President Joe Biden quipped former President Donald Trump should be “locked up” before correcting himself to say “politically.”
Biden made the comment during a stop at the New Hampshire Democratic Party’s headquarters in Concord where staff and volunteers are trying to elect the party’s candidates up and down the ticket in the Nov. 5 election.
“We’ve got to lock him up,” Biden said Tuesday. “Politically lock him up. Lock him out. That’s what we have to do.”
Moments earlier, Biden had been at NHTI, Concord’s community college, where he had underscored the importance of political comity and bipartisanship.
“We’ve gotta get back to the days where you actually can talk to the other team,” Biden told the crowd. “This is not your father’s Republican Party.”
Biden’s speech underscored his work reducing the cost of prescription drugs, but he did go off-script at least once more to emphasize bipartisanship, citing the eulogy he delivered at segregationist South Carolina Republican Sen. Strom Thurmond’s funeral in 2003 as an example.
“Even by the time he left, he had the most racially diverse staff in America,” Biden said of Thurmond. “My generic point is people change, but these guys just keep getting worse. They mean what they say.”
When Biden returned to his script, he did amplify a Health and Human Services Department report published Tuesday that found almost 1.5 million Medicare enrollees saved $1 billion on prescription drugs during the first six months of 2024 because of the Inflation Reduction Act’s out-of-pocket drug price cap and criticized Trump for having “concepts of a plan” regarding healthcare policy. Trump said he had “concepts of a plan” during his only debate with Vice President Kamala Harris last month.
“I’m not letting my Irish get the best of me, but my predecessor, the distinguished former president, he wants to replace the Affordable Care Act with what he calls, he says he prefers a concept of a plan,” Biden said. “I’ve heard that concept of a plan now for almost eight years. A concept of a plan. What the hell is a concept of a? He has no concept of anything.”
Despite Biden’s address being considered an official event, the president appeared alongside socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) in what has been interpreted as an appeal to liberal Democrats two weeks before Election Day. It was scheduled one day after Harris campaigned with former Wyoming Republican Rep. Liz Cheney in her own appeal to members of the GOP who do not like Trump as she attempts to counter a loss of support among black and Latino men.
Sanders’s remarks were preoccupied with policy as opposed to the election, but he did praise Biden and Harris for “having the courage to be the first administration in the history of this country to stand up to the pharmaceutical industry.”
“Under the leadership of President Biden and Vice President Harris, we are making significant progress in taking on the greed of the pharmaceutical industry and lowering prescription drug prices in our country,” the senator said.
“Today, no senior in America is paying over $35 a month for insulin,” he added. “Beginning next year, no senior in America will pay over $2000 a year for prescription drugs, no matter how many drugs they need. And Medicare, despite the fierce opposition of pharma, is for the first time in history negotiating with the drug companies to lower the price of some of the most expensive drugs in America.”
Harris has been seeking to distance herself from her more liberal policy record, including positions she held as recently as her 2020 Democratic presidential campaign, in addition to Biden as voters tell pollsters they do not understand what she stands for. She is not expected to stump with the president again before Election Day.
During an interview with NBC conducted during Biden’s trip to New Hampshire, Harris told the news outlet that she would not be drawn on hypotheticals when asked whether she would pardon Trump if she is inaugurated next January.
“I’m not going to get into those hypotheticals,” she said. “Let me tell you what will help us move on: I get elected president of the United States.”
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During Biden’s stop at the NHDP’s headquarters, he also told the audience, “We must, we must, we must win.”
“This guy is a danger to the Republic,” the president said before referring to his late son. “I ran because Beau knows, and you know in your hearts, if Trump wins, the nation changes.”
