Politics

Biden: Don’t Waste Your Time Being Bipartisan, ‘You’ve Got To Go In There And Beat Them!’

REUTERS/Mike Segar

Henry Rodgers Chief National Correspondent
Font Size:

Former Vice President Joe Biden said Thursday night that Democrats should not waste their time on bipartisan legislation, saying Democrats should “beat” Republicans.

“It’s the only way to do it. We need to root out the corruption in Washington and expand people’s right to get to the polls and we can succeed,” Biden said

“Vice president Biden, it does sound as if you haven’t seen what’s been happening in the United States Senate over the last 12 years. It didn’t happen. Why?” Biden was asked.

Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden speaks during the second night of the first Democratic presidential debate on June 27, 2019 in Miami, Florida. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden speaks during the second night of the first Democratic presidential debate on June 27, 2019 in Miami, Florida. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

“I have seen what happened. Just since we were vice president we needed an act to keep us from going into the depression. I got three votes changed. I got Mitch McConnell to raise tax $600 billion. After the president got elected, I was able to put a coalition together that billions of dollars go into cancer research, sometimes can’t do that and you have to go out and beat them,” Biden said.

“I went to 20 states and 60 candidates and we beat them and we won back the Senate,” Biden went on.

“Sometimes you have to beat them, but the deal with Mitch McConnell was a complete victory for the Tea Party. They had been running against this for 10 years. We lost that economic argument because that deal extended almost all those Bush tax cuts permanently and put in place the mindless cuts we still are dealing with today that are called the sequester,” Biden continued.

This all comes amid apprehension concerning immigrants that has increased every month since January. There have also been more than 100,000 encounters with illegal immigrants at the southern border in both March and April, setting the border crisis on track to be the worst it has been in a decade. (RELATED: What’s The Difference Between The House And Senate Border Funding Bills?)

The White House request includes $3.3 billion for humanitarian assistance, $1.1 billion for border operations, and another $377 million for the National Guard and Pentagon to be able to function on the border.