Remarks by President Biden and President Obama in a Moderated Conversation with Jimmy Kimmel at a Campaign Reception | Los Angeles, CA
Peacock Theater
Los Angeles, California
7:45 P.M. PDT
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Hey.
Q Wow, what a turnout, you guys. You have any trouble getting over here traffic-wise? (Laughter.)
PRESIDENT BIDEN: Used to be a lot of traffic when I — before I was elected president. Now I notice there’s — we get on the road, and there’s no traffic. (Laughter.)
PRESIDENT OBAMA: It’s amazing. Funny how it works.
Q It’s miraculous.
PRESIDENT BIDEN: (Inaudible) —
Q It’s miraculous.
PRESIDENT BIDEN: — backing up traffic in other lanes. (Laughter.)
Q President Biden, is it satisfying to see that video — to see how wrong Orange Julius Caesar was — (laughter) — about your presidency?
PRESIDENT BIDEN: Well, I could have done nothing and done — done better than he was doing. (Laughter.)
Q Well, you didn’t do nothing. You did a lot of things. (Applause.) And since we’re here, we might as well go through some of them.
Here are a few other things you accomplished that Nostra-dumbass wasn’t able to predict. (Laughter.) You expanded the Affordable Care Act — (applause); you passed bipartisan gun legislation — (applause); you capped prescription drug prices and insulin for seniors on Medicare — (applause); —
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Hey!
Q — you decriminalized cannabis — (applause); you helped make an over-the-counter birth control pill accessible — (applause); you orchestrated a $1.2 trillion infrastructure deal — (applause); you expanded healthcare benefits for veterans — (applause); you drastically reduced student debt; and you pardoned six turkeys, one of whom we know for sure was framed. Not bad for Sleepy Joe. I’ll say that. (Applause.)
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Hey!
Q Not bad at all. And there are other things, too. And there have been many. Which of these accomplishments would you say you’re most proud of?
PRESIDENT BIDEN: Well, you know, when I was the President’s Vice President, we — we talked about how to make the middle class have a shot — a better shot. My dad used to have an expression. He’d say, “Joey, a paycheck is about a lot more than the amount of money being paid. It’s about your dignity. It’s about respect.”
And what we’ve done — and we’ve changed the model from trickle-down economics to the middle out and bottom up, because that way everybody gets a shot. And I think it’s working. We have the strongest economy in the world today. That’s not hyperbole. (Applause.)
PRESIDENT OBAMA: That’s true.
PRESIDENT BIDEN: But I think what we’ve tried to do from the beginning — and it’s a followon from when I was vice president — we tried to give ordinary people an even chance, just a chance. Everybody has a chance. And that’s what’s happening.
And guess what? It’s growing. The economy is growing. People are doing better. We have the highest unemployment — the highest — the lowest unemployment rate in 50 years. We have more people — we’ve had over 50 million people, brand new, hired into the workforce.
You know, my — my son says, “You ought to have a — you know, we all have various short-term descriptions for your jobs — for your — what — what you accomplished. And you should say, ‘Joe jobs,’ because it’s about jobs, about giving people a shot. You give them a shot, they never let you down.” (Applause.)
PRESIDENT OBAMA: There you go.
Q So, President Ob- — President Obama, are there things that President Biden achieved that you wish you had?
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Absolutely. (Laughter.) I — well, the list that you just put forward, you know, that is the kind of thing that we’ve been fighting for for years. I mean —
PRESIDENT BIDEN: You started it all.
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Well, the — the way — (applause). I’ve talked about this before. I’ve talked about this before. At its best, the presidency is a relay race. Right? You take the baton and you run the race. And so, we get the Affordable Care Act started. (Applause.)
But we knew at the time that even though 20 million people were getting health insurance from it who didn’t have it before, there were still some people who were having trouble affording it because we couldn’t fund all the subsidies that a lot of people needed.
Joe comes in, boosts some of the subsidies. That means millions more people are able to access healthcare that’s affordable — (applause) — and they can have some security.
On climate change. We fund clean energy at record levels when we first came into office — Joe and I together. We move forward, in terms of making sure that fuel efficiency standards on — on cars have changed. We get the Paris Accords done.
But that’s not enough to deal with the size and scope of the challenges that we face. Joe comes in, makes historic investments in clean energy. (Applause.)
So, the — I take great pride in what the Biden administration has accomplished. And it’s a reminder that we don’t have to just vote against something in this election. We have somebody to worry about. And there’s a whole agenda that we should be concerned about.
But we can take pride in affirming the extraordinary work that Joe has done. (Applause.) And we want to make sure that we build on that and then pass it on to the next president rather than have a president who wants to reverse the progress that has been made.
PRESIDENT BIDEN: We’ve done a lot of things bipartisan, by the way — the whole idea that we couldn’t get anything done. When I ran the first time, I said I was running for three reasons: to restore the soul of America, to rebuild the middle class, and to bring the country together.
We’ve passed every major piece of legislation we’ve attempted to get done. It’s all been passed. (Applause.) There’s more to do.
Q I do want to talk about that because you did — did say that you were fighting to restore the soul of America. And lately, it seems like we might need an exorcism. Is that why you visited the Pope? (Laughter.)
PRESIDENT BIDEN: Yeah. (Laughter.)
Look, the — the truth is that the way in which we communicate with people these days, there’s very little — there’s so much opportunity to just lie and come across as if you have a — if you have a source, you alwa- — just one source you go to and — for your news, you can — it’s just easy to convince people that that’s the only truth that’s out there.
The fact of the matter is we have to make sure that we get the message out. And that’s what we’re doing. I just came back from what they call the G7 — all the European countries and Japan — (applause). And, you know, we’re in a situation where they — I — I promise you, not because of me but because of America, they have enormous faith in America — enormous faith in America. And — (applause) — no, I really mean it.
We have to keep in mind: There’s not a damn thing we can’t do when we set our mind to do it and do it together. Not a single solitary thing. (Applause.)
Q Is this country suffering from what they call “Trump amnesia”? I mean, why do so many Americans seem to remember the Trump administration the same way we do a colonoscopy? Like, we know what happened (inaudible). (Laughter.)
PRESIDENT BIDEN: All they got to do is remember what it was like. You know, what he did with — remember the pandemic? He said, “Don’t — don’t worry, just inject a little bleach in your body.” (Laughter.)
Q That worked for me, by the way. I do want to —
PRESIDENT BIDEN: Well —
Q What’s fair is fair.
PRESIDENT BIDEN: By the way, it worked for him. It colored his hair. (Laughter.)
Look, all kidding aside. And on a very serious note, the fact is that, you know, we had well over a million people die — die. For every person who died, there are — all the data shows there eight people who are left behind — eight people of consequence — that profound negative impact on the economy, a profound negative impact on the attitudes in America. And we’re just getting out of it.
And one of the things we did was — I’m very proud — we brought an end to the pandemic. We’re continuing to move in healthcare. (Applause.) We have more people, I’m sure now, than any time in American history in healthcare — more time than any time. (Applause.)
So, there’s — there’s just an awful lot we’ve done. And for — for example, I get criticized for debt forgiveness for 400 — you know, for 45 million people. (Applause.)
Well, guess what? These are people who’ve continued to work for their country. They’ve — they’re social workers, police officers, all those folks who worked 10 years. And when the Supreme Court said, “No, you can’t forgive the debt,” then I went back and looked at what existed that didn’t — wasn’t being used. And it said if you’re engaged in 10 years of paying your debt back and you, in fact, are doing social — socially positive things — and they define those — from police officers to schoolteachers, you can have your debt forgiven after 10 years. (Applause.)
Well, guess what? That didn’t cost the economy. It grew the economy. It grows the economy. (Applause.) They decided to be able to put their lives back together again.
There’s just so much — so many possibilities we have. And — and the next four — anyway. (Inaudible.)
Q I think all you have to really remember about the Trump years is that we ran out of toilet paper. (Laughter.) Like, he promised to make America great again. And the next thing you know, we are wiping ourselves with envelopes. (Laughter.)
PRESIDENT BIDEN: Well, I tell you what —
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Is that how you handled it, Jimmy? I — (laughter).
Q It was rough. Manilla, too. It was a — it was a tough time. (Laughter.)
PRESIDENT BIDEN: Well, look, I’ve never — we — we’ve never seen administration — look, he’s the only president other than Herbert Hoover who lost more jobs than he started off with when he became president.
He has — he has increased the national debt by a trillion dollars. He provided a $2 trillion tax cut for the super wealthy, which has done nothing but increase the debt and it — very little impact on ordinary people and their ability to, you know, fun- — function and — and grow.
They’re — I don’t — I didn’t see anything he’s done that hasn’t been centered — centered on what is good, from his perspective, for him.
And — but, look, we got a lot of work to do it. And a lot that —
Q What do you say to — and there are many people in this situation — a lifelong Republican who doesn’t want to vote for Donald Trump but cannot imagine voting for a Democrat?
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Well, look, I think part of what has happened over the last several years is we’ve normalized behavior that used to be disqualifying. Right? (Applause.)
We had the spectacle of the nominee of one of the two major parties sitting in court and being convicted by a jury of his peers on 34 counts. (Applause.) You have — his foundation is not allowed to operate because it was engaging in monkey business and not actually philanthropic work.
You have his organization being prosecuted for not paying taxes. Set aside all the other stuff he says —
PRESIDENT BIDEN: He paid none.
PRESIDENT OBAMA: And what I would say and what I do say to a bunch of good people out there who are conservatively dispo- — predisposed, who may not agree with everything that Joe or I or other Democrats stand for is that there was a time when we had certain core values that we agreed with — (applause) — that we believed in basic honesty. We believed in paying your taxes. We believed in making sure that we didn’t make fun of POWs, that we did not try to politicize our military, that we respected the ballot.
And, you know, I — I do think that when we’re talking to people who may not agree with every aspect of the Democratic agenda — and, by the way, what did Will Rogers say about Democrats: We’re not a member of an organized political party. We’re Democrats. (Laughter.)
We have a lot of differences in our own party. And that’s healthy. (Applause.) But there are certain standards and values as Americans that we should all abide by. Joe Biden has stood for those values and continues to and the other guy doesn’t. (Applause.) And that in and of itself is something that we can’t ignore or pretend is a difference that doesn’t exist.
PRESIDENT BIDEN: Jimmy, look, remember, when I got elected, they said we wouldn’t get anything major passed. We passed a bill relating to the environment that provided for $368 billion with — we got bipartisan support to get it done. (Applause.)
We found ourselves in a position where veterans were not getting rewarded for what they — the pain they undertook. The — and so, we able to pass the — the PACT Act — (applause) — and put a million veterans that exposed — when we fought like hell to get coverage for Agent Orange and — and all the — the thing my son died from from being exposed to a burn pit for a year in Iraq. Well, guess what? We got it passed. We got support from the Republicans.
And guess what? Everybod- — a million veterans now and their families are being taken care of. We only have one sacred obligation to them. (Applause.)
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Well — and — and, Joe, you also – for those Republicans who are trying to figure out what to do in this next election and are concerned, for example, about challenges at the border and immigration, it turns out that there was a bipartisan solution to help create a more orderly border and a more lawful system of immigration that the nominee of the other party decided to tank because he wanted it as an issue in this next election rather than to actually solve a problem.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Boo —
PRESIDENT OBAMA: And that — that kind of gamesmanship- — no, don’t boo. Vote. (Applause.)
The — but — but that’s a good example of the kind of work that the Biden administration has been willing to engage in, which is to work with those who are willing to work on behalf of improving the quality of life for the American people. And that’s what you should expect from your president. (Applause.)
PRESIDENT BIDEN: For 30 years, I fought — and as did Barack when he was a senator — to take on Big Pharma. They were significantly overcharging people for risk- — for prescript- — for prescription drugs.
I can take you on Air Force One — you have a prescription — I can fly to any major capital in the world and get you that prescription for 40 to 60 percent less than you pay here.
And so, what we did — we finally beat them. We finally got to the point where, for example, those of you who know someone who has diabetes and needs — and need the insulin, it used to cost an average 400 bucks a month. It now costs $35 a month. (Applause.)
But the point is — and guess what? It’s alre- — it’s already passed the law. They tried to repeal it again. But it’s already passed. Another provision that is beginning next calendar year: No senior will be in a position where they have — no matter how many prescription bills they have, they’ll never have to pay more than $2,000 a year because — (applause) — prescription drugs now for cancer cost $10-, $12,000.
The point being that there’s so much progress we’ve made and he wants to get rid of it all. He just doesn’t seem to care about what happens to ordinary people.
Q I would love to go on that trip with you on Air Force One where we fly around the world. (Laughter.)
PRESIDENT OBAMA: I — I was worried that Jimmy was going to take — try and take you up —
Q Yeah, we’ll just go —
PRESIDENT OBAMA: — on that offer. But —
Q We buy prescription drugs in different countries. I’m in — (laughter) — I mean, if that’s a real thing.
PRESIDENT BIDEN: Well, by the way, it’s — I know — I know it sound — it sounds funny, but it’s true. (Laughter.) It’s literally true.
Q Great.
PRESIDENT BIDEN: Literally true. (Laughter.) So, jump on board, man. (Laughter.) I just —
Q It could be a great travel show —
PRESIDENT BIDEN: I — I —
Q — for us. (Laughter.)
PRESIDENT BIDEN: I just flew through nine time zones to get here. (Laughter.)
Q I do want to talk about the Affordable Care Act and what an incredible achievement and how grateful so many people are — (applause) — myself included.
You know, our son had an open-heart surgery — three of them. And these lifetime caps that these insur- — and these preexisting conditions that these insurance companies put on people who buy insurance from them are something that I feel like almost 100 percent of Americans agree are crazy.
PRESIDENT BIDEN: I think they do.
Q I think they do, too. And I think when they — when they see it in practice, when they — when it’s their neighbor or their child or someone who is close to them or someone they work with, then it becomes real to them.
And yet, you hear every Republican believes — at least states publicly that they want to do away with this Affordable Care Act that you, President Obama, started and that you, President Biden, expanded.
Why do they want to get rid of such a popular program? Wouldn’t it be, in a way, just hurt- — wouldn’t they be hurting themselves politically if they did?
PRESIDENT BIDEN: Well, I don’t — I don’t know if they figured that out. But it would be hurting the nation significantly.
And look, there are millions of people who have a preexisting condition who would not be able to get any coverage were it not for the fact this guy started it with the Affordable Care Act. (Applause.)
And I was able — and I was able to expand it to — and save another 8,000 buck — 800 bucks a year for them.
But here’s the deal. The fact is that these guys don’t seem to care. They somehow — and, by the way, it’s not — it’s saving the country money. It’s not wasting money. All the cost — it would — if — this — if it — what — what’s — it’s about, I guess, 40 million people would be affected.
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Millions of people would be affected. And the reason that the Republicans say they’re opposed to it is because we did it — (laughter) — which, you know, is —
PRESIDENT BIDEN: Well, by the way —
PRESIDENT OBAMA: — seems to be sort of a pattern.
PRESIDENT BIDEN: — it’s because it has your name on it. It had your name on it. That’s what it is.
PRESIDENT OBAMA: You know, which I never minded, I have to say. (Laughter.) I was like, “I am happy to call it Obamacare. Please do.” (Applause.)
PRESIDENT BIDEN: It is because of you.
PRESIDENT OBAMA: You know, I — I didn’t really understand how that was an insult. (Laughter.) But — but listen, there’s a reason why they didn’t actually get rid of it.
Q What?
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Because they don’t have anything to replace it with, and they know they don’t. (Applause.)
But this is the kind of phony performative politics that has become the currency these days. And you, Jimmy, like so many families all across the country, understand that, at some point, politics is not just a performance. It’s not just who wins, who gets the spoils. At its best, politics, at some point, is how we come together to actually solve problems. And these are personal problems.
PRESIDENT BIDEN: Exactly.
PRESIDENT OBAMA: They — the — this is a child being able to grow up. This is somebody not losing their house when they get sick. (Applause.) There — there are moments where we say: All right, we go through an election. Somebody wins, somebody loses — although that, too, apparently, is being challenged. (Laughter.) And then we get to the business of actually trying to get something done for the people who sent us there.
That’s what Joe Biden has consistently done. (Applause.) He goes about his business to try to deliver for the people who put him into office and gave him this extraordinary privilege, which is why, now that we’re at the next election, we’ve got to make sure that everybody out there is working just as hard to sustain the progress that’s already been made. (Applause.)
PRESIDENT BIDEN: Can I say one more thing?
In the second term — when I originally dealt with taking on Big Pharma, I cut the price, for instance, for example, for everybody. Republicans gathered the votes to knock out — they couldn’t stop me from getting it for el- — for the elderly, but they knocked out everybody else.
Barack, I’m coming back. Next four years, I’m going to — it’s going to be available to everybody.
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Absolutely.
PRESIDENT BIDEN: Everybody. (Applause.)
Q After Billy had his open-heart surgery, President Biden, you were very nice to send a letter — a card and a little stuffed Commander dog to Billy, which he loves very much, and he thinks is very special. Unfortunately, little stu- — little Commander bit Billy’s toe off — (laughter) — and —
PRESIDENT BIDEN: I’m sorry about that.
Q — now he needs more healthcare —
PRESIDENT BIDEN: (Inaudible.)
Q — which thanks to President Obama —
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Fortunately, he’s covered.
Q — he is covered for. (Laughter.) So, thank you and oops, I guess, is what I’m trying to say.
So, it’s been almost two years since the largely Trump-appointed justices in the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. And —
AUDIENCE: Boo —
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Don’t hiss. Vote.
Q They’re not booing. They’re saying “Roe.” (Laughter.)
These threats to abortion rights, to women’s rights, to — even to birth control and IVF are not in our liberal imaginations anymore. They’re very real. And these decisions — these very personal, intimate decisions are now being made by nine unelected judges, one of whom flies his flag upside down. The other one — one of the others drives around in a $267,000 gift on vacations.
And I think we are all wondering: What can we do about this?
PRESIDENT BIDEN: Elect me again. (Applause.) And I’ll tell you why. No, I’m not just saying — the next president is likely to have two new Supreme Court nominees. Two more. Two more. He’s already appointed two that are — have been very negative in terms of the rights of individuals.
The idea that, if he’s reelected, he’s going to appoint two more flying flags upside down is really — I’m — I really mean it. There’s —
Q Could this be — could this be the scariest part of all of it?
PRESIDENT BIDEN: Well, I think it is one of the scariest parts of it.
Look, the Supreme Court has never been as out of kilter as it is today. I mean never. I taught constitutional law for nine years. This guy knows more about it than most.
Look, the fact of the matter is that this has never been a court that’s been this far out of step. Taking — and not — and, by the way, when we said after the — after the — the decision that overruled Roe v. Wade, the Dobbs decision, you had Clarence Thomas talking about the fact that there are going to be other things we should reconsider, including in — in vitro fertilization, including contraception, including all these things.
And they’re — they’re going — they’re —
AUDIENCE MEMBER: (Inaudible.)
PRESIDENT BIDEN: — and they’re going — and, by the way —
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Including — sa-
PRESIDENT BIDEN: — by the way —
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Including same-sex marriage.
PRESIDENT BIDEN: — gay rights.
But, by the way, not on my watch. (Applause.) Not on my watch.
PRESIDENT OBAMA: There you go.
But, Jimmy, I want to — I want to just emphasize this point. At the end of the day, the power of the Supreme Court is determined by appointments. It is determined by elections. And so, you know, what we’re seeing now is a byproduct of, in 2016, there were a whole bunch of folks who, for whatever reason, sat out. They said, “Well, we’re not enthusiastic enough. We’re not feeling inspired enough. Why bother?”
And hopefully, we have learned our lesson because these elections matter in very concrete ways. (Applause.) And we’re now seeing how much it matters when it comes to the Supreme Court.
Q There are so many crazy things. Why do you think — why does it seem like so many people are embracing conspiracy theories over facts? Like, 20 years ago, if you said JFK was coming back from the dead to reclaim the White House, they’d lock you in an asylum. Now you get a podcast network out of it. (Laughter.) Why is this happening?
PRESIDENT BIDEN: Well, look, they are no editors anymore. One of the things — I’m not blaming the press. The press is being victimized as well.
You have a circumstance where — think about it. Where do you get — you have a significantly fewer number of people reading the mainstream press. Most people get their news from some site on the Internet. So much of it on the Internet is absolutely a flat-out lie. And it’s hard for people to get what the facts are. It’s hard for people to di- — discern.
There’s nobody — and — and there’s no editors at all saying, “You can’t say that. That’s not true.” There used to be a lot more of that that existed. So, it’s just much easier to just flat-out lie, number one.
Number two, there was a recent study done by a- — about or by New York Times about their polling data. It shows that — as I remember — this is in the last couple of days — that the significant number of people who — the people who voted the last two times who vote on regular basis, we’re winning by somewhere between 10 and 14 points. For those people who haven’t voted, when you cou- — and they have voted at all, they — it comes be- — it gets down to a couple-point lead.
The point is that it matters — it — it’s hard to poll anymore as well. You know, you have to make — I don’t know what it is — 36 — there’s 40 calls to get one person to respond. No- — hardly anybody has hardlines anymore. It’s all on cell phones.
So, it’s get — it — it’s —
Q You’re blaming caller ID for this? (Laughter.)
PRESIDENT BIDEN: No, I’m — what — what I’m blaming is the failure of us to be able to organize in a way that allows us to get a clear picture of what people are thinking. And that’s understandable.
But here’s the bottom line. For me, there’s one reason to be President of the United States: to do what I believe. My father used to say, “You have to be a man of conviction and do what you say.” And so, I’m going to say — I’ve laid out exactly what I’ll do. (Applause.) If the people like it, that’s fine. If they don’t, fine. But I know what I think I have to get done. (Applause.)
Q It’s — and that — you know what? That is, I think, especially a great message with Father’s Day tomorrow. My father is here, and the only thing he ever really told me, from an advice standpoint is: When in doubt, order a hamburger. (Laughter.)
PRESIDENT OBAMA: That’s pretty good advice, though. (Laughter.)
PRESIDENT BIDEN: My father would say three or four things. My dad was a — was a really good man. He was — he never got to go to college. He got accepted to college during the war. He never got to go, but he was a very well-read guy.
And my dad used to say — there were four things he would repeat all the time. First one was, “You got to be man of your word. Without your word, you’re not a man.” And — and talking to me or my — (applause). No, I — no, I — I mean it.
The second was that — and I think I told you this, Barack — that when I was — he — he would show up — when he was alive, show up at the campaign things I was doing. And I was up for a reelection effort in the late ‘90s for the Senate. And he showed up, and I looked out at this little pond we build a house on, and I said, “I really wish my deceased wife could have seen it because she loved the water.”
And so, he left and came back and he had a — he had a cartoon. He went up to a strip shopping center for — a Hallmark card place. And he came back with a — a cartoon of Hägar the Horrible. And there was two — there were two frames, and it was framed. There were two — two picture frames. One, Hägar’s Viking ship was struck by lightning. He’s looking up at God and saying, “Why me?” And the next frame, a voice from Heaven comes back, “Why not?”
My father would say, “What makes you special to think it’s not going to happen to you? Just get up. Just get up. Get up.”
And the third thing he’d always say was — (applause) — “A job is about lot more than a paycheck. It’s about your dignity. It’s about respect. It’s about being able to look your kid in the eye and say, ‘Honey, it’s going to be okay’ and mean it. Give people a chance. Just a chance. That’s all they’re looking for.” (Applause.)
Q Your father was some guy. I just thought of another thing my father used to say: Pull my finger. (Laughter.)
President Obama, I have a Father’s Day question for you.
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Yes.
Q Who would make a better president: Sasha or Malia? (Laughter.)
PRESIDENT OBAMA: You know what? That is a question I do not need to answer because Michelle drilled into them so early that you would be crazy to go into politics. (Laughter.) It will never happen.
Q President Obama, what goes through your mind —
PRESIDENT BIDEN: By the way, before you leave his daughters.
Q Oh, you want to weigh in on Sasha and Malia?
PRESIDENT BIDEN: No, no. I — I — I do. They’re incredible women. And guess what? When Barack came to Washington, they went to the same school my granddaughters went to. I think it’s fair to say their two closest friends are Finnegan Biden and Maisy Biden.
Matter of fact, my number three granddaughter just got back after spending a month at your place in Hawaii. They’re each other’s best friends.
So, I tell you what. They’re — they are powerful young women. (Applause.)
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Fair. This is true.
Q Just up back to the truth and people saying things that just are brazenly false. President Obama, what goes through your mind —
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Yeah.
Q — when that President Don-ye West says that — (laughter) — he’s done more for Black people than any president since Abraham Lincoln? Do you agree?
PRESIDENT OBAMA: You know, it — it doesn’t actually go through my mind. I sort of leave it aside. Although, one thing he did, for example, for Black people was make them feel even better about the first Black president. (Applause.) Because they said —
PRESIDENT BIDEN: Hey. That’s a fact.
PRESIDENT OBAMA: (Inaudible.)
Q You know, the reason that — listen, we’re here tonight. We love you both. And we’re very grateful for everything you’ve done for this country and for all of us. (Applause.)
But I think the biggest reason we all came here tonight and people paid to see this is because we are scared. We are fearful. And, in particular, I mean, like, for me — like what are — you’re both — you’ve both been in the White House for quite some time. What are some things a president can do to, let’s say, a talk show host who has been making fun of him every single night? (Laughter.) Like —
PRESIDENT BIDEN: You ever hear of Delta Force?
Q Asking for a friend.
(Laughs.) What’s that?
PRESIDENT BIDEN: You ever heard of Delta Force?
Q Yeah. (Laughter.)
PRESIDENT BIDEN: That’s what we can do for you.
Q That’s a real thing and not just a TV show? (Laughter.)
PRESIDENT BIDEN: Not just a TV show.
Q Oh, yeah.
PRESIDENT BIDEN: The idea that they’re threatening — I mean, the idea that he’s actually threatening retribution. This is the United States of America. Did you ever think you’d ever, ever, ever hear anything like this? Retribution — that’s what he’s going to do. He’s going to get back at people. And I — it just — I don’t want to get going.
Q Yeah. (Laughter.)
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Look, at the end of the day, for all the flaws, all the ups and downs that we go through in this country and our democracy, the way the system is set up is that if people come together and they express their best values, the better angels of their nature, at the ballot box, then we are going to do just fine. (Applause.)
If people have the right information — if those who are listening, those who are in the audience are out there talking to their friends and their neighbors and, you know, their Uncle Jimmy, who’s a little crazy. (Laughter.) But, you know, he’s come — he’s come over and he starts spouting facts and you respectfully provide the actual truth.
Q Why does he have to be Uncle Jimmy?
PRESIDENT OBAMA: I just decided. (Laughter.)
PRESIDENT BIDEN: By the way, one of the important —
PRESIDENT OBAMA: It — if young people reengage and — and aren’t cynical about the process but say, “I have agency and I can change how things work to make sure that it’s working for my generation and for future generations” — (applause) — if those things happen, then Joe Biden is going to be reelected President of the United States. (Applause.) Kamala Harris will be reelected as Vice President of the United States. (Applause.) Jimmy Kimmel will be safe to continue to do his show. (Applause.)
And — you know, and — and I’ll be able to do what ex-presidents are supposed to do, which is not hang out with Jimmy Kimmel. (Laughter.)
So —
PRESIDENT BIDEN: By the way, one thing is —
PRESIDENT OBAMA: — let’s get to work.
PRESIDENT BIDEN: — institutions matter. And this President, what he did on January the 6th, he’s — do you hear what he’s saying now? He said if he doesn’t win, there’ll be a “bloodbath.” It’s outrageous what he’s talking about. Outrageous. We must make the institutions work. (Applause.)
Q It’s like a movie. It’s — sometimes, it doesn’t even feel real.
Well, I — we are — unfortunately, we are out of time. But on behalf of the Presidents, we want to thank you guys for coming. I know that they say in L.A. — (applause) — we are a bunch of out-of-touch celebrity elitists, but I also know there are teachers and doctors and nurses and hardworking blue-collar people in this room — (applause) — none of whom inherited a real estate empire from their slumlord father. (Laughter.)
We’ve got our governor, Governor Newsom, here. Our mayor, Karen Bass, is here.
PRESIDENT BIDEN: Hey.
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Hey.
Q All people who are working hard to make this a better place. And that is what makes me optimistic about the future.
Thank you for coming. And we’ll see you in traffic. Thanks, everybody.
PRESIDENT OBAMA: All right, everybody —
Q Thank you, Mr. Presidents.
PRESIDENT BIDEN: Thank you, thank you, thank you.
PRESIDENT OBAMA: — let’s get to work!
8:21 P.M. PDT
###
