Biden Administration

Floor Speech

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Mr. SCHUMER. Now, Mr. President, for as long as I have known Joe Biden, I have known him to be a man of one thing: a man who fervently loves his country. From the moment he was elected to the New Castle County Council to his swearing in as Delaware's Senator at age 30, to his elevation as our Nation's 47th Vice President, and to his election as our 46th President, Joe Biden's North Star has not changed: serving the people of the United States of America.

This weekend, President Biden made the kind of decision only a true patriot can make, choosing to pass the torch and to step away from the Presidency at the conclusion of this term.

I know President Biden's decision wasn't an easy one, but, once again, he put the needs of his country and our future first. It is a bittersweet moment but one that fills every single one of us who knows President Biden with limitless gratitude.

On behalf of a grateful Democratic caucus, on behalf of a grateful Senate, and on behalf of a grateful nation, I wish to say thank you-- thank you--to President Biden for dedication to our country, and we will keep working with him every single day until this term is done.

By willingly passing the torch, Joe Biden is precisely the kind of leader George Washington would have hoped for. In his Farewell Address, our first President affirmed that elected office belongs to no man or woman alone but to the people above all. Two hundred thirty years later, President Biden honors George Washington's example in a way few Presidents ever have.

But to those of us who have known Joe Biden all these years, we know that this is who he truly is: a man of profound decency. He is, at his core, an honorable man, a family man, a man of faith. And he restored those qualities to the Presidency after 4 years of disaster under the previous administration.

Now, future generations will look at Joe Biden's Presidency and see it was one of the most consequential in American history. It may seem like a lifetime ago, but when President Biden entered office, America was in crisis. A once-in-a-century pandemic was claiming thousands of lives by the day. Our economy was on life support. And in the aftermath of January 6, American democracy was hanging by a thread.

Three and a half years later, America is stronger, more prosperous, and our future is brighter because of President Biden's leadership. And it has been the honor of a lifetime for me to work side by side to bring the Senate Democratic agenda to life here in the U.S. Senate.

With President Biden, we have created 15 million new jobs since the depths of the pandemic, the most in a single term. With President Biden, we have lowered the cost of prescription drugs for tens of millions of Americans. We empowered Medicare to negotiate with drug companies for the first time ever. We have made insulin $35 a month for millions of seniors. And we expanded affordable healthcare to more Americans than ever before.

With President Biden, we enacted a generational infrastructure bill to rebuild America, fixing her roads and bridges and highways and lead piping and expanding broadband to so many rural and inner-city areas that didn't have it. I was proud to lead these efforts in this Chamber.

With President Biden, we passed the first gun safety law in 30 years, the first since the Brady bill that I led as a Member of Congress back in the 1990s. And I remember working then with Senator Biden on gun legislation, both the assault weapons ban and the Brady Law.

With President Biden, we enacted the boldest clean energy bill in the history of our Nation: the Inflation Reduction Act. Because of this bill, our kids will breathe cleaner air, our communities will see less pollution, the next generation will enjoy millions--millions--of new, good-paying, green jobs that will last for generations--jobs with a future.

With President Biden, we revived America's grand tradition of scientific research and technological innovation. With the Chips and Science Act, advanced manufacturing is coming back to America, to cities like Syracuse and Albany, but also in States like Arizona and Ohio and Idaho and Texas and so many others.

And with President Biden, America has led the free world to defend democracy in its hour of need. He united the nations of NATO to stand with the people of Ukraine against Vladimir Putin, and NATO is stronger and larger today than it was when he took office.

Incredibly, Mr. President, there is still much, much more. President Biden led the way in appointing the first Black woman to ever serve on the Supreme Court: Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. I worked with him and my colleagues here in the Senate--I thank so many of them--to confirm more than 200 Federal judges, the most diverse slate of judicial and Federal nominees America has ever seen. We worked with him on historic veterans' health reform. We expanded Federal protections for marriage equality--all this and more.

Truly, President Biden's legislative accomplishments are without equal in our recent history.

Of course, the work is not done. This is not a moment of culmination because we have a lot of work left to do. For everything that has transpired these past few weeks, one thing has not changed: Senate Democrats will continue working with President Biden and with Vice President Harris and with the entire Biden-Harris administration to make life better.

It was so typical of the President. When he called me to tell me the news that he was not running again, he said: But we have a lot more work to do over the next several months. It shows you the commitment of the man to making the lives of people better.

So we will continue to work on those issues, but, for now, I want to say for a grateful nation: Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you, Joseph Robinette Biden.

What an amazing legacy President Biden will leave for future generations. History will say of this moment: Here was one of our great American Presidents. He is a leader who made the most difficult choice at the most important moment because he believed it was the right thing to do. Here is someone who put country ahead of self until the very end.

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