← The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell
The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell
Biden shares 'serious concern' for U.S. democracy in Oval Office interview with Lawrence O'Donnell
00:50:27
MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell joins Pres. Joe Biden in the Oval Office to discuss the Israel-Hamas cease-fire agreement, the Biden presidency, his warning about an oligarchy taking shape in America, and much more.
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- [00:00]
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Every day, thousands of Comcast engineers and technologists create connectivity solutions that change the way we work, live and play. Like Kunle, a Comcast engineer who is focused on revolutionizing the in home WI Fi experience today. And for the next generation, Kunle builds powerful Xfinity WI Fi devices that deliver a fast, reliable connection with capacity to connect hundreds of high bandwidth devices at once and next level latency for the applications of the future like augmented and virtual reality and cloud gaming. Learn more@comcastcorporation.com wifi the last thing you.
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Lawrence O'Donnell
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Lawrence O'Donnell
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- [00:53]
Kunle
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Lawrence O'Donnell
Earlier this evening, President Biden gave us his final interview as President of the United States. We were working with a tight time limit because the next thing on the President's schedule was a national security meeting. In fact, by the end of the interview, which President Biden allowed to go well over the time limit, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan was waiting for the President to leave. Despite the extra time, we did not get to many of the questions that I spent days writing for this interview. The news cycle pays attention to President's public statements. History pays attention to their decisions. Those decisions are not made in public. I went into the Oval Office today hoping to illuminate how this President made some of the most important decisions of his presidency, knowing that with the time limit, we wouldn't be able to get to all of the important decisions of his presidency. Here is that Oval Office interview unedited in its entirety. We're ready.
- [01:59]
Joe Biden
Yep.
- [02:00]
Lawrence O'Donnell
Okay. Mr. President, thank you so much for bringing us in here today to be able to have this discussion. Really appreciate it. I want to begin where you left off in this room last night. I know you couldn't see me. I was way behind the cameras in the back of the room there under Mr. Lincoln, getting my peek at it. But I could see what America couldn't see. I could see your family, the Vice President on that side of the room. I could see the first lady and the Vice President holding hands as you were thanking them for everything they brought to your work here. When you got up from that desk last night, that was really the final big public moment in a 50 year political career. Yeah, that's how long it was. You've served in government longer than any person who's ever served in this job. What did that feel like? At the end of that speech, we were pushed out of the room as people were surrounding you, hugging you. And as that emotion was filling the room, the. But was there a sense of the release of a burden getting up from that desk?
- [03:17]
Joe Biden
No, but there was a sense that. Of serious concern. You've known me a long time. I really am concerned about how fragile democracy is. That sounds. But I mean, I really, really am concerned because you've heard me say it a hundred times. I really think we're at an inflection point in history here. We're unrelated to any particular leader. Things are going to change drastically, and it occurs every five or six generations, and it usually is generated by technology. Usually generated by. I mean, for example, if Gutenberg didn't invent the printing press, how that would Europe ever gotten united in any way to understand what each country is thinking? I mean, it sounds stupid, but it really matters. And what I realize is that, look, I got involved and then think about it this way, but I got involved in public life because of the abuse of power. I mean, my dad would say, you know, the greatest sin of all is the abuse of power. And I was raised in a circumstance where, like, I used to always talk about how the worst thing ever happened to me was I used to stutter when I was a kid. And you really get made fun of when you talk like that. But I realized maybe it was the greatest gift I ever got because there's so many people who are in circumstances where they have something that they're dealing with that's beyond their immediate control. And I watched how I was a runt when I was a kid. I was a small kid. I was a pretty good athlete all the time, but I was. And, you know, I learned how to fight when I didn't want to fight. But when you get made fun of, you learn to step up. But what it did was it made me realize that there's so damn many bullies around. And I now extrapolate that all the way to democracy. Reason for all the safeguards out there is in a very trite way to say, keep the bullies from taking advantage of everybody else. They're basic guardrails. And I think that this concentration of enormous wealth and power in a circumstance where everything's changing and the biggest thing that's changing is how we communicate with one another. I mean, all kidding aside, did you ever think get to the point where you weren't sure who the editors were? Who's out there saying, no, you can't print that. You can't say it's not true. I mean it's like. And when, and when the multi. And when people aren't participating in paying their fair share, I have no problem with people making millions of dollars. For God's sake, pay your fair share and in taxes and participation. And so I don't know, I just think things are at a point where it's awful hard to. I've had four of your colleagues the last four years tell me they're worried they're going to be real serious players like you, not you, but your caliber. Worried about whether or not they're going to be held accountable for telling the truth. When the hell's that ever happened in America? I mean, a long time. So I guess what I'm worried about is that the thing that keeps it on track are the guardrails. There's a Supreme Court that's independent but not but accountable. There is a Congress that you speak your mind but you're held accountable to basic standards. There's a presidency that says you have really limited powers. I mean you're the top dog, but you're not, you can't dictate everything. And I don't know, they seem to just seem to be chipping away at all those elements.
- [07:51]
Lawrence O'Donnell
Last night you issued the warning about the power of the tech industrial complex, an echo of President Eisenhower in this very room in his farewell address. The warning about the military industrial complex. And you said that an oligarchy is taking shape that threatens our entire democracy, our basic rights and freedoms, and a fair shot for everyone to get ahead. How does this oligarchy affect people out there who've never used the word oligarchy? The people who you're saying might not get a fair shot because of the way this is going.
- [08:29]
Joe Biden
Look, if the decision is made that the multi billionaires, the super super wealthy, the wealthiest people in the world begin to control all the apparatuses from the media to the economy, then who do I get to fight back for me? Who do I get to. I mean, look, I think everybody deserves this. A shot, not a guarantee, just a shot. How the hell can you make it in society today if you don't have access to an education, don't have access to adequate health care? You don't have access to the opportunity to have a job that you can handle where you can make ends meet? I mean, one of the things I think there's two things I'm proud of so far. I know they'll last. We changed the basic formula of how to make an Economy work, the trickle down stuff about, well, let the people go out and make a lot of money and the benefits will flow from that, will trickle down to middle class and working class people. My dad used to say not a whole lot ever trickled down his kitchen table. And so, you know, what I did was when I got, I admit to you, I didn't know if Pat Moyn had been around, I could have just asked him, he could have told me. But that back in the early 30s when Roosevelt was trying to protect unions from being overrun by corporate America, they passed a law that said that when a president is given money by the Congress, he should spend that money hiring American people to do what needed to be done and using American products. It's been honored in a breach. So we focused on that. That's why I worked so damn hard to give unions more power, to give unions the ability to negotiate. And I think that what we did is we invested more in America. That's why the Chips and Science Act. Well, hell, we invented the damn things. We modernize them. We used to have 40% of the market. But what happened? Corporate America and a lot of politicians decided that let's find the cheapest labor we can find in the world to build these little chips about the size of the tip of my finger and then import them. So we'll pay a hell of a lot less to have them made. And then we'll import them. And we import them, we make more money because we're paying a hell of a lot less for them. Well, guess what? This thing called supply chains, when pandemic hit, it hit the whole world and it hit everyone from Taiwan to Asia to all across Japan, all the places where they made these chips or started to make these chips. Korea, guess what you found out. You need about 300 of them to build a new car. Well, you can't build new cars now. So guess what? The price of automobiles went through the roof. The cell phone you have, you know, needed a chip. You need a chip for a weapon. You need a chip for everything. And so I just thought we weren't fighting to get in the game again, to be the leader in the world on economic initiatives. And not that we weren't going to share it with anybody, but that we were not going to allow people to cut us off. And so when that happened, everything I did, I made sure that we were making sure that we're spending the money hiring. If we're going to build a bridge, hire American workers. You're going to build a bridge, Use American steel use the things that grow the American economy. We weren't growing the economy. So when I talk about what's going on in terms of these, you know, the investments that are being made, the investments are made. Find the cheapest labor anywhere in the world, bring it home, find the cheapest way to spend it, to engage it, and make the most money it can. Well, guess what? It just, it really damages America's ability, any country's ability to compete anyway.
- [12:48]
Lawrence O'Donnell
You have had the busiest last week as president than any president since Jimmy Carter. Both engaged in the same thing, a hostage released negotiation which seems to have succeeded. Did you have any discussions about the ceasefire negotiations with the President elect, Trump, this week or last week as the deal was coming to a close?
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Joe Biden
No.
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Lawrence O'Donnell
Have you discussed it with him at all since the election?
- [13:19]
Joe Biden
No. Very, very briefly. When he came in here, I spent two hours with him to try to change the nature of the transfer of power. So it was done peacefully and I told him what I was doing, what I thought could happen. But what we did, we brought in the people, or his going to be his national security people. We brought them in closer to tell them what was happening. As we hand this off, look, the idea that we're going to be in a situation where we could continue to have the chaos in the Middle east without the running the risk of starting a regional war, it's really, really not possible. And the idea that Israel is going to be able to sustain itself for the long term without accommodating the Palestinian question and their safety there, meaning the safety of American Jews, not possible, it's not going to happen. So I've been spending a lot of time the last four years with the Egyptians, the Qataris, with the Saudis, with Arab countries to talk about what is their interest, why isn't their interest to see this change, this dynamic change. And I kept reminding my friend, and he is a friend, although we don't agree a whole lot lately, Bibi Netanyahu, that he has to find a way to accommodate the legitimate concerns of a large group of people called Palestinians, who have no place to live independently. And so how do you deal with those things? So I did really put together, if it doesn't work, I got to take the blame for it. A plan with my national security team. But I believe that we could make it attractive to the Arab world as well as to the Jewish community to accommodate the kind of changes necessary, get the prisoners released, get a ceasefire, move in a direction where we agreed how this was going to work and How Israel's troops were going to move, how we're going to bring in rebuilding the Gaza Strip and the economy, how we're going to clean all this up, how we're going to protect Israel. In the meantime, what we were able to do, and I know it was very controversial when I did it, we also decided that we were going to protect Israel from outside sources. So when Iran thought it was going to blow Israel off the map, they brought, they had those thousands of missiles heading their way. Well, guess what? We put together, some countries didn't let it happen. Now every one of the people that every one of the countries and the groups like Hezbollah and Hamas, they're all a hell of a lot weaker. Iran is significantly weaker than it was before. Israel is in a situation where it is physically stronger in terms of protecting itself from outside interference from major powers. In addition to that, you have a circumstance where all of a sudden people are beginning to figure out, well, it makes more sense if we work this thing out a little bit. I've been dealing since I got elected with the Saudis about, you know, I introduced when the G20 occurred, a proposal as to how to connect everything from India to England. And because of a natural cord of economic development of agua. And you know, I said, no, that'll never get passed. I started this initiative, used to be called Build back Better, but now it's called PGI Piig Whatever. And because how do you make it in the 21st century with all the changes taking place in technology without having the infrastructure can sustain the changes? And most of these countries are, these countries in Africa, for example, are way in debt and don't have the infrastructure to have the capacity to build the infrastructure. And so that's why, remember when they said, well, we'll never get an infrastructure bill.
- [17:34]
Lawrence O'Donnell
Listen, I said you'd never get an infrastructure bill. With my legislative experience, having worked in the Senate, I didn't see how it was possible with this tiny, smallest Senate majority in history. To this day, it looks like a magic trick to me how you pulled that off.
- [17:50]
Joe Biden
Well, look, the argument I made to the congressmen, senators that has come down is how can you lead the world without having the most modern infrastructure in the world?
- [18:02]
Lawrence O'Donnell
You combined domestic policy and foreign policy in a way that I've never heard another president do.
- [18:08]
Joe Biden
Well, by the way, because it's necessary. There's no way to implement our foreign policy unless we're in terms of our economic policy. We're in a strong position to do it. Look, Lawrence, you're One of the most informed people I know. I'm not being solicit. Well, I shouldn't say that hurt your reputation. But all kidding aside, think about it. How can, if we don't lead the world, who leads the world? What happens? I don't mean dominate. I mean lead the world on basic fundamental principles like the UN Charter, those kind of, who steps up, who has the capacity to do that? We have the size, we have the scope, we have the ability, we have the technology, but we just have to get back in the game. And that's all I've really done, is take an economy that accommodated a foreign policy that allowed us to change the dynamic. For example, I mean, you know, I knew what Putin was doing when he was a massive force. He's not going to go into. I knew what he was going to do. So I.
- [19:18]
Lawrence O'Donnell
When did you know he was going to go in?
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Joe Biden
I knew he was going to go in about three weeks before he amassed those extra troops along the border.
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Lawrence O'Donnell
And when did you decide, when did you make the presidential decision about what your response, this country's response would be because you had to be given a menu. There's a menu, always a menu.
- [19:40]
Joe Biden
But the menu.
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Lawrence O'Donnell
Menu includes doing nothing a lot of times.
- [19:42]
Joe Biden
That's right. There is a menu. But I wrote, I already knew the menu was, you know, look, Henry kissinger called me 10 days before he died and he said, not since Napoleon has Europe not looked over its shoulder at Russia with a sense of dread until now. I started, you know, when Putin said to me he wanted to see the finalization of Europe, I said, I'll tell you what you're going to get. You're going to get the NATOization of Finland. And I was talking to the leaders of Finland as well as Sweden, and I said, look, you guys have a real problem. And I spent over, I think it was, they calculated in the first couple years about 180 hours trying to put NATO back together again, working, I mean, on the phone, in meetings, going on saying, look, we got to do this, because if we don't, what happens? What the hell happens? None of those countries alone can sustain onslaught alone. So we tightened NATO, made it stronger, significantly stronger. And all of a sudden, Putin found himself in a position, well, wait a minute, where the hell I go? They've lost over 670,000 people. I mean, either wounded or dead. Brought in the Chinese, I mean, excuse me, the Korean, North Koreans, they're losing big time, too. It doesn't mean they're going to lose everything, but it Means they're not going to be able to have the kind of wind he thought when I sat down with him in Sweden, I guess it was in Switzerland before we took office. But after we had won and Trive was trying to work out something on nuclear power to see we wouldn't go to space with nu, and we got into this debate about what was Europe going to look like. And it was clear to me, if you read his speech, go back and get the speech he made. Early on, he talks about Kyiv, Aspen, the birthplace of. Of Mother Russia. That is all he wants to do is reestablish the old Warsaw Pact. He wants to establish that control over. I can't let that happen. This guy is not a good guy. He has. I mean, anyway, you made the point.
- [22:16]
Lawrence O'Donnell
In your State Department speech. It was quite striking that you're the one who has walked the middle of Kyiv. Putin never got there. And I'm not sure anyone. I'm sure no one would have predicted of these two leaders, which one is gonna be the first one in Kyiv when this war started. And when this war started, there was a tremendous tension about the possibility of nuclear confrontation, the possibility of Vladimir Putin using nuclear weapons. Did you have any direct communication with Vladimir Putin to deter him from using nuclear weapons?
- [22:54]
Joe Biden
Well, I did. When he started talking about tactical. I said, this guy wants to use tactical nuclear weapons. Oh, I don't want to do that. I don't want to do that. Nuclear weapons. Tactical nuclear weapons in Europe scares the hell out of everybody. Including the Russians. Including the Russians. And so I made it clear to him, look, he said to me that what he wanted was, he wanted to make sure that there were no nuclear weapons in Europe, I mean, in Ukraine, that there was. They weren't a member of NATO and that they would not be. And he started off one of the conversations by saying, I know you can take me out tomorrow. I know you can take me out tomorrow from Ukraine. You can strike Moscow, you can strike. I said, that's not a problem. We've already taken the nuclear weapons out. So it took them all out. There's none there. We're not going to put any back in. And they're not going to become part of NATO until they change their system significantly. We're going to continue to help them grow if we can, but those two things aren't going to happen. But you're not going to win and take them. You're not going to win and claim the area. And you remember, Lawrence, when I said they were going to win, everybody Said, oh, no, that's not going to happen again.
- [24:14]
Lawrence O'Donnell
I didn't think it was going to happen. An expert I know who works in Ukraine told me it's not going to happen. No one here in Ukraine thinks it's going to happen because it seems so irrational for Putin to do that.
- [24:25]
Joe Biden
But listen, but read what he said. Go back. This guy means what he says. He really talked about this being part of Mother Russia. He thinks, yeah. And so it's a little bit like, you may remember, I found myself with the former Pope, who was much more conservative, and he wanted to see me after I spent some time in Poland, because I had said, remember John Rich John, Prague Guy, John. And I went to Poland and I came back and said, they're going to leave the Warsaw Pact. They're not going to be. A year from now, there'll be no, they're not going to be part of NATO. He said, don't write that. You'll ruin your reputation. You'll ruin your reputation. Don't write that. I was confident it was true. You could see when you talk to them what was going on. And the end result was that, okay, what happened now is they pull out. All of a sudden, the whole dynamic changes in Europe. Everything's moving. Remember what was going on in Hungary at the time. Remember Tom Lentos and talking about all. Anyway, the end result was that Europe was beginning to lose its structure. And I was convinced you could build a structure that was economically and politically more open and sound and without getting into a continuing nuclear war. That's why we never put American forces in there. I didn't want him having an excuse to say, we're putting the other major nuclear power in the world. That wasn't the case. And so the end result of it was, it was clear to me what he was going to do. I got the National Security Council to move in a direction where I could use the data without revealing national secrets that they were going to move in. They moved in.
- [26:30]
Lawrence O'Donnell
By the way, you revealed a lot at that time.
- [26:33]
Joe Biden
I did.
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Lawrence O'Donnell
We've never seen anything quite like that. You publicly revealing what you believed the intelligence showed Vladimir Putin was going to do.
- [26:41]
Joe Biden
And the reason why I did is I wanted people to believe me, know what I was talking about. I knew more what I was talking about at that point, because the position I was in than anybody else did. Sure. And I said, he might never do that. I was like, oh, my God. Oh, my God.
- [26:58]
Lawrence O'Donnell
Can I ask you about a decision you made in the middle of this war in Ukraine that no president before you has ever made. And that was a decision to enter a war zone not controlled by US Troops. I am sure there were people who walked into this room and advised you not to do that.
- [27:22]
Joe Biden
Everybody kind of, look, I mean, and.
- [27:27]
Lawrence O'Donnell
I meant for security reasons. The Secret Service could not have been happy the day they heard that.
- [27:31]
Joe Biden
No, I know they were very unhappy, but I didn't think that Putin would dare take out an American president. I was worried, concerned about a radical element within Ukraine that was under the control or working with the Russians might try to do. That's why we went so way out of our way to get the best people to travel in that 10 hour ride in that train. And but I thought it was important that we demonstrate to the rest of the European leaders, stand up, man. We can stand up and do this. We can prevent this from happening. My concern was if we didn't go, we didn't show up. Then who leads? What happens? I didn't think, by the way, I didn't think it was I've got to go to Ukraine, but I think it was important that we treat Ukraine like an independent country. Wanted to talk to them. I wanted them to know that we were with them and it was the best way to do that.
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Lawrence O'Donnell
After this commercial break, we'll resume the unedited interview exactly where we left off.
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Lawrence O'Donnell
All seem the same until it comes time to use it.
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- [30:23]
Kunle
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Lawrence O'Donnell
As I said, the way you blend foreign policy and domestic policy is really been extraordinary. You began your State Department speech this week with material from this which is just being released now. Your report on investing in America. I believe I have the first official public copy of it.
- [30:47]
Joe Biden
You do? My staff told me they gave that.
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Lawrence O'Donnell
And I'm reading in there about one water projects in Alabama and projects around the country that will be done after you leave this office will be worked on after you've left this office for which it is very unlikely they're going to name it the Biden Water project in Alabama. And so there's so much to talk about in terms of just your domestic achievements alone. These are the, this is the largest list of domestic achievements that I can think of, certainly in my lifetime of watching this. But I want to bring this down to something about your presidential decision making in that entire range of domestic policy decisions of which there were so many. And I'm particularly interested in Joe Biden versus Larry Summers. And here's what I mean by that. You're in here as the president of the United States, who we know as Joe from Scranton. And when you are creating your domestic policy response to the COVID pandemic, the stimulus that is going to be necessary for the economy, money that's going to be necessary to ship to put into people's checking accounts, and then all of the domestic infrastructure spending you're doing. Harvard economics professor Larry Summers, former Treasury Secretary, a very well regarded economist around the world is out there arguing these policies are risky. This risks inflation, significant risk of inflation. He warned against inflation very loudly. He also then predicted, when you overruled that particular piece of advice, he then predicted that we would be in a recession eventually, which has not happened.
- [32:30]
Joe Biden
But almost everybody predicted.
- [32:34]
Lawrence O'Donnell
How do you in the presidential position of having to make these decisions when you're hearing prestigious economists like him and other voices out there and possibly people within the administration giving you counter advice to the direction you want to go, how do you then decide to make that decision?
- [32:54]
Joe Biden
To go ahead, Two things. One, look, I looked at the practical need for us to instill some confidence in the American people. We can grow this economy. And one of the biggest pieces of that was invest in America. Everybody thought and I thought Barack was a great president. I was his vice president. We went through some. But remember the argument. Well, I thought we didn't do enough. I thought we didn't invest enough because we were doing the old basic, old economics from the 50s, 60s and 70s.
- [33:31]
Lawrence O'Donnell
But at the time, you did do what you called a very big deal, Obamacare, which was a gigantic, exact achievement.
- [33:40]
Joe Biden
Exactly right. And I did that for two reasons. That was. The president was the leader on that. But we did that for two reasons. One, it was necessary. Look, part of nothing works unless if you conclude the only way to deal with inflation is create unemployment and another recession because we had to make sure that we lost jobs. That's the only way we're going to keep the inflation down. But guess what? I was absolutely convinced. Give the American people half a shot, they'll step up and get the job done if you give them the opportunity. Look what they did. They stepped up in every major endeavor and the idea. And I never believed we couldn't have a soft landing. And a soft landing. Inflation's down almost to 2%, a lot going on. But the first thing we had to do is go out and take care. And I had an advantage and disadvantaged. I had a thing called a pandemic that was so badly handled that we were still dealing with people, thousands of people a day dying in America. Well, first of all, it was rational to spend the money to go take care of that. That was the first big piece of legislation that got passed. And secondly, when I came along and said, look, in addition to that, we can now change the dynamic and invest more in the things that make us who we are. For example, I remember walking through the. I used to commute every day to Delaware, 300 miles a day, basically each. I mean, total round trip and going through the Baltimore tunnel. I'm probably the only guy that's not an engineer that walked through that tunnel. Last piece of work done in that tunnel going under the bay was, I think it was like 19, 17 or 18 or 19 light bulbs hanging down from inside the water, leaking in. I mean, what are we talking about, man? These are things that. And they were going to create jobs immediately. So you start building that tunnel, you're creating thousands of jobs. People are getting paid a good salary. You're generating American product to build it. And look, the other thing, Lawrence, I got a lot of criticism. Understandably, we've invested more in red states than blue states.
- [36:00]
Lawrence O'Donnell
That's in this book, that's in this report.
- [36:02]
Joe Biden
Well, for two reasons. One, red states really screwed up in terms of the way they handle their economy and the way they handle manufacturing. The way they handle access to supply chains. You know, I remember being out in Iowa and I remember one of the big issues was that there was a plant, a small plant, 300 people, been around for 70 years. My grandfather worked there, I worked there, my son works there. And then. And they had the best education system at the time and rated the best state education system in the country. And all of a sudden the kid comes home after he graduated, mom, I gotta leave. There's no job for from here. The factory shut down. Well, guess what? How do you run a country that way? How do you do that? So, for example, that's why I worked so damn hard to get the Chips and Science act done. It brought in billions of dollars in investment. Billions. Now the problem is it's only now starting to see it because it takes time to get it done. But the point is it brought and we ended up bringing a trillion dollars off the sidelines. Not just there, but an investment. I was absolutely convinced. Give the people half a shot at a job where they can make a decent living and you can't deny them the opportunity to form a union to get a good wage, for example, I'm getting. But my point is, I was never bought on to the notion if the only way in 2021 you grow the economy with significantly increase unemployment in order to take control of what we're talking about in terms of inflation, where the hell are we? What happens? But people are now, now there's, we got a lot of work to do yet. But people are now having faith in we can do these things, we can build these, we can build these cars, we can do that. And people are investing in it. And people are taking those jobs and attracting money into the economy. And inflation's going down. We have a lot of problems. We do have a lot of corporate greed still out there in terms of everything from what we do with the basic needs of American people, from eggs to butter to bread to gasoline. But we're also dealing with that. But it seems to me, I don't know how we can be the leader in terms of our national security if we're not also one of the wealthiest countries in the world that funds it all and convinces other people, we're willing to play with them, we're willing to work with them. We're not trying to cut them out, we're going to cut them in anyway. I just think that, and I never bought the argument that it was going to cause a significant, significant recession. Now most of these guys are talking about soft landing. We Got more work to do. But the idea, the way we're going to deal with inflation is create more unemployment.
- [39:12]
Lawrence O'Donnell
That has been a policy choice made by previous presidents.
- [39:16]
Joe Biden
I know, and I think it's been. I thought it was wrong for a long time.
- [39:20]
Lawrence O'Donnell
Yeah. Look, could I ask you about something you've said about your own political approach to this? And that is you said it was stupid as a joke, that you didn't sign the checks that went out to people from your administration when you were giving Covid help after Donald Trump put his name on the checks that went out during his administration. And when I heard that, I believe I know what that was. I believe that you were approaching it exactly the same way the guy over the fireplace, Franklin Roosevelt, approached Social Security checks. First one went out in 1940 when he's running for reelection, and it's signed by the chief dispersing officer of the treasury because it would be indecent and beyond his comprehension that a president would dare take credit for something that was legislated by the Congress and that was enacted that way. And I'm assuming that. Did it cross your mind to put your name on the checks?
- [40:24]
Joe Biden
Only in that I kept being here from other people. The president sent me a check for $7,500. The president did it. Why aren't you helping me? Well, it was a bill we did, but anyway, it did cross my mind. But the mistake we made was, I think I made, was not getting our allies to acknowledge that the Democrats did this. So, for example, a new billion dollar bridge over a river, we'll call it the Democratic bridge, figuratively speaking. Talk about who put it together. Let people know that this was something the Democrats did, that was done by the party. That's different than me writing a check and me signing a check and saying, I did it. I'm not a very good huckster. I mean, you know, it wasn't a stupid thing for them to do. It helped them a lot, and it undermined our ability to convince people that we were the ones that were getting this to them. And so. But I don't think, ironically, I almost spent too much time on the policy, not enough time on the politics, because, I mean, you know, you have some senators in Congress, Democratic senators in Congress, saying, well, you know, Joe Biden did this, and this is done by so and so and so and so. And this is the new, you know, built by the Democratic Party kind of thing, let people know who was responsible for this happening. But it just seems, I know it sounds so stupid to Say it almost. Bad taste.
- [42:12]
Lawrence O'Donnell
Bad taste does not sound stupid. And we've been getting the signal to wrap this up for a while, and so we will. Quick question. When was the first time you said the words ceasefire to Prime Minister Netanyahu?
- [42:27]
Joe Biden
The first time was probably when he moved really hard on the Philadelphia line and took out a hospital. Now, it's true that Sinwar and those guys were hiding underneath the hospital. The thing about Hezbollah, about Hamas, is they had all their facilities underneath. Schools, hospitals, churches. I mean, you know, so you had. And to get them, you had to take people out. Put it this way. Now, I'll just say when I went to Israel immediately after their attack on that one by Hamas, eight days later, whatever it was, and I told him we were going to help, I said, but, Bibi, I said, you can't be carpet bombing these communities. And he said to me, well, you did it. You carpet bomb. Not his exact words, but you carpet bombed Berlin, you drafted nuclear weapons, you killed thousands of innocent people because you had to in order to win a war. But that's why we came up with the UN new deals by which what we would do relative to civilians and military.
- [44:00]
Lawrence O'Donnell
So he was comparing 21st century war tactics, battle tactics, with World War II.
- [44:07]
Joe Biden
Well, what he was really doing was he was going after me for saying, you can't indiscriminately bomb civilian areas. Even if the bad guys are there. Even if the bad guys are there. You can't take out 2, 10, 12, 1500 people, innocent people, in order to get the one bad guy. And he made the legitimate argument, his perspective said, look, these are the guys that kill my people. These are the guys that are all over in these tunnels. Nobody had any idea the miles of tunnels were down there. It's amazing what they built. And they're sometimes 200ft under the ground. Only way to get to them is take out the places where they were under which they got to the tunnels. And so that's the first time I had. First time I had the discussion about bombing civilian areas was when I went over after the 9, 11, after the massacre that occurred.
- [45:07]
Lawrence O'Donnell
So on that first trip, 10, 11 days after October 7th, you already raised the issues of how to get to a ceasefire.
- [45:15]
Joe Biden
Well, not a ceasefire, how to prevent innocent death.
- [45:19]
Lawrence O'Donnell
Yes.
- [45:20]
Joe Biden
And then I pushed really, really hard for more humanitarian aid to go in and ways to get it in. And, bb, look, in fairness to Bibi, he's got a tough coalition too, man. He's got the most conservative cabinet of any Israeli prime minister.
- [45:41]
Lawrence O'Donnell
Ever with that. Did you have reason to believe that the Prime Minister was delaying agreement with a ceasefire for his own politics and with the political knowledge that a ceasefire would, would help your reelection campaign or Vice President Harris's presidential campaign?
- [46:03]
Joe Biden
No, I don't think it had to help. Our campaign versus Trump. I don't think. I don't think that was his calculus, but I do think he's in a position where even now, takes a lot of courage him to take on that coalition he has because they vote him out of office tomorrow. Remember, there was already the big fight about what he was going to do relative to the court. And so in fairness to Beebe, he had enormous political pressure not to do some of the things to do some of the things that in my belief, I thought were counterproductive. My belief I thought were counterproductive.
- [46:41]
Lawrence O'Donnell
Mr. President, I'd like to end this conversation where we began it, which is you last night getting up from that desk. And as I was being hustled out of the room with the rest of the press, I saw your family surrounding you. Vice President. And whenever I see that group and I see that moment with the Biden family, I always see the one who wasn't there. I always see Beau. And I always wonder as I was walking down the hall, what would Beau be saying to his father right now?
- [47:14]
Joe Biden
Look, Beau is a better man than I am. I asked myself a couple times a month, what would Beau do? He was the Attorney General. Who would have been the odds on favor to win the governor, I mean, when he went to Iraq for a year. But I, Bo and Hunter have always had faith in my instincts. What I think you've heard Barack get mad at me when I was a kid all the time. He said, I know, I know, all politics is personal. Yeah, well, it's about understanding what motivates the other guy, other woman, and what their interests are. And I think that let me end it this way. When I ran as a 29 year old kid for the United States Senate against, you know, Caleb Boggs, a really fine guy, a moderate Republican. He was a supporter of the Clean Air Act. And Nixon won my state by only 60%, about 60% of the vote. And I won by 3,100 votes and I threw at 3,800 votes. And everybody say, what's the secret? What's the secret? No, because of the logical thing. Every new candidate, what did you figure out? How'd you do that? You're the first guy to win. And I said, you got to figure out what's worth losing over. What's worth losing over? Don't figure that out. You should get in another business, go make money, do something else. But I think it's important. Another noble about this. I've never proposed something or did something that I believe is a mistake. I made mistakes. But that I believe is just to stay in office. And so I said, all these young new candidates, what's the secret? Said, have you figured out what's worth losing over? All kidding aside, why would you get into this job? What's the value of this job? I mean, president, United States senator, unless you know what you want to change. And I'm convinced that people, it's really important to understand where the other guy's coming from. One of the things I learned when I got to the Senate, how different the interest, the legitimate interest of someone living in Wyoming is than someone living in New Jersey. Different interest. Servers solid Americans. But out in Wyoming, man, you better get more energy. We got more things moving. New Jersey, you better make sure you're dealing with clean air. And so there's real differences among us. We're 50 different states, 50 many countries. And as long as you understand what's motivating the other guy, the other woman, that is based on something that they genuinely believe is an interest of the state, you can work something out. You can sit down and say, okay, look, here's a but if you know it's just done for power or for a special interest, then you don't have to pay attention to it. I'm getting way over my skis here.
- [51:05]
Lawrence O'Donnell
Mr. President, I just can't thank you enough for joining me in this conversation today. Thank you for your 50 years of service. And again, thank you for joining this conversation today.
- [51:16]
Joe Biden
Well, I tell you what, man, I'm really only 40. Anyway, thanks.
- [51:23]
Lawrence O'Donnell
Thank you, Mr.
- [51:24]
Joe Biden
Appreciate you. Thanks. Thank you.
- [51:28]
Lawrence O'Donnell
That is the entire interview. After the interview, the president and I walked around the Oval Office a bit. He showed me things in the room that are important to him. We're going to show you some of that video in a moment. Especially a story he told me inspired by a photograph of his mother and President Obama. That's in the Oval Office. We'll be right back.
- [51:47]
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- [53:31]
Joe Biden
After.
- [53:32]
Lawrence O'Donnell
The interview as we stood in the Oval Office, President Biden told me about some of the personal objects there that are important to him, including a photograph of his mother on election night in 2008 holding her son's hand and holding President elect Barack Obama's hand. And that picture provoked a story about how his mother convinced him to accept President Obama's offer of the vice presidential nomination.
- [54:00]
Joe Biden
Chance Let me get this straight. It goes like this. First black man has a chance to be president. I asked you. You told me he's really smart, honorable and tough and he needs you to help him win. And you told him no. Swear to God.
- [54:16]
Lawrence O'Donnell
We'll show you all of that video of us walking around the Oval Office on Monday night on this program after President Biden's last day in office. That is tonight's Last Word.
- [54:28]
Kunle
Walmart plus it's Walmart plus free delivery which saves members time plus money. Yep plus an included Paramount plus subscription to stream movies, shows, sports and that can't miss documentary plus Burger King savings. That's right.
- [54:41]
Joe Biden
Right.
- [54:41]
Kunle
Members get 25% off Burger King Digital orders every day of the week. Walmart plus it's Walmart plus become a member at walmartplus.com $35 order minimum. Paramount plus essential plan only. Separate registration required. Valid and participating USBKs in the BK app or bk.com for members only. 25% off one time per calendar day. Terms apply. See Walmart plus terms and conditions.