Addressing county officials in town for a conference in the nation’s capital on Monday, President Joe Biden praised the work of those in local government while calling for an end to “political games” in Washington.
“We have to end the political games folks,” the president said at the 2024 National Association of Counties Legislative Conference. “We work for the American people and I am going to continue making the case to them – the American people.”
The conference brings together hundreds of county officials from around the country to discuss the impact of federal policies on local communities.
Biden used his remarks to commend those at the local level for doing work that “matters to people’s everyday lives,” noting he filled his administration with officials who served in county government, including Vice President Kamala Harris, who previously served as the district attorney of San Francisco.
“The measure of success isn’t how many partisan points you can score but it’s can you fix the problem,” the president said of local government officials.
“I ran for the United States Senate because serving as a local official was too hard – that's almost true,” Biden laughed.
The president particularly thanked election workers, who have reported facing rising threats and harassment since the 2020 election. Last year, for example, authorities said election offices in at least five states received letters containing threats and in some cases trace amounts of fentanyl.
In perhaps the most well-known case, Rudy Giuliani was ordered to pay $148 million to two former Georgia election workers for defamation surrounding his unfounded claims they were involved in manipulating ballots in 2020.
“Thank you – I never thought I’d have to say this to anybody, but thank you for your physical courage,” Biden said.
“The idea that I ever thought that I would be standing for over a thousand county officials and having to thank somebody for being an election worker because they are putting their life at risk – something is wrong folks, we got to change this, we’ve got to change the attitude in this country,” the president added.
Despite mentioning that he “promised to be a president for all Americans,” and boasting about progress in “red counties and blue counties,” Biden also criticized what he called “MAGA Republicans.”
Specifically, the president again blamed former President Donald Trump – not naming him directly this time, however – for the downfall of the bipartisan border policy deal that was tied to Biden’s request for aid for Ukraine, Israel and more.
“The MAGA Republicans, a minority but a powerful minority – they went out and they killed the deal,” Biden said. “My predecessor said he didn’t like it, it was a loss for him.”
Last week, a package with the requested foreign aid and a border deal worked out over weeks by a bipartisan group of senators did not clear the upper chamber. The GOP originally insisted on changes to border policy in order to get its support for Ukraine aid.
Trump vocally came out against the border bill.