President Joe Biden on Tuesday kicked off a tour to connect with leaders, elected officials and everyday Americans on the progress made in local communities as a result of his economic agenda, as he enters the final stretch of his time in the Oval Office.
“Through the investing in America agenda, we planted the seeds for a better future and now those seeds are finally beginning to sprout,” Biden said on Tuesday. “As a result, we’re on the cusp of incredible progress and prosperity for the decade to come.”
While the new tour, branded a “series of conversations” by the administration will include an “aggressive” fall travel schedule, the effort began on Tuesday at the White House, where the president spoke virtually with four Americans who have been impacted by his policies.
One speaker, Jackie Trapp, shared her story on the impact of the cost of the blood thinner she has to take for her incurable but treatable form of cancer being capped due to Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act.
“But on New Year's Day when everybody was ringing in the New Year, I actually celebrated my first fill of prescriptions knowing that the $3,300 I paid was going to be my total for the year,” Trapp said. “In 2025, that cap drops to $2,000 and I won’t have to come up with tens of thousands of dollars every year anymore for my medication.”
Trapp, getting emotional, noted that she thought no president would ever be able to stand up to the big pharmaceutical companies.
“So I cannot overstate my gratitude for this law, especially to you, President Biden, thank you so, so much for looking out for patients like me,” she said.
Biden responded by telling Trapp he was proud of her despite never meeting her in person.
“I’m not going to be in the White House much longer, you’ve got to come and see me,” the president added in a nod to his decision to not seek a second term.
Others that spoke included Birmingham, Alabama major, Randal Woodfin, who spoke about the impact of the investments stemming from the president’s signature laws in his city and Chairwoman of the Colorado River Indian Tribes, Amelia Flores, who said two of Biden’s bills allowed her community to fix a broken well and build new ones.
“Phase one is completed, the well is once again serving 1,850 homes and businesses and when we complete phase two, the new well and distribution system will be able to deliver safe and reliable water to more than 1,000 additional homes and businesses in our community,” Flores said, adding the move will help enable them to address the housing shortage in their area.
Another speaker, Philadelphia resident Cecilia Moy Yep, told her story of how a project in one of Biden’s signature laws is allowing a highway that split up her community to be capped.
The president asked each person a question after listening to their stories and ended the session by declaring that America is about ‘turning setbacks into comebacks.”
“All Americans deserve a future worthy of their dreams and that future we are building today and we’re doing it and we’re able to afford to do it,” he said.
The president will continue the new tour this week with stops in Wisconsin and Michigan – two states that are major 2024 battlegrounds, although Biden is no longer a candidate.
The Democratic presidential nominee, Biden’s vice president, Kamala Harris has been looking to make up ground on an issue, the economy, in which polls have shown former President Donald Trump and Republicans with an edge. The vice president’s campaign has released four ads on the topic since the Democratic National Convention last month.
Harris recently told CNN that strengthening the middle class would be at the top of her list of day one priorities if elected, as she also looks to mitigate the impact that Biden’s low approval rating in the issue could have on her bid for the White House.