Biden: ‘Elitist’ Sen. Warren Has ‘Attitude’ that She Knows ‘Better than Ordinary People What’s in Their Interests’
BURNETT: “Senator Warren of course has said she’s not going to be raising those taxes. As you know right, she has a different plan. You talked about her support for Medicare for All last week. You attacked her. I think it’s a fair word. The quote was from you “it’s just an elitist attitude about you’re either my way or the highway.””
BIDEN: “Let’s get something straight. She attacked me. She went out and said Biden — she didn’t use my name any more than I used hers. She said Biden is a coward. Biden — Biden is in fact in the pocket of. Biden is — and she went down the list of saying I should be in a Republican primary.”
BURNETT: “She did say you were in the wrong primary?”
BIDEN: “What do you call that? What do you call that? So I responded by saying — here’s what I said. It’s not about her, it’s about the attitude that exists right now. If you disagree with me, you must be bad. They question motive. Look, we can disagree. I respect your view. I really do. What I was talking about is you go home and you tell everybody, people are busting their neck at the kitchen table conversations going on tomorrow morning like in the house I was raised in and you say by the way, I know you don’t think we should raise your taxes on this but this is good for you. This is good for you. What do you mean? Where does that come from?”
BURNETT: “What specifically is elitist about how she’s pursuing Medicare for All?”
BIDEN: “The attitude that we know better than ordinary people what’s in their interest. I know more than you, let me tell what you to do. And it wasn’t she’s elitist, the attitude is elitist that people can’t make up their own minds. You like your health insurance but you shouldn’t like your health insurance. You should have to give that up. I am gonna demand you not to have that, we’re going to give you something better. I like, I know what I want. That is an attitude that says ok you’re telling me it’s my way or the highway. It not about her, it’s about the attitude out there. The attitude that we know best, you do it my way. Where I come from growing up in a middle class neighborhood, the last thing I like is people telling my family and me what we should know, what we should believe as if somehow we weren’t informed, just because we didn’t have money we weren’t knowledgeable. I resent that. I wasn’t talking about her, I was talking about the attitude. If you don’t agree with me, get in the other party. I am more of a Democrat from my shoe soles to my ears than anybody running in this party —- ok”
BUNRETT: “Including her?”
BIDEN: “Including everybody, okay? One thing I’ve never had to wonder about is what I believed and where my ideology was and where I come from and why I’m in this and why I’m fighting. It’s because the people like I grew up with, many of whom, in fact, didn’t have college degrees. Many of whom, most of the people I grew up with their parents never went to college. Most of my generation were the first family to go to college, but they were as smart as decent, as honorable and as committed as anybody else. Bu they are left out. It’s one reason I feel so strongly about the need to have work power in unions. People don’t — they don’t respect anything until you stand up and say this is what I want, this is what I believe. That’s the only point. It no the about her. It’s about the attitude that’s out there. Imagine if I said to her you should be in a socialist primary. Biden is being bum, bum, bum, bum, bum. You’d all say that. You know it.”
BURNETT: “Well, do you think she should?”
BIDEN: “No. I think the plan being offered is not an irrational plan but tell us what it means for people. Tell us the truth about what is going to happen. Maybe you don’t know. Maybe they really don’t have any idea what it’s going to cost. But raise your hand here, anybody, and you, professor, if you think that you can in fact have Medicare for all in the next five to ten years and not raise taxes on middle class people. What do you think? That’s unfair to do to you.”
