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THE WHITE HOUSE

Office of the Vice President
Internal Transcript August 27, 2012


REMARKS BY VICE PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN
AND DR. JILL BIDEN TO SUPPORTERS


Private Residence #2
Bridgehampton, New York
(Friday, August 24, 2012)


DR. BIDEN: Can you hear me okay? And thank you to all of you for supporting our administration. We really appreciate your being here tonight.

Now, I just want to say a couple words about why I am supporting this election besides the fact -- (laughter) -- but I just want to say that, as Chad said, I'm here as a teacher and I want to continue that we have quality education in America and that children can all afford a college education. That's very important to me and to Joe and to Barack.

And I'm also here as a military mom. Our son is Delaware Army National Guard, and he was deployed to Iraq for a year. So, really, I know what it feels like to have a child who is deployed, and I know what our military does for us, and I want to make sure that they continue to get the help and the respect that they need and the benefits that they need in years to come.

And I'm also here as a woman who doesn't want to see this clock turned back. We've fought so hard to be where we are in women's rights, and I think the Republicans just want to turn things back to what they were pre-'60s.

And of course this election is personal to Joe. I hear the urgency in Joe's voice when he comes home and he tells me about the moms and the dads that he meets, and how important it is that they have a good future for their kids; or when he tells me about the grandparents that are having trouble paying for their prescription drugs; and when he tells me about the students that are struggling to pay their college debts; and also about the men and women fighting for their right to be who they are, no matter who they love.

So I know that Joe is more determined than ever, and hopefully will come back to have four more years. So I want to thank you all for your support. And now I'd like to introduce my husband, our Vice President, Joe Biden. (Applause.)

MR. LEAT: And, by the way, the Vice President and Dr. Biden don't mind if you eat. And, by the way, no cameras and we are off the record. (Laughter.)

THE VICE PRESIDENT: With your permission, I'll sit for a minute. And, by the way, I am Vice President; I'm accustomed to not being taken seriously, so eat. (Laughter.) I had a lot of practice -- 36 years as a Senator.

I'm going to stand if it's okay, and please, please, enjoy the meal because I'll get a chance to do it, too.

What I'd like to do is start off by thanking you. Now, obviously, you'd expect me to thank you. You've had a great, great event here, Chad, and you've raised us a great deal of money. But what I want to thank you for is more than the check you wrote. Jack Rosen (ph) here has been my buddy, helped me try to get the nomination for President, and stuck with me the whole way. As I've told Jack before, it wasn't just Jack's check that he wrote for me and all the money he raised, and all the money you're raising for Barack and me, all of you; it's you put your name on the line for us. When you write that check, you put your name on the line. Old Senate (ph) stuck with me, too, at the time when I ran, in all of my races.

And, again, you all, by writing the check, you're saying, hey, man, I'm vouching for these guys. And every one of your friends and those who aren't your close friends know it. They know it. And what matters to us more than the -- almost more than the check you write, and I mean this sincerely, is the stature you bring to our campaign. All of you have influence. You're all extremely successful people, and you influence -- a word by you, Chad, on the street about, well, we've mostly got it right -- and I'm not being a wise guy, you're right. I mean, there's -- we haven't gotten everything right.

But your willingness, all the heat you're getting now on Wall Street for supporting us, all the malarkey put -- no, by the way, I really do understand it. I get it. I get it. And so that's the thing, at least in my experience in running for public office and asking for help, that I appreciate most, is the fact you literally lay your name on the line, because that's the most valuable commodity you have, is your reputation. And it makes a great deal of difference to us.

I'm going to be brief, and then maybe take some questions if you are willing. I'm going to tell you why I think we're going to win, and then I'll talk to you about anything you want to talk about.

First and foremost, I think we're going to win because, fortunately, we have tables -- not quite as distinguished, but tables and rooms like this all across America where really prominent people, who are respected, have stood with us. And we've raised -- I never, ever thought, when Jack and Old Senate were raising money for me, if we ever thought I'd be in a presidential race with $800 million and thought it wasn't going to be enough. I mean, hell, we were looking for a million. (Laughter.)

But all kidding aside, folks, the deal is that we're going to be outspent two to one, for real. I know that sounds bizarre. They're going to spend somewhere between $1.4 million minimum -- $1.4 billion minimum, and $1.8 billion. And most of that money, at least a billion of it, is going to be just carpet bombing my friend. And I don't say the word lightly, my friend. Barack and I, we've been partners but we've become friends. I've grown to really admire the hell out of this guy. He's got more character in his little finger than most people I work with have in their whole body.

And watching what's coming up, knowing what's coming up -- and you all, in one sense, are spared; you're in New York, you're not going to see a lot of it. You're not going to see a lot of it. But I have been assigned the most difficult states, because I'm supposedly the guy that can connect with white, working-class men and I can connect with Catholics, allegedly, and the Jewish community. So I'm spending my time in Florida, North Carolina, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio, New Hampshire, Iowa, now Wisconsin may come back in play. And the President is spending most of his -- the swing states he's taking mostly are the states of Colorado and Nevada, and spending the rest of the time just getting our support up in states that we should win but have large populations and the ability to raise a lot of money. He's also in all those other states as well.

But the reason I bother to tell you that, if you were in any one of those states, you would have by now seen in the state of Pennsylvania, for example, over $40 million worth of ads already just absolutely -- just fictitious, and most of them going at Barack's character. And you saw what Romney did today: Romney today was in Michigan campaigning, and he said that, well, at least everybody knows that I was -- that my wife was born in Ford Hospital and I was born in -- he named the name of the hospital; we're both from Detroit, and we have birth certificates.

This stuff -- these guys aren't going to go away with this stuff. And so the money you're raising for us, I want you to know, in essence what it's going for -- we can't match these guys. We can't match them in the campaign ads. We can't come close. All the money we have to go on the air is focused on what probably will end up being nine of those battleground states, nine of them. The rest of it is going for organization.

We are going to have, because of you, the single greatest ground game any presidential campaign has had in American history. That's not hyperbole. I mean that literally. We'll probably have close to 55 real, live, serious campaign headquarters in Colorado. We'll have over 45 in North Carolina. That's how we won last time. That's how we won so handily before Lehman, before things started to fall apart for the other team. That's how it was working.

So that's what mostly the money you're going -- you have -- and it's considerable what you're raising for us. That's what it's going to go for. So you're going to be frustrated, if you're in another state performing, or if you're in another part of the country and you see these ads on -- going after us, and you say, well, why aren't we responding? We've raised money. We can't afford to respond in most of the places now. We've got to husband some of these resources, but putting a ground game together is very important.

Go ahead.

And the second reason why we're going to win is some of the really difficult decisions that Barack has made, all of which -- every one of which was unpopular when made. TARP wasn't a walk in the park, and made everybody angry before it was over. But at the end of the day, it's up and running; things are still moving along and so on.

Secondly, nobody thought -- virtually no one thought we should try to save an iconic industry that built the middle class: the automobile industry. We made everybody take some really tough medicine, but it's up and running, a million jobs weren't lost; the chairman of the board of Ford, who I spent time with, has pointed out publicly he would have gone under -- they would have gone under but for our ability to go in and restructure, have the Chrysler and General Motors restructured. They've hired over 215,000 good-paying, middle-class jobs people can raise a family on now. And the list goes on.

People are beginning to see, even though a lot of them are still literally and figuratively underwater, both in their homes and in their circumstances, they are beginning to see that the things the President did actually made sense, including things he has done on foreign policy and other matters.

The third reason why -- and to get through this quickly -- the third reason why we're going to win is that we have an opponent. There used to be a mayor up in Boston, and his name was Kevin White. I knew him. He got elected in 1970. He was in his -- I think he was 40 years old; I was a 29-year-old kid and got elected to the Senate in '72. I was up there to speak at a dinner at the request of Ted Kennedy, the JFK dinner. I was nervous about this Irish-Catholic kid showing up at 30 years old to be the speaker at the JFK dinner, but I didn't dare not accept. My mother, Jean Finnegan Biden, would have had a heart attack. (Laughter.)

And seriously, I was standing in the hotel, tying my tie, getting ready to go to the cocktail party, and there was a -- the six o'clock news was on, and Kevin White, who was the phenom in '70, was now in trouble in '73 because the economy was -- in Boston. And so he came out of the mayor's office and he was descended upon by a score of reporters with boom microphones and television cameras stuck in his face, and the essence of every question asked of him was, okay, smart guy, how well are you doing now?

I'll never forget what he said. He stood back, put both his arms up and he said, look, don't compare me to the Almighty; compare me to the alternative. Ladies and gentlemen, we've got an alternative. We've got an alternative. (Laughter and applause.)

And as tough as the economy still is for so many middle-class and working-class people, and even those people who have jobs where their wages have been stagnant for the last five years, as tough as it is, we're in the game and we're winning in all those battleground states as I speak. It could change tomorrow, but we're winning now because this is not a referendum on Barack and me, it is a choice. It is a choice.

And I come from a household -- no up-by-your-bootstraps. I tell Barack he makes me sound like I'm a kid that climbed out of a coal mine in Scranton, Pennsylvania with a lunch bucket in my hand, you know what I mean? (Laughter.) That's not true. But I come from a typical, middle-class background -- three-bedroom house, four kids, mom and dad and always, literally, one relative living with us because they were in trouble -- my grandpop, my aunt, whatever. Jill, from the same kind of background.

And the fact of the matter is that if you go out and take a look at where people are in those circumstances, whenever there is a recession, in my dad's household someone around the kitchen table or dining room table -- a brother, a sister, an in-law, a neighbor -- lost a job. Someone was going to lose a job. And my grandpop used to say, Joey, when the guy up in Minooka -- he's from Scranton -- when the guy up in a place called Minooka is out of work, it's an economic slowdown. When your brother-in-law is out of work, it's a recession. When you're out of work, it's a depression.

Well, it's a depression. It's a depression for a whole hell of a lot of people, even the ones who have -- some who have made it back. And when you're in that state of mind, you don't want to have to choose. You want to be able to be angry. You don't want to have to acknowledge anything about the person in charge in the circumstance where you find yourself in really bad shape. You don't want to have to -- you don't want to acknowledge anything is working because you're angry. Because a lot of people this time out, and I think you'd agree with me, found themselves in trouble through no fault of their own. They woke up one morning, didn't know what the hell happened, and all of a sudden what happened is two guys up the street got whacko mortgages and they went under, foreclosed, and now their house was worth $60,000 less than it was the day before those foreclosures took place -- and they never missed a mortgage payment, and they never did anything wrong.

But here's what's happening, and you can feel it as I go around the country. I'm not a bad campaigner; I go out a lot and campaign a lot out in the countryside. And, folks, there is a growing sense of enthusiasm about what is at stake here and what the alternative is. Because the other team has a fundamentally different view of -- quite frankly, they don't even fully understand what people have gone through.

And so, folks, people are now starting to make choices. And the choices are really going to be narrowed down after Labor Day. This is when people -- but they don't want to think about it. It's like, if you know anybody who has chemo: When the one chemo treatment is over, they don't want to think about the next one. They don't want to think about the next thing that's coming up. They just want to be -- just, they don't want to think about it.

But they're now starting to think about it, and that's why you see things starting to change. Because they're realizing the other alternative is a horrible alternative for them. There's nothing in it for them.

I won't go through the budget. I won't go through all this stuff, and I'll talk about whatever you want. But, folks, look, it's kind of like I've been saying, and, as you know, I never speak my mind. (Laughter.) I made a deal with Barack -- for real -- the first time he asked me to be Vice President, would I do -- and Jack knows this. I said no, thank you, I don't want to be Vice President. He said he needed an answer right away. I said, it's easy, the answer is no. And he said, well, how much time do you need? (Laughter.) I'm serious, swear to God. I said, I don't need any time. And he said, well, go home and talk it over with Jill and the family. Go home and talk it over with Jill and the family. And here I am. I'm proud. Don't get me wrong: I'm proud to serve with him. I don't mean that. Because the vice presidency is totally dependent -- it's all -- only power is reflective power, and it totally depends on your relationship with the President and what the -- and thank God for me and for him, that relationship has been great and it's been a worthwhile endeavor.

But the generic point is, folks, that what's happening right now is that an awful lot of people are taking a step back and they're taking a hard look. They're trying to decide where do they have the best shot. Where's the best shot to be able to care for their families? Because, folks, an awful lot of people are still scared. A lot of people are still scared.

Some of you came from similar backgrounds. I said a little bit earlier, you know people in your old neighborhood who are sitting down at the kitchen table the last -- husband and wife the last couple of months and said, who is going to tell her? Who is going to tell her we don't have the money to send her back to school? You know people in your old neighborhood who are staring at the ceiling tonight wondering, am I going to be able to sleep in this house a month from now? Am I going to be able to stay here? What's going on? I don't know what's going to happen to me. And now they're focusing on what -- whether to stick with the path we're on, where progress is being made, or roll the dice on something totally new that they're beginning to understand.

The ultimate reason why I think we're going to win, guys, is that I think all presidential campaigns ultimately come down to one fundamental choice the American -- individual Americans make, and that is who between the candidates has the most character. Who has the character of their convictions? Who? Who has some vision and you can be assured that they'll stay with what they say, they mean what they say? And it's not even a close call. It's not even a close call.

That's the ultimate reason why we're going to win, because we simply have the best candidate. This is a standup guy. This is a standup guy. I've watched him put his career on the line time and again, never one, single, solitary time turn to me or anyone around him -- and I literally, my word, spend four to six hours a day with him every single day until five weeks ago until we started campaigning. Every single decision -- and the only deal I made -- he made with me when I took the job was I get to be the last guy in the room, not figuratively, literally the last guy in the room.

So I've watched him go through the process. Never once have I heard him ask, how will this affect me politically? That's a remarkable thing, and I've been in public life, high public office for over 39 years. I cannot say that about any other man or woman I've ever worked with.

So, guys, people realize that. That's why in the likeability category, it's about two to one here. That's ultimately why we're going to win this race. So as long as you keep us in the game, I think he's going to carry us. And I believe, folks, we are in better shape to compete around the world than any time in my lifetime. We are better positioned than China. We are better positioned than Europe. We're better positioned than any nation in the world to lead the world economically in the 21st century, if these guys would just get out of the way a little bit.

So anyway, thank you all very, very much and I'll be happy to take some question. (Applause.)

Q So, Mr. Vice President, you've talked about the economy. You've talked about how families are suffering. You mentioned housing. It's a business I'm in and I probably asked you this before -- 65 percent of Americans own a home and most of them have seen their net worth drop dramatically because of the financial crisis. Why aren't we doing -- why isn't the administration doing more to try to turn that around? It seems like the quickest way for people to begin to feel better when that is sort of the bottom line of their balance sheet.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Two reasons -- one, it's difficult. There are no really easy answers. The second reason is the just flat obstructionism coming out of the Republican Congress.

Now, my host may not like this but, for example, the proposal we have for allowing 14 million people who have not missed a single, solitary mortgage payment and their homes are underwater and their local banks aren't willing to take a chance by doing what you all probably don't like, putting pennies on a $100 tax -- a fee -- on any bank to whom received more than $50 billion -- has $50 billion in assets that receive TARP funding would create a fund for $9 billion -- no taxpayer money. It would -- they're taxpayers, it would not be a general tax.

And it would essentially be a reinsurance available to every small banker. You go in and say, I want to refinance -- that would put an extra average -- because those same people are paying an average of six and three quarter percent in their mortgages now. That would save them an average 3,000 to 3,500 bucks a year. In the neighborhoods I come from, that means you can pay for your automobile insurance. That means you can pay for part of your property taxes. That means you can stay in your home. And that means everybody's attitude starts to change about how well off they are, whether things are coming back.

We've tried, Jack, a bunch of other things which I won't bore the rest of the group with, but haven't gotten very far in terms of getting support on the Hill to be able to pass them.

But as you point out, Jack, the most devastating thing about this recession is the $16 trillion in wealth that was lost out of the equity in their homes, overwhelmingly. That changed their whole attitude about themselves, about their families, about their hope, their prospects. That's the very money -- that equity was what they thought would help them retire on, what they're going to be able to borrow like Jill and I against -- and, by the way, I made a good salary. I got paid when our kids were in school $60,000 a year. I'm not -- but yet, having our kids in school, three of them at the same time, it cost more than I made to keep them in school. And so, I was able to borrow against the equity of my home. It would change the attitude of people about their sense of their worth, because that's what's been so devastating. And Jack is right about the fact that even though people couldn't go in and cash out with that money, they just felt wealthier. The wealth effect was devastating for them when they lost all this.

So, Jack, there are more ideas as to how to proceed. And I'm going to say something -- and I'm getting a look from Jill, she is right, this answer is much too long. (Laughter.) But let me just say this, I think that -- I think we are -- you're going to think I'm crazy.

There are 52 close House races where we're in the game. We need to only win 25 of them. I've gone in now to a total of 43 of them, I believe. I think we have a shot at winning back the House. That will be the biggest game changer for us. And so, I think you'll see more progress to that sort of thing.

Q Mr. Vice President, it's not a policy question, but since this is a largely LBGT gathering, can you remember or maybe share with us the first time you had a conversation with someone or met someone who was gay -- the world was so different back whenever that would have been -- and just kind of share that first discussion?

THE PRESIDENT: Let me tell you the single biggest proponent -- vocal opponent for gender equality in my household was my father. The first time I can remember -- because remember, I graduated from high school in 1961. Only the bravest of brave who were gay were openly gay, came out of the closet as the phrase went.

My father, the same guy who inspired me to write the Violence Against Women Act -- my father used to say, and this is literally true -- Jack met my father, I think, others of you who knew my dad, he was a gentle, decent man. He said the cardinal sin of all sins is the abuse of power -- whether it was a man raising his hand to a woman to strike her, whether it was intimidating a young man or woman who are gay or lesbian and making fun of them or ostracizing them, et cetera.

I remember sitting on the beach when I was a junior in high school in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. My father was working for a real estate company called Patterson Schwartz. There is a hotel there called the Cape Henlopen Hotel and Condominiums. And my father was the resident manager not of the hotel -- he was the resident, when it was built, the resident salesperson for Patterson Schwartz, selling those condominiums.

And I went down to meet him, to spend the day with my mom and dad. I went down with a couple of friends. And it was on Sunday. We were about to leave. We're sitting on the beach with my dad. And a gay couple in their 50s came by, and they had purchased a penthouse and were friends with my dad.

And I was a pretty good athlete. I was an all-state -- I was a good athlete. And I had this other guy with me named Pete McLoughlin, who was a great athlete and played -- was great in college as well. But Pete was a real smart-ass. And when the couple came by and saw my dad -- my dad got up and gave them a kiss and said -- introduced them to everybody. This wise-ass McLaughlin said something like, hello, fellas, and he adored my father. The guys left, they went back up and my father turned to Pete McLaughlin and said, Pete, you've made me ashamed of you and you brought shame on my family. If you ever want to come back into my -- through my door again, I want you to go up there in 7E, go up and knock on the door and I want you to personally apologize. I was -- (applause.)

AUDIENCE: Wow, dad.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: No, no -- but it's always been like that. My record my whole career has been this way. But I want to tell you one other thing, folks.

The real impetus behind my not being able to remain silent any longer was Jill. Jill has been encouraging me for the last 10 years -- the last 10 years to come out publicly and make a speech in support of gay marriage.

She has been pushing and prodding. Our son, Beau Biden, who is the attorney general of the state of Delaware I think is one of the few attorney generals who enforce the law, has come out and publicly, in the beginning, supported gay marriage, who is enforcing the law against -- and dealing with bullying and the way gay children are treated in school. I mean, it's become a -- but it's Jill. It's Jill. Jill has been sort of the -- this has been Jill's -- I think it's fair to say, other than education, this has been her passion. Her passion from -- well, her passion. And what finally -- and I know I got a lot of criticism and I think I even upset some of you by --

Q No one here! (Laughter.)

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, no, no, no, no. Well, some people thought I should have -- anyway.

But here's what happened. I was out in California. And our host and hostess, there were four -- there was a host and hostess from next door and a gay couple whose home the event was in who were the primary hosts.

And I walked in, as we do here, walk in and go off to the side to meet the hosts, and I met this couple who had two of the most beautiful children, the most gorgeous children, just like the couple I just met over at the other home with that beautiful little red-headed girl that I -- and I walked in and the first thing I did, I knelt down to say hi to the kids. They were in the kitchen.

And the little boy just gave me a big hug, and I was talking to the girls and I said hi to the hosts while I was talking to the kids. And what happened was the little girl said -- turned to her father and said, Daddy, is it okay, is it okay that the Vice President comes out in the backyard and plays with me, and you speak? (Laughter.)

And so -- I'm very serious -- so we joked. We went in, I did my speech, and this was the entire audience was -- the gay and lesbian community and leaders in California, in Los Angeles. And at one point, the most important question asked of me, in a way that had never been asked of me before -- a gay man in his late twenties standing against the wall of the living room, there are about 40 people, looked at me and said, I have one question for you, Mr. Vice President. What do you think of me? What do you think of me?

And I went on and told him what I thought of him. And I used the example -- I said I wish, and I meant it sincerely, I wish every American could see the looks on those children's faces, the way she looked up and said to her daddy, Daddy, can the Vice President come out and play with me?

It was a -- and so, the next week I was on that show.
And I just couldn't, I just felt guilty. I couldn't not -- I just couldn't not -- anyway, it's just -- but it's just to me, look, guys, and I'll end with this. I got started in the civil rights movement in my state -- I mean not figuratively, literally. My political awareness was honed in the black churches because that's where you used to meet when I was 17 and 18 and 19 years old in Wilmington.

My state is the eighth largest black population in the country and -- as percentage of population. I got involved in the march -- all the things you -- guys like me did. And I started thinking, how in the hell as Vice President and President can we remain silent on the civil rights issue of our time? How can you do that?

And the one bet I won -- and by the way, I want to tell you, when the campaign and all these guys were going crazy -- what the hell did Biden do? I walked in to see the President Monday morning and before we have what they call the PDB -- the presidential daily brief on national security -- and I walk in first and we meet first. And he got up and he laughed at me, he started laughing, he said, well, you did it, man.

And he said -- and he shook my hand and he said, that's why I love you. That's why I love you. It's time. It's time. (Applause.)

Q Thank you, Mr. Vice President. We are all very interested in you and the President succeeding in the reelection. And one of the issues -- it's hard to always frame big questions in very simple, little -- big issues in small, simple questions, but is that -- the Congress seems to have presented really a very difficult problem for the administration in achieving a lot of the goals that we all had hoped for. And so the question is -- how do you and the President plan to address the Congress, which will probably remain divided, in overcoming these problems?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Francois, look, that is the sort of $64 question. And this is the only -- I'm going to walk out here -- this is the only area where I know a hell of a lot more than everyone, including Barack. And I'm not being facetious.

I've been there -- I've been there for eight Presidents. And every once in a while, over that period of time, and I could lay them out for you, I won't bore you with the periods, but we catch a fever. We get a virus. Whether it was Jerry Falwell -- I could take you back through where all the pundits suggested that these extreme views would catalyze into the essence of what constituted the other party. And it would be there forever. That would be -- it would be there for the near term; that to be no possibility of being able to get any consensus or deal with the major issues of the day.

Here's what I'm prepared to bet you. I will bet you what I can afford. I'll bet you a good dinner -- and that's about what I can afford -- I'll bet you a good dinner that two years from now, two years from now the fever is broken for the following reason: Part of what's happened this time out -- and the President really does not want me to talk about it because and I -- one of the reasons I admire him -- but part of the problem is we have a young, black President. And there are some people who find it almost insufferable to think they have to deal with that. And it presides -- it generates a lot of energy -- a lot of energy on the other side.

The second thing is that the Republican Party has -- this is not your father's Republican Party. This is not the Republican Party I worked with for 34 of the 39 years I've been in public life. This isn't even Gingrich's Republican Party. This is a different breed of cat, and they are not conservative, they are anti-government.

The combination of this sort of vitriol about Barack and this know-nothing mentality about the functioning capacity of government has been married to what was already there in that party, and that is this fundamentalist strain that has as its objective the imposition of a moral code on the rest of the country.

And it reached a critical mass -- and it reached a critical mass in the last election. But what's already begun to happen is -- and one other thing, what happened, and there's a book by a guy named Draper, a well-respected author and reporter about the deal the Republican leadership made on the night of the inauguration. They had dinner -- everyone except Mitch McConnell, including former leaders like our boy Newt -- and they made a pact. They made a pact that they would not support anything that would increase the prospects that Barack Obama would be able to be reelected.

Now, that's -- you think I'm making that up. I'm not making that up. And I'll give you as evidence of it, whether he was right or not about the meeting, this is the first time in all the time I've served in public office, where the Republicans in the House and Senate have voted against every single thing the President has offered. Now hear me now, they voted against it almost totally uniformly every single initiative. You cannot go back in history and find a time when on every major initiative, the opposition party, to a person, voted no. I'm not exaggerating: to a person voted no -- whatever it was -- from the Recovery Act; to the jobs bill; to judges which pass out of committee 16 to 2, and then get voted down on the floor of the United States Senate. So they have made a Faustian bargain.

And the reason I know that to be true, remember when Michael Castle, who is a decent guy, a mainstream Republican, good on civil liberties and civil rights got defeated in Delaware by -- he was a two-term governor -- lieutenant governor, 10-term congressman, one of the most popular elected officials in the state, in a primary, he got beat by the witch, O'Donnell. Remember, the one?

I got -- I give you my word to this -- that election was on Tuesday, seven Republican senators called me by that Friday and said, Joe, I can no longer work with you while the President is in office, I will lose my primary. And I'll tell you two of them because I can now tell it because they've said it. One was Olympia Snowe. That's why she didn't run again. The other one was a guy who wasn't even running again, but the former governor of the state of Ohio, the senator from Ohio, and there were four others.

And, folks, look, they have exacted a price. The deal was that if you don't want a primary, the commitment is you stick with us just this term. Watch what happens when this election is over. Even if we do not win back the Senate -- I mean even if we don't win back the House, you're going to see somewhere between six to nine Republicans willing to cross over and vote on things with us where there's real agreement. And you're going to see somewhere between 18 and 20 House members. That's all we need. The fever will break.

And there's one other reason why it will break. This distaste in the extreme for the President on the part of some of these guys who are not nice guys, they no longer have the raison d'etat they had once he wins. There's nothing to stop him from, so they're going to start figuring out what do I need to do to be able to demonstrate I can get reelected and see things moving? Because after six years of them voting no to stop everything, they start to pay a price for it.

So this fever will break, and you're already seeing in those -- it's more than you ever wanted to know -- but you're already seeing in those tea party races, where they're being challenged by mainstream Republicans -- mainstream Republicans. And the mainstream Republicans are losing in some of those races, and all of a sudden you see the money starting to change. All of a sudden you see the money starting to be pulled out.

And that extremism generates more extremism like you're seeing in this guy Akins, like you're seeing in this guy West, these other guys, and now what's happening -- even -- even Karl Rove has pulled all the money, which is about -- he has about $230 million -- pulled it all out of the state of Missouri. And Clare McCaskill is now winning. So I have great faith -- I have great faith in the American people eventually getting it. I don't think they're going to tolerate this. I don't think they're going to tolerate it, and I think you'll see it break no matter how close the election is within the next two years.

I can do yes or no. (Laughter and applause.)

Q I hope you never do yes or no because your candor makes you refreshing and so important for the country. (Applause.)

Mr. Vice President -- this administration and foreign policy -- Senate Foreign Relations hearings which were truly historic for the country -- I'd like to get your perspective on Egypt and what that means in the Middle East region now that Morsi has removed -- military leadership that has been closely aligned with our country. How do you interpret the change in Egypt and what does it mean in terms of ramifications -- entire region?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: I'll really try to do this briefly because that's a seminar question. (Laughter.)

Every time Barack -- I'll tell you a funny story -- after we got bin Laden, Barack brought the whole Cabinet in because they all wanted to hear how it went down and what happened. And he started off in the Cabinet Room. And he turned, and he said, I want to really thank Joe. He's forgotten more about foreign policy than I'm ever going to learn, and then he walked down the hall on the way down to the Situation Room after that hour meeting, he said, Joe, by the way, I want you to handle the debt negotiations. (Laughter.) So you can see there's no correlation between expertise and -- but here's the deal. First of all, to state the obvious, the Arab Spring could easily turn into a winter.

It's going to take a decade for it to work its way out, and every one of the countries who are part of the "Arab Spring" have a different set of dilemmas, a different set of drivers, a different set of problems, and a different set of population correlation. One of the only countries in the Arab Spring that is really a country is Egypt. It's been a country that's been unified, identified by its background culture, the relationships within the groups for thousands and thousands of years. All the rest of them -- almost without exception, to quote Tom Friedman are "tribes with flags." They are not countries. If any country has a straight-line border, you know somebody made it up and it wasn't them.

So here's the deal, Morsi is -- I think is a pretty smart guy. Morsi is -- the Muslim Brotherhood is in control, and one of the things you find throughout history -- those of you who are students of these changes that take place in countries -- is that sometimes the ideology of a political group that gains power alters rapidly once they are held accountable for the circumstances that exist in their country. And so right now one of the things the Muslim Brotherhood did, and some would argue they made a political mistake, was deciding to enter the democratic effort of getting elected and getting elected. It's like the dog catching the bus.

And Morsi knows that his economy rests upon at least two critical factors, one it rests upon a significant restoration of tourism as an element of their economy, and, two, it rests upon the combination of the Suez Canal and the Gulf states having both prosperity and a relationship with him. And the last thing he wants in my view now, for example, is another war with Israel; although if I'm Israeli, I sit there and I look at this all with a jaundiced eye.

And so what you're seeing Morsi do is asserting his power, but he still is not making judgments. He hasn't challenged the military's ability to make the judgments that they made relative to the make-up of the legislative body, and he is -- I don't want to cross the line of what I'm allowed -- what I can say and not say, but he is a work in progress. He's trying to negotiate Egypt to a place here it maintains its democracy, does not -- does not have a relationship publicly too close to the United States and clear not to Israel, but not in any way ruin each of those relationships because he knows his future depends upon that combination.

And so I think what you're going to see is the real test is how much skill he has. No matter who you were, this a very difficult -- this is a sticky wicket to try to figure out. I'm not assigning any credit to him or discredit. But he's in a situation right now where over the next year, how he navigates the competing interest in order to generate ultimately his country's interest is going to be really, really difficult.

But I can tell you one thing -- he is not -- the relationship with the United States has not been severed, and the relationship with Israel has not been severed. And so this is going to be a very difficult journey for him. But I think that my prediction is that you will not see Egypt walk away from the peace treaty with Israel. My prediction is you will not see Egypt engaging in support for the brotherhood in Syria if it turns out to be radicalized. He's trying to figure out a rational way for a united country to be able to make it through what's going to be a pretty difficult decade.

I wish I could tell you more but I can't do it. (Applause.)

Q Mr. Vice President, before -- presidential election cycle, I'm not sure I've ever seen a local race with as much -- (inaudible) -- I'll let you finish.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: We have to leave relatively soon because we cannot land at the next stop beyond -- anyway, if we don't cut off soon, we're not going to be able to land, which means we can't leave, which means I leave about $600,000 on the table. (Laughter.) But go ahead, I'm sorry.

Q The Romney's campaign lying -- I've never seen this on any level, and the media is not calling him on it. And I don't -- the media has been -- Internet -- no longer have the guts to call out straight lies.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, look, the media has -- and I hope I don't offend anybody in the media here. But the media and those reported on by the media have had an unusual relationship.

The media does not in a political campaign -- this has been the case the last -- at least, the last four elections or presidential cycles. They don't believe it is their role or responsibility to expose the weakness of the assertions true or untrue in the other guys' assertions. That's not what they think. Columnists do that, but reporters don't.

But there's another thing that's changed that I had a long conversation with President Clinton about this. President Clinton and I allegedly have similar styles in which we engage people, and we kind of like them to actually campaign. And we were talking about the criticism that he is getting and has been getting heavily for, especially in 2010, when he was campaigning, about "he talks too much and he's too straight -- he says things that he shouldn't say."

What we were talking about is much the media has changed. For example, for all I know -- and I'm taking your word for it -- but for all I know, any five of you could be recording everything I'm saying and then tweeting one or two things I said out of context, taking five words out of a 13-word sentence, and all of a sudden it's all over the place and I have to go back -- I'm off message and have to explain, no, that wasn't the -- for example, when this whole thing about Biden has said "they'll put you in chains," you kept seeing on TV. I had used that quote on nine occasions. I was quoting both Boehner, the Republican leader, and I was quoting Romney and I was quoting Ryan. Boehner speaking before the Washington Economic Club said, "What we have to do is unshackle the economy and unshackle Wall Street." And I said -- and I hope one is offended -- "the last time we did that we put the middle class in shackles." Now, instead of saying shackles this time, I said chains. And because I was speaking in southern Virginia, and over 50 percent of the audience was black, and most of the reporters don't understand black culture at all, they assumed I had to be appealing and saying we're going to put black folks in chains.

What the dummies don't know, black folks don't think chains, they think shackles. If I were really going to appeal to them, as some how these Republicans were anti-black, I would have used the word they used, "shackles."

The reason I give you this example is it ate up an entire week of what otherwise wasn't going to give you a -- make a self-serving comment a pretty damn great trip that I had, which turned Virginia by two points, just the trips that I had.

So when you say, why doesn't the mainstream media say something, they have been reduced to not reporting in order to compete -- to not reporting the essence of what you say -- your point, your storyline. They have been reduced to being able to get the attention, like the tweet does, to compete with the tweet, of the short hit, the controversy.

And I'll conclude by giving you an example. Everybody says, well, why the hell am I so popular in Ohio and in Pennsylvania and those places? It's a simple reason. I campaign a lot there and I campaign with local and regional reporters. They report what you say. You cannot get -- I'll make an analogy and stop. I remember the Annenberg School did a study of the race in 1992 with Bush and Clinton. And they took the top of the news of -- then people still watched NBC, ABC, CBS, the major news programs -- and they took the time that the presidential candidate's speech or comment was covered and added up the number of minutes that the candidate -- actually something came out of the candidate's mouth as opposed to the anchor characterizing what the candidate said. It was 17 to 1. For every minute that they're on national television, a candidates was -- either Bush or Clinton was able to utter something in their own words for the viewing audience to hear it, there were either 17 or 19 minutes of the anchor saying what the candidate meant. Well, now it is on steroids.

So you don't read in The New York Times -- you will not read in The New York Times, on the front page, any campaign event that they covered where they actually quote Romney or Obama for more than a sentence or two.

But you -- you go to the Toledo Blade in Toledo, Ohio, they will cover the whole story as you said it without their editorial comment in the article. I don't blame the national press for that. I just think they can't compete. I think the only way they can compete -- and some of you may be deeply involved with major publications and know more about it than I do -- but it seems the only way they can compete is to be engaged in the sensational side of the equation. So that's what I think has happened. It's a big change.

Q Sir, I'm sorry, but we actually have to --

THE VICE PRESIDENT: I know, I'll take one more question, if I can. Down this end and then I'll go.

Q He's the boss. (Laughter.)

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Yes, sir.

Q Three of my grandparents were Holocaust --

THE VICE PRESIDENT: You have to just speak loudly into the --

Q Three of my grandparents were Holocaust survivors and 6 million Jews were killed in World War II and now -- and there are 6 million in Israel are under threat because Iran says, one, the Holocaust never happened, two, he wants to wipe Israel off the map, and three, he wants a nuclear bomb.

So I know you know what we've put in place -- this whole plan with sanctions and how's that progress going and do you think sanctions are going well or if Israel is going to unilaterally strike or -- what are your thoughts?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: You're good, kid. That is the last question and it may be the end of my career if I answer it. All right, let me -- and this is not a cop-out -- there are certain things I can't say to you because they genuinely, seriously are classified.

So I'm going to just give you an answer to your question, the broad outlines of which reflect the reality of the situation on the ground. Number one, Iran is a threat and, from an Israeli standpoint, an existential threat to their existence. Number two, it would be a serious, serious setback internationally and for the region separate and apart from Israel if Iran were to acquire a nuclear weapon. Number three, the United States -- the President of the United States, I can tell you with certitude, is prepared to take whatever action is necessary to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear device that's deliverable outside their territory.

Now, the important points in between. When we came to office, Iran's power and influence was on the ascendency. The United States of America was conveniently categorized as it related to Iraq -- Iran as the problem. We were unable to get our European friends to join us or able to get anyone else to join us other than the Israelis in trying to isolate Iran and bring pressure upon them to force an existential choice they have to make about the kind of government and the economy they're going to have relative to the desire to pursue a nuclear weapon.

I think the President has done a masterful job in uniting the world -- even reluctant partners like China and Russia to put inordinate pressure, economic pressure on Iran to cease and desist. The sanctions that are imposed on Iraq -- I mean on Iran now are the most biting, damaging sanctions imposed on any country in modern history. I can go through for you if we had the time the decrease in the number of barrels of oil they're able to export, their inability to import refined oil, the impact on their economy, the impact on their central bank, how they cannot get insurance for shipping, et cetera. It's been debilitating on their economy.

And the serious sanctions have just set in -- I'm coming, baby, I promise.

MRS. BIDEN: (Inaudible.)

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Anyway, the bottom line is this: Whether or not the sanctions will change their behavior, I don't know, but I do know that if we have to act, the only -- the most important thing in addition to being successful is that the rest of the world is with us, that we're not put in the position of being the pariah. And that's the position the President has negotiated us into now.

If we have to act -- if we have to act, it will not be going alone. It will not be because the United States of America has once again attacked a Muslim country and generated a firestorm far beyond the borders in terms of our interest. I hope we do not. I don't see any need to now. There is no substantive change that would indicate they're any closer, and I do not believe the Israelis will unilaterally strike in the near term.

Thank you all very, very much. (Applause.)

END