Pod Save America - “Smartass.”

Episode Date: March 28, 2018

Vice President Joe Biden sits down with Jon, Jon, and Tommy at his office in Washington, DC to talk about Donald Trump, John Bolton, partisanship, the economy, and the Biden Cancer Initiative.

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Jon Lovett. I'm Tommy Vitor. We are here at Vice President Biden's office in Washington, D.C. We have a beautiful view of the Capitol. This is literally the biggest table I've ever seen. Let's see what we can see here. There is a punching bag. There is a ring there are several different training areas this is called the penn biden center they kindly turned off the rocky music for us he's uh so the thing is trump is using this modern technology to train for this fight you know he's using the latest science but biden's out there i see him right now he's lifting hay bales and he's chasing chickens around. Punching under twine. What else is he doing?

When he has finished up with his training, he will be here and we will do an interview. Any minute now. Pound some yolks and then we're going. We are very lucky on the pod today to have former Vice President of the United States, Joe Biden, with us. It's great to be with you, John. It really is. And you guys have been an enormous success. It's amazing.

Well, thank you. It is amazing. No, no, no, I'm serious. Did you ever think that you'd have this kind of following for a podcast? I mean, you guys are, it's really amazing and it's important. Anyway. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. So we want to start with something serious. You've recently challenged Donald Trump to a fight. It's important that we get the messaging around this right. So we did want to run a few of the names that we were considering for the fight by you. And you just stopped me when you feel like we've hit a winner. Scranton Squabble. MAGA Saga.

I want to hear them. 1600 Punchsylvania Avenue. The Donny Joe Donnybrook. The Big Fucking Duel. Or Sparalago. I think they're all good guys, but what I did say was the way this came up, and I shouldn't have said what I said.

I shouldn't have brought it up again because I don't want to get down in the mosh pit with this guy. What I did say back when he was running, when he made these comments about being able to grab women in their private places and so on and so forth, all that, private places, and so on and so forth, all that. I was asked during the campaign whether or not do I regret not being able to debate Trump. And I said, you know, if we were in high school, and I did this again, I said, if we were in high school, and he said that in the presence of my sister, I would take him behind the gym. Now, the idea that I would actually physically get in a contest with the President of the United States or anybody else now is not what I said and is not what this

was about. But I should have just left it alone. But look, you guys know me. One of the passions of my life is ending violence against women. And I was on a campus talking about how men on campuses have an obligation to protect women, have an obligation not to engage in degrading talk, have an obligation to step up. And women have an obligation when one of their classmates is abused to be able to help them get help, know what to do, speak out, speak up. And that's what, when the president and I did this and you guys were part of it, it's on us. That's what it was about. So it was in the context of talking about the abuse of women. And the truth of the matter is, I find the behavior, the talk vulgar.

I find it degrading. And I think what it does, it does encourage the minority element of a male population to think it's okay to engage in the behavior the president talks about. So that was a context. And I did say, I used again, in high school, I never ever at any time said I would like to personally, physically, et cetera. But it is, I think it's important to continue to make the point. Women are entitled to be treated with respect, damn it. And it's about time we men stand up. We got to be part of the solution.

And there's a lot of really good men. Matter of fact, I'm going up in New York and I'm presenting awards that we came out of the It's On Us campaign for women and men who are heroes who step in and stop people from doing what they're doing. and stop people from doing what they're doing. And the context of this was, I said, any fraternity brother who sees one of his brothers with a freshman girl who's drunk start to walk up the stairs with that young woman, if they don't walk over and say, not in my house, not in my house, they're a coward. Now, maybe the guy's 250 pounds and you're 150 pounds. You don't have to confront them physically, but you have to say to everybody, look what Charlie's doing. She's got to step up.

That was the context. But I shouldn't have said it. I shouldn't have repeated what I had said during the campaign about if we were in high school. so sir right now john bolton is getting read into the most sensitive intelligence we have covert action programs war plans you're putting your hands over your face what do you think about trump making john bolton a national security advisor and more broadly the conventional wisdom a month ago was that mcmaster tillerson matt were restraining Trump. Do you think that was true then? And are we in deep trouble now with Bolton and Pompeo going to state? Look, Tommy, you know, you sat in that situation room with me and with the president. And over

eight years, we spent a thousand hours in that room. The most sensitive material that is available on the planet gets discussed in that room. And I've got to remind everybody why there is a thing called the National Security Advisor. The National Security Advisor started back in the 40s, but really came into its own in the Kennedy administration because he thought he was ill-served in the Cuban Missile Crisis, because he thought he was ill-served in the Cuban Missile Crisis, was to have one person who had the capacity to read in everybody, not to be an editor, but to say, this is Mr. President, this is what the State Department says, this is what the Defense Department,

this is what the DNI says, this is what the CIA says, this is what Defense Intelligence says. And so everybody's view is brought in on critical issues of life and death and national security. And I held extensive hearings as chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee when John Bolton was seeking to be nominated as the U.N. ambassador. And I can document for you that Bolton has two modus operandi. When he was a state, what he would do was he would shade intelligence to move it in a direction where he wanted to go. There was many instances where him giving a not completely straightforward analysis of what the intelligence said.

Secondly, anyone who disagreed with him, he tried to get rid of him. I mean, that's in the record. And that's why Republicans joined me and defeated him, defeated him in the committee. Now, he got recess appointed by President Bush, but there was a reason for that. The single worst place in the world to have John Bolton, I mean it sincerely, is at the place where it requires somebody who will not impose their view, will make sure the president knows every perspective in his

government or her government, and then will recommend to the president, every perspective in his government or her government. And then we'll recommend to the president, Mr. President, I think state's right or I think defense is right or whatever. But it is not to cut off access. And this guy has a history of cutting off access to points of view that don't agree with his. So it is a virtual disaster. And it is totally inconsistent with the reason why it was set up to have a national security advisor. And one of the first issues they'll take up is likely to be North Korea. Back in January, you were asked if you agree with Mike Mullen, who said that the U.S. has never been closer to a nuclear war with North Korea. You agreed.

Has your assessment changed since President Trump agreed to talks with Kim Jong-un? And do you think that was the right decision? Look, first of all, I agree with Mullen at the time because all the rhetoric was escalating. And what Admiral Mullen, who you worked with as well, and you know how highly regarded he is across the spectrum, and is about as apolitical as you possibly get, Admiral Mullen and I were worried it turned out by the same thing. My dad used to have an expression, the only war that's worse than one that's intended is one that's unintended. The escalatory language with a guy who is, as our former boss would say, you know, banging a spoon on a high chair for

attention, who is smart like a fox, but may or may not be stable, may or may not react to threats and insults. With a man who, let's assume his intentions are all good, our president, who knows virtually nothing about foreign policy, doesn't know the background, I don't believe has had time. And it's understandable he didn't. He was, you know, he was a businessman. But I wish he'd listen more to people around him. And to not fully understand that without South Korea, without Japan, and without some modus vivendi with China and some modus vivendi with Russia, this going-along route could be disastrous and a misunderstanding. Now, I think we have to give the president credit for saying that he's willing to sit down and talk.

I think that makes sense. If, if, it's not like a business negotiation for building a new 100-story tower. It's a different deal here. And so what presidents, Democrat and Republican, have historically done when they've had dramatic breakthroughs, like let's say he sits down and they agree to a pause and everything. And what usually happens then is you turn it over. This is not a single meeting. This requires a process.

And so you turn it over to the most informed and the best minds in your government to figure out how do you work out what would be the elements of an agreement. So my question, and I don't expect to answer it, and he shouldn't have to, is what is his endgame? What does he think constitutes a good agreement? What does he think that is, number one? Number two, is he going to be able to, and does he have the right people, to coordinate and work with the Japanese, the South Koreans, our friends, so that we don't end up as being the out-and-mind out in trying to do something with North Korea.

And thirdly, I think it's really important that we understand, and I hope he understands, that this is a process. When I got to the United States Senate as a 29-year-old kid, the reason I ran for the Senate was showed I could not win, but the governor's seat, they showed I could have won. And people, why didn't you run for governor? Well, the reason I didn't run for governor is because of my my overarching interest in foreign policy. And so when I got on the Foreign Relations Committee, he's the youngest man ever on that committee and appointed when I was, you know, it never happened when I was 32 years old. I knew the only way you could have any impact, the only game in town was U.S.-Soviet relations. And the only game in that was arms control and national security strategic weapons.

So I spent a lot of time, a lot of time trying to master that field. I mean, working like the devil with some really, really good people are my seniors. And I know how much work it took for me to be able to get my head around all of this. I don't know. I don't doubt that President Trump has a high IQ, that he's bright, that he's well-educated. But that's not enough. You have to be substantively informed. But he's not at all. Well, it appears everything I've seen so far, he's not. So, you know, my dear God rest her soul, my mother would say hope springs eternal.

Maybe he has really gone to, I don't want to, what I don't want to do is jinx this for him and say it's a failure. If I were advising a Democratic president, as I did advise a Democratic president, I'd advise them to try to engage in discussions if you had a willing partner saying, okay, I'm willing to sit down and actually talk about the whole deal. We never got there because he never was willing to. But now Kim is saying, okay, I'm willing to talk. Well, there should be talks. But I pray to God that he has been serious enough to make sure that he has really informed people with him. And he knows at the front end what his objective is.

But see, here's what I don't want to do. My instinct is, you know, for Democrats particularly to say, well, this guy knows nothing. This guy is a bad guy. This guy is a president, doesn't know what he's doing. And just dump all over what he's trying to do. Well, you know, this is a bad guy. This guy is a president, doesn't know what he's doing, and just dump all over what he's trying to do. Well, you know, this is a moment where there's a possibility of getting something good to happen. But it takes an awful lot of really, really, really, really hard work and a lot of luck. And so I don't want to condemn it,

but I'm not betting my second mortgage on it. Me neither. I want to talk a little bit about the state of our politics. You're the one Obama would always send to make deals with Republicans in Congress. You've always had good relationships with a lot of the Senate Republicans. And then I'd call you. But go ahead. But I look at this party in 2018, the Republican Party. Mitch McConnell held a Supreme Court seat open for a year. He refused to sign on to a bipartisan statement that Russia was attacking

our election before the election happened. Friends of yours in the Senate, like Lindsey Graham, some of Trump's biggest enablers, they're not protecting Mueller. At what point do you say, I can't reason with these people. The only thing I can do is defeat them? What is that line for you? Well, I think you have to say both. I think you have to say, I've got to continue to try to reason as long as they're in power. And if they continue the path they're going, I'm going to try to defeat them. So it's not either or, John.

You know, you and I know, and I used to remember a lot of the new guys that came in, a lot of really, really bright new people that the president brought in. What an incredible president he was. But they're brought in. There was, you'd often hear me say, John, you know, you can't assume all these guys are idiots up there. Because a lot of our team knew, thought, well, you know, Congressmen, they can't be very smart. I remember getting a bunch together. I think you'll remember I pointed out that the collective IQ of these guys is pretty high.

Even on the House side? No, by the way. By the way, let me give you a factoid. No, by the way, you do not. By the way, let me give you a factoid. When Newt Gingrich took over the Congress in the 90s, everybody said they're all a bunch of idiots. Guess what? 85% of those people had advanced degrees from IB institutions.

Smart ass. I mean, I don't know. Some of them were probably legacies. No, by the way, but it shows that brains don't provide judgment. Right. Okay? I remember having a debate with the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Rehnquist, when there's a tradition where the Judiciary Committee chairman goes up and sits for an hour before the budget is passed with the chairman, with the court, so they can gracefully lobby for what they need. We need a new building. We need a they need. We need a new building.

We need a new this. We need a new that. And they wanted a pay raise. And I was one of the few that supported a pay raise. If we didn't have the guts to raise our pay, we should have been raising the pay of the courts. And he started off and he said, I can understand why the public doesn't support the congressman for having a pay raise, but we deserve it.

And I said, that's not a way to get this done, Chief. And he sat there and he was very uppity. I said, look, Chief, I said, you think you're above politics. But I said, if I'm not mistaken, you work for the Republican Party. You campaign for this job. You challenge people in line whether they were qualified to vote. I said, I didn't ask anybody except the people. I didn't go to any interest group to get me elected. And I said,

in chief, I'm the only one, and I was the only one, I think to this day was, the only one who had the unredacted FBI files because all my colleagues trusted me. And I never once revealed a single thing. Only one, I think, in history. I'm not positive of that. And I said, so I know every one of the judges. I present over 520 of them. I said, I will match the collective IQ, the average IQ, of the United States Senate against the court.

We had seven Rhodes Scholars, 14 Marshall Scholars. We had over 40 people graduate at number one in their class. I said, so come on, Chief. Y'all ain't that smart. No, but I'm serious. There's this thing. And so what I'm trying to say, I'm not avoiding your question, John. If you notice, even when I went up to try to work things out,

the most important thing, it's okay to disagree with their judgment and say, I'm against you. I'm going to work against you. But what we do too often, we in this town, is we question motive. We say the reason you're doing the do is because you're either stupid or you're in the pocket of this or you are not ethical or you're not a religious man or woman, et cetera. When you do that, you can never get to go. You can never get to an agreement. So I start off with you and say, I think you're an ugly son of a bitch. And by the way, and I really think that you are an obnoxious person. But let's see if we can work this out. That's the Trump style. Well, it is his style.

That's why he's not working much out. That's my point. And so the thing you watched me do, John, everybody up there knew I respected them, and I never questioned their motive. But I went after their judgment as hard as anybody in our administration ever did. So to answer your question,

it's okay for me to go after in terms of challenging Mitch's judgment on the courts and say why he's ruining the system, why he's undermining the economy, which I did. But without saying, the reason you're doing that is because you're worried that if you hold these hearings, the Koch brothers are going to come in and put $10 million into your race, which might have been true. I called 12 members of the Republican Party that I have long relationships with when they wouldn't allow what was an absolutely unimpeachable guy that we picked to be a Supreme Court justice. All but one acknowledged what they were doing was wrong. Privately, they all said,

you don't understand, Joe. You don't understand. If I go ahead and call for these hearings, I'm going to get challenged from the right. They're going to pour millions of dollars into my race. Look at what's happened, John. Republicans only lose from the right, not the left. And Democrats only lose from the left, not the right. So that's why the bad news about unlimited spending and gerrymandering is, guess what? Both parties are moving towards the polls, the edges. Now, I respect people who have those views. But tell me, guys, how can you possibly meet the needs of the American people without reaching a consensus? Our whole system requires a consensus, not my way or the highway, not purity test. There are certain principles. And by the way, you've watched me.

I'm going to say something outrageous. I have never, ever, ever, ever voted for anything I thought was wrong, even when it has cost me dearly at home. In the middle of the most single, most extensive busing order in all of the United States history, in my state, I voted against an amendment, a deciding vote, to allow the courts to keep busing as a remedy because there are certain things

worth losing over. But so, it's not about me. There's a lot of people who have done that. My generic point is, this is, you've got to be able to talk. And now, for example, when I talk, when I go out and I speak to the Democratic caucus, I've gone to a lot of campaigns, and I talk about you have to compromise. You have to compromise on principle, but you've got to compromise on getting the really critical things the American people need done. You can't get it all. Well, you know, I get a lot of pushback from the new left in the Democratic Party. And by the way, I take a backseat to no one and on my liberal credentials. I was rated either the fourth to the seventh most liberal senator in the 36 years I was there. Remind everybody, I'm the guy that came out for gay marriage.

I'm the guy that wrote the violence. I'm the guy, you know, it's like, so this idea that we have to choose between our heart and our soul. We either go out and help working class people economically or we go out and push where we are in terms of our basic social values. I've never found them inconsistent. I went into Parma, Ohio. Like I said, I did 83 events for Hillary toward the end of the—and she would have made a great president, in my view. I went to 83 events, and one I did in Parma, Ohio, where Ford Motor Plant. And talking to her team, her highest team, they began to wonder whether or not they could ever break through with high school-educated people. And they thought maybe it had to do with our social issues.

And I said, that's not, I've never found a problem with that. And I said, come with me to Parma. I stood up there with a couple thousand auto workers on the floor. You guys have done it. On the floor of a Ford motor plant. And I said, we got to elect Hillary Clinton. Hardly any response. And I said, you know why we have to elect Hillary Clinton? Because your wife deserves to make the exact same damn pay the man she's standing next to makes. Place went nuts. All these men, all these supposedly white, deplorable, prejudiced men went nuts. And I said, and one more thing, guys. It's none of your business who somebody marries, for God's sake. They all started to laugh. And I said, you know what I'm talking. You know it's true. And they all started clapping. I got a

standing ovation. And I said, one more thing. I said, any man who picks up a hand and raises a hand to a woman is a damn coward. They went nuts. And then I talked one more thing. I said, any man who picks up a hand and raises a hand to a woman is a damn coward. They went nuts. And then I talked about economic issues. I was trying to make a point. Well, so I want to talk about the economy, but real quick, if Democrats take back the Senate and a seat opens up on the Supreme Court in the next two years, should Democrats hold that seat open like Republicans did to Garland? Even if it means we get another Gorsuch? No, no, that's a big difference. Remember,

I'm the guy that kept there from being a guy who was maybe the most brilliant conservative who was nominated for the Supreme Court, and I kept him off the court. And I was able to, in the Judiciary Committee, defeat Thomas. Bork got flat defeated. Thomas got defeated in committee. But the Constitution says the Senate shall advise in consent, not a committee shall advise and consent, not a committee shall advise and consent. And so, you know, you can, I don't think we should step away for a moment.

And one of the reasons why I think the president picked the man we picked was a really good guy. Remember, some liberals were angry we didn't pick somebody way left. Because the Constitution as written says the Senate has as much right to determine who's in the court as the president does. It says the president can propose. The Senate disposes. And so when there's a divided government, the Constitution leans towards saying don't go to the extreme. saying, don't go to the extreme. And so I would work like the devil if I were in a Senate and we had a Democratic Senate to keep a Gorsuch from going on the court again. The single most damaging thing thus far, short of what may happen to our foreign policy, to all the things I care about,

was Gorsuch going to the court. But he replaced the guy that was there, was the same position. So at least it didn't add to the problem, but it reinforced and maintained that position for a long time. The next one is gigantic, gigantic. And I think everything should be done and can be done within the constitutional parameters. But guys, if we start to add on to disregarding the Constitution, if we continue to strike back by using the same methods he used of abusing the system, by prostituting the democratic processes, look what he's done since he's got here. All-out attack on all the folks in striped shirts.

The press started two years of Breitbart. They're all corrupt. They're the referees, man. You poison the referees, then who calls the balls and strikes? Secondly, what'd they go after? The courts. The courts are not legitimate. Courts are not legitimate. What's the third thing they've got? Who are the third referees? The intelligence community, the FBI, the guys who enforce the law. Now they're all illegitimate. I mean, that's what he's doing. And look what he's done. We're looking at the Capitol right now as we speak. He has gone out of his way to delegitimize the Congress, Republican Congress. What is that for? It's all about him being able to clear the space to be able to abuse

power. All these things were put in place to prevent the abuse of power. And so if we play the same game, it's a little bit like saying, okay, Charlie cheated, but we're going to cheat in order to win. The only thing that holds this country together. You've heard me say it a thousand times. We can't define what the hell an American is based on race, religion, ethnic background. You can't do it. It's one thing. It's an intuitive or an express commitment to the basic constitutional principles.

People don't say it that way, but that's what it is. That's what it is. So we can't be party to tearing down the very things that are designed to keep presidents from being able to abuse power. So you raised Clarence Thomas, and we asked people what they wanted to know about him. One thing they asked a lot about was Anita Hill. You Hill. You talked about how you want to go through the normal process, even under Trump, but you've said that you have regrets about that process and that you owe Anita Hill an apology. What would you do differently now, given how much has changed on sexual harassment? First of all, the country owes her a debt of gratitude in the following sense. She came to testify right in the wake of my writing the Violence Against Women Act. It was during this period.

I was in the process of writing the act. This thing came up. And one of the things that she knew better than I or any man knew, she knew if she came forward with a harassment charge, she'd be vilified. She knew she'd be vilified. I wish I had even been stronger. What I understand, one of the things that Professor Hill was upset about, is not anything I did to her,

Hill was upset about is not anything I did to her, but that I wasn't able to protect her enough from John Danforth, from Arlen Specter, from the questions they asked. There is no mechanism under the Senate rules to be able to gavel someone out of order for asking a question, did you have sex with, or did you do this, or did you do that? And in retrospect, I wish I had been more vocal about, although you're allowed to ask that question, you're being a lowlife asking that question. No, I really mean it. Because the one guy that came and testified about he knew that, you know, he knew her, what kind of girl she was. You go back and look at the film. I got in such an argument with him, I called him a liar. I got so enraged I was shaking my fist.

So I believed Anita Hill. When I didn't believe Anita Hillahill, the question is, how could I have and is there a way to stop senators from asking questions that I think are inappropriate to ask? Now, what I did move out of order is there are certain things that are pretty clear. For example, to ask someone what their religious beliefs are is irrelevant. But to ask someone whether or not they went out and blew up a synagogue and ask them whether or not they are anti-Semitic and say, this is evidence you're being anti-Semitic, you've got Nazi literature in your basement, that's appropriate.

It relates to that we just think you're a bad guy. I can't say, well, tell me, are you in a—this came up on Bork. Hal Heflin from the state of Alabama, good guy, former chief justice, and he talked like this and that big old bullfrog. He used to kid them. And Hal would never tell me how he was going to vote as chairman of the judiciary committee until the vote was cast. I said, Hal, I want to tell you something. You vote any way you want, but if you don't tell me how you're going to vote before I call the vote,

you and I got a big problem. And so he said to me when he was against Bork, but it was a problem for him voting against Bork from Alabama. So he said, I'm going to ask him whether or not he's agnostic. And I said, no, you're not. I'm going to gavel you out of order. So this went on for a while. The hearings, the very last minute of the last hearing with Bork in front of us. There's only four people left in the room.

I said, anybody have any more questions? Last question. I looked around at Howell Ray. He said, Mr. Chairman. And I said, Senator. He said, Judge, I tell you, I started agnostic. I said, you don't have to answer that question, Judge. He said, no.

He was very angry. He said, I'll answer it. And that question, Judge. He said, no. He was very angry. He said, I'll answer it. And as we get up, he answered the question. As he got up walking out, Howell leaned down and he said, I got all I need. Thank you. So there's certain things. The reason I tell that story is that there are differences between, Bob Byrd pointed out to me, a confirmation hearing, you need not have a burden of proof

that relates to beyond a reasonable doubt. You're not depriving anybody. You're not entitled to be a justice, so you can say and do things that, in fact, where the preponderance of evidence may be for you or against you. And there's nothing the Constitution says you can stop it. But I just think the thing that we should be recognized by Anita Hill was she was the first woman to stand up before the nation knowing she was going to be vilified and raise the issue of harassment and you guys if you go back and look you may recall when that

hearing was all over I said that I think this is the one thing that was done here is that we have sensitized the entire nation to the issue of harassment. She did. And that's when, and that helped me significantly in getting the violence against women passed. But I just felt badly. I didn't know at the time, and some really smart people that work with us were with me, I didn't know how I could stop the attacks that were under oath and questions, you know, asking a question. And that I regret.

What do you think our administration could have done differently on economic issues so that there would have been fewer of those Obama-Trump voters? We've talked a lot about messaging and what you say in these places, but by the time Hillary campaigned, people still weren't quite feeling the economic recovery. And when you look back at those eight years, are there things we could have done differently, things we should have done differently? Well, look, I'm going to sound like an acolyte here, but I think President Obama will go down in history as one of the great presidents. He is the brightest man, and I've served with eight presidents that I've ever served with, and he had enormous integrity. But what I point out to everyone, he had everything land on his desk but locusts. Seriously. And there were cases of first instance. Granted, the Depression was worse than anything we faced. Granted, World War II was

greater than what we faced. But no one had ever faced a financial meltdown before. There was no playbook to know how to deal with that. There was no playbook to know how to deal with that. There was no playbook to know how to deal with what became stateless actors waging war on the world. There was no playbook. It was all cases of first instance. And he did a remarkable job of the economic recovery. Remember when, I think you may have been in the room when he said, Joe, you do the Recovery Act? Like, oh yeah, great, Mr. President, thank you very much. But that was, remember, even Democrats weren't crazy about it. I had to convince Arlen Specter to change political parties to pass it, okay? And it was $87 billion, or $84 billion spent. And every outside group acknowledging

less than two-tenths of 1% was waste or fraud. So he did an incredible job. But we never had time to take a victory lap. What I used to say is, we should talk more about this. He'd say, no, no, no. You know him. He wasn't about, you know, compliment me. But people didn't know what we did. They really didn't know. I remember when he had me negotiate to prevent the shutdown, and I was able to get them to keep the stimulus of dealing with payroll taxes, which was billions of dollars, and it made a difference

in people's paychecks in a big way. While I was up in New York with a group of people working on, at the president's request, we're working on renewable energy. And we're talking about the Empire State Building, all the new windows had to be changed. And when they did put in all new windows and a new system, they could save hundreds of millions of dollars, da-da-da, and have all these guys together and women together in a room about this size. There probably was 30 press people, print and television. And the chief, the guy, the contractor of this said to me, he said, you know, you guys ought to talk about this, what you're doing on the wages,

on how you cut the taxes. And I said, what do you mean? He said, the woman who's my maid, is his phrase, came up to me and said, thank you for the pay raise. Remember when our team looked at whether people thought we did anything? Yeah. They had no idea it came from us. But I was the guy, as you remember, I always wanted detail. I said, we've got to say something.

No, no, let's move on. We've got to move on. So part of what I think I wish we could have done again, going back, is I wish we had let people know simultaneously, this is what we're doing. By the way, the reason why you are boom, boom, boom, this is why. The reason why this job came back is because of this is what we did. The reason why, but there was so much, it was a deluge. It feels quaint now worrying about spiking the football when Trump tweets about the stock market every six minutes. Right, right. But remember, that was the president, I don't want to spike the football. Remember? Which is admirable. The second thing was, and I used to have debates with the economists, all my friends in there,

was I don't think we use the phrase middle class enough. Remember when I'd use it, how they'd say, yeah, there goes Biden again. He's in middle class again. No, I'm not joking. Not a joke. Remember we had the big debate about what our focus should be on the economy the last two years? And the president let me come in with my team to make a presentation that we should have a middle-class tax cut? Well, the economist said, that's not going to stimulate.

Two days of debate in Roosevelt Room, remember? I was gone then. I would have been. Okay, no, but I really mean it. I brought back Ron Klain. I had Jared Bernstein. I had a team. We put together a whole package. Well, you know, really smart guys.

I'm not. It's like it's easy to second guess now. But what I was trying to do was actually demonstrate tangibly that we're listening. Because, look, what's happening, guys? I recommend to your listeners there is a book written by Professor Williams. It is really worth a read. It's called The White Working Class. And he doesn't talk about, she talks, she said,

we've gone from class politics to class cluelessness. It's like I was asked to go out and speak at, and I did not accept any honorarium to do it. I went out to speak at Google Zeitgeist, or what is it called, Zeitgeist? Zeitgeist, yeah, love it goes to those fancy things. I think I took the money. No, I didn't mean it's a bad thing,

but I want to make it clear. I went out because I cared about it, and all of the best minds in the tech world were there, brilliant, brilliant people. And they have this great idea, you know. You talk, I actually ask you for some verbiage. Remember I had to make that speech on the fourth industrial revolution. Will there be a middle class because of Moore's Law, digitalization, artificial intelligence? A legitimate concern. And I

delivered that speech at, I was asked to do it at the World Economic Forum. Intellectually, the toughest speech I've ever had to deliver because what's the right answer? It's hard. So because Silicon Valley tends to be more socially responsible than Wall Street, although they're just as greedy in terms of making the bottom line, they have come up with an idea for a guaranteed annual wage. So because they're worried there's going to be so many middle-class jobs displaced, that's the only thing that can be done. And so I spoke, and I complimented them on their social consciousness. I wouldn't be no wise guy,

but I said, guys, you're missing the point. That's not how America is built. And I quoted my dad. I know everybody kidding me in a way that's always quoting my dad or my dad, a graceful high school educated guy. When he moved down from Scranton, Pennsylvania, because there was no work and he was, Barack made me sound like I climbed out of a coal mine with a lunch bucket in my hand, you know, Joe from hard scrapple Scranton, you know. Well, my dad was a white-collar worker, a salesperson, but there was nothing to sell after coal died. And we moved to Delaware where there were actually good jobs.

And every time someone would lose a job, my dad would say, you know, Joey, my word to this, a job's about a lot more than a paycheck. It's about your dignity. It's about respect. It's about your place in the community. It's about being able to look your kid in the eye and say, honey, it's going to be okay. That's what it's about. Dignity. And get an annual wage to sit home and do nothing. You strip people. Now, if there's no alternative i got it it's like a rational welfare system but i don't know anybody on welfare says boy i'm really proud man i'm on welfare so the point is that we don't pay enough attention john to what really is at the core

and williams says it so well, about class cluelessness. We mean well, but we're divided into sort of a professional class now and everybody else. It's not the billionaires and millionaires. I'll give you another example. Remember when we got, and you were there, we first got elected. The president asked if I wanted anything.

I said, yeah, I want the authority to talk with the cabinet about setting up a middle-class task force. And so we had a meeting at a table like this in my office here at the Penn office. And I said, I called the first cabinet. Ended up calling 17 of them. And I said, and one of the great things about working with the president, when he gave me authority, he gave me authority because he knew I wouldn't abuse it. And he knew I wouldn't and one of the great things about working with the president, when he gave me authority, he gave me authority because he knew I wouldn't abuse it and he knew I wouldn't go out of the lines, color outside the lines he was within. So I said, here's what I'd like you all to do. And I think this was in February or March of the first year. I said, I want you all to hire one person who's responsible only to you.

And when they get up in the morning, they only have one job, think of what they can do within your cabinet office to impact on providing some relief to middle-class folks administratively. And one particular cabinet member, I'll tell you when we're off the air, said to me, I don't think that's a good idea. And I said, look, Charlie, do exactly what the hell I tell you, or go talk to the president, literally. I said, go talk to him. It's okay by me. Go talk to him. But in the meantime, just do what I tell you. So everybody appoints that one person. So the first meeting, a really smart, smart, decent guy, our secretary of the treasurer, comes in with three really brilliant young people from the treasury, really some smart people there.

He said, I got a great idea, Mr. Vice President, to present to you how we can help administratively middle-class folks and working-class folks. I said a great idea, Mr. Vice President, to present to you how we can help administratively middle class folks and working class folks. I said, great. And he put down this plan. He said, we can revive 529s. Now, 529s, if you have kids, it means you put money away tax-free for college. And now here's my staff. I got Ron Klain.

His father ran a business, I don't know, it was a hardware store, whatever, in Indiana. Jared Bernstein, a labor lawyer. Mike Donlon, whose mother ran the janitor's union in Rhode Island, or maintenance workers union. Anyway, the whole of my team came from middle class backgrounds. All went to great schools, but they all had middle class backgrounds. And so everybody said, this is great. And I wasn't being a wise guy. I looked at the secretary, I said, Mr. Secretary, I don't know anybody who has a 529.

I really don't, anywhere I come from. And I said, in addition, I was making a really good salary. Now, granted, I was listed as the poorest man in the Senate, but I still was making more money as a senator than the vast majority of the public. And I said, I put my kids through college, and I could barely make it. And they worked 30 hours a week. And they graduated from graduate school with somewhere between $90,000 and $120,000 in debt. I borrowed everything I could against my house. And I said, I couldn't afford a 529.

And they looked at me. And I said, guys, why do Democrats not support health care savings accounts? Because our people don't have any money to save. They have no disposable income, for God's sake. So I looked down at all my staff. It's a true story. And they thought it all was a good idea. I said, you all have them, don't you? And every one of them had them.

And it was right after we did our first financial disclosure in the Washington Post, and your listeners can Google it, where it said it's probable no man has ever assumed the office of vice president with fewer assets than Joe Biden. And so I said, guys, I'll make you a bet. I said, what percentage of people, this is a God-trued, what percentage of people do you think have, who are qualified for, have 529s? It went from 40 to 20. I said, I'll tell you what, if more than 10% of those who qualified have one, I'll buy you all lunch once a month for the rest of this administration at any restaurant you guys want. I don't think you can afford that, based on what you're saying. But I got a big raise, as the president said. Remember over at the Blair House when he was complimenting everybody,

the administration, the sacrifices they made? And then he looked down at me and he said, except Joe, he got a pay raise, which was true. But it was great. By the way, I was great. I was fine. No financial difficulty. But my point is that we are in a situation today where cognitive capability is the currency. Cognitive capability.

And by the way, I can tell you, I'll make you a bet, I've never lived in Washington until I lived at the Vice President's residence. I commuted every single day. I can tell you what neighborhood all the bright people who work for me in Washington live in. And by the way, it's totally egalitarian, man. Black, white, Asian, gay, straight. Doesn't matter because it's all cognitive capability. It's the ultimate meritocracy.

But guess what? You all live in the same neighborhoods, basically. You all listen to the same music. I remember my son Bo and Hunter, both really well-educated guys, got so mad when I had them take a test that was written by a controversial book about whether or not you understand the middle class, 20 questions. And I could ask it to you guys without answering. Did you grow up in a neighborhood where 80% or more of the people didn't have high school degrees?

Have you ever been in a factory floor other than for political reasons? If you're on a corner, do you know anybody who's obese as a close friend? Do you have whole milk in your refrigerator? When you decide you're on a corner, there's a Starbucks and a Dunkin' Donuts. Where do you get your coffee? Definitely Dunkin' Donuts. You're hitting some plots where we're going to do okay. But all kidding aside. I know fat people. people all right i just want to be clear no no but it's a good test it's a good test but but it's a silly thing but think about how sort of

i don't want to say out of touch but not as fully in touch as we are the places from which we came in touch as we are the places from which we came. And, you know, there was a real advantage, and it doesn't make me smarter, better, or anything, but a real advantage in my commuting every day to go back to Delaware. According to Amtrak, I've made over 8,300 round trips, 259 miles a day. It's a small state. It wasn't intended, but you're constantly reminded of it. Like for example, I know you remember this. One of those Secret Service guys said, Biden is endangering national security because I wouldn't let them use limos in Wilmington. I made them stop at every light. I made them get in the same car so I didn't have an ambulance following me all the time. Well, that's home. If I had not been

home, I mean here, the only thing I could get them to agree to is I said, look, keep the ambulance four blocks away from me, okay? No, I really mean it. I really mean it because people look at us and they go, whoa, a lot of distance there, man. And at home, I'm Joe. I won seven times the Senate seat. And I never used after the first campaign any logo or bumper sticker or billboard other than just said Joe. Simple message. Sir, can I just change gears a little bit? I had the pleasure of meeting Beau before he passed away.

I've had the pleasure of meeting a lot of Biden extended family members. It's a great thing about living in D.C. You guys are everywhere. I lost my father to cancer in 2010, and I was awed and inspired by your strength during that time and by your decision to launch the Biden Cancer Initiative. So I just wanted to ask, how is that work going? Have you guys figured out anything that someone listening that has a family member they love who's fighting against cancer that could give them some hope? There's a lot of hope. And first of all, the credit for this initiative doesn't go to me. It goes to Barack.

It goes to the president. Because when I announced, I knew it wasn't going to run because Bo received a death sentence. Stage 4 glioblastoma of the brain is, you know, it's what my buddy John is dealing with now, McCain. It's what killed Teddy. It's what, you know, it's probably the worst thing you can be diagnosed with. But Bo insisted that, you know, and you knew Bo.

He said, Dad, look at me. Dad, when they ask about me, smile, Dad. Smile, Dad. Tell them I'm going to be okay, Dad. me, smile, Dad. Smile, Dad. Tell him I'm going to be okay, Dad. And Bo worked every day of his term, even though he could hardly walk. He'd get up and do three hours of both verbal and physical therapy in Philadelphia, and then drive to his office and stay. Even when he had aphasia, he would start to lose the ability to recall proper names. And he'd have them continually, once a month, give him a cognitive capability test because he didn't want

anybody thinking that he was staying in the job because he was milking the job. And he served every day until he left. And so what happened was I was with the president when I formally announced I wasn't going to run. He said, come to the White House. Let's do it in the Rose Garden. I want to be with you. Walk outside. And I said something was off the, it was, I had no prepared remarks. I said, I have one regret in not being able to run for president and maybe be the next president. I said, I won't get to preside over the end of cancer as we know it. From that, later came the State of the Union. The president, without telling me, turns to me and says, Joe's going to do mission control.

He never told me I was going to do that. But it was an enormous opportunity. to do that. But it was an enormous opportunity. And he gave me across the board authority to use every single agency in the government to break down barriers. What I found out, and what you found out dealing with your dad, hard to get information, man. Hard to get information. Hard to get even his records. Hard to be able to determine what trials were going on that he may qualify for. I mean, it was ridiculous. If we run any other business like that, you'd be out of business. And as one leading cancer specialist said, they're going to look back 50 years now and say we were barbaric. Only do three things with cancer. Identify it, excise it, do a lot of damage around where they find it if they can excise it,

then zap it with radiation, which kills a lot of the healthy shells around it, and then put poison in your body called chemotherapy. And so what I found out was that we had reached sort of an inflection point about four years before Bo was diagnosed, where you finally had disciplines that were viewed as voodoo science, immunotherapy. Immunotherapy was used in 1900, and then it was discarded completely, using your own immune system to kill the cancers and quit them. So what's happened in the meantime, there's been a number of breakthroughs on particular cancers. The most important thing that's happened now is we're getting to the point where some of the changes the president made at NIH and at the National Cancer Institute

and with, remember, at the very end of the campaign, they told us we couldn't pass anything. We passed $6.3 billion for cancer at the end. Because cancer is the only bipartisan thing out there, man. Remember, Trump came along and wanted to cut $9 billion from NIH, and they not only didn't cut it, the Republicans, they added two more billion. So what is happening now is go to bidencancer.org

because there are a number of breakthroughs and a number of changes made that increase exponentially the chances of the first treatment being the best treatment. For example, right now I got a call in the middle of the moonshot from the chairman of the board of IBM. Would I like Watson? I said, I beg your pardon. He said, would you like Watson? Well, Watson, the computer, has read every single thing ever written in all of history, not a joke, about cancer. And now we can do, we can sequence a cancer genome in a matter of three to five days. It costs $1,000, not $150,000, which it would before. And what we do now at the VA hospital is the largest hospital in the world.

Every vet who has cancer gets a human genome sequenced of the cancer, plugs it in, and Watson can tell you every treatment that's ever been used for that cancer. There's 204 cancers out there. And they can tell you the percentages, which ones work best for this particular protein on this cancer. So one of the things that happens is when you start off with the wrong treatment, you sometimes do damage. No one did anything wrong with Bowie. He had the best care in the world.

But, for example, the radiation they used ended up penetrating one of the arteries. So it limited what they could do. It damaged it. So when there are other treatments that came along that may have been more helpful in extending life, they couldn't do it. But that happens to everybody. In addition to that, there are specific cancers now where HPV cancer. There are vaccines now, literally vaccines. We have a whole major initiative.

We brought together the entire medical community. They're now cooperating on what they call a blood pack. I hate the word pack because to docs it means an agreement. Here it means special interest. But the blood pack, for example, they're getting to the point where they can take a blood test from you and the filings from a cancer going through your blood, they can pick up and determine what cancer you have and where it is and whether it is worth going in to excise it. Will it do more damage or not? And, I mean, somebody else's dad or son or mother or father gets diagnosed with a particular cancer. in the world, in the United States, you have access to all the latest technology and all the latest that's available.

But there are great oncologists in Bemidji, Minnesota, who can determine whether you have cancer, determine what cancer it is, do the genome, but they have no idea where they can go for the one thing that could save your life, being in a cancer study, being in one of these studies that are going on with the drug companies. They don't know where they are. Well, up until we started this, people had no idea. Well, I remember Bo was a case of one where they used anti-PD-1 plus they injected a virus into his brain to try to kill the cancer in the brain. I said, how many people else in this work? We have no idea. I don't think anybody else has had this, but we know.

How could you not have any idea? Why with all the technology we have. I can pick up my phone here and find out what movie theaters, what shows are being played in a cinema plex in Memphis, Tennessee right now. Why can't you know that? So because of what Brock started, we are making significant strides in knowing what the best treatments are at the front end and what can be done. And we found a sweet spot. The sweet spot is very much in the interest of drug companies to do this because drug companies want to run these trials. They don't have enough patients. They don't know where to find them. So we're marrying them up. Another holds enormous hope. Up to now, you guys know that, for example, AIDS. Well, we tamed AIDS, by and large, with no one drug, with multiple drugs. So you got a lot of these brilliant

researchers, and I met with thousands, not a joke, thousands. There's two agencies, two big groups of researchers that one is made up of 11,000 people and the other is made up of 6,000. I've spoken to them repeatedly and I go to see them, etc. And what happens is that they know that multiple drugs may work. You guys represent three drug companies, drug companies A, B, and C. You're all working on the same particular cancer, cancer number 172 kind of cancer, okay? Now, you each have a protocol you think may work, but you're going to sink millions and millions of dollars in to determine whether or not it is worthwhile. And a lot of dry holes, like it used to be with oil wells.

So we came along and I said to the experts the President allowed me to pull together in the administration, why can't we ahead of time work out the intellectual property of the value of each of your contributions ahead of time. And then go to the drug companies and say, all of you put all your experimental drugs on the table. And let any bona fide researcher come in and use any of them. We'll deal with your liability. We'll deal with the intellectual property.

Turned out there were six drug companies that said okay. Now there's scores. Increasing exponentially the prospect that with all these brilliant young and not so young researchers around the world being able to use all the drugs on the table. It's amazing. Last example of why there's hope. One of the things the president allowed me to do was go abroad and meet with heads of state to see if we could sign memorandum of understanding where they would share all of their data that they had. Because what we didn't have before when Nixon declared the war on cancer, he didn't have any army, he didn't have any troops. Everybody thought there was a single cancer. The model was Jonas any army. He didn't have any troops. Everybody thought there was a single

cancer. The model was Jonas Salt going into a laboratory and finding the silver bullet. Really? Now we have 204 cancers identified. We can do a million billion calculations a second. Computers can do things in moments that would take Nobel laureates a year to try to figure out patterns. And so we went and we took, there was a place in the National Cancer Institute that had, I think it was 13,000 repositories of tumor tissue, of results of the biopsies of the cancer genome, all the things relating to an individual patient. Well, now what we've been able to do is take that out. We put it at the University of Chicago, and we made sure it's available to anybody who wants to access it.

But now it's up in the tens of thousands. And they said, oh, Biden, this isn't going to make much difference. Within the first six months, there were eight million hits, eight million times researchers went in to look at this data, increasing exponentially the prospects we can break through. And I get a little too passionate about this, but the point is, I am confident, absolutely confident, we're going to be able to do in five years what otherwise take 10. And mark my words, guys, in the next three to five years, you're going to see start popping up. Like, for example, the drugs keeping Jimmy Carter alive. But cancer uses every trick in the book. Cancer masks itself.

It's called the blood-brain barrier. When it's in the brain, the immune system can't pick it up, saying, I'm not cancer, I'm not cancer. And so they avoid it. They don't try to kill it. Or certain proteins that are on the cancer mask what they are. So that's why these anti-PD-1 drugs, they're trying to decode for the immune system what is cancer. Because the human body and its immune system has the capacity to kill.

Why not cancer? Because it hides. It literally says, not me, man. I'm not cancer. I'm good. And I know that sounds silly to say it that way, but that's what it does. So there's enormous progress being made.

Mr. Vice President, thank you so much for sitting down with us. I just want to conclude, if I can. I'm optimistic. I know you'd have to deal with it they say Biden's a White House optimist like I was the new guy the middle class optimist but I've never been more optimistic in my life

and I wish we'd just pick our heads up and start to move forward guys we have the most productive workforce in the world three times as productive as Asia it's a fact we have the most productive workforce in the world. Three times as productive as Asia. It's a fact.

We not only have the most powerful military in the history of the world, that's not why the world follows us. They follow us because not the example of our power, but the power of our example. That's how we've been able to organize the world. We also are in a position where we are energy independent in North America. And by 2020, the United States of America will be producing more energy than any single country in the world, including Russia, which is the largest producer now. We're in a situation where we have the most agile venture capitalists. And lastly, there are more great research universities in America

than all the rest of the world combined. Not hyperbole. All the rest of the world combined. And every major new life-changing thing that has occurred has come out of the United States. Name me something China has, quote, invented. Anywhere. It's come out of here. Now,

maybe a Chinese American has invented it here, which is another asset we have with immigration. But, I mean, there's nothing we can't do. There really is nothing we can't do. And I want your generation and the millennials to say, hey, man, come on. Get out of our way. No, I really mean it. Like these Parkland kids. Yes, I just spoke to them. They're amazing. And by the way, mark my words, they're changing the dynamic.

They're changing the dynamic. And what I said to them today when it was all said and done, a couple hundred of them, I said, guys, here's the deal. I remember when I was in law school and college, and I went to my professor when they came to me and said, you ought to run for the Senate at 29 years old. And I said, Professor Ingersoll, I said, the brightest guy I ever taught me. And I said, what do you think?

He said, I think you have to. I said, but not only. He said, Joe, remember Plato. And I went to him thinking, I want to remember Plato. And I'm thinking, what to remember Plato? And he constantly would say, paraphrasing Plato, the penalty good people pay, he said men, but the penalty good people

pay for not being involved in politics, being governed by people worse than themselves. There's no place to hide. Anyway, thanks. Thank you. Great ending. Alright. That's a great ending. All right, guys. That was Joe Biden.

We are still in his enormous conference room. Are we going to talk quietly like when we were in Hillary's basement? We probably should. Yeah, we probably should. No, it's a huge room. We can speak at full volume. He made some news. I think he did.

We got to a lot of what we wanted to ask. Not everything, but we got to a lot of good stuff. He did call me a smartass, which was the best part, which is good. What I was he did. We got to a lot of what we wanted to ask. Not everything, but we got to a lot of good stuff. He did call me a smartass, which was the best part, which is good. What I was hoping for. And I definitely came away reminded why everyone who worked with Joe Biden really likes the guy. Yeah, me too. Just I miss that man. He's cool.

Great guy. Pence is just as good. All right, everyone. We'll see you on Thursday.