Return to Transcripts main page

The Lead with Jake Tapper

Biden Campaigning in Key Battleground State of Minnesota. Aired 4:30-5p ET

Aired September 18, 2020 - 16:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: Let me tell you something -- I know how to do the job of being president.

[16:30:02]

It's pretty clear. No matter how wealthy Donald Trump is, now matter how much he doctors his -- if he does -- his tax returns, he doesn't have a clue how to be president.

One of the lessons my mother taught me -- not a joke -- a long time ago taught me and my siblings -- it's one you were probably taught to out here in Minnesota. He said, Joey, remember, nobody's better than you, but everybody's your equal. Nobody's better than you, but everybody's your equal.

We don't measure people by the size of their bank accounts. I don't respect people based on how big the house they live in is. I don't look down my nose when people are busting their necks just making a living. Nor do any of you.

Trump says, by the way -- I'm paraphrasing -- everyone's in the stock market, that's why I care about the stock market. What the hell he's talking about?

People I grew up in Scranton and Claymont, they don't have money in the stocks. Every penny we made was to pay their bills and take care of their families, put clothes on their backs and roof over head.

In the market?

That's why I have a different measure of which I judge the healthy American economy. My measure is Scranton, Duluth, Hermantown, places where I grew up and so many people I know grew up.

I see hard working women and men are just trying to earn an honest and decent living trying to take care of their families. I mean, just have a little bit of confidence, a little bit of confidence. You can just see around the corner.

They don't have to live literally from paycheck the paycheck. Most do, but hope for a little bit of space.

Now the American people have seen these women and men, the essential workers, workers who stock the shelves in the middle of the crisis at the grocery stores, drivers who drove the trucks to deliver the food, farm workers, nurses who risked their lives, in many cases gave their lives in the middle of this pandemic to serve other people -- essential workers.

And when they walk down the streets and people come out and clap hands and at pots together, tell them how much they're appreciated, that's not enough. We just said -- they're not asking for anything. They're just asking for a shot.

I remind you, given a shot, the American people have never, ever, ever let their country down. So, it's about time we start to pay essential workers for the fact they're essential. The blinders have been taken off the American people.

I think they're ready. They're ready to insist that a minimum wage be $15 an hour. They're ready to insist that people have childcare and access to it. They're ready to admit and understand the needs that average Americans have.

That's why my Build Back Better program -- in fact, my entire campaign is built upon a simple concept. It's time to reward hardworking America, not wealth. Reward work not wealth.

We don't have to penalize wealth, but it's the opposite now. Reward wealth, and not work.

We're going to have to rebuild an economy in the wake of COVID-19, and as we do, we have an incredible opportunity to make long overdue investments for working families and make sure the wealthy, the very wealthy and the big corporations finally begin to pay their fair share. I'm not looking to punish anybody. Just pay your fair share.

It's time we give hardworking families who built the country through their skills and sweat and their blood, like the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners a leg up for once. I have a big ambitious plan that bets on the American worker. My plan's going to create millions of good-paying jobs, building the products and technologies that we need now and in the future.

And it starts with a pretty basic idea, when the government spends taxpayers' money, we should spend that money to buy American products made by American workers and American supply chains to generate American growth, an opportunity.

[16:35:05]

My plan would tighten the rules to make buy American a reality. During my first term alone, we're going to invest $400 billion of federal money that you got to spend, you know, that I have control over as a president or administration, to invest and purchase products and materials, our country needs to modernize infrastructure, to replenish critical stockpiles, to enhance our national security.

I was just going through the apprentice program with one of your carpenters, and he's showing me how to read blueprints. And I'm a frustrated architect. I just love -- my kids years ago bought me a light board. I have no professional training, but I like and carry around a graph

paper. I'm always making up and designing homes and landscapes. It's my way out. Some people can paint. I can't.

And he was showing me the blueprints and how they can change several walls in a particular building to conserve and save energy. And he pointed out what you have to learn to be able to read a blueprint.

And I pointed out to him that my buy America plan, he said, by the way -- not me, this carpenter said -- and, by the way, we can kill two birds with one stone -- he doesn't use that phrase. We can do two things at once. He said we can improve the environment by using less energy to operate this building and create more jobs.

I said, I'm going to send you a copy of my plan. My Senate colleagues know exactly what it is.

My Buy American, Build America plan calls for literally what we started in our administration and couldn't finish -- retrofitting 4 million buildings in America that are leaking millions of gallons of energy now, in the process, creating the 4 million jobs for skilled, replacing windows, insulation that works, making sure that the unit is tight, including retrofitting 2 million homes -- all of it done at a prevailing wage with union labor, creating hundreds of thousands of union-certified jobs.

That's not hyperbole, that's a fact. That's how it will happen and saving millions of barrels of oil in the process, improving our environment.

That's why the IBEW and a lot of other unions support what we're doing. We're going to put in 500,000 charging stations along our highways. Why? So, we can own, own, own the electric car market, estimated creating a million new jobs in Michigan, in Detroit and automobile industry.

Look, we can outcompete anybody if we set our mind to it. You know, my infrastructure plan is going to revitalize the American infrastructure, so the future is made in the America. You know, the president keeps talking about he's going to invest in infrastructure, right?

How many times has he said, well, you guys are there, he'll have a plan in '17? His infrastructure plan is coming. Then he had one in '18. Then he had one in '19. Then he has one for '20.

Just like his nonexistent health-care plan that's coming next week. He has no plan.

When I got started, this wasn't a partisan issue, dealing with infrastructure. Republicans wanted to build solid infrastructure to make us first in the world. Now we rank 28th. Just like Democrats did.

It was totally nonpartisan and creating thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of good-paying jobs. We're going to invest overtime $2 trillion to build resilient infrastructure -- roads, bridges, ports, right here along one of these, great, great lakes, 1.45 million new affordable housing units, high-speed broadband for every American household, more important than ever as we are educating your children from home because he has no ideas how to re-open schools.

A hundred billion dollars to rebuild crumbling schools. How many schools in America do you think there are where you can't safely drink the water in the water fountain?

[16:40:06]

Where they're worried about whether or not there is enough ventilation in the school? Where there's leaking energy or still has hazardous materials in the walls?

It's ridiculous. We should be spending the money to improve those schools and the safety of our children and our teachers. As I said, retrofitting 4 million buildings and weatherizing 2 million homes.

And the way we do that is with the tax credits that we'll give them. Again, all done by certified union labor.

Look, I'll fight for workers and unions at every step requiring all federal infrastructure projects to one, pay prevailing wage, two, prioritize project labor agreements so collective bargaining is in place before the project starts, employ workers from registered apprenticeships.

I won't water them down, like Trump tried to do -- pass the PRO Act to crack down on employers who are trying to block or break unions, and I'll do it without raising anybody's taxes if you make less than $400,000 a year.

I give you my word as a Biden --you have nothing to worry about if you make less than $400,000. If you make more, if you make more, you're going to start to pay your fair share.

Nobody who makes less than $400,000 is going to pay a single penny more in taxes under our administration. In fact, tens of millions of middle class families are going to get tax cuts when you need it most, while you're raising children, while you're trying to get affordable health-care, buying your first home, or saving for retirement.

Almost directly after President Trump passed his tax bill in 2017, almost $2 trillion increased the deficit.

He went down to Mar-a-Lago and he said to his guests there -- and this is a quote, it's on record -- you just got a lot richer, end of quote.

He was right. They got a hell of a lot richer. How about the person making $50,000, $60,000, or even the family making $120,000 a year? How much did you get? How much richer did you get?

It may be the only time he's told the plain truth his entire presidency.

In 2018, the year after that tax cut passed, 91 corporations in the Fortune 500 paid no income tax. Zero tax. Zero. Making billions of dollars, paid zero tax.

I guess you guys got all your taxes eliminated too, right?

He said he was going to be the lowest -- he's going to lower the cost of prescription drugs. But guess what? Instead big pharma got billions of dollars in tax cuts, sent or manufactured f those drugs overseas, and unconscionably raised -- so it would be cheaper for them to produce -- unconscionably raised the prices for ordinary Americans.

How many of you people knew your mothers, fathers, uncles, aunts, friends who had to choose between getting their prescriptions -- not a joke -- and putting dinner on the table?

And now he says he's going to cut drug prices, like he's going to have a health-care plan. All he's done -- and it's this big thing he's calling on a drug prices cut -- all he's done, he's sent to the HHS, Health and Human Services, to -- he said, study the issue.

I have a clear plan. I guarantee I'll lower prices in America for drugs by allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices. Which he said he was going to do, the House and Senate were ready to do it, and he said he'd veto it if he got it.

If you want to participate in a Medicare program, you got to negotiate with Medicare for the price of that drug to significantly lower prices. And for any new specialty drugs that don't have competition that are launched, I'm setting up a review board to recommend a reasonable price based on the board's evaluation, and that price will not be able to be increased beyond the cost of medical inflation unless they can prove they've gone and done some more research and changed the nature of the drug.

Now, astonishly -- astonishingly -- and when my staff told me this, I know both the senators knew this. But when they told me this, I said, it can't -- he can't be proposing this. He now is proposing in this budget, another multibillion dollar tax cut for the very wealthy millionaires and billionaires.

[16:45:02]

Here's what he wants to do. He wants to lower the capital gains tax down to 15 percent, to 15 percent.

Every one of you, including the reporters in this room, unless you're making a lot more than I think you are, every one of you is going to be paying at a higher tax rate than someone making a billion bucks off their investment. You're going to pay a higher tax rate, because they make their money by investing, not by the sweat of their brow.

Another tax cut worth billions of dollars. And whose hide do you think that's going to come out of? Where's it come from? The deficit is already bonkers. Where do you think it's going to come out of? It's going to come out of you and the programs and things that help

the American people.

Like I said, it's about time we start rewarding work, not wealth.

Look, I'm not looking to punish anybody. But, dammit, it's about time the super wealthy and corporate America start paying their fair share. That's all it is. Just pay their fair share, so hardworking families can start getting a break on child care, elder care, buying that first home, on the cost of education behind beyond high school, being able to get started in life.

And, by the way, while all this is going on, Donald Trump is trying to rip away your health care. You know, there's all kinds: I got a new health care program. I'm going to protect preexisting conditions.

He's in the Supreme Court saying, get rid of preexisting conditions. They should not. They should be able to stand in the way of you getting insurance, because it helps insurance companies.

And, as a gimmick, he's got a new one. He's going to end the payroll tax that you pay in Social Security. Yet, the actuary at the Social Security says, if that were to occur, Social Security will be bankrupt by the middle of 2023.

So, you may get a few more bucks in your paycheck, then go home and tell your mom and dad, Social Security is about to come to an end. They have never liked Social Security and Medicare to begin with.

So, look, we can't let this happen, let Social Security run dry by 2023. We're so much better than this. This is the United States of America.

We have never, ever, ever, ever been unable to do something when we have done it together, never. So, it's time to stand up, Democrats and Republicans.

I said last night, and I know my colleagues know sometimes Democrats can mad at this. I'm running as a Democrat, but I'm going to be president of the United States, not president of the Democratic Party. We must unite this country.

It's the only way we can move forward. And I believe the American people are ready for it. And I believe in half-a-dozen to a dozen of our Republican colleagues who have been unable and unwilling to have the guts to take him on, because he's so vindictive, with him gone, I think they're ready to work, not on everything, but an awful lot.

It's time to take the country back, folks. And it's going to start here today, with voting in Minnesota.

So, God bless you all, and may God protect our troops.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

(APPLAUSE) JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: Former Vice President and current Democratic

presidential nominee Joe Biden in Hermantown, Minnesota.

Jessica Dean, CNN's Jessica Dean is there where Biden just spoke.

And, Jessica, Biden trying to make the case that he's the candidate for working Americans, talking about how, if you make less than $400,000 a year, you will not pay one penny more in taxes.

JESSICA DEAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Jake.

And he really kind of foreshadowed this sort of messaging at our CNN town hall last night, when he get throughout that line that he believes this is about Scranton, his hometown, his working-class roots, vs. Park Avenue, which he kind of elaborated on today.

You mentioned he talked about the tax proposals. He also talked about -- he wove it into COVID as well. He found a way to talk about how he believes that COVID response should be making sure that everyone is doing OK and that he thinks President Trump is solely focused on Wall Street and the Dow Jones and what the stock market is doing, and how those are two very different ways of looking at COVID relief.

[16:50:00]

He also talked about how he has a chip on his shoulder with guys that look down on him who were born into a lot of money and he says squandered them away, making that reference there to President Trump.

But it's something, Jake, it is a message, very, very detailed and directed at white working-class voters here in Minnesota and in some of the states we have seen him visiting recently, Pennsylvania, Michigan as well.

TAPPER: Battleground states, including Minnesota, where we find Jessica Dean.

DEAN: Yes.

TAPPER: Thank you so much.

DEAN: Yes.

TAPPER: Back to our breaking news.

Without providing any scientific evidence, President Trump moments ago declared that 100 million vaccine doses will be produced by the end of the year and every American will have a vaccine by April.

But, of course, there is not yet any safe, provenly efficacious vaccine. There just isn't. And, as we know with President Trump, his promises should be taken with a grain of salt, considering, in February, he told us the warm weather would get rid of the virus and has time and time again told us that the virus is under control, when, in fact, we're about to hit 200,000 dead any day now. Joining me now to discuss President Trump is his niece, Mary Trump.

She has a new book on the president called "Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man."

Thank you so much for joining us, Mary. We appreciate it.

So, your uncle the president just told Americans something that's not based in where the science is right now, that 100 -- 100 million doses of a coronavirus vaccine will be ready by January. There isn't an approved vaccine yet.

Now, obviously, if one gets approved, there is the infrastructure. The administration has paid pharmaceutical companies for it. And, God, we all hope that happens. But, right now, there is no proven safe, effective vaccine.

Why does he do this?

MARY TRUMP, AUTHOR, "TOO MUCH AND NEVER ENOUGH: HOW MY FAMILY CREATED THE WORLD'S MOST DANGEROUS MAN": He's learned from a lot of experience that he gets away with a lot of his lies. So, why not try again?

Beyond that, though, it suits his narrative. He can't let anybody think that he's behind the curve or that we're in the desperate situation we're in because of his willful inaction. So, it's a way to change the subject and make people feel good about something, no matter how illusory, no matter how dishonest.

And it's -- as with so many things he does, it's really dangerous. I feel like I say that all the time these days, but it happens to be true. This is reckless, and it's -- there's no basis in reality for this.

I mean, vaccines are, first of all, extraordinarily complicated to invent. Secondly, deploying them, the logistics of deploying them are enormously complicated.

So, I have to just say that he may not be calling on the scientists who will speak those truths, but they're adults human beings. They are perfectly case trouble of saying, excuse me, but it is not true that we can have a safe and effective vaccine within six months or whatever Donald is saying.

TAPPER: Just moments ago, President Trump was asked if he is looking to replace the FBI director that he appointed, Christopher Wray. This comes after Wray told Congress that Russia was a bigger threat to the election than China, and after Wray called Antifa an ideology, not an organization.

Apparently, President Trump took issue with these assessments by the FBI director. Take a listen to your uncle answering the question about the director of the FBI's future.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

QUESTION: Christopher Wray, would you like to replace him, sir? DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: So, we're looking at a lot of different things. And I don't -- I did not like his answers yesterday, and I'm not sure he liked to be there.

I'm sure that he probably would agree with me. Antifa is bad, really bad. And if you look at it, who's the big problem, the big problem is China. And we could have others also. And I'm not excluding anybody. But the big problem is China.

And why he doesn't want to say that. That certainly bothers me.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: So, just a couple things here.

I mean, that what FBI Director Wray testified was that, when it comes to violent groups, it would seem that white supremacists were the biggest threat within the bucket of ones that are racially based.

And then, about China, I think it's pretty much established among the intelligence agencies that China is the bigger threat, writ large, but when it comes to election threats, it's Russia.

He doesn't like people disagreeing with him publicly. And it doesn't matter how good they are at their job.

M. TRUMP: Yes, and I mean, I would rephrase that.

They're not disagreeing with him. They're telling him factually accurate -- sorry -- they're giving him factually accurate information. And he's pretending that he knows better, even though he has absolutely no facts to back up what he's saying.

[16:55:06]

So, that's worse, because, in the process, he's undermining the American people's confidence in institutions and agencies that are in place to protect us. So, it's incredibly damaging.

TAPPER: Yesterday, a former top Pence aide, a homeland security aide who worked for the vice president and was on the Coronavirus Task Force from day one, actually there when Trump asked Pence to head the organization, Olivia Troye, came forward in a new ad for Republican Voters Against Trump, in which she said that President Trump said: Oh, maybe this -- I'm paraphrasing here -- but something along the lines of: Maybe COVID isn't such a bad thing. Then I won't have to shake hands with all these disgusting people.

The White House says he never said anything like that.

You obviously have known the president for quite some time. Does that sound like something he would say?

M. TRUMP: Of course. It's precisely the kind of thing he would say.

And it makes me wonder again why people who support him are OK with that, because they're the ones he's describing with the word disgusting.

TAPPER: The president told Bob Woodward that he knew back in February that this virus could be transmitted through the air and also was deadlier than the flu.

But, obviously, that's not what he told the public at the time. He said the flu was deadlier. He dismissed all of the concern from Democrats as a hoax, their concern wasn't real.

So, you're a psychologist, in addition to knowing the president. Why would he leave Americans in the dark, why would he mislead about this virus, knowing that it -- that deception could actually cost people their lives, because they did not know how deadly this virus was, as he downplayed it for weeks, if not months?

M. TRUMP: Because he doesn't care what happens to the American people. And, for various reasons, he believed it was to his benefit to keep it secret or to downplay it.

Look, we have so much damning information. That quote is damning. The recent news that the post office was going to send out in excess of 650 million masks, and the White House torpedoed that idea because they didn't want to panic people?

I mean, we're getting to the point where this is -- this isn't just negligent. It's willfully criminal. Imagine how many tens of thousands of Americans would still be with us if we had all been wearing masks provided to us for free by the American government.

It's mind-boggling.

TAPPER: Mary Trump, thank you so much. Appreciate your time.

The book, again, is "Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man."

We will be right back after this quick break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TAPPER: This Sunday morning, you don't want to miss "STATE OF THE UNION."

Our guests include White House Coronavirus Task Force testing czar Admirable Brett Giroir, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, and Jon Stewart with New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand talking about a new cause to help American veterans. It's only on CNN at 9:00 a.m. and noon Eastern Sunday.

You can follow me on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter @JakeTapper. You can tweet the show @THELEADCNN.

Our coverage on CNN continues right now. I will see you Sunday morning.

And to those celebrating, happy new year. Shana Tova.