PHILADELPHIA (AP) \u2014 President Joe Biden sounded like a candidate making his case for a second term Friday night as he rallied a raucous meeting of national Democrats who chanted, \u201cFour more years!\u201d
\nThe only thing missing was an official announcement \u2014 that\u2019s not expected for at least several weeks.
\nSpeaking to the Democratic National Committee after a strong jobs report, Biden boasted about helping create a strong economy and said his administration had made the country\u2019s most significant federal investments in public works, health care and green technology in decades. He also slammed Republican extremism, suggesting that party is still too beholden to former President Donald Trump\u2019s Make America Great Again movement.
\n\u201cLet me ask you a simple question. Are you with me?\u201d a grinning Biden asked onstage in Philadelphia as hundreds of party leaders from around the country interrupted him with cries of \u201cFour more years! Four more years!\u201d
\nHe later added, to nearly as loud applause, \u201cAmerica is back and we\u2019re leading the world again.\u201d
\nBiden has sought to seize the political offensive after a strong midterm election season for his party and as he looks toward 2024, with Trump having already announced another bid for the White House. It\u2019s especially important given mounting pressures in Washington, including a special counsel investigation into his handling of classified documents and a Republican-controlled House eager to serve as a check against Biden and his agenda on Capitol Hill.
\nSpeaking before Biden on Friday night, Vice President Kamala Harris was just as defiant about the GOP and its staunch opposition to issues like abortion rights.
\n\u201cThere are those who want to stand in the way of our momentum,\u201d she said. \u201cThe extremist, so-called leaders, who want to distract and divide our nation as they ban books, as they reject the history of America, as they criminalize doctors and nurses and the sacred right to vote.\u201d
\nAt a DNC fundraiser before taking the stage, Harris referenced Democrats\u2019 holding onto Senate control during fall\u2019s midterms and reminded a smaller crowd: \u201cIt\u2019s not the time to pat ourselves on the back. It\u2019s the time to see it through.\u201d
\n\u201cAnd that\u2019s going to take as much work, if not more, than everything that everyone here put into where we are today,\u201d she said.
\nLooking to the future himself, Biden told the same reception: \u201cNo matter who is president, things are going to change radically in the next 15 years.\u201d
\n\u201cAre we going to be leading the pack?\u201d he added. \u201cOr are we going to be the end of it?\u201d
\nEarlier in Philadelphia on Friday, Biden and Harris visited a water treatment plant and hailed $15 billion in funding to remove lead pipes from service lines around the country. That comes from a bipartisan infrastructure package, which is also bankrolling railway projects the president spent this week trumpeting.
\n\u201cThe issue has to do with basic dignity,\u201d Biden said. \u201cNo amount of lead in water is safe. None.\u201d
\nWith the State of the Union address coming next week, Biden has renewed calls for political unity, something he\u2019s acknowledged being unable to achieve despite his promises as a candidate in 2020. But those appeals haven\u2019t tempered Biden\u2019s broadsides against Trump and the former president\u2019s MAGA movement.
\n\u201cThis ain\u2019t your father\u2019s Republican Party,\u201d Biden said, adding that the GOP agenda was so extreme that \u201cwe have to keep pointing out what the other team wants.\u201d Of Trump loyalists, he said, \u201cThese aren\u2019t conservatives.\u201d
\nThat\u2019s made some Democrats anxious to see Biden stay aggressive in touting his record.
\n\u201cThe president is trying to solve the problems of the nation on infrastructure, on microchips, on gun safety, on health care,\u201d said Randi Weingarten, a DNC member and president of the American Federation of Teachers. \u201cCompare (that) to the GOP, which seems to be on a revenge agenda.\u201d
\nBiden\u2019s speech comes the day before the DNC is set to approve an overhauled presidential primary calendar starting next year that would replace Iowa with South Carolina in the leadoff spot. New Hampshire and Nevada would go second, followed by Georgia and Michigan \u2014 a change the president has championed to ensure that voters of color have more influence deciding the party\u2019s White House nominee.
\nThe new calendar would be largely moot if Biden runs again, since party elders won\u2019t want to oversee a drawn-out primary against him. Democrats have been solidly unified in their opposition to the new Republican-controlled House, while no major Democratic challenger is thought to be preparing to run against Biden.
\nBiden\u2019s advisers haven\u2019t waited for his official reelection announcement, already spending weeks making staffing arrangements and readying lines of political attacks against Republicans seen as early presidential front-runners, including Trump, who launched his campaign in November, and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
\nAlan Clendenin, a DNC member from Florida, said Biden has strengthened the economy, reestablished U.S. global standing and promoted inclusive values \u2014 the opposite of what Trump and DeSantis stand for.
\n\u201cThey predicted gloom and doom. He\u2019s proved them all wrong,\u201d said Clendenin, who kicked off a DNC Southern caucus meeting by noting that Florida has begun lagging behind other states in key policy areas and joking of its governor, \u201cThat\u2019s what happened when you\u2019re led by the devil.\u201d
\nBiden repeatedly denounced \u201cextreme MAGA Republicans\u201d as a threat to the nation\u2019s democracy in the runup to the midterms and gloated a bit Friday about the results.
\n\u201cPeople looked at me like I was nuts,\u201d he said, referring to his repeated emphasis on MAGA Republicans last fall. \u201cThey\u2019re nuts. I\u2019m not nuts.\u201d
\nThe president, meanwhile, will have a harder time campaigning on future legislative accomplishments now that the GOP controls the House. A coming fight over extending the nation\u2019s legal debt ceiling may only harden partisan clashes.
\nRepublican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said he and the White House would continue talking about ways to avoid a debt limit crisis. But, referring to federal spending, McCarthy said, \u201cThe current path we\u2019re on we cannot sustain.\u201d
\nBiden has also suggested that simply bashing Republicans won\u2019t be enough, however, noting that Democrats have seen their support among Americans without a college degree decline. He said Friday night that his party \u201cstopped talking to\u201d blue-collar workers.
\n\u201cWe have to get working-class people to say we see them,\u201d the president added.
\nIn a more lighthearted nod to the coming Super Bowl, Biden declared \u201cFly, Eagles, fly!\u201d and called fans in Philadelphia \u201cthe most informed, obnoxious fans in the world.\u201d
\nThat would ostensibly include his wife, Jill, who is a diehard Eagles supporter.<\/p>\n
Apnews<\/p>\n
Tags: Democrats<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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