Biden School celebration: Conversation with Joe Biden and presidential historian Jon Meacham

[Applause] welcome and thank you so much for being here on this very very exciting day for us as she heard I'm Maria Resta gaiter and I'm the director of the school of public policy and administration I have the honor to formally welcome you to the first ever event of the Biden school our school has always had a vital mission to equip students with the knowledge experience and skills they need to go out and make a difference in their communities in the world today we're thrilled to put a name of faith in a legacy to that mission we are proud to become the Joseph R Biden Jr School of Public Policy and administration our students our faculty and our staff can not be more excited about the opportunities that this change will create and I know that more than five thousand alumni serving Delaware some that are right here in the audience and they're serving the state the nation in the world are as excited as well the Biden name means something to Americans of all ages and backgrounds but for us the name has special meaning it's shorthand for our values public service civic engagement thoughtfulness inclusivity and respect and of course it's a daily reminder of what this institution can do for the students it serves because we know that the University of Delaware did for Jill Biden it inspired and transformed him the work will be engaged in inside and outside of the classroom we'll carry the legacy forward and I thank you all for joining us on the first step of that journey now it takes a president to introduce the vice president it's my pleasure to turn things over to the wonderful president of the University of Delaware dr. Dennis asanas [Applause] Thank You Maria good afternoon everybody Eleni and I are so thrilled that so many of you have joined us today here at the University of Delaware to celebrate a momentous occasion the naming of our school of public policy and administration after Joe Biden from now on we will fondly call it the Biden school let's give a round of applause to all the faculty and the students and fellows and everybody else the administrators who had worked tirelessly for many many years to build the legacy of the school so that it can be worthy of Vice President Biden's name let's give everybody happy and Thank You Maria for your leadership of the Biden school and thank you also to Valerie Biden Owens Kathy mcLaughlin and Mike Donnelly for the leadership of the Biden estate which is an integral part of our Biden school and what a better way to celebrate this landmark day than having a conversation in which all of you will participate between Vice President Biden and John Mitchell you all know our chairman of the Biden school and I'll say a few more words in a minute and of course all of you know as well John Mitchum an acclaimed historian and a Pulitzer Prize winner biographer of American presidencies and somebody who has looked at the American life and history longitudinally and really gives us hope for the future because that's where the soul of America is in hope and generosity and it's really amazing that in this university where we celebrate multicultural asthma we have today a Greek Orthodox president introducing soon a Catholic vice president and Episcopalian historian all in the presence of father Alex and his presbytery axanthic thank you for joining us so Vice President Biden will formally introduce John Mitchell in a minute but I do want to take a moment to say a few words about our most famous alum Joe Biden indeed few institutions are fortunate enough to be able to claim as an alum a leader in public servant as distinguished as Joe Biden when Joe first came to the University of Delaware he was a young man who knew that he wanted to make a difference in the world it was here where he found professors to encourage him courses to push him in a community to stand alone alongside him as embark on his life of public service and what a life it has been for 36 years as a u.s. senator and for another eight as vice president of the United States he carried his University of Delaware education experience and values and brought them to bear in service to our nation Joe Biden's career has always been centered on civility respect and the belief in the possibilities that every person carries within themselves his record is a testament to the power of rigorous thoughtful public policy to unleash those possibilities in our people and create meaningful change in our society the students who will attend our Biden school are just as eager as he was to make an impact to the world our professors are just as dedicated to their success they stand ready to inspire and the challenges they'll address are as erdan as urgent as they've ever been from the future of our middle class to the future of our planet it is difficult to imagine a more fitting or inspiring role model for this work than our own Joe Biden today the Joseph R Biden School of Public Policy and administration is a reality a brand new chapter in our University's treasured history and by affixing Biden's name to our school and the essential work that we do in the school we are reaffirming our commitment to integrity to service and to excellence please join me in welcoming our most distinguished alarm Vice President Joe Biden an alum of the class of 1965 [Applause] boss you got you know she runs the place just like she runs your place John welcome thank you sir welcome hello folks how are you it's great to see you all and I want you did you I want to introduce you to a great friend of mine one of the great senators I serve with I I was told when I left the Senate to be sworn in as vice president by the Senate historian that only at the time I think it was thirteen people that have ever served longer than me in the Senate which I found so discouraging that I was that old but I've known a lot of Senators none more decent honorable and committed than my buddy here the senator from Florida stand up here to Jack thanks for coming up thanks for coming well John welcome to my alma mater I my sister Valerie and I went here my wife Jill who was teaching today down in Virginia she's a professor she's on her way she should be here before this is over we're all my brother were all University of Delaware folks and I started off here and my sister as I've said before you can't take him anywhere no I know that I got so many even his own public policies I know that I'd tell you but we started off Val used to be three years younger than me and now she's twenty years and but we took basically the same courses she graduated honors I graduated and we should be naming this the Valerie bite in School of Public Policy but the daughter and husband of clapper dr. Santos and Maria thank you very much the Board of Trustees this is a miss a great honor the humbled and honored by the renaming of this school goes to show you anything can happen and but the University of Delaware I have to tell you John holds a place in my heart I'm the first member of our family and my dad's side to go to college and it was a big deal coming down here and and I I I used to I used to be a stutterer by the time I got here I had pretty much overcome it but I remember taking public speaking classes to try to get better at it and and I I had professors who bill gave me confidence they convinced me that I could do something beyond just graduate from the University and I remember coming here after it was strangely suggested when I was 29 years old by some senior Democrats who had previously held public office one was a former congressman one was a former governor suggesting that I should run for the United States Senate and I thought they were crazy and I remember saying to the former Chief Justice from a the tunnel family has had more senators and their family than any family in American history the tunnels and I said but chief I said he had retired by then I said I'm not old enough he said obviously didn't do very well in constitutional law job looked at him I said well I won't be 30 he said you'd be 30 by the time you'd be sworn in and you're eligible and I remember coming to here to one of my favorite professors dr. Ingersoll and telling him the story and asking him what he thought I should do and I'll never forget he looked at me John he said remember what Plato said I'm thinking what the hell do people say and the prior phrase Plato he said the penalty good people pay for not being involved in politics is being governed by people worse themselves he said Joe you can do this go ahead and run we're not for the professor's I had like.he and professor Bennett and others I would never had the confidence to think that I could do anything like this and so I owe this university a great deal and I hope that the the Biden school is going to inspire a new generation of women and men who are convinced that they can make a difference because they can and that's one of the purposes of this this school and today you know leadership requires us to thoughtfully apply the lessons of history and I can think of no person I literally no person I'd rather have before you all today and Jon Meacham John is one of the most of student surveys of American history in American political history and he wrote a book that I highly highly highly recommend all of you entitled the soul of America and and it won the Pulitzer Prize and it it places our present political circumstances in the context of what has gone before we've been here before in different ways and we've always come through but John talks about the soul of America as distinguished from the American creed which I'm going to ask him about in a minute and we're living through one of those periods where I think our history can shed some light on why there's so much reason for hope and optimism now we know America stands at a crow Serg regardless of what your politics is with your Democrat Republican independent we know we're at a crossroads in terms of foreign policy international relations and domestic policy as well and and and through the threats we face today are many in some cases unprecedented I think the choices we face today are not we're we're able to choose in terms of what will become of America's soul and I want to talk about America's soul today and so I think this is one of the most insightful thoughtful commentaries on where we are where we've been and how why we can look forward to to a future that is bright and and significant achievement from this point on I've often said John has heard me say it because John was kind enough he didn't know he's getting into when he agreed to interview me on my book before a large crowd a while ago but I think we're we're positioned to lead the 21st century in a way that I've never been more optimistic about if we just get up and begin to focus on what we can do who we are what the possibilities are and so John welcome and before I start to ask you some questions this is going to be wide-ranging and open between us you want to say anything anything you know I want to mr. vice president I want to go back to that Plato thing does that have any resonance for you beyond your undergraduate days all right my first question well we can he's currently regretting asking me to come to Delaware we can talk about that in a minute John yes sir why why did you write the book in the first place what what what prompted you to write I mean you've authored you've written a number really significant books but why did you decide to write about the solo America Charlotte's bull I'm a southerner I'm from Tennessee and so therefore I appreciate having my passport stamped when I came into the state appreciate it by the way most people two-thirds of people geographically Nellore think they're southerners so you know that's well that's a good one no I just want to know your your your right at home you all y'all and welcome we appreciate it we appreciate it the first time I first time I met George W Bush when he was governor of Texas I always tell my friends in Texas that if it weren't for Tennesseans they would still be part of Spain you know so and Florida would be too senator and you can thank me later and so we were at the governor's mansion I said you know perfect for us you know you be a provincial governor in the Spanish Empire he went hey that's pretty funny not really a relevant story but got their attention so I wrote it because of Charlotte's Ville in August of seventeen the terrible neo-nazi Klan rally there that led to the death of a young woman Heather hire who was a anti protester I don't like that term she was standing up for what America was and should be and but gave her life and that calls and I got a call from my friend and editor at Time magazine Nancy Gibbs who said would you write something about historical moments that felt like this one and so I went back to as so much does in our history the Civil War what Lincoln called the fiery trial but Shelby Foote called the crossroads of our being in many ways the Civil War or at least the Confederate part of the Civil War began as much at Appomattox as it ended because so many of my fellow southerners too many have not given up what was being fought for in the 1860s and so there's this long shadow of Appomattox and what I was struck by and climbing inside the rise of the first Klan then the long Jim Crow period the rise of the second Klan as if one weren't enough in 1915 the the Bund the pro-german folks in the 30s Joe McCarthy I don't know if any of this will sound familiar but we had a freelance political operator who understood the media of the day and didn't have much of a regard for facts mr. vice president I don't know I don't know this is the Biden schools firing on all Pistons so in McCarthy and then you you run into the 60s so what I wanted to do my belief is that history has a particular utility which is that it has the capacity not to make us all agree but at least to give us a common vernacular in which we can discuss what the country's been and therefore what it can be and I have found that arguing from history I'm not a Democrat I'm not a Republican I voted for both it plan to continue to anyway that was your cue very careful you're doing very well I moved for three now but I'm trying there's a there's a pool going on what I can get you to say Valerie put in 20 salary goes better night I don't do anything without her telling me but history has the capacity to reach people who are on the more conservative side of where we are in our country politically and on the more liberal side because conservatives like tradition and progressives like fax they like data and so I think history has the opens the aperture and brings people into a conversation that is Eska is contentious I'm not arguing the histories of bedtime story or that it's a fairy tale there was never a once upon a time and there's not gonna be a happily ever after and what I realized and again is part of its being a southerner I grew up on a Civil War battlefield Missionary Ridge it's where Arthur McArthur one is Medal of Honor when I was a kid I could still find minie balls in our yard so history was very tactile to me and it was all the day before yesterday and to my mind the soul of the country is not all good or all bad but it's a the essence of who we are and there's a struggle between our better angels and the Klan there's the struggle between dr. King and our worst instincts and I don't know about you all but I know that if at the end of a given day I've done the right thing 51 percent of the time that's a hell of a good day and that's true of the country as well because a republic is only as good as the sum of its parts and we're all very much in this one of the uncomfortable realities seems to me of our current moment is understanding that politicians are far more often mirrors of who we are rather than they are molders that's an uncomfortable truth but we have to grapple with it well you know Ralph Waldo Emerson once said you tend to find genius and with those with whom you agree I think he's a genius and one of the things that I agreed when I wrote this last book that with the publisher that I write a second book and if I wrote a second book I'd do it with this particular publisher and so one of the things I started to do what it became it's just too difficult a while I'm considering what Valerie wants me to do the was write a book about how in periods of technological change there's it's they tend to generate real uncertainty and openings for demagogues to be able to blame whatever the unknown is on the other yep and in the beginning of the book there you you you say extremism racism nativism isolationism driven by fear of the unknown tend to spike periods of economic and social stress periods like our own you want to say now in the second decade of the new century in the presidency of Donald Trump the alienated are being mobilized the fresh by changing demography broadening conception of identity and an economy that prizes information age brains over manufacturing brawn what period is closest to this period that we're going through now or are they are they are they different I I think it's a hundred if we were sitting here a hundred years ago in the late winter spring of 1919 it would be not dissimilar we have come through the Great War we had a president who resegregate adèle government who cracked down on dissent Woodrow Wilson closed 400 newspapers during the war with just simply because he disagreed with them every president since then has longed for that power the you have a an extraordinary transformation from an agrarian way of life that's not only economic but cultural and you have the introduction of a new meeting radio which seems like I just said icebox to you but think about it if you were an American householder in the from the six from the 17th century forward you absolutely controlled the cultural life of your family nothing came into your house if you subscribe without your permission you picked which newspapers you subscribe to which by the way we're all partisan we think this all got invented yesterday but it was entirely partisan you may be your kid would bring home a library book you hadn't known about but that would that was really the one breach in the wall and suddenly you have this radio and there are these people these far-off places called New York and Hollywood that are programming your lives you also have in the 1920 census the first time majority of Americans lived in cities and not farms which created the rise of a celebrity culture Walter Winchell becomes the great voice of that where people needed national narratives the less serious the better to keep themselves entertained because they no longer can talk about what their neighbors down the road were doing because they didn't know most of their neighbors in in the in the large and the scope of the cities so what happens on the Saturday after Thanksgiving 1915 at Stone Mountain Georgia the second Ku Klux Klan is founded it rises in strength to three to five million Americans there were 75 members of Congress who were members of the Klan were open openly members yeah this wasn't like meeting late at night I mean this was you were a Klansmen Hugo black of Alabama the governors of Texas and Georgia were Klan members which may not be surprising to you how about this Colorado Indiana and Oregon remember good the governors of those states four members of the Klan a hundred years ago fifty five years ago in my native state we lived under functional apartheid so as bad as things seemed I've never heard our friend John Lewis say things have never been worse no because he was nearly killed the streets of Alabama and Mississippi so my argument is not things have been bad in the past and so therefore relax it's all going to work out quite the opposite it's that without a sense of proportion we can become overwhelmed by the problems of today and if we realize that we've come through in this journey to make a more perfect union storm and strife and that that's far more the rule and not the exception that history gives us an orienting capacity what I found amazing and I thought I was a student of the Klan I remember here at the University having a debate with one of my professors that the Klan in the 20th century is more about Catholics like me and folks from from Europe and southern Europe then then there were about african-americans but what would I what I feel the realize was that in the 20s there was a march down Pennsylvania Avenue and there's a picture in your book which by the book fifty thousand people in full regalia the pointed hats and walking down the Pennsylvania Avenue and it not being viewed as something that was just absolutely totally horrific you wrote about Charlotte's ville Barack and I agreed we were not going to comment on the president president Trump's administration for a year to give him a chance to get set up he didn't expect to win we didn't expect much from it but we thought we do what w did with us we had great disagreement with w not personally but its policies but when Charlotte Phil happened I couldn't remain silent any longer and I wrote a piece for there's nothing like you're as consequential as your book but I wrote a piece we're living through the battle for the soul of this nation and it was an end was in the Atlantic magazine and the point that I was found myself having to come the plate coming out of the civil rights movement as a kid here in Delaware we were segregated by law in the state of Delaware was that and I was no great shakes I just you know we disagree two movie theaters and I worked as the only Caucasian and an african-american neighborhood and the projects as a lifeguard things like that but I never thought I'd see this in my lifetime what happened I really didn't I thought we had and I I was a history major I think I'm a student of history I've been doing this in public policy for a long time and I was stunned I was stunned that there were people coming out of out of the fields carrying torches singing the same chanting the same anti-semitic pile that was chanted in the streets of Nuremberg in 1933 I mean the same exact language carrying swastikas and accompanied by the Ku Klux Klan and white supremacists and then the president making a moral equivalency between those who reject it what was going on and those who are doing is saying they're good people in both groups as any president since the Civil War said anything like that no well by the way no I because I I'm not saying this to be no political I know but but and I'm not either no to go to your anti-catholic point the one of the ways we survived the Klan in the 20s was there was a restrictive him seriously restrictive immigration act in 1924 which cut down on a huge amount of the oxygen to that to that fight so we can't ignore that but the courts did the right thing the Supreme Court in two big cases one out of New York and one out of Oregon ruled against the Klan the Oregon case is particularly interesting because the Klan dominated legislature in Oregon passed a law saying that every school child had to go to public school what do you think that was about taking on the nuns they were trying to shut down parochial schools and the or threw it out the new york case was the clan was resisting publishing their membership and saying they were like the Kiwanis Club they shouldn't be made to do it but because there was so much vigilante violence the court ruled against that that helped enormously Joseph Pulitzers newspapers the New York world did a good job and Harding and Coolidge did the right thing yes that's not a sentence you hear much you know by the way the statements they made were pretty pretty courageous they weren't so full circle around no no no President had now presidential candidates did I know he had many chapters in his life but Strom Thurmond in 1948 not far from where that rally took place gave a speech on his sec explicitly segregationist platform in 1948 but that can still seem kind of far away so let's just do 50 years the 1968 election George Wallace won 13.5 percent of the popular vote and carried five states and the Eastern Shore of Delaware and the western shore of Maryland he was extremely popular he was shot but he was extremely popular and in and the southern in the Delmarva Peninsula his numbers were high fifty years ago in the lifetime of a lot of folks here so these are forces that are perennial we're not going to repeal them because you can't repeal human nature but you can expand it seems to me the capacity of human nature to embrace change instead of reflexively fighting it and again this isn't some ideological point if anybody here can think I'm quite serious about this can think of a moment you would like to go back to in American history where we foreclosed or narrowed what Jefferson meant when he wrote what became the most important sentence in the English language that all men were created equal now I'm always careful about hyperbolic claims like that but the English language partly because of the old story about the Texas school board candidate who said rank was against teaching Spanish in the public schools and on the stump said if English was good enough for our Lord Jesus Christ is good enough for Texas so careful about that but that sorry that assign you can disassociate himself from this but it's the most important sentence and every period of American life that we emulate or that we commemorate and again find me a counterexample and raise your hand is where we have more generously applied that promise we have always grown stronger the more widely we've opened our arms when we've taken down walls and not built them well you and I were talking about this a little bit of my office a moment ago I I I spent some time with Lee Kuan Yew the former president in Singapore I was in Mumbai on my way to to to Japan to Tokyo and then to Beijing and I got a phone call from Lee Kuan Yew who was referred to and dr. Kissinger likes this as the Henry Kissinger of the East and but Henry would say yeah but you know he wrote extensively on what he and he was quite insightful on the future of Russia India the United States and China and because I spent so much time and with with with President Xi and their only reason for that was he was the heir apparent to become president of Russia I mean excuse me of China and it was inappropriate for Barack to establish that relationship because he was president and he was Barack was president he was the vice president so it was agreed between Barack and president who that he and I she and I should get to know one another so we travel thousands of miles together in the United States as well as in China and I spent I was told more time within the net than any other world leader had spent with him and and so Lee Kuan Yew wanted to know what I thought was going on with President the Vice President and and now President Xi and he asked if I'd come and talk with him and he was I think ninety-two at the time he died about with within a year after that meeting and and it started off him asking me about what he was all about what do we talk about what was he going to do what did I think etc and at one point during the discussion I turned to him and I said I said mr. president he was a former president I said what's China doing now and he said China is in the United States looking for the Buried black box and I looked at him Tom like what do you mean the Buried black box and he said they're looking for the box that contains a secret that allows America to be the only country in the history of the world to be able to constantly be able to remake itself and I said well mr. president I'm old enough to hazard a guess what he'd find in that box I said I think he find two things one no matter how good or bad the school is in the United States no matter what age the child is being educated at that there is no we we we do not tradition is important but we have no orthodoxy is not something we worship we the reason we're able to make new things is we're not afraid to break all things to do new things unlike any other country in the world in my view today and I said there's a second thing in that box John I said and that is an unrelenting wave of immigration interrupted period from the seventeen hundreds uninterrupted period by xenophobic forces that last for a couple years to a decade but they're always overcome and he looked at me and he said why is that important and I said because we've been able to cherry-pick the best of every single solitary culture in the world in order to come here all your ancestors took a lot of courage when Valerie and my great-great-great-grandfather got on a coffin ship and the Irish Sea in the middle of a famine to come here they it wasn't like God it was gonna be real fun let's go we know what we're gonna what's gonna happen the person the the the family in Guadalajara right now sitting there in a hand noon dining room table or kitchen table saying I've got a great idea dad as a great let's sell everything give it to a coyote they're gonna take us across the border drop us in a desert and a place that doesn't want us won't that be fun and seriously the people who come and who have come our people are optimistic people with perseverance people with determination people who in fact are determined determined to succeed and and and he and he looked and he said I've never thought of it that way before so going back to your point about what it is that makes up this American spirit or soul or creed or whatever you want to call it they're all different you you make a distinction among them what is it from your perspective that has allowed us to get to the point where we are now in terms of having a society that sort of signs on to the same basic overarching principles we hold these truths elf evident all men are created equal endowed by their creator we never meet that standard but we've never rejected it before all right we haven't recently rejected it no and Jefferson laid out the aspiration and Madison and the framers gave us the means to try to make it as real as possible and one of those important phrases in our history comes from the preamble that in order to form a more perfect union it's not gonna be perfect if you're looking for perfection go to a university I'm sure this one or the church there's nothing institutions are valuable we're all we're all flawed we're all fallen the best we're gonna do is this 51% of getting right and I think one of the most important things that Lincoln ever said which goes directly to your question I think this is important in its way is Gettysburg was August 22nd 1864 he's in the middle of a reelection campaign by the way when you're despairing about the United States remember a commander-in-chief of a nation embroiled in a civil war that killed three-quarters of a million people held a full free and fair election and was willing to obey the result of all the elections to postpone 1864 would be pretty high but he didn't because he was fighting to defend the Constitution and he said you can't defend something if you don't abide by it but he gave a speech he wouldn't waste he campaigned actually was the veterans who were returning from the front going back to the States there's a regimen of a returning Ohio troops and he got up and he said that the war may go on for a year it may go on for two years he had to build up the possibility for that and he said but it's going on for you and your children to have what Lincoln called a fair chance for your industry intelligence and enterprise a fair chance for your intelligence industry and enterprise it's about the fair chance that's the American covenant and again it's easy if you look like me I'm a boringly heterosexual white Episcopalian all that's redundant but sorry I forget he might have to have an election or two I think that but if people like me my argument is if people like me don't say this then it's it's it's people like me are less likely to do what needs to be done to make that promise reality and so that's why I do what I do you ask about the difference in the Creed in the soul I think that's really important I think we can all kind of agree what an American Creed is it's a fair chance it's if you work hard and play by the rules you give a chance to prosper it's the James Truslow Adams was a historian in the 1930s who coined the term in America the American dream the phrase is only from the 1930s and as the Depression was interesting as the Depression was taking root there was this argument that you know what weak we endure we do everything we can we keep moving forward because we're always gonna get knocked back and that's what the more perfect union is a part it is about I think the Creed is the ideal and I actually think the soul is what we how we can make that reality actually come to pass that ideal come to pass and I don't think it's right to say and people people can disagree with this obviously I don't think it's right to say that the American soul has been captured by one party or another or one element or another if you disagree with it I think a fair minded reading of our history and our present is that as capable as we are of great good of projecting power around the world and as : Powell used to say only asked you for the ground in which to bury our dead right for all that we are capable of monstrous injustice 'as in the past and in the present and so the argue we can't let the perfect be the enemy of the good you can't therefore it seems to me logically be anti-american in a way because we're not perfect we have to find a way to in that battle within the soul soul in Hebrew and in Greek means breath or life in Genesis when God breathes life in the man it could be translated as soul when Jesus says greater love hath no man than this than to lay down his life for his friends life could be translated as soul it's who we are it's our essence and again if you're being honest with yourself and I'm being honest with myself I know that my essence isn't all good but I know that things are better things work out better for my family for my country when I try to heed those better angels well you know you quote Agustin in the City of God defined it as in us as Assemblies of of Reason beings bound together by a common agreement as to the objects of their love not great phrase it is a great phrase and and so when you when you talk about it and I think it's worth taking a hard look when you read the book and many of you have I know already is that the what are the objects of our love what are the common objects of our love and I don't think it takes John a scholar particularly academically well-educated individual to be able to reason that it gets down to those issues of fair play generosity of spirit being able to be rewarded for the work you do fairly to you know some faith in the future and that sort of is what when when again going back to that conversation with relates it reminded me with she I was in Chengdu and he asked me at a private dinner just he and I we chat an interpreter he said can you define America for me and I said yeah I can one word and I meant it and he said what is that I said possibilities I think unlike any other country in the world we are uniquely a product and people repair to us because we believe anything is possible that the system the people the circumstances provide for us to be able to realize whatever possibilities we can dream of and and I don't know any other kind and I really think you when you ask whether it's a tenured PhD professor here or you ask when you go to to to lunch or dinner ask the the waitress or the cook what they think about and you ask them about possibilities they they'll look at you but what's one of the things now that people are beginning to wonder yeah they're beginning to wonder about what what what are the possibilities that the middle class is being really battered right now the whole idea of merit being rewarded for example I've done a lot of work with the believe it or not the last two years as vice president the Business Roundtable came to me and said will you help us change the corporate culture and I said is that because I'm from Delaware or is because you think somehow I've changed and they said no and John Engler was a former governor was of Michigan who was the president of that and I got brought in eight CEOs making up eight of the top 30 CEOs largest companies in the United States and they're worried they're worried about the fact that corporate America is thinking to short-term where the American public is losing faith in in in the capitalist system or the as it exists now and and and in corporate culture and one of the recent examples is that you know it used to be thought at least that when things went well for corporation the phrase I use all the time is you know the expectation is if you contribute to the welfare of the enterprise you work with you get to share in the benefits and when things go badly you're gonna get some losses but it used to be the CEOs also took a hit when things went badly the whole corporation took a hit but but the equations changed now hardly any major corporation that's been in real trouble and had to make changes that are necessary like General Motors had to in terms of eliminating for their product lines you know no CEO took a hit but 17,000 people lost their jobs we bailed them out they made seven billion dollars the first year out of bankruptcy most of them went to buy back their own stock you find that now you know we're seven new why for new lines of automobiles are going to be built but yet 17,000 people lost their job there no commitment that they rebuild them in the United States of America going to electric car so there doesn't seems to be a total disconnect and here's the question who is the who are the stakeholders in corporate America today you write about how there's this disconnect that exists but who are the stakeholders I have a cartoon in my office in Washington it's a picture of a rotund guy and so out of The New Yorker I guess it's five years old now my senior staff used to keep taking it off my mantelpiece and the vice president's office because I thought it was too controversial and they'd put it in a book and I'd take it out and put it back in the mantle but there's a picture of this rotund guy wearing a black hat mask black turtleneck sweater sitting in the end of the table and there's a great big burlap bag in the table with a dollar sign on it and he's looking at an interrogator he's saying how was I supposed to know he was a job creator well since when did the culture change that the only people who are are job creators are stockholders there used to be some sense of corporate responsibility to the community well my dad my dad sold automobiles for General Motors I think he created jobs he managed to you know manufacture a large automobile facility right here in Newark and Porter Chevrolet I think he created jobs I think the technicians created jobs what is it that has happened in a day and it's not directly mentioned in your book but it's it's it's it's it's sort of surrounded what is it that you think people are most upset about having lost a sense of control I mean what are I'm not sure I've asking that correctly but no why's everybody so angry that's another way putting I'll go for this I think I think two things really one is and you did a marvelous work on this as vice president the whole question of the middle class and this is the real ethos of opportunity and how people get and one of the creation of the post-world War two middle class in America is one of the great achievements since Rome when you think about it this is a generation of people who had had nothing and they come in the 30's and they come through the war and suddenly by the middle of 1950s the the material wealth of the united states was mind-boggling the statistics are just extraordinary and by the way it was not all private enterprise wasn't all public either it was a remarkable combination of defense spending and the GI Bill and public education and PEEP interstate highways it was the government creating conditions for prosperity that the private sector took immense advantage of and should have who laid who built the railroads Abraham Lincoln who created land-grant universities Abraham Lincoln so the conditions for prosperity have always been a part of the public sphere at the same time there we believe in what Keynes called animal spirits we believe that Adam Smith was right most most of us do that in fact capitalism is the most rational response to human nature in a fallen world in the same way the Constitution is the Constitution in case you've set your hair on fire three times today because of Twitter and let's be honest you probably have the Constitution was written for moments like this it assumed that we would be driven by appetite and ambition and that we would do the wrong thing more often than the right thing and we have done everything we can ever since to prove the framers right Mira what Churchill said you can always count on Americans do the right thing once we've exhausted every other possibility and so I I think people are mad because they don't see those ladders anymore they don't see the promise they see what you're talking about sir they see plutocrats and the Gilded Age and CEOs and they don't see it for them and then they need a reason and sometimes on their own and sometimes encouraged from the top they point fingers and they point fingers at people that don't look like them you know David Brooks has written a lot about this I think he's a conservative columnist I I think he's been one most insightful columnist he's a Mets fan but besides that he's fine well can't be perfect I believe me I understand one of the things that he talks about he says there's an invisible moral fabric that holds up our entire system and III I believe and I'm one to know what your opinion is that I I believe that virtually everything that the founders did and those have successfully followed them since then everything in our system has to been to set up guardrails to prevent or make it harder to abuse power whether it was the separation of government and the first instance between an executive legislative and judicial branches or whether it was after World War two NATO so no one nation could abuse its power or whether it was the European Union so no one nation can abuse their economic power in in that area and one of the things that one of the debates is that that what leaders say matters even when there's such disregard for the political class with good reason in many cases but does it matter what what are the most important attributes in your view and you write a lot about this maybe not not directly but indirectly by referencing each of the presidents you talk about what is the most important attribute for a president to have and those have been most successful in unifying a nation and helping us move forward is there any one attribute that's more important than another I do that I think it's all about temperament and vision and the presidents who we remember fondly so he might as well speak in the vernacular that's important to them right if I had five minutes with the president which is unlikely I would ask him I would propose what I call the oil portrait test which is what do you want us to think about sir when we look at your oil portrait it actually works with many politicians because they can't imagine a world where we won't be gazing adoringly at their oil portrait so you hunt where the Ducks are right I mean it's actually pretty good so think about it who what do we have an oil portrait anywhere I want you to know that it's it's early yet sir walked right into it you can't leave hanging curve balls like that sir I know it's too easy like taking candy from children but candy tastes good so hopefully the the American presence we remember what do we remember them for in the fondest way it's the presidents who have reached beyond their base of support it's the presidents who have surprised us what's the one thing people say about Nixon he went to China China Ronald Reagan who in 1980 was seen as as he put it himself a combination of the Mad Bomber and Ebenezer Scrooge says the week after he's sworn in that the Soviet Union reserves unto itself the right to lie and to cheat and seeks world domination in 1983 in front of the national evangelical Association he referred to as an evil empire in 1988 he's standing next to your friend Howard Baker then his chief of staff in dread square literally playing with babies with Mikhail Gorbachev and they say to him Sam Donaldson yelled it of course said mr. president is it still an evil empire and Reagan said that was another time he learned he reacted to facts he changed his mind read go read the first inaugural of Abraham Lincoln it's not what you would engrave on the wall at the National at the African American Museum he's reassuring people in my part of the country slavery's fine don't worry about it oh you have nothing to fear from me changed his mind two years later becomes the the figure that Frederick Douglass said Abraham Lincoln may have been pre-eminently the white man's president but in the hurry tumult and confusion of the age he saw the light and led us toward it so and what did eight what did Lyndon Johnson do not a person in the world would have bet on the evening of November 22nd 1963 that this Texas deal maker was gonna finish the work of Lincoln but he did and he said it that night yep he's like I don't know if you did this as vice president but he's lying in bed with all his aides around him to do that a lot he's dr. Biden here nor nor did I sit in the bathtub like Churchill yeah okay yeah you all know the great Churchill story about the White House right okay well quickly if you did so he's I have a series of nudity stories about world leaders it's it's short but you could always grab it's it's Christmas 1941 Churchill is your writer vice president's writing right now he knows when you're on a roll you really don't want to stop and so he dictates speeches actually talked to the man who was taking the dictation on this it's Christmas night 1941 Churchill is addressing Congress the next day and he's on a roll he's dictating the speech he gets out of the bathtub the towel falls away but he's still marching around dictating and there's a knock on the door in his FDR and Arthur Prettyman his valet pushes him in and FDR sees the Prime Minister and all his glory and says Oh Winston I'm sorry I'll come back and Churchill says oh no mr. president as you can see the Prime Minister of Great Britain has nothing to hide from the President of the United States at later FDR told his secretary grace Tully he said you know grace he's pink and white all over you don't want to think about Reagan and Thatcher in that setting right you know bush and Blair did someone to it so where were we I got a story close to that oh good when I first when I first got to the Senate I as a lot of Delawareans know I I didn't want to go because I just lost my wife and daughter and and so I I went down agreed to go for six months and 36 years later but anyway and one of the people had always come to my office was Ted Kennedy to see how I was doing and he tried to get me to go down in the Senate Jim and I had never met 85% of the Senators because I didn't get sworn in the same day the Senators did because I stayed in the hospital with the boys and so when I got sworn in it was in the hospital by myself so I didn't know or had not physically met at least half the Senators and in the Senate Jim at that time was all male and like the old YMCA they go down there and everybody walks around and their birthday suit and I'll never forget walking down with Ted Kennedy and the first guy I meet is William Fulbright and I send a stark naked all I can think is that mr. chairman how are you second person I met was the chairman of what was then the public works committee Jennings Randolph from who had a physique of of Churchill and how you doing son how you doing I'm thinking Oh God Almighty what am i doing that first time I met these guys I saw I saw all of them anyway but go ahead I'm sorry but the night of November 22nd 1963 I didn't think we'd remember did you Johnson's in his bed at the Elms and Bill Moyers Jack Valenti the whole crew is there and he's making a list of things to do Kennedy's dead the Cataclysm of the assassination and he's it's a foreign leaders you should talk to it's way needs to do for the funeral it's the first letters first calls to the leaders everything and he says I'm going to pass the civil rights bill and I'm not gonna change a comma and Jack Valenti said remember this is 1963 this is autumn 1963 the reason Kennedy and Johnson were in Texas was because nobody knew very Goldwater was only gonna win five or six states they were worried Texas had just lost Johnson's seat went to a Republican which hadn't happened since reconstruction John Tower so there was a split in the Democratic Party in Texas Ralph Yarborough the great progressive the great populist and John Connally the great conservative and the Democratic Party in Texas was worried because there was a bright young guy he wasn't in the offshore business in Houston who was going to run on the Republican ticket named George Herbert Walker Bush and Lyndon Johnson had this vision of two Republican senators from Texas and that just was was not going to work so one of the reasons they were there was to try to keep the conservative Democratic coalition together so cut to that night Johnson says I'm gonna pass this Pawlenty says mr. president why don't we wait till this time next year and Johnson says no what the hell is the presidency for if not to do the things that other people might not that's what presidents are great great bezel makes a great president it's interesting that you write about continuation that notion and Johnson's determination that he was going to do this and and he was getting a little bit of a fight with McCormack and I was then a leader and others and and he said I speak tonight this is on March 13 1965 as I speak tonight for the dignity of a man and the destiny of democracy urge every member both parties Americans of all religions all colors from every sector of the country to join me in a cause at times history and fate meet at a single time in a single place to shape the turning point in man's unending search for freedom and he goes on talking with Lexington Concord but he ends this fight progressing on the issue of equal rights for Americans Negroes American Negroes is such an issue and should we defeat every enemy should we double our wealth and conquer the Stars and shall we and and still be unequal on this issue then we will have failed as a people and as a nation for with a country as with a person what is a man profited if he gains if he shall gain the whole world and lose his soul and that was Lyndon Johnson one of the interesting things was I got a an award from the Johnson library and of all people one of the reasons why you know guys like me ended up running in 1972 is about the Vietnam won even the war in Vietnam was not Johnson's think Johnson remember bringing up McGeorge Bundy and saying how do we end this war and his response was we don't know how how do we win this war he said we don't know how to win it we know how to not to lose it I bought that book and gave it to 20 members of the administration when we were talking about Afghanistan and so it's amazing how people transform how they look yes exactly right and so my point is that that it is it goes to what the role of the president is and the and you you know you've forgotten more about this than I know but it's the complexity of these people my friend Doris Kearns Goodwin likes to say if you're ever gonna put Johnson on Rushmore and be half a face not bad right yeah and that's more than most of us present company excluded I guess but it's kind of but I think that's and I also the other piece I would recommend if you really want to dork out and let's be honest you're here so you probably are likely to do that is to read Frederick Douglass in 1876 wrote an amazing deliver an amazing oration a meditation on Lincoln it was the dedication of the Freedmen's monument down in Washington and if you want to me if you want to understand both the complexity ambiguity of American history and the complexities and ambiguity of biography and as Emerson said there's properly no history only biography Douglass on Lincoln who basically says he didn't want to help us necessarily but he did and it would have been easier in some ways for him not to do it and it's this wrestling with the the the Twilight Struggle where we're all in that and I said this before but I just we can't let the perfect be the enemy of the good well you know one of the things that the reason I found your book so insightful is just as a witness to history being in the place I've occupied for over 40 years of my life I have watched individual senators and presidents grow and change and some degress some and how they face face real challenges that go to the heart of the soul of America and but most of them have stepped up most of them and the really critical moments have not walked away from what I think most of us would agree is the soul of America the you know the the the the sort of decent response and I I found that you know I I'm often criticized because I have a lot of folks I've worked with and Republicans that are my close friends I don't find you know what one of the things like with John McCain John McCain and I went after each other hammer and tong I mean he would go after me and I shouldn't be in the ticket at all he's but John and I had the same value set that brought us to a different place a different conclusion of how to deal with specific issues and I find that most of the women and men that I respected the most are people that do understand however you wanted to find it and it's very slightly the sole America they have they have a value said that they think and when and when pressed they they they yield to that soul rather than their self-interest not everybody not everybody and you only and tell me if you think this is right you really only have to get it right once yep that's true right and I think when they get it right once I think that they realize that let me ask you this my sister's always heard me say that I think that that the American public rewards elected officials even when they disagree with them if they believe they're authentic and they're believe they are expressing what they truly feel to be the right course even when they disagree with a specific proposal made to deal with a specific issue a specific problem the time that I've observed that that that you that you are punished as a public official is if you turn out to be something different than you advertise yourself to be yes what you're sure Churchill had a great insight about this he in the middle of the winter of 42 he faced a vote of confidence in the house and had to give a 10,000 word speech about the conduct of the war and in his memoir he later talked about yeah he had to be can't he had to be he had to level with people and that the passage in the memoir says that the British people or the American people can face any misfortune with fortitude and buoyancy as long as they are convinced that those who are in charge of their affairs are not deceiving them or are not themselves dwelling in a fool's paradise it's a two prong test we basically want to know are you lying to us or are you lying to yourself and if you pass those two and we believe that you're actually leveling with us then we tend to do what it takes that's in many ways the Covenant of modern democracies I think you're exactly right I think people have an innate sense that ultimately the truth will out and the character matters enormous Lee and I don't necessarily mean entirely personal character but but Heraclitus as well is one the oldest insights in the in the in the Canon said the character is destiny and in Greek the word can also translate as fate character is fate and let me ask you I me you've you've you've been a heartbeat away is that true yeah I think it is III really think one of the reasons why I had confidence and as you probably know I know you know that when I was asked to be vice president I didn't want to do that I know she did my mother did take care of it Joey the first african-american me president you think he's qualified and he says you need you to win Pennsylvania you told him no honey remember that fell and the rest the rest is history but but the thing about that you really get the measure of a woman or a man when you see them under enormous pressure and one of the things about what happened with Barack with President Obama most of the crises he faced were crises of First Instance we'd never had a recession that was a fiscal recession like this we'd never been there before it's not like we could go back and look at history and see how it was handled we we were never in a situation before where the single greatest concern of the American people were stateless actors who were about to you know do great harm and damage to the United States America we and there's a whole range of things I used to say to him mr. president everything's landed on your desk but locust but one of the things that and you talk about character I think character is destiny and I I watched I knew the president not intimately before he was elected but I came to know him intimately and we became close to friends I mean it's a genuine personal friendship and all those memes are true except that he did the first friendship bracelet at me but all kidding aside one of the things people asked me about whether or not I mean how did that relationship develop it's like any other relationship it's like a friendship for a marriage it grows out of trust and what I watched him do as I watched him deal the deal we had was he asked me what I wanted as what did I have any conditions I had no condition he said let's talk about when I decided to do it how we want to do this and we agreed with Mondale's recommendation that we should have a private lunch once a week which we did where we could literally holler one another disagree like brothers and no that wouldn't go beyond that room I knew I could tell him things that I wouldn't even tell him in front of senior staff where I disagreed with policy and he would give me hell too and but one of the things that I observed about him was that he owned up to whatever shortcoming he had and he was unwilling to try to paper over any shortcomings that we had that had or consequence of any policy and so I found him to be somebody who was who had real character and it was easy it was easy to to serve him that way I mean I get credit for always having his back well that's the job of a vice president but it wasn't hard because even when I may have disagreed which wasn't very often it was usually on tactic not on substance I just knew who this man was at his core and one of the things that I'm proudest of in serving with him is that we went for eight years of not oh not a whisper of scandal not a whisper of anything that was because because I trusted him I trusted him and the flip of that is that he trusted me enough and it took great personal confidence to do this it's hard for a president to delegate a major responsibility to someone else without being criticized for it but he was confident enough in his capacity and his abilities he delegate things to me we gave me presidential power I could hire fire and and so it worked but III credited it to character this guy has a backbone like a ramrod he was honest as hell we all have our shortcomings he used to say to his close friends what's it like with joy I said it's like having a big brother we make up for each other's shortcomings well he made up for most of all mind I made up for maybe one or two of his but all kidding aside it was based on trust and and the trust was a consequence of having confidence in the character the decency the honor the commitment of the person you were dealing with but it's no different any personal relationship I think but it's turned out to be something that made it worthwhile can I ask you one more question because I don't know what my time is here because I'm supposed to tell I'm can I jump in no yeah you can do sure I don't I would be remiss and not asking this there are a number of people in this room and around the country who would very much like to see your character back in the arena so what are you confident what are you able to tell us at this point about your thinking I was very pleased look most of these people are delawarians I I owe them so much they I mean it sincerely they've been with me in good times and bad they've they've been there to hold me up lift me up and they've been there to tell me when they think I'm dead wrong which I've been more than once and and but they've they've been straightforward and honest with me it's one of the great advantages of representing a state this small and ok I'll just tell you straight up we we've had we've been having I know the people of Delaware will not be surprised by this but others might we do everything by family meetings because no man or woman has a right to run for high public office without it being a family decision and from being pushed forced product by my son Hunter and my wife Jill and my daughter there is a we just had a family meeting with all the grandkids too and and there's a consensus that I should they want they the most important people in my life want me to run knowing and by the way they're they're not naive from the time they were born including my children they have been in the public eye it's not a bad place but not an overwhelmingly comfortable place to be everything that happens is public knowledge you you get to celebrate publicly and you have to share your grief publicly and and so they're they're not naive and my granddaughters and grandson or not naive either and so the first hurdle for me was the citing whether or not I am comfortable taking the family through it would be a very very very difficult campaign no matter who runs it's a very difficult campaign and primary will be very difficult and the general election running against the president Trump I don't think he's likely to stop at anything and whomever he runs against and so I am I'm I'm I'm certain about where the family is but the second piece is that I don't want this to be a fool's errand and I want to make sure that if we do this and we're we're very close to getting to a decision that I am fully prepared to do it and by that I mean we want to make sure the four for example from the last time Barack and Iran and that was a presidential campaign I wouldn't the presidential candidate but I know about presidential campaigns that between then and now the whole issue of social media and the use of social media and has fundamentally changed and so we're been getting briefings from the most advanced people in the country who run these major platforms and telling us what we need what kind of organizational structure we'd have and it's it's a mess massive undertaking we also are making a decision whether or not we can fund this campaign on my conditions because I will not accept I will not be part of a super PAC or accept I mean I thought well and to see whether or not it's realistic Oh awful lot of people have offered to help and the people who are usually the biggest donors and Democratic Party and I might add some major Republican folks and then the other thing is making sure we put together a campaign organization reflects who we are as a country made up of women and men and african-american Hispanic Latinos Asian I mean it's it's to reflect Who I am and finding out who's available to people this campaign and we're also taking a hard look at whether or not it is this alleged appeal that I have how deep does it run is it real no I'm being very I'm being completely honest with you because I can John that's a fair question I can die happy man never having lived in the White House but but I don't want to do as I don't want to take people's time effort and and and and commitment without there being a clear shot that I could be the nominee I think we can't I think that's where we are but there's still a couple hurdles to go through to make sure we have all this in place and and if we conclude that I would announce and I'd run for president and but you know but I'm not there yet III I don't want to mislead you I'm being more straightforward look no one's ever doubted I mean what I say the problem is I sometimes say all that I mean and and so this has to be we're in the final stages of that decision and but it would be the you know the greatest honor of my life to to be president United States but also it is a it's something that I have to make sure that I could run a first-rate effort to do this and and make clear where I think the country should go and how to get there and that's the process going on right now but that's straightforward as I can mean I have not made the final decision but don't be surprised what is it good tuck you know they're telling me that time is up but one of the time his timing is impeccable you know when when John interviewed me which was wonderful of them to do on my book tour I said you know basically we said please don't ask about this because we were much further away from it than we are now and he didn't but he saved it for the end folks John's going to stick around and sign books if you are interested in where they're gonna move these chairs and bring up a table and and I really mean this and I sincerely mean it I think that I don't know any serious public official in either party who hasn't taken a look at and looks to and takes seriously what John has to say about the state of the nation and what the possibilities and let me conclude by saying I really believe and I think you do John Bella's you speak for yourself obviously I think America's better positioned to lead the 21st century than any time in American history I think we have it all I think we have all the capacity that is needed I think we have the people I think we have the greatest research universities in the world we're in a position where the wealthiest most powerful nation in the world but we lead and whistles what worries me we've always led not by the example of our power but by the power of our example the power of our example and the world I can tell you from traveling around the world and recently being in Munich with other heads of state III they're desperately yearning to find out we haven't we haven't lost our soul we are who we are and I'm not and by the way there are Republicans who are concerned about this and Republican people running for public office I went into 68 races in this off year to campaign for senators governor's Democratic candidates for the house and you know what I found no matter where I was what the American people are looking for in the Democratic Party's walls Republican Party is people of character they're looking for people who they think have character so we got a lot of it here would you want to make any closing comment no just an honor to be here and I couldn't do what I do and we couldn't live in the country that we want to live in without men and women of enormous character and good temperament making the sacrifices necessary to be in the arena and fight our battles and the vice president has been a exemplar of that and I suspect we'll continue to thank you thank you everybody we are going this way Thank You mr. president thank you am I going to see you haven't read the book get it and read it and every time we'd walk out of my grandfather Finnegan's house he'd yell Joey keep the faith my grandmother yelled no Joey spread it go spread thank you [Applause]

Channel: University of Delaware

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Id: DBVLziQ92FQ

Length: 88min 1sec (5281 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 01 2019