Interview with Ed Gordon of BET Television in Las Vegas, Nevada

ED GORDON: Mr. President, good to sit with you.

PRESIDENT BIDEN: Good to be back with you guys.

GORDON: Let me ask you—let me start with your opponent, Donald Trump. He is, under-statement here, an incendiary figure. Some are wondering if the assassination attempt will change him at all—make him more politically disciplined, more unifying.

He says he's going to be, but many believe he won't, and you're gonna have to fight fire with fire. How will you take him on from this point?

THE PRESIDENT: Like I've been takin’ ‘im on based on the issues. I mean look. Everybody said, and I said we gotta tone down the rhetoric about violence. There's no room for violence. You can't be talking about violence. You can't be sayin’ that, uh, if I lose the election, there'll be a bloodbath, which he says. If we, the January 6th folks were good folks and that they should be released from prison, et cetera. What we have—there are serious, serious differences we have with the issues of the future of the country. And I'm gonna take ‘em on, directly.

GORDON: What's his selection of JD Vance say to you?

THE PRESIDENT: Well it says to me that he's decided that MAGA Republican politics is gonna be the future of Republican Party. And because JD is a great guy, a hard workin’ Senator, but really, really, really conservative MAGA Republican.

GORDON: You said to me before we started, “Everything's at stake here.” Explain to people why this election is different.

THE PRESIDENT: Well, look. One of the things that occurred when I won—and you may remember—I said I was running for three reasons. After my son was killed, uh, died because of Iraq and I didn't want to get involved. And then, uh, I was watchin’ television and I, I was a professor at Penn, was watching television later.

And you saw those folks come out of the fields in Charlottesville carrying torches, accompanied by the Ku Klux Klan, carryin’ Nazi swastikas and the young woman was a bystander—was killed.

And he [President Trump] was asked, "Well, tell me about what, what happened, Mr. President." Said there were good people on both sides. That's when I decided I had to run. That's why I ran.

And I said when I ran, I was gonna try to do 3 thrings [sic], 3 things, and I meant that sincerely: Restore the soul of America, the decency and honor which we, we we usually debate. Secondly, build the middle class from a—build out the middle class. And when that works, the bottom does well and the wealthy still does fine. And third, try to unite the country.

And I was told I couldn't get any of that done. And then I had four major, major, major initiatives that they said could never pass. Bill passed. And so we're making progress. We have the most advanced economy in the world today. We got more to do.

But it's—and all of it, he says, all of it is, just should be, if he's elected, he's gonna get rid of. And it's not even—we haven't talked about foreign policy. And I know that's not on top of most people's minds. But, he wants to get out of NATO, he wants to yield to Putin. He wants, I mean, he has a very different view of the world than I do.

GORDON: We're gonna get to the economy in just a moment, but you've made it clear by now, certainly you've been asked 1000 times, that you have no intention of getting out of this race. Yet there are those who are concerned still about your age and capability because of your age.

Is there anything that you would look to—you personally, not anybody else; not other pundits, not even perhaps family members—that you would look to to say, “If I see that, I will reevaluate?”

THE PRESIDENT: And so if I have some medical condition that emerged. If somebody, if the doctors came to me and said you got this problem that problem.

But, I made a serious mistake. I'm in the, in the whole debate. And, uh, and look, when I originally ran you may remember it, I said I was gonna be a transitional candidate. And I thought that I'd be able to move from this, just pass it on to someone else.

But I didn't anticipate things getting so, so, so divided. And quite frankly, and I think, the only thing uh age brings a little bit of wisdom. And I think I've demonstrated that I know how to get things done for the country, in spite of the fact we told we couldn't get it done. But there's more to do and I'd be reluctant to walk away from that.

GORDON: Would you be willing to be transitional even at this point, would you be willing to even look at the idea that if you get in, perhaps in a year and a half or two, you would look to your—in your words—very capable Vice President to, to carry it over the finish line?

THE PRESIDENT: Well look only if I was told that there was some medical condition that I ah—and that's not the case. So—but I understand what people say. Look, look, I'm only three years older than Trump, OK? [laughs] And I'm at—I think I'm a little better physical shape than he is. The point is, though, that it's not unreasonable for people to say, wait a minute, you're 81 years old. And so I, I think it's a legitimate thing for ‘em to raise, and as long as I can demonstrate that it's not affecting my ability to com—compete, my ability to get things done, my ability to literally lead the world. Lead the world.

GORDON: So you are willing from year to year to look at your health, your capabilities, and move from that place.

THE PRESIDENT: Well’s a practical matter, yes, but there's no reason to believe that’s likely to happen.

GORDON: Let's turn to the economy. You've done some, some very good things. Unemployment rate for Black America, the lowest in history. Black Americans starting small businesses in record numbers. Uh, with your Administration, you provided $7.3 billion to HBCU's. Capped insulin, as you've told us, for seniors and others. Uh, but because of the wealth disparity for African Americans, there's this sense—and being Joe from Scranton, you understand this more than most. Sometimes it's very difficult even with all of those programs to make it day-to-day-to-day. What do you tell people who are paying 6 bucks for cereal? They can't take their kids to a movie or a ball game. Memories that, that last with you. What do you tell them?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, I tell ‘em what's happening is inflation is comin’ down. And it is comin’ down. You have 16 Nobel laureates in economics saying that it's comin’ down. I think you're gonna see—I, I have not spoken to the Fed. My guess is they're gonna reduce rates.

But what we have to do is deal with the corporate greed. What's happened here is, since the pandemic, corporate profits have doubled. For example, I wanna make sure that you can't have corporations that own apartment complexes, cannot raise rent beyond 5—25, five percent in any one year. Period. Period.

I wanna see to it that they have—we're gonna build 20, uh, 20 million new homes that are affordable. That's why I'm moving to make sure that we provide first time home buyers, particularly in African American communities and minority communities down payments of $10,000 to get started. That's why I've forgiven student debt—people who have met the requirement of paying off for 10 years and still have extreme debt, but they're, when they're involved in an enterprise that is where they’re a teacher or firefighter, police officer, et cetera, that debt is forgiven. And it's changing people's lives. It's changing people's lives!

GORDON: Why do you think it hasn't resonated in a louder ring of the bell?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, uh, I think it's resonated for those who have been affected. There's about 4 million people so far, and, uh because the Republican Party and the MAGA Republicans have been opposed to it. And they've been beating up, beating up on it. I think that there's a, look, a lot of what we've done, Ed, for example, the infrastructure bill. Fancy words for making sure we have better roads, highways, bridges—take all the lead pipes out of our, out of our how-hobes [sic] and make sure there's access to affordable internet just like in, in Roosevelt’s time, you know, back in, er-earlier than that. Making sure there was electricity and agriculture in the rural areas.

That's all—it takes time for it to happen. And, and so it, it, it's just taking time for people to see it. And the other thing is, ah, there's not been a very good job done about saying this new billion dollar bridge going over the, is brought to you by Joe Biden. This billion dollar tunnel is gonna increase and reduce—blah blah blah, and plus —so we're working on that and I think, uh, bit I think it's just time.

GORDON: Do you think Democrats have played the long game well? People will say Republicans play the long game better.

THE PRESIDENT: Well, let me put it this way. They may play the long game, but they don't do much. Look what they've done. Last Administration had us in a recession when they left. Last Administration, Black unemployment was down, and last Administration because of the failure to deal with COVID in an hon-honest way, a million people died. Last Administration we, we had the largest deficit of anyone in history—any, any one-term President. You know, there's only two presidents in American history who’ve come to office and left with fewer jobs than they came to office, and the other was a guy who we all know very well. Uh, So I, uh I call—anyway. Trump is one of ‘em.

GORDON: Let me ask you about reproductive rights. You've had your vice president out, out, out front on that, talking about the long game. People will say that “there is an example of Democrats not playing the long game well”, that conservatives have been saying they're gonna get rid of this,for years now, and they got it. You've said that you will restore it. How can you be assured that you'll be able to do that?

THE PRESIDENT: The Supreme Court did it. Trump appointed the Supreme Court with the express purpose of doing it. So, that's the way it works.

GORDON: They're still gonna have the majority, no matter if you win or lose.

THE PRESIDENT: Well, there're gonna probably be two more appointments—to the Court. There's probably two people gonna resign or resign. Retire. Just imagine if court—if he has two more appointments on that, what that means forever.

And look, one of the things that's happening is—in almost, in the majority of the states, even conservative states where it's been left to the public to determine whether or not they wanna have no exceptions, they wanna have a hard call like, like Mance [sic. Vance] wants on “no abortion under any circumstance,” that there's, you have states saying no, no, no, that's not what we want to do. We want exceptions. So I think there is a—an ability—and the way we're gonna change it, if we get a Democratic Congress, all we gotta do is get 51 of those members of the House and Senate—a lot of the Senate—and say “this is it.” And then I'll sign that bill. What, what's gonna happen? Trump's gonna sign a bill if he gets elected, if we don't do well, that's gonna say we wipe it all on, no exceptions, nothing. None.

And so it's uh, it’s about—it's a little bit like George Floyd, what happened. You know, I hadda take independent action that wasn't as uh, as strong as you, what I wanted the George Floyd legislation to be. And with the legis—I couldn't get Republican votes. So we got to ca—point out what's the stake and what the MAGA Republicans are trying to do.

GORDON: So let's walk into that. You led me into the next question and that is that post-George Floyd, African Americans were really hopeful in terms of progress with police reform, racial injustice, equality. There was a hope for government sanctions, reparations. And now Republicans and the Supreme Court, as you note, have banned or are trying to ban affirmative action, the teaching of Black history, dismantling of DE&I projects, and they're promising to rollback even more, with something you and I talked about before we started here. And that's Project 2025. How do you stand in the breach?

THE PRESIDENT: I stand in the breach by making it clear we’re not gonna let that happen. For example, if you look at what happened with George Floyd. We didn't get the legislation, so I took executive action, made sure these guys gotta wear cameras and everybody has a comp—they, they—everything's on, it's it's changed. It's changed the way things have not, what we should have, as far as it should change, but it's changed things. We're also in a situation where if you take a look at what we've done in terms of the number of police officers, or, you know, most, most cops are, are killed, reports are responding to domestic violence and that. So we don't need more cops. What we need is more social workers. We need more people who are in communities building coalitions that's growing across the country. That's growing in neighborhoods. That's growing.

And we have to keep doing it. aAs we, after—we need another 100,000 community police officers working with communities and bringing people in who are social workers, so people who are people who know how to put neighbors to neighbors together. Or we're doing things like what we're changing in, in, in the environmental stuff, so many, so many Black neighbors are ripped apart by highninty, by high, by interstate highways running through the middle of their community, spilling [sic] them up. But we're, we're providing the money to be able to pave over that now, not pave over, but bill, build, turn ‘em inna tunnels, ta, ta bring their neighbors together again.

But the other thing we've, ah [coughs] done is making clear that when I got elected, I said I was gonna have an administration look like America. I had more African Americans with high positions in my admi—not just the Vice-President, not just Supreme Court Justice, but across the board—than any administration in history. It's important that that kid in 10th grade looks up and says I can do that. I can do that. It's important that people know that they're respected. Know that they're taken care of. Know that they're engaged. That's why I appointed Ketanji Brown Jackson. She's, by the way, the brightest of the Court, I think. I mean, in terms of pure, pure gray matter. But, so, we're gonna change this, but it's gonna take time. We got to stay at it.

GORDON: What do you tell a African American who says “I hear that. But I've heard it for too long. ‘It's gonna take time.’” We've been waiting and waiting and waiting.

THE PRESIDENT: Look, take a look at what's your, your bottom line is in your economy now. Take a look how those unemployment’s the lowest it’s been there. Take a look at how many of you, you, the new jobs are created. Take a look at how many people are been able to get to college education and get the debt wiped out. Take a look at what's actually happening on the ground. Take a look at the fight that's going on.

I mean, for example, I got a lotta heat because you have our friends in the Republican Party trying to erase Black history. Well, guess what, I, I've set up a new Juneteenth, a new federal holiday. They can't erase it anymore. Everybody now knows what happened, then—

GORDON: —but they're trying to erase it in the schools.

THE PRESIDENT: —they are, and that's why we gotta make sure that he doesn't get elected. Trump's project 2025 says do away with the Department of Education. Leave it up to local schools. What's he talking about? What's he talking about? He's talking about trying to erase it.

Not just affirmative action, but all efforts to right the ships for people, give people a chance.

Look—my dad used to say that, uh, my job’s about a lot more than your paycheck. It's about your dignity. It's about your integrity. It's about being a look your kid in the eye, “Honey, everything gonna be OK,” and meaning there's a shot of it. We're moving there. And by the way, the way you get equity, you build equity by home ownership, that's how all middle class white guys did it. That's how my Dad was able to do it. You buy a home, you build an equity in the home, you're able to move from there. That's happening. That's happening, but we're gonna focus on housing, significantly focus on affordable housing.

GORDON: But you do appreciate that the standard for your Dad, and for any white man in this country is vastly different than any African man.

THE PRESIDENT: No, no, no, I, I do, but, what I also—you appreciate—my Dad was a working class guy. We lived in a three bedroom home, 4 kids, and uh, grandpop lived with us. We weren't poor, but we, there wasn't any money left at the end of the day. And so, it's all about, it's all about treating people with dignity, and it's about making sure that, look, I mean, for example, look at the heat I'm getting it because I, I named a, the Secretary of Defense, a Black man. I named Ketanji Brown. I mean, because of the people I've named.

It's about making it clear that American history is Black history. Black history is American history, and it's being built by it. That's why we're strong.

GORDON: I want to ask you about your relationship with the Black voter, I think it's fair to say in order for you to go over the top in November, you are goin’ to have to have a large Black voter turnout to put you over the line to victory. And honestly, if I'm honest with you, the enthusiasm this time around is not the same as the last time you won. There is a certain disenchantment. Detroit, Philadelphia, Atlanta, are going be deciding factors in that 270 you've gotta get to.

I'd like you to take a moment and tell Black America what you want them to know. Why should they turn out for you?

THE PRESIDENT: Because you know where my heart is. You know where my head is. By the way, if you notice, whether it's young blacks or young whites or white Hispanics or young Asian Americans, they've never focused until after Labor Day. I mean, the idea they'd focus intently on election right now—is, it's, it's not there. And by the way, if take a look at the uh, presidents who have won. At this stage of the game in the last seven or eight presidents, five of them were losing at this time, by significant margins.

The point is we're just gettin’ down to game time now. We, we've put together the largest volunteer organization, I think, in America. There were 2 million 2 hundred thousand individual contributors, small contributors, raising 10s of millions of dollars for me to be able to compete. So I think you're gonna be surprised at the reg— by the way, for example, I was, was in South Carolina. Went to a, a goin’ to a Black home where a dad and his son were sittin’ at the kitchen table with ‘em and they talked about it. And, after was all over, his father said “No, no one's talked to my son like this before. No one said—you really mean it.” I do mean it. I mean it.

It's about why he got involved in the first place, Ed. Look—I got out of school, high school, and my state was segregated by law, to it's great shame, in Delaware. And we got involved in the civil rights movement, no great shakes, just sit-ins, and, you know. And things like that. And the end result of this was, all the friends I made, for example, one of the guys who, ah, my mom talks about, when Barack would call me, and sayin’ he wanted to do a background check on me, so wanted to think of me as Vice President. I said “I don't wanna be Vice President.” And he said, “No, no, there's only you and three others, uh two others,” [I] Said Barack, “I can help you more as a Senator, I really believe that.” He said, “No, no.” He said, “Well damn it, it is only you.” And I said, “Barack, I don't want to be Vice President.” And he said, “Well go home. Go home and talk about it. He knows my paren—my mom. My dad's dead. So we had a meeting. I was on the train and then going back to Wilmington.

And when I got home, we sat on the back porch, called the family together. My son was alive then—my two sons, my daughter. The only outside fam—other than a family member—who was there, was Ted Kaufman who was my best friend and my assis as a Sen— stepped into the Senate when I got elected Vice President. And, uh, so we went around the room. “What do you want—”on the porch—“what do you wanna do?”

My Mom—and my wife said “You oughta do it because if you don't, he's gonna ask you to be Secretary of State and you’ll be away all the time. And then my son Beau, who was Attorney General, should be sitting here, not me. Said, “Dad, you have an obligation,” went through it. And so everybody made their case, and I still didn't want to do it. My mom was sitting against the railing, and—over on the porch, it’s like a story up from the ground. And I said, “Honey, you haven't said anything.” She said, “Joey.” She said, “Remember when you were a kid? Remember when I called you when you got out of the race—with Barack. And you asked about him, saying he's really brave. He's an honorable man. He'll make a good president.”

And I said, “Yeah, Mom, I remember that.” “Remember when you were a kid and they're desegregating Mayfield, the neighborhood we live. I mean, they, the neighboring neighborhood, called Lynnfield. You were 14 or 15 years old. I told you not to go down there because there were people protesting, but you went down and you got arrested for being on the porch with a Black family. And they brought you back home.”

I said, “Yeah, I remember that, Mom.” She said, “Remember, you had that job as a lifeguard in a Country Club setting, but you wanted to be the only white guy to work in East Side of the projects as a liveguard?” Said, “Yeah Ma.” “So let me get this straight, honey. The first Black man in history has a chance to be President, you told him No?”

That's how it’s always been with me, in the Black community. It's the same community—by the way, one of the guys said, when I was a lifeguard back then, is uh, and I helped represent as a young public defender, is out here now. He's a major labor leader. Ah, these are, they're, they're, they're my friends, are still my friends. And they're still the ones that encouraged me to move.

And, so I think that—and one thing does change, and it’s it's not an excuse, an explanation. I would ordinarily be going through Black neighborhoods on on ground, on the foot. Working through the neighborhoods. I have a tradition every, I close every campaign, no matter what campaign, going into the projects and going down the East Side. And, you know, “Hey, Joe, well how you doin’?” You know? Well, well—just because there my friends, let ‘em know I'm still there.

We can't do that now. Not because of the Black community, because it's too dangerous for me to be out walking unaccompanied.

So what I'm doing though is trying to keep in touch with as many of my Black constituents and letting people know that I'm available. I'm available. I really—it's the reason why I got involved in politics in the first place. Not a joke. Not a joke.

Everybody deserves a shot. Everybody deserves a shot. And we've demonstrated, you give ‘em a shot, they step up. They step up in every community. That's why the Black community is doing as well as it is now, and it's gonna do better. We got to focus on making sure that this MAGA 25 deal that Trump has out there, does not succeed. They wanna wipe it all out.

Look what's happening. All the folks in the Black community have prescription drug problems. They’re a lot of money. You have diabetes, you have, you know you need insulin. Four hundred bucks. It's now 35 bucks.

The Black community Black and East Side where I’m from ,where I was. You’re in a situation where no Black Americans, no any American over the age of 65 will have to pay more than $2000 year for all the prescriptions for the entire year, including cancer drugs that’re two to twelve, fifteen thousand bucks.

And so it's about giving healthcare. It's about making sure there's opportunity for people to have a good education. We should be—I've been pushing and we're going to get it done—early education. You know—you know all the studies better than I, as well as I do, that you come out of a neighborhood or a sc—a house where there's no books, where there's a, a dysfunctional family, where there's a problem—and you start off school, you hear million fewer words haven't been spoken because not, there's not conversation. Well, guess what? The studies show now, if you have three, four and five year olds going to early education, not, not daycare—education, you increase by 56% their ability to go through 12 years of school and on to Community College. And I'm gonna make Community College free. There's so many opportunities we have, and I think the community is beginning to see it. At least I hope so.

GORDON: Mr. President, always good to speak with you.

THE PRESIDENT: Hope you’ll have me back. I really mean it.

GORDON: That'll be up to your folks. [laughs]

THE PRESIDENT: It's up to me.

GORDON: There you go!!

THE PRESIDENT: If you call them, and if they say “No”, you call me.

GORDON: All right. I'll take you up on it. Good to see you. [shaking hands]

THE PRESIDENT: Thanks pal.