We wade knee-deep through all this stuff, so you don’t have to.
THE PRESIDENT: Steve, thank you. I used to dream of being charismatic. (Laughter.) Anyway. All kidding — thank you. Thank you, thank you.
By the way, there’s the real reason we’re gathered here: We have two recent college graduates in the front row here. (Applause.) Stand up, guys. No, you got to stand up. I’m going to embarrass you. Stanford and Cal.
That’s the only reason I came out. I want to get to know who’s going to be running the country later. So, I —
Look, I want to thank Anna for allowing me to — a passport into the district. Thank you, Anna. (Applause.) We’ve been working together a long, long time.
And the fact of the matter is that, you know, Anita is here somewhere. I don’t know where An- — there you are, Anita. Well, I tell you what: You’re the only reason I came out. (Laughter.) Thank you. No — no, you’ve been — you’ve been wonderful.
And I want to thank everyone here because, quite frankly, I wouldn’t be standing here talking to you were it not for most of the people in this room. A lot of you have been helping me for a long, long time. I go back 217 years, to Joe Cotchett. (Laughter.)
And one of the things that I get asked — well, let me put it this way: I was — when Barack was president and I was vice president, it was clear that President Hu — and that was his name at the time, the president of China — and his vice president, Xi — where Xi was going to be the successor, vice president to become president in the near term.
I learned early on that — after eight years of sitting in the Oval Office every single morning at nine o’clock with Barack, there were two questions he’d ask. We’d start off with kidding each other. He said, “What do you think the temperature is in Hawaii?” And I said, “78.” (Laughter.) That was a — you think I’m kidding. I’m not.
And then I’d say to him — and I’d say, “Remember, Barack,” — I just called him Mr. President. “Remember, Mr. President, all politics is personal,” both international and national.
You may remember, when I became president, I checked with the intelligence community to see if I could — without any — hurting any one individual, to let — let the world know that for the first time since World War Two, 135,000 people were going to invade another country.
And I said and I predicted — and I told — I told — at the time, it was cleared. And I told the Ukrainians that they were going to be invaded. They didn’t believe it either. But for the first time, we had — ever — no one contemplated the notion that there would be a Russian army that would invade another country with a hundred- — it ended up being 185,000 people.
The point I’m trying to make is this: You know, there’s a — my colleagues in the Senate used to always kid me because I was always quoting Irish poets. They thought I quoted Irish poets because I’m Irish. That’s not the reason; they just happen to be the best poets in the world. (Laughter.)
I’m going to say something outrageous. I think I know as much about American foreign policy as anybody living, including Dr. Kissinger. That’s what I’ve done my whole life — for the last 270 years. (Laughter and applause.)
And so, we spent a lot of time working on that. And when I said, Joe, that we’re going to have bipartisanship, people looked at me like I was crazy. Because remember, they said, “Well, Biden was a real bipartisan leader when he was a senator. And he was known for being able to (inaudible). But this is different.” Well, guess what? We came up with a trillion-200-billion-dollar bipartisan infrastructure bill. It’s going to change — (applause) —
We’re in a situation now where we have a — we have over — all the — look, $300 billion just for building fabs, just — building chip factories now.
And, for example, the fab that Intel is building outside of Columbus, Ohio, that fab is employing 12,000 people: 5,000 people working in the fab when it’s constructed and 7,000 people building it. Well, the 7,000 people are getting paid prevailing wage. And guess what? The three thou- — the 5,000 people that are going to work, they’re going to have an average salary of an excess of $120,000 a year. And you don’t need a college degree.
You know what I said when I was talking about that Intel project? S- — is it SM? What — what — what’s the outfit in South Korea?
And so — any rate, there are a number of things — and one — one last thing I want to talk a little bit about, and then I’ll hush up, because I was told that I’m not going to get to get questions from y’all.
A couple things.
And, by the way, the reason I push unions so much is they’re not a bunch of thugs that are portrayed by many people. What they are is — they’re blue-collar workers who have to go back to college
And we’re on target to get it done. For example, in Cape Hale — Camp Hale in Colorado, 500- — excuse me — 50,000 acres. Boundary Waters in Minnesota, 225,000 acres. Spirit Mountain in Nevada, 5,000 — 500,000 acres. The Castner Range in Texas, over 608- — 600- — excuse me — 6,600 acres. Alaska, 25,000 acres I put in conservation: the Tongass Forest, Bristol Bay, the Atlantic — Arctic Ocean, and North Slope.
And, by the way, we’re going to reduce emissions by 2030 in Am- — in the world by — of the United States by 50 to 52 percent. (Applause.)
And so, I guess what I’m trying to say is, you know, a comprehensive traged- — strategy here — and I’ll end with this, on the environment — is that, in the real world, agriculture — 60,000 farms now plant cover crops, which we were talking — I was talking to someone in here about Brazil — cover crops that absorb the pollution of the air, taking it into the ground — 60,000.
We have, as I said, a circumstance where solar panel manufacturing has increased multifold. And what they want to get rid of — guess what? — you hear your neighbors who want — they get a tax credit for putting solar panels on the roof or buying certain electric material — excuse me — certain products that, in fact, are — don’t generate as much energy intake — windows and doors, less air conditioning or heat escaping. It’s having a profound impact on the consumption of energy.
But I guess what I’m trying to say is the — and I’ll end with this — the gigantic issues of the day — what are the things that are going to be consequential to our grandchildren and our great-grandchildren? Whether they have clean air to breathe. Whether there’s a world in which it’s more likely that it’s status quo ante, in terms of peace sustained, or there’s war. Which is it? And I think we know the answer.
— Remarks by President Biden at a Campaign Reception | Atherton, CA | 6/19/23
