Thank you. I tell you what, i love this state for real. You heard me say that. I go back a long way with a lot of folks who represented this state. Delaware in one important respect Everybody Knows everybody. And thats a good thing. Matter of fact, first time i ran for the united dates senate, i was 29 years old, wasnt old enough to be sworn in. Judge broderick, i have to be very careful in front of him. I may be called before the court. A great friend for a long time. But when i ran, my state was a yours, down around the massachusetts border, a little competition. But i remember, i started off my campaign in the southern part of the state of delaware. They speak with a thick accent, for real. We were a border state, wasnt sure what side we want to fight on in those days, for real. The southern part of the state is very southern. They talk at you like youre a good old fella. So the way you go in delaware, you work your way from south to north. They said, be careful what you say because everyone is related down here. I remember there was a guy called edgar c. Bennett you couldnt call him ed, it was edgar c. If youre not invited to stay in someones home in delaware and have to go to a hotel, you know youre not really that welcome. Edgar c. Seemed a lot more conservative than i was, but were happy to have me to go. So we went to mass and then he wanted me to go to his church in a town called selby ville. It was a beautiful old church, methodist church, and it had the graveyard in the front like the Old Catholic Church i belong to in upstate delaware, st. Josephs. You walk through the headstones and the entrance to go up. And the minister was very kind to me when i showed up at the church with him. And he said we have with us joe biden, running for the United States senate. Hopefully, he will greet the parishioners as they walk out. I did not expect that, but i was very flattered. So i stood there with the minister shaking hands with everybody. Edgar c. Was standing under these big oak trees that took up he stood over the big oak trees, and i said it was fine, except for the horses tail. So i guess its like that in new hampshire, anyway. Look, theres a lot to talk about so i want to get your questions, so i will be relatively brief. Number one, theres an overwhelming amount of issues that we have to deal with right now, but the single most consequential issue, as you know, mr. Mayor, if we get four more years of donald trump, it is going to change who we are as the character of our country. That is not hyperbole, i believe that to be true. So, it matters a lot what were going to do and who were going to pick. And so, when i announced for the senate, i did the same thing when i announced for president , state clearly why i was running for president. And theres three reasons. One was to restore the soul of this country, because i think whats happened, especially after you saw what happened in charlottesville, with those people coming out of the woods, screeching, their veins bulging, a young woman got killed and they asked the president what he thought, and he said there were very fine people on both sides. No president s never said anything like that, i mean for real. Maybe Andrew Jackson said Something Like that before the civil war, but no president has ever said Something Like that. Thats one of the reasons im running, to restore a sense of decency and honor. We hold those truths to be selfevident. Weve never walked away from them before. The president has this administration has walked away from them, because every time, every generation has moved the arc of inclusion wider and wider and its being shut down now. I think its being corrosive for the country. The second reason i said i was running was to restore the middle class. The middle class has taken a beating. We used to be the wealthiest middle class in the world. We are no longer the wealthiest middle class in the world. And almost all the data shows that 60 of the American People believe that their children will never have the standard of living may have had. Weve never thought that way before in the last century. Weve never lost that sense of optimism before, and a lot of people are worried. This time when we rebuild the middle class, weve got to bring everybody along. Everybody along. From the disabled to people of color, as well as hardworking people who just my dad would say, im not looking for a handout, joey. I just want them to understand my problem, the government. Just give me a shot. The third reason i was running is because we had to unite the country. And i was pretty roundly criticized by a number of my colleagues, all 900 running from no,f for the primary there are actually some really good people. They really are. Theyre good people. They would say yeah, joe biden used to be able to put everything together before, remember . He did the arms control treaties. He did and they would go through all the things i have done, but that was the old days. And this Republican Party is different. Its different, but it was only three years ago that we did a lot of these things. I think unifying the country is absolutely critical. I dont think its naive i understand this new republic and party well. Ive been on the receiving end of Donald Trumps billion dollars of ads trying to this merge my only surviving son, going after my family, going after me i understand them. I understand them well. But its not about me. Its about you. Its about the people in this room. Its about the people around the country. And president s should not hold grudges. President should run and represent all the people. And i mean that sincerely. John knows me well. I mean it. All the people. Immigrants, republicans, and democrats, republicans, and independents, because if we cant come together we can do cant do anything. This country is designed to require consensus. Without it, there is nothing that can get done other than the abuse of power by a president who says i cant get it done so im just going to go ahead and do it. So i dont think its naive at all to talk about uniting the country and the need to do it. I believe we can because i refuse to accept the proposition some of the people im running with in this nomination say to accept the notion that we will be forever at war with one another. It cannot be sustained in america. It cannot be sustained. Its not who we are. [applause] mr. Biden so we have to. We cant surrender the notion. Its going to be hard. Its going to be hard. But ive gotten a lot of hard things done before. Doesnt mean its not going to be hard this time. Heres the deal. You can get republican sometimes in the house and senate to vote with you, and when you dont, you go out and beat them. And i dont mean by going after their personalities. I dont mean the dirty politics of going after their motives. Look whats happened in american politics. Even small states that are close like yours and mine. What happens . I come to you and i say, look. I think youre in the pocket of big business. I think youre immoral. I think youre this by the way, lets work out a deal on how were going to workout Climate Change. Fat chance. I learned a long time ago from a guy named mike mansfield, the majority leader from montana, he was called iron mike, more integrity in his Little Finger than most people had in their whole body, for real. He said joe, its not always appropriate to question a man or womans motives, but its always appropriate to question their judgment. You dont know their motives. Question their judgment. Then you can get something passed. When in fact a lot has changed with this president. When the carnie show comes through town and you find out there are no peanuts under the three shells, you usually dont bet on him a second time. He was going to take care of the forgotten people and then he forgot that they forget. [laughter] mr. Biden but heres the deal. When, in fact, so much has changed, i think the environment is so right for us to do so much more, not as democrats or republicans, but as a nation. We can own the 21st century. We have what it takes. Ive never been more optimistic in my life about the prospects of this country. Folks, look. If you think about it, were in a situation where weve got to give when the republicans disagree with us, when im your president , if im your president , heres the deal. We take it to them in their districts. Campaign. For example, i went to 24 states and campaign for 67, 69 im not sure the number of candidates last time out in 2018. Im the only guy invited in all the states, from alabama to montana to colorado to pennsylvania, state that we lost and or were close. And guess what we did . We didnt go after the personalities of the people we ran against. We said were going to win 41 seats and were going to take back the house. We won 41 seats. By the way, four academy graduates, one the first marine fighter pilot, dropping bombs. You know, this is an incredible group. But whatd we do . We said, all of a sudden when people realized, remember, we lost the house when we passed obamacare. Everybody said you lost because its not popular. Then what happened . Then along came the republicans in this state and others and said, were going to take away obamacare. Were not going to cover preexisting conditions anymore. You cant keep your child on your healthcare policy until hes 26 anymore, etc. And all of a sudden everybody said whoa, what . Because people didnt even know it was obamacare. I said to the president i keep on picking on john, but john knows mr. President , you ve got to take a victory lap here. You have to explain it. Remember, i got in trouble for saying we should have a fireside chat remember that . But the president said, we dont have time. Theres too many things we have to face to take a victory lap. But it wasnt until people started to take it away that people started to realize, whoa. So all we did was go out and say your state rep, governor, your senator, your congressman wants to take away this thing you have. People said no. And we won. When you cant convince, you go out and make the case. And so people know im concluding with this and ill go to questions, because there are so many issues i want to talk to you about, from education to Climate Change, to anything you want to talk to me about. Climate change through a whole range of issues, the violence against women act, which they re trying to kill, a whole range of things. Everybody who knows who donald trump is im not being facetious. This is not political. This is reality. Even the supporters know who he is. They know who years. People like him. They know who he is. None of them are arguing that they want their kids to grow up with the same character, but they know who he is. They decided they like him because of things he did or because of things democrats didnt do or whatever. Weve got to let them know that who we are, however. Weve got to let them know that we choose hope over fear. Because he feeds on feeding fear to people. Fear. We have to choose truth overlies. Over lies. Thats his theory, eventually if you say it and say it and say it. We choose truth over lies. We choose science over fiction. Over fiction. [applause] mr. Biden for real. We got a lot of work cut out for us. And i want to start off by thanking everybody under the age of 15. We owe you big, kiddo. I dont know how you got here, but thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you. But after this is over, come up and talk to me. Everybody under 15, you get Something Special today, because this has got to be boring, boring, boring for you. Thank you. [laughter] mr. Biden anyway, my mother would often say joey, hush up and take some questions. So fire away. We have people in the audience, give the microphone to them hello, thank you so much for being here today. I just want to say thank you for your work on the aca. My child was born super sick and before the aca lifted lifetime insurance caps, and so i really appreciate it. Im just wondering with all these efforts to dismantle the aca, what are you going to ensure that all children receive the health care that they need and can access all the medical services they require . Mr. Biden what was your first name . Sarah. Mr. Biden sarah. You know, you could hear a crack in sarahs voice there, because many of you have experienced the same thing sarah has. Also was a significant user of health care. When i first got elected, before i got sworn in, i was in washington and a tractortrailer blindsided my wife and daughter christmas shopping, and killed my wife and daughter. But my sons survived. Anyway. But what happened was, i have insurance. I had the peace of mind that i would be able to get them good doctors. And then, you know, i got hospitalized years ago with a cranial aneurysm. I was hospitalized a couple of times. They took the top of my head off the second time, said they could nt find my brain the first time. [laughter] mr. Biden but it was my nurses that gave me hope. And my son, beau, attorney general, a decorated war hero for real. A year in iraq, six months in cozumel before that. He came home and was diagnosed with glioblastoma, given months. It wasnt could he would he live, it was when. Run out of coverage. Suffer in peace. Youre on your own. One of the things my dad used to say is that everyone is entitled to be treated with dignity. How can a parent maintain their dignity when they have a dying child and theres not a damn thing you can do about it . How can a parent maintain their dignity when theyre in a situation where they have a talented child in school and cant figure out a way to pay to get them there. Health care should be a right, not a privilege. So heres what i suppose. And i wont go into excruciating detail, but if you want me to do more, let me know. Number one, i take obamacare and further subsidize it so it costs less to get into obamacare for everyone, no matter what your income is, so you can get what you call a gold plan, and if you can afford, that is, if you have good income, you can buy into it and in fact, youll not have a deductible more than 1000 ever. Thats the gold plan. You dont have to buy that plan. You can buy a cheaper plan if youd like. For those who cant afford health care plan, i provide what barack and i wanted are i usually would call him president , but i dont want to confuse him with the other guy. [applause] mr. Biden i mean it. I dont want to get them mixed up. We talked about the need to add a public option, a public option that provided medicare, a medicarelike option for people who in fact wanted to buy into a medicare option if they wanted to do it. And if they wanted to do it, and if they couldnt afford it, if they qualify for medicaid, they would automatically be enrolled in this medicare option. Its medicare for those who want it, because we have 160 Million People nationwide who in fact like the Health Care Plans they have negotiated, many of them with the unions and companies, that are very expensive plans that they like. And, in fact, they gave up significant salary concessions in order to get that coverage. And you shouldnt have to give it up if you want to keep it. Like medicare for all, you must, as a matter of law, you cannot have any private insurance. You have to give it up. Barack promised you could keep your doctor and it turned out not to be right. You can keep your plan as long as your company has the plan. They could turn around and say, were not going to do it anymore. Then youre able to buy into obamacare, the obamabiden plan, that relates to having this public option. And my plan i dont want to kill you, what does it cost . Cost a lot of money, 750 billion over 10 years. But it doesnt cost 30 trillion over 10 years, and it leaves you with the option of keeping what you have if you want it or buying in if you dont want it. Everybody in my state, like yours, if im not mistaken, unless god bless his memory. Unless you all i know hes a republican how do you pay for it . I lay out in detail how i would pay for the plan and Everything Else i call for, and we ought to be able to get you these charts. And these are the tax increases for the very, very wealthy, because we now have 1 trillion, 800 billion, 900 billion additional deficit because of the tax proposals the president put forward, trump, that overwhelmingly takes care of the top 1 of the American People. For example, what i do is i take Capital Gains and i treat them as ordinary income. Nothing wrong with that. If you want to do that. But if youre in and id raise the tax bracket back up to 39. 6 for the wealthiest. If youre in that tax bracket, you pay 39. 6 on the Capital Gains instead of 20 . That alone would raise 800 billion, that one thing. Id raise the Corporate Tax rate. I come from the corporate state of america. More corporations are incorporated in my state than in the rest of the world. Thats not a joke. Its gigantic. Guess what . Barack and i thought these Corporate Tax rates should be lowered from 38 to 28 , but not to 20 . So if you take it back up to 28 , which is a rational position, that raises about 720 billion. Im not going to go through it all. And ending the fossil fuel production tax break, that raises about 25 billion right off the bat. Theres a whole range of things. So i pay for everything i call for, everything i call for. And still will reduce the deficit in the process. Because you dont need all this money to pay for the things i call for in health care, education, etc. So thats probably more than you wanted to know. Theres a lot more to say, but you should not have to worry. If you have, for example, when gale introduced me you know, let me say it another way. How many of you in this room, if you dont want to answer your you dont have to, obviously, how many of you have lost a son, daughter, husband, wife, mother, or father to cancer . Were father to cancer . Raise your hand. Thats what happens when you dont have coverage. And if you have to sell your house to get the coverage, how many have i wont go through it. Anyway, so theres a lot we can to do, and heres the biggest deal. I admire the intention of my friends who fought for medicare for all, but the minimum number is 30 trillion over 10, most people think its 40 trillion, but thats 3. 5 trillion a year. Thats more money than we spend on every single thing the government does. You could wipe out the pentagon, satellites in the sky, everything. You can wipe out department of education. You can wipe out the entirety of the civil service, wipe it all out. It doesnt add up to 3. 5 trillion a year. And i think the most important thing in running against donald trump is we have to have truth