The Washington Post’s Dave Weigel asked Joe Biden why he is so confident that the Republicans who blocked the Obama-Biden agenda wouldn’t also block the Biden agenda. There is no possible right answer, so instead we got this:
“You either convince the other team … that they should change their vote, not only because it’s right, but it’s because their own self-interest to do so … [In 2018] Did you find a Republican [saying] ‘No, I’m against making sure that you are able to have covered pre-existing conditions, I’m against?’ All of a sudden, they saw God. They saw the Lord. The sun shone through. And guess what? We won 41 seats.”
Seems to me the lesson there is that voters preferred Democrats who believed in protecting health care, rather than Republicans who pretended to do so.
“Sometimes you have to have a bare knuckle fight. Like we did in health care. We won without a single Republican vote.”
Well, that has me convinced that Republicans will work with him ...
“Other times, to try to save the economy, I went out and convinced three Republicans. ‘Joe, you couldn’t possibly do it, no one’s gonna vote for it. You’ll never get the Recovery Act done.’ I went out, and I got three Republican votes.”
So in a time of global economic meltdown, he managed to get THREE votes.
So, to recap, Biden says Republicans will work with him because he got zero of their votes that one time, three votes that other time, and Democrats won the 2018 election.
P.S. His three yes Republicans for the Recovery Act? Arlen Specter, who ended up switching to the Democratic Party and is long gone; moderate Maine Sen. Olympia Snowe, who is long gone; and Maine’s Susan Collins, who plays at being moderate, but was the deciding vote to put Brett Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court. She’ll be gone after 2020 as well.