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THE WHITE HOUSE

Office of the Vice President
Internal Transcript January 18 2012


REMARKS BY VICE PRESIDENT JOSEPH BIDEN
AT AN OBAMA VICTORY FUND LUNCHEON

Bentley Reserve
San Francisco, California


1:08 P.M. PST

THE VICE PRESIDENT: In my neighborhood where I grew up, like many of you, a promise made is a promise kept. And it's just the way things work. And it's sort of genetic. And the reason I spent so much time with Laurel is that some of you may recall in this last campaign seeing my mom at the convention and seeing my mom with Barack. And in my family, mothers ruled. And so I know, like many of you know what the loss of a mother is like.

Anyway, I'm sorry Laurel is in court. By the way, she's there as an advocate, not as a defendant. (Laughter.) And my wife, Jill, is here with me but not in this building. She is at the trauma center for vets, visiting as she does -- she and Michelle do -- working for military families. And she sends her regrets.

I understand Representative Heinrich is in the room. Congressman Heinrich, where are you? (Applause.) Hey, buddy, welcome. He is soon to be back in the majority. We're soon to have Speaker Pelosi again. (Applause.) By the way, you all think I'm kidding. All we need is 25 seats -- 25 seats. And we never expected to get as much help from the Republicans as we're getting. (Laughter.)

I'm just going to speak for a few minutes and then maybe -- I know there's press here, but maybe -- you're not supposed to do, but I don't do things you're supposed to do -- take a couple of questions from you all, see what may be on your mind.

Just a little bit of background -- not only did we inherit a near bankrupt economy when we came into office, sworn in on January 20th, 2009, but we inherited a nation where the fundamental bargain -- and I mean this sincerely, this is not hyperbole -- the fundamental bargain that the nation had made, the government had made with the middle class over the past 95 years had been broken, the fundamental bargain being that when productivity went up in America, those who were responsible for generating that productivity were going to be rewarded. They would be in circumstances where their circumstances would continue to improve and that their children's prospects would be at least as good, or better, than theirs.

That's what happened for successive generations for the previous 80 years. And if workers went out there and worked hard, got a good education, played by the rules and did it the right way, that they could look forward to being able to live in a decent house in a safe neighborhood; be able to send their kids to a school that gave them the promise and the possibility of being able to go on to college and that they may be able to be in a position that they'd be able to help their parents as they may struggle in their senior years and, with a little bit of luck, they may be able to put away enough money so that when it came time for them to retire, they wouldn't have to rely on anybody. They'd be able to take care of themselves.

Well, that all changed. It began to change before 2000. But it really changed with incredible rapidity beginning in the year 2000. From 2000 to 2007, productivity grew in America by 20 percent, yet middle-income people lost an average of $2,500 of their income on a yearly basis -- the first time that happened, the first time that happened since the '20s.

And not only that, we found ourselves in a situation that because of the tax policies that were installed, that income disparity grew to proportions that weren't seen since 1921. We're now in a position where 1 percent of all the people -- and I don't mean this facetiously, hopefully some of you are in that 1 percent -- 1 percent of American people make over 23 percent of all the income that is generated in the United States of America.

We found ourselves, because of their policies of giving a free reign to Wall Street, which heretofore had been the single best arbiter and distributor of resources and capital that the world had ever seen, generating a system of growth that was unparalleled. We saw all the reasonable restraints taken off and there was no longer much accountability. And the result was obvious. It went from no-doc loans and subprime mortgages.

We're in a position now, for the first time in American history, where we can't even identify because of the securitization of mortgages, who owns your mortgage and where it is and who to deal with in order to be able to figure out whether or not you can in fact renegotiate it in some way.

The American people -- you know the story -- you all lost $16 trillion in wealth over that eight-year period, actually realistically over the last two years of the Bush administration -- $16 trillion in wealth.

And the source of wealth for the average American, which was what little money they may have in a 401(k) if they had one or the equity in their home, one plummeted and the other evaporated. And people who had played by the rules, never missed a mortgage payment in their life, found themselves because of foreclosures the next block over or two houses up, found themselves literally underwater. The very money they used to borrow against to get their children to college, their very reliance -- what most of them thought would be their reliance, or their source of their retirement capability evaporated.

And within the 15 months before we got to pass the first piece of legislation, which is about five months -- because of Nancy Pelosi, I might add, we got it passed because of five months into our administration we had already lost 8 million jobs. That magnificent day -- and some of you were there -- on the Mall, before I lowered my right hand that day, we had lost that month 740,000 jobs. We ended up losing 850,000 that month.

And so we started in a pretty deep hole. I'll tell you a story. When we were -- I was kidding the President on Inauguration Day, saying it would have been better if we were sworn in, like Roosevelt, on March the 20th, because then no one would doubt -- no one would have any doubt about why we were in the -- I meant that sincerely. And afterwards, when we went into the Oval, he sat behind the desk for the first time, and said, Joe, we bought in too high. (Laughter.)

But the truth of the matter was things, as all of you know -- and some of you are the most successful people in San Francisco, businesswomen and men, entrepreneurs -- the truth of the matter was everybody thought the economy had shrunk somewhere around 5 percent the previous quarter. It actually shrunk almost 9 percent. And so, we acted.

And when we acted, things began to happen. The month we did what Romney said was a disaster, we'd live to regret it, all our Republican friends -- we forced the automobile companies to reorganize, go through bankruptcy, and we said we'd help them. They lost 400,000 jobs the year before we came into office. Since we've been in office, they've added 167,000 jobs. I just met with the chairman of the board of Ford. They plan on investing $16 billion in the United States in the very near term, hire another 12,000 people.

The expectation is for the first time in a long time, the American people -- over 38 years I believe that -- the American people believe American cars are better built -- a majority believe they're better built than foreign cars, putting a lie to the notion the American workers weren't capable of producing in a competitive way the best product that the world could buy.

And we've had 22 months of job creation in the private sector, every month -- not enough, but we have created over 3,500,000 jobs in the private sector. And the thing I am proudest of, because the President put me in charge of it and I got to do it -- it's the reason why the Vice Presidency was worth it -- I got to stand in Baghdad with Talibani and Maliki, look at the commanding officer of the chief of staff of the army and for the Iraqi forces and the American forces said, We are all going home, leaving Iraq with nothing but our honor and our goodwill -- 160,000 troops out of Iraq from the day we took office. (Applause.)

The reason I bother to mention that to you is that some of you, because you observed as I did in 2010 a lot of this had already been underway. But we lost badly in the 2010 off-year election. And the rest of what we were doing didn't come to a halt, but the ability for us to continue to make the kind of progress we were making was slowed down materially. If you talk to Moody's or any of the rating agencies, had we been able to pass our jobs bill, which we tried every way but Wednesday to get passed, we would have grown the economy. The unemployment rate would be much closer to 7 percent than it is to 8.5 percent. We would be moving in a way where the virtuous cycle would have begun more than it already has.

And in the meantime, what's happened is the public, after having elected Republican governors, a Republican House, and watching Republican debates that some wags suggest that we sponsored -- (laughter) -- an interesting thing has happened -- an interesting thing has happened. Think about it: None of you women are old enough, but a couple of you guys in here is old enough to remember this -- (laughter) -- this is the first election -- think about this. Now, I'm being serious, this is the first election I'm aware of -- and I got elected as a 29-year-old kid in 1972. I've been there for eight Presidents -- this is the first election I can recall where the Republicans, to use a football metaphor since the Giants are trying to get to the Super Bowl and on their way -- (laughter) -- I mean, excuse me, the Giants -- (laughter) -- I'm used to the San Francisco Giants beating the Phillies and keeping us from going -- (applause.) I was not happy with that. Since the 49ers are on their way, but to use a football -- (applause) -- to use a football metaphor, these guys aren't hiding the ball for the first time. They're making no bones about who they are. Walker in Wisconsin, Kasich in Ohio, the governor of Pennsylvania and Florida, the House of Representatives, led by Boehner and Cantor, the Republicans making clear their positions in the debates so no one could misunderstand. As George Wallace said, in a different era, There ain't a dime's worth of difference among those boys and woman. They don't have any difference in their basic fundamental views.

And there comes a time in politics, and it happens, and it's happened many times in our history, where a whole series of events have piled up, and yet the public hasn't made a conclusion. And then a single event happens, and they shift. I think, just like -- some of you may remember, I was out here in San Francisco speaking when Katrina -- shortly after Katrina hit, and I said, This is the end of the Bush presidency. Katrina catalyzed everything about the Bush presidency. It wasn't -- it was metaphoric as well as substantively a disaster.

Well, the fight that the Republicans waged against the Democrats in the Senate and the House, and us, on the payroll tax, brought home and catalyzed for the American people who these guys are and what they're about. They're not bad guys. They're not immoral. They're not -- they just have a fundamentally different view of America than we do. They have a fundamentally different view about what's at stake than we do. They have a fundamentally different sense of what needs to be done for America to be able to lead the 21st century. And it's fundamental. It's basic. It's absolutely basic.

Romney, who's not a bad guy -- I don't know him well, but I make no judgment about his motive or his morality or his substance -- he just has a fundamentally different view. Romney looks at this through the prism of Bain Capital, which is not a bad deal. It's not bad guys. These are -- they go out and they do what folks do. But guess what? He gives the Harvard Business School answer to what to do about foreclosures -- let them bottom out. The quicker they bottom out, and it washes through the economy, the quicker we take our medicine, the quicker we will recover -- except for those tens of thousands of homeowners, those hundreds of thousands of people who are going to be left out in the street.

He believes that any -- he said it, maybe not meaning it literally, that he likes to fire people. Well, people have seized on that, but the essence of what he was saying is a distinguishing characteristic between us and them.

There used to be a time, if you go back to the '40s and the '50s and the '60s, when major corporations in America and business enterprises decided to, instead of maximizing their profit, they still got a profit and maintained their workforce. That has occurred in America -- that is not antithetical to capitalism. Capitalism is not maximizing to the nth degree the profit you are able to make without any consideration of the consequences on your employees and on society.

Listen to what everyone from Gingrich to -- I mean, all of them across the board, they're now talking about wanting to send American forces back into Iraq. They think we should go back -- literally, not figuratively, literally -- go back to Iraq because Iraq will be unstable without us there, and therefore American troops should not have left. We should send them back.

Ladies and gentlemen, the American public has figured out who these guys are and what their priorities are. Their priorities on the tax front are literally -- not because they just want to satisfy a particular base, because they really believe it -- they not only want to maintain the present tax structure, they want to increase tax cuts for the very wealthy among us. The notion of income disparity for them is class warfare. It has nothing to do with equity, nothing to do with the middle class having a shot.

With regard to energy, they -- I was in charge of negotiating the debt ceiling with them. All they wanted to do was cut, and the things they wanted to cut were all those things related to renewable energy. They were the first things on the chopping block. Renewable energy is anathema to their notion of what is needed for the country now.

With regard to education, the first thing in the negotiations with Mr. Cantor and Mr. Boehner on my part, on behalf of the President, was they wanted to do away with tax cuts for college tuition. We could not afford it. We could afford not paying a single penny for the tax cut for the top 1 percent -- or the 1 percent, which is over $500 billion, but we had to pay for the tax cut -- $2,500 tax credit to help middle-class families keep their kids in school.

You go across to board, these guys are just very, very different than we are. This is going to be the clearest choice the American public has had in terms of what direction they want to see the country go in since probably the late '20s and early '30s. It's absolutely stark how fundamentally different our positions are and our place in the world is.

And so -- I always am asked -- you know, when they say, you take a look at the polls and you and Barack are neck and neck, or you're slightly behind, or you're slightly ahead and my -- I remember a -- a few of you may remember -- there used to be a mayor, a phenom at the time, in Boston who was elected in 1970 to '74, and he was the new phenom. He was sort of like the John Lindsay of New York in the late '60s. And I was a 28-year-old -- 26-year-old kid -- 27-year-old kid when he was elected. And I got invited up to speak by Teddy Kennedy after being elected, as a 30 year-old to speak to the Massachusetts Democratic Party. When Ted Kennedy introduced me I thought, my God, this is a big deal. (Laughter.) And it was a big -- Teddy was a big deal.

And I went up, and I remember standing in the Copley Hotel looking out of the corner of my eye at the television while I was tying my tie, and Kevin White, the phenom, was in trouble in '73 about his poll numbers had dropped and he was having problems. And as he walked out of his office, like mayors who are susceptible to as they should be and we all should be, to the press gather, and the press -- a gaggle of press immediately descended upon him and they showed this interview on television. And they were basically saying, Well, wise-guy, how you doing now? They didn't say it that way, but that was the essence of their questions.

And I remember what he did. He put his hands up and he looked at them and he said, Folks, don't compare me to the Almighty, compare me to the alternative. (Laughter.) We're going to get a comparison to the alternative this time around, and the alternative is absolutely defined, and they're defining it themselves. No more compassionate conservatism, no more we're for Social Security, no more we really want to sustain Medicare. No more -- and the list goes on.

So this is a stark choice we have. And I predict to you, with your help, not only are we going to win, but we're going to win back the House of Representatives this time out. And then we can complete. (Applause.)

But folks, my concluding comment -- and then with your permission I'll take a couple of questions if it's all right with you all. We owe you a great deal, and I mean this sincerely. Barack Obama put together -- not Joe Biden and Barack Obama. Barack Obama put together last election the most incredible political campaign in not modern American history, in American history. He essentially caught lightning in the jar and you guys were the jar and the lightning.

You guys went out there and you put together a ground game, which we're going to do have to do again, that in fact was unrivaled by anything that has ever occurred in American history.

Ladies and gentlemen, it is -- the estimates are that the super PACs, because of the Supreme Court decision, these super PACs are going to spend somewhere between $200 [million] and $350 million. That's not the candidates, now, it's the super PACs -- doing nothing but running negative ads against Barack Obama and probably me, but they don't care a lot about me, they're going to focus on Barack Obama.

And we only have one way to counter that, one way: The money you've contributed to us is going to allow us, once again, to put together the most incredible ground game in the country. We are going to have in states where people think and thought we weren't competitive and now know we are, from states like North Carolina and Virginia. You're even going to see us in Arizona and you're going to see us around the country with not two or five or four headquarters, but 75 or 80 like we had in North Carolina, with tens of thousands of people on the ground. That's what your being here today is going to allow us to do more than anything else.

We'll not be able to match their billion -- their hundreds of millions of dollars, or tens of millions of dollars in super PACs, but we can match their dollars with people. And that is the single best asset that any campaign can have -- people going and knocking on doors, telling their neighbors, and taking the case directly to the American people. That's what he did last time. That's what we're going to do this time.

And the last thing I'd like to say to you all is that we genuinely appreciate your financial contribution, but the people in this room contribute more than their finances to us. You've contributed your good name to us. I mean that sincerely; you've contributed your good name. You are validators. You are validators in your community. You are validators in your city and your state for Barack Obama and Joe Biden. That's the single most significant contribution anyone can make.

Not a one of you in here speaks only for yourself. Not a one of you in here does not have a coterie of people who you know respect your opinion and respect your views. And so we owe you for that. It's one thing to write a check, it's another thing to put yourself out there and say, Yeah, yeah, they're my guys. You've gotten a lot of heat over the last three years, hopefully less these days than in the past, but a lot of heat. Why didn't they do A,B -- did you hear what he said today, what your guy just did.

Well, you stood with us, you continue to stand with us, and the ranks are increasing not diminishing. So although, as my Grandfather Finnegan from Scranton used to say, anybody -- any ball club can beat any other ball club in any given day, Barack and I are not so cocky that we think we can't be beaten. Anybody can be beaten on any given day.

But we have no intention of being beaten because we made a deal. We made a deal with the American people, and we meant what we said when we said it during the campaign; it's the only thing I asked to commit to. I wanted to hear it from his own lips when he asked me to be Vice President before I'd agree. I asked him whether or not he meant when he said what he said that this is about restoring the middle class.

My dad used to have an expression. He said, Joey, a job's about a lot more than your paycheck. It's about your dignity. It's about your sense of respect. It's about your place in the community. It's so much more than the paycheck. It defines you.

When you don't have a job, when your house is foreclosed on, when you have to make what I refer to as the longest walk any mother or father can make up a flight of stairs to tell your kid, Honey, you can't go back to St. Mary's. You can't go back to Roosevelt High School. You can't play on the Little League team. You can't be on that ball club anymore. You can't be in the choir because the bank is telling us, Honey, we have to move.

My dad made that walk when I was in fourth grade. We lived with my grandpop in Scranton, Pennsylvania. There were no good jobs. He had a job, but it wasn't -- couldn't sustain the family. I remember him walking up the stairs for real -- not a joke -- and sitting on the end of the bed, and my sister was there. She was too young to fully understand what he was talking about, and he said, Joey, I'm going to have to move down to Wilmington, Delaware with Uncle Frank. It's only 157 miles. There's good jobs down there, Honey. And I'll try to come home every weekend. But I promise you -- I promise you, it's going to work out okay. And when I get enough money, we're going to get a nice place and you and Mom and Val and Jimmy, and all of you are going to come down.

It wasn't until I got to be about probably 27, 28 years old I realized maybe he made even a longer walk a little bit earlier, to walk into my Grandfather Finnegan's pantry with his three surviving sons and say, Ambrose, I need a favor. I need a favor. Can you keep Jean and the kids for a year or so? I promise you -- I promise you I'll make it up.

My father was a graceful, dignified, proud man. That had to be an incredibly hard thing to do. Because of the policies of this -- administration too many proud, decent, hard-working people through no fault of their own and with no real prospect of it changing if they win have had their pride stripped from them. This is about more -- this is about more than a job. This is about what we value. This is about who we value. This is about why we value it.

And that's why I'm so damn proud -- so damn proud to work with Barack Obama because although he doesn't talk about it as much, and I know he's not the passionate one -- I'm supposedly the passionate one that always gets in trouble. (Laughter.) I make no apologies by the way. This guy feels it in his bones.

Folks, this is a consequential election. I know you know it. And I want to thank you for giving us a chance -- giving us a chance to make our case to the American people. As my grandfather would say, with the grace of God and the good will of the neighbors, and the crick not rising, I think we're going to win.

Thank you all very much. (Applause.)

Happy to take questions. Fire aware.

Q I'm just saying that the first 10 minutes of the remarks are very, very powerful, very factual. And my concern is this: Where is the marketing messaging of this administration that makes its case so that people generally understand the facts of what we inherited when the administration came in, what's been done, and what we need to do going forward? I just don't get any messaging going on anymore.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, the message is -- and you're going to hear it laid out in every fora we can find, and that's about restoring the middle class. It's about giving ordinary people a fighting chance to be able to live a decent life, because we believe it really is the sustaining element of our economy, as well as our society and giving people a fighting chance to get into the middle class.

And so the argument we're going to make is going to be aided and abetted by our friends, who have made it pretty clear that is the least thing that they're concerned about. And the issues we're going to use in order to be able to articulate the differences are going to be -- and you're going to see a lot of it -- is that we think that -- I am more optimistic today than when I got elected as a 21-year-old kid -- excuse me, a 30-year-old kid to the United States Senate.

It used to be you read in the paper all the time, whether it's the San Francisco papers or the Times or any paper, that refer to me as the optimist in the White House, like I'm the new kid in the block, like as my grandpop would say, I just fell off the turnip truck yesterday. (Laughter.) I've been there longer than all of them. And I'm more optimistic than I ever have been, because we are better positioned in the world than any other country, any other people to be able to be able to sustain our growth through the 21st century.

I just got back from China. And I have now kind of taken a more prominent role in U.S.-China policy, particularly with regard to establishing a relationship as President Hu and President Obama wanted me to establish with the soon-to-be new president, Xi. And when I went over there, it was right after we were downgraded, after the budget deal fell through.

And so on my aircraft, on Air Force Two, I had all the financial press riding with me. And when I got off the plane, there were scores of reporters waiting, because they thought Biden was coming to explain and defend the U.S. economy. And so, we had this big meeting and Hu was there. And we took questions.

And I started off. And it was basically, What are you going to do to reassure us? And I started off by saying, I'm delighted to be here and I'm happy -- and I really am -- that the Chinese economy is growing, because we need stability in this part of the world. But if you're looking for reassurance on our Treasury bills, because that was the big issue, I suggest you don't buy anymore. We don't need you to buy them. And people nearly dropped their eye teeth. (Laughter.)

And I said -- and I meant it. I said, Look, there's a reason you buy our Treasury bills. We're the most secure nation in the world with the greatest prospect of return. I said, you only own 1 percent of our financial instruments, 7 percent of our T-bills. The reason why it's going to work very well for us is because we owe this to the American people -- 68 percent of them are owned by the American people.

And I said, Secondly, we do want your economy to grow, because it will benefit us. The good news is your economic growth has challenged us and awakened us. And it has, it has.

And I said, the fact that we're three and a half times as large as your economy means that we need you to grow so we have a place to export in the next 20 years. And, lastly, we are a Pacific power. That's not a threat, it's a reality. We are a Pacific power and we're not going anywhere.

The South China Sea is not Chinese property. It is international waters. And the reason for your stability and growth has been because we've maintained peace and order in the region for the last 30 years.

And then, we had a long talk. Some of you may remember I got criticized by Romney, because I used the phrase -- I said, I'm not going to question your one-child policy. And that was reprehensible -- they didn't say the rest of the sentence. They had just raised with me their concern about our ability to deal with our entitlement programs. I said, Thank God we have our problem and not yours.

And they looked at me. I said, I'm not going to question your one-child policy -- but, I said, we're going to be able to -- we have full control of our entitlement program. But I said, God, you're in trouble. It's true. I said, for every four people retired, you only have one person working. I said, God Almighty, I don't know how you're going to do that. Silence in the room.

I genuinely do want China to grow. But I use this as an example. Americans are acting like somehow they've already eaten our lunch, somehow we're behind the curveball. We are better positioned than any nation in the world. This is not American chauvinism. It's just a reality.

We just had a conference in Washington on insourcing -- at the White House. We met with Siemens, DuPont, Rolls Royce, Ford, and a number of other major businesses. They're bringing jobs home for the first time in 30 years.

There's a reason for it. The disparity in income is diminishing, because China wages are going up 20 percent per year, number one. Number two, they are worried about their IP being stolen, their intellectual property, their trademarks, their trade secrets not just there, but around the world. And, guess what, it's a better buy.

And now, they're looking at the total cost of doing business. It was a fascinating conference -- the total cost of doing business. And they're going to build a factory -- and you build a factory, it's a 30-year life expectancy. Within the next five years, the maximum advantage relative to the initial investment in China or the United States would be a 9 percent advantage for the Chinese without any of the protections that go along with investing here.

So what does Siemens do? They have run a project where they were going to invest a billion dollars either in Charlotte or Singapore -- I mean, or Shanghai. They pick Charlotte, North Carolina. Guess what the average job is on the floor -- $70,000 a year. They just have a billion-dollar contract for new generators with Saudi Arabia. Ford, as I said, is investing $16 billion in the next several years, 12,000 new jobs. Master Lock has brought back their entire business back to Minnesota after having gone to Mexico, then China, then Vietnam.

The point of the fact is that that's why we have to invest in education, community college. We don't have tool and die makers -- average salary, $48,000 a year. You can live a middle-class life on that, as a tool and die maker. We don't have tool and die makers anymore. That's why we've invested $25 billion in community colleges, where you now have business -- Fortune 50 businesses making contracts with community colleges, saying this is what we need. You set out a curricula and train people in these skills, we will hire them. We are short skilled labor in this country, because it all had been -- not all, a significant portion had gone abroad.

And, by the way, guess what the most interesting thing was. A woman -- I can't think of her name -- who was a leader of the outsourcing of call services. They're now bringing back the call services from India. And you're not going to hear Nancy from Russia or whatever it is anymore, you know that ad. (Laughter.) Well, the reason is simple. It's not born out of patriotism. Because now, the call that says you owe $9.27 can be done online. The calls that have to be made have to have a conversation, you actually have to have an exchange.

So the point is we are positioned better than we've ever been in the last 75 years to lead the world economically again. But we have to invest in infrastructure, education, and innovation. And so, I just think that there's a great deal of reasons substantively, to be optimistic that go far beyond anything we've done.

The American people have never, never, never, never, never, never disappointed their country when they were given a fair chance -- never. It's never occurred. And as I said when I was in China, don't bet against the American people. It's always been a very bad bet, a very bad bet. And that's not chauvinism. That's the history of the journey of this country. And we're poised now.

But we cannot sustain that opportunity with the policies and reversion to 2008 -- 2007. It cannot happen. The financialization of the economy -- you have to make something. We have to produce something, services or goods. And we can do that. (Applause.)

Yes.

Q A question about Iran?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Yes.
Q And the mischief in the Middle East. Can you share a perspective on Iran and the regime, and some of the noise that we're hearing about the potential blockade, et cetera?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Yes, I can. I got to choose my words, because I don't want to accidentally say anything that's classified. (Laughter.) I spend most of my day doing Iran.

Number one, the first myth is that Iran is a monolith, that there is a single source of power and that's a united, coherent government that knows exactly what it wishes to do. That's number one.

Number two, our administration's approach of reaching out to Iran to suggest that we're prepared to talk with them and we're prepared to deal with them if they cease and desist from seeking a nuclear weapon was widely criticized by the right. But it was designed to do two things. We're not naïve. We didn't expect any response or an extended hand other than a mailed fist initially.

But what it did -- we went from being the problem in the Middle East to Iran being the problem in the Middle East. And we were able to put together the most serious set of sanctions that have ever, ever, ever been put on a country. And it is causing significant internal derision and division, as well as serious economic problems. Now, Iran is lashing out now because they're being hurt so badly. We even have been able to maintain the sanctions including Russia reluctantly and China reluctantly. But they are still in the deal.

The question now is whether or not they are prepared to actually talk, and talk about the need to actually cease and desist from their seeking a nuclear weapon. That remains to be seen. I'm neither optimistic nor pessimistic about it. But we want to make it clear we're open. We're open.

There's a division among the intelligence community and the national security community in and out of the government about whether or not Iran is serious about blockading the Straits. My view is they are not. My view is that it's an attempt to prevent other countries for whom they're a supplier -- a significant supplier -- from joining in a new round of sanctions.

Also, there is benefit -- we've got to be careful, as my mother used to say, not to bite our nose off to spite our face. The more we turn the screws on Iran and the more we rattle the saber as they talk about closing the Straits, the more oil prices go up, the more their coffers get filled, and the more they are able to sustain the very thing we're hoping they can't sustain. So this is a matter -- foreign policy is a matter of -- requires occasionally some sophistication.

And so, we are prepared to talk. We do not think there is any imminent war on the horizon. We have taken nothing off the table, including talking -- or God forbid, if they did close the Straits, there are certain red lines we've made available, we've made clear to them. But that's as much as I can tell you on the record.

Q I want to ask you about the turnip truck in giving Americans a free opportunity to compete, particularly farmers and organic farmers. The genetically modified foods are quickly taking over their crops and they do not have much push against it. And President Obama originally had said that he would do something about that, and I wondered if the administration -- particularly the alfalfa that is possibly threatening the dairy industry, what you have to say about that?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, that's a seminar. (Laughter.) And I know you and I are probably the only two who understand agriculture in this room. (Laughter.) I don't mean to insult you, but I mean it's probably not in the top of your agenda, except organic food is on the top of your agenda. I get that part. I got that part.

But I come from the state of Delaware which everybody thinks is corporations and the DuPont Company and chemical companies; its largest industry -- a $3 billion industry -- called agriculture. And it's broiler chickens primarily. So I've of necessity, who was an upstate boy, learned an awful lot about agriculture.

We still are very committed, and we are working through the Secretary of Agriculture, who is doing a hell of a job in order to be able to change -- and that's why we are so -- I know this is going to sound totally disconnected, why we are so insistent upon in the Recovery Act and continue to push, notwithstanding the opposition, as the Congressman can tell you, from our Republican friends in extending broadband and the Internet.

Because the reason for that being so important is we want farmers to be able to make judgments about when and when not to sell, where and where not to go based on their -- and it all happens, as you know, overnight. I mean farmers are more informed about foreign policy than most foreign policy experts are because -- and so we're trying to -- we're coming up with policies, including transportation connections where we're trying to get to the point where it makes sense for local farmers to supply local markets.

It is cheaper. It is healthier, and it is also -- it also makes more sense for economic growth for us. And there's still a place for genetically modified food in -- particularly in the Sub-Saharan area, and in Africa where they need assistance to be able to grow significantly -- more rapidly and significantly more abundant crops per acre than in fact are going to be grown by organic foods. And so the idea that it's an either/or proposition is not one we think exists.

One of the things that -- my son is -- my number two son. I have one son who is -- who didn't know any better, and he spent a year in Iraq and came back. He's been the attorney general in the state of Delaware. Headline in the paper last November was -- or excuse me, a year ago January was: Biden Most Popular Politician in Delaware - Beau. (Laughter.) True, and he is.

My other son, my number two son who is a lawyer. He is now head of the United States -- the U.S. World Food Program, the largest contributor to the World Food Program of all the programs in the world. And he's spent a lot of time, as has my wife, in Somalia and Ethiopia and Sub-Saharan areas where there is this God-awful drought. And so we have to work with making sure that we're able to have drought-resistance crops, which are genetically modified, that they have a whole range of options to be able to feed themselves because, as you know, those of you who followed and were as involved as I have been as a senator and as a citizen in what is going on in Darfur, essentially that's all about arable land. That's all about the effects of climate change and arid ground.

So food security internationally is the second biggest and most important initiative this administration has in its foreign policy because where there is not food, there are wars and instability.

And so -- but what I will do in the interest, if you will give me a card or a name or an address, email, I will give you some of the detailed things we're doing with regard to making organic farming more accessible and available to local communities, which is the single best thing we could do domestically.

Ladies and gentlemen, you've been very kind. Thanks an awful lot. Thanks for your help. I truly appreciate it. Thank you. Thanks a lot. (Applause.)

END 1:54 P.M. EST