Quotes

I am absolutely comfortable with the fact that men marrying men, women marrying women, and heterosexual men and women marrying one another are entitled to the same exact rights, all the civil rights, all the civil liberties. (May 6, 2012)

All politics is local. All politics is personal. In the neighborhood where I come from, where these folks come from, everybody knows they've got to chip in. What they don't like is turning around and finding they are being played for a sucker.

[on Republicans in Congress] These guys wouldn't even let us put back to work 400,000 teachers, firefighters and cops by a 0.5% tax on the first dollar after the first million you made. C'mon, man.

[observation, January 2013] There is nothing that has pricked the consciousness of the American people more than the image people have of little six-year-old kids riddled - not shot, but riddled, riddled - with bullet holes in their classroom.

[on the 20th anniversary of the Violence Against Women Act, 2014] Since then, domestic violence rates have dropped 64% and we've had fundamental reforms of state laws. And along the way we've changed the cultures. The American people have sent a message: you're a coward for raising a hand to a woman or a child - and you're complicit if you fail to condemn it.

[excerpt from his last major speech before leaving office] Under President Putin, Russia is working with every tool available to them to whittle away at the edges of the European project, and test the fault lines of western nations and return to a politics defined by spheres of influence. [January 2017]

[excerpt from his last major speech before leaving office] With many countries in Europe slated to hold elections this year, we should expect further attempts by Russia to meddle in the democratic process. It will occur again, I promise you. And again the purpose is clear: to collapse the liberal international order. [January 2017]

[excerpt from his last major speech before leaving office] It means fighting for the European Union, one of the most vibrant and consequential institutions on earth. [January 2017]

[excerpt from his last major speech before leaving office] Defending the liberal international order requires that we resist the forces of European disintegration and maintain our longstanding insistence on a Europe, that's whole, free and peaceful. [January 2017]

[observation, 2017] The only bipartisan thing left in America is the fight against cancer.

[from his eulogy of John McCain] He'd part company with you if you lacked the basic values of decency, respect, knowing that this project is bigger than yourself.

Us cruddy politicians can take away that First Amendment of yours if we want to.

I am proud to be a politician. There is no other walk of life which can do more for mankind than politics. It influences everything that happens to the American people.

My wife said I was the most socially conservative man she had ever known.... when it comes to issues like abortion... I'm about as liberal as your grandmother. I don't like the Supreme Court decision on abortion. I think it went too far. I don't think that a woman has the sole right to say what should happen to her body.

Everybody knows who Donald Trump is. Even his supporters know who he is. We got to let him know who we are. We choose unity over division. We choose science over division. We choose truth over facts.

I said, "You're not getting the billion ." I'm going to be leaving here in. I think it was about six hours. I looked it was about six hours. I looked at them and said: "i'm leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you're not getting the money.". Well, son of a bitch, he got fired,. And they put somebody in his place who was sold at the time.

[observation, June 1, 2020] We can be forgiven for believing that the President is more interested in power than in principles; more interested in serving the passions of his base than the needs of the people in his care. I'll do my job and I will take responsibility. I won't blame others. I'll seek to heal the racial wounds that have long plagued this country - not use them for political gain.

The country is crying out for leadership. Leadership that can unite us. Leadership that can bring us together. Leadership that can recognize the pain and deep grief of communities that have had a knee on their neck for too long.

As a country, we must condemn the incitement of hate and resentment that led to this deadly clash. It is not a peaceful protest when you go out spoiling for a fight. What does President Trump think will happen when he continues to insist on fanning the flames of hate and division in our society and using the politics of fear to whip up his supporters?

Rioting is not protesting. Looting is not protesting. Setting fires is not protesting. None of this is protesting. It's lawlessness, pure and simple. And those who do it should be prosecuted.

[when told Donald Trump had decided it would be best not to attend Biden's inauguration] One of the few things he and I have ever agreed on.

[from his inaugural address, January 20, 2021] We must reject the culture in which facts themselves are manipulated, even manufactured.

[on desegregation] Unless we do something about this, my children are going to grow up in a jungle, the jungle being a racial jungle with tensions having built so high that it is going to explode at some point.

I made it clear to President Putin, in a manner very different from my predecessor, that the days of the United States rolling over in the face of Russia's aggressive actions, interfering with our elections, cyberattacks, poisoning its citizens, are over.

Investing in our diplomacy isn't something we do just because it's the right thing to do for the world. We do it in order to live in peace, security and prosperity. We do it because it's in our own naked self-interest.

[on allegedly having a hair transplant in 1987] Guess. I've got to keep some mystery in my life.

Autocrats will not win the future. We will. America will. The future belongs to America. [2021]

[on Afghanistan] I am not sending my boy back there to risk his life on behalf of women's rights!

The likelihood there's going to be the Taliban overrunning everything and owning the whole country is highly unlikely.

[to the terrorists who attacked the Kabul Airport, August 26, 2021] We will not forgive. We will not forget. We will hunt you down and make you pay. We will respond with force and precision at our time, at the place we choose and the moment of our choosing.

Walter Mondale was the first Presidential nominee of either party to select a woman as his running mate and I know how pleased he was to be able to see Kamala Harris become Vice-President.

The number one threat is the strength, and that strength that we've built is inflation.

[when asked if the US is willing to respond 'militarily' in event of Chinese attack on Taiwan] Yes, that's the commitment we made

[27 May 2022; on Russian President Vladimir Putin's brutal war in Ukraine] Not only is he trying to take over Ukraine, he's really trying to wipe out the culture and identity of the Ukrainian people -- attacking schools, nurseries, hospitals, museums. With no other purpose than to eliminate a culture -- a direct assault on the fundamental tenets of rule-based international order. That's what you're graduating into.

Democracy is not perfect, it's never been good.

We have put together I think the most extensive and inclusive voter fraud organization in the history of American politics.

[on abortion] Life begins at conception, that's the Church's judgment. I accept it in my personal life.

America is a nation that can be defined in a single word: Asufutimaehaehfutbw.

We go back a long way. She was 12, I was 30.

Let me start with two words: Made In America.

My younger sister used to be 3 years younger than me. Now, she's 23 years younger. There's not a single solitary Biden man that is younger than any Biden woman.

[on admiring a Russian's physique] I don't care who he is. He's got some real biceps. We call 'em guns.

I may be Irish but I'm not stupid. I married Dominic Giacoppa's daughter.

I've done some dumb things, and I'll do dumb things again.

[regarding the FBI photo that showed some of the government records found at Mar-a-Lago] How that could possibly happen? How anyone could be that irresponsible?

[about the classified documents] As I said earlier this week, and by the way, my Corvette is in a locked garage, so it's not like they're sitting out on the street. People know I take classified documents and classified materials seriously. I also said we're cooperating, fully cooperated with the Justice Department's review.

More than half the women in my administration are women.

I had a nurse named Pearl Nelson. She'd come in and do things I don't think you learn in nursing school. She'd whisper in my ear, I couldn't understand, but she'd whisper and she'd lean down and actually breathe on me to make sure there was a human connection. She then went home and brought back her pillow.

[on the Nashville school shooting] My name is Joe Biden. I'm Dr. Jill Biden's husband and I eat Jeni's ice cream - chocolate chip. I came down because I heard there was chocolate chip ice cream. By the way, I have a whole refrigerator full upstairs. You think I'm kidding? I'm not.

There is no such thing as someone else's child. No such thing as someone else's child. Our nation's children are all our children.