Presidential candidate Joseph R. Biden said Tuesday the Republican Party will engage in bipartisanship once President Trump is voted out of office.
“The thing that will fundamentally change things is with Donald Trump out of the White House. Not a joke. You will see an epiphany occur among many of my Republican friends,” the former vice president said, according to CNN.
“It’s already beginning. In the House now, you’ve seen people that in fact were not willing to vote for any Democratic initiative, even if they agreed with it, because they didn’t want to be the odd person out if it wasn’t going to pass. There’s no sense in getting politically beaten for something that’s not going to happen, But you are seeing the talk, even the dialogue is changing,” he said.
Mr. Biden also said the nation “cannot function without generating consensus” and if common ground isn’t reached, all power belongs to the executive office.
He was then asked if he could work with current Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who has vowed to stonewall Democratic proposals if he’s still in power after 2020.
“Mitch McConnell and I have worked — we’re not friends, but we worked out every deal, remember? Everybody says, no, you can’t deal with Mitch McConnell. Well, you can deal with reality … and there’s an awful lot that can be done,” Mr. Biden said.
The Progressive Change Campaign Committee said Mr. Biden’s statement shows he’s from “an insider world of yesteryear.”
“Real change isn’t coming from epiphanies by Mitch McConnell and other corrupt Republican politicians, but from all of us organizing for change together. Just like his support of NAFTA and a middle ground on the existential climate crisis, this epiphany comment is the latest example of Biden operating in an insider world of yesteryear and shows that he is our worst foot forward in the general election,” the committee said.
Reuters reported Mr. Biden would take a middle ground between environmentalists and blue-collar voters, a position which New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez blasted during a Green New Deal rally Monday.
Mr. Biden responded by telling her: “Look at my record.”
“I’ve never been middle of the road on the environment. Tell her to check, you know, the statement that I made and look at my record. She’ll find that nobody has been more consistent about taking on the environment and a green revolution than I have. And so, look, anyway, so, I don’t think she’s talking about me,” he said.
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