Plucked from the White House press room scene in the movie The American President.
Reporter:
Will President Biden respond to Donald Trump’s accusations about his stance on the southern border?
President Biden: [Enters and walks to the podium]
Yes, he will. Good morning. [Press corps stands]
It’s alright. Please keep your seats.
Good morning.
For the last many years, Donald Trump has suggested that being President of this country was, to a certain extent, about winning. Although I’ve not been willing to engage in his attacks on me, I have been here for over three years now as President and eight years as vice president, and I can tell you without hesitation: Being President of this country is not about winning; it is entirely about character.
For the record, yes, I support comprehensive immigration reform and border security, but the more important question is, “Why don’t you, Donald?” This bipartisan effort is designed to address the complex issues at our southern border while maintaining our values as a nation of immigrants. So it naturally begs the question, why would a former president, his party’s most powerful spokesman, and a candidate for re-election choose to sabotage a solution to one of our most pressing issues? Now, if you can answer that question, folks, you’re smarter than his followers because they still don’t understand it.
America isn’t easy. America is advanced citizenship. You’ve gotta want it, because it’s gonna put up a fight. It’s gonna say, “You want free speech? Let’s see you acknowledge a man whose words make your blood boil, who’s standing center stage and advocating at the top of his lungs that which you would spend a lifetime opposing at the top of yours.” You want to claim this land as the land of the free? Then the symbol of your country cannot just be a flag or a false sense of leadership. The symbol also has to be one of its citizens exercising their right to protest and demand justice. Show me that, defend that, celebrate that in your classrooms.
Then, you can stand up and sing about the land of the free. But that’s not Donald. Donald just wants what Donald wants.
We’ve known Donald Trump for years. Many of us have assumed that the reason Donald devotes so much time and energy trying to “Make America Great Again,” is that he simply didn’t get it. Well, we were wrong. Donald made America worse. Donald doesn’t want to Make America Great; he wants to make money from Americans’ hard-earned tax dollars.
Donald’s problem isn’t that he doesn’t get it. Donald’s problem is that he can’t sell it and profit, himself!
We have serious problems to solve, and we need serious people to solve them. And whatever the particular problem is, I promise you, Donald Trump is not the least bit interested in solving it. He is interested in two things, and two things only: making you afraid of it, and telling you who’s to blame for it. That, ladies and gentlemen, is how you win elections. You gather a group of middle-aged, middle-class, middle-income voters who remember with longing an easier time, and you talk to them about family, and American values and character, and you wave an old photo of the President’s son and a laptop and you scream about corruption. You tell them he’s to blame for their lot in life. And you go on television, and you call him a criminal, even though YOU have 91 indictments and are guilty of 34 felony counts.
Hunter Biden has done nothing to you, Donald. He has done nothing but put himself through school, overcome personal challenges, and advocate for veterans. You want a debate, Donald? You better stick with someone else, because debating criminality is the only thing you can win.
I’ve been civil to this point, and I hope that when we have a higher-quality candidate from the opposing party, I won’t have to stoop to the levels to which Donald Trump has stooped. For now, that ends!
91 indictments Donald, 91. I’m not going to stand up here and be holier than thou, but I don’t have 91 indictments against me nor have I in my entire career. you had no intention of making America great again you had every intention of getting as much out of America, and American government as your pockets could hold. I’m not afraid of you nor should anybody in this country be afraid of you. we have laws we are a country ruled by them and we have mechanisms in place to enforce them.
Having an opponent who is as corrupt as the former president should not be a hard sell to the American people regarding their choice in the upcoming presidential election. I’m not saying I’m perfect, I’m not even saying that I have the answers to all of your problems, but what I am willing to do is put together teams of people who are smarter about those problems to help solve them. you’ve seen that in the Border security bill, the bipartisan effort that we put together. It can be done, we’ve done it, and we’ll do it again! We don’t need to make America great again America is great! Yes, we have problems to solve, they are very big and very difficult the larger we grow, but we are resilient people, and we bring the best ideas from across our country to solve problems! we don’t just bring our friends and people who tell us we’re great into our Administration, simultaneously tanking the agencies that are tasked with making sure those problems are solved! Donald Trump is never going to make America great! Donald Trump made America worse, and we came in and fixed all of the problems that we could in the last 3 years, starting with the largest and finally getting to things like inflation and how we can have an even playing field for working Americans who put all of their effort and time into making America great! You don’t need me to tell you that!
You know, the work you do and the work of so many other hard-working Americans is literally what makes America great! We all want our families to be taken care of. We want Affordable Health Care so those people in our families who need assistance can be taken care of, especially women who deserve the right to choose their appropriate healthcare. We want safety on the border and throughout the country!
The American people are what make America great! Somebody telling you that you aren’t in a great country is a slap in your face! Every time I see those red hats, I want to take it off, make that person read it, and then ask them what they didn’t do, to think America is not great! WE are America, and I’m not having it anymore with these people!
That said, THEY are Americans, and I will fight for THEM because that is my job. I am not the president of the Democratic Party, I am not the enemy of the Republican Party, I am not the President of the left states or enemy of the right States, nor the red States, the blue States, or even the purple States! I am the President of the UNITED States of America, and WE ARE GREAT!
Tomorrow morning, the White House will resend a bill to Congress for consideration. It’s White House Resolution xxx, the comprehensive border security and immigration reform bill that addresses the urgent need for a fair and humane system while securing our borders. It is the most collaborative effort in recent history to solve this issue. It will not be the final solve, but it will be a good bipartisan first step, with many to follow.
Another resolution White House Resolution xxx, condemns the harshest response against a class of people since World War II. We cannot have as we did in nazi-germany, a country setting out to annihilate other people based on their beliefs. One of the things about being president is understanding what a proportionate response is. There is no such thing when it comes to death or the loss of loved ones. I know more about this than I care to. but the fact of the matter is you can’t have a government wiping out another group of people because of the acts of a small percentage of that population. So, my proposal will be a complete ceasefire from both sides managed by a UN Security Force, supplemented by the US Military and our allies, to begin what should have been finished long ago. Palestine will live, and Israel will live! if we can’t figure out a two-state solution, maybe we need a United States of the Middle East! Jared’s solution seems to have missed the mark.
I know my previous remarks about absolute support for Israel have alienated a group of people within the United States of America; I never believed the response would be as disproportional as it has been! We need to rain in the government of Israel from annihilating the people in Gaza! The difference is that this region has existed for millennia, and thinking we can fix it all in a resolution is unrealistic. But still, we need to change the hearts and minds of people in that region to show them it’s possible to get along with our neighbors!
The other legislation is a bill to codify a woman’s right to choose. As of today, it no longer exists only in our country. I’m throwing down the gauntlet to old, outdated thinking and will write a law that makes sense. You cannot protect women’s health and rights without ensuring they have control over their bodies. I consider this fundamental to our nation’s values, and I will go door to door if I have to, but I will convince Americans that I’m right and enshrine these rights into law.
We’ve got serious problems, and we need serious people. And if you want to talk about doing the job well, Donald, you’d better come at me with more than a Trump 2024 flag and conspiracy theories. If you want to talk about character and American values, just tell me where and when, and I’ll show up. This is a time for serious people, Donald, and while your sentence may be many years, your term was up three years ago.
My name is Joe Biden, and I AM the President.