President Biden Delivers Remarks In Front Of Union Leaders: 'I Think Of You As My Domestic NATO'

5 months ago

President Biden delivered remarks on Wednesday at a meeting of national union leaders at the AFL-CIO headquarters.

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Transcript

00:00This is family! Thank you, thank you, and welcome, Mr. President. This is your home.

00:08This is your family. We couldn't be more honored that with all those NATO leaders waiting for

00:13you down the street that you came here to the House of Labor. Yes. We are your NATO,

00:24that's what I say, in the U.S. So we are, again, here to support the record that you've

00:31had of creating millions of new jobs, bringing manufacturing back to this country. Investing

00:43in clean energy and semiconductors and whole new industries, creating good union jobs with

00:49labor standards. Incredible. So we just want to say, Mr. President, you support unions,

00:57you support working families, you've always had our back. We have your back.

01:03Hey, folks. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. Please sit down, sit down. Hey,

01:19look, number one, you know, the way I look at it, and I was thinking about this last night,

01:23knowing I'm going to be here and going from here to the NATO summit. You know,

01:27we have two strong, strong organizations in America that I look to for our security.

01:33One, literally, and I mean this sincerely, is NATO. NATO, a joint assembly of democracies that

01:40made sure we're keeping the peace, and no one's going to screw around with it. It's the strongest

01:44it's ever been. And I think of you as my domestic NATO. Not a joke, not a joke. You're the ones,

01:51you're the ones beyond me, and you know, you know this better than I do. Beyond me,

01:58it's all about whether or not we're going to grow the economy, whether we're going to give working

02:03people a shot. And I told you, and you know, because a lot of you were there with me all

02:08the way back when I was a kid, and I'm only 42, but when I was a kid back running for the Senate

02:15when I was 29 years old, Labor elected me. And we were then a right-to-work state, and we changed it

02:22all. And here's what we're doing. You are, you've heard me say it a thousand times, I'm going to

02:26say it again. The middle class built this country. You built the middle class. Oh, no, no. By the way,

02:35I don't want to hurt your reputations, but even Wall Street's acknowledging your power. No,

02:42I'm serious. Look at every projection about what we want to do with the economy, on the issues

02:47that we're talking about, and what the other guy wants to do. They're supporting us. It's your

02:52agenda we're working on. And by the way, I've said from the beginning that when Labor does well,

02:57everybody does better. Not a joke. That's not a talking point. That is a reality. You know that,

03:05Lee. That is a reality. It is an absolute reality. When we were going to make it, you know, I said

03:11I was going to be the most pro-union president in American history. Well, guess what? I am,

03:15and I'm standing. No, I mean it. Because you represent the folks I grew up with. You represent

03:31where I come from. You represent where the vast majority of the American people. You know,

03:36I come from a household with a three-bedroom. We weren't poor, but we weren't. We didn't have

03:40anything left over at the end of the month. But, you know, three-bedroom house, four kids,

03:44grandpop lived with us, someone lived with us full-time. I look back now and wonder how my dad

03:49handled those walls. But at any rate, the point is that we just kept people fighting chance. And

03:58when I got elected, and even when you guys are with me all going all the way back into the 70s

04:03when I was a kid, what we talked about was the whole idea of this was to give everybody a shot,

04:10no guarantee, just a shot, an even shot. And that's why I determined, and we've done it with

04:16your help and your leadership, we're going to build this country from the bottom up and the

04:21middle out, not the top down. No, I mean it. Not a joke. Not a joke. They're warning me not to take

04:30too much time with you all today in terms of talking, but here's the deal. The fact of the

04:35matter is, take a look at what all the major economists, including the Wall Street economists,

04:40they look at his proposal, what he's done, and what our proposal is moving forward. And

04:45overwhelmingly, overwhelmingly, he got 16 Nobel laureates in economic law, and they won the Nobel

04:54Prize for Economics, 16 of them. And what did they say? They say his proposals are going to

04:59bankrupt the country. His proposals are going to cause a recession. His proposal is going to cause

05:04us higher interest rates. And what you and I, and you've been helping me, you've been leading on,

05:10or I've been following you, or you've been following me, what we propose is grow the

05:15country. No, no, we're the fastest growing economy in the world. That's a fact. We're

05:21the strongest economy in the world. But here's what we've got to do. We've got to talk to our

05:26people. We've got to talk to our people. Food prices are still too high because of corporate

05:31greed. We're in a situation where rents are too high. We need more housing. A whole range of

05:36things we're going to get done with your help in the second term, because that's what we've got to

05:41get done. So folks, I have never been more optimistic about America's chances, not because

05:46of me, but because of what we're doing together. I really mean it. We're better positioned than any

05:50country in the world to own the remainder of the 21st century because of union labor.

05:56I'm serious. Thank you, Mr. President.

President Biden Delivers Remarks In Front Of Union Leaders: 'I Think Of You As My Domestic NATO'

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