014)
There's a constant unrelenting stream of immigrants. Not in little trickles, but in large numbers .. that secret that allows America to constantly be able to remake itself .. an unrelenting stream of immigration. Nonstop, nonstop .. we'll be an absolute minority .. not a bad thing .. source of our strength (2015).
  • We need it badly from a purely – purely economic point of view .. constant, unrelenting stream of immigrants .. not dribbling, significant flows
    • 10 June 2014 comments to National Association of Manufacturers, reported later that day by Benjamin Goad of The Hill
  • thirdly we need to pass an immigration bill, look at Germany, look at the rest of the world, we're the only non-xenophobic nation in the world that's a major economy
  • Remember—no serious guys till you're thirty!
    • To young women at swearing-in ceremony for new senators, quoted in Evan Osnos (28 July 2014), "The Biden Agenda", The New Yorker 
  • When these barbarians replicated with Steven what they did with Foley, who is from New Hampshire, they somehow think that it's going to lessen US resolve, frighten us, intimidate us. But if they think the American people will be intimidated, they don't know us very well. We came back after 9/11, we dusted ourselves off and we made sure that Osama Bin Ladin would never ever again threaten the American people. We came back Boston strong, blaming no one, but resolve to be certain that this didn't happen again. Today America may be still grieving from Jim Foley, a native from New Hampshire as I said he grew up in Rochester, but the American people are so much stronger, so much more resolved than any enemy can fully understand. As a nation, we are united. And when people harm Americans, we don't retreat, we don't forget, we take care of those grieving. And when that's finished, they should know [that] we follow them to the gates of hell until they are brought to justice, because hell is where they will reside.

2015

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  • The god's truth is, we are a melting pot.
    It is the ultimate source of our strength, it is the ultimate source of who we are, what we've become.
    It started all the way back in the late 1700s.
    There's been a constant unrelenting stream of immigrants.
    Not in little trickles, but in large numbers.
    ..
    He said they're in America looking for the buried black box, and I looked at him just like you're looking at me, like what's he talking about?
    He said they're looking for that secret that allows America to constantly be able to remake itself, unlike any other country in the world.
    I said, I can presume to tell you what's in that black box, mister president. I'm old enough now.
    I said one is that there is in America an overwhelming skepticism for orthodoxy.
    From the time a child, whether they're naturalized or they're native-born, they think about it, a child never gets criticized in our education system for challenging orthodoxy, for challenging the status quo.
    I would argue it's unlike any other large country in the world.
    There's a second thing in that black box. An unrelenting stream of immigration.
    Non stop, nonstop.
    Folks like me who are Caucasian, of European descent, for the first time in 2017 we'll be an absolute minority in the United States of America. Absolute minority.
    Fewer than 50% of the people in America from then and on will be white European stock. That's not a bad thing. That's a source of our strength.
  • Good morning everyone. This past week we've seen the best and the worst of humanity. The heinous terrorist attacks in Paris and Beirut, in Iraq and Nigeria. They showed us once again the depths of the terrorist's depravity. And at the same time we saw the world come together in solidarity. Parisians opening their doors to anyone trapped in the street, taxi drivers turning off their meters to get people home safety, people lining up to donate blood. These simple human acts are a powerful reminder that we cannot be broken and in the face of terror we stand as one. In the wake of these terrible events, I understand the anxiety that many Americans feel. I really do. I don't dismiss the fear of a terrorist bomb going off. There's nothing President Obama and I take more seriously though, than keeping the American people safe. In the past few weeks though, we've heard an awful lot of people suggest that the best way to keep America safe is to prevent any Syrian refugee from gaining asylum in the United States. So let's set the record straight how it works for a refugee to get asylum. Refugees face the most rigorous screening of anyone who comes to the United States. First they are finger printed, then they undergo a thorough background check, then they are interviewed by the Department of Homeland Security. And after that the FBI, the National Counterterrorism Center, the Department of Defense and the Department of State, they all have to sign off on access. And to address the specific terrorism concerns we are talking about now, we've instituted another layer of checks just for Syrian refugees. There is no possibility of being overwhelmed by a flood of refugees landing on our doorstep tomorrow. Right now, refugees wait 18 to 24 months while the screening process is completed. And unlike in Europe, refugees don't set foot in the United States until they are thoroughly vetted. Let's also remember who the vast majority of these refugees are: women, children, orphans, survivors of torture, people desperately in need medical help. To turn them away and say there is no way you can ever get here would play right into the terrorists' hands. We know what ISIL - we know what they hope to accomplish. They flat-out told us. Earlier this year, the top ISIL leader al-Baghdadi revealed the true goal of their attacks. Here's what he said: "Compel the crusaders to actively destroy the gray zone themselves. Muslims in the West will quickly find themselves between one and two choices. Either apostatize or emigrate to the Islamic State and thereby escape persecution." So it's clear. It's clear what ISIL wants. They want to manufacture a clash between civilizations. They want frightened people to think in terms of "us versus them. "They want us to turn our backs on Muslims victimized by terrorism. But this gang of thugs peddling a warped ideology, they will never prevail. The world is united in our resolve to end their evil. And the only thing ISIL can do is spread terror in hopes that we will in turn, turn on ourselves. We will betray our ideals and take actions, actions motivated by fear that will drive more recruits into the arms of ISIL. That's how they win. We win by prioritizing our security as we've been doing. Refusing to compromise our fundamental American values: freedom, openness, tolerance. That's who we are. That's how we win. May God continue to bless the United States of America and God bless our troops.
  • In the 21st century, nations cannot; and we cannot allow them to redraw borders by force. These are the ground rules. And if we fail to uphold them, we will rue the day. Russia has violated these ground rules and continues to violate them. Today Russia is occupying sovereign Ukrainian territory. Let me be crystal clear: The United States does not, will not, never will recognize Russia’s attempt to annex the Crimea. (Applause.) It’s that saying -- that simple. There is no justification.

2016

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  • Article Two of the Constitution clearly states, whenever there is a vacancy in one of the Court's created by the Constitution itself, the Supreme Court of the United States, the president shall — not may — the president shall appoint someone to fill the vacancy with the advice and consent of the United States Senate. And advice and consent includes consulting and voting!
  • Israel will not get everything it asks for... I firmly believe that the actions that Israel's government has taken over the past several years — the steady and systematic expansion of settlements, the legalization of outposts, land seizures — they're moving us, and, more importantly, they're moving Israel in the wrong direction

2017

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  • This was the diving board area, and I was one of the guards, and they weren't allowed to—it was a 3-meter board. And if you fell off sideways, you landed on the damn, er, darn cement over there... And Corn Pop was a bad dude. And he ran a bunch of bad boys. And back in those days—to show how things have changed—one of the things you had to use, if you used Pomade in your hair, you had to wear a baby cap. And so he was up on the board and wouldn't listen to me.I said, "Hey, Esther, you! Off the board, or I'll come up and drag you off." Well, he came off, and he said, "I'll meet you outside..." My car was mostly, these were all public housing behind us, my car—there was a gate on here. I parked my car outside the gate. And he said, "I'll be waiting for you." He was waiting for me with three guys with straight razors. Not a joke.

    There was a guy named Bill Wright the only white guy and he did all the pools. He was a mechanic. And I said, "What am I gonna do?" And he said. "Come down here in the basement, where all the mechanics—where all the pool builder is." You know the chain, there used to be a chain that went across the deep end. And he cut off a six-foot length of chain, and folded it up and he said, "You walk out with that chain, and you walk to the car and say, 'you may cut me man, but I'm gonna wrap this chain around your head.'" I said, "You're kidding me." He said, "No if you don't, don't come back." And he was right. So I walked out with the chain. And I walked up to my car. And in those days, you remember the straight razors, you had to bang 'em on the curb, gettin' em rusty, puttin' em in the rain barrel, gettin' em rusty? And I looked at him, but I was smart, then. I said, "First of all," I said, "when I tell you to get off the board, you get off the board, and I'll kick you out again, but I shouldn't have called you Esther Williams, and I apologize for that. I apologize." But I didn't know that apology was gonna work. He said, "you apologize to me?" I said, "I apologize but not for throwing you out, but I apologize for what I said." He said, "OK," closed that straight razor, and my heart began to beat again.

2018

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  • You know, shortly after I graduated in '68, Kent State, 17 kids shot dead. And so, the younger generation now tells me how tough things are—give me a break! No, no, I have no empathy for it. Give me a break. Because here's the deal, guys—we decided we were going to change the world, and we did. We did. We finished the civil rights movement to the first stage. The women's movement came into being. So my message is "Get involved."
  • I was supposed to announce that there was another billion-dollar loan guarantee [for Ukraine]. And I had gotten a commitment from Poroshenko and from Yatsenyuk that they would take action against the state prosecutor. And they didn't... So they said they had — they were walking out to a press conference. I said, nah... we're not going to give you the billion dollars. They said, you have no authority. You're not the president. The president said — I said, call him. I said, I'm telling you, you're not getting the billion dollars... I looked at them and said: I'm leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you're not getting the money. Well, son of a bitch. He got fired. And they put in place someone who was solid.

2019

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  • What happened today to @JussieSmollett must never be tolerated in this country. We must stand up and demand that we no longer give this hate safe harbor; that homophobia and racism have no place on our streets or in our hearts. We are with you, Jussie.
  • I'm sorry I didn’t understand more. I'm not sorry for any of my intentions. I'm not sorry for anything that I have ever done. I have never been disrespectful intentionally to a man or a woman. So that's not the reputation I've had since I was in high school, for God's sake.
  • I mean, we may not want to demonize anybody who has made money. The truth of the matter is, you all, you all know, you all know in your gut what has to be done. We can disagree in the margins but the truth of the matter is it’s all within our wheelhouse and nobody has to be punished. No one's standard of living will change, nothing would fundamentally change.
  • This guy climbed down a ravine, carried this guy up on his back, under fire, and the general wanted me to pin the Silver Star on him. I got up there- this is the God's honest truth, my word as a Biden. He stood at attention. I went to pin it on him. He said, "Sir, I don't want the damn thing. Do not pin it on me, sir. Please, sir. Do not do that. He died! He died!"
  • If you notice, I have more people supporting me in the black community that have announced for me, because they know me.

2020

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January 2020

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  • Joe Biden: You have to go vote for someone else. You're not going to vote for me in the primary.
    Ed Fallon: I'm going to vote for you in the general if you treat me right.
    Joe Biden: Yeah, I know. Well, I'm not.

February 2020

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  • You always love your dad.
    You don’t always like your dad sometimes.
    But granddaughters not only love THEIR dads — their grandpops — they ALWAYS like them, and that’s the GREAT thing.
    I want you to meet Finnegan.
  • This is a guy (Chinese leader Xi Jinping) who doesn’t have a democratic — with a small d — bone is his body. This is a guy who is a thug.

March 2020

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You're full of shit. Now shush, shush. I support the Second Amendment. The Second Amendment — just like right now, if you yelled "fire", that's not free speech. And from the very beginning — I have a shotgun, I have a 20-gauge, a 12-gauge. My sons hunt. Guess what? You're not allowed to own any weapon. I'm not taking your gun away, at all. You need 100 rounds?
  • Lawrence O'Donnell: Let's flash forward. You're president. Bernie Sanders is still active in the Senate. He manages to get Medicare for All through the Senate, in some compromise version, the Elizabeth Warren version or other version. Nancy Pelosi gets a version of it through the House of Representatives. It comes to your desk. Do you veto it?
    Joe Biden: I would veto anything that delays providing the security and the certainty of healthcare being available now. If they got that through and by some miracle, there was an epiphany that occurred, and some miracle occurred that said OK, it's passed, then you got to look at the cost. And I want to know how did they find the $35 trillion? What is that doing?
    • The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell, 9 March 2020 
  • One of the things that I did early on in my career as a U.S. Senator was I was one of the sponsors of the Endangered Species Act. And one of the other things we’ve done is we in the state of Delaware set up the coastal zone legislation which means that they can’t build any factories or anything within one mile of the estuary of the Delaware River and the Atlantic Ocean and the Chesapeake.
  • We have to take care of the cure. That will make the problem worse, no matter what. No matter what. We know what has to be done. We know you have to — you're tired of hearing the phrase, you got to flatten that curve where it's going up like this, people getting it, and then it comes down.
  • In every single crisis we have had that I have been around, going back to Jimmy Carter and the hostages all the way through to this moment, presidents’ ratings have always gone up in a crisis, but that old expression, the proof is going to be in eating the pudding. What’s it going to look like?

April 2020

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  • We cannot let this, we've never allowed any crisis from the Civil War straight through to the pandemic of 17, all the way around, 16, we have never, never let our democracy sakes second fiddle, way they, we can both have a democracy and elections and, at the same time, correct the public health.
    • This Week with George Stephanopoulos, ABC, 2020-04-05
  • I think it's close to criminal the way they're dealing with this guy. Not his conduct. The idea that this man stood up and said what had to be said, got it out that his troops, his Navy personnel were in danger. Look how many had the virus. I think he should have a commendation rather than be fired.
  • There are people who support the president because they like the fact that he is engaged in the politics of division. They really support the notion that, you know, all Mexicans are rapists and all Muslims are bad and ... dividing this nation based on ethnicity, race. This is the one of the few presidents who succeeded by deliberately trying to divide the country, not unite the country.
  • The people who voted Republican last time ... who don't want to vote for Trump, whether they want to vote for me or not is a different story, but they don't want to vote for Trump, they're looking for an alternative and I think, I hope to God, I can provide that alternative ... I really mean it. I think there's a chance.

May 2020

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If you have a problem figuring out whether you're for me or Trump, then you ain't black.
  • My wife Jill has a great expression. She's a doctor of Education and she's been a teacher for years and she'd say any country that out-educates us will out-compete us.
    My dad used to say I don't expect the government to solve my problems but I expect them to understand my problems give me a fighting chance.
    • Joe Biden Answers The Web's Most Searched Questions WIRED, 21 May 2020 
  • From the very beginning you weren't allowed to have certain weapons. You weren't allowed to own a cannon during the Revolutionary War as an individual.

June 2020

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  • Because we also have to fundamentally change the way police are trained. [...] And the idea that instead of standing there and teaching a cop when there's an unarmed person coming at 'em with a knife or something, shoot 'em in the leg instead of in the heart. It's a very different thing. There's a lot of different things that can change.

July 2020

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  • When it comes to COVID-19, after months of doing nothing, other than predicting the virus would disappear or maybe, if you drank bleach, you may be okay, Trump has simply given up.
  • There is no more consequential challenge that we must meet in the next decade than the onrushing climate crisis. Left unchecked, it is literally an existential threat to the health of our planet and to our very survival... We are an economy in crisis but with an incredible opportunity: To not just rebuild back to where we were before, but better, stronger, more resilient and more prepared to the challenges that lie ahead... These aren’t pie-in-the-sky dreams. These are actionable policies that we can get to work on right away... Nothing’s a hoax. Nothing’s a hoax about that. It’s a very serious subject. I want clean air. I want clean water. I want the cleanest air, want the cleanest water. The environment is very important to me.

August 2020

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The violence we're seeing in Donald Trump's America. These are not images of some imagined "Joe Biden America" in the future. These are images of Donald Trump's America today. He keeps telling you if only he was president, it wouldn't happen, if he was president. He keeps telling us that if he was president, you'd feel safe. Well, he is president whether he knows it or not.
  • Trump and Pence are running on this and I find it fascinating, quote, "You won't be safe in Joe Biden's America". And what's their proof? The violence we're seeing in Donald Trump's America. These are not images of some imagined "Joe Biden America" in the future. These are images of Donald Trump's America today. He keeps telling you if only he was president, it wouldn't happen, if he was president. He keeps telling us that if he was president, you'd feel safe. Well, he is president whether he knows it or not. And it is happening. It's getting worse and you know why. Because Donald Trump adds fuel to every fire.

September 2020

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If Donald Trump has his way, the complications from COVID-19, which are well beyond what they should be — it’s estimated that 200 million people have died — probably by the time I finish this talk.

October 2020

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  • 220,000 deaths.
    If you hear nothing else I say tonight, hear this:
    Anyone who is responsible for that many deaths should not remain President of the United States.

November 2020

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  • I know how deep and hard the opposing views are in our country on so many things. But I also know this as well. To make progress, we have to stop treating our opponents as enemies. We are not enemies. What brings us together as Americans is so much stronger than anything that can tear us apart. So let me be clear. I, we, are campaigning as a Democrats, but I will govern as an American president. The presidency itself is not a partisan institution. It’s the one office in this nation that represents everyone and it demands a duty of care for all Americans. That is precisely what I will do. I will work as hard for those who didn’t vote for me as I will for those who did vote for me. Now, every vote must be counted. No one’s going to take our democracy away from us, not now, not ever. America’s come too far. America’s fought too many battles. America’s endured too much to ever let that happen.
    We the people will not be silenced. We the people will not be bullied. We the people will not surrender. My friends, I’m confident we’ll emerge victorious. But this will not be my victory alone or our victory alone. It’ll be a victory for the American people, for our democracy, for America. And there will be no blue states and red states when we win, just the United States of America, God bless you all and may God protect our troops. Thank you.
Victory speech as President-elect
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Tonight, the whole world is watching America. I believe at our best America is a beacon for the globe.
And we lead not by the example of our power, but by the power of our example.
Victory speech as President-elect (7 November 2020), as quoted in Hope, Healing And 'Better Angels': Biden Declares Victory And Vows Unity (7 November 2020), NPR
  • My fellow Americans, the people of this nation have spoken. They have delivered us a clear victory. A convincing victory. A victory for "We the People." We have won with the most votes ever cast for a presidential ticket in the history of this nation — 74 million. I am humbled by the trust and confidence you have placed in me. I pledge to be a President who seeks not to divide, but to unify. Who doesn't see Red and Blue states, but a United States. And who will work with all my heart to win the confidence of the whole people.

    For that is what America is about: The people. And that is what our Administration will be about.

    I sought this office to restore the soul of America. To rebuild the backbone of the nation — the middle class. To make America respected around the world again and to unite us here at home. It is the honor of my lifetime that so many millions of Americans have voted for this vision. And now the work of making this vision real is the task of our time.

  • I am proud of the campaign we built and ran. I am proud of the coalition we put together, the broadest and most diverse in history. Democrats, Republicans and Independents. Progressives, moderates and conservatives. Young and old. Urban, suburban and rural. Gay, straight, transgender. White. Latino. Asian. Native American. And especially for those moments when this campaign was at its lowest — the African American community stood up again for me. They always have my back, and I'll have yours. I said from the outset I wanted a campaign that represented America, and I think we did that. Now that's what I want the administration to look like. And to those who voted for President Trump, I understand your disappointment tonight. I've lost a couple of elections myself. But now, let's give each other a chance.

    It's time to put away the harsh rhetoric. To lower the temperature. To see each other again. To listen to each other again. To make progress, we must stop treating our opponents as our enemy. We are not enemies. We are Americans. The Bible tells us that to everything there is a season — a time to build, a time to reap, a time to sow. And a time to heal. This is the time to heal in America.

  • Americans have called on us to marshal the forces of decency and the forces of fairness. To marshal the forces of science and the forces of hope in the great battles of our time. The battle to control the virus. The battle to build prosperity. The battle to secure your family's health care. The battle to achieve racial justice and root out systemic racism in this country. The battle to save the climate. The battle to restore decency, defend democracy, and give everybody in this country a fair shot. Our work begins with getting COVID under control. We cannot repair the economy, restore our vitality, or relish life's most precious moments — hugging a grandchild, birthdays, weddings, graduations, all the moments that matter most to us — until we get this virus under control.
  • I ran as a proud Democrat. I will now be an American president. I will work as hard for those who didn't vote for me — as those who did. Let this grim era of demonization in America begin to end — here and now. The refusal of Democrats and Republicans to cooperate with one another is not due to some mysterious force beyond our control. It's a decision. It's a choice we make. And if we can decide not to cooperate, then we can decide to cooperate. And I believe that this is part of the mandate from the American people. They want us to cooperate. That's the choice I'll make. And I call on the Congress — Democrats and Republicans alike — to make that choice with me. The American story is about the slow, yet steady widening of opportunity.

    Make no mistake: Too many dreams have been deferred for too long. We must make the promise of the country real for everybody — no matter their race, their ethnicity, their faith, their identity, or their disability.

  • We stand again at an inflection point. We have the opportunity to defeat despair and to build a nation of prosperity and purpose. We can do it. I know we can. I've long talked about the battle for the soul of America. We must restore the soul of America. Our nation is shaped by the constant battle between our better angels and our darkest impulses. It is time for our better angels to prevail Tonight, the whole world is watching America. I believe at our best America is a beacon for the globe. And we lead not by the example of our power, but by the power of our example.
  • Now, together — on eagle's wings — we embark on the work that God and history have called upon us to do. With full hearts and steady hands, with faith in America and in each other, with a love of country — and a thirst for justice — let us be the nation that we know we can be. A nation united. A nation strengthened. A nation healed. The United States of America. God bless you. And may God protect our troops.

December 2020

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  • My dad used to say, “Joey, I don’t expect the government to solve my problems. But I expect it to understand my problems.”
    Folks out there aren’t looking for a handout — they just need help. They’re in trouble through no fault of their own, and they need us to understand.
  • If we cannot make significant progress on racial equity, this country is doomed. It's doomed not just because of African Americans, but because by 2040, this country is going to be minority white European. You hear me? ... And you guys are going to have to starting [sic] working more with Hispanics.
  • I also don’t think we should get too far ahead ourselves on dealing with police reform in that, because they’ve already labeled us as being ‘defund the police’ anything we put forward in terms of the organizational structure to change policing — which I promise you, will occur.
  • That’s how they beat the living hell out of us across the country, saying that we’re talking about defunding the police. We’re not. We’re talking about holding them accountable. We’re talking about giving them money to do the right things. We’re talking about putting more psychologists and psychiatrists on the telephones when the 911 calls through. We’re talking about spending money to enable them to do their jobs better, not with more force, with less force and more understanding.

2021

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January 2021

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  • At this hour, our democracy's under unprecedented assault. Unlike anything we've seen in modern times. An assault on the citadel of liberty, the Capitol itself. An assault on the people's representatives and the Capitol Hill police, sworn to protect them. And the public servants who work at the heart of our Republic... Let me be very clear. The scenes of chaos at the Capitol do not reflect a true America. Do not represent who we are. What we're seeing are a small number of extremists dedicated to lawlessness. This is not dissent. It's disorder. It's chaos. It borders on sedition. And it must end now.
    • [2], CNN.com (January 6, 2021)
  • The words of a president matter, no matter how good or bad that president is. At their best, the words of a president can inspire. At their worst, they can incite. Therefore, I call on President Trump to go on national television now to fulfill his oath and defend the Constitution and demand an end to this siege...Threatening the safety of elected officials, it’s no protest. It's insurrection. The world's watching. Like so many other Americans, I am shocked and saddened that our nation, so long the beacon of light and hope for democracy, has come to such a dark moment...President Trump: Step up.
    • [3], CNN.com (January 6, 2021)
  • We expect these additional 200 million doses to be delivered this summer. And some of it will come as early — begin to come in early summer, but by the mid- — by the mid-summer, that this vaccine will be there. And the order — and that increases the total vaccine order in the United States by 50 percent — from 400 million ordered to 600 million. This is enough vaccine to fully vaccinate 300 Americans by the end of the summer, beginning of the fall. But we want to make — look, that’s — I want to repeat: It’ll be enough to fully vaccinate 300 Americans to beat this pandemic — 300 million Americans.
Presidential Inaugural Address (2021)
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Joe Biden’s presidential inaugural address, delivered 2021-01-20 in Washington, D.C.

  • Hear one another. See one another. Show respect to one another. Politics doesn′t have to be a raging fire, destroying everything in its path. Every disagreement doesn′t have to be a cause for total war. And we must reject the culture in which facts themselves are manipulated, and even manufactured.
  • My fellow Americans, we have to be different than this. America has to be better than this, and I believe America is so much better than this. Just look around. Here we stand, in the shadow of the Capitol dome, as it was mentioned earlier, completed amid the civil war, when the union itself was literally hanging in the balance. Yet, we endured. We prevailed.
  • [T]he American story depends not on any one of us, not on some of us, but on all of us, on we the people, who seek a more perfect union. This is a great nation. We are good people. And over the centuries, through storm and strife, in peace and in war, we′ve come so far, but we still have far to go.

    We′ll press forward with speed and urgency, for we have much to do in this winter of peril and significant possibilities. Much to repair, much to restore, much to heal, much to build, and much to gain. Few people in our nation′s history have been more challenged or found a time more challenging or difficult than the time we′re in now.

  • In another January, on New Year′s Day in 1863, Abraham Lincoln signed the emancipation proclamation. When he put pen to paper, the president said, and I quote, “if my name ever goes down into history, it′ll be for this act, and my whole soul is in it.”

    “My whole soul is in it.” Today, on this January day, my whole soul is in this: bringing America together, uniting our people, uniting our nation. And I ask every American to join me in this cause.

    Uniting to fight the foes we face, anger, resentment and hatred, extremism, lawlessness, violence, disease, joblessness and hopelessness. With unity, we can do great things, important things.

  • I know speaking of unity can sound to some like a foolish fantasy these days. I know that the forces that divide us are deep and they are real. But I also know they are not new. Our history has been a constant struggle between the American ideal that we all are created equal, and the harsh ugly reality that racism, nativism, fear, demonization have long torn us apart.

    The battle is perennial, and victory is never assured. Through civil war, the great depression, World War, 9/11, through struggle, sacrifices, and setbacks, our better angels have always prevailed. In each of these moments, enough of us have come together to carry all of us forward, and we can do that now.

  • History, faith, and reason show the way, the way of unity. We can see each other, not as adversaries, but as neighbors. We can treat each other with dignity and respect. We can join forces, stop the shouting, and lower the temperature.

    For without unity, there is no peace, only bitterness and fury. No progress, only exhausting outrage. No nation, only a state of chaos. This is our historic moment of crisis and challenge, and unity is the path forward. And we must meet this moment as the United States of America. If we do that, I guarantee you, we will not fail. We have never, ever, ever, ever failed in America when we′ve acted together.

    And so today, at this time, in this place, let′s start afresh, all of us. Let′s begin to listen to one another again.

  • Look, I understand that many of my fellow Americans view the future with fear and trepidation. I understand they worry about their jobs. I understand like my dad, they lay in bed wondering, can I keep my health care, can I pay my mortgage. Thinking about their families, about what comes next. I promise you, I get it.

    But the answer is not to turn inward, to retreat into competing factions, distrusting those who don't look like you or worship the way you do or don't get their news from the same source as you do. We must end this uncivil war that pits red against blue, rural versus urban, conservative versus liberal. We can do this if we open our souls instead of hardening our hearts. If we show a little tolerance and humility, and if we are willing to stand in the other person′s shoes—as my mom would say—just for a moment, stand in their shoes. Because here′s the thing about life: there′s no accounting for what fate will deal you.

  • We must set aside politics and finally face this pandemic as one nation, one nation. And I promise you this. As the Bible says, “weep, ye may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.” We will get through this together. Together.

    Look, folks, all my colleagues that I served with in the house and the senate up here, we all understand, the world is watching, watching all of us today. So here′s my message to those beyond our borders.

    America has been tested, and we′ve come out stronger for it. We will repair our alliances and engage with the world once again. Not to meet yesterday′s challenges, but today′s and tomorrow′s challenges. And we′ll lead not merely by the example of our power, but by the power of our example. We′ll be a strong and trusted partner for peace, progress, and security.

  • Folks, this is a time of testing. We face an attack on our democracy and on truth. A raging virus, growing inequity, the sting of systemic racism, a climate in crisis. America′s role in the world. Any one of these would be enough to challenge us in profound ways. But the fact is, we face them all at once. Presenting this nation with one of the gravest responsibilities we′ve had. Now we′re going to be tested.

    Are we going to step up, all of us? It′s time for boldness, for there is so much to do. And this is certain. I promise you, we will be judged, you and I, by how we resolve these cascading crises of our era. We will rise to the occasion, is the question. Will we master this rare and difficult hour?

  • [T]ogether we shall write an American story of hope, not fear. Of unity, not division. Of light, not darkness. A story of decency and dignity, love and healing, greatness and goodness.

    May this be the story that guides us, the story that inspires us, and the story that tells ages yet to come that we answered the call of history, we met the moment. Democracy and hope, truth and justice, did not die on our watch, but thrived, that America secured liberty at home and stood once again as a beacon to the world. That is what we owe our forebears, one another, and generations to follow.

    So, with purpose and resolve, we turn to those tasked of our time, sustained by faith, driven by conviction, and devoted to one another and the country we love with all our hearts. May God bless America and may God protect our troops. Thank you, America.

February 2021

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Remarks by President Biden to Department of Defense Personnel, February 10, 2021
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President Joe Biden remarks to the US Defense Department, as quoted in "Remarks by President Biden to Department of Defense Personnel", WhiteHouse.gov (10 February 2021)
  • So often, our Armed Forces and the Department of Defense staff are how the rest of the world encounters America. And you all know as well as anyone that our country is safer and stronger when we lead not just with the example of our power, but with the power of our example.
  • As your Commander-in-Chief, I will never hesitate to use force to defend the vital interests of the American people and our allies around the world when necessary. The central, indispensable mission of the Department of Defense is to deter aggression from our enemies and, if required, to fight and win wars to keep America safe.
  • I believe force should be a tool of last resort, not first. I understand the full weight of what it means to ask young, proud Americans to stand in the breach. As was referenced by the Secretary, my son Beau served in Iraq for a year. I’m the first President in 40 years, I’m told, who had a son or daughter who served in a warzone. So I know what it’s like. Being Commander-in-Chief is an enormous responsibility and one that I will never take lightly or easily.
  • I also know that you are essential to the work of our diplomacy — not only as the ultimate guarantor of our security, but as diplomats yourselves.
  • You know, to the incredible individuals who serve in our Armed Forces: You are unquestionably part of the finest fighting force in the history of the world. You’re warriors. The work you do each and every day is vital to ensuring the American people — your families, friends, and loved ones — are able to live in peace and security and growing prosperity. And for those of you who raise your hands and sign up to wear the uniform of the United States: We owe you an incredible debt.
  • I’ve said for many years, less than one percent of Americans do what you do: put yourself on the line for the rest of the 99 percent of the Americans you represent. The 99 percent of us owe you. We owe it to you to keep the faith with our sacred obligation to properly prepare and equip you when we send you into harm’s way, and to care for you and your families, both while you are deployed and after you return home. You’re incredible heroes and incredible patriots. I will never, ever dishonest you — dishonor you. I will never disrespect you. I will never politicize the work you do. That goes for our civilian professionals as well as the career military.
  • It’s on all of us to stand up, to speak out when you see someone being abused. This is an organization that’s defined American — excuse me, defeated American enemies on land, sea, and air, and been defined by the way we treat others.
  • I know this is the honor of my lifetime. The honor of my lifetime is to serve as your Commander-in-Chief.
  • February is Black History Month, as the Vice President pointed out. Before we leave today, Vice President Harris and I are going to visit the hall honoring the long history of black Americans fighting for this country, even when their contributions were not always recognized or honored appropriately. But those contributions have nevertheless helped push our country toward greater equality. From the bravery of the free and enslaved descendants of Africans who fought with the colonial forces in our revolution; to the black regiments that joined to fight for the Union and for their own freedom in the Civil War; to the Buffalo soldiers, including Henry O. Flipper, the first African American graduate of West Point; and Cathay Williams, the first African American woman — Cathay — who enlisted in the United States Army.

March 2021

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  • At this very moment, so many of them, our fellow Americans, are on the front lines of this pandemic trying to save lives and still — still are forced to live in fear for their lives just walking down streets in America," he said. "It's wrong, it's un-American, and it must stop.
  • We will not shy away from engaging in the hard work to take on the damaging legacy of slavery and our treatment of Native Americans, or from doing the daily work of addressing systemic racism and violence against Black, Native, Latino, Asian American and Pacific Islander, and other communities of color.
Remarks by President Biden Before Economic Briefing with Treasury Secretary Yellen
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Remarks by President Biden Before Economic Briefing with Treasury Secretary Yellen (March 5, 2021)
  • All of those empty storefronts aren’t just shattered dreams, they’re warning lights that are going off and state and local budgets that are being stretched because of the lack of tax revenue.
  • [S]ome of last month’s job growth is a result of the December relief package. But without a rescue plan, these gains are going to slow. We can’t afford one step forward and two steps backwards. We need to beat the virus, provide essential relief, and build an inclusive recovery.

April 2021

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  • There’s no reason someone needs a weapon of war with 100 rounds, 100 bullets, that can be fired from that weapon. Nobody needs that, nobody needs that
  • The murder of George Floyd launched a summer of protest we hadn’t seen since the Civil Rights era in the ‘60s — protests that unified people of every race and generation in peace and with purpose
 
Within our climate response lies an extraordinary engine of job creation and economic opportunity ready to be fired up. (Speech at the Virtual Leaders Summit on Climate April 22, 2021)
Remarks by President Biden on the Shooting in Boulder, Colorado
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Remarks by President Biden on the Shooting in Boulder, Colorado (March 23, 2021)
  • I just can’t imagine how the families are feeling — the victims whose futures were stolen from them, from their families, from their loved ones who now have to struggle to go on and try to make sense of what’s happened.

May 2021

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  • I’m especially honored to share the stage with Brittney, and Jerdan, and Nathan, and Margrit Katherine. I love those barrettes in your hair, man. I tell you what — and look at her; she looks like she’s nineteen years old, sitting there with her — like a little lady with her legs crossed.

June 2021

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  • This is not about trust. This is about self-interest and verification of self-interest.
    The proof of the pudding is in the eating. We're going to know shortly.
  • The Second Amendment, from the day it was passed, limited the type of people who could own a gun and what type of weapon you could own. You couldn’t buy a cannon.
    Those who say the blood of lib- — “the blood of patriots,” you know, and all the stuff about how we’re going to have to move against the government.
    Well, the tree of liberty is not watered with the blood of patriots.
    What’s happened is that there have never been — if you wanted or if you think you need to have weapons to take on the government, you need F-15s and maybe some nuclear weapons.

July 2021

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  • These steps will enhance our productivity — raising wages without raising prices. That won’t increase inflation. It will take the pressure off of inflation, give a boost to our workforce, which leads to lower prices in the years ahead. So, if your primary concern right now is inflation, you should be even more enthusiastic about this plan. And as we promote — as we promote fair competition in our economy through the executive order I mentioned, it will drive down prices even further.
Remarks by President Biden on the Drawdown of U.S. Forces in Afghanistan
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Remarks by President Biden on the Drawdown of U.S. Forces in Afghanistan, as quoted in "Remarks by President Biden on the Drawdown of U.S. Forces in Afghanistan", WhiteHouse.gov (8 July 2021)
  • The Afghan troops have 300,000 well-equipped — as well-equipped as any army in the world — and an air force against something like 75,000 Taliban.
  • Do I trust the Taliban? No. But I trust the capacity of the Afghan military, who is better trained, better equipped, and more re- — more competent in terms of conducting war.
  • And the likelihood there’s going to be one unified government in Afghanistan controlling the whole country is highly unlikely.
  • But the likelihood there’s going to be the Taliban overrunning everything and owning the whole country is highly unlikely.
  • Keep in mind, as a student of history, as I’m sure you are, never has Afghanistan been a united country, not in all of its history. Not in all of its history.
Remarks by President Biden At Signing of An Executive Order Promoting Competition in the American Economy
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Capitalism without competition isn't capitalism; it's exploitation.
Remarks by President Biden At Signing of An Executive Order Promoting Competition in the American Economy, as quoted in "Remarks by President Biden At Signing of An Executive Order Promoting Competition in the American Economy", WhiteHouse.gov (9 July 2021)
  • The heart of American capitalism is a simple idea: open and fair competition — that means that if your companies want to win your business, they have to go out and they have to up their game; better prices and services; new ideas and products.
    That competition keeps the economy moving and keeps it growing. Fair competition is why capitalism has been the world’s greatest force for prosperity and growth.
    By the same token, "competitive economy" means companies must do all they do to do — everything they do to compete for workers: offering higher wages, more flexible hours, better benefits.
    But what we’ve seen over the past few decades is less competition and more concentration that holds our economy back. We see it in big agriculture, in big tech, in big pharma. The list goes on.
    Rather than competing for consumers, they are consuming their competitors. Rather than competing for workers, they’re finding ways to gain the upper hand on labor. And too often, the government has actually made it harder for new companies to break in and compete.
  • In the early 1900s, President Teddy Roosevelt saw an economy dominated by giants like Standard Oil and JP Morgan’s railroads. He took them on, and he won. And he gave the little guy a fighting chance.
    Decades later, during the Great Depression, his cousin Franklin Roosevelt saw a wave of corporate mergers that wiped out …scores of small businesses, crushing competition and innovation. So he ramped up antitrust enforcement eightfold in just two years, saving families billions in today’s dollars and helping to set the course for sustained economic growth after World War Two.
    He also called for an economic bill of rights, including, quote, "the right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies." End of quote.
    Between them, the two Roosevelts established an American tradition — an antitrust tradition. It is how we ensure that our economy isn’t about people working for capitalism; it’s about capitalism working for people.
    But, over time, we’ve lost the fundamental American idea that true capitalism depends on fair and open competition. Forty years ago, we chose the wrong path, in my view, following the misguided philosophy of people like Robert Bork, and pulled back on enforcing laws to promote competition.
    We’re now 40 years into the experiment of letting giant corporations accumulate more and more power. And where — what have we gotten from it? Less growth, weakened investment, fewer small businesses. Too many Americans who feel left behind. Too many people who are poorer than their parents.
    I believe the experiment failed. We have to get back to an economy that grows from the bottom up and the middle out.
    The executive order I’m soon going to be signing commits the federal government to full and aggressive enforcement of our antitrust laws. No more tolerance for abusive actions by monopolies. No more bad mergers that lead to mass layoffs, higher prices, fewer options for workers and consumers alike.

August 2021

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Address on the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan
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Video and transcript at Rev.com (31 August 2021) · CNBC coverage at YouTube (31 August 2021)
  • Last night in Kabul, the United States ended 20 years of war in Afghanistan. The longest war in American history. We completed one of the biggest air lifts in history with more than 120,000 people evacuated to safety. That number is more than double what most experts felt were possible. No nation, no nation has ever done anything like it in all of history, and only United States had the capacity and the will and ability to do it. And we did it today.
    The extraordinary success of this mission was due to the incredible skill, bravely and selfless courage of the United States military and our diplomats and intelligence professionals. For weeks, they risked their lives to get American citizens, Afghans who helped us, citizens of our allies and partners and others onboard planes and out of the country. And they did it facing a crush of enormous crowds seeking to leave the country.
    They did it knowing ISIS-K terrorists, sworn enemies of the Taliban, were lurking in the midst of those crowds. And still, the women and men of the United States military, our diplomatic corps and intelligence professionals did their job and did it well. Risking their lives, not for professional gains, but to serve others. Not in a mission of war, but in the mission of mercy.
    Twenty service members were wounded in the service of this mission, thirteen heroes gave their lives. I was just at Dover Air Force Base for the dignified transfer. We owe them and their families a debt of gratitude we can never repay, but we should never, ever, ever forget.
  • In April, I made a decision to end this war. As part of that decision, we set the date of August 31st for American troops to withdraw. The assumption was that more than 300,000 Afghan National Security Forces that we had trained over the past two decades and equipped would be a strong adversary in their civil wars with the Taliban.
    That assumption that the Afghan government would be able to hold on for a period of time beyond military draw down turned out not to be accurate. But, I still instructed our National Security Team to prepare for every eventuality, even that one, and that’s what we did.
    So we were ready, when the Afghan Security Forces, after two decades of fighting for their country and losing thousands of their own, did not hold on as long as anyone expected. We were ready when they and the people of Afghanistan watched their own government collapse and the president flee amid the corruption of malfeasance, handing over the country to their enemy, the Taliban, and significantly increasing the risk to us personnel and our allies.
    As a result, to safely extract American citizens before August 31st, as well as embassy personnel, allies, and partners, and those Afghans who had worked with us and fought alongside of us for 20 years, I had authorized 6,000 troops, American troops to Kabul to help secure the airport.
    As General McKenzie said, this is the way the mission was designed. It was designed to operate under severe stress and attack and that’s what it did. Since March, we reached out 19 times to Americans in Afghanistan with multiple warnings and offers to help them leave Afghanistan. All the way back as far as March.
    After we started the evacuation 17 days ago, we did initial outreach and analysis and identified around 5,000 Americans who had decided earlier to stay in Afghanistan but now wanted to leave. Our operation Allie Rescue ended up getting more than 5,500 Americans out.
  • The Taliban has made public commitments broadcast on television and radio across Afghanistan on safe passage for anyone wanting to leave, including those who worked alongside Americans. We don’t take them by their word alone, but by their actions. And we have leverage to make sure those commitments are met.
  • Let me be clear, leaving August the 31st is not due to an arbitrary deadline. It was designed to save American lives. My predecessor, the Former President, signed an agreement with the Taliban to remove US troops by May the first, just months after I was inaugurated. It included no requirement that the Taliban work out a cooperative governing arrangement with the Afghan government. But it did authorize the release of 5,000 prisoners last year, including some of the Taliban’s top war commanders among those who just took control of Afghanistan.
    By the time I came to office the Taliban was in its strongest military position since 2001, controlling or contesting nearly half of the country. The previous administration’s agreement said that if we stuck to the May 1st deadline that they had signed on to leave by, the Taliban wouldn’t attack any American forces. But if we stayed, all bets were off.
    So we were left with a simple decision, either through on the commitment made by the last administration and leave Afghanistan, or say we weren’t leaving and commit another tens of thousands more troops going back to war. That was the choice, the real choice between leaving or escalating. I was not going to extend this forever war and I was not extending a forever exit.
  • The decision to end the military lift operation at that Kabul airport was based on the unanimous recommendation of my civilian and military advisors. The Secretary of State, the Secretary of Defense, the Chairman of the Joint chiefs of Staff and all the Service chiefs and the commanders in the field, their recommendation was that the safest way to secure the passage of the remaining Americans and others out of the country was to continue with 6,000 troops on the ground in harm’s way in Kabul, but rather to get them out through non-military means.
    In the 17 days that we operated in Kabul, after the Taliban seized power, we engage in an around the clock effort to provide every American the opportunity to leave. Our State Department was working 24/7 contacting and talking, and in some cases walking Americans into the airport. Again, more than 5,500 Americans were airlifted out. And for those who remain, we will make arrangements to get them out if they so choose.
    As for the Afghans, we and our partners have airlifted 100,000 of them, no country in history has done more to airlift out the residents of another country than we have done. We will continue to work to help more people leave the country who are at risk. We’re far from done.
  • For now, I urge all Americans to join me in grateful prayer for our troops and diplomats and intelligence officers who carried out this mission of mercy in Kabul at a tremendous risk with such unparalleled results. An air-lift that evacuated tens of thousands. To a network of volunteers and veterans who helped identify those needing evacuation, guide them to the airport and provided them for their support along the way. We’re going to continue to need their help. We need your help and I’m looking forward to meeting with you. And to everyone who is now offering or who will offer to welcome Afghan allies to their homes around the world, including in America, we thank you.
  • I take responsibility for the decision. Now some say we should have started mass evacuation sooner and, "Couldn’t this have been done in a more orderly manner?" I respectfully disagree. Imagine if we’d begun evacuations in June or July, bringing in thousands of American troops and evacuated more than 120,000 people in the middle of a civil war. There still would have been a rush to the airport, a breakdown in confidence and control of the government, and it still would have been a very difficult and dangerous mission.
    The bottom line is there is no evacuation from the end of a war that you can run without the kinds of complexities, challenge and threats we faced. None. There are those who would say we should have stayed indefinitely, for years on end. They ask, "Why don’t we just keep doing what we were doing? Why do we have to change anything?" The fact is, everything had changed.
  • My predecessor had made a deal with the Taliban. When I came into office, we faced a deadline, May one. The Taliban onslaught was coming, we faced one of two choices. Follow the agreement of the previous administration, or extend to have more time for people to get out. Or send in thousands of more troops and escalate the war.
    To those asking for a third decade of war in Afghanistan I ask, "What is of vital national interest?" In my view, we only have one. To make sure Afghanistan can never be used again to launch an attack on our homeland. Remember why we went to Afghanistan in the first place, because we were attacked by Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda on September 11th, 2001, and they were based in Afghanistan.
    We delivered justice to bin Laden on May 2nd, 2011 over a decade ago. Al-Qaeda was decimated. I respectfully suggest you ask yourself this question, "If we’ve been attacked on September 11th, 2001 from Yemen, instead of Afghanistan, would we have ever gone to war in Afghanistan, even though the Taliban controlled Afghanistan in the year 2001?" I believe the honest answer is no. That’s because we had no vital interest in Afghanistan other than to prevent an attack on America’s homeland and our friends, and that’s true today.
  • We succeeded in what we set out to do in Afghanistan over a decade ago, then we stayed for another decade. It was time to end this war. This is a new world. The terror threat has metastasized across the world, well beyond Afghanistan. We face threats from al-Shabab in Somalia, al-Qaeda affiliates in Syria and the Arabian Peninsula, and ISIS attempting to create a caliphate in Syria and Iraq and establishing affiliates across Africa and Asia.
    The fundamental obligation of a president, in my opinion, is to defend and protect America. Not against threats of 2001, but against the threats of 2021 and tomorrow. That is the guiding principle behind my decisions about Afghanistan. I simply do not believe that the safety and security of America is enhanced by continuing to deploy thousands of American troops and spending billions of dollars a year in Afghanistan. But I also know that the threat from terrorism continues in its pernicious and evil nature. But it’s changed, expanded to other countries. Our strategy has to change too.
  • We will maintain the fight against terrorism in Afghanistan and other countries. We just don’t need to fight a ground war to do it. We have what’s called Over The Horizon capabilities, which means we can strike terrorists and targets without American boots on the ground, or very few if needed. We’ve shown that capacity just in the last week. We struck ISIS-K remotely, days after they murdered 13 of our service members and dozens of innocent Afghans. And to ISIS-K, we are not done with you yet.
  • As Commander in Chief I firmly believe the best path to guard our safety and our security lies in a tough, unforgiving, targeted, precise strategy that goes after terror where it is today, not where it was two decades ago. That’s what’s in our national interest.
    Here’s a critical thing to understand, the world is changing. We’re engaged in a serious competition with China. We’re dealing with the challenges on multiple fronts with Russia. We’re confronted with cyber attacks and nuclear proliferation. We have to shore up America’s competitiveness to meet these new challenges in the competition for the 21st century. We can do both, fight terrorism and take on new threats that are here now, and will continue to be here in the future. And there’s nothing China or Russia would rather have, would want more in this competition than the United States to be bogged down another decade in Afghanistan.
    As we turn the page on the foreign policy that has guided our nation in the last two decades, we’ve got to learn from our mistakes. To me there are two that are paramount. First, we must set missions with clear, achievable goals. Not ones we’ll never reach. And second, I want to stay clearly focused on the fundamental national security interest of the United States of America.
  • This decision about Afghanistan is not just about Afghanistan. It’s about ending an era of major military operations to remake other countries. We saw a mission of counter-terrorism in Afghanistan, getting the terrorist and stopping attacks, morph into a counterinsurgency, nation building, trying to create a democratic cohesive and United Afghanistan. Something that has never been done over many centuries of Afghan’s history.
    Moving on from that mindset and those kinds of large scale troop deployments will make us stronger and more effective and safer at home. And for anyone who gets the wrong idea, let me say clearly, to those who wish America harm, to those engage in terrorism against us our allies know this, the United States will never rest. We will not forgive, will not forget. We’ll hunt you down to the ends of the earth and you will pay the ultimate price.
  • Let me be clear, we’ll continue to support the Afghan people through diplomacy, international influence and humanitarian aid. We’ll continue to push for regional diplomacy engagement to prevent violence and instability. We’ll continue to speak out for the basic rights of the Afghan people, especially women and girls. As we speak out for women and girls all around the globe.
    And I’ve been clear that human rights will be the center of our foreign policy, but the way to do that is not through endless military deployments, but through diplomacy, economic tools and rallying the rest of the world for support.
  • My fellow Americans, the war in Afghanistan is now over. I’m the fourth president who has faced the issue of whether and when to end this war. When I was running for president, I made a commitment to the American people that I would end this war. Today, I’ve honored that commitment. It was time to be honest with the American people again.
    We no longer had a clear purpose and an open-ended mission in Afghanistan. After 20 years of war in Afghanistan, I refuse to send another generation of America’s sons and daughters to fight a war that should have ended long ago.
  • I refused to open another decade of warfare in Afghanistan.
    We’ve been a nation too long at war. If you’re 20 years old today, you’ve never known an America at peace. So when I hear that we could have, should have continued the so-called "low grade effort" in Afghanistan, at low risk to our service members, at low costs I don’t think enough people understand how much we’ve asked of the 1% of this country who put that uniform on. Willing to put their lives on the line in defense of our nation.
  • There is nothing low grade or low risk or low cost about any war. It’s time to end the war in Afghanistan. As we close 20 years of war and strife and pain and sacrifice, it’s time to look at the future, not the past. To a future that’s safer, to a future that’s more secure. To a future the honors those who served and all those who gave what President Lincoln called, "Their last full measure of devotion."
    I give you my word, with all of my heart, I believe this is the right decision, a wise decision and the best decision for America. Thank you. Thank you, and may God bless you all. And may God protect our troops.

September 2021

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  • I give you my word as a Biden: If you make under $400,000 a year, I’ll never raise your taxes one cent
  • But, I’m going to make those at the top start to pay their share in taxes
  • It’s only fair

October 2021

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  • We're going to get this done. It doesn't matter when. It doesn't matter whether it's in six minutes, six days, or six weeks.
    • 1 October 2021
  • At least 55 corporations in America didn't pay a single penny in federal income tax last year. That’s got to change—and my Build Back Better Agenda will get it done.
Remarks at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial
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Remarks by President Biden at the 10th Anniversary Celebration of the Dedication of the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Memorial (21 October 2021)
  • In our nation, we now face an inflection point in the battle, literally, for the soul of America. And it’s up to us, together, to choose who we want to be and what we want to be.
    I know — I know the progress does not come fast enough. It never has. And the process of governing is frustrating and sometimes dispiriting. But I also know what’s possible if we keep the pressure up, if we never give up, if we keep the faith.
  • In our time, it’s about recognizing that for much too long we’ve allowed a narrowed and cramped view of the promise of America — a view that America is a zero-sum game, particularly of the recent past. “If you succeed, I fail.” “If you get ahead, I fall behind.” And maybe worst of all, “If I can hold you down, I lift myself up.”
    Instead of what it should be — and it’s just self-evident — “If you do well, we all do well.” That’s keeping the promise of America.
  • I’ve never seen a time when working folks did well that the wealthy didn’t do very well.
    Look, it’s the core of our administration’s economic vision, and it’s a fundamental paradigm shift for this nation. For the first time in a couple generations, we’re going to be investing in working families — putting them first and helping them get ahead, rather than the wealthy and the biggest and most powerful people out there.
  • To make real the full promise of America, we have to protect that fundamental right: the right to vote — the sacred right to vote. You know, it’s democracy’s threshold of liberty. With it, anything is possible. Without it, nothing is.
    Today, the right to vote and the rule of law are under unrelenting assault from Republican governors, attorneys general, secretaries of state, state legislators. And they’re following my predecessor — the last President — into a deep, deep black hole and abyss.
  • Some state legislatures want to make it harder for you to vote. And if you do vote, they want to be able to tell you whether or not your vote counts. That’s not happened before.
    They want the ability to reject the final vote and ignore the will of the people if their preferred candidate — Black or white or Asian or Latino, doesn’t matter — if that — if their candidate doesn’t win.
    And they’re targeting not just voters of color, as I said, but every voter who doesn’t vote the way they want.
    I have to admit to you, having been as senator in my whole of 36-year career involved in — I worked with a lot of folks out here on civil rights issues — I thought, “Man, you can’t turn this back.” I bet you could defeat hate. What if we could actually defeat hate?
    But the most un-American thing that any of us can imagine — the most undemocratic and the most unpatriotic — and yet, sadly, not unprecedented. Time and again, we’ve witnessed threats to the right to vote in free and fair elections come to fruition. Each time, we fought back. And we’ve got to continue to fight back today.
  • The U.S. Department of Justice has doubled the voting rights enforcement staff.
    We got a long way to go though. It’s using authorities to challenge the onslaught of state laws undermining voting rights, whether in old or new ways.
    It’s something like 20 percent of the Re- — or half the Republicans — the registered Republicans: I am not your President; Donald Trump is still your President. As we Catholics say, "Oh, my God."
  • I know the moment we’re in; you know the moment we are in. I know the stakes; you know the stakes. This is far from over.
    And finally, we’re confronting the stains of what remains — the deep stain on the soul of the nation: hate and white supremacy [...] that hate never goes away. It never – I thought — in all of the years I’ve been involved, I thought once we got through it, it would go away. But it doesn’t; it only hides. It only hides until some seeming-legitimate person breathes some oxygen under the rocks where they’re hiding and gives it some breath.
  • I believe the American people — the vast majority — are with us. I think they see much more clearly what you’ve all been fighting for your whole lives now. It’s in stark relief.
    The bad news: We had a President who appealed to the prejudice. The good news is that he took the — he ripped the Band-Aid off, made it absolutely clear what’s at stake. And I think the American people will follow us.
    But guess what? Whether they will or not, we have no choice. We have to continue to fight.
    God bless you all. May God protect our troops.

November 2021

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UN Climate Conference in Scotland, UK
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When I talk to the American people about climate change, I tell them it’s about jobs. It’s about workers [and the] communities that will revitalize themselves around new industries and opportunities.
Excerpts from Remarks by President Biden at the COP26 Leaders Statement at whitehouse.gov (November 1, 2021)

December 2021

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2022

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January 2022

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Remarks to Mark One Year Since The January 6th Deadly Assault On The U.S. Capitol
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Remarks By President Biden To Mark One Year Since The January 6th Deadly Assault On The U.S. Capitol (6 January 2021) · CNN video
  • To state the obvious, one year ago today, in this sacred place, democracy was attacked — simply attacked. The will of the people was under assault. The Constitution — our Constitution — faced the gravest of threats.
    Outnumbered and in the face of a brutal attack, the Capitol Police, the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department, the National Guard, and other brave law enforcement officials saved the rule of law.
    Our democracy held. We the people endured. And we the people prevailed.
    For the first time in our history, a president had not just lost an election, he tried to prevent the peaceful transfer of power as a violent mob breached the Capitol.
    But they failed. They failed.
    And on this day of remembrance, we must make sure that such an attack never, never happens again.
  • We’ve all heard the police officers who were there that day testify to what happened. One officer called it, quote, a ... "medieval" battle, and that he was more afraid that day than he was fighting the war in Iraq.
    They’ve repeatedly asked since that day: How dare anyone — anyone — diminish, belittle, or deny the hell they were put through?
    We saw it with our own eyes. Rioters menaced these halls, threatening the life of the Speaker of the House, literally erecting gallows to hang the Vice President of the United States of America.
    But what did we not see?
    We didn’t see a former president, who had just rallied the mob to attack — sitting in the private dining room off the Oval Office in the White House, watching it all on television and doing nothing for hours as police were assaulted, lives at risk, and the nation’s capital under siege.
    This wasn’t a group of tourists. This was an armed insurrection.
    They weren’t looking to uphold the will of the people. They were looking to deny the will of the people.
    They ... weren’t looking to uphold a free and fair election. They were looking to overturn one.
    They weren’t looking to save the cause of America. They were looking to subvert the Constitution.
    This isn’t about being bogged down in the past. This is about making sure the past isn’t buried.
    That’s the only way forward. That’s what great nations do. They don’t bury the truth, they face up to it. Sounds like hyperbole, but that’s the truth: They face up to it.
    We are a great nation.

  • My fellow Americans, in life, there’s truth and, tragically, there are lies — lies conceived and spread for profit and power.
    We must be absolutely clear about what is true and what is a lie.
    And here is the truth: The former president of the United States of America has created and spread a web of lies about the 2020 election. He’s done so because he values power over principle, because he sees his own interests as more important than his country’s interests and America’s interests, and because his bruised ego matters more to him than our democracy or our Constitution.
    He can’t accept he lost, even though that’s what 93 United States senators, his own Attorney General, his own Vice President, governors and state officials in every battleground state have all said: He lost.
    That’s what 81 million of you did as you voted for a new way forward.
    He has done what no president in American history — the history of this country — has ever, ever done: He refused to accept the results of an election and the will of the American people.    

  • While some courageous men and women in the Republican Party are standing against it, trying to uphold the principles of that party, too many others are transforming that party into something else. They seem no longer to want to be the party — the party of Lincoln, Eisenhower, Reagan, the Bushes.
    But whatever my other disagreements are with Republicans who support the rule of law and not the rule of a single man, I will always seek to work together with them to find shared solutions where possible. Because if we have a shared belief in democracy, then anything is possible — anything.
    And so, at this moment, we must decide: What kind of nation are we going to be?
    Are we going to be a nation that accepts political violence as a norm?
    Are we going to be a nation where we allow partisan election officials to overturn the legally expressed will of the people?
    Are we going to be a nation that lives not by the light of the truth but in the shadow of lies?
    We cannot allow ourselves to be that kind of nation. The way forward is to recognize the truth and to live by it.

  • The Big Lie being told by the former president and many Republicans who fear his wrath is that the insurrection in this country actually took place on Election Day — November 3rd, 2020.
    Think about that. Is that what you thought? Is that what you thought when you voted that day? Taking part in an insurrection? Is that what you thought you were doing? Or did you think you were carrying out your highest duty as a citizen and voting?
    The former president and his supporters are trying to rewrite history. They want you to see Election Day as the day of insurrection and the riot that took place here on January 6th as the true expression of the will of the people.
    Can you think of a more twisted way to look at this country — to look at America? I cannot.
    Here’s the truth: The election of 2020 was the greatest demonstration of democracy in the history of this country.
    More of you voted in that election than have ever voted in all of American history. Over 150 million Americans went to the polls and voted that day in a pandemic — some at grea- — great risk to their lives. They should be applauded, not attacked.
    Right now, in state after state, new laws are being written — not to protect the vote, but to deny it; not only to suppress the vote, but to subvert it; not to strengthen or protect our democracy, but because the former president lost.
    Instead of looking at the election results from 2020 and saying they need new ideas or better ideas to win more votes, the former president and his supporters have decided the only way for them to win is to suppress your vote and subvert our elections.
    It’s wrong. It’s undemocratic. And frankly, it’s un-American.
  • You can’t love your country only when you win.
    You can’t obey the law only when it’s convenient.
    You can’t be patriotic when you embrace and enable lies.
    Those who stormed this Capitol and those who instigated and incited and those who called on them to do so held a dagger at the throat of America — at American democracy.
    They didn’t come here out of patriotism or principle. They came here in rage — not in service of America, but rather in service of one man.
    Those who incited the mob — the real plotters — who were desperate to deny the certification of the election and defy the will of the voters.
    But their plot was foiled. Congressmen — Democrats and Republicans — stayed. Senators, representatives, staff — they finished their work the Constitution demanded. They honored their oath to defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic.
    Look, folks, now it’s up to all of us — to “We the People” — to stand for the rule of law, to preserve the flame of democracy, to keep the promise of America alive.
    That promise is at risk, targeted by the forces that value brute strength over the sanctity of democracy, fear over hope, personal gain over public good.
    Make no mistake about it: We’re living at an inflection point in history.
    Both at home and abroad, we’re engaged anew in a struggle between democracy and autocracy, between the aspirations of the many and the greed of the few, between the people’s right of self-determination and ... the self-seeking autocrat.    

  • From China to Russia and beyond, they’re betting that democracy’s days are numbered. They’ve actually told me democracy is too slow, too bogged down by division to succeed in today’s rapidly changing, complicated world.
    And they’re betting — they’re betting America will become more like them and less like us. They’re betting that America is a place for the autocrat, the dictator, the strongman.
    I do not believe that. That is not who we are. That is not who we have ever been. And that is not who we should ever, ever be.
  • Our Founding Fathers, as imperfect as they were, set in motion an experiment that changed the world — literally changed the world.
    Here in America, the people would rule, power would be transferred peacefully — never at the tip of a spear or the barrel of a gun.
    And they committed to paper an idea that ... they couldn’t live up to but an idea that couldn’t be constrained: Yes, in America all people are created equal.
    We reject the view that if you succeed, I fail; if you get ahead, I fall behind; if I hold you down, I somehow lift myself up.
    The former President, who lies about this election, and the mob that attacked this Capitol could not be further away from the core American values.
    They want to rule or they will ruin — ruin what our country fought for at Lexington and Concord; at Gettysburg; at Omaha Beach; Seneca Falls; Selma, Alabama. What — and what we were fighting for: the right to vote, the right to govern ourselves, the right to determine our own destiny.
    And with rights come responsibilities: the responsibility to see each other as neighbors — maybe we disagree with that neighbor, but they’re not an adversary; the responsibility to accept defeat then get back in the arena and try again the next time to make your case; the responsibility to see that America is an idea — an idea that requires vigilant stewardship.
    As we stand here today — one year since January 6th, 2021 — the lies that drove the anger and madness we saw in this place, they have not abated.
    So, we have to be firm, resolute, and unyielding in our defense of the right to vote and to have that vote counted.
  • Don’t kid yourself: The pain and scars from that day run deep.
    I said it many times and it’s no more true or real than when we think about the events of January 6th: We are in a battle for the soul of America. A battle that, by the grace of God and the goodness and gracious — and greatness of this nation, we will win.
    Believe me, I know how difficult democracy is. And I’m crystal clear about the threats America faces. But I also know that our darkest days can lead to light and hope.

  • I did not seek this fight brought to this Capitol one year ago today, but I will not shrink from it either.
    I will stand in this breach. I will defend this nation. And I will allow no one to place a dagger at the throat of our democracy.
    We will make sure the will of the people is heard; that the ballot prevails, not violence; that authority in this nation will always be peacefully transferred.
    I believe the power of the presidency and the purpose is to unite this nation, not divide it; to lift us up, not tear us apart; to be about us — about us, not about “me.”
    Deep in the heart of America burns a flame lit almost 250 years ago — of liberty, freedom, and equality.
    This is not a land of kings or dictators or autocrats. We’re a nation of laws; of order, not chaos; of peace, not violence.
    Here in America, the people rule through the ballot, and their will prevails.
    So, let us remember: Together, we’re one nation, under God, indivisible; that today, tomorrow, and forever, at our best, we are the United States of America.
    God bless you all. May God protect our troops. And may God bless those who stand watch over our democracy.

February 2022

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"For too long, our government, our courts haven’t looked like America. . . . . [T]oday, I’m pleased to introduce [Ketanji Brown Jackson] to the American people [as a candidate for the Supreme Court]."
  • Joe Biden: "[…] If Germany — if, uh…if Russia invades, uh — that means: tanks or troops crossing the, uh…the, the border of Ukraine, uh, again — then, uh, there will be, uh — we — there will be no longer a Nord Stream 2. We, we will bring an end to it.
    Andrea Shalal: "What did, what — how will you — how will you do that? Exactly? Since the project, and control of the project, is within Germany's control?"
    Joe Biden: "We will, uh… I promise you, we'll be able to do it."
    • Press Conference at the White House East Room, 7 February 2022 [1][2][3][4]

March 2022

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State of the Union Address
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Tonight, we meet as Democrats Republicans and Independents. But most importantly as Americans.
With a duty to one another to the American people to the Constitution.
And with an unwavering resolve that freedom will always triumph over tyranny.
State of the Union (1 March 2022)
 
From President Zelenskyy to every Ukrainian, their fearlessness, their courage, their determination, inspires the world.
  • Last year COVID-19 kept us apart. This year we are finally together again.
    Tonight, we meet as Democrats Republicans and Independents. But most importantly as Americans.
    With a duty to one another to the American people to the Constitution.
    And with an unwavering resolve that freedom will always triumph over tyranny.
  • Six days ago, Russia’s Vladimir Putin sought to shake the foundations of the free world thinking he could make it bend to his menacing ways. But he badly miscalculated.
    He thought he could roll into Ukraine and the world would roll over. Instead he met a wall of strength he never imagined.
    He met the Ukrainian people.
    From President Zelenskyy to every Ukrainian, their fearlessness, their courage, their determination, inspires the world.
    Groups of citizens blocking tanks with their bodies. Everyone from students to retirees teachers turned soldiers defending their homeland.
Remarks to members of the 82nd Airborne Division in Poland
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You all decided to be here for your country. Every one of you volunteered. Every single one of you stepped up. And the rest of the 99 percent of the rest of the country, including me, owes you and owes you big ...
Remarks by President Biden During Visit with Service Members of the 82nd Airborne Division (25 March 2022)
 
Who is going to prevail? Are democracies going to prevail ... and the values we share? Or are autocracies going to prevail? And that’s really what’s at stake.
So what you’re doing is consequential — really consequential.
  • First of all, thank you. You represent 1 percent of the American people. None of you have to be here. You all decided to be here for your country. Every one of you volunteered. Every single one of you stepped up. And the rest of the 99 percent of the rest of the country, including me, owes you and owes you big, number one.
    Number two, you know, we’re a unique country in many ways. And we’re the only country — the only country in the world not based — organized based on geography or ethnicity or religion or race or anything else; we’re based on an idea. Literally the only country in the world based on an idea that we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all women and men are created equal, endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights.
    Sounds corny, but it’s the truth of who we are. We’ve never lived up to it, but we never walked away from it. And the rest of the world looks to us. Because, you know, we not only lead by the example of our power, but by the power of our example. And your generation combines both.
  • The rest of the world looks at you and sees who you are. They see you are a multi-ethnic group of Americans that are, in fact, together and united into one so — resolve: to defend your country and to help those who need help. That’s why you’re here.
  • The last 10 years, there have been fewer democracies that have been formed than we’ve lost in the world.
    So this is — what you’re engaged in is much more than just whether or not you can alleviate the pain and suffering of the people of Ukraine.
    We’re in a new phase — your generation. We’re at an inflection point. About every four or five generations, there comes along a change — a fundamental change takes place. The world ain’t going to be the same — not because of Ukraine, but — not going to be the same 10, 15 years from now in terms of our organizational structures.
    So the question is: Who is going to prevail? Are democracies going to prevail ... and the values we share? Or are autocracies going to prevail? And that’s really what’s at stake.
    So what you’re doing is consequential — really consequential.
  • The fact of the matter is that you are the finest — this is not hyperbole — you are the finest fighting force in the history of the world. Let me say it again: the finest fighting force in the history of the world.
  • I came for one simple, basic reason — not a joke: to say thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you for your service. Thank you for who you are. And thank you for what you’re doing.
    And as my grandfather would say every time I walked out of his house — he’d yell at me, “Joey” — in Scranton — he said, “Keep the faith.” And my grandmother — my grandmother would yell, all kidding aside — this is serious — she’d yell, “No, spread it.” You’re spreading the faith.
    Thank you, thank you, thank you. May God bless you all and keep you safe. May God protect our troops.
United Efforts of the Free World to Support the People of Ukraine
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Remarks by President Biden on the United Efforts of the Free World to Support the People of Ukraine (26 March 2022)
 
Time and again, history shows that it’s from the darkest moments that the greatest progress follows. And history shows this is the task of our time, the task of this generation. ... We will have a different future — a brighter future rooted in democracy and principle, hope and light, of decency and dignity, of freedom and possibilities.
  • Over the last 30 years, the forces of autocracy have revived all across the globe. Its hallmarks are familiar ones: contempt for the rule of law, contempt for democratic freedom, contempt for the truth itself.
  • Over the long term, as a matter of economic security and national security and for the survivability of the planet, we all need to move as quickly as possible to clean, renewable energy. And we’ll work together to help get that done so that the days of any nation being subject to the whims of a tyrant for its energy needs are over. They must end. They must end.
    And second, we have to fight the corruption coming from the Kremlin to give the Russian people a fair chance.
    And finally, and most urgently, we maintain absolute unity — we must — among the world’s democracies.
    It’s not enough to speak with rhetorical flourish, of ennobling words of democracy, of freedom, equality, and liberty. All of us, including here in Poland, must do the hard work of democracy each and every day. My country as well.
    That’s why — that’s why I came to Europe again this week with a clear and determined message for NATO, for the G7, for the European Union, for all freedom-loving nations: We must commit now to be in this fight for the long haul. We must remain unified today and tomorrow and the day after and for the years and decades to come.
    It will not be easy. There will be costs. But it’s a price we have to pay. Because the darkness that drives autocracy is ultimately no match for the flame of liberty that lights the souls of free people everywhere.
  • It's not enough to speak with rhetorical flourish, of ennobling words of democracy, of freedom, equality, and liberty. All of us, including here in Poland, must do the hard work of democracy each and every day. My country as well. That's why—[applause]. That's why I came to Europe again this week with a clear and determined message for NATO, for the G-7, for the European Union, for all freedom-loving nations: We must commit now to be in this fight for the long haul. We must remain unified today and tomorrow and the day after and for the years and decades to come. It will not be easy. There will be costs. But it's a price we have to pay. Because the darkness that drives autocracy is ultimately no match for the flame of liberty that lights the souls of free people everywhere.
  • Time and again, history shows that it's from the darkest moments that the greatest progress follows. And history shows, this is the task of our time, the task of this generation. Let's remember: The hammer blow that brought down the Berlin Wall, the might that lifted the Iron Curtain were not the words of a single leader, it was the people of Europe who, for decades, fought to free themselves.

April 2022

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Russia is the aggressor. No if, ands, or buts about it. Russia is the aggressor. And the world must and will hold Russia accountable.

May 2022

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  • This week, my administration released new information that contains that we’re on track to cut the federal deficit by another — another $1.5 trillion by the end of this fiscal year — the biggest decline in a single year ever in American history. And the biggest decline on top of us having a $350 billion drop in the deficit last year, my first year as President.
  • If the Court overturns Roe, it will fall on our nation’s elected officials at all levels of government to protect a woman’s right to choose. And it will fall on voters to elect pro-choice officials this November.
  • We must provide people who are incarcerated with meaningful opportunities for rehabilitation and the tools and support they need to transition successfully back to society.

    Individuals who have been involved in the criminal justice system face many barriers in transitioning back into society, including limited access to housing, public benefits, health care, trauma-informed services and support, education, nutrition, employment and occupational licensing, credit, the ballot, and other critical opportunities. Lowering barriers to reentry is essential to reducing recidivism and reducing crime. Finally, no one should be required to serve an excessive prison sentence.

    When the Congress passed the First Step Act of 2018 (Public Law 115-391), it sought to relieve people from unfair and unduly harsh sentences, including those driven by harsh mandatory minimums and the unjust sentencing disparity between crack and powder cocaine offenses. My Administration will fully implement the First Step Act, including by supporting sentencing reductions in appropriate cases and by allowing eligible incarcerated people to participate in recidivism reduction programming and earn time credits.

Remarks By President Biden on the Affordable Connectivity Program
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Remarks By President Biden on the Affordable Connectivity Program (May 9, 2022)
  • That old saying, “All that needs to be said has already been said, but I’m going to say it again.”
  • You know, the need for high-speed Internet is — is a little bit like what used to be probably what my grandfather talked about: needing to have a telephone. It’s pretty consequential. And it’s only going to keep growing, this need. High-speed Internet is not a luxury any longer, it’s a necessity.
  • [H]ere in the United States of America, how many times have you seen a mom or a dad drive up to a parking lot outside a McDonald’s and — just so they could get connected to the Internet so their kid could do their homework during the pandemic, literally? It’s just not right. It’s not who we are.
A Proclamation on National Immigrant Heritage Month, 2022
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A Proclamation on National Immigrant Heritage Month, 2022 (May 31, 2022)
  • Hate and fear are being given too much oxygen by those who pretend to love America but do not understand America.

    To confront the dangerous ideology of hate requires caring about all people — including our Nation’s immigrants. After all, the fundamental promise of America is that all of us are created equal and deserve to be treated equally throughout our lives. As a Nation, we have never fully lived up to that promise, but we have never walked away from it either.

  • The United States is a Nation of immigrants — shaped by the courageous people from around the world who leave their homes, lives, and loved ones to seek refuge and opportunity on our shores. Their sacrifices and entrepreneurial spirit have contributed to the rich tapestry that has defined the character of our country for generations. Since our founding, the very idea of America as a Nation of limitless possibilities has been nurtured and advanced by immigrants.
President Biden Delivers Remarks on Building a Better America
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President Biden Delivers Remarks on Building a Better America (May 6, 2022)
  • My dad used to say "A job’s about a lot more than a paycheck, it’s about your dignity, it’s about place in the community." What these guys do is they care about the dignity of the worker, and I see things are really beginning to change. I really believe it. And Senator Portman, since he's not running again, I can say all the nice things about him that I want.
  • ...[W]e reduced the deficit by a total of 350 billion dollars, that’s reduced the deficit, last year, and this year, by the end of the fiscal, by October 1st, We will of reduced this year’s deficit by 1 Trillion, 500 Billion dollars. Never in the history of America has that happened before.
  • I’m tired of trickle-down-economics, I’ve never seen it really work, but I tell you what, I’m a capitalist, I want to build this economy [from] the bottom up and the middle out, because when that happens everybody does well, the poor have a way up, the middle class do fine, and the wealthy do very very well. [They] never get hurt when that happens.
  • That’s no malarkey, That's a fact.
  • I’ve spent more time with Xi Jinping, [the] leader of China, than any other world leader has, over seventy six hours, nine of them on a telephone, the rest in person.
  • We’re making "Buy America" a reality, not just a slogan.
  • Decades ago, the federal government used to invest two percent of our entire GDP in research and development, we’re down to investing less than one percent [of our GDP in research and development]. We were ranked number one in the world in [terms of research and development], [thirty years] ago, now were ranked number nine. China was [ranked] number eight thirty years, now they’re [ranked second], we [got to] up our game. It's a simple proposition, if we do better, everybody's [going to] win.
Remarks Honoring the Lives Lost in Buffalo, New York, and Calling on All Americans to Condemn White Supremacy
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Remarks by President Biden and First Lady Biden Honoring the Lives Lost in Buffalo, New York, and Calling on All Americans to Condemn White Supremacy (17 May 2022)
  • What happened here is simple and straightforward: terrorism. Terrorism. Domestic terrorism.

    Violence inflicted in the service of hate and a vicious thirst for power that defines one group of people being inherently inferior to any other group.

    A hate that through the media and politics, the Internet, has radicalized angry, alienated, lost, and isolated individuals into falsely believing that they will be replaced — that’s the word, “replaced” — by the “other” — by people who don’t look like them and who are therefore, in a perverse ideology that they possess and being fed, lesser beings. I and all of you reject the lie. I call on all Americans to reject the lie. And I condemn those who spread the lie for power, political gain, and for profit

  • We have now seen too many times the deadly and destructive violence this ideology unleashes. We heard the chants, “You will not replace us,” in Charlottesville, Virginia. I wasn’t going to run, as the Senator knows, again for President. But when I saw those people coming out of the woods — of the fields of — in Virginia, in Charlottesville, carrying torches, shouting “You will not replace us,” accompanied by white supremacists and carrying Nazi banners — that’s when I said, “No.” “No.”
  • Silence is complicity. It’s complicity. We cannot remain silent.

    Our nation’s strength has always come from the idea — it’s going to sound corny, but think about it: What’s the idea of our nation? That we’re all children of God. All life, liberty, our universal goods — gifts of God. We didn’t get it from the government, we got it because we exist, and we’re called upon to defend them.

    The venom of the haters and their weapons of war, the violence in the words and deeds that — that stalk our streets, our stores, our schools — this venom, this violence cannot be the story of our time. We cannot allow that to happen.

  • Look, I’m not naïve. I know tragedy will come again. It cannot be forever overcome. It cannot be fully understood either. But there are certain things we can do. We can keep assault weapons off our streets. We’ve done it before. I did it when we passed the crime bill last time. And violence went down, shootings went down. You can’t prevent people from being radicalized to violence, but we can address the relentless exploitation of the Internet to recruit and mobilize terrorism. We just need to have the courage to do that, to stand up.
  • The American experiment in democracy is in a danger like it hasn’t been in my lifetime. It’s in danger this hour. Hate and fear are being given too much oxygen by those who pretend to love America but who don’t understand America. To confront the ideology of hate requires caring about all people, not making distinctions. Reverend, the Scripture is seeing that we’re all part of the Divine. “Love thy neighbor as thyself.” That’s the America I know, that Jill knows. And most deserve the most — we — look, we are the most multiracial, most dynamic nation in the history of the world. Now is the time for the people of all races, from every background, to speak up as a majority in America and reject white supremacy. These actions we’ve seen in these hate-filled attacks represent the views of a hate-filled minority. We can’t allow them to distort America — the real America. We can’t allow them to destroy the soul of the nation.
Remarks on the School Shooting in Uvalde, Texas (24 May 2022)
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Remarks on the School Shooting in Uvalde, Texas (24 May 2022)
  • As a nation, we have to ask: When in God’s name are we going to stand up to the gun lobby? When in God’s name will we do what we all know in our gut needs to be done?
  • I had hoped, when I became President, I would not have to do this again. Another massacre. Uvalde, Texas. An elementary school. Beautiful, innocent second, third, fourth graders. And how many scores of little children who witnessed what happened see their friends die as if they’re on a battlefield, for God’s sake. They’ll live with it the rest of their lives. There’s a lot we don’t know yet, but there’s a lot we do know.

    There are parents who will never see their child again, never have them jump in bed and cuddle with them. Parents who will never be the same.

    To lose a child is like having a piece of your soul ripped away. There’s a hollowness in your chest, and you feel like you’re being sucked into it and never going to be able to get out. It’s suffocating. And it’s never quite the same.

  • I spent my career as a senator and as Vice President working to pass commonsense gun laws. We can’t and won’t prevent every tragedy. But we know they work and have a positive impact. When we passed the assault weapons ban, mass shootings went down. When the law expired, mass shootings tripled.

    The idea that an 18-year-old kid can walk into a gun store and buy two assault weapons is just wrong. What in God’s name do you need an assault weapon for except to kill someone? Deer aren’t running through the forest with Kevlar vests on, for God’s sake. It’s just sick. And the gun manufacturers have spent two decades aggressively marketing assault weapons which make them the most and largest profit.

    For God’s sake, we have to have the courage to stand up to the industry.

  • Most Americans support commonsense laws — commonsense gun laws. I just got off my trip from Asia, meeting with Asian leaders, and I learned of this while I was on the aircraft. And what struck me on that 17-hour flight — what struck me was these kinds of mass shootings rarely happen anywhere else in the world. Why?

    They have mental health problems. They have domestic disputes in other countries. They have people who are lost. But these kinds of mass shootings never happen with the kind of frequency that they happen in America. Why? Why are we willing to live with this carnage? Why do we keep letting this happen? Where in God's name is our backbone — to have the courage to deal with it and stand up to the lobbies?

    It's time to turn this pain into action. For every parent, for every citizen in this country, we have to make it clear to every elected official in this country: It's time to act. It's time — for those who obstruct or delay or block the commonsense gun laws, we need to let you know that we will not forget. We can do so much more. We have to do more.

June 2022

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A Proclamation on Flag Day And National Flag Week
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A Proclamation on Flag Day And National Flag Week, 2022 (June 10, 2022)
  • Our flag belongs to all Americans, and its red, white, and blue colors are woven into a rich tapestry of different cultures, backgrounds, and beliefs which connects us and honors our shared history.

    Old Glory has flown around the world in times of war and in times of peace.

    It has traveled to the Moon and to Mars. It has sailed on ships and flown on planes. It waves high above the White House, courthouses, post offices, schools, and homes across the Nation, and also above our embassies and military bases overseas — an enduring beacon of democracy.

  • Every day, the American Flag instills pride — reminding us of the ideals upon which our Nation was founded and the values for which we stand.

    As we pledge our allegiance to the Star-Spangled Banner, and the legacy it holds in our history, let us continue the work of perfecting our Union so that, together, we can deliver the promise of America for all Americans.

Remarks by President Biden at the Inaugural Ceremony of the Ninth Summit of the Americas
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Remarks by President Biden at the Inaugural Ceremony of the Ninth Summit of the Americas (June 8, 2022)
  • As we meet again today, in a moment when democracy is under assault around the world, let us unite again and renew our conviction that democracy is not only the defining feature of American histories, but the essential ingredient to Americas’ futures.
  • And no longer is this a question of what will we do — what will the United States do for the Americas. The question is what we accomplish by working together as true partners with diverse capabilities but equal and mutual respect, recognizing both our individual sovereignty and our shared responsibilities.
  • [W]hen we invest in strengthening workers and the middle class, the poor have a ladder up, and those at the top do just fine. That’s how we can increase opportunity and decrease persistent inequity.
  • We need to break the cycle where marginalized communities are hit the hardest by disasters and have the fewest resources to recover from crises and prepare for the next one.
  • When I hear “climate,” I think jobs — good-paying, high-quality jobs that will help speed our transition to a green economy of the future and unleash sustainable growth; jobs in developing and deploying clean energy; jobs in decarbonizing the economy; jobs in protecting biodiversity of our hemisphere; jobs that will provide dignity of being able to feed your family, give your children a better life, and envision a future of possibilities.
  • That’s what this is all about: responding to basic human desires that we share for dignity, for safety, and for security. And when those basics are absent in one place, that’s when people make the desperate decision to seek them elsewhere.
  • People everywhere expect their government to help give them just a little bit of breathing room, provide opportunities for work that pays a decent wage, educate children so they can rise as high as their talents can take them, make communities more secure so families feel safe in their homes and individuals know their rights will be respected. That means directing investment to help governments deliver on those responsibilities, including modernize — modernizing multilateral development banks to better address the challenges of today and of the future.
Statement by President Joe Biden on the 101st Anniversary of the Tulsa Race Massacre
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Statement by President Joe Biden on the 101st Anniversary of the Tulsa Race Massacre (June 1, 2022)
  • We cannot bury pain and trauma forever. As I said in Tulsa, great nations do not hide from their histories. We are a great nation, and by reckoning with and remedying the injustices of the past, America will become greater still.
  • Today, we remember the hell that was unleashed that night. This was not a riot, it was a massacre.

    As many as 300 Black Americans were killed, and nearly 10,000 were left destitute. Homes, businesses, and churches were burned. A generation of Black wealth was extinguished. In the years that followed, even as Greenwood worked to rebuild, discrimination was systematically embedded in our laws and policies, locking Black residents out of opportunity and ensuring that the attack on Black families and Black wealth persisted across generations.

Remarks by President Biden During Virtual Meeting on Accelerating Infant Formula Production Through Operation Fly Formula
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Remarks by President Biden During Virtual Meeting on Accelerating Infant Formula Production Through Operation Fly Formula (June 1, 2022)
  • Look, as a father and a grandfather — and I’m sure we all feel the same way — I understand how difficult this shortage has been for families all across the country. There is nothing more stressful than the feeling like you can’t get what your child needs — what he or she needs.
  • Without Operation Fly Formula, we would have taken three weeks to get this product to the United States. Because of our actions, it took three days. And it’s heeded the request that people had, and it’s headed to American shelves.
President Biden Statement on the UN-Mediated Truce Extension in Yemen
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The last two months in Yemen, thanks to the truce brokered in April, have been among the most peaceful periods since this terrible war began seven years ago. Thousands of lives have been saved as fighting receded. For the first time in seven years, Yemenis are able to fly from Sana’a to destinations outside Yemen. – President Biden Statement on the UN-Mediated Truce Extension in Yemen (June 2, 2022)
President Biden Statement on the UN-Mediated Truce Extension in Yemen (June 2, 2022)
  • The last two months in Yemen, thanks to the truce brokered in April, have been among the most peaceful periods since this terrible war began seven years ago. Thousands of lives have been saved as fighting receded. For the first time in seven years, Yemenis are able to fly from Sana’a to destinations outside Yemen.
Remarks on Gun Violence in America
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On Memorial Day this past Monday, Jill and I visited Arlington National Cemetery.
As we entered those hallowed grounds, we saw rows and rows of crosses among the rows of headstones, with other emblems of belief, honoring those who paid the ultimate price on battlefields around the world. – Remarks on Gun Violence in America (June 2, 2022)
Remarks by President Biden on Gun Violence in America (June 2, 2022) · C-SPAN video
 
The day before, we visited Uvalde — Uvalde, Texas. In front of Robb Elementary School, we stood before 21 crosses for 19 third and fourth graders and two teachers.
 
I couldn’t help but think there are too many other schools, too many other everyday places that have become killing fields, battlefields here in America.


  • On Memorial Day this past Monday, Jill and I visited Arlington National Cemetery. As we entered those hallowed grounds, we saw rows and rows of crosses among the rows of headstones, with other emblems of belief, honoring those who paid the ultimate price on battlefields around the world.

    The day before, we visited Uvalde — Uvalde, Texas. In front of Robb Elementary School, we stood before 21 crosses for 19 third and fourth graders and two teachers. On each cross, a name. And nearby, a photo of each victim that Jill and I reached out to touch. Innocent victims, murdered in a classroom that had been turned into a killing field.

    Standing there in that small town, like so many other communities across America, I couldn’t help but think there are too many other schools, too many other everyday places that have become killing fields, battlefields here in America. We stood at such a place just 12 days before, across from a grocery store in Buffalo, New York, memorializing 10 fellow Americans — a spouse, a parent, a grandparent, a sibling — gone forever.

    At both places, we spent hours with hundreds of family members who were broken and whose lives will never be the same. And they had one message for all of us: Do something. Just do something. For God’s sake, do something.

  • After Columbine, after Sandy Hook, after Charleston, after Orlando, after Las Vegas, after Parkland, nothing has been done.
    This time, that can’t be true. This time, we must actually do something.
    The issue we face is one of conscience and common sense.
  • For so many of you at home, I want to be very clear: This is not about taking away anyone’s guns. It’s ... not about vilifying ... gun owners. In fact, we believe we should be treating responsible gun owners as an example of how every gun owner should behave. I respect the culture and the tradition and the concerns of lawful gun owners.
    At the same time, the Second Amendment, like all other rights, is not absolute. ... It was Justice Scalia who wrote, and I quote, “Like most rights, the right...” — Second Amendment — the rights granted by the Second Amendment are “not unlimited.” Not unlimited. It never has been.
    There have always been limitations on what weapons you can own in America. For example, machine guns have been federally regulated for nearly 90 years. And this is still a free country.
    This isn’t about taking away anyone’s rights. It’s about protecting children. It’s about protecting families. It’s about protecting whole communities. It’s about protecting our freedoms to go to school, to a grocery store, and to a church without being shot and killed.
  • According to new data just released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, guns are the number one killer of children in the United States of America. The number one killer. More than car accidents. More than cancer.
    Over the last two decades, more school-aged children have died from guns than on-duty police officers and active-duty military combined. Think about that: more kids than on-duty cops killed by guns, more kids than soldiers killed by guns.
    For God’s sake, how much more
    are we willing to accept? How many more innocent American lives must be taken before we say “enough”? Enough.
  • I know that we can’t prevent every tragedy. But here’s what I believe we have to do. Here’s what the overwhelming majority of the American people believe we must do. Here’s what the families in Buffalo and Uvalde, in Texas, told us we must do.
    We need to ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. And if we can’t ban assault weapons, then we should raise the age to purchase them from 18 to 21. Strengthen background checks. Enact safe storage laws and red-flag laws. Repeal the immunity that protects gun manufacturers from liability. Address the mental health crisis deepening the trauma of gun violence and as a consequence of that violence.
    These are rational, commonsense measures. And here’s what it all means. It all means this: We should reinstate the assault weapons ban and high-capacity magazines that we passed in 1994 with bipartisan support in Congress and the support of law enforcement. Nine categories of semi-automatic weapons were included in that ban, like AK-47s and AR-15s.
    And in the 10 years it was law, mass shootings went down. But after Republicans let the law expire in 2004 and those weapons were allowed to be sold again, mass shootings tripled. Those are the facts.
  • A few years ago, the family of the inventor of the AR-15 said he would have been horrified to know that its design was being used to slaughter children and other innocent lives instead of being used as a military weapon on the battlefields, as it was designed — that’s what it was designed for.
    Enough. Enough.
  • Stronger background checks are something that the vast majority of Americans, including the majority of gun owners, agree on.
    I also believe we should have safe storage laws and personal liability for not locking up your gun.
    The shooter in Sandy Hook came from a home full of guns that were too easy to access. That’s how he got the weapons — the weapon he used to kill his mother and then murder 26 people, including 20 first graders.
  • We should also have national red-flag laws so that a parent, a teacher, a counselor can flag for a court that a child, a student, a patient is exhibiting violent tendencies, threatening classmates, or experiencing suicidal thoughts that makes them a danger to themselves or to others.
  • In Uvalde, the shooter was 17 when he asked his sister to buy him an assault weapon, knowing he’d be denied because he was too young to purchase one himself. She refused.
    But as soon as he turned 18, he purchased two assault weapons for himself. Because in Texas, you can be 18 years old and buy an assault weapon even though you can’t buy a pistol in Texas until you’re 21.
    If we can’t ban assault weapons, as we should, we must at least raise the age to be able to purchase one to 21.
  • Look, I know some folks will say, “18-year-olds can serve in the military and fire those weapons.” But that’s with training and supervision by the best-trained experts in the world. Don’t tell me raising the age won’t make a difference.
    Enough.
  • We should repeal the liability shield that often protects gun manufacturers from being sued for the death and destruction caused by their weapons. They’re the only industry in this country that has that kind of immunity.
    Imagine — imagine if the tobacco industry had been immune from being sued — where we’d be today. The gun industry’s special protections are outrageous. It must end.
  • And let there be no mistake about the psychological trauma that gun violence leaves behind.
    Imagine being that little girl — that brave little girl in Uvalde who smeared the blood off her murdered friend’s body onto her own face to lie still among the corpses in her classroom and pretend she was dead in order to stay alive. Imagine — imagine what it would it be like for her to walk down the hallway of any school again.
    Imagine what it’s like for children who experience this kind of trauma every day in school, in the streets, in communities all across America.
    Imagine what it is like for so many parents to hug their children goodbye in the morning, not sure whether they’ll come back home.
    Unfortunately, too many people don’t have to imagine that at all.
  • Even before the pandemic, young people were already hurting. There’s a serious youth mental health crisis in this country, and we have to do something about it.
    That’s why mental health is at the heart of my Unity Agenda that I laid out in the State of the Union Address this year.
    We must provide more school counselors, more school nurses, more mental health services for students and for teachers, more people volunteering as mentors to help young people succeed, more privacy protection and resources to keep kids safe from the harms of social media.
    This Unity Agenda won’t fully heal the wounded souls, but it will help. It matters.
  • I just told you what I’d do. The question now is: What will the Congress do?
    The House of Representatives has already passed key measures we need. Expanding background checks to cover nearly all gun sales, including at gun shows and online sales. Getting rid of the loophole that allows a gun sale to go through after three business days even if the background check has not been completed.
    And the House is planning even more action next week. Safe storage requirements. The banning of high-capacity magazines. Raising the age to buy an assault weapon to 21. Federal red-flag law. Codifying my ban on ghost guns that don’t have serial numbers and can’t be traced. And tougher laws to prevent gun trafficking and straw purchases.
    This time, we have to take the time to do something. And this time, it’s time for the Senate to do something.
    But, as we know, in order to do any- — get anything done in the Senate, we need a minimum of 10 Republican senators.
    I support the bipartisan efforts that include a small group of Democrats and Republican senators trying to find a way. But my God, the fact that the majority of the Senate Republicans don’t want any of these proposals even to be debated or come up for a vote, I find unconscionable.
    We can’t fail the American people again.
  • Since Uvalde, just over a week ago, there have been 20 other mass shootings in America, each with four or more people killed or injured, including yesterday at a hospital in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
    A shooter deliberately targeted a surgeon using an assault weapon he bought just a few hours before his rampage that left the surgeon, another doctor, a receptionist, and a patient dead, and many more injured.
    That doesn’t count the carnage we see every single day that doesn’t make the headlines.
  • I’ve been in this fight for a long time. I know how hard it is, but I’ll never give up. And if Congress fails, I believe this time a majority of the American people won’t give up either. I believe the majority of you will act to turn your outrage into making this issue central to your vote.
    Enough. Enough. Enough.
  • Over the next 17 days, the families in Uvalde will continue burying their dead.
    It will take that long in part because it’s a town where everyone knows everyone, and day by day they will honor each one they lost.
    Jill and I met with the owner and staff of the funeral home that is being strong — strong, strong, strong — to take care of their own.
    And the people of Uvalde mourn. As they do over the next 17 days, what will we be doing as a nation?
  • Jill and I met with the sister of the teacher who was murdered and whose husband died of a heart attack two days later, leaving behind four beautiful, orphaned children — and all now orphaned.
    The sister asked us: What could she say? What could she tell her nieces and nephews?
    It was one of the most heartbreaking moments that I can remember. All I could think to say was — I told her to hold them tight. Hold them tight.
  • After visiting the school, we attended mass at Sacred Heart Catholic Church with Father Eddie.
    In the pews, families and friends held each other tightly. As Archbishop Gustavo spoke, he asked the children in attendance to come up on the altar and sit on the altar with him as he spoke.
    There wasn’t enough room, so a mom and her young son sat next to Jill and me in the first pew. And as we left the church, a grandmother who had just lost her granddaughter passed me a handwritten letter.
    It read, quote, “Erase the invisible line that is dividing our nation. Come up with a solution and fix what’s broken and make the changes that are necessary to prevent this from happening again.” End of quote.
    My fellow Americans, enough. Enough. It’s time for each of us to do our part. It’s time to act.
    For the children we’ve lost, for the children we can save, for the nation we love, let’s hear the call and the cry. Let’s meet the moment. Let us finally do something.
  • God bless the families who are hurting. God bless you all.
    From a hymn based on the 91st Psalm sung in my church:
May He raise you up on eagle’s wings
and bear you on the breath of dawn
make you to shine like the sun
and hold you in the palm of His hand.
That’s my prayer for all of you. God bless you.
Remarks on the Supreme Court Decision to Overturn Roe v. Wade (24 June 2022)
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Remarks by President Biden on the Supreme Court Decision to Overturn Roe v. Wade (24 June 2022) · "Biden's reaction to Roe v. Wade ruling", CNN (24 June 2022)
 
I call on everyone, no matter how deeply they care about this decision, to keep all protests peaceful.
  • Fifty years ago, Roe v. Wade was decided and has been the law of the land since then.
    This landmark case protected a woman’s right to choose, her right to make intensely personal decisions with her doctor, free from … interference of politics.
    It reaffirmed basic principles of equality — that women have the power to control their own destiny. And it reinforced the fundamental right of privacy — the right of each of us to choose how to live our lives.
    Now, with Roe gone, let’s be very clear: The health and life of women in this nation are now at risk.
  • I believe Roe v. Wade was the correct decision as a matter of constitutional law, an application of the fundamental right to privacy and liberty in matters of family and personal autonomy.
    It was a decision on a complex matter that drew a careful balance between a woman’s right to choose earlier in her pregnancy and the state’s ability to regulate later in her pregnancy. A decision with broad national consensus that most Americans of faiths and backgrounds found acceptable and that had been the law of the land for most of the lifetime of Americans today.
    And it was a constitutional principle upheld by justices appointed by Democrat and Republican Presidents alike.
  • Roe v. Wade was a 7 to 2 decision written by a justice appointed by a Republican President, Richard Nixon. In the five decades that followed Roe v. Wade, justices appointed by Republican Presidents — from Eisenhower, Nixon, Reagan, George W. [H.W.] Bush — were among the justices who voted to uphold the principles set forth in Roe v. Wade.
    It was three justices named by one President — Donald Trump — who were the core of today’s decision to upend the scales of justice and eliminate a fundamental right for women in this country.
    Make no mistake: This decision is the culmination of a deliberate effort over decades to upset the balance of our law. It’s a realization of an extreme ideology and a tragic error by the Supreme Court, in my view.
  • The Court has done what it has never done before: expressly take away a constitutional right that is so fundamental to so many Americans that had already been recognized.The Court’s decision to do so will have real and immediate consequences. State laws banning abortion are automatically taking effect today, jeopardizing the health of millions of women, some without exceptions.
  • This a sad day for the country, in my view, but it doesn’t mean the fight is over. Let me be very clear and unambiguous: The only way we can secure a woman’s right to choose and the balance that existed is for Congress to restore the protections of Roe v. Wade as federal law. No executive action from the President can do that. And if Congress, as it appears, lacks the vote — votes to do that now, voters need to make their voices heard.This fall, we must elect more senators and representatives who will codify a woman’s right to choose into federal law once again, elect more state leaders to protect this right at the local level. We need to restore the protections of Roe as law of the land. We need to elect officials who will do that.This fall, Roe is on the ballot. Personal freedoms are on the ballot. The right to privacy, liberty, equality, they’re all on the ballot. Until then, I will do all in my power to protect a woman’s right in states where they will face the consequences of today’s decision.
  • While the Court’s decision casts a dark shadow over a large swath of the land, many states in this country still recognize a woman’s right to choose. So if a woman lives in a state that restricts abortion, the Supreme Court’s decision does not prevent her from traveling from her home state to the state that allows it. It does not prevent a doctor in that state — in that state from treating her. As the Attorney General has made clear, women must remain free to travel safely to another state to seek the care they need. And my administration will defend that bedrock right. If any state or local official, high or low, tries to interfere with a woman’s ex- — exercising her basic right to travel, I will do everything in my power to fight that deeply un-American attack.
  • My administration will also protect a woman’s access to medications that are approved by the Food and Drug Administration — the FDA — like contraception, which is essential for preventative healthcare; mifepristone, which the FDA approved 20 years ago to safely end early pregnancies and is commonly used to treat miscarriages.Some states are saying that they’ll try to ban or severely restrict access to these medications. But extremist governors and state legislators who are looking to block the mail or search a person’s medicine cabinet or control a woman’s actions by tracking data on her apps she uses are wrong and extreme and out of touch with the majority of Americans.
  • I’ve warned about how this decision risks the broader right to privacy for everyone. That’s because Roe recognized the fundamental right to privacy that has served as the basis for so many more rights that we have come to take — we’ve come to take for granted that are ingrained in the fabric of this country: the right to make the best decisions for your health; the right to use birth control — a married couple — in the privacy of their bedroom, for God’s sake; the right to marry the person you love. Now, Justice Thomas said as much today. He explicitly called to reconsider the right of marriage equality, the right of couples to make their choices on contraception. This is an extreme and dangerous path the Court is now taking us on.
  • Let me close with two points. First, I call on everyone, no matter how deeply they care about this decision, to keep all protests peaceful. Peaceful, peaceful, peaceful. No intimidation. Violence is never acceptable. Threats and intimidation are not speech. We must stand against violence in any form regardless of your rationale. Second, I know so many of us are frustrated and disillusioned that the Court has taken something away that’s so fundamental. I know so many women are now going to face incredibly difficult situations. I hear you. I support you. I stand with you. The consequences and the consensus of the American people — core principles of equality, liberty, dignity, and the stability of the rule of law — demand that Roe should not have been overturned. With this decision, the conservative majority of the Supreme Court shows how extreme it is, how far removed they are from the majority of this country. They have made the United States an outlier among developed nations in the world. But this decision must not be the final word. My administration will use all of its appropriate lawful powers. But Congress must act. And with your vote, you can act. You can have the final word. This is not over.
Remarks at Signing of S.2938, the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act (25 June 2022)
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"Remarks at Signing of S.2938, the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act" (25 June 2022)
  • While this bill doesn’t do everything I want, it does include actions I’ve long called for that are going to save lives. It funds crisis intervention, including red-flag laws. It keeps guns out of the hands of people who are a danger to themselves and to others. And it finally closes what is known as the “boyfriend loophole.” So if you assault your boyfriend or girlfriend, you can’t buy a gun or own a gun.
    It requires young people ages 18 to 21 to undergo enhanced background checks. It includes the first-ever federal law that makes gun trafficking and straw purchases distinct federal crimes for the first time. It clarifies who needs to register as a federally licensed gun dealer, and run background checks before selling a single weapon.
    You know, this is — also provides historic funding to address the youth mental health crisis in this country, especially — especially the trauma experienced by the survivors of this gun violence.
  • When it seems impossible to get anything done in Washington, we are doing something consequential. If we can reach compromise on guns, we ought to be able to reach compromise in other critical issues, from veterans’ healthcare to cutting-edge American innovation, and so much more.
    I know there’s much more work to do, and I’m never going to give up. But this is a monumental day. God bless us with the strength to continue to work to get the work that’s left undone done, and the lives lost that can’t be saved that obviously are gone but will be an inspiration for us to do more.

July 2022

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  • Congress must act to codify Roe and the filibuster should not stand in the way. But right now, we don’t have the votes to change the filibuster. That means we need to elect more Democratic senators and reelect our House majority in November to get this bill to my desk.
  • It is noteworthy that the percentage of women who register to vote and cast a ballot is consistently higher than the percentage of men who do so. End of quote. Repeat the line. Women are not without electoral and/or political or lemme be precise, not and/or: OR political power. That's another saying that you the women of America can determine the outcome .. of this issue.

August 2022

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Remarks on a Successful Counterterrorism Operation in Afghanistan
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Remarks by President Biden on a Successful Counterterrorism Operation in Afghanistan (1 August 2022)
  • You know, al-Zawahiri was bin Laden’s leader. He was with him all the — the whole time. He was his number-two man, his deputy at the time of the terrorist attack of 9/11. He was deeply involved in the planning of 9/11, one of the most responsible for the attacks that murdered 2,977 people on American soil.
    For decades, he was a mastermind behind attacks against Americans, including the bombing of the USS Cole in 2000, which killed 17 American sailors and wounded dozens more.
    He played a key role — a key role in the bombing of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, killing 224 and wounding over 4,500 others.
    He carved a trail of murder and violence against American citizens, American service members, American diplomats, and American interests. And since the United States delivered justice to bin Laden 11 years ago, Zawahiri has been a leader of al Qaeda — the leader.
    From hiding, he coordinated al Qaeda’s branches and all around the world — including setting priorities, for providing operational guidance that called for and inspired attacks against U.S. targets.
    He made videos, including in recent weeks, calling for his followers to attack the United States and our allies.
    Now justice has been delivered, and this terrorist leader is no more.
  • People around the world no longer need to fear the vicious and determined killer.  The United States continues to demonstrate our resolve and our capacity to defend the American people against those who seek to do us harm. … we make it clear again tonight that no matter how long it takes, no matter where you hide, if you are a threat to our people, the United States will find you and take you out.
  • After relentlessly seeking Zawahiri for years under Presidents Bush, Obama, and Trump, our intelligence community located Zawahiri earlier this year. He had moved to downtown Kabul to reunite with members of his immediate family.
    After carefully considering the clear and convincing evidence of his location, I authorized a precision strike that would remove him from the battlefield once and for all.
    This mission was carefully planned and rigorously minimized the risk of harm to other civilians.  And one week ago, after being advised that the conditions were optimal, I gave the final approval to go get him, and the mission was a success.  None of his family members were hurt, and there were no civilian casualties.
  • When I ended our military mission in Afghanistan almost a year ago, I made the decision that after 20 years of war, the United States no longer needed thousands of boots on the ground in Afghanistan to protect America from terrorists who seek to do us harm.
    And I made a promise to the American people that we’d continue to conduct effective counterterrorism operations in Afghanistan and beyond.
    We’ve done just that.
  • My administration will continue to vigilantly monitor and address threats from al Qaeda, no matter where they emanate from.
    As Commander-in-Chief, it is my solemn responsibility to make America safe in a dangerous world. The United States did not seek this war against terror. It came to us, and we answered with the same principles and resolve that have shaped us for generation upon generation: to protect the innocent, defend liberty, and we keep the light of freedom burning — a beacon for the rest of the entire world.
  • Last year, on September 11th, I once more paid my respects to Ground Zero in New York City, at that quiet field in Shanksville, at the Pentagon — and at the Pentagon.
    Standing at the memorial at Ground Zero, seeing the names of those who died forever etched in bronze, is a powerful reminder of the sacred promise we made as a nation: We will never forget.
    The memorial also bears a quotation from Virgil: “No day shall erase you from the memory of time.” “No day shall erase you from the memory of time.”
    So we continue to mourn every innocent life that was stolen on 9/11 and honor their memories.
    To the families who lost fathers and mothers, husbands and wives, sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, friends and co-workers on that searing September day, it is my hope that this decisive action will bring one more measure of closure. No day shall erase them from the memory of time.
  • Today and every day, I am so grateful to the superb patriots who serve the United States intelligence community and counterterrorism communities. They never forget. Those dedicated women and men who tirelessly worked every single day to keep our country safe and to prevent future tragedies — it is thanks to their extraordinary persistence and skill that this operation was a success. They have made us all safer.
    And to those around the world who continue to seek to harm the United States, hear me now: We will always remain vigilant, and we will act. And we will always do what is necessary to ensure the safety and security of Americans at home and around the globe.
    Today, we remember the lost. We commit ourselves to the safety of the living. And we pledge that we shall never waver from defending our nation and its people.
    Thank you, all. And may God protect our troops and all those who serve in harm’s way.
    We will never — we will never give up.
Remarks upon signing the Inflation Reduction Act
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Excerpts from "Remarks by President Biden At Signing of H.R. 5376, The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022" at whitehouse.gov (August 16, 2022)
 
"The [climate component of the] Inflation Reduction Act invests $369 billion to take the most aggressive action ever . . . in confronting the climate crisis and strengthening . . . our energy security." (This photo shows solar panels, wind turbines, and components of the electrical grid that carry the electricity generated to consumers.)
Remarks on the Safer America Plan
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  • But look, when I ran for President, I said I looked at the world the way I looked at it growing up in Scranton, and that wasn’t hyperbole. I meant that. The families — what families wanted was — in Scranton, when I was growing up — and my mom and dad and my grandpop — was as basic, basic, basic as it is today: a decent job, the opportunity to be treated with dignity. Everyone — my dad would say, “Everybody — everybody is entitled to be treated with dignity — just simple dignity.”
  • The fact is that want — they want to be able to go to good schools, sa- — in safe neighborhoods, a decent place to live, and just a fair shot — just a fair shot for their kids. You know, a peace of mind knowing your kids can go to school or to the playground or the movies or the high school game and come home safely and not have to think about it. But for too long, too many families haven’t had that peace of mind. They watch the news and they see kids being gunned down in schools and on the streets. Almost every single night you turn the news on, that’s what you see. They see their neighbors lose their loved ones to drugs like fentanyl, which is a flat killer. They see hate and anger and violence just walking the streets of America, and they just want to feel safe again. They want to feel a sense of security. And that’s what my crime plan is all about.
  • I know we expect so much from our law enforcement officers, so we need to support them. That’s why my crime plan to help communities recruit, hire, and train nationwide more than 100,000 additional officers — accountable officers — for community policing. And I mean it. Folks, when it comes to fighting crime, we know what works: officers on the street who know the neighborhood — not a joke — who know the neighborhood; who know the families they’re protecting; who get the training they need to be able to do their jobs well; who work to earn the community’s trust. And as we hire more police officers, there should be more training, more help, and more accountability.
  • Without public trust, law enforcement can’t do its job serving and protecting all the communities.
  • But here’s the point: As we’ve seen too often, public trust is frayed and is broken, and it undermines public safety when it gets frayed. It literally undermines safety. Families across the country have to ask why, in this nation, for example, so many Black Americans wake up knowing they could lose their lives just by living their lives.
  • We can do this. We have to do this. We’ll make America safer.
  • My plan also takes commonsense action to reduce gun violence and violence overall. It builds on the progress we made this summer when I signed into law the bipartisan Safer Communities Act, the most significant gun safety law we passed in 30 years. It took 30 years. And we beat the NRA. We took them on, and we beat the NRA straight up. (Applause.) You have no idea how intimidating they are to elected officials. The NRA was against it, which means the vast majority — the vast majority of Republicans in Congress couldn’t even stand up and vote for it because they’re afraid of the NRA. It’s not unusual. Every Democrat, Republican, senators — they get afraid of certain interest groups. They voted against it. Law enforcement supported it. Faith leaders and teachers supported it. Victims of gun violence and their families supported it. Young people in this country, like the students of the great — this great university, support it. And the NRA and the vast majority of congressional Republicans voted against it — saving lives and keeping America safe. But guess what? We took on the NRA, and we’re going to take them on again. And we won. And we will win again.
  • But we’re not stopping here. I’m determined to ban assault weapons in this country. Determined. I did it once before, and I’ll do it again. For many of you at home, I want to be clear: It’s not about taking away anybody’s guns. In fact, we should be treating responsible gun owners as examples how every gunowner should behave.
  • You know, we’re living in a country awash with weapons of war, weapons that weren’t designed to hunt — were designed to take on an enemy. There — that’s what they’re designed to do. For God’s sake, what’s the rationale for these weapons outside of a warzone? They inflict severe damage.
  • Folks — it’s time to hold every elected official’s feet to the fire and ask them: “Are for banning assault weapons? Yes or no.” Ask them. If the answer is no, vote against them.
  • Think about this now. Did any of you think, even if you’re as old as I am, you’d ever been an election where we talk about it’s appropriate to use force — political violence in America? It’s never appropriate. Never. Period. Never, never, never. No one should be encouraged to use political violence. None whatsoever.
  • So let me say this to my MAGA Republican friends in Congress: Don’t tell me you support law enforcement if you won’t condemn what happened on the 6th. Don’t tell me. Can’t do it. For God’s sake, whose side are you on? Whose side are you on? Look, you’re either on the side of a mob or the side of the police. You can’t be pro-law enforcement and pro-insurrection. You can’t be a party of law and order and call the people who attacked the police on January 6th “patriots.” You can’t do it.
  • So, folks, let’s remember who in God’s name we are — I really mean it — what our values are, what we believe. “We the People” — that how our Constitution starts — or the Declaration. “We the People.” It’s who we are. And, by the way, no one expects politics to be a pattycake. It sometimes gets mean as hell. But the idea you turn on a television and see senior senators and congressmen saying, “If such and such happens, there’ll be blood in the street.”

September 2022

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  • democracy
    • 1 September 2022 tweet (just one word)
  • MAGA Republicans in Congress look at the mob that stormed the United States Capitol on January 6th not as insurrectionists but as patriots. That is not who we are.
  • The MAGA agenda represents an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our Republic.
    It doesn’t respect our Constitution.
    It doesn’t believe in the rule of law.
    And it doesn’t recognize the will of the people.
    • 11am 4 September 2022 tweet following up on September 1st speech
  • MAGA proposals are a threat to the very soul of this country.
    • 12pm 4 September 2022 tweet
  • But the idea — the idea that in the first quarter of the 20th century we’d have people come out of fields carrying torches, Nazi flags and banners, chanting the bile, accompanied by white supremacists, David Duke and his crowd.
  • It’s about recognizing a disability isn’t something broken to be fixed. For millions of Americans, their disability is a source of identity and power. Disability pride is about every American’s equal right to be recognized for who they are. It’s about celebrating the progress we’ve made and the future ahead.
Remarks by President Biden on the Continued Battle for the Soul of the Nation
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We must never forget: We, the people, are the true heirs of the American experiment that began more than two centuries ago. We, the people, have burning inside each of us the flame of liberty that was lit here at Independence Hall — a flame that lit our way through abolition, the Civil War, Suffrage, the Great Depression, world wars, Civil Rights. That sacred flame still burns now in our time as we build an America that is more prosperous, free, and just.
 
We are still, at our core, a democracy. And yet history tells us that blind loyalty to a single leader and a willingness to engage in political violence is fatal to democracy. For a long time, we’ve told ourselves that American democracy is guaranteed, but it’s not. We have to defend it, protect it, stand up for it — each and every one of us.
 
We can’t let the integrity of our elections be undermined, for that is a path to chaos.
 
Democracy endures only if we, the people, respect the guardrails of the republic. Only if we, the people, accept the results of free and fair elections. Only if we, the people, see politics not as total war but mediation of our differences. Democracy cannot survive when one side believes there are only two outcomes to an election: either they win or they were cheated.
 
American democracy only works only if we choose to respect the rule of law and the institutions that were set up in this chamber behind me, only if we respect our legitimate political differences.
 
We can see the light. Light is now visible. Light that will guide us forward not only in words, but in actions — actions for you, for your children, for your grandchildren, for America. That’s where we need to focus our energy — not in the past, not on divisive culture wars, not on the politics of grievance, but on a future we can build together.
 
I ran for President because I believed we were in a battle for the soul of this nation. I believe the soul is the breath, the life, and the essence of who we are. The soul is what makes us “us.” The soul of America is defined by the sacred proposition that all are created equal in the image of God. That all are entitled to be treated with decency, dignity, and respect. That all deserve justice and a shot at lives of prosperity and consequence. And that democracy must be defended, for democracy makes all these things possible.
 
Democracy begins and will be preserved in we, the people’s, habits of heart, in our character: optimism that is tested yet endures, courage that digs deep when we need it, empathy that fuels democracy, the willingness to see each other not as enemies but as fellow Americans. Look, our democracy is imperfect. It always has been. But history and common sense tell us that opportunity, liberty, and justice for all are most likely to come to pass in a democracy.
Remarks by President Biden on the Continued Battle for the Soul of the Nation (1 September 2022) at Independence National Historical Park in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States of America
  • I speak to you tonight from sacred ground in America: Independence Hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. This is where America made its Declaration of Independence to the world more than two centuries ago with an idea, unique among nations, that in America, we’re all created equal. This is where the United States Constitution was written and debated. This is where we set in motion the most extraordinary experiment of self-government the world has ever known with three simple words: “We, the People.” “We, the People.” These two documents and the ideas they embody — equality and democracy — are the rock upon which this nation is built. They are how we became the greatest nation on Earth. They are why, for more than two centuries, America has been a beacon to the world.
  • So tonight, I have come this place where it all began to speak as plainly as I can to the nation about the threats we face, about the power we have in our own hands to meet these threats, and about the incredible future that lies in front of us if only we choose it. We must never forget: We, the people, are the true heirs of the American experiment that began more than two centuries ago. We, the people, have burning inside each of us the flame of liberty that was lit here at Independence Hall — a flame that lit our way through abolition, the Civil War, Suffrage, the Great Depression, world wars, Civil Rights. That sacred flame still burns now in our time as we build an America that is more prosperous, free, and just.
  • Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic. Now, I want to be very clear — (applause) — very clear up front: Not every Republican, not even the majority of Republicans, are MAGA Republicans. Not every Republican embraces their extreme ideology. I know because I’ve been able to work with these mainstream Republicans. But there is no question that the Republican Party today is dominated, driven, and intimidated by Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans, and that is a threat to this country.
  • MAGA Republicans do not respect the Constitution. They do not believe in the rule of law. They do not recognize the will of the people. They refuse to accept the results of a free election. And they’re working right now, as I speak, in state after state to give power to decide elections in America to partisans and cronies, empowering election deniers to undermine democracy itself. MAGA forces are determined to take this country backwards — backwards to an America where there is no right to choose, no right to privacy, no right to contraception, no right to marry who you love. They promote authoritarian leaders, and they fan the flames of political violence that are a threat to our personal rights, to the pursuit of justice, to the rule of law, to the very soul of this country. They look at the mob that stormed the United States Capitol on January 6th — brutally attacking law enforcement — not as insurrectionists who placed a dagger to the throat of our democracy, but they look at them as patriots. And they see their MAGA failure to stop a peaceful transfer of power after the 2020 election as preparation for the 2022 and 2024 elections. They tried everything last time to nullify the votes of 81 million people. This time, they’re determined to succeed in thwarting the will of the people. That’s why respected conservatives, like Federal Circuit Court Judge Michael Luttig, has called Trump and the extreme MAGA Republicans, quote, a “clear and present danger” to our democracy.
  • But while the threat to American democracy is real, I want to say as clearly as we can: We are not powerless in the face of these threats. We are not bystanders in this ongoing attack on democracy. There are far more Americans — far more Americans from every — from every background and belief who reject the extreme MAGA ideology than those that accept it. And, folks, it is within our power, it’s in our hands — yours and mine — to stop the assault on American democracy. I believe America is at an inflection point — one of those moments that determine the shape of everything that’s to come after. And now America must choose: to move forward or to move backwards? To build the future or obsess about the past? To be a nation of hope and unity and optimism, or a nation of fear, division, and of darkness? MAGA Republicans have made their choice. They embrace anger. They thrive on chaos. They live not in the light of truth but in the shadow of lies. But together — together, we can choose a different path. We can choose a better path. Forward, to the future. A future of possibility. A future to build and dream and hope. And we’re on that path, moving ahead.
  • I know this nation. I know you, the American people. I know your courage. I know your hearts. And I know our history. This is a nation that honors our Constitution. We do not reject it. This is a nation that believes in the rule of law. We do not repudiate it. This is a nation that respects free and fair elections. We honor the will of the people. We do not deny it. And this is a nation that rejects violence as a political tool. We do not encourage violence. We are still an America that believes in honesty and decency and respect for others, patriotism, liberty, justice for all, hope, possibilities. We are still, at our core, a democracy. And yet history tells us that blind loyalty to a single leader and a willingness to engage in political violence is fatal to democracy. For a long time, we’ve told ourselves that American democracy is guaranteed, but it’s not. We have to defend it, protect it, stand up for it — each and every one of us. That’s why tonight I’m asking our nation to come together, unite behind the single purpose of defending our democracy regardless of your ideology. We’re all called, by duty and conscience, to confront extremists who will put their own pursuit of power above all else. Democrats, independents, mainstream Republicans: We must be stronger, more determined, and more committed to saving American democracy than MAGA Republicans are to — to destroying American democracy. We, the people, will not let anyone or anything tear us apart. Today, there are dangers around us we cannot allow to prevail.
  • We hear — you’ve heard it — more and more talk about violence as an acceptable political tool in this country. It’s not. It can never be an acceptable tool. So I want to say this plain and simple: There is no place for political violence in America. Period. None. Ever.
  • We saw law enforcement brutally attacked on January the 6th. We’ve seen election officials, poll workers — many of them volunteers of both parties — subjected to intimidation and death threats. And — can you believe it? — FBI agents just doing their job as directed, facing threats to their own lives from their own fellow citizens. On top of that, there are public figures — today, yesterday, and the day before — predicting and all but calling for mass violence and rioting in the streets. This is inflammatory. It’s dangerous. It’s against the rule of law. And we, the people, must say: This is not who we are.
  • Ladies and gentlemen, we can’t be pro-ex- — pro-ex- — pro-insurrectionist and pro-American. They’re incompatible. We can’t allow violence to be normalized in this country. It’s wrong. We each have to reject political violence with — with all the moral clarity and conviction this nation can muster. Now.
  • We can’t let the integrity of our elections be undermined, for that is a path to chaos. Look, I know poli- — politics can be fierce and mean and nasty in America. I get it. I believe in the give-and-take of politics, in disagreement and debate and dissent. We’re a big, complicated country. But democracy endures only if we, the people, respect the guardrails of the republic. Only if we, the people, accept the results of free and fair elections. Only if we, the people, see politics not as total war but mediation of our differences. Democracy cannot survive when one side believes there are only two outcomes to an election: either they win or they were cheated. And that’s where MAGA Republicans are today. They don’t understand what every patriotic American knows: You can’t love your country only when you win. It’s fundamental. American democracy only works only if we choose to respect the rule of law and the institutions that were set up in this chamber behind me, only if we respect our legitimate political differences.
  • Throughout our history, America has often made the greatest progress coming out of some of our darkest moments, like you’re hearing in that bullhorn. I believe we can and we must do that again, and we are. MAGA Republicans look at America and see carnage and darkness and despair. They spread fear and lies –- lies told for profit and power. But I see a very different America — an America with an unlimited future, an America that is about to take off. I hope you see it as well. Just look around. I believed we could lift America from the depths of COVID, so we passed the largest economic recovery package since Franklin Delano Roosevelt. And today, America’s economy is faster, stronger than any other advanced nation in the world. We have more to go. I believed we could build a better America, so we passed the biggest infrastructure investment since President Dwight D. Eisenhower. And we’ve now embarked on a decade of rebuilding the nation’s roads, bridges, highways, ports, water systems, high-speed Internet, railroads. I believed we could make America safer, so we passed the most significant gun safety law since President Clinton. I believed we could go from being the highest cost of prescriptions in the world to making prescription drugs and healthcare more affordable, so we passed the most significant healthcare reforms since President Obama signed the Affordable Care Act. And I believed we could create — we could create a clean energy future and save the planet, so we passed the most important climate initiative ever, ever, ever. The cynics and the critics tell us nothing can get done, but they are wrong. There is not a single thing America cannot do — not a single thing beyond our capacity if we do it together. It’s never easy. But we’re proving that in America, no matter how long the road, progress does come.
  • Look, I know the last year — few years have been tough. But today, COVID no longer controls our lives. More Americans are working than ever. Businesses are growing. Our schools are open. Millions of Americans have been lifted out of poverty. Millions of veterans once exposed to toxic burn pits will now get what they deserve for their families and the compa- — compensation. American manufacturing has come alive across the Heartland, and the future will be made in America no matter what the white supremacists and the extremists say. I made a bet on you, the American people, and that bet is paying off. Proving that from darkness — the darkness of Charlottesville, of COVID, of gun violence, of insurrection — we can see the light. Light is now visible. Light that will guide us forward not only in words, but in actions — actions for you, for your children, for your grandchildren, for America. Even in this moment, with all the challenges we face, I give you my word as a Biden: I’ve never been more optimistic about America’s future. Not because of me, but because of who you are. We’re going to end cancer as we know it. Mark my words. We are going to create millions of new jobs in a clean energy economy. We’re going to think big. We’re going to make the 21st century another American century because the world needs us to. That’s where we need to focus our energy — not in the past, not on divisive culture wars, not on the politics of grievance, but on a future we can build together.
  • The MAGA Republicans believe that for them to succeed, everyone else has to fail. They believe America — not like I believe about America. I believe America is big enough for all of us to succeed, and that is the nation we’re building: a nation where no one is left behind. I ran for President because I believed we were in a battle for the soul of this nation. I still believe that to be true. I believe the soul is the breath, the life, and the essence of who we are. The soul is what makes us “us.” The soul of America is defined by the sacred proposition that all are created equal in the image of God. That all are entitled to be treated with decency, dignity, and respect. That all deserve justice and a shot at lives of prosperity and consequence. And that democracy — democracy must be defended, for democracy makes all these things possible. Folks, and it’s up to us.
  • Democracy begins and will be preserved in we, the people’s, habits of heart, in our character: optimism that is tested yet endures, courage that digs deep when we need it, empathy that fuels democracy, the willingness to see each other not as enemies but as fellow Americans. Look, our democracy is imperfect. It always has been. Notwithstanding those folks you hear on the other side there. They’re entitled to be outrageous. This is a democracy. But history and common sense — good manners is nothing they’ve ever suffered from. But history and common sense tell us that opportunity, liberty, and justice for all are most likely to come to pass in a democracy.
  • We have never fully realized the aspirations of our founding, but every generation has opened those doors a little wider to include more people who have been excluded before. My fellow Americans, America is an idea — the most powerful idea in the history of the world. And it beats in the hearts of the people of this country. It beats in all of our hearts. It unites America. It is the American creed. The idea that America guarantees that everyone be treated with dignity. It gives hate no safe harbor. It installs in everyone the belief that no matter where you start in life, there’s nothing you can’t achieve. That’s who we are. That’s what we stand for. That’s what we believe. And that is precisely what we are doing: opening doors, creating new possibilities, focusing on the future.
  • Our task is to make our nation free and fair, just and strong, noble and whole. And this work is the work of democracy — the work of this generation. It is the work of our time, for all time. We can’t afford to have — leave anyone on the sidelines. We need everyone to do their part. So speak up. Speak out. Get engaged. Vote, vote, vote. And if we all do our duty — if we do our duty in 2022 and beyond, then ages still to come will say we — all of us here — we kept the faith. We preserved democracy. We heeded our wor- — we — we heeded not our worst instincts but our better angels. And we proved that, for all its imperfections, America is still the beacon to the world, an ideal to be realized, a promise to be kept. There is nothing more important, nothing more sacred, nothing more American. That’s our soul. That’s who we truly are. And that’s who must — we must always be. And I have no doubt — none –– that this is who we will be and that we’ll come together as a nation. That we’ll secure our democracy. That for the next 200 years, we’ll have what we had the past 200 years: the greatest nation on the face of the Earth. We just need to remember who we are. We are the United States of America. The United States of America. And may God protect our nation. And may God protect all those who stand watch over our democracy.
Address to the 77th United Nations General Assembly (21 September 2022)
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My fellow leaders, the challenges we face today are great indeed, but our capacity is greater. Our commitment must be greater still.
So let’s stand together to again declare the unmistakable resolve that nations of the world are united still, that we stand for the values of the U.N. Charter, that we still believe by working together we can bend the arc of history toward a freer and more just world for all our children, although none of us have fully achieved it.
We’re not passive witnesses to history; we are the authors of history.
We can do this — we have to do it — for ourselves and for our future, for humankind.
"Remarks to the 77th Session of the United Nations General Assembly (21 September 2022) · ABC News video
  • Mr. President, Mr. Secretary-General, my fellow leaders, in the last year, our world has experienced great upheaval: a growing crisis in food insecurity; record heat, floods, and droughts; COVID-19; inflation; and a brutal, needless war — a war chosen by one man, to be very blunt.
    --> Let us speak plainly. A permanent member of the United Nations Security Council invaded its neighbor, attempted to erase a sovereign state from the map.
    Russia has shamelessly violated the core tenets of the United Nations Charter — no more important than the clear prohibition against countries taking the territory of their neighbor by force.
    Again, just today, President Putin has made overt nuclear threats against Europe and a reckless disregard for the responsibilities of the non-proliferation regime.
    Now Russia is calling — calling up more soldiers to join the fight. And the Kremlin is organizing a sham referenda to try to annex parts of Ukraine, an extremely significant violation of the U.N. Charter.
    This world should see these outrageous acts for what they are. Putin claims he had to act because Russia was threatened. But no one threatened Russia, and no one other than Russia sought conflict.
    In fact, we warned it was coming. And with many of you, we worked to try to avert it.
    Putin’s own words make his true purpose unmistakable. Just before he invaded, Putin asserted — and I quote — Ukraine was "created by Russia" and never had, quote, "real statehood."
    And now we see attacks on schools, railway stations, hospitals … on centers of Ukrainian history and culture.
    In the past, even more horrifying evidence of Russia’s atrocity and war crimes: mass graves uncovered in Izyum; bodies, according to those that excavated those bodies, showing signs of torture.
    This war is about extinguishing Ukraine’s right to exist as a state, plain and simple, and Ukraine’s right to exist as a people. Whoever you are, wherever you live, whatever you believe … that should make your blood run cold.
    That’s why 141 nations in the General Assembly came together to unequivocally condemn Russia’s war against Ukraine. The United States has marshaled massive levels of security assistance and humanitarian aid and direct economic support for Ukraine — more than $25 billion to date.
    Our allies and partners around the world have stepped up as well. And today, more than 40 countries represented in here have contributed billions of their own money and equipment to help Ukraine defend itself.
    The United States is also working closely with our allies and partners to impose costs on Russia, to deter attacks against NATO territory, to hold Russia accountable for the atrocities and war crimes.
    Because if nations can pursue their imperial ambitions without consequences, then we put at risk everything this very institution stands for. Everything.
    Every victory won on the battlefield belongs to the courageous Ukrainian soldiers. But this past year, the world was tested as well, and we did not hesitate.
    We chose liberty. We chose sovereignty. We chose principles to which every party to the United Nations Charter is beholding. We stood with Ukraine.
    Like you, the United States wants this war to end on just terms, on terms we all signed up for: that you cannot seize a nation’s territory by force. The only country standing in the way of that is Russia.
    So, we — each of us in this body who is determined to uphold the principles and beliefs we pledge to defend as members of the United Nations — must be clear, firm, and unwavering in our resolve.
    Ukraine has the same rights that belong to every sovereign nation. We will stand in solidarity with Ukraine. We will stand in solidarity against Russia’s aggression. Period.
  • Now, it’s no secret that in the contest between democracy and autocracy, the United States — and I, as President — champion a vision for our world that is grounded in the values of democracy.
    The United States is determined to defend and strengthen democracy at home and around the world. Because I believe democracy remains humanity’s greatest instrument to address the challenges of our time.
  • We’re working with the G7 and likeminded countries to prove democracies can deliver for their citizens but also deliver for the rest of the world as well.
    But as we meet today, the U.N. Charter — the U.N. Charter’s very basis of a stable and just rule-based order is under attack by those who wish to tear it down or distort it for their own political advantage.
    And the United Nations Charter was not only signed by democracies of the world, it was negotiated among citizens of dozens of nations with vastly different histories and ideologies, united in their commitment to work for peace.
  • I reject the use of violence and war to conquer nations or expand borders through bloodshed.
    To stand against global politics of fear and coercion; to defend the sovereign rights of smaller nations as equal to those of larger ones; to embrace basic principles like freedom of navigation, respect for international law, and arms control — no matter what else we may disagree on, that is the common ground upon which we must stand.
    If you’re still committed to a strong foundation for the good of every nation around the world, then the United States wants to work with you.
  • I also believe the time has come for this institution to become more inclusive so that it can better respond to the needs of today’s world.
    Members of the U.N. Security Council, including the United States, should consistently uphold and defend the U.N. Charter and refrain — refrain from the use of the veto, except in rare, extraordinary situations, to ensure that the Council remains credible and effective.
    That is also why the United States supports increasing the number of both permanent and non-permanent representatives of the Council. This includes permanent seats for those nations we’ve long supported and permanent seats for countries in Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean.
  • We all know we’re already living in a climate crisis. No one seems to doubt it after this past year … as we meet, much of Pakistan is still underwater; it needs help. Meanwhile, the Horn of Africa faces unprecedented drought.
    Families are facing impossible choices, choosing which child to feed and wondering whether they’ll survive.
    This is the human cost of climate change. And it’s growing, not lessening.
  • We’re also taking on the food crisis head on. With as many as 193 million people around the world experiencing acute — acute food insecurity — a jump of 40 million in a year — today I’m announcing another $2.9 billion in U.S. support for lifesaving humanitarian and food security assistance for this year alone.
    Russia, in the meantime, is pumping out lies, trying to pin the blame for the crisis — the food crisis — onto sanctions imposed by many in the world for the aggression against Ukraine.
    So let me be perfectly clear about something: Our sanctions explicitly allow — explicitly allow Russia the ability to export food and fertilizer. No limitation. It’s Russia’s war that is worsening food insecurity, and only Russia can end it.
    I’m grateful for the work here at the U.N. — including your leadership, Mr. Secretary-General — establishing a mechanism to export grain from Black Sea ports in Ukraine that Russia had blocked for months, and we need to make sure it’s extended.
  • We believe strongly in the need to feed the world. That’s why the United States is the world’s largest supporter of the World Food Programme, with more than 40 percent of its budget.
    We’re leading support — we’re leading support of the UNICEF efforts to feed children around the world.
    And to take on the larger challenge of food insecurity, the United States introduced a Call to Action: a roadmap eliminating global food insecurity — to eliminating global food insecurity that more than 100 nation member states have already supported.
  • Let me be direct about the competition between the United States and China. As we manage shifting geopolitical trends, the United States will conduct itself as a reasonable leader. We do not seek conflict. We do not seek a Cold War. We do not ask any nation to choose between the United States or any other partner.
    But the United States will be unabashed in promoting our vision of a free, open, secure, and prosperous world and what we have to offer communities of nations: investments that are designed not to foster dependency, but to alleviate burdens and help nations become self-sufficient; partnerships not to create political obligation, but because we know our own success — each of our success is increased when other nations succeed as well.
    When individuals have the chance to live in dignity and develop their talents, everyone benefits. Critical to that is living up to the highest goals of this institution: increasing peace and security for everyone, everywhere.
  • The United States will not waver in our unrelenting determination to counter and thwart the continuing terrorist threats to our world. And we will lead with our diplomacy to strive for peaceful resolution of conflicts.
    We seek to uphold peace and stability across the Taiwan Straits.
    We remain committed to our One China policy, which has helped prevent conflict for four decades. And we continue to oppose unilateral changes in the status quo by either side.
  • Let me also urge every nation to recommit to strengthening the nuclear non-proliferation regime through diplomacy. No matter what else is happening in the world, the United States is ready to pursue critical arms control measures. A nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.
  • Perhaps singular among this body’s achievements stands the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which is the standard by which our forebears challenged us to measure ourselves.
    They made clear in 1948: Human rights are the basis for all that we seek to achieve. And yet today, in 2022, fundamental freedoms are at risk in every part of our world … But here’s what I know: The future will be won by those countries that unleash the full potential of their populations, where women and girls can exercise equal rights, including basic reproductive rights, and contribute fully to building a stronger economies and more resilient societies; where religious and ethnic minorities can live their lives without harassment and contribute to the fabric of their communities; where the LGBTQ+ community individuals live and love freely without being targeted with violence; where citizens can question and criticize their leaders without fear of reprisal.
  • The United States will always promote human rights and the values enshrined in the U.N. Charter in our own country and around the world.
    Let me end with this: This institution, guided by the U.N. Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, is at its core an act of dauntless hope.
    Let me say that again: It’s an act of dauntless hope.
    Think about the vision of those first delegates who undertook a seemingly impossible task while the world was still smoldering.
    Think about how divided the people of the world must have felt with the fresh grief of millions dead, the genocidal horrors of the Holocaust exposed.
    They had every right to believe only the worst of humanity. Instead, they reached for what was best in all of us, and they strove to build something better: enduring peace; comity among nations; equal rights for every member of the human family; cooperation for the advancement of all humankind.
    My fellow leaders, the challenges we face today are great indeed, but our capacity is greater. Our commitment must be greater still.
    So let’s stand together to again declare the unmistakable resolve that nations of the world are united still, that we stand for the values of the U.N. Charter, that we still believe by working together we can bend the arc of history toward a freer and more just world for all our children, although none of us have fully achieved it.
    We’re not passive witnesses to history; we are the authors of history.
    We can do this — we have to do it — for ourselves and for our future, for humankind.
Remarks on Hurricane Ian (30 September 2022)
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I’ve directed that every possible action be taken to save lives and get help to survivors, because every single minute counts.
It’s not just a crisis for Florida.  This is an American crisis.  We’re all in this together.
Remarks on Hurricane Ian Federal Response Efforts (30 September 2022)
  • With the devastation caused by Hurricane Ian in Florida and the storm just hours away from hitting South Carolina — I know some parts are already hit — I want to update you on what we’ve done since I last spoke to you on this 24 hours ago.
    I’ve directed that every possible action be taken to save lives and get help to survivors, because every single minute counts.
    It’s not just a crisis for Florida.  This is an American crisis.  We’re all in this together. 
    And I’ve spoken to Governor DeSantis on multiple occasions, as well this morning, as well as mayors and county officials — both Republican and Democrat — from the places most affected.  And I spoke with Governor McMaster of South Carolina this morning as well.
  • My message to the people of South Carolina is simple: Please listen to all the warnings and directions from local officials and follow their instructions.
    And as you all know, the situation in Florida is far more devastating. We’re just beginning to see the scale of that destruction. It’s likely to rank among … the worst in the nation’s history. You have all … it on television. Homes and property wiped out. It’s going to take months, years to rebuild.
    And our hearts go out to all those folks whose lives have been absolutely devastated by this storm. America’s heart is literally breaking, just watching people — watching it on television.
    I just want the people of Florida to know we see what you’re going through, and we’re with you. We’re going to do everything we can for you.
  • I’m grateful for the brave women and men — federal, state, and local folks working so hard.  They’re all working as one team.  I hear that from the governor as well as from the federal folks.
    In the past 24 hours, my administration has approved four more counties in Florida for individual disaster assistance, in addition to the nine counties we had announced yesterday.
    What that means is: The federal government will cover — is covering every cost — 100 percent of the cost to clear the massive debris left in the wake of the hurricane in these counties.  And it all needs to be cleared out for communities to begin the hard work of trying to get back on their feet. 
  • I’ve spent a lot of time with people in the aftermath of disasters. I have immense gratitude for the first responders and the emergency crews who always show up no matter what.
    At times like these, Americans come together. They put aside politics, they put aside division, and we come together to help each other. Because we know, if it were us who just lost our homes or a loved one, we’d hope people would show up to help us as well.

October 2022

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  • No one fucks with a Biden.
    • 5 October 2022 during his visit to Fort Myers, Florida, where he was watching effects of Hurricane Ian alongside Gov. Ron DeSantis (tweet and youtube)
  • Let me start off with two words: Made in America
    • 7 October 2022 (video in tweet)
  • I say this as a father of a man and won the Bronze Star, the conspicuous service medal, and lost his life in Iraq.
    • 12 October 2022 during speech, per Adam Sabes of Fox
      • Biden's son Beau Biden was deployed in Iraq from October 2008 to September 2009, nearly a year, and returned from the war with Stage four glioblastoma, which Biden attributes to his exposure to burn pits. Beau Biden died of this disease four years later, in a Bethesda hospital.
  • If you're fully vaccinated, get one more COVID shot—once a year—that's it!

November 2022

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  • You’re allowed to do anything you want to do, including go steal a pumpkin if you want — anything you want to do.

December 2022

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  • Racism, antisemitism, homophobia, transphobia—they're all connected. But the antidote to hate is love.
Christmas Address to the Nation
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Christmas Address to the Nation (22 December 2022)
 
The Christmas story is at the heart of the … Christian faith.  But the message of hope, love, peace, and joy — they’re also universal.
It speaks to all of us, whether we’re Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist, or any other faith, or no faith at all.  It speaks to all of us as human beings who are here on this Earth to care for one another, to look out for one another, to love one another.
  • There is a certain stillness at the center of the Christmas story. A silent night when all the world goes quiet and all the glamour, all the noise, everything that divides us, everything that pits us against one another, everything — everything that seems so important but really isn’t, this all fades away in stillness of the winter’s evening. 
    And we look to the sky, to a lone star, shining brighter than all the rest, guiding us to the birth of a child — a child Christians believe to be the son of God; miraculously now, here among us on Earth, bringing hope, love and peace and joy to the world.
  • Yes, it’s a story that’s 2,000 years old, but it’s still very much alive today. 
    Just look into the eyes of a child on Christmas morning, or listen to the laughter of a family together this holiday season after years — after years of being apart.  Just feel the hope rising in your chest as you sing “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing,” even though you’ve sung the countless times before.
    Yes, even after 2,000 years, Christmas still has the power to lift us up, to bring us together, to change lives, to change the world.


  • The Christmas story is at the heart of the … Christian faith.  But the message of hope, love, peace, and joy — they’re also universal.
    It speaks to all of us, whether we’re Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist, or any other faith, or no faith at all.  It speaks to all of us as human beings who are here on this Earth to care for one another, to look out for one another, to love one another.


  • The message of Christmas is always important, but it’s especially important through tough times, like the ones we’ve been through the past few years.
    The pandemic has taken so much from us.  We’ve lost so much time with one another.  We’ve lost so many people — people we loved.  Over a million lives lost in America alone.  That’s a million empty chairs breaking hearts in homes all across the country.
    Our politics has gotten so angry, so mean, so partisan.  And too often we see each other as enemies, not as neighbors; as Democrats or Republicans, not as fellow Americans.  We’ve become too divided.
    But as tough as these times have been, if we look a little closer, we see bright spots all across the country: the strength, the determination, the resilience that’s long defined America.
  • We’re surely making progress.  Things are getting better.  COVID … no longer controls our lives.  Our kids are back in school.  People are back to work.  In fact, more people are working than ever before.
    Americans are building again, innovating again, dreaming again.
    So my hope this Christmas season is that we take a few moments of quiet reflection and find that stillness in the heart of Christmas — that’s at the heart of Christmas, and look — really look at each other, not as Democrats or Republicans, not as members of “Team Red” or “Team Blue,” but as who we really are: fellow Americans.  Fellow human beings worthy of being treated with dignity and respect.


  • I sincerely hope this … holiday season will drain the poison that has infected our politics and set us against one another.
    I hope this Christmas season marks a fresh start for our nation, because there is so much that unites us as Americans, so much more that unites us than divides us.
    We’re truly blessed to live in this nation.  And I truly hope we take the time to look out — look out for one another.   Not at one — for one another.
    So many people struggle at Christmas.  It can be a time of great pain and terrible loneliness.  I know, like many of you know. 
    It was 50 years ago this week that I lost my first wife and my infant daughter in a car accident, and my two sons were badly injured, when they were out shopping for a Christmas tree.  I know how hard this time of year can be.
    But here’s what I learned long ago: No one — no one can ever know what someone else is going through, what’s really going on in their life, what they’re struggling with, what they’re trying to overcome.
    That’s why sometimes the smallest act of kindness can mean so much.       A simple smile.  A hug.  An unexpected phone call.  A quiet cup of coffee.  Simple acts of kindness that can lift a spirit, provide … comfort, and perhaps maybe even save a life. 

* So, this Christmas, let’s spread a little kindness.
    This Christmas, let’s be that — that helping hand, that strong shoulder, that friendly voice when no one else seems to care for those who are struggling, in trouble, in need.  It just might be the best gift you can ever give.
    And let’s be sure to remember the brave women and men in uniform who defend and protect our nation.  Many of them — many of them are away from their families at this time of year.  Let’s keep them in our prayers.


  • I believe Christmas is a season of hope.  And throughout the life of this country, it’s been during the weeks of December — even in the midst of some of our toughest days — that some of the best chapters of our story have been written.
    It was during these weeks back in 1862 that President Lincoln prepared the Emancipation Proclamation, which he issued on New Year’s Day.
    At Christmas 1941, in the week — weeks after Pearl Harbor, Franklin Delano Roosevelt hosted Winston Churchill in this White House.  Together, they planned the Allied strategy to defeat fascism and autocracy.
    And it was 1968 that the most terrible year — of years — a year of assassination and riot, of war and chaos — that the astronauts of Apollo 8 circled the Moon and spoke to us here on Earth.
    From the silence of space, on a silent night on a Christmas Eve, they read the story of Christmas — Creation from the King James Bible.  It went: “In the beginning God created Heaven and Earth.  And God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light.”
    That light is still with us, illuminating our way forward as Americans and as citizens of the world.  A light that burned in the beginning and at Bethlehem.  A light that shines still today in our own time, our own lives.

* As we sing “O’ Holy Night” — “His law is love, and His Gospel is peace” — may I wish you and for you, and for our nation, now and always, is that we’ll live in the light — the light of liberty and hope, of love and generosity, of kindness and compassion, of dignity and decency.
    So, from the Biden family, we wish you and your family peace, joy, health, and happiness.
    Merry Christmas.  Happy Holidays.  And all the best in the New Year.
    God bless you all.  And may God protect our troops.

2023

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January 2023

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  • Today is a ceremony to honor heroes of January sixth.
    We also recognize the late US Capitol Police Officer Billy Evans. His family is with us today.
    While they were still cordoning off the Capital because threats by these sick insurrectionists continued to be propagated on the internet.
    Again, all America saw what happened when Officer Evans was killed defending a checkpoint you had to go through to get up to the Capitol.
    Because of these godawful sick threats that continue to move forward.
    And the whole world saw it.
    It’s just hard to believe, it’s hard to believe it could happen here in America.

February 2023

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We know that there’ll be very difficult days and weeks and years ahead. But Russia’s aim was to wipe Ukraine off the map. Putin’s war of conquest is failing.
  • The cost that Ukraine has had to bear has been extraordinarily high, and the sacrifices have been far too great. They’ve been met, but they’ve been far too great.
    We mourn alongside the families of those who have been lost to the brutal and unjust war. We know that there’ll be very difficult days and weeks and years ahead.
    But Russia’s aim was to wipe Ukraine off the map. Putin’s war of conquest is failing. Russia’s military has lost half its territory it once occupied. Young, talented Russians are fleeing by the tens of thousands, not wanting to come back to Russia. Not … just fleeing from the military, fleeing from Russia itself, because they see no future in their country. Russia’s economy is now a backwater, isolated and struggling.
    Putin thought Ukraine was weak and the West was divided. As you know, Mr. President, I said to you at the beginning, he’s counting on us not sticking together. He was counting on the inability to keep NATO united. He was counting on us not to be able to bring in others on the side of Ukraine.
    He thought he could outlast us. I don’t think he’s thinking that right now.

April 2023

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  • I used to stutter badly when I was a child. And it’s something — if you know anybody who stuttered, it’s a very debilitating thing. If I told you that I used to talk — t- — t- — t- — to talk like that, people will smile. But if I told you I had a clubfoot when I was kid that was fixed, no one would laugh about it.

May 2023

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  • The oldest, most sinister forces may believe they determine America's future, but they are wrong. We will determine America's future.

June 2023

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  • I know bipartisanship is hard and unity is hard, but we can never stop trying, because in moments like this one — the ones we just faced, where the American economy and the world economy is at risk of collapsing — there is no other way.
    No matter how tough our politics gets, we need to see each other not as adversaries, but as fellow Americans. Treat each other with dignity and respect. To join forces as Americans to stop shouting, lower the temperature, and work together to pursue progress, secure prosperity, and keep the promise of America for everybody.

September 2023

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Address to the 78th Session of the UN General Assembly
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The United States seeks a more secure, more prosperous, more equitable world for all people because we know our future is bound to yours. Let me repeat that again: We know our future is bound to yours.
And no nation can meet the challenges of today alone.
Remarks Before the 78th Session of the United Nations General Assembly (19 September 2023)
  • As president of the United States, I understand the duty my country has to lead in this critical moment; to work with countries in every region linking them in common cause; to join together with partners who share a common vision of the future of the world, where our children do not go hungry and everyone has access quality healthcare, where workers are empowered and our environment is protected, where entrepreneurs and innovators everywhere can access opportunity everywhere, where conflicts are resolved peacefully and countries can chart their own course.
    The United States seeks a more secure, more prosperous, more equitable world for all people because we know our future is bound to yours. Let me repeat that again: We know our future is bound to yours.
    And no nation can meet the challenges of today alone.
    The generations who precede us — preceded us organized this body, the United Nations, and built international financial institutions and multilateral and regional bodies to help take on the challenges of their time.
    It isn’t always perfect — it wasn’t always perfect. But working together, the world made some remarkable and undeniable progress that improved the lives of all people.
  • We don’t need to agree on everything to keep moving forward on issues like arms control — a cornerstone of international security.
    After more than 50 years of progress under the Non-Proliferation Treaty, Russia is shredding longstanding arms control agreements, including announcing the suspension of New START and withdrawing from the Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty.
    I view it as irresponsible, and it makes the entire world less safe.
    The United States is going to continue to pursue good-faith efforts to reduce the threat of weapons of mass destruction and lead by example, no matter what else is happening in the world.
  • Sovereignty, territorial integrity, human rights — these are the core tenets of the U.N. Charter, the pillars of peaceful relations among nations, without which we cannot achieve any of our goals.
    That has not changed, and that must not change.
    Yet, for the second year in a row, this gathering dedicated to peaceful resolution of conflicts is darkened by the shadow of war — an illegal war of conquest, brought without provocation by Russia against its neighbor, Ukraine.
    Like every nation in the world, the United States wants this war to end. No nation wants this war to end more than Ukraine.
    And we strongly support Ukraine in its efforts to bring about a diplomatic resolution that delivers just and lasting peace.
    But Russia alone — Russia alone bears responsibility for this war. Russia alone has the power to end this war immediately. And it is Russia alone that stands in the way of peace, because the — Russia’s price for peace is Ukraine’s capitulation, Ukraine’s territory, and Ukraine’s children.
    Russia believes that the world will grow weary and allow it to brutalize Ukraine without consequence.
    But I ask you this: If we abandon the core principles of the United States [U.N. Charter] to appease an aggressor, can any member state in this body feel confident that they are protected? If we allow Ukraine to be carved up, is the independence of any nation secure?
    I’d respectfully suggest the answer is no.
    We have to stand up to this naked aggression today and deter other would-be aggressors tomorrow.
    That’s why the United States, together with our allies and partners around the world, will continue to stand with the brave people of Ukraine as they defend their sovereignty and territorial integrity and their freedom.
  • At this inflection point in history, we’re going to be judged by whether or not we live up to the promises we have made to ourselves, to each other, to the most vulnerable, and to all those who will inherit the world we create, because that’s what we’re doing.
    Will we find within ourselves the courage to do what must be done to preserve the planet, to protect human dignity, to provide opportunity for people everywhere, and to defend the tenets of the United Nations?
    There can be only one answer to that question: We must, and we will.
    The road ahead is long and difficult, but if we preserve — persevere and prevail, if we keep the faith in ourselves and show what’s possible.
    Let’s do this work together. Let’s deliver progress for everyone. Let’s bend the arc of history for the good of the world because it’s within our power to do it.
Honoring legacy of John McCain
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"Biden honors late Sen. John McCain's legacy in Arizona speech" CBS News (28 September 2023)
  • Democracy means rule of the people, not rule of monarchs, not rule of the money, not rule of the mighty. Regardless of party, that means respecting free and fair elections — accepting the outcome, win or lose. It means you can't love your country only when you win. Democracy means rejecting and repudiating political violence; regardless of party such violence is never, never, never acceptable in America. It's undemocratic and it must never be normalized to advance political power.
    And democracy means respecting the institutions that govern a free society. That means adhering to the timeless words of the Declaration of Independence: "We hold these truths to be self evident" — a mission statement embodied in our constitution, our system of separation of powers and checks and balances. Our constitution — the bulwark to prevent the abuse of power — to ensure we the people move forward together under the law, rather than believing the only way is one way or no way at all.
    But our institutions in our democracy are not just of government, the institutions of democracy depend on the constitution and our character — our character — and the habits of our hearts and our minds.

October 2023

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Israel has the right and, I would add, responsibility to respond to the slaughter of their people. And we will ensure Israel has what it needs to defend itself against these terrorists. That’s a guarantee.
We also have to remember that … Hamas does not represent the vast majority of the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip or anywhere else.
 
Israel has to do everything in its power, as difficult as it is, to protect innocent civilians. And it’s difficult.
  • Today, the people of Israel are under attack, orchestrated by a terrorist organization, Hamas.
    In this moment of tragedy, I want to say to them and to the world and to terrorists everywhere that the United States stands with Israel. We will not ever fail to have their back.
    We’ll make sure they have the help their citizens need and they can continue to defend themselves. … Israel has the right to defend itself and its people. Full stop.
    There is never justification for terrorist acts.
    And my administration’s support for Israel’s security is rock solid and unwavering.
    Let me say this as clearly as I can: This is not a moment for any party hostile to Israel to exploit these attacks to seek advantage. The world is watching.
  • It is important for Americans to see what is happening. I have been doing this for a long time.
    I never really thought that I would see, have confirmed, pictures of terrorists beheading children.
    Downplaying Hamas’s atrocities and blaming the Jewish people is unthinkable.
    • 11 October 2023 reported by Charisma Madarang of Rolling Stone
      • 12 October 2023 a report from Al Jazeera quoted a Washington Post interview of a White House staffer who walked this back: “A White House spokesperson later clarified that US officials and the president have not seen pictures or confirmed such reports independently. The president based his comments about the alleged atrocities on the claims from Netanyahu’s spokesman and media reports from Israel, according to the White House.”
  • The anger, the hurt, the — the sense of outrage that the Israeli people are feeling after the brutally inflicted devastation by Hamas is completely understandable.
    Israel has the right and, I would add, responsibility to respond to the slaughter of their people. And we will ensure Israel has what it needs to defend itself against these terrorists. That’s a guarantee.
    We also have to remember that Hamas does not represent — let me say it again — Hamas does not represent the vast majority of the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip or anywhere else.
    Hamas is hiding behind Palestinian civilians, and it’s despicable and, not surprisingly, cowardly as well.
    This also puts an added burden on Israel while they go after Hamas.
    But that does not lessen the need for — to operate and align with the laws of war for Israeli — it has to do everything in its power — Israel has to do everything in its power, as difficult as it is, to protect innocent civilians. And it’s difficult.
Remarks on the Terrorist Attacks in Israel
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Remarks on the Terrorist Attacks in Israel (10 October 2023)
  • You know, there are moments in this life — and I mean this literally — when the pure, unadulterated evil is unleashed on this world.
    The people of Israel lived through one such moment this weekend. The bloody hands of the terrorist organization Hamas — a group whose stated purpose for being is to kill Jews.
    This was an act of sheer evil.
    More than 1,000 civilians slaughtered — not just killed, slaughtered — in Israel. Among them, at least 14 American citizens killed.
    Parents butchered using their bodies to try to protect their children.
    Stomach-turning reports of being — babies being killed.
    Entire families slain.
    Young people massacred while attending a musical festival to celebrate peace — to celebrate peace.
    Women raped, assaulted, paraded as trophies.
    Families hid their fear for hours and hours, desperately trying to keep their children quiet to avoid drawing attention.
    And thousands of wounded, alive but carrying with them the bullet holes and the shrapnel wounds and the memory of what they endured.
    You all know these traumas never go away.
    There are still so many families desperately waiting to hear the fate of their loved ones, not knowing if they’re alive or dead or hostages.
    Infants in their mothers’ arms, grandparents in wheelchairs, Holocaust survivors abducted and held hostage — hostages whom Hamas has now threatened to execute in violation of every code of human morality.
    It’s abhorrent.
    The brutality of Hamas — this bloodthirstiness — brings to mind the worst — the worst rampages of ISIS.
    This is terrorism.
    But sadly, for the Jewish people, it’s not new.
    This attack has brought to the surface painful memories and the scars left by a millennia of antisemitism and genocide of the Jewish people.
  • So, in this moment, we must be crystal clear: We stand with Israel. We stand with Israel. And we will make sure Israel has what it needs to take care of its citizens, defend itself, and respond to this attack.
    There is no justification for terrorism. There is no excuse.
    Hamas does not stand for the Palestinian people’s right to dignity and self-determination. Its stated purpose is the annihilation of the State of Israel and the murder of Jewish people.
    They use Palestinian civilians as human shields.
    Hamas offers nothing but terror and bloodshed with no regard to who pays the price.
    The loss of innocent life is heartbreaking.
    Like every nation in the world, Israel has the right to respond — indeed has a duty to respond — to these vicious attacks.
  • I just got off the phone with — the third call with Prime Minister Netanyahu. And I told him if the United States experienced what Israel is experiencing, our response would be swift, decisive, and overwhelming.
    We also discussed how democracies like Israel and the United States are stronger and more secure when we act according to the rule of law.
    Terrorists … purposefully target civilians, kill them. We uphold the laws of war — the law of war. It matters. There’s a difference.
  • My team has been in near constant communication with our Israeli partners and partners all across the region and the world from the moment this crisis began.
    We’re surging additional military assistance, including ammunition and interceptors to replenish Iron Dome.
    We’re going to make sure that Israel does not run out of these critical assets to defend its cities and its citizens.
    My administration has consulted closely with Congress throughout this crisis. And when Congress returns, we’re going to ask them to take urgent action to fund the national security requirements of our critical partners.
    This is not about party or politics. This is about the security of our world, the security of the United States of America.
  • The Department of Defense has moved the USS Gerald R. Ford Carrier Strike Group to the Eastern Mediterranean and bolstered our fighter aircraft presence. And we stand ready to move in additional assets as needed.
    Let me say again — to any country, any organization, anyone thinking of taking advantage of this situation, I have one word: Don’t. Don’t.
    Our hearts may be broken, but our resolve is clear.
  • Yesterday, I also spoke with the leaders of France, Germany, Italy, and the UK to discuss the latest developments with our European allies and coordinate our united response.
    This comes on top of days of steady engagement with partners across the region.
    We’re also taking steps at home. In cities across the United States of America, police departments have stepped up security around centers … of Jewish life.
    And the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Bureau of Investigation are working closely with state and local law enforcement and Jewish community partners to identify and disrupt any domestic threat that could emerge in connection with these horrific attacks.
    This is a moment for the United States to come together, to grieve with those who are mourning.
  • Let’s be real clear: There is no place for hate in America — not against Jews, not against Muslims, not against anybody. We reject — we reject — what we reject is terrorism. We condemn the indiscriminate evil, just as we’ve always done.
    That’s what America stands for.
  • For 75 years, Israel has stood as the ultimate guarantor of security of Jewish people around the world so that the atrocities of the past could never happen again.
    And let there be no doubt: The United States has Israel’s back.
    We will make sure the Jewish and democratic State of Israel can defend itself today, tomorrow, as we always have. It’s as simple as that.

November 2023

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Remarks in San Francisco (November 2023)
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A stable relationship between the world's two largest economies is not merely good for those two economies but for the world — a stable relationship. It's good for everyone.
 
I'm looking forward to seeing all the progress we're going to make and all the bridges between our people we're going to continue to build in the months and years ahead.
Remarks in San Francisco, California, during the APEC forums (11- 17 November 2023)
 
So much of history of the world will be written in the Asia-Pacific in the coming years. We must never forget that it's a history that belongs to all of us.
  • We're going to see more changes in the next 10 years than we've seen in the last 50 years. … The questions we must answer today are not about how much we trade, but about how we build resilience, lift up working people, reduce carbon emissions, and set up our economies to succeed over the long run.  How to deliver growth from the bottom up and the middle out so no one gets left behind.
  • I met with Xi yesterday, leader to leader, to make sure there is no miscommunication between us. As always — and I've met with him more than any other world leader, because when I was Vice President, it was concluded that I should get to know him. … We've had, prior to this, 68 hours of private meetings just he and I, each with a simultaneous interpreter. Our discussions have always been candid and constructive. I again emphasized to President Xi that the United States does not seek conflict.
    And yesterday, we announced resumption of military-to-military communication channels to reduce the risk of accidental miscalculation.     And it exists.
    This is not — as my generation would say back in the day, this is not all "Kumbaya." But it's straightforward. It's straightforward. We have real differences with Beijing when it comes to maintaining fair and level economic playing field and protecting your intellectual property. We're going to continue to address them with smart policies and strong diplomacy.
    We've also taken targeted action to protect our vital national security interest.
    But let me be clear: We are de-risking and diversifying our … economic relationship with the PRC, not decoupling. Not decoupling. We'll be firm in standing up for our values and our interests. And I was very straightforward, as he was with me yesterday.
    At the same time, on critical global issues such as climate, AI, counternarcotics, where it makes sense to work together, we've committed to work together. We're going to continue our commitment to diplomacy to avoid surprises and prevent misunderstandings.
    A stable relationship between the world's two largest economies is not merely good for those two economies but for the world — a stable relationship. It's good for everyone.
    • Remarks at the APEC CEO Summit (16 November 2023)
  • I challenge all of us to measure our successes not based on the bottom lines of our balance sheets but by the lives we lift up through our investments, the potential we unleash with our innovation, and the ability to continue to talk with one another.
    Let's build a global economy where everyone has a chance to succeed and workers have a fair shot, a fair share of the value they create.
    The United States is stepping up because of many of you in this room. We're not talking the talk; we're backing it up with commitments. And we're going to see us — you're going to see us follow through.
    So, I want to thank you again for joining us in San Francisco; thank you for your commitment to APEC and the future of the Pacific — Asia-Pacific region; and thank you for everything you've already done to make this summit a success.
    • Remarks at the APEC CEO Summit (16 November 2023)
  • This is a city by the Bay — a city where many have left their hearts. A city built for generations of dreamers, all — all chasing a hope and a chance to build something new.
    From here in San Francisco, America reaches out all across the Pacific, building bridges mightier than the Golden Gate, spanning more than — more space and time than the great expanse that the water has. Bridges linking pride in our past. The immigrants and workers who sunk their sweat … in the foundations of this nation. And our hope for the future and the untold heights to which we're going to climb together.
    Bridges connecting diverse communities. All across the traditions, cultures, and languages, we find the common dreams we share for ourselves and for our children. Bridges that carry the ideas of entrepreneurs: "What if? Why not? What next?" … I'm looking forward to seeing all the progress we're going to make and all the bridges between our people we're going to continue to build in the months and years ahead.
  • I had some comments to make to you. I'm not going to make them. I'm going to just summarize this way: You know, tonight, as I met with some of my colleagues that I've worked with from countries all across the region, including earlier today with Xi Jinping of China, you know, there's reason to be optimistic. There's reason to be optimistic.
    I look at all of you and I see the enthusiasm, I see the sense of possibilities.
    I was once asked by Xi Jinping in China … spent a lot of time with him, traveled 17,000 miles with him. He said, "Can you define America for me?" I said, "I can in one word, and I mean it: possibilities."
    Anything is possible in this country if we do it together, and we're going to start that now.
  • Eavan Boland … was a daughter of Dublin, Ireland, and she made a career as a poet in Palo Alto, California. And she taught at Stanford University.
    And this was one of her last poems. And a line in the poem goes, "Remind us again now that history changes …That it belongs to us. It belongs to all of us."
    We gather this week in San Francisco at an inflection point in history. One of the full new challenges that's — not only challenges but new threats as well.
    But we have to never forget that we can change and bend the arc of history for the better if we make up our mind to do it, that together we can harness the power of the Pacific to grow our economies, to uplift our workers, to protect our planet, and to connect our people to one another and the future of greater prosperity and dignity for all.
    So much of history of the world will be written in the Asia-Pacific in the coming years. We must never forget that it's a history that belongs to all of us.
    Hopes that have always brought us forward. Hopes that, in fact, we share — 3 billion people … that we represent share in common. Hopes and aspirations that have brought us together here today.
Remarks in on the release of hostages and prisoners in the Hamas-Israeli war (November 2023)
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  • As we look to the future, we have to end this cycle of violence in the Middle East. We need to renew our resolve to pursue this two-state solution where Israelis and Palestinians can one day live side by side — in a two states solution — with equal measure of freedom and dignity, two states for two people; and it’s more important now than ever. Hamas unleashed this terrorist attack because they fear nothing more than Israelis and Palestinians living side by side in peace. You know, to continue down the path of terror and violence and killing and war is to give Hamas what they seek. And we can't do that.
    So, today, let’s continue to be thankful for all the families who are now and those who will soon be brought together again. … Over the coming days I'll remain engaged with leaders throughout the Middle East as we all work together to build a better future for the region — a future where this kind of violence is unthinkable; a future all children in the region — every child — Jewish, Muslim, Christian, Israeli, Palestinian, Arab — grow up knowing only peace. That's what we do.

December 2023

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2024

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The truth is: Aid flowing to Gaza is nowhere nearly enough now. It's nowhere nearly enough.

February 2024

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March 2024

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Let’s remember who we are.
We are the United States of America.
And there is nothing — nothing beyond our capacity when we act together.
  • To lead America, the land of possibilities, you need a vision for the future and what can and should be done.
    Tonight, you’ve heard mine.
    I see a future where defending democracy, you don’t diminish it.
    I see a future where we restore the right to choose and protect our freedoms, not take them away.
    I see a future where the middle class has — finally has a fair shot and the wealthy have to pay their fair share in taxes.
    I see a future where we save the planet from the climate crisis and our country from gun violence.
    Above all, I see a future for all Americans. I see a country for all Americans. And I will always be President for all Americans because I believe in America. I believe in you, the American people.
    You’re the reason we’ve never been more optimistic about our future than I am now.
    So, let’s build the future together. Let’s remember who we are.
    We are the United States of America.
    And there is nothing — nothing beyond our capacity when we act together.
    God bless you all. And may God protect our troops.

April 2024

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  • And my uncle, they called him – Ambrose, they called him Bosie… and he became an Army Air Corps, before the Air Force came along, he flew those single engine planes as reconnaissance over war zones.And he got shot down in New Guinea, and they never found the body because there used to be a lot of cannibals – for real – in that part of the New Guinea
  • Imagine what we can do next, Four more years. Pause.
  • In a sense, I don't know why we're surprised by Trump,How many times does he have to prove we can't be trusted?
  • A lot of lovely women — but women would send very salacious pictures and I’d just give them to the Secret Service. I thought somebody would think I was…
  • We’ll certainly never forget the dark days of June 6, January 6th, excuse me,One of the dark days in history. The idea that wasn’t an insurrection — I don’t understand.
  • I made it clear to the Israelis—don’t move on Haifa.

May 2024

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  • He may not accept the outcome of the election? I promise you he won’t, The guy is not a Democrat with a small ‘D.
  • We'll never forget him lying about the pandemic. We’ll never forget about the rise in anti-Asian hate crimes during the pandemic...While we fight for comprehensive immigration reform, he calls immigrants rapists and murderers. He says they are not people. He says immigrants are 'poisoning the blood of our country.' Folks, my predecessor wants a country just for some of us. We want a country for all of us.
  • I say to every young man thinking of getting married, marry into a family with five or more daughters ... One of them will always love you
  • What would’ve happened if Black Americans had stormed the Capitol? I don’t think he’d be talking about pardons.

June 2024

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  • Folks — the campaign entered unchartered territory last week. For the first time in American history, a former president that is a convicted felon is now seeking the office of the presidency, But as disturbing as that is, more damaging is the all-out assault Donald Trump is making on the American system of justice.
National Day of Remembrance of the 80th Anniversary of D-Day
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Freedom is not free and it has never been guaranteed. Every generation has to earn it, fight for it, and defend it in the battle between autocracy and democracy — between the greed of a few and the rights of many.
National Day of Remembrance of the 80th Anniversary of D-Day (5 June 2024)
  • As we reflect on the sacrifices made on D-Day, we are reminded that freedom is not free and it has never been guaranteed. Every generation has to earn it, fight for it, and defend it in the battle between autocracy and democracy — between the greed of a few and the rights of many. Eighty years after our Nation’s brave Airmen, Coast Guardsmen, Sailors, Soldiers, and Marines embarked on D-Day — and as Americans everywhere answered the call to prayer and filled their hearts and homes with hope — may we honor the faith they kept in our Nation and their legacy by upholding the future that they died for — one grounded in freedom, democracy, opportunity, and equality for all.
Commemorating the 80th Anniversary of D-Day (6 June 2024)
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We’re living in a time when democracy is more at risk across the world than at any point since the end of the World War Two — since these beaches were stormed in 1944.
Remarks Commemorating the 80th Anniversary of D-Day
  • The price of unchecked tyranny is the blood of the young and the brave.
    In their generation, in their hour of trial, the Allied forces of D-Day did their duty.  Now the question for us is: In our hour of trial, will we do ours?
    We’re living in a time when democracy is more at risk across the world than at any point since the end of the World War Two — since these beaches were stormed in 1944.
    Now, we have to ask ourselves: Will we stand against tyranny, against evil, against crushing brutality of the iron fist?
    Will we stand for freedom?  Will we defend democracy?  Will we stand together? 
    My answer is yes.  And it only can be yes. 
    We’re not far off from the time when the last living voices of those who fought and bled on D-Day will no longer be with us.  So, we have a special obligation.  We cannot let what happened here be lost in the silence of the years to come.  We must remember it, must honor it, and live it.
    And we must remember: The fact that they were heroes here that day does not absolve us from what we have to do today.
    Democracy is never guaranteed.  Every generation must preserve it, defend it, and fight for it.  That’s the test of the ages.
    In memory of those who fought here, died here, literally saved the world here, let us be worthy of their sacrifice.  Let us be the generation that when history is written about our time — in 10, 20, 30, 50, 80 years from now — it will be said: When the moment came, we met the moment.  We stood strong.  Our alliances were made stronger.  And we saved democracy in our time as well.

July 2024

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  • Let me say this as clearly as I can:
    I'm the sitting President of the United States.
    I'm the nominee of the Democratic party.
    I'am staying in the race.
  • I have one job, and that’s to beat Donald Trump. I’m absolutely certain I’m the best person to be able to do that. So, we’re done talking about the debate, it’s time to put Trump in a bullseye...We can’t go another day, another day, without explaining what he’s doing, and we have to go after him.
Announcement of the end of his 2024 reelection campaign (July 21, 2024)
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Today I want to offer my full support and endorsement for Kamala to be the nominee of our party this year. Democrats — it’s time to come together and beat Trump. Let’s do this.
Full statement at PBS (21 July 2024)
  • Over the past three and a half years, we have made great progress as a Nation.
    Today, America has the strongest economy in the world. We've made historic investments in rebuilding our Nation, in lowering prescription drug costs for seniors, and in expanding affordable health care to a record number of Americans. We've provided critically needed care to a million veterans exposed to toxic substances. Passed the first gun safety law in 30 years.
    Appointed the first African American woman to the Supreme Court. And passed the most significant climate legislation in the history of the world. America has never been better positioned to lead than we are today.
    I know none of this could have been done without you, the American people. Together, we overcame a once in a century pandemic and the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. We've protected and preserved our Democracy. And we've revitalized and strengthened our alliances around the world.
    It has been the greatest honor of my life to serve as your President. And while it has been my intention to seek reelection, I believe it is in the best interest of my party and the country for me to stand down and to focus solely on fulfilling my duties as President for the remainder of my term.
    I will speak to the Nation later this week in more detail about my decision.
  • For now, let me express my deepest gratitude to all those who have worked so hard to see me reelected. I want to thank Vice President Kamala Harris for being an extraordinary partner in all this work. And let me express my heartfelt appreciation to the American people for the faith and trust you have placed in me.
    I believe today what I always have: that there is nothing America can't do - when we do it together. We just have to remember we are the United States of America.
Endorsement of Kamala Harris to be the Democratic candidate for President (July 21, 2024)
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Endorsement of Kamala Harris to be the Democratic candidate for President, in posting on X (21 July 2024)
  • My fellow Democrats, I have decided not to accept the nomination and to focus all my energies on my duties as President for the remainder of my term. My very first decision as the party nominee in 2020 was to pick Kamala Harris as my Vice President. And it’s been the best decision I’ve made. Today I want to offer my full support and endorsement for Kamala to be the nominee of our party this year. Democrats — it’s time to come together and beat Trump. Let’s do this.
Statement to the American People (24 July 2024)
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I ran for president four years ago because I believed and still do that the soul of America was at stake. The very nature of who we are was at stake. And that’s still the case.
 
The great thing about America is here kings and dictators do not rule. The people do.
History is in your hands. The power is in your hands. The idea of America lies in your hands.
"Remarks by President Biden in Statement to the American People" (24 July 2024)
  • My fellow Americans, I’m speaking to you tonight from behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office.
    In this sacred space, I’m surrounded by portraits of extraordinary American presidents. Thomas Jefferson, who wrote the immortal words that guide this nation. George Washington, who showed us presidents are not kings. Abraham Lincoln, who implored us to reject malice. Franklin Roosevelt, who inspired us to reject fear.
    I revere this office, but I love my country more.
    It’s been the honor of my life to serve as your president. But in the defense of democracy, which is at stake, I think it’s more important than any title.
    I draw strength and I find joy in working for the American people. But this sacred task of perfecting our Union — it’s not about me. It’s about you, your families, your futures. It’s about “We the People.” We can never forget that, and I never have.
  • I’ve made it clear that I believe America is at an inflection point, one of those rare moments in history when the decisions we make now will determine our fate of our nation and the world for decades to come. America is going to have to choose between moving forward or backward, between hope and hate, between unity and division.
    We have to decide: Do we still believe in honesty, decency, and respect; freedom, justice, and democracy?
    In this moment, we can see those we disagree with not as enemies or — but as frien- — as fellow Americans. Can we do that? Does character in public life still matter?
    I believe I know the answer to these questions, because I know you, the American people.
    And I know this: We are a great nation because we are a good people.
  • When you elected me to this office, I promised to always level with you, to tell you the truth. And the truth, the sacred cause of this country is larger than any one of us.
    And those of us who cheri[sh] that cause — cherish it so much — the cause of American democracy itself — must unite to protect it.
    You know, in recent weeks, it’s become clear to me that I needed to unite my party in this critical endeavor. I believe my record as president, my leadership in the world, my vision for America’s future all merited a second term, but nothing — nothing — can come in the way of saving our democracy. That includes personal ambition.
    So, I’ve decided the best way forward is to pass the torch to a new generation. That’s the best way to unite our nation.
    I know there is a time and a place for long years of experience in public life. But there is also a time and place for new voices, fresh voices — yes, younger voices. And that time and place is now.
    Over the next six months, I’ll be focused on doing my job as president. That means I will continue to lower costs for hardworking families, grow our economy. I’ll keep defending our personal freedoms and our civil rights, from the right to vote to the right to choose. And I’ll keep calling out hate and extremism and make it clear there is no place — no place in America for political violence or any violence ever, period.
  • I ran for president four years ago because I believed and still do that the soul of America was at stake. The very nature of who we are was at stake. And that’s still the case.
    America is an idea — an idea stronger than any army, bigger than any ocean, more powerful than any dictator or tyrant. It’s the most powerful idea in the history of the world.
    That idea is that we hold these truths to be self-evident. We’re all created equal, endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights: life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness.
    We’ve never fully lived up to it — to this sacred idea, but we’ve never walked away from it either. And I do not believe the American people will walk away from it now.
    In just a few months, the American people will choose the course of America’s future.
    I made my choice. I have made my views known.
    I would like to thank our great vice president, Kamala Harris. She’s experienced. She’s tough. She’s capable. She has been an incredible partner to me and a leader for our country.
  • My fellow Americans, it’s been the privilege of my life to serve this nation for over 50 years. Nowhere else on Earth could a kid with a stutter from modest beginnings in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and Claymont, Delaware, one day sit behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office as president of the United States. But here I am.
    That’s what’s so special about America. We are a nation of promise and possibilities, of dreamers and doers, of ordinary Americans doing extraordinary things.
    -->I have given my heart and my soul to our nation, like so many others. And I have been blessed a million times in return with the love and support of the American people.
    I hope you have some idea how grateful I am to all of you. The great thing about America is here kings and dictators do not rule. The people do.
    History is in your hands. The power is in your hands. The idea of America lies in your hands.
    We just have to keep faith — keep the faith and remember who we are. We are the United States of America, and there is simply nothing — nothing beyond our capacity when we do it together. So, let’s act together, preserve our democracy.

August 2024

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Today is a powerful example of why it’s vital to have friends in this world — friends you can trust, work with, and depend upon, especially on matters of great consequence and sensitivity like this.
Speech at the 2024 Democratic National Convention (19 August 2024)
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Speech at the 2024 Democratic National Convention (19 August 2024)
  • My fellow Democrats, my fellow Americans, nearly four years ago in winter on the steps of the Capitol, on a cold January day, I raised my right hand and I swore an oath to you and to God, to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution and to faithfully execute the office of the President of the United States. In front of me was a city surrounded by the National Guard. Behind me, a Capitol just two weeks before had been overrun by a violent mob. But I knew then, from the bottom of my heart that I knew now, there is no place in America for political violence. None.
  • Progress was and is possible. Justice is achievable, and our best days are not behind us, they’re before us. Now it’s summer. The winter has passed, and with a grateful heart I stand before you now on this August night to report that democracy has prevailed, democracy has delivered, and now democracy must be preserved.
    You’ve heard me say it before, we’re facing an inflection point, one of those rare moments in history when the decisions we make now will determine the fate of our nation and the world for decades to come. That’s not hyperbole, I mean it literally. We’re in a battle for the very soul of America.
  • I know and believe in an America where honesty, dignity, decency, still matter. An America where everyone has a fair shot and hate has no safe harbor. An America where the fundamental creed of this nation that all of us are created equal is still very much alive. And a broad coalition of Americans joined with me. Eighty-one million voters voted for us, more than any time in all of history. Because of all of you in this room and others, we came together in 2020 to save democracy.
    As your President, I’ve been determined to keep America moving forward, not going back. To stand against hate and violence in all its forms. To be a nation where we not only live with but thrive on diversity, demonizing no one, leaving no one behind, and becoming a nation that we profess to be.
  • Donald Trump promised Infrastructure Week, every week for four years, and he never built a damn thing.
    And now because of what Kamala and I have done—remember, we were told we couldn’t get it done? Remember, when we came into office, we couldn’t get anything passed?—but right now, we’re giving America an infrastructure decade not week. We’re modernizing our roads, our bridges, our ports, our airports, our trains, our buses, removing every lead pipe from schools and homes so every child could drink clean water. We’re providing affordable high speed internet for every American no matter where they live, unlike, not unlike what Roosevelt did with electricity. And so much more. We are uniting the country, we’re growing our economy, we’re improving our quality of life, and we’re building a better America. Because that’s who we are.
  • Folks, I’ve got five months left in my presidency. I’ve got a lot to do. I intend to get it done.
    It’s been the honor of my lifetime to serve as your President. I love the job, but I love my country more. I love my country more.
  • Selecting Kamala was the very first decision I made when I became our nominee. And it was the best decision I made my whole career. We’ve not only gotten to know each other, we’ve become close friends. She’s tough, she’s experienced, and she has enormous integrity. Enormous integrity. Her story represents the best American story.
    And like many of our best Presidents, she was also Vice President. That’s a joke.
    But she’ll be a President our children could look up to. She'll be a President respected by world leaders because she already is. She’ll be a President we can all be proud of. And she will be an historic President who puts her stamp on America’s future.
  • Folks, all of us carry a special obligation. Independents, Republicans, Democrats. We saved democracy in 2020, and now we must save it again in 2024. The vote that each of us cast this year will determine whether democracy and freedom will prevail. It’s that simple. It’s that serious. And the power is literally in your hands. History’s in your hands. Not hyperbole. It’s in your hands. America’s future’s in your hands.

Attributed

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  • "Listen to me, boss," Biden told Obama, according to Obama's recent memoir recounting their conversations. "Maybe I've been around this town for too long, but one thing I know is when these generals are trying to box in a new president." According to the former President's account, Biden brought his face a few inches from Obama's and stage-whispered: "Don't let them jam you."

Quotes about Biden

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In alphabetical order by author or source.
 
"Biden and Harris show where the nation is heading: a blend of ethnicities, lived experiences and worldviews that must find a way forward together if the American experiment is to survive." - Edward Felsenthal, editor in chief of Time magazine.
 
"Beau was the kind of guy who inspired people to be a better version of themselves. He really was the best of us. And when I would ask him, 'Where'd this come from?' he'd always talk about his dad." - Kamala Harris, discussing her relationship with Beau Biden when they both served as state attorneys general.

A-R

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  • One of the things I like about the fact of the Biden-Harris plan is that they are, number one, not talking about taking people’s healthcare.... The Biden-Harris plan is talking about raising people’s living wages, $15 an hour. The Trump-Pence plan is talking about giving more money to the wealthy. In fact, the Trump-Pence-McConnell plan, they refuse to pass a stimulus because they want another $200 billion in tax cuts, they want money for a fighter jet, and they want to protect corporations from liability when those corporations didn’t protect their people from coronavirus. So, what we have is two different worlds operating.... So, on the one hand, while Pence and — while Biden and Harris may not be every, fully where the Poor People’s Campaign are, they are in the world of wanting to do more. They’re in the sphere of wanting to increase. They’re in the sphere of wanting to make sure that the people have what they need, as opposed to wanting to only secure the wealthy and the greedy.
  • It was very obvious that Vice President Biden cared, as he extended to Jacob Jr. a sense of humanity, treating him as a person worthy of consideration and prayer.
  • You have hundreds of thousands of people pouring across every month
    Not only are they letting them through, they’re farming them out all across the country, putting them on planes, putting them on buses. Do you think they’re worrying about COVID for that? Of course not.
    Whatever variants there are around the world, they’re coming across that southern border.
    He’s not shutting down the virus. He’s helping facilitate it.
    Why don’t you get this border secure?
    Until you do that, I don’t want to hear a blip about COVID from you.
  • I think he has been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades.
    • Robert Gates, former U.S. Defense Secretary, says of Joe Biden in his book Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War (2014).
  • On Monday, President Biden expressed his support for a ceasefire in Gaza during a phone call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanayhu. But Biden stopped short of directly demanding Israel halt its assault, despite growing pressure from Congress, where over two dozen Democratic senators have backed an immediate ceasefire. After Biden’s call, Israel continued its attack on Gaza, which has now entered its ninth day. At the United Nations, the United States once again blocked the U.N. Security Council from backing a ceasefire. Israel is the largest recipient of U.S. military aid, receiving some $3.8 billion a year. In recent weeks, the Biden administration approved the sale of $735 million in precision-guided weapons to Israel
  • Ever since I received Joe's call [asking me to be his running mate], I've been thinking . . . about the first Biden that I really came to know. Beau was the kind of guy who inspired people to be a better version of themselves. He really was the best of us. And when I would ask him, "Where'd this come from?" he'd always talk about his dad.
  • The civil rights struggle is nothing new to Joe. It's why he got into public service. It's why he helped reauthorise the Voting Rights Act and restore unemployment discrimination--and employment discrimination laws. And today, he takes his place in the ongoing story of America's march toward equality and justice as only--as the only, as the only who has served alongside the first black president and has chosen the first Black woman as his running mate.
  • This is a genuine crisis for America because if President Biden is frustrated in his attempt to pass his Build Back Better legislation (that is overwhelmingly supported by Americans across the political spectrum) — all because business groups, giant corporations and rightwing billionaires are asserting ownership over their two “made” senators — there’s a very good chance that today’s cynicism and political violence is just a preview of the rest of the decade.
  • Responding to over a decade of grassroots advocacy, upon entering office President Biden pledged to power the nation with 100 percent clean energy by 2035 (and 80 percent by 2030).
  • When Biden gave his speech last week, there was a very marked change, right in the middle of it. The very beginning was very calm, offering means of improvement for the American economy, and a set of proposals that were so wonderful that they don’t have the chance of being enacted. And that was simply to co-opt what calls itself the left wing of the Democratic Party, if that’s not an oxymoron. And then all of a sudden, his body language changed, his voice changed, and there was just an anger towards Russia and towards China, a visceral anger that brought back the whole 30 years of his tenure in Congress. And he was the leading cold war proponent, the leading proponent of the military, and of course now he wants to increase the military budget. So while on the one hand, he’s continuing the nationalistic trade policies of the Trump administration, he’s escalating the cold war against Russia and China, in the belief that somehow if he can impose sanctions and punish them economically, that will lead to a fall of the government. Well, you can see what he’s projecting here.
  • As President Biden explained, the current U.S.-orchestrated military escalation (“Prodding the Bear”) is not really about Ukraine. Biden promised at the outset that no U.S. troops would be involved. But he has been demanding for over a year that Germany prevent the Nord Stream 2 pipeline from supplying its industry and housing with low-priced gas and turn to the much higher-priced U.S. suppliers.
  • President Biden has indeed got a regime change, but the regime change is in the United States itself. When Biden said last week, well, we’ve got to make America make a lot of great sacrifices to support the Nazis in Ukraine... Biden really may succeed in rolling back the economy to the mid-19th century. And that basically is not just Biden, of course, it’s the people around him. And ultimately it’s the deep state. Whether you’re a Republican or a Democrat, their policy is identical...
  • As opponents go, Biden is run-of-the-mill. We can push him to incorporate some of the proposals of the progressive campaigns and put up a modicum of resistance to the pressure from the far right, but our focus must be to build the strongest, most unified movement we can, to shift the thinking of a significant portion of our society in time to prevent the worst case scenarios for our futures. We know what to expect from politicians of his stripe. Corporate loyalties, lip service on environmental protection, racial, gender and economic justice, support for US imperialism and an inflated military budget, an assertion of some liberal democratic values and a strong primary allegiance to capitalism.
  • You have the great fortune of being young, I remember I was two years older than you when I went to the House. But the main point is you can remember that she was there when you won a great victory, and you enjoyed it together. And now I’m sure that she’ll be watching you from now on. Good luck to you.
  • Short, owlish, with a smooth Kentucky accent, McConnell seemed an unlikely Republican leader. He showed no aptitude for schmoozing, backslapping, or rousing oratory. As far as anyone could tell, he had no close friends even in his own caucus, nor did he appear to have any strong convictions beyond an almost religious opposition to any version of campaign finance reform. Joe told me of one run-in he'd had on the Senate floor after the Republican leader blocked a bill Joe was sponsoring; when Joe tried to explain the bill's merits, McConnell raised his hand like a traffic cop and said, "You must be under the mistaken impression that I care." But what McConnell lacked in charisma or interest in policy he more than made up for in discipline, shrewdness, and shamelessness - all of which he employed in the single-minded and dispassionate pursuit of power.

S-Z

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  • We have never had a president with a longer paper trail than Joe Biden. He’s taken so many different positions on the same issues so many times throughout his career that I sometimes wonder if Biden even knows anymore what he actually thinks about a particular issue. Joe Biden might tell you one thing one day and really believe it, and then the next day he’s doing the exact opposite because he’s cut some side deal that maybe we’ll hear about in some years. Above all, Biden is an empire politician. He is someone who believes that questions of war don’t really matter on a moral level, but how does it impact America’s credibility, security and prestige
  • The Intercept conducted an exhaustive analysis of Biden’s political career with a focus on his positions on dozens of U.S. wars and military campaigns, CIA covert actions, and abuses of power; his views on whistleblowers and leakers; and his shifting stance on the often contentious relationship between the executive and legislative branches over war powers.
    The picture that emerges is of a man who is dedicated to the U.S. as an empire, who believes that preserving U.S. national interests and “prestige” on the global stage outweigh considerations of morality or even at times the deaths of innocent people. It also reveals a politician who consistently claims to hold bedrock principles but who often strays from those positions in support of a partisan agenda or because he wants a policy adopted regardless of the hypocrisy or contradictions. Nowhere is this dynamic more pronounced than on U.S. wars.
  • Biden’s election slogan was “America is back.” The truth is that “America” never left. There will be no major departures from the imperial course under Biden. While the drone wars continue, and the shift back to Cold War posturing in Europe and Asia accelerates, Biden will maintain the hostile stance toward left movements and governments throughout Latin America and the Caribbean. On climate change, Biden will reverse some of Trump’s most extreme stances, while still placing the profits of major corporations and the military industry over the health of the planet. The militarization of the borders and the maltreatment of refugees will remain, and the vast domestic surveillance apparatus will endure. The stark truth is this: The interests of the War Party trump any political disputes between the Democrats and the Republicans.
  • I think you could say it’s a good thing that Joe Biden did this, and that is the withdrawal from Afghanistan...
    There was an enormous amount of pressure on Joe Biden to keep the war in Afghanistan going from within his own party, certainly from the military brass. I think Biden deserves credit for standing up to them. I am not sure that if Barack Obama had been the commander-in-chief during this period he actually would have followed through as Biden did on a total withdrawal of conventional American forces. I do think someone who is this career politician specializing in foreign policy, I think Joe Biden knew the history well enough to know that he would have been taking a catastrophic gamble by keeping U.S. troops in Afghanistan. I think outside of Bernie Sanders, I think there were almost no Democratic candidates that would have had the spine to follow through on Trump’s withdrawal plan. Regarding China, I think it is a bit of a wash because you have both the Democrats and Republicans taking an increasingly hostile posture.
  • Some of the worst violence in American history occurred during the period of low partisan polarization stretching from the late Progressive era to the late 1970s-the moment for which Joe Biden waxed nostalgic. In Ivy League debate rooms and the Senate cloakroom, white men could discuss the most divisive issues of the day with all the politeness befitting what was for them a low-stakes conflict. Outside, the people whose rights were actually at stake were fighting and dying to have those rights recognized.
  • Change is possible, even for an old hand like Biden. Ulysses S. Grant married into a slave-owning family and inherited an enslaved person from his father-in-law. Little in his past suggested that he would crush the slave empire of the Confederacy, smash the first Ku Klux Klan, and become the first American president to champion the full citizenship of black men. Before he signed the Civil Rights and Voting Rights acts as president, Senator Lyndon Johnson was a reliable segregationist. History has seen more-dramatic reversals than Joe Biden becoming a committed foe of systemic racism, though not many.
  • I know liberals say, 'Don't say Joe Biden is old' — don't say what people see with their own eyes. I know you know how fucking old he is, and I know you don't want to say it because Trump is so scary, but he's so fucking old. When you watch him on television, you're nervous, aren't ya? I'm not saying that Biden can't contribute to society, he just shouldn't be president.

T

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  • @POTUS
the majority of the American people are not with you on this one. #CeasefireNow


Biden's a stupid person.

  • Running against the worst candidate in the history of presidential politics puts pressure on me . . . Could you imagine if I lose? My whole life, what am I going to do? I’m going to say, ‘I lost to the worst candidate in the history of politics.’ I’m not going to feel so good. Maybe I’ll have to leave the country?

See also

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References

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  1. ↑ President Biden and H.E. Scholz Participate in a Joint Press Conference, retrieved on 2022-09-30 
  2. ↑ Remarks by President Biden and Chancellor Scholz of the Federal Republic of Germany at Press Conference | The White House. web.archive.org (2022-02-08).
  3. ↑ CSPAN on Twitter. web.archive.org (2022-02-07).
  4. ↑ President Biden and German Chancellor Scholz Joint News Conference | C-SPAN.org. www.c-span.org.
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