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what sort of imprint will joe biden
leave on this city
a man who's been shaped by washington
during 36 years in the senate
and eight years as vice president he may
soon have the chance
to shape the united states
if joe biden wins he'll not only be the
oldest person
ever to become president of the united
states
he'll also have got there with the least
scrutiny of any modern
candidates for many americans the fact
that he's not donald trump
is enough to win their vote but if he
wins
what then how does he intend to occupy
the most powerful office in the world
what does he intend to do sure give me
your phone
biden ran in the primaries as the
politician he's been for 40 years
a moderate centrist his offer
essentially an extension
of the obama years a return to decency
and normalcy
but the democratic party's base is
decidedly more radical these days
more ambitious their support more
conditional
the one note of caution that i hope
the binding harris teams would take to
heart right now
is not to mistake their performance in
this election
for pro-biden pro-harris enthusiasm
right now i think there there's
tremendous enthusiasm to get rid of
donald trump
um but it's really going to be incumbent
on them
post-election to earn the support
and earn the trust of progressives who
who really are the majority of the
democratic party
the view among many leading democrats is
that hillary clinton lost in 2016
in part because she alienated supporters
of bernie sanders when she defeated him
for the nomination
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they jeered her at the convention and
many then refused to vote for her
in the election come on give me a break
no i won't give you a break on this one
joe
when joe biden defeated bernie sanders
for the nomination this time
he was determined not to repeat
clinton's mistake
the biden and sanders campaigns formed a
unity task force over the summer
to thrash out a compromise program for
government in return for senator sanders
endorsement i think the compromise that
uh they came up with
if implemented will make biden the most
progressive president
uh since fdr the 110
document released with little fanfare
outlines plans in six areas
climate and environment criminal justice
the economy
education healthcare and immigration
it's very ambitious
but mostly uncosted and unfunded and it
sounds expensive
for a start there's a federal new deal
style jobs program
unprecedented investment in
infrastructure and free universal
education for all three and
four-year-olds
on the environment there's a promise for
the u.s to achieve net zero greenhouse
gas emissions as soon as possible
and no later than 2050 and just one
measure
a promise to replace the entire fleet of
500 000 school buses
with american-made zero emissions
alternatives within five years
could cost upwards of a hundred billion
dollars on its own
the real interesting story of 2021 is
going to be whether joe biden is
actually in charge of the agenda
or a much more progressive democratic
congress is in charge of the agenda
joe biden by his nature is a centrist
he's a deal maker he wants to
build consensus but the party has really
been taken over by the far left the the
environmental agenda
the tax agenda you name it healthcare in
particular is going to be very volatile
and they're demanding big big change
there's evidence that the biden campaign
has sought to reassure corporate america
that it won't be pursuing the more
radical aspects of the deal with sanders
i reported at the washington post on a
conference call that
um biden's people had with big wall
street figures
where the wall street figures were
saying gosh we're a little bit
concerned about some of the things in
this um
you know unity task force plan and the
biden people were saying oh no
no don't worry don't worry that's not
that's not something that we're really
behind and biden's campaign you know
more or less confirmed that anecdote so
they're
they're okay they've been campaigning to
the center
um and so there is this nervousness on
the left that when he gets in he's not
going to have
these big bold plans
evidence of that nervousness is obvious
just last week
a group of progressive congressmen and
women sent a letter warning the
democratic leadership
not to appoint any former lobbyists or
corporate executives
to joe biden's administration if he wins
a lot of progressives are going to be
watching very carefully to see the
personnel choices to see
who will be um cabinet secretaries who
will be staffing the government
we believe that after unprecedented
corruption
under donald trump that the best way to
show
the democrats are different and the best
way for joe biden to show a break from
donald trump
is to have a government that is clean
and
free of even the whiff of corruption
even if joe biden decides he wants to
launch a
legislative revolution in the united
states
there are still plenty of barriers to
him getting anything
done it looks entirely possible that the
democrats could
retake the senate but in the senate a
simple majority
is not enough i do not like them sam i
am i do not like
green eggs and ham this is filibustering
it takes the votes of 60 senators to end
a debate
otherwise opponents of legislation can
just keep talking
about whatever they like i do not like
them
sam-i-am there's a huge appetite
within the democratic party to change
the senate rules
to end the filibuster and while they're
at it deal with the conservative
majority on the supreme court
by appointing new justices to create a
progressive majority
but if joe biden were to give his views
on the filibuster or
appointing additional justices he'd
either antagonize his base
or the swing voters he may need at this
election so instead
we get this this is the number one thing
that i've been asked about
from viewers uh in the past couple of
days well you've been asked by the
viewers who are probably republicans who
don't want me continuing to talk about
what they're doing to the court right
now
well sir don't the voters deserve to
know no i'm not going to play his game
americans do deserve to know the answers
to these questions
you know absolutely should they know is
is joe biden ready to pack the courts
yeah
that's a good question that he ought to
have a straightforward answer to
typically when you're running you want
to get some type of permission from the
voters
here's what i'm doing here's you
understand what i'm for
this election is just for a number of
reasons been defined completely
differently
and so by the time that he actually
takes over i think most people will have
not really paid much attention to it
and that is that that is potentially
what gets you in trouble when voters
don't really know what you have planned
according to the polls it will be joe
biden who gets to stand on the
inauguration stage being built on the
capitol steps
the platform he's standing on in the
election though has received far less
attention
delaying difficult policy choices and
with them difficult battles within his
party
they make sense now but it doesn't make
them disappear