Biden Says Delegates At Democratic Convention Are 'Obviously' Free To Vote Their Conscience

5 months ago

At a press briefing on Thursday, President Biden was asked about the Democratic convention.

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Transcript

00:00Then you're making decisions on a day-to-day basis when it comes to support for Ukraine.

00:04Does that mean you have not closed the door on further considering lifting restrictions for

00:10U.S.-made weapons inside Russia? And if I may, your convention is coming up where your delegates

00:15are pledged to make you the official nominee. If they have second thoughts, are they free to

00:20vote their conscience? Obviously, they're free to do whatever they want, but I get overwhelming

00:26support. Overwhelming support. I forget how many votes I won in the primary.

00:34Overwhelming. And so tomorrow, if all of a sudden I show up at the convention,

00:38everybody says we want somebody else, that's a democratic process. It's not going to happen.

00:45Even if that means they vote for someone else?

00:48Sure. Look, I'll end this with this. I served in the Senate a long time.

00:59I understand the impetus of candidates running for local office and whether they think

01:07the topic can help them or not. In my state of Delaware, which was a very,

01:16at least a purple, it was a red state when I started, in terms of where you now talk red and

01:21blue. I don't recall most of the democratic presidents winning my state when I was a

01:32candidate. The truth of the matter is I understand the self-interest of a candidate.

01:37If they think that, you know, running with Biden at the top is going to hurt them,

01:42then they're going to run away. I get it. But so far, go and look at the polling data

01:49in their states. Look at the, and by the way,

01:55I think you'd all acknowledge, and you're all experts, I'm not being solicitous about the

01:58president, you're experts on this stuff. How accurate does anybody think the polls are these

02:05days? I can give you a series of polls where you have likely voters, me versus Trump, where I win

02:12all the time. When the unlikely voters vote, he wins sometimes. The bottom line is all the polling

02:19data right now, which I think is premature because the campaign really hasn't even started.

02:24I mean, it hadn't started in earnest yet. Most of the time it doesn't start until after September,

02:30after Labor Day. So a lot can happen. But I think I'm the best, I know, I believe I'm the

02:39best qualified to govern. And I think I'm the best qualified to win. But there are other people who

02:45could be Trump too. But it's awful to start from scratch. And, you know, we talk about,

02:53you know, money raised. We're not doing bad. We got about $220 million in the bank.

03:00We're doing well. So with that, you have any want to follow up?

Biden Says Delegates At Democratic Convention Are 'Obviously' Free To Vote Their Conscience

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