at t trade union conference andeceived the official endorsement.

-- the presumptive 2024 republican nominee for president. this is half an hour. [applause] >> please welcome the president of the united states, joe biden. [applause]

>> hello. thank you. please have a seat. hello. what a welcome. i'm going home. thank you, thank you, thank you.

god love you all. i really mean it. and, sean, thank you for your friendship and partnership. it's been an incredible honor to be endorsed by the building trades. i mean it. you are the best. it's not a joke. it is not a joke. you are the best in the world. that's not a joke. you are the best in the world. you have my back in 2020. because of you, i'm standing here as president of the united states of america. that fact. because of you, in 2024, we will make donald trump a loser again.

are you ready? are you ready? [applause] i am so proud to be with you. i really mean it. i'm proud to be with you, all my relatives. they are all gone now but in scranton, my uncle would say, joey, you are belt buckle to shoe soles union. i'm proud to be the most pro-union president in american history and it's because of you. you are proof of what i have always known. i have always known that wall street did not america. the middle-class built america in unions built the middle-class -- and unions built the middle-class. that's a fact. that's a fact. [applause] folks, being here today reminds

me of where i grew up in scranton, pennsylvania and claremont, delaware. it's great to have the mayor of scranton. where are you? she's here today. it's a big crowd out there but if you see her you will know her. look, and scranton, i learned what all of you learned as well no matter where you are from. i learned that money does not determine your worth. i learned that all anyone wants is a fair shot, a fair shot at making it. do not block the road. give me an even shot. my dad used to have an expression. he would come home for dinner and then go back and close the shop. my dad would say, joey -- i mean this sincerely. a job is about a lot more than a paycheck. it's about your dignity. it's about respect. it's about being able to look your child in the eye and saying it's going to be ok and mean.

that's what we are all about, the dignity of workers. [applause] i mean it. [applause] we all grew up -- [applause] we all grew folks started to look down on us because of what our dads did. they were not executives, were not something special. pluto like donald trump learned a different lesson. they learned a different way to get rich is inherited. they learned paying taxes was something working people did. he learned telling people you are fired was something to laugh about.

not in my household, not in my neighborhood. [applause] especially being fired because you had no protection. folks, i guess that's how you look at the world from mar-a-lago, where trump and his friends embraced the same failed trickle-down policies for over 40 years. if you grew up where we grew up, nobody handed you anything. being fired wasn't entertainment, it was devastating, it was a nightmare. folks, people like trump looked down on us. we all know somebody like that. where i come from, it matters. when i look at the economy, i see it through the eyes of working people like all of you.

the best way to build the economy is from the bottom up and middle out. my dad used to say not a lot trickled up from the kitchen table. if we work from the bottom up and middle out, the poor and middle class does well. by the way, the wealthy still do very well, they just start paying their damn taxes. [applause] it is either scranton values and mar-a-lago values, the competing visions at the heart of the economy. the reason i ran for president was to build the backbone of the middle class, and we have. you in this room are building that america.

thanks to my law, more than 51,000 new manufacturing projects have been announced thus far and we are just beginning. bridges, ports, airports, clean water systems, high-speed internet all across america and built by the building trades. [applause] remember when president trump promised -- i got to be careful. [laughter] he promised infrastructure week. i tell you what, it took two years and he never built a damn thing, nothing. i'm serious. are you surprised? i am sure -- i am making sure

that highly skilled workers have a voice on the job. even before trump was president, trump preferred nonunion workers on his real estate projects. even on that he didn't keep his word. he managed small businesses. if you read the press, he never paid them a lot. the guy never worked a day in his working man's boots. he gave me a pair of boots as a gift, by the way. our them to cut my lawn. the secret service doesn't let me do that anymore. by the way, we are building

stronger. we that loan increased wages for more than a million construction workers and trump's ma ga allies are trying to take it away. it's not going to happen on my watch. since the 1930's, the law has said when the federal government spends taxpayer dollars on a project, it can only buy american products to do it and use american workers to get it done. i use american products and american workers. that's why it stronger.

it is not a joke, it's not a campaign line. these are the best workers in the world, that's a fact. when i went to south korea to get them to start to build back those computer chips in america, they decided to do it, investing billions. i said, why are you doing it? he said, two things, you have the best workers in the world and the safest place to do it. when i think climate, i think good paying jobs that don't require a college degree. attracting $700 billion in private manufacturing, semiconductors, and clean energy. and construction of new factories has more than doubled

in our administration. meanwhile, donald trump still thinks windmills cause cancer. [laughter] that's what he said. either way, when trying to deal with covid he suggested injecting bleach in our veins. he missed, it all went to his hair. [cheers] i shouldn't have said that. [applause] probably shouldn't have said that. you guys are a bad influence on me. trump and his mega -- maga

allies want to repeal the most significant climate work ever. he wants to risk all those jobs. are you surprised? i am not. a lot of you don't know that if you want to be a pipefitter, electrician, or any other trade, it takes four or five years of hard work as an apprentice. they think you walk up and say, i want to be an electrician and you get a license. it is four or five years. it's like going back to college. the reason you are the best is because you are the best training in the world. you get it, i get it, but donald trump has no clue. he undermined unions by lowering standards and lowering pay. i ended his policy to save the building trades apprenticeship

program because they are the gold standard of the world. they are. [applause] they actually are. earlier this week, i teamed up together to recruit young people into the building trades. my american climate corridor will now pay the pathway to your apprenticeship program, because it matters. through my american rescue plan, which not a single republican voted for, i also enacted the biggest labor law in 50 years, because of you. that one act. that one act has already

protected hard earned pensions of over one million workers and retirees and counting. we made that happen while trump never lifted a finger to try to get it. i am not either. trump put union busters on the national labor relations board throughout his administration. i appointed people in my administration who actually cared about american workers, like marty walsh. [applause] if you are ever in a foxhole, i tell you you want marty walsh with you. he is the real deal.

i walked proudly on union picket lines. i want to sign the proactive into law. [applause] trump said he would veto it. beyond that, he supports a national right to work law, for god sake. what is the single biggest killer? a national right to work law. he also said he does not support any unions. are we going to let that happen? does anyone here think the tax system is fair? raise your hand. trump is proud of his $2 trillion tax cuts that overwhelmingly benefit the wealthiest and biggest corporations while excluding the national debt. trump added more to the national

debt then any single president in american history. i cut the national debt so far. by doing simple things like remember those fortune 500 companies, 40 of them? no, 50 who didn't pay a single penny in taxes and made $40 billion? guess what, i did a terrible thing. i made them pay 15%. and we cut the deficit by $70 billion. now from from is saying if he gets elected -- by the way, that tax cut of his expires next year. let me tell you something, it's going to say expired and dead forever if i am elected.

he wants another massive tax cut for the wealthy and also says he wants to cut your medicare and social security. by the way, these guys mean this stuff. the republican caucus went ahead and said they want to do that too. i remember there used to be two parties, real parties, but this ain't your father's republican party, this is a differentially activated i got a better idea. i'm going to set security and medicare by making -- going to protect social security and medicare by making the wealthy pay their fair share. [applause] no billionaire -- and there's 1000 of them in america -- no

billionaire should pay less in taxes than a construction worker, teacher, police officer. you know the average tax rate for a billionaire in america? 8.3%. i'm serious. if we just charged them 24% within the highest tax rate, we would generate $500 billion over the next 10 years, allow us to significantly cut the deficit, allow us to have daycare, allow us to do so many things to make the country stronger. this is a little off point but i want you to remember it. i asked the treasury department because i was getting compliments and criticism about being so prounion. i said, what happens to wages generally when unions have to get paid a decent salary? everybody's salary grows up --

goes up. you grow the economy. the bottom line is we are doing what has always worked best in this country, investing in all americans. so far we created over 15 million new jobs, including 848,000 construction jobs for a record 8.2 million across the construction industry. [applause] by the way, did you know there are only two presidents in american history who left office with fewer jobs than they entered? herbert hoover, and yes, donald "herbert hoover" trump. only two.

we are moving again as a country, beginning to gain momentum. but we have a lot more to do. we are moving again because of you guys and women. i am not being solicitous, that's why we are moving. we are building again and we are just getting started. let me close with this. as i travel the country, i see the amazing things you do, red states and blue states. this past june, i was in philadelphia -- and i married a philly girl, you don't screw around with philly people commit if i didn't root for every philly team out there, i would be sleeping alone. y'all think i am kidding. you remember that tanker truck that crashed and closed a stretch of i-95 in philly. it was expected it would take months and months for anything to happen. 150,000 vehicles travel that

overpass every day. what did we do? we contacted all of you, you organized. you rebuilt that in less than two weeks, record time, because you are the building trades. steel workers, union workers. you showed up around the clock. you got it done. [applause] by the way, that's america. unions are more popular today than they have been in a long time, not because of joe biden supporting it, because of you. you step into the breach, you get things done. that's the union movement, that's what it's about. in baltimore, they are moving

heaven and earth -- or as my dad from baltimore would say, ball-mer -- moving heaven and earth to rebuild the francis scott key bridge, and we are doing it with union labor and american steel. that's america. that's the union movement. [applause] i have been to the site, it's incredible. i have been over that bridge a lot, i commuted every day for 36 years as a u.s. senator when my wife and daughter were killed and i used to commute to be with the boys. it is incredible what you are doing. folks, the choice is clear. donald trump's vision of america

is one of revenge and retribution, a defeated former president who sees the world from mar-a-lago and bows down to billionaires, looks down on american union workers. not just not supporting, he looks down on us. think about the guys you grew up with who liked to get into the corner and just to a straight left. i'm not suggesting we hit the president, but we all know guys like that growing up. my vision of america is one of hope and opportunity. the view from scranton, working-class americans like you. here is the future i see and i mean this from the bottom of my heart. i am never more optimistic about america's chances, not because i am president, because of the state of the moment. we just signed a bill that gives support to ukraine. [applause]

we rebuilt nato. like it or not, we are the leading country in the world. the rest of the world looks to us. i see an america where we defend democracy, not diminish it, an america where we protect freedom, not take it away. i see an economy that grows from the bottom up when the wealthy pay their fair share so we can have child care, paid leave, and still reduce the deficit and increase economic growth. imagine what we can do next. four more years. >> four more years! four more years! four more years! pres. biden: are you ready?

>> four more years! four more years! pres. biden: are you ready to move forward? >> four more years! four more years. pres. biden: we are already. we are ready to move forward, not back. ready to choose unity over division, dignity over hate, truth overlies. are you ready to choose freedom over democracy? we can do this. i give you my word that i am never more optimistic about our future that in my career. member who we are. we are the united states of america and there is nothing beyond our capacity. nothing, nothing, nothing, when we do it together. we have to do it together. god bless you all and may god

protect our troops. thank you, thanks. ♪ thank you all. i don't want to go. ♪

[applause] >> today, former congresswoman liz cheney is in conversation with author john meacham, discussing how leaders can put principles ahead of politics. watch live from the washington national cathedral at 7:00 p.m.

eastern on c-span, c-span now, or c-span.org. >> c-span's washington journal, a live forum involving you to discuss issues in government, politics, and public policy, from washington, d.c. and across the country. thursday morning, elizabeth from the constitutional accountability center and someone from the heritage foundation discuss the consideration of donald trump's claim of immunity from criminal charges for letting to overturn the 2020 election. washington journal, join the conversation 7:00 eastern thursday morning on c-span, c-span now, or online at c-span.org. pres. biden: they say i am over

the hill. don lemon would say that's a man in his prime. >> watch c-span's coverage of the white house correspondents dinner, with saturday night live weekend update cohost collin jos as a featured entertainer, as well as president biden. coverage begins at 6:00 p.m. eastern on c-span.org and c-span now. as journalists and celebrities walk into the event. at eight :00 p.m. eastern, sights and sounds within the ballroom. watch the white house correspondents dinner live saturday on the c-span networks. >> c-span is your unfiltered view of government, funded by these television companies and more, including buckeye broadband.