The Daily Mail:
- President Joe Biden said it was a stinging comment from Irish prime minister Micheál Martin that got him seriously concerned about China
- Biden spoke by phone this week with The New York Times’ David Brooks for an interview that was posted late Thursday
- ‘We’re kind of at a place where the rest of the world is beginning to look to China,’ Biden said was his takeaway from the remark
- In the interview, Biden talks about his worldview and how it differs from his party’s progressive left
President Joe Biden said it was a stinging comment from Irish prime minister Micheál Martin that got him seriously concerned that the U.S. was losing its top perch in the world to China.
‘The most devastating comment made after I was elected – it wasn’t so much about it – but it was by the Irish taoiseach saying that “Well, America can’t lead. They can’t even get their arms around COVID,’ Biden said in a new interview with The New York Times’ David Brooks.
That comment made Biden think, ‘We’re kind of at a place where the rest of the world is beginning to look to China.’
We’re kind of at a place where the rest of the world is beginning to look to China,’ Biden told The New York Times’ David Brooks. Pictured is China’s President Xi Jinping delivering remarks on Friday
Brooks spoke to Biden by phone this week for an interview published late Thursday.
The columnist was trying to wrap his head around Biden’s worldview, trying to figure out why Biden is trying to go so big. Counting the already-passed COVID-19 relief package, Biden has proposed legislation costing taxpayers $6 trillion.
Biden told Brooks that he believed the greatest risk right now was practicing incrementalism.
‘The risk is not trying to go big,’ the president said. ‘If we stay small, I don’t know how we change our international status and competitive capacity.’ While rolling out his American Jobs Plan – the infrastructure proposal – and again in his interview with Brooks, Biden bemoaned the U.S. not spending enough on research and development.
‘We’re eating our seed corn,’ Biden said – a folksy way to recount what corporate executive have said to him about how the private sector hasn’t been thinking long-term.
In the interview, Biden also articulated key differences between his worldview and that of his party’s progressive left.
‘The progressives don’t like me because I’m not prepared to take on what I would say and they would say is a socialist agenda,’ Biden told Brooks.
Brooks interpreted that to mean: ‘He thinks the people who take the big risks to generate wealth should reap the big rewards.’
