It’s Monday.
Halloween is in 6 days!!!
For Monday, October 25th, 2021, President Biden has received his daily brief. This morning President Biden has traveled to East End Elementary School in North Plainfield, New Jersey, where he highlighted his Build Back Better Agenda. This afternoon he will offer remarks on his Build Back Better Agenda from NJ Transit Meadowlands Maintenance Complex, located in Kearny, New Jersey. Late this afternoon back in D.C., President Biden will meet with All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew and welcomes the official delegation of the Orthodox Christian Church.
President Biden has tweeted 2 times so far for Monday; his second tweet will appear down thread…
More on the above tomorrow…
When Biden Bits was published for Friday, President Biden tweeted 2 times. He added 13 tweets giving him a Friday Tweeting Total of 15 tweets and 0 retweets.
On Saturday President Biden tweeted 3 times. President Biden did not tweet on Sunday.
On Thursday President Biden held a town hall hosted by CNN almost all his tweets are snips that come from that town hall. Because it’s CNN I can’t provide a YouTube video of the event. His full remarks can be found here. CNN’s Anderson Cooper was the moderator for the town hall.
The clip is 21 seconds long.
*Anderson Cooper: Do you think you’ll have a deal by the time you get on Air Force One in eight days?
President Biden: Well, you’re more confident than I am. Look — hey, look, it’s all about compromise. You know, “compromise” has become a dirty word, but it’s — bipartisanship and compromise still has to be possible. When I ran for the presidency, I said I’m running for three reasons: one, to restore the soul and decency in the country; two, to build the middle class and the working class so they were — we build from the middle out; and three, to actually unite the country. And everybody has been saying, “Well, that’s crazy. You can’t do it.” If we can’t eventually unite this country, we’re in deep trouble.
*White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said on Friday that President Biden and First Lady Dr. Jill Biden were leaving Thursday to travel to Rome, Italy*.
Anderson Cooper: With that, I want to welcome the 46th President of the United States, President Joe Biden. (Applause.) So, there’s a lot to get to tonight, and we got a lot of great questions from our audience. We want to get into the details of what you’re calling the Build Back Better plan. Before we get into that though, I just want to know — there’s been a lot of negotiating going on behind the scenes, as I’m sure you are very involved with. Are you close to a done deal?
President Biden: No problems. It’s all done. (Laughter.) No, look, Anderson, we’ve been — I’ve probably spent, well, well over 100 hours. This is a — this is a big deal. We’re both have — we have two plans: one is the infrastructure plan — roads, highways, bridges, buses, trains, et cetera — and the other one is what I call the “care economy”. It has a lot of money in there for environmental remediation as well as care economy. For example, you know, we want to get the economy moving, but millions of women can’t go to work because they don’t have any childcare. That kind of thing
Anderson Cooper: Right. A different issue. Right. But this is — but this is in your proposal. How much time off would parents actually get under your proposal? Because at one point, you talked about 12 weeks. Now there’s reports it’s down to maybe four weeks.
President Biden: Yeah, it is down to four weeks. And the reason it’s down to 4 weeks is I can’t get 12 weeks. (Laughter.) And — but, look, here’s the deal, guys: How many people do you know — not a joke — or maybe yourself — have had a circumstance where you are working like the devil, you’re making 7 bucks an hour, 15 bucks an hour, or 20 bucks an hour, and you have a child that’s sick at home — or you have a mother or a father, husband and wife, son or daughter, and you need to stay home to help them? We’re one of the few industrial countries in the world that doesn’t have paid leave — so that when you stay home to help that person, to take care of that person, you’re still getting your pay. And it does not hurt the business at all. The business isn’t paying for it; the federal government is paying for it. It’s a little bit like, as I said, a tax cut for people who are not able to otherwise take care of their families. And, look, I’m looking out here, and a lot of you are part of that sandwich generation: You have young kids, and you have aging parents. And one of the things all the polling data shows, Anderson, is people are more concerned about taking care of the elderly, because they don’t know what to do, than they are even their children.
Question from the Audience: So, my wife and I have two young boys, Arthur and Teddy. However, the cost of childcare is nearly double our mortgage. We want to have more children, but even though we earn a good salary now, childcare is so expensive. So how will this new infrastructure plan help middle-class families pay for childcare?
President Biden: Well, let me ask you: Do you have — how old are your kids?
The reply: Three and a half and six months old.
President Biden: God love you. (Laughter.) Well, look, there’s two pieces. There’s the childcare — having someone take care of your child while you are working, while you and your wife are working. Under this proposal I have, no one will have to pay — unless you’re making more than — individually, you’re each making — making over 300 grand –$150,000 apiece.
The reply: We’re educators.
President Biden: Oh, God. (Laughter.) And, by the way, I’m married to one: Dr. Biden — right here. (Applause.) So — so you will not have to pay more than 7 percent of your income for childcare — 7 percent. And the way we do that is we provide for the ability to have childcare centers funded. The money won’t even go — you don’t — the — figure your income; you get 7 percent with the total cost. But there’s another piece here: You now are qualified to be able to have a Child Tax Credit. It used to be that when you — you know, when you — if you were — had enough money to pay significant taxes, you could write off 2,000 bucks for every child you had and reduce it from your taxes. But if you were making 60,000 bucks a year and you didn’t have that much to write off, you didn’t get anything. Well, I call this a tax break for middle-class people. If you’re making in the $150,000 range right now, you’re in a situation where you can get, if you have a child under 7, $350; if you have a child over 7, between 7 and 17, you can get $300. And you get a direct payment. You — the IRS sends you money.
After last night’s town hall, I had a chance to answer a few more questions from social media backstage:
— President Biden (@POTUS) October 22, 2021
The below are his two replies to questions asked backstage.
Caregiving is at the center of my Build Back Better Agenda. We’re going to cut the cost of child care for working families by half. That’s huge. pic.twitter.com/xnSm3ZDUgZ
— President Biden (@POTUS) October 22, 2021
Q: I heard your plan will make child care more affordable. How?
President Biden: It’s going to make it more affordable because no one’s going to have to pay more than seven percent of their income for child care. And you know, if you have asked the question, how expensive child care can be. On a yearly basis, 14,000 to 21,000 thousand bucks a year in some places, depending on how old your child is. So that’s what we’re going to do, no more than seven percent of your income.
I’ve said it before – when I think climate, I think of jobs. We can meet the moment on climate change, and create good-paying, union jobs with my plans. pic.twitter.com/bfZIGy5c6K
— President Biden (@POTUS) October 22, 2021
Q: Do your climate plans really make jobs?
President Biden: So there’s a whole range of things we can do that are going to create good jobs. All the IBEW union members are going to have to put in those charging stations. I could go on, but this is something that is going to, in fact, increase economic growth and productivity and all us to breathe.
Anderson Cooper: So you would be willing to go along with what Senator Sinema and, it seems like, Speaker Pelosi is willing to consider: no tax hike for corporations or for high-earning individuals?
President Biden: Here’s what I’m willing to do: I’m willing to make sure that we pay for everything without anyone making less than $400,000 paying a single cent more in taxes. That’s my objective.
Anderson Cooper: And welcome back. We are live at a CNN Town Hall event in Baltimore, Maryland, with President Joe Biden. So, before we get to our next question, I want to just bring up the current labor market shortages. Millions of jobs are unfilled, businesses are struggling to meet demand. Is there anything you can do to either encourage people to go back to work or make jobs more attractive that they want to go back to work? Is there a role for the federal government?
President Biden’s full answer: First of all, we’ve created more jobs in the first eight months of my administration than any President in American history — total number of jobs created. But the problem for the people not going back to work is twofold. Number one, they’re reluctant to go back to work because they’re afraid of COVID — many of them. So they don’t want to go back and they don’t want to be exposed to either the customers because they’re not required to wear masks or not required to have shots, or they don’t want to go back because they’re not sure of the people waiting on them and they — at the table, or the people coming up in the food market. So, a lot of it has to do with COVID. Number one.
President Biden con’t: Number two — and that’s why, you know, we were able to go from — when I first got elected — when I first was elected, there were only 2 million people who had COVID shots in the United States of America — had the vaccine. Now we got 190 million, because I went out and bought everything I could do — and buy in sight, and it worked. (Applause.) But here’s the deal: The second thing — the second thing that has happened, Anderson, is that people are now using this as an opportunity to say, “Wait a minute, do I want to go back to that $7-an-hour job?” I won’t name the particular restaurant chain, but they found out when they — they couldn’t hire anybody. When they found out, they started to pay 20 bucks an hour, everybody wanted to go back to work. Not a joke. So what you see is wages are actually up for those who are working, because for the first time in a long time, employees are able to bargain. “You’re the boss? You want me to work for you? What are you going to pay me? How are you going to do it?” I’m not being facetious.
President Biden con’t: The third thing that’s out there is there’s a circumstance that exists where people are really worried about what they’re going to do — I mean, how — how can I say this? [the video snip starts here] How many people do you know — and maybe some in this audience — who, because of what you’ve been through — a loss of a husband, wife, brother, mother, father, son, whatever — or you’ve had something that’s really impacted you with COVID that you really find yourself just down? I mean just down. And so, there’s a lot of people who are just down. They’re not sure how to get back in the game. They’re not sure whether they want to get back in the game. Think of this: If you’re graduating from Morgan State, okay? (Applause.) Right? Well, guess what? You didn’t have those great dances the last four years that you’d had before you went out at Morgan. No, I’m not joking. Graduated from high school, you don’t have your prom, you don’t have your graduation, you don’t have the thing — all the things that matter to people that go into things they look forward to. So, a lot of it has to do with us getting back on our feet and getting back on our feet in terms of our attitudes about what the future looks like for us.
Anderson Cooper: What do you say to someone who’s down? Because —there’s a lot of people watching tonight who are.
President Biden: [last bit of the video snip] Well, there are. And I tell you what: There’s plenty of help. Look, being down, having some problem in terms of needing some — some advice — if you have a broken spirit, it’s no different than a broken arm. You shouldn’t be ashamed of it. You should seek the help. There’s a lot of people who can help. (Applause.)
SATURDAY TWEET:
Audience Question: Yes. Mr. President, my parents have been married for 73 years and both are dealing — (applause) — yes. Both of them are dealing with dementia. My father, who was a veteran, is completely bedridden, and my mom is experiencing issues with walking. I have found the process for me to provide care for them in my home very hard. They have worked all their life only for me to experience a lot of red tape to provide support — in a loving home environment. What is being done to support the elderly, especially for a middle-class family like mine?
President Biden: Well, first of all — (applause) — if my mom were here, she’d say you’re a good daughter, number one. Number two, I was in a situation like you, where I was making more money — I was making $42,000 a year as a senator at the time, although I was listed the poorest man in the Senate for 36 years, but — (laughter) — I still made more money than most people because Senate salaries kept going up. What happened was my — my dad got sick, and he was in hospice, so Jill and I took my dad home and we took care of him in our house. But we were lucky because we had the ability to have — I have a sister who is an angel and a brother who’s a wonderful guy, and we all took turns in our house taking care of them. But here’s the deal: Right now, under Medicaid, there are 860,000 — I think it’s 860- — don’t hold me to the exact number, but it’s over 800,000 — who qualify for home healthcare aid for their parents, but there’s no money there. There’s no money there. So what we do is we provide the funding for Medicaid to allow you to be able to keep — if your parents had their home — keeping them in their home if you wanted, or get help in your home with homecare from professionals providing — helping you take care of them — helping you take care of them. And in many cases where you’re not taking care of them in your own home and they’re staying — and they’re staying in their home, you’re going to be able to have the ability to have someone come in and make their meals for them. They don’t have to be there 24/7. So, there’s a lot of things we’re doing. In addition to the process, we’re going to be able to train up those homecare workers who are usually minority women, women of color, as well as immigrants. And they have the capacity to learn more as they go along, to move to the point where they can become practical nurses and things like that. So, it makes a lot of sense, and it’s cheaper — cheaper than it is to not do it.
MONDAYS SECOND TWEET:
Audience Question: Thank you for taking my question, Mr. President. We’ve heard in the news that the proposal for two years of free community college may be cut from your economic package. An educated citizenry is absolutely crucial to solving complex problems like climate change — (applause) — and the systematic inequities in this country. We hope that this is not cut from the package, but if it is, what can you do to ensure that all Americans can get the education that they need to face these issues?
President Biden: Well, first of all, Professor, you made a very profound point, and I’m not — I’m not being sarcastic — and that is — and Jill uses a slightly different phrase: “Any country that out-educates us will out-compete us.” Any country that out educates will out- — out-educates will out-compete us. You have the vast majority — of the 37 major cor- — countries in the world — economies — we rank 35 in our investment in education. We’re in a situation where if you — if you think about it, when we — what caused us to move ahead and dominate the 20th century: In the late 1900s — in the early 1900s, late 1890s, we came up — we said, 12 years of free education. That was revolutionary at the time. I mean, seriously. Now, if we were sitting down today and saying, “Oh, we got to put together an education system,” raise your hand if anybody thinks 12 years is enough to compete in the 21st century? So, that’s why what I propose is: free child — free school — free school for every three- and four-year-old in America, no matter what their background. All the data shows that no matter what home they come from, they increase exponentially their prospects of succeeding all the way through 12 years of school. You know — you know all the statistics. The statistics go that if you come from a home where there’s no books in the home and a single mom or a single dad, they don’t — they’re not well educated, they don’t talk a lot, the kid from the middle class — average middle-class home versus that home will go to school having heard 1 million more words spoken than the child who didn’t. A gigantic disadvantage.
FRIDAYS NOT CNN RELATED TWEET:
The White House published the following readout:
President Joseph R. Biden, Jr. spoke today with President Emmanuel Macron of France. The two leaders reviewed ongoing efforts by their teams to support stability and security in the Sahel and to enhance cooperation in the Indo-Pacific. They also discussed efforts to enable a stronger and more capable European defense while ensuring complementarity with NATO. President Biden looks forward to the meeting with President Macron in Rome later this month, where they will continue the conversation, take stock of the many areas of U.S.-France cooperation, and reinforce our shared interests and common values as we take on challenges and opportunities together. President Biden also noted the November visit by Vice President Harris to Paris as a key opportunity to further enhance U.S.-France cooperation on a range of global challenges.
White House.gov. 10/22/2021.
SATURDAYS NOT RELATED TO CNN TWEET:
On Wednesday President Biden traveled to Scranton, Pennsylvania to promote his Build Back Better Agenda. The YouTube is 52 minutes and 41 seconds long. His full remarks can be found here.
Union Worker Intro: It’s my honor and my privilege to introduce to all of you, the President of the United States of America, Joe Biden.
President Biden: Hello, hello, hello. It’s good to be home. (Applause.) Thank you all. Please, please be seated.
President Biden: Look, no matter how long you live here in Scranton, it’s a place that climbs into your heart and it never really leaves you. And that’s the God’s truth. You know, it’s like that old saying goes, “You can take the boy out of Scranton, but you can’t take Scranton out of the boy.” There’s something special about it. And I believe that home is where your character is etched, and I really mean that.
President Biden: The point I’m making is: The truth is, Scranton isn’t — isn’t my home because of the memories it gave me; it’s my home because of the values it gave me.
President Biden: So, I’m here today to talk about what’s fundamentally at stake right now for the families and for our country.
President Biden: I’m not — it’s not hyperbole. I mean it from the bottom of my heart. That’s why I proposed two critical pieces of legislation that are being debated back in Washington.
President Biden: Folks, look, these bills are not about left versus right or about moderate versus progressive or anything that pits one American against one another. These bills are about competitiveness versus complacency. They’re about expanding opportunity, not having opportunity denied. They’re about leading the world and continuing to let the world — or let it pass us by.
President Biden: We can’t afford to sit while other countries pass us by. We’re going to breathe new life into the economy and our workforce.
President Biden: Because here’s what I know: If we make the investments, there’s going to be no stopping America in the remainder of the 21st century.
President Biden: Scranton, thanks for always treating me so nicely. I really mean it.
The daily press briefing was held on Air Force One at around 10:00 a.m. D.C., time. The YouTube is audio only.
The President’s remarks are scheduled for 1:45 p.m. D.C., time.
This is an Open Thread.
