president's

re-election bid. [cheers and applause] president biden: hello. hello, hello. good to be home. [cheers and applause] president biden: thank you. thank you. thank you.

god love you. have a seat if you have one. i don't want you to have to stand for me. [laughter] [indiscernible] president biden: i tell you what, man. [chanting four more years] president biden: i got the ibew. and that's not malarkey. i tell you what, i caught the tail end. now a movie star. look, most of all, i want to thank you for your partnership and your friendship. union workers, ibew and no malarkey because of you. that's no joke. i wouldn't be standing here if you didn't step up in 2020.

i was home in scranton, pennsylvania and i visited the place i used to live in. i tell you what, my grandfather would be proud as hell that i'm the most pro-union president in history. [applause] president biden: he said, joe, you are following the union from belt about buckle to shoe sole. and this is getting through. wall street didn't build america. middle class built america. and unions, unions built the middle class. you built the middle class. there wouldn't be a middle class bought you. folks, you have been at this conference for a long time but fair to say in the last four years, there is more excitement and energy than ever.

i know because i see all across america as i go across the country. thanks to the bipartisan infrastructure law. 51 new infrastructure projects. roads, bridges, ports, airplanes, clean water systems, high-speed internet. all built by ibew workers. [cheers and applause] president biden: i said when you endorse me, when i think of climate, i think of unions, i think of jobs. power grid. offshore wind turbines put up by the ibew workers and electrical stations are going to be built by ibew and let's hear it for davis-bacon requirements. [applause] president biden: they guarantee they will pay for minimum wage.

and make sure they hire highly skilled workers and have a voice on the jobs. they are using american-made materials and creating union jobs. since the 1930's, in my early days, i didn't what the law established the rights of unions to organize back in 1930's. the law says when the federal government spends taxpayer dollars, it has to, it has to buy american products with it and use american labor. that was honored in an exception, the vast majority didn't do it. and the last guy didn't even know it. [laughter] president biden: a lot of things he doesn't know. look, buy america. my predecessor failed to uphold

it. my administration uses american products and american labor to build those products. [cheers and applause] president biden: by the way, for all you skilled trade representatives out there, it is all within the rules and regulations. we are not violating anything, man, except we are showing the world what we can do. we are making the most significant climate investments. when i think of climate, i think of jobs, union jobs, good high pave iing jobs. not requiring college degrees. $700 billion for private investment in clean energy and creating tens of thousands of ibew jobs. the bottom line, the next decade and beyond you will be coming to this conference to see how

transformative the progress you will be making. take nuclear power, the biggest source of clean energy. employs over 60,000 workers including many of you. the key of meeting gel of 100% clean power grid by 2035 depends a lot of it. we are keeping existing plants on it and building america's first new nuclear power plants in decades. [applause] president biden: we are investing to make sure america leads the way in new technologies like small advanced modular technology and the fuel needed to run them. for too long we relied on imported uranium. imports from places like russia that we can't trust at all. my administration is working to change all that. we are investing $3.4 billion in

producing vadgessed nuclear fuel right here in america. you know, folks -- [applause] president biden: i know we are going to look back 20 years from now and talk about how this was a revolutionary period in our country. the ibe plant in southern ohio has already produced the first 200 pounds of that powerful enriched uranium, first ever in america and nearly on track to produce a ton by the end of the year and enough to power 100,000 homes in america. folks, we are reducingry lines on imported oil and creating more jobs for ibew workers. more than 2,000 clean energy projects have come on-line nationwide creating tens of

thousands good paying jobs and tax brairks that are provided prevailing minimum wage. if you don't provide that, you don't get the tax break. look, we have invested $440 million to expand apprenticeship programs. most americans may not know and you should talk more about it, everybody says i want to be an electrician, here's your card. come on, man. think about it. by the way, go on and out and ask people you are acquainted that aren't in the business, what it takes to be an electrician. you get a little bit of training. over five years to get training to be the best in the world. [applause] president biden: i really mean it. i mean it. you are the best in the world.

[applause] president biden: like having to go to college, for god's sake. i'm serious. [applause] president biden: i tell you what. every bit i talk about, i remind them who you are. not a joke. not a joke. once workers are trained and making sure they get the benefits they deserve. through my american rescue plan i enacted the butch lewis act the most pro-union worker law in 50 years. all we are doing is protecting pensions for thousands of ibew workers and others. and it below zero my mind. we made it happen. my predecessor never lifted to do anything.

he lifted a finger that you put a thumb on it. look, not only that, he put union busters on the national labor relations board. the people on the board actually care about american workers. no, i'm not kidding. [applause] president biden: and despite the supreme court and republican friends trying to block it, they haven't stopped me from pursuing and alleviate student debt and that includes loans for vocational schools and community colleges and apprentice programs as well. by the way, all these things are saving america money. we are not costing america money. it's growing the economy. people are doing better. i could go on, but i'm not going to go on.

together, we're doing what always worked best in this country. we're investing in america. that's not complicated. we're investing americans, not just america. americans. building an economy from the middle out and bottom up, not the top down. not the top down. because when you do that, the poor have a ladder up, the middle class does very well and the wealthy still do very well. except they don't pay enough taxes. by the way, you know how much, we have 1,000 billionaires in america. you know what the average tax rate is for them, billionaire, not millionaires. 8.3% federal tax. i'm serious. isn't that bizarre? anybody willing to trade their tax rate for yours, raise your hand. look. folks, our plan is working. so far we've created 15 million

new jobs. unemployment hasn't been this low for this long in 50 years. that includes record low unemployment for black and hispanic workers as well. manufacturing is booming. we've created -- you've created close to 800,000 new manufacturing jobs since i became president. [applause] i've got to tell you, when i was in the senate, i got so sick and tired. i know about corporations, in my home state of delaware -- there's more in my home state of delaware than all the other states in the union combined. they're not all bad guys but they're not all good guys either. think what's happen, all kidding aside, for the previous 15 year 20 years. corporations look for the cheapest labor in the world.

sent the job, sent the product, sent the jobs to those laborers, whether they were in asia, europe, wherever they were. then they sent the product back home. instead of importing product, we're exporting products, and we have american jobs, created here in america where they belong. [applause] not that complicated. i really mean it. 550,000 jobs brought home. home, home, home. talking about chip, all those computer chips we invented, about the tip of your finger, the size of it. guess what? i went over to south korea, they

said, what are you doing that for? i said i'm going to get them to invest in america instead of us having to import stuff. we had this space between what we needed and what we could get. guess what? we created $550 billion in investments here for bringing here. i asked the guy at samsung why. you know what he said to me in he said you're the best workers in the world. you're the safest place in the world novice. look, folk, my predecessor and his maga allies have a very different view. he promised infrastructure week. every week for four years. never built a damn thing. [laughter] in fact -- [applause] now these same republicans, and this is not your father's republican party, this is a different breed of cat. now they want to repeal the law, gut all those new jobs and

industry here in america. my predecessor rolled back protections for federal workers, opposed increases in minimum wage, he was proud of his $2 trillion tax cut when he was president that overwhelmingly benefited thewelly and created the biggest corporations and explode the federal government. i cut the federal deficit. he exploded it. [applause] by the way, there's no exaggeration here. it's going to expire. if i'm re-elected it's going to stay expired. [applause] look. let me close with this. two different ways of looking at our economy. some folks learned very different lessons growing up than you and i did. i learned the best way to get -- they learned, my opponent learned, the best way to get rich is inherit it. i can't argue much with that.

[laughter] they learned that paying tacks is for working people. not the super wealthy. they learned that telling people you're fired is something to be laughed about. not where i come from. not where i was raised. i guess that's how they lack at the world. from park avenue, mar-a-lago. but i grew up in scranton, pennsylvania, and claymont, delaware, working class, middle class town, and many of you did as well. nobody handed you anything. you paid your taxes. being told you were fired wasn't entertainment, it was devastating nightmare to a family. folks, where we come from, it matters. that's why when i look at the economy i don't see through the eyes of mar-a-lago. i literally see the -- through the eyes in scranton where i grew up at my grandpa's kitchen able.

i see you, the values you represent, honesty, decency, hard work, faith. it matters. fairness matters. you believe like i do, everyone in america guarantees an even shot, no guarantee, but just a shot. guaranteed to have a shot. in america, we leave nobody behind where we come from. folks, that's the america you all are building. that's the america you're re-creating. let me ask you. are you going to keep doing it? [cheers and applause] i know we can do this because of you. the american worker. i've never been more optimistic about our future than i am today. folks, we just have to remember who the hell we are, we're the united states of america and there's nothing beyond our capacity. nothing, nothing, nothing. god bless you awful thank you,

thank you, and on behalf of america, thank you. you've really done it. thank you, thank you, thank you. [crowd chanting "four more years"] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2024] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org]