And welcome to our town hall with
Joe Biden. Mr. Vice President,
welcome to you.
Good to be with you.
We're here with a group of Pennsylvania
voters, you can see they're all appropriately
socially distanced tonight.
And they're a group of some are
voting for you.
Some have said they're voting for
President Trump. Some are still
undecided. And we're going to try to
take questions from as many of them
as we can tonight.
And we're going to start with
Nicholas Fed, and he's from
Jenkintown, Pennsylvania. That's
close to you here in Philadelphia.
I know it well.
You're a
Democrat.
I am a Democrat.
Thank you, George.
Mr. Vice President,
every day my wife and
I are in disbelief at the lack of
coordinated federal action
on covid-19.
We know that your administration
would follow the science.
My question for you, it's two
parts.
First, looking backwards to when
this country first became aware
of covid-19,
what would following the science
have meant in terms of
actual policy?
And then looking
forward, what would
your administration do
in terms of following the science
with real concrete policies
that haven't been done by the
current administration?
Well, first of all, going back, the
fact is that the president
was informed how dangerous
this virus was.
And all the way back at
the beginning of February, I argued
that we should be keeping people in
China. And we had set up in our
administration a pandemic office
within the White House.
There were forty four people on the
ground. And
I didn't hold public office.
I was a former vice president.
I suggested we, in
fact, ask to have access to
the source of the problem
and the best of our knowledge.
Trump never pushed that all those
forty four people came home, never
got replaced.
In addition to that, I pointed out
that I thought in February I
did a piece for USA Today saying
this is a serious problem.
Trump denied it.
He said it wasn't.
We later learned that he knew full
well how serious it was when he did
an interview with George Woodward.
I mean, excuse me, Bob Woodward.
And at the time
he said he didn't tell anybody
because he was afraid Americans
would panic.
Americans don't panic.
He panicked.
He didn't say a word to anybody.
Then I wrote a piece in March about
what I thought we should be doing to
take hold of this using
the the, there's an act
passed a long time ago that allows
the president to go into a business
and say, stop making this and start
making that.
And it took a long time for him to
even institute that, to get
ventilators and so on.
And so the point was he missed
enormous opportunities and kept
saying things that weren't true.
It's going to go away by Easter.
Don't worry about it.
It's going to all when the heat,
when the summer comes, it's all
going to go away like a miracle.
He's still saying those things.
Before you go to the future, can I
follow up? And looking backward,
just a little bit. You did have an
op ed in January where you warned to
the seriousness of the pandemic, but
there's no record of you calling for
social distancing,
limited social gatherings,
mandatory.
Not back then.
In January, February.
January, February. No, that's
correct. There wasn't. That came at
the end in March. And then I laid
out a detailed plan relative to
school openings in June
and July.
But by that time, the science was
becoming clear and clear of
how this was spreading so rapidly.
But the president kept denying
that. If you notice from March
on, I stopped doing big
meetings, I started wearing mask,
you know, so it was at a time when
the science was saying and his key
people, Dr. Fauci, were saying you
should be taking these precautions.
So what we should be doing now,
there should be a national
standard instead of leaving this up.
Remember what the president said to
the governors. "Well, they're on
their own. It's not my
responsibility. The governors can do
what they need to do, not my
responsibility." It is a
presidential responsibility to lead
and he didn't do that.
He didn't talk about what needed to
be done because he kept
worrying, in my view, about the
stock market.
He worried if he talked about how
bad this could be, unless we took
these precautionary
actions, then in fact, the
market would go down.
And his barometer of success,
the economy, is the market.
Thirdly, what we didn't do is the
president had an opportunity
to open and
allow schools and businesses to stay
open if they got the kind
of help they needed.
So the Congress passed a couple
of trillion dollars worth of help.
And what happened was most of that
money, a significant portion of that
money, went to the very wealthiest
corporations in the country,
didn't get to the mom and pop
stores. So you had one in five, one
in six minority businesses
closing, many of them permanently,
people be laid off.
And then what happened was when the
first tranche, the first round
of money for
unemployment, enhanced unemployment
went went by,
he didn't do anything.
He didn't do anything.
And to the best of my knowledge, I
mean this sincerely, I can't think
I've been around for a lot of
presidents and, you know, a lot of
presidents. And the crisis, I don't
ever remember one never calling the
House and Senate Republicans or
Democrats together.
Let's let's look forward a little
bit. You said that you would lock
down the economy only if the
scientists said it was necessary,.
By the way, that wasn't the context.
I said what I lock down the
economy of science said.
So I said I'd follow science.
What I but I don't think there's a
need to lock down.
But I want to press you on that
point. You've been in the Oval
Office for eight years with
President Obama. He would always say
that only the only the hard to solve
problems hit his desk.
What is most likely to happen is the
scientists will disagree.
The scientists will disagree with
the economists. So the question is,
how are you going to decide this?
Who are you going to listen to?
And how can you contain the pandemic
without crushing the economy?
Well, you can contain the pandemic
by being rational and not crush the
economy. For example, I laid out a
plan how you can open businesses.
You can open businesses and schools
if, in fact, you provide them the
guidance that they need as well as
the money to be able to do it.
What's happening now is we know, for
example, if you can open a business
and you could have a sign on the
door saying safe to come in, that's
why people aren't going anyway when
they when they're open.
And say because you have social
distancing, you have plastic
barriers. When you go to the
cashier, you have separators between
the booths. You don't have large
crowds. You reduce the size, the
number of people you can have in the
restaurant. You make sure there's
testing. That's a really critical
piece that he didn't do, testing
and tracing.
And you make sure that people are
equipped going to
schools. You know, we initially
said, the government initially said
they're going to provide mask for
every student and every teacher.
Then they said, no, no, no,
no. FEMA said that,
the president or whomever said,
no, no, that's not a national
emergency, not a national emergency.
We need fewer we need more teachers
in our schools to be able to open
smaller pods.
We need ventilation systems
changed. There's a lot of things we
know now.
And I've laid them out in
some detail. Now, again, when I say
I laid them out, I'm not an office
holder, I'm running for office.
It's not like I'm still vice
president or I was a United States
Senator pushing this.
So I don't want to say I, I, I.
But we did lay out exactly
what needed to be done and take
a look. We make up four percent
of the world's population.
We have twenty percent of the
world's deaths.
We're in a situation where we have
two hundred and ten plus thousand
people dead.
And what's he doing?
Nothing. He's still not wearing
masks and so on.
We're getting some other questions
on covid. The next one comes from
Kelly Lee.
She's from Philadelphia.
Thank you.
Republican
voted for Donald Trump in twenty
sixteen, undecided now.
I did.
Hey, Kelly, how are you?
Hi, Mr. Biden.
My question is about the coronavirus
vaccine, or potential.
Senator Harris stated that she
absolutely would not take
a vaccine from President Trump.
And, of course, we all know it's not
President Trump that would create
this vaccine.
It would be doctors and scientists
that presumably we all trust.
So my question for you
is, if a vaccine were approved
by between now and the end of the
year, would you take
it? And if you were to become
president, would you mandate that
everyone has to take it?
Two things.
Number one,
President Trump talks
about things that just aren't
accurate, about everything from
vaccines, we're going to have one right
away is going to happen and so on.
The point is that if the scientists,
if the body of scientists say
that this is what is ready to be
done and it's been
tested, they've gone through the three
phases, yes, I would take it and I'd
encourage people to take it.
But President Trump says things
like, you know, everything from his
crazy stuff he's walking away from
now, inject bleach in your arm.
And that's going to work on not
being a bit. I'm not being
facetious. He actually said these
things and now Regeneron
is the answer, that's going to cure
everything. There's five hundred
thousand doses.
We've got a couple, you know, we
have more than a few million people,
you know, and so and most
if you notice, most of the
companies who are developing these
vaccines are
working. They're making real
progress. I meet with four
leading scientists at least
twice a week in the beginning, four
times a week, giving us the detail
what kind of progress is being made.
And right now, they do the right
thing. When they run into a serious
problem, they halt the test.
They don't continue until they
figure out what the problem was.
They're not there yet.
And most scientists say that's not
likely to have a vaccine that would
be available until the
beginning of next year into
the spring of next year.
And in the meantime, what I worry
about is the same thing with
Regeneron, which is which is a
useful antidote,
not an antidote, a useful
tool. But what's happening
is there is no plan to
figure out how to distribute
it. How many, you know, we have five
hundred thousand, you know,
vials of it.
Well, we don't have all the testing
equipment. We don't have all the to
get it to the people who need it and
what we should be doing now.
And allegedly it's happening, but
I've not seen it yet, nor the docs
that I've talked to say that there
should be a plan when we have the
vaccine, how do we distribute it?
And once we get it, if it's safe,
it's if it's effective, will you
mandate its use?
The answer is depending
on how clear
there's vaccines they say
have a very positive
impact. And there you're going to
affect positively.
Eighty five percent of the American
public are those others say this
vaccine is really the
key. This is this is this is the
golden key.
It depends on the state
of the nature of the vaccine
when it comes out and how it's being
distributed. That would depend on.
But I would think that we should
be talking about it
depending on the continuation of the
spread of the virus.
We should be thinking about making
demands.
How could you you enforce that?
You couldn't. That's the problem.
Just like you can't enforce
measles. You can't you can't come to
school unless you have a measles
shot. You know, you can't.
But you can't say everyone has
to do this.
But you can't mandate
a mask.
But you can say you can go
to every governor and get them all
in the room, all 50 of them
as president and say ask people
to wear the mask.
Everybody know.
And if they don't?
Then they don't.
No, not fine. Then I go to every
governor, I go to every mayor, I go
to every council and I go to every
local official, say, mandate
the mask and say, this
is what you have to do when you're
out. Make sure you encourage it
being done.
Look, George, you and I know
and I think you do too as well, the
words of a president matter.
Absolutely.
No matter whether they're good, bad
or indifferent, they matter.
And when a president doesn't wear a
mask or makes fun of folks like
me, when I was wearing a mask for a
long time, then
people say, well, it mustn't be that
important. But when a president
says, I think this is very
important, for example, I walked in
here with this mask, but I have one
of them. Ninety five mask underneath
it. I left it in the in
my dressing room, the dressing room,
the the room I was in before
I got here.
And so I think it matters
what we say.
And we're now learning
that children are getting
the virus, not with this
as serious consequences, but
we haven't, there's been no studies
done yet on vaccines for children.
So there's a long way to go.
But we can make progress in the
meantime and save lives.
And the last point I'll make if you
if you listen to the head of the
of the CDC, he
stood up and he said, you know,
while we're waiting for a vaccine,
he held up a mask.
You wear this mask, you'll save
more lives between now and the end
of the year than if we had a
vaccine.
And if we had a vaccine.
It's estimated by every major
study done from the University of
Washington to Columbia that
if, in fact, we wore masks, we
could say between now and the end of
the year, a hundred thousand lives.
And avoid Lockdown's?
And avoid lockdowns.
Yes, you don't have to lock down if
you're wearing the mask.
Let's get a question on the economy.
Anthony Argerich,.
Thank you, I hope I answered your
question.
From Canonsburg, Pennsylvania.
It's a suburb of Pittsburgh
Republican.
I know it.
For President Trump.
Thank you, George. Thank you, Mr.
Vice. President.
You stated that anyone making
less than four hundred thousand
dollars will not see one single
penny of their taxes raised, but
also state that you are going to
eliminate the Trump tax cuts.
The Trump tax cuts reduces taxes
for the majority of workers.
I would argue not enough.
What is your plan for either
extending the tax cuts for the
middle class or creating a new plan
that further reduces those taxes?
I carry this card with me.
When I said the tax Trump
tax cuts about one point three
trillion of the two
trillion dollars of those tax cuts
went through the top one tenth of
one percent.
That's what I'm talking about,
eliminating not all the tax cuts
that are out there.
And by the way, if you just take a
look, we reduce the corporate
tax rate from
thirty five percent.
And Democrats, Republicans who were
in office thought it should come
down to twenty eight percent.
He reduced it to twenty one
percent.
You have ninety one out of
the Fortune 500 companies not paying
a single solitary penny.
If you raise the corporate taxes
back to twenty eight percent, which
is a fair tax,
you'd raise one
trillion, three hundred
billion dollars by that one
act.
If you made sure that people making
over four hundred grand
paid what they did in the Bush
administration, thirty nine point
six percent you would raise
another goes up to
get your exact number here about
another two hundred
ninety two billion dollars
so you could raise a lot of money
to be able to invest in things that
can make your life easier,
make you change your standard
of living by making sure you have
affordable health care, by making
sure you're in a situation where
you're able to send your kid to
school. And if you have a student
debt, you can deal with it, making
sure that your your home, you can
pay your mortgage. You get 20
million people right now.
Let me press you on that.
You're going to raise the corporate
tax. You're going to raise taxes on
the wealthy.
Is it wise to do even that
when the economy is as weak as it is
right now? Another nine hundred
thousand people?
That's a great question.
Moody's did an analysis
of my detailed analysis
of my tax plan and my
economic plan.
They said I will in four
years, Moody's, Wall Street said I
will create eighteen point
six million new
jobs. Good paying jobs.
Number one.
Number two. And I'll increase.
The GDP will grow
by a trillion dollars more
than would under Trump and seven
million more jobs then under
Trump. And the reason is when you
allow people to get back in the
game and have a
job, everything moves.
Everything moves.
Right now, you got the opposite.
You had last year
during this pandemic, you had
the wealthiest billionaires
in the world, in the nation.
They made it another 700 billion
dollars, 700 billion
dollars. He talks about a V shaped
recovery. It's a K shaped recovery.
If you're on the top, you're
going to do very well.
And the other thing, and if you're
in the bottom or you're in the
middle or the bottom, your income is
coming down.
You're not getting a raise.
I should I don't know what you do.
You may get a raise.
I hope you're a billionaire.
But but but but but all kidding
aside. But it's about growing
the economy and George
the way out. The reason why I'm so
optimistic about economic recovery
more than I've ever been is we
have these four crises happening at
all at once and one helps
the other. For example, we're going
to invest a great deal of
that money into infrastructure
and to a green
infrastructure. We're going to put five
hundred thousand charging stations
on new highways.
We're building it all highways we're building.
We're going to own the
electric market.
You know as well as I do from your
days, you know, in the old days
where the president has spent
about 600 billion dollars a year
on government contracts, everything
from making sure they have
aircraft carriers to
automobile fleets for them
in the United States.
If you make make
and it's not a violation
of any international trade agreement
made in America, if you actually
insist that whatever that
product is made in America,
including the material that goes
into the product, we it's
estimated we're going to create
somewhere between another four and
six million jobs just by doing
that. But what's happening now under
his trade policy, a lot of this
is going overseas.
You get benefit from going overseas
if you have much of it being made
overseas. So if you send it
overseas, you get a 10 percent tax
increase on your on on
a product. If you make it in America
and you bring it back, you get a 10
percent growth.
If you bring back a company and
you're going to open up an old an
old facility, you get a 10 percent
tax credit for all you've invested.
That actually works.
So there's not going to be any delay
on the tax increases?
No.
Well, I got to get the votes.
I got to get the votes.
That's why, you know,
the one thing that, I have this
strange notion, we are
democracy. Some of my Republican
friends and some of my Democratic
friends even occasionally say,
well, if you can't get the votes by
executive order, you're going to do
something, things you can't do by
executive order unless you're a
dictator. We're a democracy.
We need consensus.
Got to take a quick break. We'll be
right back.
I hope I answered your question.
And welcome back to our town hall
with Joe Biden. We're Getting a
question now from Cedric Humphrey.
He's a student from Harrisburg,
Pennsylvania, progressive Democrat.
Don't jump, Cedric.
You look like you're way up there.
OK, thank you, George.
And good evening.
Former Vice President Biden.
Many people believe that the true
swing demographic and this election
will be black voters under the age
of 30, not because they'll be voting
for Trump, but because they won't
vote at all.
I myself had this exact same
conflict. So my question for you
then is, besides "You ain't
black," what do you have to say to
young black voters who see voting
for you as for their participation
in a system that continually fails
to protect them?
Well, I say, first of all, as
my buddy John Lewis said, it's a
sacred opportunity, the right to
vote. We can make a difference.
If young black women and men
vote, you can determine the outcome
of this election.
Not a joke.
You can do that.
And the next question is, am I
worthy of your vote?
Can I earn your vote?
And the answer is there's two things
I think that I care and I've
demonstrated that I care about my
whole career.
One is in addition to dealing with
the criminal justice system to make
it fair and make it more decent,
we have to be able to put black
Americans in a position to be able
to gain wealth, generate
wealth. And so you look at what
that entails. It entails everything
from early education.
That's why I'm supporting making
sure that we in title one
schools, you know, schools with the
least tax base to be able to
support their schools.
I increased the funding for them
from fifteen to
forty five billion dollars.
That allows every teacher in that
school to make up to sixty thousand
bucks. And the problem now is
they're leaving the schools, they're
not there. We're short about a
million and a half teachers, a
million and a quarter teachers.
Number two, every three and
four and five year old will go to
school, school, not day care,
school. And all the great
universities, including when you've
gone to go to or went
to, in fact, talks about in the last
eight years what's happened, what
happens when you let them go to
school. They make up rapidly,
whatever, whatever,
whatever shortcoming
they had in terms of their education
prior to that. They will have not
heard as many words spoken, et
cetera, et cetera. What happens is
that the studies show that 58
percent, they will increase by 58
percent heir chance of going all
through 12 years
of school and going through
successfully.
It will also provide for the ability
to bring in social workers and
and school psychologists.
We have one school psychologist in
America now for every fifteen
hundred and seven kids.
It should be one to five hundred,
not just in and schools
that are poor, but in all schools.
Because we learn that, for
example, drug abuse doesn't cause
mental illness. Mental illness
causes drug abuse, the failure
to get hold of people and
deal with their anxieties.
In addition to that, I provide
for a 70 billion dollars for HBCUs
use for them to be able to have
the wherewithal to do what other
universities can do because
they don't have the kind
of foundational support they need.
And so that would allow them, for
example, like we did in our
administration, the president allowed me
to go down and we awarded
a cybersecurity
laboratory ability, to compete
for cybersecurity
laboratory. The federal government spends
billions of dollars a year on
universities. Because they're the
best kept secret of where most of
the major inventions come out of.
And so that school now
will be able to produce young black
women and men who are going to go
into a field of the future that's
burgeoning, cybersecurity.
And that's what what is going to
help a great deal.
In addition to that, if you're a
young man about to graduate and you
graduated from school and you want
on your first home,
well, it's awful hard to get the
money, depending on the background,
what's your what's your
your your excuse me, your
economic background is, to get
a down payment. So we're going to
guarantee first time homebuyers a
fifteen thousand dollar down
payment for first time
homebuyers. In addition to that,
what all the studies now show, and
I've been arguing this for a long
time, is young black entrepreneurs
are just as successful as white
entrepreneurs or anyone else, given
a shot.
But you can't get the money.
Where do you go to get the startup
money? So what President Obama and I
did, we had a program.
We took a billion, five hundred
million dollars, and we invested
in all the SBAs around the country
in the state SBAs, small business
associations, and that generated
30 billion dollars, came off the
sideline. Because if you have a
guarantee of two hundred
thousand dollars for your new
startup enterprise, a young
entrepreneur, you're going to be
able to attract, if it's government
money is a guarantee, you'll be able
to attract another hundred thousand
dollars. It generated 30
billion dollars.
Well, I'm changing that program and
I'll get this done without much
trouble, I believe in the Congress
from
one point five billion dollars to
30 billion dollars.
That'll take three hundred billion
dollars off the sideline and grow.
Because, you know, and for example,
if you in fact and
I were the same age and we split our
differences and we're the same age
and we went to the same builder to
buy us each the same home, but
my home was in a white neighborhood
on one side of a highway and yours
in a black neighborhood, same exact
home. Your home will start off
being valued.
Twenty nine percent less than my
home. Yet your insurance for that
home will be higher.
You'll be taxed more for it.
We've got to end this.
That's what got me involved in
politics in the first place.
Thing called redlining.
We can change so much
that we can do so much to change the
circumstances, to give people a real
opportunity.
Cedric, did you hear what you needed to hear?
I think so.
Well there's a lot more if you want to hang around afterwards I'll tell
you more. But I really mean it, it's the key. Look, this is the way every
other, how do most, I mean my dad, he lost his job up in Scranton and it
took him three years to move to Claymont, Delaware, a little steel town
and send us off to our grandpop to live with him. We finally got back. We
lived in apartments and it became six and eight housing much later, it
was normal apartments. And it took him five years to be able to buy a
home. We bought a three bedroom home with four kids and a grandpop living
with us, but it accumulated wealth, you build up wealth. That's how
middle class folks make it, they build up wealth. Then he was able to
borrow a little against that to help us get to school, those kinds of
things. It's about accumulating wealth. And your behind the eight ball,
the vast majority of people of color are behind an eight ball. And it's
the same way with all that's going on now with the money that's been
voted. What's happened? You go to the bank if your a black busines man
and the president fired the only inspector general that oversees all this
help from Congress and what happens you go in and they say, do you have
an account here? No. Do you have a credit card here? No. Have you
borrowed from us before? No. We bailed this suckers out. Their not liable
for any of the money. But they still won't lend it to you. We got to
change that, it's about accumulating wealth.
We want to get another question in here. A republican that voted for
President Trump last time.
Thank you George. Thank you Vice President Biden, nice to meet you.
What's your view on the crime bill that you wrote in 1994 that showed
prejudice against minorities. Where do you stand today on that?
Well first of all things have changed drastically on that. That crime
bill when it voted, the black caucus voted for it, the black mayors
supported it across the board. The crime bill itself did not have
mandatory sentences except for two things. It had three strikes and your
out which I voted against in the crime bill but it had a lot of other
things that turned out to be both bad and good. I wrote the violence
against women act, that was part of the assault weapons ban and other
things that were good. What I was against was giving states more money
for prison systems that they could build. State prison systems. And
ninety out of every 100 people are in a state prison not in a federal
prison because they built more prisons. I also wrote into that bill a
thing called drug cohorts, I don't think anyone should be going to jail
for drug use, they should be going into mandatory rehabilitation. We
should be building rehab centers to have these people housed. We should
wipe out, we should decriminalize marijuana, wipe out the record so you
can actually say in honesty, have you ever been arrested for anything you
can say no because we're going to pass a law saying that there is no
background that you have to review relative to the use of marijuana. So
there a lot of things but in addition to that we got to change the
system. I joined a group of people in the house to fight for changing the
system from punishment to rehabilitation. Along with Arlen Specter you
may remember I wrote the second chance act.
In the meantime an awful lot of people were jailed for drug crimes, was
it a mistake to support it?
Yes it was. But here's where the mistake came. The mistake came in what
the sates did locally. What we did federally is we said and you remember
it was all about the same time for the same crime. What I've done as
chairman of the judiciary committee is to the ten circuirt courts of
appeals and took some really brilliant lawyers working for me in the
judiciary and we did a study. And we determined what happens if the
first, second, third offence for any crime in the criminal justice system
at the federal level. If you're a black man it's the frist time you
commit a robbery how long would you go to jail on average, if you're a
white man how long? Black man would go to jail on average thirteen
years, white man two years. I got down the list of every single crime. So
we set up a sentencing commission, we didn't set the time. Every single
maximum was reduced in there but what happened was it became the same
time for the same crime. So it said you have to serve between one and
three years and then black folks went to jail a lot less then they would
have before but it was a mistake.
Let me ask you another followup on the crime bill it also funded another
hundred thousand police back in 1994. You've often said that more cops
clearly means less crime, do you still believe that?
Yes, if in fact they are involved in community policing not jump squads.
For example, when we had community policing from the mid nineties on to
when Bush got elected violent crime went down, you remember the
significant rise in violent crime that was occurring in the late eighties
and went into the ninetys. It went down and fewer african americans were
arrested because you had the requirement, the cops didn't like it, they
didn't like community policing because you had to have two people in a
vehicle, they had to get out of their cars, they had to introduce
themselves to whoever owned the local liquor store, who owned the grocery
store, who was the woman on the corner and what they would do George is
they would go give people their phone numbers, a cop would give the phone
number so if Milly Smith was on the second floor when a drug deal took
place and things happened below her she could call and say it's Milly
there's something going on here. And they'd never reveal it was her
because they know she knew if they put that on the report they'd never
report the crime. She'd never report. So it actually started to come
down. What happened. They eliminated the funding for community policing.
Community policing doesn't mean more people coming in and up arming
humvee's and swarming. What they did, it turned out that by the time we
got to the late nineties crime had gone down so much that mayors and
everybody asked the question where do you want me to spend the money?
They say well only one percent thought violent crime was a problem, it
was as high as twenty two percent.
Right now we have a systemic problem, how do you get the kind of
policing, prevent the kind of policing.
You have to change. One of the things I'm going to do George. Is set up a
national study group made up of cops and social workers as well as made
up of the black community and the brown community to sit down it the
White House and over the next year come up with significant reforms that
need to take place within communities. You have to bring them together.
One of the things I've observed is. You know. Where I grew up you either
became a cop, a firefighter, or a priest. I wasn't qualified much to do
any one of them. But here's the deal all kidding aside. Most cops don't
like bad cops. They don't like it. So what happens is they get
intimidated into not reporting. So one of the things we do is there has
to be transparency available, we have to be able to at the federal level
go in and be able to check out if there is systematic problems within
police departments. If in fact a cop needs to be tried it's not the
prosecutor in the community, in the district there, you've got to go
outside the community to get another prosecutor to come in and handle the
crime. There's a lot of things we've learned. And it takes time but we
can do this. you can ban choke holds but beyond that you have to teach
people how to de escalate circumstances. De escalate, so instead of
someone coming at you and the first thing you do is shoot to kill, you
shoot them in the leg, there's ways, you have to do more background
checks in terms of whether or not person coming in passes certain
psychological tests. The last thing I'll say and I'm sorry because it's
really, really really important is you have to be in a position where we
are able to identify the things that have to change and one of the things
that has to change is that so many cops get called into circumstances
where somebody is mentally off. Like what happened with that guy with the
knife. That's why we have to provide within police departments
psychiatric psychologist and social workers who go out with the cops on
those calls, some of those 911 calls. To de-escalate the circumstance, to
deal with talking them down, but we can't. Cops are kind of like school
teachers now, you know a school teacher has to know everything from how
to handle hunger in a household as well as how to teach you how to read.
Well cops don't have that breadth and there's a lot of things we can do.
We shouldn't be defunding cops we should be mandating things within
police departments to make sure there's total transparancy.
Got to take another quick break, we'll be right back
And the Supreme Court is our next
topic. The questioner, Nathan
Osborne, a Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania, Democrat.
Hi, I'm George.
Mr. Vice President.
Hey, Nathan.
Our country's first Supreme Court
gave its first ruling just two
blocks from here, from
1791 to 1800, and it's become more
polarized since then.
Merrick Garland didn't get a hearing
for all of 2016 and
Amy Coney Barrett's being pushed
through at the last minute, even
though millions have already voted.
So what do you think about ideas
from people like Pete Buttigieg and
others to put in place safeguards
that will help ensure more long term
balance and stability?
And what do you say to LGBTQ
Americans and others who are very worried right now about erosions of
their rights and our democracy as a whole?
Well, let me start on the last point and work my way back. I think
there's great reason to be concerned. I was on the road most of the
time during these hearings, so I
didn't hear many of them.
I just got the recaps. I'd
get in late at night.
I'd been going around the country,
Florida anyway.
And but
my reading online, what
the judge said
was she didn't answer very many
questions at all.
And I don't even think she has laid
out much of a judicial philosophy
in terms of the basis upon which
she thinks are there unenumerated
rights in the Constitution.
And so, number one. So I think there's great reason to be concerned for
the LGBQ community, something I fought very hard for, for a long time to
make sure there's equality across the board. Number two, I think that
also health care overall is very much in jeopardy as a consequence of the
president's going to go directly after this election, directly to the
Supreme Court within a month to try to get Obamacare wiped out, after ten
million people have already lost their insurance from their employer, and
he wants to take twenty million people out of the system as well, plus a
hundred million people with preexisting conditions. So there's a lot at
stake. I don't think it's appropriate. I think the Constitution implies.
There's no provision in the Constitution. My problem is I made the
mistake of teaching constitutional law for twenty one years, and the
separate of powers. The Constitution implies that the way the people have
a right to determine who's going to be on the court is how they vote
for their senators and their president. We seek the advice and consent of
the Senate and the president.
The president is president for all four years, isn't he?
No, he is. But once an election begins, by implication it is inconsistent
with the constitutional principles in my view. You get disagreement among
scholars on this. But I believe it's inconsistent when overwhelm,
millions of people have already voted to put someone on the court. I
think it should have been held until the next, this election is over, see
what the makeup of the Senate is going to be, if the president wins this
election, he should be able to.
How about that question of expanding
the court? Here's what you said
exactly one year ago tonight at a
Democratic debate.
You said, "I would not get into court
packing. I would not pack the
court." That's not what you're
saying now. Is the nomination of
Judge Barrett reason enough to
rethink your position?.
What is, the nomination, what I wanted to do, George, you know if I had
answered the question directly, then all the focus would be on, "What's
Biden going to do if he wins?" instead of on, "Is it appropriate, what's
going on now?" And it should stay, this is the thing that the president
loves to do, always take our eye off the ball, what's at stake. One of
the things Pete has suggested is, and there's a number of constitutional
scholars who have suggested it as well, that there are at least four or
five options that are available to determine whether or not you can
change the way in which the court lifetime appointment takes place,
consistent, arguably, with the Constitution. I have not been a fan of
court packing because it just generates what's going to happen, whoever
wins, it just keeps moving in a way that is inconsistent with what is
going to be manageable down the road.
So you're still not a fan?
Well, I'm not a fan. I didn't say, it depends on how this turns out, not
how he wins but how it's handled, how it's handled. But there's a number
of things that are going to be coming up. And there's going to be a lot
of discussion about other alternatives as well.
What does that mean, how it's handled? How will that determine-
Well, for example, there's actually real, live debate on the floor if
people are really going to be able to have the time to go through this,
you know, I don't know anybody who's gone on the floor that's been a
controversial justice in terms of fundamentally altering the makeup of
the court that's gone through in a day kind of thing. It depends on how
much they rush this. And you think about it, George, here you got a lot
of people not being able to pay their mortgage, not being able to put
food on the table, not being able to keep their business open, not being
able to do anything to deal with what's going on in terms of the economy
as a consequence of covid, and they have no time to deal with that. But
they have time to rush this through.
Well, right now it looks like they're going to have a vote around
Halloween. So if they vote on it before the election, you are open to
expanding the court?
I'm open to considering what happens from that point on.
You know, you said so many times during the campaign, all through the
course of your career, it's important to level with the American people.
It is. George, if I say, no matter what answer I gave you, if I say it,
that's the headline tomorrow. It won't be about what's going on now, the
improper way they're proceeding.
But don't voters have a right to know where you stand?
They do have a right to know where I stand. And they'll have a right to
know where I stand before they vote.
So you'll come out with a clear position before election day?
Yes, depending on how they handle this. But look, what you should do is
yo've got to make sure you vote, and vote for a senator who, in fact,
thinks, reflects your general view on constitutional interpretation, and
vote for a president who you think is more in line with you. And if you
oppose the position, I would not have appointed her, but if you oppose my
position, vote for Trump, vote for a Republican who shares that view. But
that's your opportunity to get involved in lifetime appointments.
Presidents come and go. Justices stay and stay and stay.
We have a question from a Republican, Andrew Lewis, I guess a disaffected
Republican. You cast a write-in for John Kasich in 2016. You're going to
vote against President Trump this year.
And John's writing in for me, by the way.
I know that. Mr. Vice President, my father, Drew Lewis, served as
secretary of transportation under President Ronald Reagan in his first
term.
Oh, yeah. I'll be darned.
And some of his closest allies and friends were Democrats, including
House Speaker Tip O'Neill and Senator Ted Kennedy. Sadly, today we have
highly partisan and dysfunctional governance. And I believe President
Trump is primarily responsible for creating this toxic environment. As
president, how will you avoid the temptation to exact revenge and instead
take the high road and attempt to restore bipartisanship, civility and
honor to our democracy?
As written by a fellow who won the Pulitzer Prize for a book he wrote
about the presidency, he said, "You know, I doubt whether Biden is really
Irish. He doesn't hold a grudge." In politics, grudges don't work. They
make no sense. I really mean it. I have never. And the second point I'd
make is everybody talks about, "Yeah, Joe, when you were a senator and a
chairman of foreign relations or a chairman of the judiciary, you got a
lot of things done. You were able to cross the aisle. But the days have
changed. When you were vice president, you got a lot done, but it can't
happen anymore." It can. We've got to change the nature of the way we
deal with one another. And it starts off by the way your father was and
Tip was and others. You don't question another man or woman's motive. You
can question their judgment, but not their motive. We badly needed an
infrastructure bill. Well, what happens? I stand up and I say, "You know,
we need an infrastructure bill, senator. But I tell you what. You're in
the pocket of the cement industry. Let's see what we can do. You can't
get anywhere. Nothing happens. Nothing happens. I learned that lesson a
long time ago. Even when it's obvious on its face what the motive is,
stick to the subject and listen to the other guy. Listen. What I will be
doing if I'm elected president, the first thing, and not a joke. You can
ask. If they tell your dad's old friends on the Republican side. I'm
going to pick up the phone and call them and say, "Let's get together.
We've got to figure out how we're going to move forward here." Because
there are so many thing we really do agree on. And with Trump out of the
way, the vindictiveness of a president going after Republicans who don't
do exactly what he says gets taken away, there's going to be, I promise
you, between four and eight Republican senators who are willing to move
on things where there's bipartisan consensus. Last example I'll give you.
You know, after Trump had been elected, named the next president, wasn't
sworn in yet, I had been working on a bill relating to cancer cures. And
it was called the Cancer Moonshot. And I worked with a number of
Democrats and Republicans. And we had a bill that was about nine billion
dollars that made significant increases in research and development on
cancer alternatives, NIH, and particularly specific cancer initiatives.
And we only had at the time, I think it was a hundred and eleven, a
hundred and fourteen, whatever it was, votes in the House. I don't know
how many, the exact number. And we had fewer than forty in the Senate.
But after I was elected, I got those people together as vice president,
we sat down and we worked it out. And we ended up getting it passed,
three hundred and ninety six votes in the House and ninety four votes in
the Senate. And at the end of the day, because it had to do with the
Biden Cancer Moonshot I'd been working on, Mitch McConnell, Mitch
McConnell stood up, and I was presiding officer, and moved to name the
bill after my deceased son, Beau, who had just died. So there is, there
is, there are ways to bring this together.
But how about the question for political accountability? And is there
some tension between that and bringing people together? You know, Robert
Mueller laid out a lot of evidence of possible obstruction of justice by
President Trump. What would a Biden justice department do with that
evidence?
What the Biden justice department will do is let the Department of
Justice be the Department of Justice, let them make the judgments of who
should be prosecuted. They are not my lawyers. They're not my personal
lawyers.
So you're not going to rule it in or rule it out?
I'm not going to rule it in or out. I'm going to hire really first rate
prosecutors and people who understand the law, like democrat and
republican administrations have had, and let them make the judgments. But
turning this into a vehicle as if it's your own law firm. You don't own
that Justice Department. You pick the best people you can and you hope
that what they're going to do is they're going to enforce the law as they
see it. But can you remember any Republican president going out there, or
former Democratic president, "Go find that guy and prosecute him." You
ever heard of that? Or by the way, "I'm being sued because a woman's
accusing me of rape. Represent me. Represent me. Personally represent in
the State of New York by not allowing my tax returns." What's that all
about? What is that about?
We've got to take another break. We'll be right back.
And welcome back to our town hall
with former Vice President Joe
Biden. We're going to look at the
environment
right now. We're going to get a question from Michelle Elise from
Pittsburgh Pennsylvania a business woman, a social worker. You're a
Republican that's voted for Democrats but you're not sure what you're
going to do this time around, correct?
Correct.
Greetings former Vice President Biden.
Hello.
in a 2012 report of the University of Pittsburgh's institute of Politics,
fracking was discussed and its possible implications for the water ways
from the common wells to the Gulf. Fracking has made the population sick
and killed wildlife in Southwest Pennsylvania. The Commonwealth of
Pennsylvania and Small Business Development Centers have already begun to
transition people away from fossil fuels. What industries that are not
harmful to human health and the environment are you planning for
Southwest Pennsylvania and the nation?
Well first of all, I make it clear, I do not propose banning fracking. I
think you have to make sure that fracking is in fact not admitting
methane or polluting the well or dealing with what can be small
earthquakes and how they are drilling. So it has to be managed very well,
number one. Number two, what we have to do, the future rests in renewable
energy. The single fastest growing energy source in the world, because,
I'm going to say something that's going to sound self serving but I
managed the recovery act and I was able to invest billions of dollars
into bringing down the cost of, the cost per BTU of wind and solar. So
now it's cheaper than coal and it's cheaper than oil right now and it has
great, great promise. And it's also the fastest growing employer in the
energy industry and so there are a number of things I would do
immediately. Number one, there are well over 100,000 wells that are left
uncapped in the region. We can hire 128,000 of these people who are
working in the industry to cap these wells and get a good salary doing it
now. Number one. Number two, we should be moving toward finding the new
technologies that are going to be able to deal with carbon capture so the
all the money is transitionally moved from to a net zero emission of
carbon that we're still going to be able to use if we find the right
technology. Some gases, some gas to be able to be if we can carbon
capture. And I think we're going to be able to move in the direction
where by the year of 2035 we'll be able to have net zero emissions of
carbon from the creation of energy, energy creation that so we can move
it by dealing with those and every time we talk about global warming or
the environment, the President thinks it's a joke and I think it's jobs.
Because what we're going to have happen is you're going to be able to see
now, as I was started to say before, I as President am going to invest
the 600 billion dollars we spend in government contracts, only on those
things, that in fact, also are not only made in America, but building an
infrastructure that's clean and new. And what we have to do, is focus on
the transmission of energy across the country from areas related to solar
and wind. The reason is that has not been mastered yet. I met people a
lot of people in Silicon Valley, the battery technology is increasing
significantly so you're going to be able to have, for example, solar on
your home, in a battery the size of this, by this, by this, as I'm
showing you here in your basement. So when the sun doesn't shine for five
days, you still have enough energy, so we're making significant progress.
The other thing we're going to do, is provide an awful lot of work that's
estimated to put close to a million people to work but weatherizing four
million building and two million homes because we'll save tons and tons
of energy, billions of barrels of energy over time and at the same time,
provide significant employment. And good union wages prevailing wages.
Let me stick on fracking for a second.
Sure.
You said you don't want to ban fracking. As you know, it's an important
issue here in Pennsylvania, not everyone believes your denial. A member
of the boilermaker local 154, Shawn Steffee was quoted in the New York
Times today saying "You can't have it both ways, you can't meet your goal
to end fossil fuels without ending fracking." What do you say to people
like Shawn who doubt your denial because they think you want to keep that
promise to end fossil fuels.
Boilermakers overwhelmingly endorse me. Okay? So the boilermaker's union
has endorsed me because I sat down with them and went into great detail
with leadership in exactly what I would do, number one. Number two, what
I would do, I would stop making, stop giving tax breaks and subsidizing
oil. We don't need to subsidize oil any longer, number one, we should
stop that and save billions of dollars over time. What I would also do
with regards to, theres no, the difference between me and the new green
deal, they say automatically by 2030, we're going to be carbon free, not
possible.
So are you for it or against it? You say you're not for it, but in your
website, it says, you call it a crucial framework.
My deal is a crucial framework but not the new green deal. The new green
deal calls for elimination of all non renewable energy by 2030, you can't
get there. You're going to need to be able to transition, George. To be
able to transition to get to the place where we invest in new technology
that allow us to do things that get us to a place where we get to net
zero emmission, including in agriculture, I've laid out a detailed plan.
We should be taking the plan where we allow significant more land to be
put in conservation, plant deep rooted plants, which absorbs carbon from
the air and in fact pay farmers to do it. We can do things like pelletize
all the chicken manure and all the horse manure, and cow manure and they
can take out the methane and use it as fertilizer and make a lot of money
doing it. For example, right now down in, people when I say it, they
wonder what I'm talking about. The biggest carbon sink is in the Amazon.
More carbon absorbed from the air diminishing global warming in the
Amazon than all the carbon admitted on a yearly basis from the United
States of America from all vehicles and all means. So we have to use our
imagination. We have to move in the direction as well, providing for
electric vehicles. Electric vehicles will save billions of gallons of
oil, create estimated, not me, Wall Street, one million automobile jobs.
But we're lagging, we're not investing, we're not doing any of the
research.
Time to take another quick break, we'll be right back.
And welcome back to our town hall with former Vice President Joe Biden,
why don't we look at the environment right now.
Greetings form Vice President Biden, in a 2012 report from the University
of Pittsburgh's institute of politics fracking was discussed and its
possible implications for the waterways from the commonwealth to the
gulf. Fracking has made the population sick and killed wildlife in south
west Pennsylvania, the commonwealth of Pennsylvania and small business
centers have already begun to transition people away form fossil fuels.
What industries that are not harmful to human health and the environment
are you planning for southwest Pennsylvania and the nation?
Well first of all let me make it clear. I do not propose banning
fracking. I think you have to make sure that frack is not emitting
methane or polluting a well or dealing with the small earthquakes and
how they're drilling so it has to be managed very very well number one.
Number two what we have to do is the future rests in renewable energy.
The single fastest growing energy source in the world right now. Because.
I'm going to say something that sounds self serving but I manged the
recovery act, and I was able to invest billions of dollars into bringing
down the cost of, the cost per BTu of wind and solar so now it's cheaper
than coal, it's cheaper than oil right now. And it has great great
promise, it's also the fasted growing employer in the energy industry.
And so there are a number of things that I would do immediately. Number
one. There are over, well over, a hundred thousand wells that are left
uncapped in the region. We can hire a hundred and twenty eight thousand
of these people that are working in the industry to cap these wells and
get a good salary doing it now. Number one. Number two, we should be
moving toward finding the new technologies that are going to be able to
deal with carbon capture so that as we move to a net zero emission of
carbon that we are still going to be able to use if we find the right
technology some gases, some gas to be able to if we can carbon capture.
And I think we're going to be able to move in a direction that by the
year 2035 we'll be able to have net zero emissions of carbon from the
creation of energy. Energy creation. So we can move it by dealing with
those
Welcome to Pennsylvania Mr Vice President. So peace is breaking out all
over the world, our troops are coming home. Serbia is talking to Kosovo.
And the Arabs and Israel are talking. I think it's a modern day miracle
what's going on. Does President Trump's foreign policy deserve some
credit?
A little but not a whole lot. We find ourselves in a position where we
are more isolated in the world then we ever have been. Our allies are go
it alone, America first has made America alone. You have Iran closer to
having enough nuclear material to build a bomb, you have North Korea with
more bombs and missiles available to it, we find ourselves where our NATO
allies are saying they can't count on us. We're in a situation as well
where in the far east we find ourselves in the western pacfic where we're
isolated as well. You have Japan and South Korea at odds with one another
and China is making moves. So I would say we are less secure then we've
been. I do compliment the president on the deal with Israel recently but
if you take a look we are not very well trusted around the world. When 17
major nations in the world were asked who they trust more, who's a better
leader. And the president came behind Putin as well as Xi and look what
Putin's doing. Bounty's on American heads in Afghanistan, they have more
people there now then when I left in Afghanistan. And we find ourselves
in a situation where he's talked to Putin six times and hasn't said a
word to him. And NATO is at risk of beginning to crack because they doubt
our whether we are there. You see everything that's happening from
Belarus, to Poland, to Hungry and the rise of totalitarian regimes in the
world. And as well as this President embraces all the thugs in the world,
he's best friends with the leader North Korea sending love letters, he
didn't take on Putin in any way. He is learned the art of the steal from
the art of the deal form Xi in China. So I would respectfully suggest no,
there is no plan, there is no coherent plan for world policy. You know
we've always ruled, we've been most effective as a world leader in my
humble opinion not just by the exercise of our power, we're the most
powerful nation in the world. But by the power of our example, that's
what's lead the rest of the world the follow us on almost everything.
He's pulled out of almost every international organization. He gets
laughed at when he goes to, literally not figuratively, when he goes to
the United Nations. It's just not, it's not about the President per se,
it's about the nation and the lack of respect that's shown to us.
I'm the proud mom of two girls 8 and 10. My youngest daughter is
transgender. The Trump administraion has attacked transgender people. How
will you as President reverse this dangerous agenda and ensure that the
lives and rights of LGBTQ people are protected under US law.
I will flat out just change the law. Elminate those executive orders. You
may recall I'm the guy who said, I was raised by a man, I remember I was
being dropped off, my dad was a high scool educated well read man, I was
being dropped off at the center of our city, Wilminton Delaware, the
corporate capital of the world at the time. And these two men getting out
to get an application to be a life guard in the African American
community because there was a big swimming pool complex and these two
men, well dressed leaned up and hugged and kissed one another. And I'm
getting out of the car at the light and I turn to my dad and my dad
looked at me and said it's simple, they love eachother. The idea that an
8 year old child or a 10 year old child decides that you know I want to
be transgender that's what I think I'd like to be, I think that would
make my life a lot easier. There should be zero discrimination, what's
happening is too many transgener women of color are being murdered.
They're being murdered. I think now it's up to 17, don't hold me to that
number, it's higher now. And that's just this year. And so I promise you
there is no reason to suggest that there sould be any right denied to
your daughter or daughters. One, your daughter that your other daughter
has a right to being due. None. Zero. And by the way, my son Beau passed
away was the attorney general of the state of Delaware. he was the guy
that got the first transgender law passed in the state of Delaware
because of young man who became a woman who worked for him in the
attorny general's office. And I'm proud of that.
And welcome back to our town hall with Former Vice President Joe Biden.
The next question comes from Keenan Wilson, Narberth, Pennsylvania
Democrat.
Good evening. You say that you're committed to entering this race after
the events of Charlottesville in 2017. I assume that that feeling that
prompted you to run will not go away once the results are determined. So
hypothetically, if you lose, how will you use your platform to urge
Donald Trump and those rallying behind him towards the ideals of a more
perfect union?
Well, to be very honest with you, I think that's very hard. He is not,
things have not lent themselves to him learning from what's happened,
what's gone before. Instead of being chastened by being one of the few
presidents, the only president to be impeached and then have a member of
his own party vote to expel him, it emboldened him. But what I will do,
hopefully I'll go back to being a professor at the University of
Pennsylvania and making the case that I've been made, and at the Biden
Institute at the University of Delaware, focusing on the same issues
relating to what constitutes decency and honor in this country. It's the
thing that got me involved in public life to begin with. As a kid, I
moved from Scranton, where there were no African Americans and moved down
to Claymont, Delaware. And in Delaware, we have the eighth largest black
population as a percent of the population. It was an epiphany for me,
seeing what was going on. And I got deeply involved. I'm no great shakes.
I wasn't John Lewis. I don't mean to imply that. But it's the thing
that's motivated. My dad used to have an expression, for real. He said,
"Everyone's entitled to be treated with dignity. Everybody." And it was
real. Everybody is. And so whether I'm a defeated candidate for president
back teaching or I'm elected president, it is a major element of
everything that I'm about. Because it reflects who we are as a nation.
And it's what makes us, every single solitary generation, the dials move
closer and closer and more and more to inclusion. And we are a country
that is a country of slaves who came here four hundred years ago,
indigenous people, and everyone else is an immigrant. And we're a diverse
country. Unless we are able to treat people equally, we're just never
going to meet our potential. But I think the American people want to see
that happen. I think they're ready to see that happen. And I tell you one
thing, if I'm elected president, you will not hear me race baiting. You
will not hear me dividing. You will hear me trying to unify, and unify
with bring people together. When I said I was running because I wanted to
unify the country, people said, "Well they were the old days." We better
be able to do it again.
Agreed.
We better be able to do it again.
Mr. Vice President, if you lose, what will that say to you about where
America is today?
Well, it could say that I'm a lousy candidate and I didn't do a good job.
But I hope that it doesn't say that we are as racially, ethnically and
religiously at odds with one another as it appears the president wants us
to be. Usually, you know, the president's, in my view, with all due
respect, has been divide and conquer, the way he does better if he splits
us, you know, there's division. And I think people need hope. I think,
look, George, I've never been more optimistic about the prospects of this
country than I am today. And I really mean that. I think the people are
ready. They understand what's at stake. And it's not about Democrat or
Republican. If I get elected, I'm running as a proud Democrat, but I'm
going to be an American president. I'm going to take care of those who
voted against me as well as those who voted for me. For real. That's what
presidents do. We've got to heal this nation. Because we have the
greatest opportunity of any country in the world to own the 21st century.
And we can't do it divided.
One more break. We'll be right back.
And we're wrapping up our town hall here with former Vice President Joe
Biden. Mr. Vice President as you know President Trump had a town hall
meeting tonight as well. During that town hall meeting he was asked
several times whether he took a COVID test the day of your last debate.
You're supposed to have another debate a week from tonight. Just two
quick questions. Do you expect that debate to happen? Will you demand
that President Trump take a test that day and that it be negative before
you debate?
Yeah, by the way, before I came up here I toook another test. I've been
taking them every day you know the deep test the one - because I wanna be
able - if I had not passed that test I didn't wanna come here and not,
you know, expose anybody. And I just think it's - it's just decency to be
able to determine whetehr or onot you are, you're clear. I'm less
concerned about me than the people - the guys with the cameras, the
people working in the, you know, the Secret Service guys you drive up
with, all those people. And so yes, I believe he will do that. Look, I'm
gonna abide by what the commission rules call for. I was preapred to
debate him remotely which was supposed to happen and he said he wouldn't
do that, you know, a virtual debate. Our town hall, he didn't want to do
that. I didn't set those rules, the commission set those rules. So
whatever rules they set - and I'm conifdent that - the Cleveland Clinic
is the one overseeing it - I think they're gonna not let happen what
happened last time. They're gonna demand that it's safe.
But you expect to be there.
I expect to be there.
Mr. Vice President thank you for your time tonight. Thanks to all the
questioners here. It was really terrific questions, I think you did a
service to our democracy tonight, thank you very much. I'm gonna go back
to my colleague David Muir in New York.