BALTIMORE, Md. — Calling the Republican presidential primary “a gift from the lord,” Vice President Joe Biden told House Democrats to stop running away from the party’s record and middle-class agenda as they head into the 2016 campaign season.
“We shouldn’t apologize for what we are for, and we should point out what they are for,” Biden said, referring to the GOP.
Biden addressed Democrats at their annual issues retreat, held at an upscale hotel in the city’s Inner Harbor, where rooms cost as much as $359 per night but average around $200.
His address included a question and answer period with House Democrats. But the press was not allowed to cover it.
Before reporters were ushered out of the room, Biden urged party lawmakers to embrace their agenda and sell it to voters by drawing a contrast with a GOP he said is ignoring the middle class.
“We may have been given a gift from the lord in the presidential race here,” Biden told Democrats, referring to the GOP’s slate of outsider candidates who are leading their party’s nomination fight.
Biden made a veiled reference to Donald Trump, who has pulled out of Thursday night’s GOP debate and is planning a counter event.
“What’s that guy’s name?” Biden joked. “He’s having a fundraiser for veterans tonight.”
Biden acknowledged “a tough past couple of cycles,” but told House Democrats, who would have to win at least 30 seats to take back the majority next year, “there’s a real shot here.”
Few believe House Democrats have any real chance of regaining the House gavel, but the Senate GOP majority is under serious threat from Democrats and the White House is completely up for grabs.
“The best way to win is to run on what we have done and what we stand for and run on what more we have to do to finish the agenda,” Biden said.
“And then contrast that with what they are for, and what they oppose,” Biden added, referring to the GOP. “We don’t do that enough.”
Democrats would benefit, he said, by selling to the voters Obama’s $60 billion plan to fund two years of free community college, paid for with tax increases on the super wealthy.
Biden told Democrats that the group of upper-income taxpayers who would have to pay more money, “does not need it,” and has no plans to invest their money “in any way that will improve the economy and for that we can send every kid to community college for free.”
Biden also defended Obama’s domestic foreign policy practices, including the Iran Nuclear Deal and the Trans Pacific Partnership that most Democrats oppose.
He said Iran nuclear deal will ultimately be judged favorably and he credited Obama for leading the effort to push back Islamic State terrorists in the Middle East.
“You know why it has changed?” Biden said. “It’s changed because the president has finally gotten the attention of Europeans to pony up, because they haven’t done much of anything. Things are changing because of self interest. And when you can take advantage of self interest to move it into a consortium, you can actually do something.”
Biden said the claim that ISIS is advancing and not losing ground, “is simply not accurate.”
Obama will address Democrats on Thursday night.
