Joe Biden dismissed a jab by 2020 Democratic rival Elizabeth Warren about his enthusiasm for trying to enact legislation in a bipartisan manner.
“I read a speech by one of my — good person — one of my opponents, saying that, ‘You know, Biden says we’re going to have to work with Republicans to get stuff passed.’ I thought, ‘Well, OK — how are you going to do it, by executive order?” the former vice president said at a San Francisco fundraiser Thursday, per a pool report.
“Last time I knew it, a president is not allowed to say, ‘This is how I’m changing the tax structure, this is how I’m changing the environment, this is how —’ you need to actually get a consensus in the constitutional process. And we can unify the country,” said Biden, 77, a Delaware senator for 36 years before two terms as President Barack Obama’s vice president.
His remarks came hours after Warren, a Massachusetts senator, laid into him and another top-tier 2020 Democratic candidate, South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, over what she called delusional thinking about bipartisan cooperation with congressional Republicans.
“Unlike some candidates for the Democratic nomination, I’m not betting my agenda on the naive hope that if Democrats adopt Republican critiques of progressive policies or make vague calls for unity, that somehow the wealthy and well-connected will stand down,” Warren, 70, said in New Hampshire. “Unlike some candidates for the Democratic nomination, I’m not counting on Republican politicians having an epiphany and suddenly supporting the kinds of tax increases on the rich or big business accountability they have opposed under Democratic presidents for a generation.”
Those remarks prompted Buttigieg’s campaign to criticize Warren, saying her message is unnecessarily divisive.
“Sen. Warren’s idea of how to defeat Donald Trump is to tell people who don’t support her that they are unwelcome in the fight and that those who disagree with her belong in the other party,” said Buttigieg spokeswoman and strategist Lis Smith in a statement. “We need to move beyond the politics and divisiveness that is tearing this country apart and holding us back. Pete will be a President who will heal our divides and rally Americans around big ideas to solve the problems that have festered in Washington for too long.”
Polling released this month has shown Warren losing ground to Buttigieg, 37, Biden, and Sen. Bernie Sanders, 78. A national Monmouth University survey released Tuesday found her support at 17%, compared to Sanders’s 21%, and Biden’s 26%.
