>> i charnged the combination o my luggage. >> reporter: cnn, new york. and thanks so much to all of you for joining us. cnn's democratic presidential town hall with joe biden live from las vegas starts now. ♪ >> and good evening live from the theater at sahara, las vegas. i' i'm anderson cooper. this is cnn town hall event. in just two days democratic candidates will face a major test here in nevada. tonight two of the top contenders, joe biden and elizabeth warren will take questions. many are waiting to hear from the candidates before choosing to caucus for them on saturday. i want to get started right now

with the former vice president joe biden. [ applause ] how are you doing? >> thank you. so help me out when i get the answers. >> i want to go to the audience in just a minute. i want to start with information we just learned today. we learned today a top communication official told congress russia is already taking steps to interfere in the 2020 election. the briefing indicated that russia has a preference for president trump, someone they believe they can work with. what's your reaction? >> not surprised at all. look, i was deeply involved in the intelligence community when i was -- when i was vice president. we knew it then. they have been involved. they continue to be involved. i guarantee you they're involved. and the fact is that i expect whoever did that is about to be fired. >> do you have confidence in the person that the president wants

to be the new dni, who is currently the ambassador to germany? >> no, he has absolutely zero experience in intelligence. he is going to be an ambassador -- no. i'm not personally. he may be a fine guy. but he has zero experience, and expect him to be both the acting head of all the intelligence, not just one, all the agencies, director of national intelligence and the ambassador to germany at the same time, with no experience. >> if you were president right now, what would you do to try to protect election security? >> well, what i would do is what i did internationally. i joined an international organization headed by the former head of nato to work out an agreement that everyone running for office both in europe and the united states would take the pledge that they would not use any disinformation period in an election, and two, any foreign power that provided information or tried to get

engaged in an electoral process in any one of the countries would be reported immediately. and that's what i would do. and i'm the only one that has taken that pledge so far. now in fairness, i'm not sure the rest of my democratic colleagues are as much as aware of it. i've raised it several times. but that's a pledge they should also take. washington talked about the greatest concern for new republics is being interfered with by foreign powers. and it's going on. i promise you, i guarantee you right this minute it's happening. right this minute. >> as president, would you confront vladimir putin about that? >> yes, i would confront vladimir putin, and i would engage umaking sure there was consequences for his actions, including seeing to it there were economic consequences of it. we're also susceptible to cyber security, which is going on. but it's going to sound so political, my saying this, but

this president has just no -- zero sense of any of this. no, i know that sounds bizarre. i don't mean it to be. but -- and by the way, he doesn't care. he doesn't care. i mean, when he stood -- we've had this conversation. i'm sorry to repeat it with you, but we've had this conversation before. about eight months ago, he stood before the whole world. vladimir putin is there. he turns at his podium before the whole world, the g20 and says why would vladimir putin want to interfere in our elections? bless me, father, why would he want to interfere? why would he want to do that? well, the fact that 18 intelligence agencies, your intelligence agencies told you he is doing that, has done that, continues to do that, and worse may be coming. the idea -- and imagine what that does to us around the world. now our intelligence guys and women go to deal with any other

intelligence agency of our partners. do you think they think you can count on our intelligence community and the president of the united states says they don't know what they're doing? this is dangerous. >> i want you to meet elizabeth tush, a real estate agent from henderson. welcome, elizabeth. >> i can't afford henderson. god love you. >> hello there. >> hi. >> okay. i am sick and tired of bringing a knife to a gunfight. it's high time that we get down and dirty with the republicans. it's one thing to rise above and not sink to their level, but i'm done with being nice. do you have that fire in your belly and what are your plans on how to defeat trump? >> tell the truth to start, okay? [ applause ] now i'm not being facetious. look, what i'm not going to do is i'm not going to get down in the gut were trump. that's where he is most

comfortable. i'm not being a wiseguy now. i'm being deadly earnest. remember when that tape came out about "access hollywood" and he grabbed women and all that stuff and everybody said god, that would kill any politician. they're done. they're over. well, what happened? we responded in kind. well, all of the sudden this is what we're going to do. instead of talking about what he's done, and then it gets back to this back and forth. it's about what he hasn't done for america. he has devastated this country. he has put us in a terrible situation. he has diminished the middle class significantly. he has made it more difficult for everybody who is struggling every single day just to make it. the people i grew up with to be able to do anything about it. it's just amazing. but by the way, if he stands behind me like he did hillary, come on up here.

no, i'm not going take it easy. i'm going to talk about all the things that he has done that are so devastating. one of the most devastating things are i think has happened is he has blemished the soul of this country, the way in which he talks, the way in which he deals with people, the way he treats people. he is diminished. we're a nation that is -- talks about we hold these truths to be self-evident. all men and women are created equal. we the people. think about what he has done. think about what he has done, how he treats people, how he talks about people. and i'll ask a rhetorical question. how many you when he comes on the air, on television literally taken your children or grandchildren and said take them away i from the television? have you ever, ever, ever, ever thought that would be the case? it's -- anyway, i shouldn't. >> let me ask you about something you talked about

earlier today. you delivered very emotional remarks today about gun violence. we're obviously in las vegas, the site of the deadliest mass shooting in american history. you attacked bernie sanders's voting record on gun legislation. you acknowledged that sanders has changed his views, but has he done enough? >> look, it's not so much what you say you believe now. it's what did you do and when did you do it. and the fact is bernie has had a very different record than me for a long time. for example, i'm the guy that as chairman of the judiciary committee worked to bass very difficult legislation, the brady bill, that had background checks as well as waiting periods. [ applause ] bernie when he was running for the senate in vermont, he said it was tough state to run in. he voted against it five times in the house of representatives. guess what? we've kept over five million people from being able to get weapons that they should not have been able to get. how many lives has that saved?

secondly, the one thing that i am most upset about is i met with, as you know, anderson, i've met with every family, virtually every family up in connecticut when those kids were just slaughtered in school, and then also down in florida when they came up to washington. i was out of office at the time, but i met with them. they were petitioning members of the congress to change the law with regard to assault weapons and the like. and i made a commitment, and i mean it. i made a commitment that i'll do everything in my power in office or out of office to get those assault weapons off the street which i've done once already, and to get those clips that have multiple bullets in them not for sale, not be able to sell silencers, all those things. here's what happened. the only industry -- how about if i stood before you all today and if you were undecided, thinking about voting for

whomever, me in this case, how about if i said by the way, you can roll your eyes, it's okay. i'm not suggesting you have to vote for me, but what i'm saying is how about if i said to you you know what? drug companies should be immune from being able to be sued. they put out nine billion opioid pills in a matter of years, but they shouldn't be able to be sued. they misled advertising on television, saying that you in fact can get -- they'll point out you can get hooked in five days on everything from the -- that they advertised. and i said but we can't sue them. how about i said that about the tobacco companies? we shouldn't be able to sue the tobacco companies when they're misleading about how it caused cancer and the like. or the oil companies that are out there polluting the ground. but guess what? the only industry in america that is not able to be sued are the gun manufacturers. now bernie talks about my record.

it's appropriate. i'm not being mean. he voted to exempt gun manufacturers from any liability, zero. they can't be sued. and i tell you what, i'm not joking. i've sat there and looked in the eyes of those parents, as recently as today, talking about their kids and how they died, and they died at the hands of -- why can't we sue these manufacturers for advertising, for misleading, for glorifying, for promoting this god awful -- you know how many people have died since 2007 of murder with guns? three times as many people have died in the vietnam war and every war since. three times as many. 150,000 murders. 150,000 murders. those have crushed families. i was on the phone on the second

anniversary of fred guttenberg down in florida. he is the guy who lost his daughter. i just call him because i know what it's like to lose a daughter, lose a son. guess what? he has devoted his whole life to try to make sure. and all they want, let me sue these guys who have done this stuff, this carnage on the street. look at the people here in the greatest mass shooting in american history, the worst mass shooting at mandalay bay. a guy has 12 assault weapons with bump stocks, which means you can fire it faster. you can pull the trigger faster. and 100 rounds. why in god's name should anyone, anyone, anyone be able to own that? it's just wrong, and we've got to -- and i promise you as president, i am going to get these guys. i want to let them know, promise you. i'm the only guy that has beaten the gun manufacturers. i'm the only guy that has beaten

the nra nationally, and i did it twice, nationally. and gun manufacturers, i'm coming for you. period. >> let me ask you this. last night you as well as a number of your fellow candidates were critical obviously of mayor bloomberg for stop and frisk. one of the things you said was that month, to when monitors were sent in, bloomberg thought that was a terrible idea. they were sent in by a judge to oversee the policy. do you know specifically what bloomberg had a problem with in terms of having monitors? >> well, let me say it this way. he is advertising himself to be barack's best buddy. no, have you seen his ads? for real. you'd think barack endorsed him. well, he didn't support barack, number one, or our administration. he -- when we did the obamacare, which is one of the greatest accomplishments of our administration, a signature piece for the president, guess what happened? he said it was a disgrace, and

here's what happened. when he had this stop and frisk proposal -- by the way, close to -- thousands and thousands of young black men were thrown up against the wall. that's how he's going to control guns, right? well, when we said that's not appropriate, you can't do that, and we sent in monitors from the justice department, he said we don't need them. don't send them. i don't want them. why do you think he didn't want them? i can only think of one reason. he wanted to continue the policy. he didn't want it exposed. now look, i just think -- and the way he refers to people of color, and the way he refers to -- i'm not even going to repeat the language he used about why he was doing this, why these are the most dangerous people in the world, et cetera, et cetera. i don't think he said in the world. incredibly dangerous people. i don't want to misrepresent anything he said. but it's just wrong. it's just wrong. just like you have all those

women with nonndas. i can't say because you paid me, i settled with you and i promise i'll never tell anybody what you said or did to me. how can you run against donald trump when you have what is it, 10, 12, 14 ndas? we asked him last night will you free up those women, and say it's okay, you can now talk. what did he say? he said they won't want to. just say okay. let them make a decision to talk. how can we have any transparency? [ applause ] anyway. >> i want you to meet ryan mcconnell, a law student at unlv. he supported and volunteered for cory booker before he dropped out, and now he is undecided. >> he is a good man. what year? >> 3l. >> it's all downhill from there. >> just a bar in july. >> i'd rather run for president two more times than take the bar again. >> well, thank you for taking my question.

president trump's department of justice recently got involved in the trial of roger stone, a close confident of trump's. this led to four of the federal prosecutors to either withdraw or resign from the department all together. many see this as a further abuse of presidential power that challenges our very ideas of what the justice system should be. as president, how will you restore the barriers between the department of justice and the oval office? >> first of all, for years and years i was chairman of the judiciary committee. i have never, never, never, including when i got elected as a kid at 29 years old when nixon was president, this is not an exaggeration. no one, no one has ever abused that office or weaponized it. he has weaponized, flat out weaponized it. and he has made it real clear. whatever you do is almost like the biblical phrase. whatever you do in my name to help me, you will get pardoned.

that's the message being sent. and the idea that roger stone and/or -- well, i won't go into all of them. roger stone, who is convicted of lying to federal prosecutors and a judge said whoa, whoa, whoa, i'm not going to listen to whatever the justice department has to say now, i'm sentencing this guy and i'm sentencing him to 40 months. 40 months. guarantee you, he is going to be pardoned. guarantee. guarantee. what's that message about? don't worry. do anything illegal for me and you're okay. i will pardon you. no one has weaponized it before ever like this. number one. the justice department is not the president's private lawyer. it's the people's lawyer. and i will never, never direct the justice department as to who they should or not indict and

under what circumstance. that is an independent judgment to be made. my son, the one who -- my deceased son was the attorney general of the united states and before that he was a federal prosecutor of one of the largest offices in the country in philadelphia. and i tell you what, he wouldn't even talk to me about anything he was doing, his father. and he shouldn't have. and i didn't have any control over either one of those things. but my generic point is you should stay out of it. let the justice department do its job, period. >> this is jennifer diaz. she is a mom and a student from henderson. her parents migrated from guatemala when she was 2 years old. she is currently undecided. welcome, jennifer. >> hi, how are you? my question is when you become president of the united states, how will you handle the i.c.e. raids that are affecting our communities? will this department cease to exist or will it be replaced

with something else? >> first of all, how long have you been here? >> 33 years. >> you can't be that old. all right. you're making me feel really old now. first of all, the people are going to go back to school are i.c.e. family separation, i promise you, will end on my watch, just flat end. not a joke. number one. number two, we'll also increase the number of people that are able to come to the united states for family reunification, to bring brothers, sister, moms, dads, back to the united states or to the united states for the first time around. number three, i'm going to make sure that we surge to the border, surge to the border those people seeking asylum. asylum judges and interpreters as well as federal judges who are going to make judgments about immigration, because it's outrageous what's happening now. you have to cross the border to

go in i don't have to tell you about it. you understand it incredibly well. my wife just went across with the representative from brownsville, texas, villa. and, you know, and she served a meal, a christmas meal. she said there was squalor. this is the first time in american history we've required people seeking asylum to do it from another country. in all stops. i'm not joking about this. it all flat stops. and the first thing i'm going to do, literally i already have one written, on day one i'm sending to the united states congress an immigration bill providing a pathway for 11 million undocumented and i'm going to make sure every dreamer is protected now. for real. and by the way, you know, we have a right to protect our border, but protecting our border, but building a

multibillion wall from sea to signing sea makes no sense at all. all the bad guy, all those so-called terrorists, all those folks who are coming across the border with the drug cartels, they're coming through legal ports of entry. we have the technology to spend the money on. for example, the best way to explain it, we can put on top of a tractor-trailer essentially a big x-ray machine, tell you everything, the density, whether there are people in there, what's inside that facility. what's inside that container. we don't need to have this -- what this president is talking about. it's unnecessary. we have a right to protect the border. but the idea -- and by the way, nobody, and some of you are going to get mad at me about this, but nobody is going to be deported in my first 100 days until we get through the part that we find out the only rationale for deportation will

be whether or not, whether or not you've committed a felony while in the country. lastly, the people are going to go back to school are i.c.e., and they should not be standing out. you know people and families that are afraid to take their child to the doctor because an ice agent will be waiting outside to arrest them. you know people who don't want to go to mass on sunday because they're afraid they're going the walk out. and all the anxiety, the anxiety of these children. 24 out of every 100 children in america in school are latinos. 24 out of 100. and we treat this like somehow we can do away with it. it's overwhelmingly in our interests. we embrace these people. it's overwhelmingly in our interests. i really mean it. it makes us economically stronger too. it benefits everybody. and one of the things presidents should be doing is not just legislating, not just trying to

change the law, but persuading, persua persuading. i find when i talk to people who think they are immigrant, let's get the fax here. number one, the reason social security is still working and it's being funded is because of immigrants. the reason why our workforce is increasing is because of immigrants. the reason why it makes sense for everyone to make sure those 24 out of 100 kids get in school does well, everybody does better when everybody does well. so there is so much we can do. and by the way, everybody thinks that the way we work is somebody right now in guadalajara or somebody in indonesia or someone in africa is saying i got a great idea. let's sell everything we have, give it to some smuggler to take it -- in the case of mexico or latin america, a coyote, take us across the border, drop news the desert, and a country that says they don't want us where we don't speak the language. won't that be fun?

i really mean it. when my great, great grandfather got on a coffin ship on the irish sea in 1849, not having any idea whether he would make it, guess why we're the best country in the world? because we've been able to cherry pick from every culture the people who are the most optimistic, the people who are the most resilient, the people who are the toughest, the people who believe they can do anything given a chance. that's why america is who we are. >> mr. vice president, this is michael waksland. he is leaning towards senator warren. welcome. >> hello, mr. vice president. some expressed concern about the i thinks a of you and senator sanders. would you, if you ra the nominee to commit to only one term if it meant uniting our party? >> no, i wouldn't do that. but i tell you what, you're going to be able to make a judgment. and by the way, the two youngest men on the stage now are me and buttigieg. that's the way it goes, you know

what i mean? but look, look, it's totally legitimate for you to ask about my age or anybody else's age up there and our health. that's why i give all my medical records, everything, okay, the whole deal so you know where i am, until one. number two, number two, look, member who starts off saying i'm only going to serve one term is already behind the eight ball because then you're a one-term president and nobody worries what the hell is going to happen after that, okay? number three, all the candidates up on the stage, including the woman you're leaning towards is over 70 years of age. and i'm in pretty good health. knock on wood, as my mother would say. but look, i guarantee you this if anything changed in my health making it incapable of exerting all the mental energy and acute

that was needed to be done, i give you my word i would not run again. that's why it's going to be so important for if elizabeth wins or i win or bernie wins or whoever wins that they pick someone who is ready to be president of the united states on day one. and by the way, last question, last point. it's totally legitimate to ask about age, because when i ran as a 29-year-old kid, the question was i old enough. no, no, i ran as a senator. i got elected before i was literally able to be sworn in. i had to wait 17 days to be eligible. it was a legitimate question then. i'm running in large part because of my age and my experience. every single time there is a general election for president, a slightly different set of criteria is needed for that moment. and i would respectfully suggest that the next president of the united states is going to inherit a world in disarray and a divided nation. and the two things that have i been very good, and by the way

you shouldn't vote for me because i've been vice president or because i've been a senator or a chairman of a committee. you should vote for me based on whether i get the job done. you pay me money to get a job done. and i will respectfully suggest i've gotten the job done. on foreign policy. i've gotten the job done domestically. and that's what you i think is a totally legitimate to look at. and with age comes experience. with experience hopefully judgment, and with some judgment, hopefully some wisdom. there is going to be no time for on-the-job training. >> we're going to take a quick break. when we come back, we'll have more questions for vice president joe biden.

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and welcome back to a live cnn democratic presidential town hall with former vice president joe biden. we're going to get back to the audience in just a second. last night i want to ask you, you were asked about the possibility of contested convention. you said you would play by the rules. but just be clear, you don't

believe that a candidate who arrives at the convention with the most delegates should be the nominee? >> no. the reason is say you got to get over 1900 delegates. that's the deal. so let's say someone comes with the most delegates and it gets split up and they got a thousand delegates and the rest are split. does that mean you should go ahead and change the rules? i don't think so. i guess i'm a catholic school kid. you play by the rules. one the nuns say, you do. >> do you worry about our brokered convention? do you worry what that would do to the democratic party? >> no, i don't. because look, we've been through -- when you say brokered convention, there is an awful lot of democrats who show up at that convention who worked really hard to be involved in the party and giving everybody a chance. the party in the primaries and caucuses, and i worry about your caucuses. but primary and caucuses. i think we should play by the rules. >> all right. i want you to meet akira ford,

administrative assistant at the college of southern nevada. she is currently undecided. akira, welcome. >> hi. thank you for having me. so my question is while the affordable care act was put in place to make health care affordable for the american public, there has been some criticism by the american people that the affordable care act does not work as well as it's intended. as one of the affordable care act's biggest offenders, how do you plan to fix the affordable care act's problems if elected president? >> good question. >> thank you. >> number one, i would restore all the cuts this president has made in the affordable care act. across the board. number one. number two, i add what president obama and i wanted to add, but we had trouble. it took five presidents just to get us to the place where we were able to pass the affordable care act which is a big deal. we did it without a single republican vote and i spent a lot of time camped out in the house and senate getting those votes to get it done. what we wanted to do is add what we called a public option, and

that is a medicare-like option if in fact you wanted to buy into that option or you didn't have the money, you would be able to get it for free. so it's medicare if you want it. so i add to the biden option to obamacare what we wanted to do in the first place, and i add to that the option of being able to have medicare if you want it, a medicare-like proposal. if you can't afford, if you qualify for medicaid and you don't have it in your state, you're automatically enrolled. there is no waiting for anything. secondly, we make sure we reduce drug prices as well, allowing -- allowing the drug companies to for medicare to be able to negotiate with the drug companies the cost of drugs. number three, there are now biodrugs and not chemical-based drugs. very few companies, there may have been one or two companies. i've been very deeply involved in dealing with cancer and cancer issues in the biden moon

shot and a whole array of things related to cancer. it's my passion. and i would set up at the department of national institute of health, i would invest over $50 billion -- $5 billion over the next ten years to focus on the diseases that cause the most damage and cost the most, cancer, alzheimer's and obesity. let me be pro siprecise, and deh the whole notion of whether or not we're going have anything to do with how people in fact, their diets, how they work and how it works out. because we now have so much evidence that's worked that we now have. and, look, in the department of -- the department of defense, there is a thing called -- i know anderson knows about it, darpa. it's the application agency that is separate and apart from the whole department. it sits over here, and it's supposed to find out those things that would advance the security of the united states that are out of the box.

they're the guys and women that came up with the whole idea of the internet. they're the guys who came up with the whole idea of being able to global space heat. they're the guys who came up with stealth technology, et cetera. we should be doing the same thing at nih. we should have a department that says what we're going to do is deal with diabetes, deal with alzheimer's and deal with cancer, and we're going to spend the money needed that the drug companies are unwilling to spend or unable to spend to make sure that in fact we find cures. i promise you, we are on the verge of changing significantly the ability to cure many cancers. significant number of cancers, because we now have the capacity to do what never could be done before. we have the capacity to share -- and any oncologists throughout? any of you researchers? you know that in the beginning back when nixon declared war on cancer, he meant it, but he had

no army. he had no ability for hospitals to share data. today, for example, if you're diagnosed with cancer, you can have -- you can find specifically what genomic strain you have. you can have it sequenced. you can find out precisely of the 204 cancers that are out there identified now which one you have, and we now have the capacity to use a million, billion calculations per second to determine whether or not why that particular therapy works on you and doesn't work on me. what's the difference? why is it happening? we have so many more tools. and now what you're finding is you have cancer researchers, as you know, and i've met with over 19,000 of them. there is two big organizations that are out there doing research, that in fact they now are beginning to share data. you know, sometimes you don't have to be an expert on an issue, but you have to know how to organize. so i asked the question when the president put me in charge of the cancer moon shot, i said let

me ask you, how many -- right now we're finding out that we found a while ago that to deal with aids, multiple drugs may be required to control it. well, multiple drugs now people are saying may be required to deal with certain cancers. but guess what? if you're the five drug companies and you each are working on the same particular therapy, and you have not found it yet, i said why can't we get them to put all their material on the table and any researcher come in and use it? they said no, we can do that. let's go back and assign a monetary value to the work you're doing. if it works, you get 14% of the profit. you get 22%. you get -- and work it out ahead of time. exempt you from liability, put it on the table and let researchers from around the world, anyone come in who is qualified and determine an experiment with the answer.

we've had over 8 million hits on that proposal. we're going to find cures that never were found before because we're changing the way we think about things. and part of it is to do just that. to change the way we think. last point i'll make, alzheimer's. you know, if we don't find a cure to alzheimer's, in the next 20 years, it's a fact, every single hospital bed that exists in america now will be occupied by an alzheimer's patient, and it will cost the government, you taxpayers, us taxpayers, it will cost us $258 billion a year to pay for the cost of that. so folks, it's in our overwhelming interest to think outside the box here. think outside the box. so there is a lot of things that i do, god willing if i'm elected. i can get this done, by the way. i can get this done. the idea that you're going to be able to go out and have medicare for all, god love them, as my mom would say. and by the way, they won't even tell you how much it costs

anymore, have you noticed that? and who's going to pay for it, you notice that? but it's going to cost at least $35 trillion over ten years. $35 trillion. i can tell you, how many of you have lost a mom, dad, brother, sister, husband, wife, son or daughter to cancer? raise your hand. we did this last time, remember? look at this. now what do you seek most of all? hope. just a little hope. hope, hope. and god, we have an obligation to move on what we can do now. do it now. and that's what we can do when we pass, if i win going to start calling biden care. [ applause ] >> this is christina flores, an office manager for a law firm. she is one of your supporter, plans to caucus for you. christina, welcome. >> thank you for being here tonight. my question is do you think it's possible for you to work with

mitch mcconnell in a way that would benefit the american people? the republicans stonewall president obama. what will you do so they don't do the same to you? >> well, first of all, mitch is not my closest friend. but i tell you what, for example, i'll give you -- he did stop the judges from moving forward the supreme court justice we wanted to move forward. he has been an impediment to an awful lot of things that we wanted to do, but he has also been able -- i've been able to work him to get some things done. for example, i'm the only person -- remember when he was going to close down the government new year's eve day? he said he wouldn't negotiate longer. we were about to go into bankruptcy as a nation. we weren't going to pay our debts for the first time ever. and he said i'll only talk to biden. he wouldn't negotiate with the president any longer. i walked into the oval, as i did every morning, and i said mr.

president, i haven't called him back. he said you got to call him back. i said he is just trying to embarrass you. call him back, see what you can get done. well, i called him back and we had a head to head negotiation where i made it clear what was going happen if he did not find out a compromise. and here's what happened. first time in american history republicans voted to raise taxes on the wealthy $650 billion, raise the tax rate, so people started paying their fair share. or after mr. trump won, between election day and the time he was sworn in, i've been working with a group of republicans and democrats for a thing called the cures act. mitch mcconnell and the republican leaders from both houses say we're not going to have any more legislation passed until the next president is sworn in. well, guess what? we didn't have any more than i think it was 40 or 39 votes in the senate and something like 119 or 114 in the house.

after my negotiations, guess what? we passed an almost $9 billion bill called the cures act. it got voted on in late december before the president got sworn in, after he was elected, over his objection. and guess what it did? it had $1.9 billion for cancer research, which the republicans stood up. i was presiding over the senate the time. they said it was never going to happen. it got 94 senators. it got 390 some members of the house, as well as after it passed, because i was there to be a deciding vote if i had to be as vice president, they stood up, the republicans stood up and moved to name it the beau biden memorial bill for my deceased son. so, folks, the idea that we can get nothing done is just not true. here is the problem in my view, in my experience.

my experience has been that it's always appropriate to question another man or woman's jump. it's never appropriate to question their motive. and how do we do politics today? i'm not going to work with you because you're in the pocket of big business or you're in the pocket of labor. i'm not going to work with you because you're dishonest. i'm not going to work with you because -- by the way, let's see if we can get a bill on infrastructure done. fat chance. but you go and you can challenge a person's judgment and argue like hell about it, and then say but we got to work out a compromise in the interests of the country. i guarantee you there are a number of republicans, especially with this president out of the way who are ready to work on things like a rational immigration policy, who are ready to work on things like dealing with infrastructure, are ready to work on things like health care. i promise you that's there, but right now they're definitely afraid because this president is so vindictive, so vindictive. look what he is doing.

the idea he marched out of the white house a purple heart winner, an immigrant who came and was a brave soldier, a lieutenant colonel like he was a criminal? the idea that he went -- my son spent a year in iraq. i don't know what i would have done when this president almost started a full-blown war with iran because he makes a better deal -- he is a great deal maker, isn't he? a better deal. he walks away from the iran agreement. we end up having rocket launches against el assad air force base where my son had been. a total now of over 100 of our military as a consequence of those attacks traumatic brain injury. and the president called them it's not bad, it's just they're headaches. he called them headaches.

he stood before in what they call -- any way, he stood in the defense department, we now learned, and looked at, looked at our flag officers and our generals and said they -- they called them names to their faces. nobody, no president has ever done anything like that. never before. so it really, really matters. it really matters what a president says, what a president does and how we get things done. and by the way, we can't get them to agree with you, you go out and beat them. no, i really mean it. remember what we were told, the reason why we lost the congress in '16 was because of obamacare. remember? and by the way, it probably was. people didn't know what it was. you've heard me say this, anderson. i apologize for repeating to you, but, you know, what happened was i said to barack, i said to the president, i said you ought to take a victory lap here.

you ought to have, quote -- this is where i got criticized, there goes biden again, a fireside chat. anyway. another biden gaffe. but any rate, you ought to tell people what it's about. he said we don't have time for victory lap, joe. i said people don't know what we did. so we lost the house, but guess what? republicans then went and eviscerated health care, eviscerated and went out and went to court against obamacare. then i went into 24 states, 24 purple states with 66 candidates. we got elected 41 members of the house. guess what we ran on? obamacare, because all of the sudden, did you find -- no, did you find any republican? >> i got to get a break in, i'm sorry. i got to quickly get a break in. we're going to come right back. >> all right. >> a quick break. we'll have more of vice president biden in just a minute. when you have pain...

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evening as an aside, you're worried about the caucuses. i wasn't sure you were referring to iowa or here. are you confident in the system here and do you think iowa should still be first? >> i'm not big on caucuses because they're so complicated. [ applause ] no, i'm not -- and i think they're doing everything possible here. but the idea is you walk in and have an early ballot, apparently a lot of people have voted already, and you mark one, two, three, who you're for. if the first person tonight qualify and get 50% it automatically goes to the second person. but how do we know that that gets to that particular -- you walk in, you can vote anywhere, basically. and how do you know it gets to the precinct you're from? it's not that i think anything is trying to do anything wrong, it's just really a complicated system. one of those ipads breaks down, things change a lot. so i'm hoping you all decide to go to a primary next time. [ applause ]

>> many people in middle america voted for trump. i'm from middle america, my parents are farmers. it's no secret that farmers are negatively impacted by trump's trade wars. what would you do with these trade wars and how would you convince middle america you would make their lives better? >> we have two minutes left. >> number one, i spent a lot of time dealing with farm, f-a-r-m, policy. they should become the first net zero emitters in the world and get paid for doing it, so up much more opportunity on your land. number two, middle america, starting in my home state of pennsylvania, these are people i grew up with, these are ordinary, hardworking americans

who are getting battered across the board. they're not safe in their schools because of gun policy, they're not safe in their neighborhoods, they don't have the health care they need, they're worried about whether they'll get an even shot whether they're going to make it, it used to be, and i'll end with this, let me put it this way, the middle class built this country, not wall street. the middle class. [ applause ] and unions, and unions built the middle class. never, ever, ever have we given the american people an even shot, they've ever let the country down. never, ever. there is not a thing beyond our capacity. nothing, if we remember this is the united states of america, we can do anything if we set our mind to it and do it together, treat people decently, honorably and fairly. there's nothing beyond our

capacity. [ applause ] >> vice president joe biden, thanks very much for joining us. coming up next, democratic presidential candidate elizabeth warren with my colleague erin burnett. stay right there. blapz when you look at the world, what do you see? we see patterns. relationships.

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♪ [ applause ] and we are live from las vegas tonight, welcome back, i'm erin burnett. the democrats are making their final pitch to voters here in nevada and tonight some of those voters will have a chance to ask questions directly to the candidates, trying to earn their support. now, you just heard from former vice president joe biden. and now to another democrat who is fighting for another strong showing in nevada's caucuses,

please welcome senator elizabeth warren. [ cheers and applause ] >> so, i've brought something with me today. last night, in the debate, if i can, just for a minute here, last night in the debate, i had an exchange with mayor bloomberg about the question about sexual harassment and discrimination, that it occurred, and there have been many allegations about this, and he said on the stage that, no, it had just really been about a few jokes that he had told, that people hadn't been able to take a joke. and that -- but the people on the other side, we think mostly women, had to sign ndi