Photo: whitehouse.gov
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you, Governor. I - I may be the only Irishman you've ever met who never drank. And my grandfather used to say: "Joey, when you toast with something other than alcohol, you got to use your left hand." And I thought so. (Laughs)
Folks, Governor Cox, Governor Polis, and everybody - to all the family members that are here - and thank you, (inaudible) for being here tonight. We appreciate it very much.
You know, let me just say that we have - we have a lot in common. What makes me feel good that we have governors here is that there's still a tradition of doing things together. We argue like hell. We make it a point to get our points across. But at the end of the day, we know who we work for. The goal is to get things done.
And, you know, standing here in front of the portrait of the man standing behind me, he said - and I want to make sure I got this quote right. He said, "We - the better angels" - he said: "We must turn to the council - and adapt the better angels to our nature". And we do - and we do well to remember what else he said. He said, "We are not enemies, but we are friends". That's in the middle of - that's in the - in the Civil War part. He said, "We're not enemies, but [we're] friends. We must not be enemies."
People - and I was there. I know I don't look it. But I've been here a long time. (Laughter.) And - and I mean this sincerely, we've - politics has gotten too heated - Democrats and Republicans. Politics has become too personal - and it's just - it's not like it used to be.
And by the way, I served in a time when we had very, very starchy - sharp differences. I mean, there were incredible differences, but we always - not always, but in the vast majority of cases, we sought compromise when the end - when the end of the day came.
And, you know, it seems to me that - I'll say in closing that I've - I've spent a lot of time with Xi Jinping - somebody I have a lot of differences with. And I was - when I was vice president, the president - my - my president was - told me that he wanted me to meet Xi Jinping because it was clear that he was going to be the head of Russia - China - and that he - we had - we had problems with Russia at the time and also with other countries. And so he said to me: "Meet him. He'll be there." I - and he couldn't, because he was president and he couldn't travel. So I traveled 17,000 miles with him all over the country - our country and - and also - in China.
We were on the Tibetan plateau and he turned to me and said: "Can you define America for me?" "Yes," I replied. And I - because it was documented and it's real - I looked at him and I said, "Yes, I can. In a word." And he looked at me and said: "What word?" And I said: "Possibilities." Options.
On the possibilities.
(President Biden gave a toast.)
Never in my life have I been so optimistic about the prospects of what we can achieve if we work together. Nothing is beyond us.
So once more on the possibilities.
Joe Biden
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