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Joe Biden Gives a Speech on Infrastructure in Pittsburgh After Bridge Collapse. Aired 3:30-4p ET

Aired January 28, 2022 - 15:30   ET

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

[15:30:00]

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The painful ripple effect it had. Job lost. Families ripped apart. So, you know that to build choice saw economy, we need a future that's made in America. That means using products, part, materials built right here in the United States of America. It means bringing manufacturing back. Jobs back. Building a supply chains here at home. Not out sourcing abroad so we have better jobs and lower prices here.

It means betting on America's workers. And it takes the federal government. It doesn't just give lip service to buying America, but actually takes action. That's the approach I've taken from day one. And now we're beginning the see the results.

We learned this week after my first year as president, the United States had the fastest economic growth in nearly four decades. Along with the greatest year of job growth in American history -- 6.4 million jobs created in one year. And instead of losing of manufacturing jobs, since I've been in office America has actually added additional 367,000 manufacturing jobs in America -- good paying jobs. The highest increase in U.S. manufacturing jobs in 30 years.

And last week the CEO Intel, Pat Gelsinger, came to the White House because he wanted to support the Build Back Better initiative and to also let me know that two of your neighboring Senators were here -- were there, Portman and Brown. A Democratic and Republican from Ohio. He came to announce the new 20 billion semiconductor campus outside of Columbus, Ohio. That's going to create 10,000 jobs -- 7,000 constructing the facility and 3,000 permanent jobs.

And by the way, I was joking. I said I may need a job. He said, well, it's not bad. The average salary is $135,000 a year. And folks, the key is these jobs are manufacturing essential products. Stamps made in America. Semiconductors, you all know, they're small computer chips. They power virtually everything in everyday life. And they were originated here in the United States of America. We used to own not only the patent but the technology and the production.

Your phone, your car, your refrigerator, your washing machine, hospital equipment, the Internet, the electric grid and so much more depend on these chips. So, this is going to create thousands of additional jobs helping build more American products.

For example, you know inflation is a problem which I'll speak to in a second. And it's real. And a lot of people are being hurt by it. But guess what, one-third of the inflation America is the consequence of the cost of automobiles -- one-third, you know. Why? Because of the shortage of semiconductors. They can't build them. And therefore, the ones that aren't being built cause the price of those that are being built to go much higher. This announcement helps fix that problem.

Three days ago, I called a meeting in the White House of CEOs from General Motors, Ford, Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard and others. Mary Barra, General Motors CEO, announced to the White House initial $7 billion investment in Michigan to manufacture electric vehicles, creating 4,000 new quality jobs.

That's on top of the announcement made by CEO of Ford, Jim Farley, last year investing $11 billion in electric vehicles creating 11,000 new jobs.

And today right here in Western Pennsylvania the Union Pacific Railroad is announcing the largest purchase of American made battery electric locomotives in all of history. And by the way, guess who is supplying those batteries? General Motors.

Folks, I want to tell you it matters. It matter a lot. The company will build these locomotives and it's called Wabtec. W - A - B in their name is because they grew out the old Westinghouse air brake company, a classic Pittsburgh manufacturer. Wabtec is based here in Pittsburgh. And these locomotives will be built up in an area that the same plant that Thomas Edison built the General Electric's for -- for General Electric more than a century ago.

[15:35:02]

Not only will these locomotives be running here at home powering our economy and decreasing pollution, Wabtec will also be exporting them to Canada, Australia and all around the world. Again, creating more good paying jobs.

Folks in the process reducing climate change, creating jobs here in Western Pennsylvania. As I said, good paying jobs you can raise a family on.

My dad said that all you need, a family needs just a bit of breathing room. The little bit of breathing room. And so many people don't have it now. But it also means something else. It means that right here in Pittsburgh, the future is being built on the foundation of this city's storied past.

An announcement like this doesn't happen in a vacuum. The manufacturing and research that we're seeing today is no accident. It takes local leaders, federal leaders, foundations, businesses, unions, universities all pulling together. It requires a mindset like you have here in Mill 19.

Here is what I mean by that. Generations ago Mill 19 used the roll out ten-inch steel bars. Today it rolls out the latest innovation in advance manufacturing of robotic, 3-D printing and artificial intelligence. It's simply rolling out the future. That's what it's going to be doing. That success is the result of a partnership. The federal government provides funding from everything from basic research to great universities like Carnegie Mellon, two supporting partnerships that help small business in Western Pennsylvania get into the game in the first place. Like the businesses here at Mill 19.

Organizations like one called Catalyst. They work with small business to adapt the latest technologies they need and grow and grow and compete globally. The work is made possible by funding from the Commerce Department. In a partner with engineers and researchers from Carnegie Mellon University, who designed the next generation of advanced manufacturing equipment. Creating technology that work alongside workers instead of replacing the workers.

In fact, Carnegie Mellon and the AFL-CIO are teaming up to make these technologies -- make sure they are designed to support workers.

Another organization at Mill 19 called ARM Institute. ARM Institute is a public-private partnership funded in part by the federal government to help robotics technology move into the marketplace and to help train workers to build, operate and repair robots. So that working folks right here can take on good paying jobs at companies like Wabtec are helping to create.

And by the way, thanks to the American Rescue Plan -- the first major bill we got past in March -- my Commerce Department is investing an additional $1 billion in local efforts to strengthen regional economies throughout the country. Some of that money is coming right here to Western Pennsylvania in support of efforts that include partners here at Mill 19. Helping spread new robotic, artificial intelligence, manufacturing technologies and create more jobs across the nation.

Look, you all get it. The bottom line is this, it takes of us working together -- all of us working together to get this done. And that's finally beginning to happen. When the federal government invests in innovation it powers up the private sector to do what it does best. Creating incredible new technologies, new industries and most importantly new jobs. Good paying jobs.

These are the kinds of investments and partnerships that help us build a made in America future. We can't slow down now. We can't slow down know. We know what happens when we stop vesting in the future of places like Pittsburg. Decades ago, we used to invest 2 percent of our gross domestic product in research and development here in America. Let me emphasize that. Research and development.

Today we invest less than one percent. The United States of America used to be ranked number one in the world in investing in the future. Now we rank number nine in research and development.

China was number eight three decades ago. Today it's number two. And other countries are catching up fast. But we can and must change that trajectory. We have an opportunity ahead of us right now.

[15:40:00] The House and Senate, the United States Congress and United States Senate are working out a bill that's going to provide an extra 90 billion dollar for research and development, manufacturing all the element of the supply chain needed to produce the end products. This has helped create more partnerships like the ones you have right here in Mill 19.

Secretary Raimondo, former governor of Rhode Island, she's been helping lead this effort. She knows what it takes. And my expectation is this will continue to be a bipartisan effort, god willing. Just like the infrastructure law.

And by the way, regarding the infrastructure law, we brought together Democrats and Republicans being led by Senator Casey and Senator Lam and other members of your delegation here, Democrats along with Republicans to do something about infrastructure.

Now just 74 days after signing that law, we're already making tangible differences for highways, ports, airports, rail, high speed internet, clean air, clean water. That includes $1.6 billion over the next five years for Pennsylvania to repair its bridges.

As I said earlier, there are more than 3,300 bridges across Pennsylvania and over 7,500 miles of highway in poor condition. It also means jobs. Replacing lead water pipes so families in ten million homes and in 400,000 schools and childcare centers can drink clean water, not lead based.

Jobs providing the labor and infrastructure making high speed internet affordable and available everywhere in America. Cities, suburban and rural areas so that nobody is left behind, nobody is left behind.

You know, when -- if you pause for a second if you think about it. How many times during the period when COVID was so bad -- it's still not good but were getting there -- when COVID was so bad the schools were closed, you drive by a McDonald's and see a family sitting in the parking lot so the kid can use his computer or her computer to be able to tie into the internet out of McDonald's or at fast food restaurant.

This is the United States of America for God's sake. What are we doing? What in God's name are we doing?

We have announced major investment of $858 million to modernize the Montgomery lock in northwest Pittsburgh. So, the water levels stay high enough for barges to pass through up at the upper Ohio River. We move about a half a trillion dollars' worth of goods through the locks like these across the country every single year. When we're not -- when they're not working, it creates choke points. Barges break up. Goods don't get to where they need to go.

Bob Casey's been on my back about this for so long. As we get this Montgomery lock down, I think we should call it the Casey lock. I mean, Bobby I didn't know anybody in Scranton knew what the hell lock was. You know what I mean? But all kidding aside, it's going to happen. It's going to happen. I've also announced after consulting with my friend Cecil Roberts,

president of the United Mine Workers, a plan to cap and employing orphan gas wells and oil wells spewing methane into the air. Over 100,000 of them.

Clean up abandoned mines. I come from coal country, Scranton. Thousands of these wells helped generate economic growth here in Pennsylvania. But now it's time to create good paying union jobs capping those wells. We get the same salary as those who dubbed them in first place.

Look, this law also delivers $7.5 billion to build a network of electric vehicle charging stations. A good friend of mine Lonnie Stephenson, the president of the IBEW. to they're going to have a good time, man. Five or 500,000 of these charging stations on our highways.

And by the way, when you build these stations, what happens just like when you build a gas station on the highway, other things grow around it. You're going to see communities grow as a consequence. Making us more globally competitive in the future of electric vehicles. It'll help you fight climate change.

[15:45:00]

And folks here in Pennsylvania, you all know best the cost of inaction when it comes to climate. Extreme weather cost this state $10 billion over the last decade -- 10 billion.

You all remember last fall when Hurricane Ida made landfall in these -- run of my operation now, and the former mayor of Louisiana, when it hit Louisiana. Winds hit a 178 miles an hour.

And guess what happened here? It flooded businesses in Oakdale and homes in Millvale. Nationally last year extreme weather cost us $145 billion. That's what it cost the American public.

Extreme weather is not going to ease up on its own. We have to be ready. That's why we're investing in our resilience. Building roads higher when we rebuild them. Our levees stronger. Our power grids more durable so they don't get blown down and cause massive, massive, massive wildfires. To withstand the increasing ferocity of extreme weather.

You know, I went all over the country last year visiting these sites. Flying over vast, vast stretches of land in the West, in Oregon and Washington and Idaho. Looking down from that helicopter and seeing nothing but barren, barren land.

You know, more timber, more housing, more businesses burned to the ground last year in the United States than the entire physical size of the state of New Jersey from the New York state line down to the Delaware Bay. That's how much burned to the ground this last year.

All of these investments in making it America, research and structure are really about one thing. Empowering more cities and more towns to do what you doing here in Pittsburgh. Transforming yourself from being told you're a city without a future to becoming a city of the future.

Think what your kids are going to have with this leadership you have in front of you . 15 years from now, here in Pittsburgh. We're going the lead the world again. It's not hyperbole. It's a fact. Where instead of shuttering factories along the Alleghany River we're going to now talk about not steel row we're going to talk about robotics row. Three mile run with some of the world's most innovative businesses. A place where the future is being written.

Where families can have good paychecks, good homes, a future. It's a little bit of breathing room. The story we have kept right in here in Pittsburgh can keep writing in communities all across the country is the one you've begun.

But we can't slow down, folks. We need to ease the burden on working families. Making everything, everything more affordable and accessible to hardworking people.

That's what my Build Back Better plan is all about. That's why those major corporations came to the White House asking to see me to tell me they supported Build Back Better even though it was going to increase their taxes. Going to increase their taxes.

This plan will not cost the American people a single penny. No one making less than $400,000 will pay a single additional penny in their taxes. And it reduces the deficit. And 14 Nobel Laureates in economics wrote to me telling me that it would also diminish the impact of inflation.

Take childcare. How many families in this town can continue to afford to pay $14,000 per kid for childcare? Well, the plan I have cuts that in half for most families helping them -- helping with their budgets, helping millions of parents especially women go back to work.

How many of you know anybody who has type one diabetes? They need insulin. You know how much it costs to make that insulin? Less than $10. You know how much it costs on average nationwide for a monthly supply of insulin, which you need every single month? $656, as high as $1,000. Imagine being the parent making the minimum wage or twice the minimum wage and having a child with type one diabetes, knowing that if you can't and have no insurance, knowing if you cannot get that money for the insulin, the child may die.

[15:50:00]

In addition to your child, it strips you of your dignity, damn it. Can you imagine looking at your child and you know what they need and not be able to do it. Many of you have lost children. Many of you have seen, imagine, it's outrageous. And we have an answer. At the same time, the same is true for home community-based services for seniors and people with disabilities.

Folks, look. What's the one thing, a lot of you are part of the so- called sandwich generation. You have a child and you need to get daycare so you can go out and work, as well as you got a mom or a dad who is elderly and living at home and they don't want to move out of their house. They don't want to sell every single thing they have to move into a nursing home. But you know, the data shows, 880,000 people quality -- 800,000 people qualify under Medicare to get that help but it's not available.

And sometimes it is as little as making sure there's someone there to pick up the prescription. Put a handrail on the shower. Making sure someone can show up and help the meal. It's cheaper for everybody. It's the decent thing to do. The parents deserve to have a little bit of dignity.

And will not cause -- and will not increase the deficit and it will not cost anybody making less than 400,000 bucks, a penny. I'm a capitalist and you can make a billion dollars, a million dollars, go at it. It's good. But at least pay a little bit.

Fortune 500 companies -- Fortune 500 companies the last two years were 55 who made over $45 billion. Didn't pay a cent in taxes. I'm not talking about anybody paying any more than they did ten years ago.

Look, we see the -- we know how to ease the pressure on families. We're increasing productivity and the potential for our economy. We can afford these investments by making sure the wealthiest just pay a little bit without increasing the deficit. As I said, no one earning -- I guarantee you, check it, no one earning less than 400,000 grand will ever pay another penny.

And I told you about the impact of 17 Nobel Laureates saying it's going to decrease inflation not increase it.

Here's the bottom line. The United States is in a position to outcompete the rest of the world once again. We're at a real inflection point. Technology, society is changing. And we've always been ahead of the curve. We have an incredible opportunity ahead of us. And we still face tremendous challenges.

But if we can keep coming together and invest in the backbone of this country. There's no limits to what we can achieve. So, let's continue. Continue to give working families a fighting chance. Let's keep investing in the future of every city and town in this country. Let's face the challenges head on. Let's keep building a better America. It is totally, completely within our power. I promise you. I promise you.

It's about time we stop fighting and it's about time we start working together again. Thank you for your consideration for what we're talking about. We can do an awful lot. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Folks, a guy who is helping all those vets coming back is the head of the V.A., Denis McDonough. Denis, raise your hand, pal. Let them know who you are. He's back there. Anyway, we'll get him. We'll get him. But there is a lot going on, folks. God bless you all. May God protect our troops. Thank you.

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN HOST: President Biden making remarks in Pittsburgh about the infrastructure bill and many other topics, coincidentally on the day of that bridge collapse there in Pittsburgh. [15:55:00]

CNN's MJ Lee joins us now. This is what the president promised he would get out and sell the legislation that he passed and still making the case for legislation he's trying to get through.

MJ LEE, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Victor. And remember, the president's day took such a turn earlier. This trip to Pittsburgh, of course, had been on the president's calendar for a number of days. And he hadn't even left Washington when news broke of the collapse of this bridge at a site not very far from where President Biden just spoke.

And the White House deciding to go ahead with this trip anyway, and that's why we saw the president earlier in the day, actually visiting the site of the collapsed bridge. He was able to thank some of the first responders who are on the scene. He was able to speak with and meet with some of the local officials. And that visit to that collapsed bridge site actually ended up informing this speech that the president just gave, and the timing of it is really just kind of incredible.

His speech was supposed to be about, in part, about some of the failing bridges, the crumbling bridges around the country. He very much wanted to draw attention to. One, the infrastructure bill that he signed into law earlier in the administration, but also, the need for more funding, more money to fix some of these issues across the country.

So, the fact that he ended up visiting literally a broken bridge, a crumbling bridge on the same day that he was going to speak on this topic, really just incredible. And I think we should also note just in the bigger picture, this is sort of the beginning of the Biden administration's political strategy and messaging reset ahead of the mid-term elections coming up in November.

President Biden last week in his press conference made very clear that he wants to do things a little differently going forward. Part of that is getting out in the country more. He said that he wanted to be out there more. He said he wanted to do a better job of trying to take credit for some of the things that his White House has already accomplished and we saw him talk about that.

We also saw him trying to sort of look to the future. He talked at great length about his Build Back Better plan and how he wants to get that done so that more money can go to Americans. We also heard him talk about one issue that is on a lot of American people's minds right now, and that is inflation.

So, all around, it was a speech that both talked about some of the accomplishments for the president and his administration, but also, tried to be forward looking. So, I do think that we will see the president try to do more of these kinds of trips.

Of course, this week has shown that it is difficult to stay focused on domestic issues when there is so much focus on things that are happening abroad. Of course, Ukraine and Russia and that situation has really overtaken events at the White House this week. So, we'll see how much the president is able to focus on these kinds of trips, these kinds of issues in the coming weeks -- guys.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN HOST: OK, MJ Lee, thank you for helping us wrap all of that up.

BLACKWELL: All right, there is also -- let's stay with the White. A member of the Biden family that is now moving in. Meet the first cat, Willow. Short-haired, a 2-year-old, gray tabby, Willow is named after Willow Grove, Pennsylvania, first lady's Jill Biden's hometown.

CAMEROTA: OK now, listen to this, Jill Biden, the first lady first met Willow at a campaign stop in 2020 when the cat jumped on stage and we're told immediately bonded with the future first lady.

Now I don't know if she took somebody's cat, I don't know if that cat had an owner but they bonded with Jill Biden.

BLACKWELL: You're my cat now!

CAMEROTA: Yes, it's her cat now. And also, the last time, Victor, there was a pet cat at the White House was during the George W. Bush administration.

BLACKWELL: Yes, I mean, good for them. I'm more of the like Champ, Major guy. Not really into cats so much.

CAMEROTA: OK, then you're going to love this next story.

BLACKWELL: OK. Let's do it.

CAMEROTA: OK.

[16:00:00]

BLACKWELL: West Virginia State of the State speech yesterday, unexpected end -- emphasis on end. Governor Jim Justice held up his English bulldog named Babydog with this message for West Virginia's critics.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. JIM JUSTICE (R-WV): They told every bad joke in the world about us. And so, from that standpoint, Babydog tells Bette Midler and all that out there, kiss her hiney.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: I don't know if I needed to see that. But there is a back story if you'll allow this.

BLACKWELL: Oh, rim shot.

CAMEROTA: OK. This was a reference to a December tweet from singer and actress Bette Midler who slammed West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin for not supporting President Biden's Build Back Better plan.

[16:00:00]

And she wrote that Manchin wants us all to be, quote, just like his state West Virginia, poor, illiterate and strung out.

Yikes! She later apologized for that remark but I guess Babydog does not accept that apology. That's what I thought.

BLACKWELL: Can you imagine what Babydog is thinking with this room full of people are applauding at the back end of or the business end as it's known, of an English bulldog.

CAMEROTA: I don't want to think about it.

BLACKWELL: Thank you, Governor Justice. "THE LEAD" with Jake Tapper starts right now.