Biden: Pandemic Relief An ‘Opportunity’ To ‘Change The Science Relating To Global Warming’

Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden told CNN’s Anderson Cooper and Sanjay Gupta on Thursday night that the U.S. federal government’s economic recovery package was an “opportunity” to “fundamentally change the science relating to global warming.”

“One of the things that I think that we keep coming back to, and I’ve spent this morning talking to the docs that used to work with Sanjay in our last administration and heads of other entities that a, um, you know, it gets down to testing, it’s about testing, tracing, and treatment,” Biden said. “And so, we’re way behind on the testing piece and I don’t quite, I don’t quite understand why we’re taking so long to do the kinds of things that have to be done.”

“You know, there’s a uh, during World War  II, uh, you know, where Roosevelt came up with a thing uh, that uh, you know, was totally different than a, than the, the, it’s called, he called it the, you know, the World War II, he had the war the War Production Board,” Biden continued. “I don’t know why we don’t set up something like a pandemic production board.”

Biden later said that minimum wages should go up and that there should be other wide spread changes to deal with the “systemic racism that exists” and “the systemic way in which we treat people who have not had the opportunity to get the education that they are entitled to.”

“One last thing, look, Anderson, you and I have talked about this,” Biden said. “We have an opportunity now to take in a recovery act, a real recovery, we can fundamentally change the science relating to global warming and we can create, seriously create, 10 million good paying jobs, we can do it, it’s within our power to do it.”

The Daily Wire highlighted Biden’s left-wing views in a profile piece late last year:

On The Issues: Although Biden now presents himself as a moderate, centrist figure, the totality of his political career, overall, suggests that he is a firm leftist. Biden has dabbled at times in moderation, including previous support for tough-on-crime legislation and his longstanding stance that he is “personally pro-life” despite his support of legalized abortion. However, he has long been a progressive on legal issues, economic issues, and foreign policy issues, and even preempted President Obama’s “evolution” when, in 2012, he confirmed that he was “absolutely comfortable” with same-sex marriage.

Constitution: As chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee from 1987–1995, Biden oversaw two of the most contentious U.S. Supreme Court nominations in recent memory: Those of Reagan nominee Robert Bork and Bush nominee Clarence Thomas. Along with Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA), Biden helped orchestrate and lead the personally nasty, full-frontal assault that ultimately resulted in the Bork nomination’s failure. Biden’s legislative posture has indicated an expansive view of congressional regulatory power: He helped lead the passing of the Violence Against Women Act, which was partially invalidated on constitutional grounds by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2000.

Economy: Biden is best described as a Keynesian who believes in the purported economic benefits of large-scale government investments and deficit spending. Along with then-President Obama, Biden shepherded through a massive fiscal stimulus package in the duo’s first year in office, oversaw the passing of the regulation-heavy Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, dramatically expanded the national debt, and hiked income taxes on the wealthy. Biden has long been supportive of a greater federal role in infrastructure spending. On the issue of trade, Biden voted for NAFTA in 1993. Biden has opposed the privatization of Social Security.

Health Care: Along with Obama, Biden helped oversee the 2010 passing of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act — also known as Obamacare. Obamacare radically reshaped the individual market for health insurance, infamously included a tax/mandate to purchase health insurance, and generally dramatically expanded the role of government in the regulation and provision of health care. There is likely no Obama/Biden agenda item that conservatives have more consistently opposed than Obamacare. Biden has never indicated any willingness to structurally reform fiscally ruinous health care-related entitlement programs, such as Medicare and Medicaid. As part of his 2020 presidential nomination platform, Biden has claimed opposition to “Medicare for All.”

Immigration: Biden voted for the George W. Bush-era Secure Fence Act of 2006, but has also consistently supported amnesty policies throughout his career — including the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2007 and the failed “Gang of Eight” immigration bill in 2013. Biden served as vice president when Obama issued two major unilateral executive amnesties, DACA in 2012 and DAPA in 2014 — each of which has been fiercely opposed by conservatives and has been challenged in high-profile lawsuits.

Foreign Policy: Biden has cultivated a largely dovish foreign policy profile, although he did vote in favor of authorizing the Iraq War in 2003. As vice president, Biden was a leading proponent for and cheerleader of President Obama’s 2015 nuclear agreement with Iran — a deal which flushed the terror-supporting mullahs’ coffers with cash and did not place any restrictions whatsoever on Iran’s non-nuclear ballistic missile program. During his 2008 presidential campaign, Biden pushed hard for a solution to the Iraqi quagmire that divided the troubled nation into discrete Sunni, Shiite, and Kurdish semi-autonomous sections. Although a self-described friend of Israel, Biden has often been harshly critical of Israel’s treatment of the Palestinian-Arabs and allegedly once threatened to cut off U.S. aid to Israel. Along with Obama, Biden as vice president took steps to loosen the U.S.’s longstanding embargo on Cuba, although the U.S. received no tangible concessions from Cuba’s communist dictatorship before doing so.

Abortion: Biden described himself as “personally pro-life” while nonetheless believing that Roe v. Wade was correctly decided and that women have a constitutional right to abortion. For decades, Biden supported the Hyde Amendment — which prohibits federal funding of abortion — but flipped his position in 2019 to appease the hard-left Democratic activists who now comprise the base of the party.

Guns: Biden was a leading proponent and sponsor of the federal “assault weapons” ban, a subset of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994. Throughout his career, he has generally been supportive of curtailing Second Amendment rights. Biden has also supported mandating five-day waiting periods for gun purchases, as well as closing the alleged “gun show loophole.” Biden supports a ban on the undefinable sub-class of firearms referred to as so-called “assault weapons” — a line of thought that, if taken to its logical conclusion, could lead to the banning of all semi-automatic firearms in America.