Biden urges Democrats to tout policy wins: ‘Let the people know who did it for them’  

BALTIMORE — President Biden rallied House Democrats on Wednesday to turn their attention towards implementing the legislative accomplishments notched in the last two years, a strategy that caucus leaders see as they way to reclaim the majority in 2024.

“If we did nothing, nothing but implement what we’ve already passed and let the people know who did it for them, we win. But we’re way beyond that, it’s not just about winning,” Biden said in Baltimore during the House Democrats’ issues conference.

He listed accomplishments over the first two years of his administration, during which Democrats controlled both chambers, including the American Rescue Plan, the bipartisan infrastructure law, and the Democrats’ sweeping Inflation Reduction Act.

But the president also acknowledged that Democratic proposals are likely dead in the water the next two years under a GOP-controlled House. And he gave a nod to his potential 2024 reelection reiterating that there was still a job to finish.

“Folks are going to understand what you’ve done and we’re going to make sure of it,” Biden said on Wednesday to the room full of House Democrats. “But, as much as we’ve done, we have a lot of unfinished business as well to finish the job that needs to be done.”

Biden also called this Democratic caucus one of the most united that Democrats had seen in recent years. House Democrats remained united to shepherd through a number of bills in the narrowly split chamber during the 117th Congress, when they could only afford to lose a handful of members’ key votes.

And most notably, no Democrats defected from voting for Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries as their leader in the House in a marathon vote series in January in which Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) failed to secure the gavel more than a dozen times before he could garner just enough Republican votes.

“We stuck together, we really did,” Biden said.

He also took the time to take some jabs at House Republicans and in particular had words for Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) who recently said she blamed Biden for the death of a woman’s two sons from fentanyl who actually died in 2020 during the Trump administration.

“Isn’t she amazing?” Biden quipped to the crowd.

The president predicted that if more Republicans stood on the same spectrum as Greene, who has touted conspiracy theories such as denying the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, more GOP lawmakers might find their way to the Democrats tent.

Despite such measures only being brought to the floor with McCarthy’s approval, Biden also predicted that some Republicans could join Democrats in voting on measures such as codifying Roe v. Wade and protecting voting rights.

“Watch,” Biden told fellow party lawmakers.

But the biggest fight facing the White House and lawmakers is going to be over raising the debt ceiling as Republicans aim to hash out where to institute spending cuts while the administrations remains adamant that it would give up anything in exchange.

“Under my predecessor, Republicans in Congress voted three times to keep paying America’s bills without preconditions and without a crisis,” he said. “They paid America’s bills then, so why won’t they pay them now?”

He added, “the answer’s real simple: politics.”