• 6 months ago
At the presidential debate on Thursday, President Biden was asked about the economy under his administration.

Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more:

https://account.forbes.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=growth_non-sub_paid_subscribe_ytdescript


Stay Connected
Forbes on Facebook: http://fb.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Instagram: http://instagram.com/forbes
More From Forbes: http://forbes.com
Transcript
00:00Gentlemen, thanks so much for being here. Let's begin the debate and let's start with
00:04the issue that voters consistently say is their top concern, the economy. President
00:10Biden, inflation has slowed, but prices remain high. Since you took office, the price of
00:15essentials has increased. For example, a basket of groceries that cost $100 then now costs
00:22more than $120. And typical home prices have jumped more than 30%. What do you say to voters
00:28who feel they are worse off under your presidency than they were under President Trump?
00:33We've got to take a look at what I was left when I became president and what Mr. Trump
00:37left me. We had an economy that was in freefall. The pandemic was so badly handled. Many people
00:43were dying. All he said was, it's not that serious. Just inject a little bleach in your
00:47arm. You'll be all right. The economy collapsed. There were no jobs. Unemployment rate rose
00:53to 15%. It was terrible. And so what we had to do is try to put things back together again.
00:58That's exactly what we began to do. We created 15,000 new jobs. We brought out another position
01:05where we have 800,000 new manufacturing jobs. But there's more to be done. There's more
01:09to be done. Working class people are still in trouble. I come from Scranton, Pennsylvania.
01:14I come from a household where the kitchen table, if things weren't able to be met during
01:18the month, it was a problem. Price of eggs, the price of gas, the price of housing, the
01:22price of a whole range of things. That's why I'm working so hard to make sure I deal with
01:26those problems. And we're going to make sure that we reduce the price of housing. We're
01:31going to make sure we build two million new units. We're going to make sure we cap rents
01:35so corporate greed can't take over. The combination of his left and the corporate greed is the
01:39reason why we're in this problem right now. In addition to that, we're in a situation
01:44where if you had to take a look at all that was done in his administration, he didn't
01:48do much at all. By the time he left, things were in chaos, literally chaos. And so we
01:54put things back together. We created, I said, those jobs. We make sure we had a situation
01:58where we now, we brought down the price of prescription drugs, which is a major issue
02:03for many people. It's $15 for an insulin shot as opposed to $400. No senior has to pay more
02:11than $200 for any drug, all the drugs they conclude beginning next year. And the situation
02:18is making, and we're going to make that available to everybody, to all Americans. So we're working
02:22to bring down the price of around the kitchen table and that's what we're going to get done.

Recommended