Speaker 1: You're listening to Comedy Central.
Speaker 2: Well, welcome a place you spent some time, Thank.
Speaker 1: You, sir.
Speaker 3: I have the fireplace. Never been on what I've been in.
Speaker 2: I tell you what I have it on all the time.
Speaker 2: It's kind of humbly walking in here, absolutely, I mean
Speaker 2: for real. I had my brother Jimmy come in and
Speaker 2: you know, pick the rug and the desk and all
Speaker 2: that stuff and make a long story shure. And I
Speaker 2: come walking in like five o'clock in inauguration day. And
Speaker 2: I walked in. I said, jeez, I said, I've never
Speaker 2: seen Franklin Roosevelt. I'm admirer, but there's always George Washington
Speaker 2: small portrait there, and Abraham Lincoln and John Meacham, that
Speaker 2: president's historian. Jimmy had called him for some help. And
Speaker 2: he looked and me. He said, because no one's ever
Speaker 2: inherited a world economy in as much disarray as he had.
Speaker 1: And I said, oh, that's wonderful.
Speaker 2: And then then I said, well, why Lincoln? He said,
Speaker 2: the country's never been as divided since Lincoln was president.
Speaker 2: But what I did was I wanted to be able
Speaker 2: to sit here at my desk and look out. And
Speaker 2: I only had two political heroes when I was getting
Speaker 2: involved and fell over there, Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I c I was a great admirer John Kenny, but
Speaker 2: I could never picture John Kenny to my kitchen table.
Speaker 2: I could kind of picture maybe. And then the two
Speaker 2: people who I were got involved and engaged with is
Speaker 2: says our Chavez. Uh because I got not involved, but
Speaker 2: I supported verbally the farm Workers' union they were trying
Speaker 2: to organize in Delaware when I was running as a
Speaker 2: twenty nine year old kid. His granddaughter works for me.
Speaker 2: And then Rosa Parks, who's over here, and uh so
Speaker 2: I tried to I tried to make it kind of warm,
Speaker 2: like uh I thought about now. The other guy never
Speaker 2: showed up on inauguration day, so I didn't.
Speaker 1: Have to worry about it.
Speaker 2: But it's kind of neat. And the things I've done
Speaker 2: in here, like for example, the moon rock over here.
Speaker 3: All right, I'm a huge NASA fan, a big astronomy fan.
Speaker 1: This is very cool. Well, this is cool.
Speaker 2: That's an actual moon rock and one of the you
Speaker 2: know that rover they have up there. My name is
Speaker 2: in the back with other presidents.
Speaker 1: It's really cool.
Speaker 2: But I want to show you something really cool. Come
Speaker 2: on back here. Not many people come back this way,
Speaker 2: but come on.
Speaker 1: I think you.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, Not only are we seeing the Oval office,
Speaker 3: we're also getting a rare tour of the President's private study.
Speaker 3: This is like the world's most dignified episode of MTV Cribs.
Speaker 2: By the way, that is a wise painting by Jamie
Speaker 2: Wyth the son. And he told me that Kennedy family
Speaker 2: didn't like him. He's made him look too contemplative.
Speaker 1: But just gotta smile.
Speaker 2: I know, I think it's great. But anyway, and that's
Speaker 2: the house I was raised in, the scrant that's awesome,
Speaker 2: or as they say, Scranton Scranton. So I went and
Speaker 2: spoke at the Kenny Library a couple of nights. Last
Speaker 2: time I spoke there, I get handed this by Caroline
Speaker 2: Kennedy and it's that famous letter he wrote and this
Speaker 2: is the actual copy, and it's you know, why am
Speaker 2: I gone?
Speaker 1: We chose to go to the moon in this decade
Speaker 1: because that.
Speaker 2: Goal will serve the origins of measure by the best
Speaker 2: of us, and it goes on and on.
Speaker 3: Well that's I mean, the just even that top line,
Speaker 3: no prejudice no hate in outer space and go. I
Speaker 3: don't know if you have any tattoos. I've got some
Speaker 3: from the Nassa Voyager, which was launched in seventy seven,
Speaker 3: the Golden Record, which had you know, science, music, art,
Speaker 3: but no politics, no war, no religion and other things
Speaker 3: that divide us. And so it's just the idea of
Speaker 3: hope through exploration. Unfortunately, before the President showed me all
Speaker 3: of his tattoos, it was time to go.
Speaker 2: Thank thank you, sir.
Speaker 3: I really appreciate your time and thank you so much
Speaker 3: for the stories and the oval tour. Mister President. Welcome
Speaker 3: to the Daily Show.
Speaker 2: Well, welcome back to the White House.
Speaker 1: Thank you.
Speaker 3: It's very nice to be back. I was trying to
Speaker 3: figure out when the last time you and I had
Speaker 3: a conversation was, and I realized it was November twenty
Speaker 3: sixteen at a very diverse the Volley party that you
Speaker 3: hosted just a few weeks after Trump became the president elect.
Speaker 3: And I remember that you described that night as an
Speaker 3: Irish Catholic Vice president and a Muslim gold Star family
Speaker 3: celebrating a reception observing a Hindu holiday America. Well exactly
Speaker 3: that's how I felt. I mean, I remember just feeling
Speaker 3: so positive and so much hope there and then as
Speaker 3: kh that was mister conn Yes exactly. Then I remember
Speaker 3: just four years of policy and vitriol under Trump, and
Speaker 3: now things feel more divided. So I was curious, how
Speaker 3: you feel that we can stay hopeful and how can
Speaker 3: we get the country to unify.
Speaker 2: The truth of the matter. Is that ever more optimistic
Speaker 2: in my entire life about No, I mean it now,
Speaker 2: I tell you what. Look, if you think about it.
Speaker 2: The reason I had not I given my words a Biden.
Speaker 2: I hadn't planned on running again. I had lost my
Speaker 2: son Bo. It was a tough, tough time, and I
Speaker 2: wasn't gonna run at all for real. And then remember
Speaker 2: what happened in Charlottesville, when those folks came out of
Speaker 2: the fields at night with torches and swastikas, the white
Speaker 2: supremacist and a young woman was killed. I spoke to
Speaker 2: her mom. Then President Trump said there were very fine
Speaker 2: people on both sides, And I give my word. That's
Speaker 2: why I decided I'm going to do this. But I
Speaker 2: was worried about doing it because I knew how bitter
Speaker 2: it would be. And so I got a phone call
Speaker 2: from my true story from my eldest granddaughter saying, we
Speaker 2: have a family meeting. You probably are aware of. It's
Speaker 2: around here. We have a tradition of the Biden family.
Speaker 2: Any child can ask for a family meeting. I don't
Speaker 2: know if it happened, but to take it seriously. So
Speaker 2: my grandchildren, my four granddaughters and grandson, Both's children and
Speaker 2: Hunter's children came down on us Saturday and we sat
Speaker 2: and talked and they said, trying to commit. They said,
Speaker 2: we know you're thinking a run and pop, but you
Speaker 2: ought to do it. Daddy wants you to do it,
Speaker 2: talking about bowing and I said, well, it's going to
Speaker 2: be pretty tough, and they said, you got to do it.
Speaker 2: And we decided to do it. And I did it
Speaker 2: for three reasons. One to restore the soul of this country.
Speaker 2: That's not who we are. We're a decent, honorable country
Speaker 2: that cares.
Speaker 1: We really are we still are.
Speaker 2: Second one is to begin to take care of the
Speaker 2: middle class, because the middle class does well, the poor
Speaker 2: have a real shot, and the wealthy do very well.
Speaker 2: And thirdly, to unite the country. And at the time
Speaker 2: people thought, well maybe the first two, but you never
Speaker 2: united the country. But look what we did, we got
Speaker 2: a lot done. No one thought I could ever pass
Speaker 2: the infrastructure bill. No one thought I could ever do
Speaker 2: anything about making sure that we took care of people
Speaker 2: with disabilities and drug prices and whole range. No one
Speaker 2: thought we could do anything on the environment. No one
Speaker 2: thought we could do anything about same sex marriage. I
Speaker 2: mean we did not all of it, but a significant
Speaker 2: portion was done in a bipartisan way.
Speaker 3: When I was a White House aid, I remember having
Speaker 3: meetings in this room on climate. They didn't always go
Speaker 3: so well. And I never would have imagined twelve years
Speaker 3: ago that something as sweeping on climate as the Infliction
Speaker 3: Reduction Act would have happened. So my question, really, and
Speaker 3: I was watching all of this unfold, is who or
Speaker 3: what created the political space for you to take that
Speaker 3: kind of action.
Speaker 2: Young people, young people generation, that generation between eighteen and
Speaker 2: thirty five. Now, they're the ones that created the space.
Speaker 2: They had enough of it. They had enough of it.
Speaker 2: And so what I did was, when I trying to
Speaker 2: figure out whether I could put something together, I met
Speaker 2: with them. We had rallies, we had I mean, they
Speaker 2: showed up in the twenty twenty election. They showed up
Speaker 2: in the twenty twenty two election, and we passed the
Speaker 2: largest environmental plan in all of history, over three hundred
Speaker 2: and sixty eight billion dollars. We got it done. And
Speaker 2: and what happened was Mother Nature let her rathb sand.
Speaker 2: Over the last two years, for example, I have traveled
Speaker 2: on helicopter over more forest area burned to the ground
Speaker 2: than the entire state of Maryland. That's how much has
Speaker 2: burned to the ground.
Speaker 1: Floods, droughts, all the things.
Speaker 2: And so people can't deny it anymore. They can't deny
Speaker 2: the fact. And I've traveled the world. I've gone to
Speaker 2: all the cop meanings around the world, meaning the meetings
Speaker 2: on climate. If we don't keep the temperature from going
Speaker 2: above one point five degrees celsius raised, now.
Speaker 1: We're in real trouble.
Speaker 2: That whole generation is damned. I mean, it's not that probly,
Speaker 2: really truly trouble. And that's why the first meeting I
Speaker 2: had with the so called G seven, the largest economies
Speaker 2: in the world, democracies in the world, the first thing
Speaker 2: we talked about was they want to talk about, was
Speaker 2: my initiative on energy, on dealing with moving toward For example,
Speaker 2: I called all them automakers and truckmakers, and I asked
Speaker 2: them to come to the South Lawn the first year
Speaker 2: and to try to talk them into doing something more
Speaker 2: than going electric. And within five weeks all of them
Speaker 2: agreed they're going to go electric fifty by twenty thirty,
Speaker 2: and by twenty fifty all electric.
Speaker 1: And I think we can do it.
Speaker 3: You're also responsible for reviewing drilling and oil production. What
Speaker 3: would you say to those young people who want you
Speaker 3: to continue to be their champion but might not think
Speaker 3: that you're going far enough or fast enough on climate.
Speaker 2: Well, first of all, we're going to fashion than anyone's
Speaker 2: ever gone. We're going to need fossil fuels for at
Speaker 2: least the next ten years. It's not like tomorrow we
Speaker 2: can turn it all off. Number one. And so in
Speaker 2: addition to that, we've things got really complicated when putin
Speaker 2: put one hundred and eighty five thousand forces into Ukraine,
Speaker 2: having a profound impact on their energy ability to be
Speaker 2: able to keep the heat on in the winner and
Speaker 2: keep things moving. And so we're gonna need fossil fuel.
Speaker 2: What we have to do is we have to I've
Speaker 2: said no more drilling off our ocean. I mean the
Speaker 2: whole range. But there still has to be there has
Speaker 2: to be the ability to generate some energy. But we
Speaker 2: can get rid of coal much more rapidly. And by
Speaker 2: the way, for example, I was up in Massachusetts, the
Speaker 2: largest coal producing electric facilities in the nation. Well, guess what,
Speaker 2: we hooked it up to wind technology and so now
Speaker 2: and it's cheaper. We can do solar. We can do
Speaker 2: wind cheaper than we can do fossil fuels. So it's
Speaker 2: a matter of transitioning. But it's not like you can
Speaker 2: cut everything off immediately.
Speaker 3: You obviously understand the existential threat that young people feel
Speaker 3: when it comes to climate. Sure, how do you balance
Speaker 3: that with the immediate concerns of babysitting Congress or getting
Speaker 3: getting getting fifty one or sixty votes on some of this?
Speaker 2: Well, look, I've been relative be careful here. Sure it's
Speaker 2: relatively successful, right, and working across the aisle, there is
Speaker 2: a maga Republican portion.
Speaker 1: Of the party.
Speaker 2: It makes up about a third of the Republican Party.
Speaker 2: I've had more than a half a dozen Republican senators
Speaker 2: I've known for years over the last two years come
Speaker 2: to me individually, and I promise i'd never mentioned her names,
Speaker 2: and I'll go to my grave never mentioned seeing No,
Speaker 2: I'm not telling you I've seriously I've never broken my
Speaker 2: word and saying Joe, I agree with you. But if
Speaker 2: I do anything publicly, they're going to primary and may
Speaker 2: I'll lose. The Republican Party's going through a significant transition,
Speaker 2: and we're going to see in the next two years
Speaker 2: how they end up, whether the Maga Republicans control the
Speaker 2: party or we get back to conservative like for example,
Speaker 2: a guy as tough as can be is the majority
Speaker 2: leader of the United States the minority of the United
Speaker 2: States Senate McConnell. But he's straight, He's a traditional conservative.
Speaker 1: He's straight. What he says, he does.
Speaker 2: He probably don't even want me saying this, probably hurt
Speaker 2: his reputation. But there's a lot of people in the
Speaker 2: Republican Party who are traditional republic conservative Republicans that you
Speaker 2: can deal with. But you know these you know, the
Speaker 2: gentle woman from the state of Georgia and the mountains
Speaker 2: up there and other gates and anyway.
Speaker 3: That's very diplomatic. I would have used different language.
Speaker 2: But no. But there's an existential question that the Republican
Speaker 2: Party is going to have to face and it's going
Speaker 2: to determine what happens in the next couple of years.
Speaker 2: But my focus is just stay focused, focused on the
Speaker 2: things that matter. We've got to deal with the climate.
Speaker 2: We've got to deal with civil liberties and voting rights.
Speaker 2: We've got to deal with issues relating to economic growth. Look,
Speaker 2: in this period, I inherit it. I think it's fair
Speaker 2: to say a gigantic mess economically and politically. Of course,
Speaker 2: we've created twelve million new jobs since I've been president,
Speaker 2: more than any president created in four years. We've generated
Speaker 2: so much to grow. We've created eight hundred thousand manufacturing
Speaker 2: jobs with the bill that became a bipartisan bill with
Speaker 2: no one thought could happen. The Chips and Science bill
Speaker 2: we used to in that's two percent of our GDP
Speaker 2: in research and development. That's why we're the nation we were. Well,
Speaker 2: guess what we decided to start. We ended up being
Speaker 2: number eight or ten instead of number one. Well, now
Speaker 2: we're doing it again through the Chips and Science Bill.
Speaker 2: Guess what commitments for three hundred billion dollars in investments
Speaker 2: over the next ten.
Speaker 1: Years to build these chips.
Speaker 2: We invented the chips, we made them, We made them
Speaker 2: much more sophisticated we used to be anyway. So there's
Speaker 2: so much going on that the country's hungry to move,
Speaker 2: I think, and I'm confident we can do it.
Speaker 3: It's reassuring to hear you talk about the ways young
Speaker 3: people can continue to get involved in that you feel
Speaker 3: like there's still bipartisan hope there if it's.
Speaker 2: Oh, there is, by the way, I mean, look again,
Speaker 2: if we had had this conversation immediately after Trump lost,
Speaker 2: although I'm not sure he did, and I told you
Speaker 2: we were going to get more done in two years
Speaker 2: and almost any president's done period, and much of it
Speaker 2: in a bipartisan way, I think everybody would have looked
Speaker 2: at me, like, what's this guy drinking? What's going on here?
Speaker 1: But we have, we have, and.
Speaker 2: We've been able to the leadership of the Democratic parties,
Speaker 2: be able to hold the Democratic Congress together, and we
Speaker 2: picked up a few Republicans along the way, and I
Speaker 2: think it's beginning to bear fruit that it's hard to
Speaker 2: deny that it works.
Speaker 3: Speaking of young people, the Supreme Court is considering striking
Speaker 3: down your student debt relief decision. What's the plane if
Speaker 3: that happens.
Speaker 2: Well, first of all consumes and scholars. I've spoken to say,
Speaker 2: the people challenge you have no standing means the court
Speaker 2: is ultimately as much as they want to rule, they're
Speaker 2: going to I think they're going to have.
Speaker 1: To rule that it was appropriate for what I did.
Speaker 2: Number one. Number two, If you think about it, we
Speaker 2: had this PPP program, that is the program during the pandemic.
Speaker 2: People lost their businesses because they had to shut down.
Speaker 2: Restaurants closed, Bob Bah, and so we provided billions of
Speaker 2: dollars significantly more than helping students with their debt. And
Speaker 2: a number of the very people who criticized me in
Speaker 2: Congress actually got benefits in the program. You don't hear
Speaker 2: them talking about it. Right, The average student who will
Speaker 2: benefit from my Student Loan Forgiveness program, as somebody making
Speaker 2: less than seventy ninety percent makes seventy thousand dollars or less.
Speaker 2: They're just trying to get out of the hole. They're
Speaker 2: just trying to get started. They're just trying to get
Speaker 2: up and running, and so it is overwhelming the interest
Speaker 2: of the economy. It's a fair thing to do, and
Speaker 2: it's going to generate economic growth. It's significant. I understand
Speaker 2: them worrying. I understand. I don't know whether people realize
Speaker 2: a lot of parents realize how much of a burden
Speaker 2: this is. You get out of school, there were no
Speaker 2: jobs that you graduated because initially because of the pandemic,
Speaker 2: you got a debt that is most cases exceeding ten
Speaker 2: thousand dollars loan you got or grant you got, and
Speaker 2: it's really a gigantic burden. You want to grow the economy.
Speaker 2: You want these people being able to go out and
Speaker 2: make a down payment on a home, be able to
Speaker 2: go out and start a business, be able to go
Speaker 2: out and be free to the debt so they can
Speaker 2: invest in things that they care about, And it's just
Speaker 2: so short sighted if they don't.
Speaker 3: I wanted to ask you a slightly different questions. So
Speaker 3: my partner Josh and I have been engaged for the
Speaker 3: last five years, which really only means that every auntie
Speaker 3: and uncle that I have is beyond disappointed that there
Speaker 3: hasn't been a wedding yet. But Cardi b is going
Speaker 3: to marry us apparently officiate at our wedding, which would
Speaker 3: which would be nice. But my question for you, mister president,
Speaker 3: is you codified support for same sex marriage and interracial
Speaker 3: marriages like ours. I'm curious what your evolution was like
Speaker 3: on marriage equality and what the federal government might be
Speaker 3: able to do to protect LGBTQ Americans, especially trans kids,
Speaker 3: who are dealing with all these regressive state laws that
Speaker 3: are popping up right now.
Speaker 2: I can remember exactly where my epiphany was. Okay, I
Speaker 2: hadn't thought much about it, tell you. And I was
Speaker 2: a senior in high school and I wanted to get
Speaker 2: a job being turned out. The only turned out is
Speaker 2: the only Caucasian lifeguard in the projects in the city
Speaker 2: of Wilmington, the big swimming pools, and my dad was
Speaker 2: dropping me off to go in and get an application
Speaker 2: in city hall. A woman through the Rodney Square it's
Speaker 2: called I remember about to get out of the car,
Speaker 2: and I looked to my right and two well dressed
Speaker 2: men in suits kissed each other, I mean, they give
Speaker 2: each other kiss and then one went looked like he
Speaker 2: was heading to the du Pomp building. One looked like
Speaker 2: he had to the Hercules Corporation building. And I never
Speaker 2: forgot to turn and look to my dad. He said, Joe,
Speaker 2: it's simple. They love each other. It's simple. No, I'm
Speaker 2: not joking.
Speaker 1: It's simple. They love each other.
Speaker 2: And it's never been. It's never been. It's just that simple.
Speaker 2: And I remember you may remember because you may have
Speaker 2: been here when I and our last administration with Barack
Speaker 2: I went on meet the press and they asked me
Speaker 2: about their show. I was telling them I visited a
Speaker 2: family in another state and I watched these two, this
Speaker 2: gay couple, raising two kids and watching them run in
Speaker 2: and throw their arms around daddy and so on, so
Speaker 2: and I told I said, They said, well, what do
Speaker 2: you think.
Speaker 1: Russia asked me. I said, I think people should be.
Speaker 2: Able to get married married. It doesn't matter whether it's
Speaker 2: whether it's same sex or.
Speaker 1: A heterosexual couple.
Speaker 2: They should be able to be married.
Speaker 1: What is the problem.
Speaker 2: So listen to your auntie and your uncle get married.
Speaker 2: Do it now, don't wait now. Transgender kids is a
Speaker 2: really harder day thing. What's going on in Florida is,
Speaker 2: as my mother would say, close to sinful. I mean,
Speaker 2: it's just terrible what they're doing. It's not like, you know,
Speaker 2: a kid wakes up one morning and says, you know,
Speaker 2: I decided I want to become a man, or I
Speaker 2: want to become a woman, or I want to change.
Speaker 2: I mean, what are they thinking about here? They're human beings,
Speaker 2: they love, they have feelings, they have inclinations that are
Speaker 2: I mean it just to me is I don't know.
Speaker 1: It's cruel.
Speaker 2: And the way we do it is we make sure
Speaker 2: we pass legislation like we passed on same sex marriage.
Speaker 2: You mess with that, you're breaking the law and you're
Speaker 2: gonna be home accountable.
Speaker 3: Thank you, sir. I also can tell that, like some
Speaker 3: auntie or my mom probably texted you beforehand.
Speaker 2: If no, no, I'm not trying to pressure me to no, no,
Speaker 2: but get moving, man. I don't want to you can't
Speaker 2: do it.
Speaker 3: I know we're unlimited time, so I just want to
Speaker 3: ask you. Looking ahead, there are a lot of names floated. Uh,
Speaker 3: it's a crowded, crowded field. Who should be the next
Speaker 3: permanent host of The Daily Show?
Speaker 2: Depending how you edit this program?
Speaker 3: You yes, okay, that's a good answer, solid answer, solid answer.
Speaker 3: I don't think we need to edit anything. Then, thank you,
Speaker 3: mister president.
Speaker 2: Thank you for the time, and I thank you, thank
Speaker 2: you again. Welcome back, Thank you.
Speaker 3: Great to be back.
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