Transcript - Remarks: Joe Biden Speaks at a Political Event in Miami, FL - October 5, 2020 | Factba.se

Joe Biden

00:00:00 - 00:00:38 ()

Good afternoon, everyone. It's great to be back in Miami, and thank you, Esther. I told you our family has been unfortunately a considerable consumer of healthcare -- please also down -- of healthcare and I have learned from personal experience as my sons, my daughter, \my wife, my family has learned if there any angels in heaven they're all nurses, male and female.

Joe Biden

00:00:38 - 00:01:09 ()

Docs let you live, and nurses make you want to live. I really mean it. They are there at the tough times and by the way, thank you for your service in the military but also thank you for the beginning of this pandemic being a surgical nurse wasn't easy when there wasn't the PPE available to all of you as you walked into those operating rooms and dealt with all of the problems.

Joe Biden

00:01:09 - 00:01:42 ()

I know my son is a physician and my gran -- my son-in-law is a physician-surgeon in Philadelphia and the stories at the beginning of this process when they should have had everything available so thank you not only for your skill and your courage but for your bravery and doing what you have done. And I want to thank you for the care and dedication that you and all of your fellow SCIU members, all of your nurses that show up and struggle with illness, coping with the loss of a loved one in terrible times.

Joe Biden

00:01:42 - 00:02:38 ()

So many of you have hold to hold a phone to a patient's ear to say goodbye to a family member because they couldn't be there they couldn't see them in the hospital as they passed. I want to thank Victoria. Victoria for sharing her family's journey with us today. Victoria and I were talking a little bit earlier I was in South Asia speaking with a president, and he asked me what made America unique, and I said, "Immigration because it's the history of this country," and he looked at me funny he said, "Why is that?" and I said, "Because almost everybody who's come here other than those who came in chains 400 years ago beginning came because they were escaping something that took enormous courage." I really mean this.

Joe Biden

00:02:38 - 00:03:03 ()

Think about it, enormous courage to leave everything they knew, everything that was familiar sometimes leaving family members to get in a boat, a plane, a train whatever the means was to be able to leave and start a new life and do that you have to have optimism, courage. You have to be resilient; you have to be willing to believe you can make things change for the better.

Joe Biden

00:03:03 - 00:03:24 ()

That's what's built this country immigration. We are not figuratively it's a phrase used but not often fully appreciated a nation of immigrants; that is why we are the most unique and strongest nation in the world. It's family like yours and Esther's that have made this country what it is through the hard work and faith and perseverance.

Joe Biden

00:03:24 - 00:03:53 ()

The richness and beauty of Miami is built from the connections of family, culture, values that we share with our friends throughout the Caribbean, and Latin America. Earlier this afternoon, I visited Little Haiti. It had been some years since I've been there when the earthquake occurred and I came to deliver some assistance to the Haitian community as well as making sure we had temporary protective status granted.

Joe Biden

00:03:53 - 00:04:15 ()

It's a cultural complex, and now here at the site name for one of Cuba's most celebrated poets and thinkers, this city is living proof of the incredible strength we draw from families and communities, from every culture choosing America. So thank you Victoria for choosing us and I am really honored that you are going to vote for me in your first election.

Joe Biden

00:04:15 - 00:04:46 ()

I promise you I will not let you down. Promise that I will not let you down. Let me also say at the top my prayers continue to be with the president and the first lady for their health and safety as they are like so many American families who are dealing with COVID-19. I was glad to see the president speaking and recording videos over the weekend.

Joe Biden

00:04:46 - 00:05:23 ()

Now that he's busy tweeting campaign messages, I would ask him to do this listen to the scientists. Support masks. Support a mask mandate nationwide require mask in every federal building and facility and inter -- interstate travel. Urge every governor and mayor to do the same. We know it saves lives. His administration just rejected a mask mandate for public transportation on Friday. [Inaudible] came along and said we need to be protected, and they said no.

Joe Biden

00:05:23 - 00:06:11 ()

I believe that was wrong and not very rational. Experts say that universal masking could save between now and January 100,000 lives. Let me say that again, between now and January; mandatory masking could save 100,000 lives. You know I backed that mandate months ago he should back it now. Since the president entered the hospital on Friday more than 100,000 -- since Friday more than 100,000 more people have been diagnosed with COVID and this week at least 5000 more will die in many states.

Joe Biden

00:06:11 - 00:06:54 ()

I hope the president's recovery is swift and successful, but our nation's COVID-19 crisis is far, far from over. Today my prayers are with the families of the 210,000 Americans who died from the virus. All of those families who got up this morning there was an empty chair at the breakfast table, tonight an empty chair at the dinner table where one should be husband, wife, son, daughter, mother, father and nearly 7.5 million Americans have been infected with the virus to date.

Joe Biden

00:06:54 - 00:07:30 ()

This pandemic and the economic collapse as if the Hispanic communities particularly hard. Nationally the infection rate among Hispanics is almost three times higher than white non-Hispanics. More than 40,000 Hispanics have died from COVID-19 devastating families in close-knit communities and loved ones, and here in Florida, where Hispanics make up about one-quarter of the population, they make up 37 percent of the COVID deaths.

Joe Biden

00:07:30 - 00:08:07 ()

Nearly 3 million Hispanics are unemployed break that down that last data unemployment for Hispanic women and Hispanic youth actually went up last month. One in three Hispanic small business users have taken a hit and many are likely to have to close permanently. Some economists are calling this with a colleague K-shaped recovery it means those that the top they keep going up their income but everyone from the middle and lower-income it keeps going down, keeps getting worse.

Joe Biden

00:08:07 - 00:08:41 ()

It means that essential workers so many of whom are Hispanic who have sacrificed to keep us going through this pandemic are being left behind by the most unequal recovery in modern American history because while workers are struggling this is a shocking statistic, but it's true the top 100 billionaires in America have done pretty well, just since the COVID-19 crisis they have made an additional $300 billion.

Joe Biden

00:08:41 - 00:09:08 ()

The top 100 made an additional $300 billion. For everyone else though you get the bottom half of that "K," downward, a downward slide and you left to figure how you're going to pay your bills, put food on the table, pay the rent or if you're lucky enough to own a home, will you have enough money to pay the mortgage?

Joe Biden

00:09:08 - 00:09:46 ()

How to balance doing your job with being a teacher to your kids because their school has gone remote, you are asked to risk your neck because you can't work from home where the risk of COVID are mostly kept outside, because you are one of our first responders a union nurse like Esther or on an assembly line or working at a customer service or tourism industry or at a checkout counter or police officer or firefighter.

Joe Biden

00:09:46 - 00:10:12 ()

I know this isn't an easy time, but I also think this pandemic has just helped us rip off the blinders in this country as how inequitable so many things are. Now they've seen it. I truly believe we have a tremendous opportunity to turn this moment of crisis into a moment of great progress for the country.

Joe Biden

00:10:12 - 00:10:44 ()

That's why I've laid out a comprehensive agenda not just to rebuild our communities, but to build them back, make bold investments in them so we can build back better than before the crisis. An independent analysis -- the president talks about -- he loves to talk about Wall Street. He never talks about Moody's on Wall Street that pointed out -- they did a detailed assessment of my economic plan and his, and here's what Moody's concluded.

Joe Biden

00:10:44 - 00:11:13 ()

They projected my economic plan will create 18.6 million jobs, 7 million more jobs in the president's economic plan will in four years, and $1 trillion more in growth than the president's plan. And here's how it works. I am not going to raise taxes on anyone who makes less than $400,000 a year. You won't pay a penny more, I guarantee you.

Joe Biden

00:11:13 - 00:11:37 ()

But I'm going to ask the big corporations and the super wealthy to begin to fair -- pay their fair share. It's not punishment. It's just about time you start paying your fair share. The money we raise from making sure they pay their fair share will allow me to invested in working people and a growing middle class.

Joe Biden

00:11:37 - 00:12:28 ()

When I announced, I said I wanted to rebuild the backbone of this country, working folks, the middle class. They weren't built by Wall Street. It was built by labor. Advance racial equity across the economy to make sure everyone is included in the deal this time. We're going to invest -- invested in creating millions of good paying jobs, union jobs, and manufacturing and technology, making sure our future is made in America, and infrastructure, building roads, bridges, highways, ports, and airports like I was able to do when I ran the Recovery Act for our administration, putting billions of dollars into the Port of Miami, creating so good, hard-working people with good decent union jobs.

Joe Biden

00:12:28 - 00:12:56 ()

It will accommodate the new supertankers coming from the canal, generating some stability. My plan will make sure Hispanic communities benefit from hundreds of billions of dollars in investments to fill the cracks in the sidewalks, install broadband, close the digital divide, create spaces to live, work, and play in safely, and in clean energy.

Joe Biden

00:12:56 - 00:13:21 ()

We upgrade 4 million buildings, weatherize 2 million homes. We'll create at least -- the estimates are at least 1 million good paying jobs and save us millions and millions of barrels of oil. We're going to meet the threat of climate change and invest in strengthening climate resilience, where we are already dealing with the existential crisis of climate change.

Joe Biden

00:13:21 - 00:13:49 ()

I don't have to tell you in Miami. I don't have to tell you in South Florida, or in my state, which has the lowest sea level -- lowest degree of height from sea level than any state in the nation; stronger, more frequent hurricanes, rising tides and flooding. And no matter what the president says, maybe you should consider dropping an atomic weapon on a hurricane coming our way, it's not a good idea.

Joe Biden

00:13:49 - 00:14:13 ()

It doesn't work. Look, that's not some distant future in Miami or South Florida. You're dealing with it right now. What you have to do, get knocked in the head to understand it? We're going to make sure that small businesses come out the other side of this crisis with access to capital and the ability to deal with their debts.

Joe Biden

00:14:13 - 00:14:38 ()

My plan would get $50 billion in capital flowing to small businesses, which would get repaid in employment and taxes, especially minority owned small businesses, and make another $100 billion in low-interest loans available to those businesses to get back on their feet and stay alive, because you know as well as I do in ethnic communities they are the heartbeat, they're the center of the community.

Joe Biden

00:14:38 - 00:15:16 ()

Whether it's a grocery store, beauty shop, a barbershop, a hardware store, they're the essence of the community. We're going to make investments to increase incomes as well. It's long past time. I worked with Governor Cuomo to get it done in New York and other governors across the country. No one should have to work two jobs to be able to be 40 hours a week so they're above the poverty rate. $15 should be a minimum wage in the United States of America, period.

Joe Biden

00:15:16 - 00:15:43 ()

And for our essential workers, we're not just going to praise you. We're going to begin to pay you a good wage and ensure you have strong benefits. We're going to ease the burden of the major costs in your life. And what are they? Healthcare; we're going to build on the Affordable Care Act, which gave 4 million Hispanic people in this country health insurance by adding a new health insurance option, a not for public -- not-for-profit public option.

Joe Biden

00:15:43 - 00:16:04 ()

We're going to give private insurers a real competitor. We're going to increase subsidies so your premiums are lower and you can afford plans with lower deductibles and lower out-of-pocket expenses. We're going to take on the pharmaceutical industry, a plan that slashes the cost of prescription drugs by 60 percent.

Joe Biden

00:16:04 - 00:16:50 ()

And you think I'm making these numbers up, if we just let Medicare negotiate independently for all the drugs they purchase, I promise you the rates are going to fall through the floor, affordable and accessible. Every three and four-year-old will have access to free, quality preschool. All the studies at your great universities and all the ones around the country have shown that no matter what ZIP code a child comes from home and no matter what background, if they go to preschool, not daycare, preschool in school at three, four, and five years old, they increase exponentially over by -- over 50 percent the prospect they'll go through all 12 years, and many beyond.

Joe Biden

00:16:50 - 00:17:16 ()

And we'll make sure that low and middle income -- and by the way, the total cost of that, this called title I program, we now spend 15 -- $15 billion for -- in -- in school districts that don't have high tax rates. Well, guess what? You change that to 45, you can put every one of these kids in school, pay the teachers and legitimate rate, and make sure you have school psychologists and social workers in the schools.

Joe Biden

00:17:16 - 00:17:37 ()

We're going to make sure that for childcare for someone under the age of five -- six, no one ever has to pay more than 7 percent of their income for their young children to get quality childcare. Because if you truly want to reward work in this country, we have to ease the financial burden of the care that families are carrying.

Joe Biden

00:17:37 - 00:18:01 ()

Even before the pandemic, and many of you know it and many of you are doing it, millions of working families faced enormous financial and personal strains trying to raise their kids and care for their parents and loved ones living with a disability. It's going to sound strange, but when I first got elected when I was 29 years old to the Senate, right after I got elected my wife and daughter were killed.

Joe Biden

00:18:01 - 00:18:30 ()

My two sons is survived after hospitalized for a long time. I needed help to do my job. I could not possibly afford childcare, even though I was making a really good salary of $42,000 a year, more than I'd ever made. But I couldn't afford it. Being a single mom or dad or a family that has two people working with young children, it's incredibly costly.

Joe Biden

00:18:30 - 00:18:54 ()

By the way, and the professional caregivers out there, home health workers, childcare workers are more often women, women of color, and immigrants, and too often underpaid, unseen, and undervalued. That's why my Build Back Better Plan will elevate the compensation, benefits, dignity of caregivers of workers and early childhood educators.

Joe Biden

00:18:54 - 00:19:22 ()

That's what we're going to do. It's also going to invest in education beyond high school. We're going to make -- if you qualify to get into community college, you'll automatically be able to go and you'd be able to go for free. If you are qualified to get into a four-year public school in your state, public college, and your family makes less than $125,000 a year, you get to go free.

Joe Biden

00:19:22 - 00:19:51 ()

If you're buying your first home, you're going to have a tax credit up to $15,000 to get there. What happened after the Great Recession in this one? An awful lot of you were in -- that -- in the -- in the range in age from the millennials who started off back in after 9/11 all the way to the people graduating this year are not in a position to do that because your jobs have been postponed or nonexistent.

Joe Biden

00:19:51 - 00:20:21 ()

But providing an opportunity, we can get you into the system. We're also going to protect Social Security, increase the benefits. For millions of seniors we are going to do that all in partnership and lockstep with the Hispanic community, and by the way, the President's proposal to eliminate the tax you pay when you get your paycheck for Social Security with out in the means by which to replace it.

Joe Biden

00:20:21 - 00:20:55 ()

The actual area the Social Security said Social Security will be bankrupt by 2023. They have had -- they have never liked it to begin with. So look, success and prosperity of the Hispanic America is indispensable to the success and prosperity of the United States and of all America. It's that simple. Hispanic families are responsible today for $2.6 trillion of our gross domestic product and growing.

Joe Biden

00:20:55 - 00:21:21 ()

If I was a standalone economy a country all by itself it would be the eighth largest economy in the world. Think of that. Now imagine how much more that would grow if everyone had access to the tools they need to succeed by investing in Hispanic communities we are making the sm artest possible investment at the greatest possible returns that our nation could make.

Joe Biden

00:21:21 - 00:21:48 ()

We also need to rebuild our ability to work with our partners throughout the Western Hemisphere to realize the enormous potential of this region of the world to confront those leaders who continue to oppress the rights of their people we should be leading the international effort to confront the massive humanitarian crisis in Venezuela.

Joe Biden

00:21:48 - 00:22:19 ()

Maduro who I have met is a dictator plain and simple and he's causing incredible suffering among the Venezuelan people to maintain his grip on power. The Venezuelan people need our support to recover their democracy and rebuild their country. That is why I would eat immediately grant temporary protective status to Venezuelans as president so they Republicans in the Senate can't keep blocking it like they did it again just last week.

Joe Biden

00:22:19 - 00:22:50 ()

I will make sure we are supporting neighboring countries that are being overrun by immigration because of Maduro like Columbia which are caring for millions of Venezuelans who fled their country in desperation. I will use sanctions as one of the tools for comprehensive strategy that includes humanitarian assistance, international pressure support for democratic actors in Venezuela to force the regime to embark on the road to a free and fair election.

Joe Biden

00:22:50 - 00:23:27 ()

I also need a new Cuba policy. The administration's approach is not working, Cuba is no closer to freedom and democracy than it was four years ago. The fact there is more political prisoners, the secret police are as brutal as ever and Russia is once again a major presence in Cuba and Havana. For my entire career I stood for democracy and human rights for freedom of the press, assembly, and religion against dictators of the left and the right and as president my policy will be governed by two principles.

Joe Biden

00:23:27 - 00:23:50 ()

First, Americans especially Cuban Americans are the best ambassadors for freedom in Cuba. Second empowering the Cuban people to determine their own future is central to a national security interest of the United's dates. I think it is unconscionable the current adm inistration is supporting hundreds of Cubans back to a dictatorship.

Joe Biden

00:23:50 - 00:24:12 ()

There are almost 10,000 Cubans languishing in tent camps along the Mexican border because the Administration's anti-immigration agenda. That is the administration actively separating Cuban families by not processing visas through restrictions on family visits and remittances. I think we have to reverse that.

Joe Biden

00:24:12 - 00:24:44 ()

The bottom line is that President Trump cannot advance [Inaudible] democracy and human rights for the American people when he has embraced so many autocrats around the world starting with Vladimir Putin. Folks, we can do this. We can reach for more as a nation. We can rebuild, we can rebuild the backbone of this country and finally bring everybody along.

Joe Biden

00:24:44 - 00:25:05 ()

America has always done best coming out of crises. We are the only nation that has always come out of every crisis better than we went in. We can build a new administration that reflects the full diverse city of our nation including Hispanic communities and Hispanic voters especially in Florida can help put our nation on a new path forward.

Joe Biden

00:25:05 - 00:25:32 ()

And here in Florida today as the deadline to register to vote in's today if you haven't registered go out right now because it is an obligation. Every vote will make a difference. Check and make sure your friendly and friends are registered and then make sure everyone you know has a plan to vote. If you can vote by mail, vote by mail.

Joe Biden

00:25:32 - 00:25:58 ()

If you can vote in person, vote in person if you can vote early, vote early. If you can vote early in person starting on October 19 in many places in Florida including right here in Miami just make sure you vote. Together we can win. We can't let this pandemic change everything. We have got to get it under control so we can get our economy working again for everyone.

Joe Biden

00:25:58 - 00:26:18 ()

We can come together as a nation. I am running as a Democrat, proud of it but I will be an American president not a Democratic president with a "D." I will fight as hard for you and your family whether you vote for me or whether you vote against me because there's nothing we can't do when we do it together.

Joe Biden

00:26:18 - 00:26:45 ()

Folks, I have been more optimistic about our chances as a nation to own the 21st century than I have been my whole career. There's not a single solitary thing that is beyond our capacity as a nation. I mean that sincerely. The most talented workers in the world and the most incredible system in the world.

Joe Biden

00:26:45 - 00:27:11 ()

We have a people when they stand together have never, ever, ever, ever failed. So every time I would walk out of my grandpa's house up in Scranton, Pennsylvania he would yell Joey, keep the faith. My grandma when she was on live would yell back know, Joey, spread it. Let's go spread the faith, take back this country.

Joe Biden

00:27:11 - 00:27:30 ()

We are so much better than this. God bless you all and may God protect our troops. Thank you. Thank you.