Dr Robin Niblett CMG
Very silent members of Chatham House [applause]. So, Mr Vice President, I could call it the silence of anticipation and I think that’s – that is – and apologies for starting a little late. The weather was too good outside, so – but we will run this over maybe about ten minutes over, so we give everyone the opportunity, including Vice President Joe Biden, the chance to have a proper conversation with us and share his time.
So, Mr Vice President, we’re really thrilled that you’ve taken the time to come and join us here at Chatham House. You all know Joe Biden was the 47th Vice President of the United States, somebody who played a key role in the Obama Presidency’s foreign and domestic policy, travelled the world, on behalf of the United States, and fought for its causes within the country as well. He was one of the youngest people elected to the Senate at age 29, served as Senator for Delaware for 36 years. I’m not going to go through all of those things, but it was a high profile ride as the ranking Member and Chairman of the Justice Committee for – and Judiciary Committee, the Senate Judiciary Committee and also, a ranking Member and Chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, where you may not remember, or you will not remember, I did give some testimony to the European Subcommittee on Islamic Terrorism, to you, sir, at that time, and he is now keeping very active and very busy. We’ve established and he has established, under his leadership, the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement, which he leads with a number of his colleagues. And I want to say a shout out to Tony Blinken, who’s with us here today, who’s Managing Director of the Penn Biden Center, at University of Pennsylvania and the Biden Institute at the University of Delaware. And obviously, importantly, given where we are in the flow of the American political calendar, he’s set up the political action committee: American Possibilities, which means you are on the road, sir, a lot, in these next months leading up to the mid-term elections and obviously supporting members of the Democratic Party in that flow.
We’ll be hearing from Vice President Biden today on A Vision for the Future of the Transatlantic Relationship. I think that’s what you’ll talk about. But if you don’t, whatever you talk about will be interesting to our members and guests. Welcome to all of you. Thank you for coming and to our – those joining us on livestream as well, this is obviously on the record. Welcome to Chatham House, Vice President.
Joseph Biden
Thank you [applause]. Thank you very much for that [applause]. How are you, man? Good to see you. Well, thank you very much, I – and I’m sorry we’re late. I didn’t realise we were late, but I apologise for that and that’s all Tony Blinken’s fault if we’re late. Folks, it’s an honour to be invited to speak here today and I’m here to speak about, I think, the foremost question occupying global affairs today, and that is how should, and can we order the world at a time when the pace and scope of global change seems to be outrunning our capacity to shape it? And I wanted to come here to address leading foreign policy thinkers in Europe, because I believe the choices we make now are, they’re going – choices are going to define the future of the transatlantic relationship, partnership. And the special relationship between the United Kingdom and the United States of America, I think is going to determine the answer to that question.
All of us understand, as I do, that the premise upon which we’ve been operating and the basic principles we’ve established to guide our world, are facing unprecedented challenges, at least in my view they are. Democracy, freedom, openness, that we cherish is under threat from within and from without, by the siren call of this phony nationalism and populism and the xenophobia that exists in many Western democracies today, including the UK and the United States of America, and from a newly assertive group of autocrats who seek to weaken and divide us, in my view.
There’s a lot of folks in my country and in developed nations around the world who are worried about our present situation and they’re anxious about their futures and they don’t believe that their leaders are looking out for them. There’s a growing sense of economic dislocation, in many of our countries, because technology has divorced productivity from labour. In my country alone, from 19 – from World War II to 1973, productivity grew 97% and wages went up 92%. From 1973 to today, productivity grew 77% and wages went up 12%, and it’s not dissimilar in a lot of other countries. There’s a growing sense of economic dislocation, because technology, as I said, has divorced productivity from labour, meaning we’re making more than we ever were before with fewer labourers. Low skilled labourers are in very low demand and their wages are stagnating, while workers in fields like tech are being paid more than ever, contributing to this rise in inequity that exists in all of our countries.
Globalisation has done a great deal for the world and – but it’s also deepened the rift between those racing ahead and those struggling to hang on, and it has real consequences, in my view. It’s fuelling a sense among some that open economies and multilateral agreements, at the heart of the tremendous progress we’ve seen for the past seven decades, are actually a raw deal for many in each of our countries. And at the time when the movement of people and ideas is easier than it ever has been, many worry that the demographic and cultural foundations of their societies are forever being changed and it worries them, they’re uncertain and there is a sense of – that their literal identity is at risk.
Terrorist attacks spur feelings of vulnerability and fears about unrelenting migration mount as people continue to flee violence and deprivation in other parts of the world. Then, demagogues and the charlatans, and we have many of them, step up to pray on people’s fears, stroking prejudices and then – and the – and they are incompetent, but they provide incomplete and distorted information and telling those who are in – who are worried that the reason for their worry is the immigrant, the outsider, the other, blame the other. But even in the – as we face these headwinds within our societies, we also see a rising movement of illiberal leaders and powers around the world, who seek to exploit the popular currents for – these popular currents for their own advantage and to undermine our democracies and divide free nations one from the other.
Today, I believe that we’re at a crossroads of competing values. It’s woven through practically every aspect of our news and our elections in countries throughout the Western world. And I believe the United States and the United Kingdom and Europe must rally the free world, as we have done before, to meet this renewed competition from forces that seek to undermine our shared values, and I think it’s that basic, that’s what – so the attempt is underway. And that’s what I want to focus my remarks on today, with your permission.
The United States is still the world’s leading power. Together, with our allies throughout the democratic world, the core of which is the transatlantic community, we continue to underwrite global security, as we’ve done for seven decades. But authoritarianism, backsliding among democracies and the rise – are on the rise in every region of the world. We’re navigating a new relationship with the rise in China, and declining, but aggressive, Russia. China seeks to establish itself as a hegemon and a global power broker and Russia is using every tool at its disposal to destabilised and sew discourse. Putin’s ultimate goal, in my view, is the dissolution of NATO and the European Union, rather than re-establishing the Soviet Union. He’d rather deal with individual nations he can try to strongarm than a unified Democratic West.
So, the challenges that Russia and China represent are different, but they share some similarities. Russia and China are seeking to establish exclusive spheres of influence, in my view. They threaten the sovereignty and political independence of their neighbours, disrupt the ability to defend our alliances, ensure our security and advance our prosperity. Let me be clear, I don’t believe we’re on the verge of a new Cold War, nor should we frame these challenges as leading to inevitable and tractable great power conflict. If we, in the Western world, make smart investments in the foundations of our society, in our economic futures, I think we can engage these competitors from a proposition of confidence and succeed. But in each case, we’re seeing more than just jockeying for geopolitical advantage. There’s an ideological component to this struggle as well, in my view. It’s – it isn’t quite a competition among powers. It’s a competition of systems, a competition of values.
Both Russia and China seek to consolidate their international positions by projecting a propaganda image of strength and stability at home. They attribute their success to an autocratic model, which they argue is better suited to achieving a secure and prosperous future than the democratic model that we have been following. And they do – as they do so, they’re using cutting edge technologies, especially information and digital domains, to suppress their citizens, implement social control at home, and these innovations magnify their ability to spread this information around the globe and violate the rights of people in other societies.
The success and advance of democracy represents, in my view, an existential threat to the ability of leaders in autocratic countries to maintain their grip on power. President Putin relies on a lack of transparency, a tolerance for corruption, to be able to fuel the Kremlin’s kleptocracy. That’s the core of Putin’s personal wealth and political power. That’s why Russia, in particular, but other autocratic nations as well, have a vested interest in highlighting and exacerbating the weakness and schisms that exist in diverse democracies, to try to demonstrate that democracies are ill-suited to the modern challenges and just as troubled as his country.
So, they are increasingly meddling in free society, exploiting the openness of our systems, to sew chaos and influence political outcomes by using the tools available to them, which include information warfare and propagandas, economic coercion, corruption, energy manipulation and even, as we’ve seen here in Great Britain and other places, assassinations. And it’s spreading, repressive regimes and backsliding democracies around the world, from Iran to Venezuela, from Turkey to the Philippines and others, are borrowing from this playbook, weakening democratic forces in their society, strengthening their grip on power and subverting their neighbours in the process.
China and Russia and other authoritarian powers also seek to shape a new international rule for the road. That could be inconsistent with our values and are likely to be inconsistent with our values and antithetical to our interest, especially around economic domains such as trade, data security, intellectual property and energy rights. We have to prove once more, in my view, that our democ – our democratic model can deliver, that it’s more successful and sustainable at home and abroad, and the transatlantic community must rally together now, along with others across the world, to counter this world view, defined by authoritarian control, naked expression of power, exclusion and intolerance. The fight for the future has already begun and it’s a fight that we have to win. We’re at an inflection point in our societies and in world history right now, in my view.
We faced those challenges and competed for ideas before. After the Second World War the United States and the United Kingdom, our partners in Europe, we made a calculation, that investing in the strength and security and stability of other nations would return far greater benefits for all of us than pursuing our own national interest. There was a lot of competition for that idea, but it prevailed eventually. We built multinational institutions and norms to foster economic and political co-operation among nations and we built an unrivalled set of security alliances, unrivalled in world history. And in the process we gained new markets for our products, new partners to address increasingly complex global challenges and new allies to help us deter and defeat aggression and it worked. Though it may not always seem like it, the world is less violent today, more peaceful today than it has been at any point in human history. All of our enduring inequities continue to exist, there’s no question, but the world today is more prosperous than it ever has been. Billions have been listed out of poverty and despair. We made fundamental radical commitments set forth in documents like the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, that contribute to the unprecedented expansion of freedom and rights and measureable improvement in human dignity.
But it’s also true that our institutions and systems have always been imperfect, perhaps are increasingly so. We’ve not always lived up to the values we’ve asserted and right now, even the most vocal defenders of the liberal international order, and I include myself in that, have to recognise the shortcomings of a system built more than 70 years ago, not just the strengths of that system built more than 70 years ago. Open societies are not self-sustaining. Let me say it again, open societies are not self-sustaining. They require attention, maintenance, attention and maintenance. We’ve not wiped out the scourge of racism or inequity and our institutional impression – oh, institutional oppression and these struggles continue and are likely to continue. And our institutions are strained to keep pace with new global realities, to produce both extraordinary progress – they produce both extraordinary progress and growing inequity.
There’s a need, in each of our nations, in my view, to pursue a renewal at home, to grapple with the domestic challenges that require attention. Critical investments, in areas like infrastructure, education, healthcare, science, clean energy, which are the foundations of our economic future and which will enable us, in my view, to continue to lead the world. We need new rules and resources to ensure the dignity of work, so that the middleclass can continue to grow and thrive in an increasingly automated world. We’re in the midst of a fourth Industrial Revolution, the likes of which we have seen. The change is going to take place technologically. Moore’s law, artificial intelligence, etc., is going to be staggering and it’s going to require the best of our minds to be able to deal with it.
We need to update the rules of trade for the 21st Century, not by embracing 19th Century dogma, where each nation outmanoeuvres the other for temporary advantage or by creating rules that are – keep on a level playing field. We need rules that essentially, level the playing field for the long-term, rules to protect labour rights, the environment, transparency, intellectual property and basic fundamental freedoms. We need to improve our ability to address borderless challenges that can only be solved through multilateral co-operation. No one nation can solve any of these problems: climate change, poverty, the spread of disease, international terrorist networks, hackers that leap firewalls, rogue nations with intercontinental ballistic missiles. How can we more effectively combat world – the worldwide scourge of corruption, which erodes public faith in Government and drains the capacity of nations to address common problems?
Now, at a time of record need, when there are more refugees and displaced people around the world than any time since World War II, how can we work together to address the conditions that give rise to forced migration, to respond humanely and to care for children and families, while preserving the security of our borders and strengthening our communities? These are monumental questions. With the rapid advance of technology and the capabilities of artificial intelligence growing exponentially, how can we determine the norms needed to govern cyberspace, to confront the growing threat of information warfare, to contend with lethal autonomous weapons, to get ahead of the enormous social, economic and political dislocations that digital technologies and artificial intelligence are likely to soon produce? How will we address the inevitable dilemmas around the fields of science, gene editing, synthetic biology, which holds such incredible potential to remake our world for better or for worse? How can we urgently pushback against the resurgent authoritarianism to defend our democracy and advance aspirations of freedom and dignity? These are the moonshot questions for the future of internationalism and we should think about each of them and we should think about them together, challenges that we undertake, not because they’re easy, but they’re necessary, because they’re hard and because our future depends on it. But we have to speak to them.
The basics of our system and the values that defined it, in my view, remain sound. Collective security, an open international economy, advancing democratic ideals and maximising individual human freedom and dignity, these are the pillars that hold up the free world. They must be defended and made to fit into the realities of this current age, the next 70 years. And many, in our system is going to, in the words of President Kennedy, “Organise and measure the best of our energy and our skills, but the challenge,” as he went on to say, “is one we’re willing to accept,” or the line I like best, “one that we’re unwilling to postpone and one in which we have to win.”
Today’s challenges and dangers are different than those we faced after World War II, but the transatlantic partnership has to remain our first line of defence against encroaching threats from a liberal powers, who seek to define international relations under very different terms. Amending our order is going to require some vision and commitment from Europe and the United States that once inspired us to create a world defined by peace, from the wreckage of war. It’s going to require the same trust and faith in one another that held us together through the Cold War. We need to rediscover that shared belief in ourselves. I’ve never seen Europe as uncertain of itself and in my country, I’ve never seen as much doubt that has been raised. A renewed confidence that we’re the champions of the free world, capable of meeting any challenge, deterring any aggressor and raising the quality of life for all people, all people, along the way. And at a moment where we know our democracies are under assault from Russia and others who seek to erode our institutions and undermine our vision for the future, it seems to me we have to redouble our efforts to defend our freedoms and link arms with partners who share the same values. To ensure the long-term dynamism of our nations and of our partnership, we have to recommit to promoting inclusion, tolerance, respect for diversity, as core values of each of our nations.
In an increasingly competitive world, driven by new ideas and new energy, only countries that tap the full talents of their people and build connections, not walls, between nations, are going to thrive, in my view. We have to keep strengthening our alliance as sacred commitments that make us all more secure and resist those who will undermine our solidarity, both at home and abroad. The European Union, as well as Britain’s relationship with the EU, in our view, will need to be continued to evolve, as will other institutions, to keep up with the economic gravities of global competition. But the idea of a Europe whole, free and at peace, was an audacious idea, that after centuries of conflict Europe could reinvent itself as an integrated community, one committed to political solidarity, the free-flow of goods and people, on a solemn obligation of collected defence. It changed the entire sweep of history for the better.
Let’s never forget that the single greatest bulwark of our transatlantic partnership and for the security of all our peoples is the commitment of the United States to our NATO allies and vice versa. It’s true that every member of NATO should invest more in collective defence, as we agreed in 2014 in Wales, to ensure we have the capabilities to deal with tomorrow’s threats. But treating alliances like protection rackets and questioning our central commitments to one another is not only irresponsible, is incredibly dangerous. It erodes the transatlantic partnership, which is the bedrock, the bedrock for addressing so many of the 21st Century threats that we face. It’s the basis on which the United States is able to be able to engage around the world. So, Europe and the United States have to make it clear that we will do whatever it takes to protect our open societies and the core of that partnership is the special relationship and long bond together that bind together the United States and Great Britain. It goes beyond a shared language and heritage, beyond the battles we have waged together and the few we’ve waged against one another. Our relationship is special, because our countries have shouldered the responsibilities of global leadership, often imperfectly, but always willingly. We know what it means to leave. We understand the cost of leadership. Yet we have, time and again, stood in the breach, because we understood the consequences of a vacuum of leadership.
So, I believe that the burden is on us, is greater than it has been in any recent memory, to continue to engage the world beyond our borders, to stave off, as your great Political Philosopher, Thomas Hobbs, described as, “The war of each against all.” History tells us that, with a concerted effort and purposeful international engagement we can maintain an international order that transcends nationalistic zero sum politics. Our test today, in my view, is to do so in a way that recognises and addresses the challenges of this new age we find ourselves in. If the former Ambassador of the United States we always used to kid each other, I happen to be an Irishman and we’d always talk and I’m – excuse me for quoting Yeats in his – and Easter Sunday 1916, he said – he desc – he used the line describing his Ireland, but best describes the world as it is today, in my view. He said, “All’s changed, changed utterly. A terrible beauty has been born. All has changed, changed utterly, in the last 15 years, and a terrible beauty has been born.”
Folks, our test today is to do this in a way that recognises and addresses the challenge of this new age, as I said, and none of us should be – fool ourselves into thinking that we will be protected from the consequences of our choices or that our families won’t be affected by the challenges facing so many around the world today. No-one, no matter how rich or powerful, can cut themselves from the vicissitudes of our time. We cannot assume our rights are inviolate or our democracy is impregnable to become so complacent that we conclude we don’t have to change. It will do us great, great damage. Allowing the advance of authoritarianism is going to harm our security, hurt our business and our workers, entrench inequity, degrade our environment and isolate and marginalise our nations, limiting our ability to shape our own futures.
So, we have to choose, in my view, as we have chosen before, between pulling away from the world and hiding behind the false security of barriers that further limit our capacities to shape the future, or reaching out to enhance our capacity to address the challenges of our time and do it by working together. We can’t do it alone. We have to choose to invest in the values that uphold the free world, to ensure that no circumstance and power alone can dictate rights and responsibilities in the 21st Century. This is a contest for the future. Sounds melodramatic, but it really is a contest for the future and it is really a genuine inflection point and the challenges we face are too great to be answered with cautious calculations or realpolitik. If you can work together as allies and partners in the first – as first resort, to build inst – rebuild institutions and norms, to buttress our core pillars, there is no doubt in my mind that we will own the competition of ideas.
So, I think it’s time for us to put fear aside, instead of – and summon instead the conviction of our highest values, the confidence in our capacity to achieve greatness and transcend small-mindedness, the faith in the future defined by a belief and our common aspirations and the universal dignity of humankind. As I say at home on occasion, “It’s time to pick our heads up.” We can own the 21st Century in a way that makes life better for everyone. It’s totally within our capacity to do so, instead of looking inward, turning inward. It has never, ever, ever worked for us before. It’s in our ultimate interest to continue this transatlantic alliance as the foundation for the future of a world that I think we have the capacity to shape and determine its outcome. Thank you for listening and I’m happy to take questions [applause]. Thank you.
Dr Robin Niblett CMG
Thank you. You’ve got some water there by you, if you want.
Joseph Biden
No, I’m good, thanks [applause].
Dr Robin Niblett CMG
Thank you. Thank you very much, Mr Vice President, for those remarks, for your rallying cry in particular at the end about the capacity for the West, if you want to call it that, certainly the transatlantic relationship, you said, “To own the competition for ideas.” I thought that was a very powerful way of putting it. As you said at the beginning, we do seem to be in a moment of competition of ideas, and I was struck, in particular, by your obviously challenge internally to our societies, the more demagoguery, you called – you used the phrase ‘charlatan’ approach, a populism and so on, that afflicts us, both in the United States and Europe. But you also called out China and Russia.
Joseph Biden
Yes.
Dr Robin Niblett CMG
Now, I thought it was interesting that in a way you called them out together and maybe that’s a theme we’ll return to in our Q&A for the transatlantic relationship. I think there’s always, you know, a bit more fear about Russia, given where we are geographically, and maybe a bit more tolerance of China, given where we are geographically. So, maybe that’s a theme we might come back to. But may I just use the power of the Chair for a second to ask you one question? And then I’m going to open up and I will take it in groups of three or so, ‘cause even if we cut a bit over time, and you’ve very kindly left us time here for questions, and I know there’ll be a lot, so I’ll take them in groups, when it comes to it.
You said, “This is not a time to build walls,” and you talked a lot about defending open society. In my opinion, there’s no doubt that immigration has been a big driver of the rise of the kind of politics that you’ve decried, both in Europe, and if I look at the language of the last Presidential campaign, in the United States as well. And I suppose I want to ask you this question, because the phrase, “Taking back control” was never more powerful in the United Kingdom, certainly, and I think it’s been powerful across Europe, than protecting against uncontrolled immigration and what – how do you address this in an open society? What would be your vision for how one gives people that sense of confidence in society that Governments can control this process, whilst still remaining open and taking advantage of all that human talent that you described and that importance of the openness and tolerance of our societies? You know, has President Trump partly got it right? Have the Brexit campaign partly got it right? Did others listen to it enough? Where would you stand on this?
Joseph Biden
Well, look, let me start of parochially talking about the United States. We have gone through periods, throughout our history, where we’ve had massive increases in immigration and then periods of xenophobia that have lasted from two to ten years. And if you look at the history of my country, those periods of xenophobia were usually led by charlatans who said, “The reason why there’s other problems you have, the reason why you’re not making as much money, the reason why you are not doing A, B, C, or D, is because of that immigrant. That immigrant is costing you your job, costing you your future, challenging your identity as an American.” And the truth of the matter is that the reason for, in my view, the reason for the, and I’m going to say something classically American and the Ambassador will point it out to me later, but I think the reason why we’ve done so well is because we’re uniquely a product of immigrants. We’ve been able to cherry pick the best of every single culture in the world, ‘cause it takes a whole hell of lot of courage to pick up and leave everything you have and move to a place that doesn’t want you, or you’re totally unfamiliar with and it takes people with courage, it takes people with a sense of optimism, etc. And so, what’s happened is, I believe if you look at, and this is going to take us far afield and I almost hesitate to raise it, if you look at the periods where there’s been a significant unease in your country and mine and the Western world, has been in those periods of significant industrial or technological change, where societies are being threatened.
I remember being a high school student at the academy I went to, learning about the Luddites smashing the machinery, and so on and so forth. Well, what was it all about at its root? Society was changing, the culture was changing, society was changing, the entire society was changing, and people were scared to death. Well, the same phenomenon is occurring today, in your country, in mine, and all around the world, where people wonder – we – I don’t think we give enough credit to ordinary people, who lack a formal education that they’re pretty damn smart about and legitimate worries that they have about their future.
I’ll give you one concrete example. In my home state I have a friend I went to grade school with and I went off to a challenging high school and he went to the local high school, he became a truck driver and he ran – he was an independent trucker and he made a good living his whole life. He made between 80 and $120,000 the last ten years and breaking his neck. And I saw him at a shopping mall with my granddaughters at Christmastime and he said, “Hey, Joe, how are you?” I said, “Tony, are you still working?” He said, “No, Joe, I retired.” He said, “It’s only guys like that never worked in your life can continue to work,” and he had a point. And I asked about his son and he said, “He’s in real trouble,” and his son was an independent trucker, and I said, “What’s the matter?” I thought maybe there was a health problem or a financial problem, “Can I help?” And he said, “Joe, he knows in five years he’s going to be 52-years-old and he’s not going to have a job, because every smart mind in America says trucking’s going to be automated by that time.”
Well, think of all the people in your country who see what’s happening with automation. In the United States alone, we lost 195,000 jobs, sales jobs, average salary $48,000 a year in retail sales, average age 50-years-old. Husband and wife making a combined income of 80 or $90,000, all of a sudden at 50, you have no job. Why? It’s because of Amazon. They’re not bad guys, they’re good guys, but Amazon has displaced retail outlets, and this is going to increase and people around the world are looking and when they’re – and when we – when Governments, I’ll speak for mine, I don’t want to criticise yours or any other Government, but my Government, including my own party, we didn’t pay much attention to those folks at the last election. We didn’t talk a lot about their fears and concerns. There are answers. There are answers, without, in any way, changing trading rules and the rest. Answers like continuing education, answers like making sure they have, in your country you do, we don’t, healthcare. Answers making sure that we invest in infrastructure. We used to lead the world in infrastructure. We virtually invested nothing. We’re ranked 28th in the world in transportation. Things that in no way cause us to challenge the international order, in terms of what constitutes free trade and globalisation, but compensate to make sure that people say hey, I can make it in this environment. I can make it in this environment, and I would argue that there’s some version of that happening in every Western country, in every Western country and most countries around the world. And so, the core – and it’s a long answer to a short question, the core of why we got to the place we are now is because there is a mechan – society has changed, Governments are always somewhere between a half a generation and a generation behind these changes, we haven’t caught up with it and allow charlatans to step into the breach and say, “You’re the reason why I don’t have my job.”
That doesn’t suggest that there aren’t genuine problems, particularly in Europe, with regard to mass migration that has inundated and overwhelmed countries. That takes us to a different place, which I know we don’t have time to talk about it, and that is what have we done to contribute to that mass migration? All of our engagements around the world, my dad used to have an expression, then I’ll stop with this, he would say – I’d say, “But dad, I thought” – I’d be left behind, I was the oldest of four and I’d be left behind to take care of things when they were away. I said, “But dad, I thought.” He said, “Joey, if everything’s equally important to you, nothing’s important to you.” Well, some of the engagements we have ventured into, from the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, what’s going on in Syria and the nature of what we are able to control and what we can’t control, I think has contributed a lot to some of these problems. It doesn’t answer the question what do you do now? But it does make us – I hope it gives us cause to think about massive military intervention in ways that we consider consequences that we haven’t thought of up to now.
Dr Robin Niblett CMG
I think you did actually answer the question, because you gave some very specific answers about that ability to look internally, to make sure that societies that have been immigrant societies can continue to take advantage of their human talent and that’s one of the challenges we have in Europe, because we’re not so much immigrant societies. UK maybe differently, but other parts of Europe, it’s all come as a bit of a shock.
Any case, let me open up, ‘cause I have a lot of hands going up around the room and I’m going to make sure I do a, sort of, fair run. So, there’s a lady right at the front row, and I’ll take two here and I’m going to go right to the back. I’m even going to get one of my colleagues, which I rarely do these days, right at the back of the room. Okay, yeah, lady here first.
Arlette Saenz
Hi, Mr Vice President. Arlette…
Joseph Biden
Arlette is a Reporter, she’s tough.
Dr Robin Niblett CMG
Ah well, she’s tough as well.
Arlette Saenz
I’m Arlette Saenz with CNN. One name that didn’t come up in your speech was President Trump. You – I think everyone noticed that.
Dr Robin Niblett CMG
That should be the last question and not the first question.
Arlette Saenz
You, right now, are considering a 2020 run, potentially, against him. Do you think that you could provide the best alternative to the President when it comes to foreign policy? And then secondly, the President has turned recently to talking about, or characterising, Democrats as an angry mob. What kind of impact do you think that has back at home and also, on how the US is viewed outside of the US?
Dr Robin Niblett CMG
And luckily, I’m taking these in a group, so you can reflect a bit on that and you can always decide if that’s one of the later questions you take. So, gent also at the front, please? And then I’m going to go right to the back.
Sir Peter Westmacott
Thank you very much.
Joseph Biden
We miss you, Mr Ambassador.
Sir Peter Westmacott
Well, we miss you, Mr Vice President.
Joseph Biden
Actually, we miss your wife more than we miss you, but we miss you.
Sir Peter Westmacott
Yeah, well, that’s what the President said to me when I told him I was leaving Washington, but that’s life. It’s great to see my next door neighbour back here and in such close proximity. Mr Vice President, for some of the reasons you ended up with President Trump and you’re going to talk about that in a moment, people in this country ended up voting for something called Brexit, which we didn’t talk too much. But you did speak with great eloquence about the importance of the relationship between Britain and America, Britain and Europe, really, kind of, redefining itself and addressing these very, very difficult international issues, which you’ve touched on. I just wondered if you’d thought through what would be the implications for a Britain outside the European Union, in terms of that fundamental defining relationship that we’ve had for such a long time between our two countries? Do you think it’s going to weaken it, adapt it, change it? How best should we, assuming we are going to leave the European Union and it seems, alas, that we probably are, how best should we be adjusting to that new reality together? Thank you.
Dr Robin Niblett CMG
And a question right at the back, let’s move – I said I’d do three and I will. I’m going to come round to this side of the room as well, but right at the back.
James Nixey
Mr Vice President, my name is James Nixey, I’m Head of the Russia and Eurasia Programme here at Chatham House. You spoke eloquently about Russia and China demanding, chasing, a sphere of influence. Now, towards the end of your time in office, President Obama, in an interview to The Atlantic, I think it was, he talked about how, actually, Russia would always have dominance, military dominance over the Ukraine, but it was a core Russian interest, not a core American interest. I wonder if you could help to reconcile those two statements, or if things have changed maybe? Thank you.
Dr Robin Niblett CMG
Easy right from the beginning those questions. I’m not going to give you four, ‘cause I feel they might get worse. But why don’t we start with those three, and in whichever order you want to take them. Brexit might be the easiest, actually.
Joseph Biden
It’s always easier to talk about the other person’s problems. No, I’ll take the CNN question. I think there are many people, in the Democratic Party, that can defeat Trump and not a single aspiring candidate that I can think of for the nomination, and I am not one at this point, does not have a better understanding and formulation of American foreign policy than President Trump, in my view, and I’m not being rankly partisan here. The President acknowledged, at the outset, he didn’t know a lot about foreign policy. He said he watched the news and there is – although I think he’s getting more and more informed, out of necessity. But I think there are any number of potential candidates, seeking a nomination, from Kamala Harris, to a whole range of people in my party, who would pursue a much more enlightened foreign policy than the President.
With regard to Brexit, Mr Ambassador, I’ll speak selfishly. I can’t – or had I been a Member of Parliament, had I been a British citizen, I would’ve voted against leaving. And it’s very presumptuous for a guest to come into another country and tell you what you should and shouldn’t do, so I’m not saying that. But I’ll do it from the US perspective. US interests are diminished with Great Britain not an integral part of Europe and be able to bring to bear the influence well beyond the economy on the European attitudes toward a whole range of subjects. So, I don’t know enough to know what you all think, or what I know – I see the polls on British public opinion and why they voted the way they did. They really didn’t know what was in it, etc. But it seems to me that it’s a growing – there’s a growing awareness, in Europe as a whole and around the world that Britain played a role in Europe, the last 30 years, that went well beyond the notion of open borders and trade, and all those other things, being able to influence attitudes about things that have nothing to do with what the elements of the EU state. And so – and we – there is, no matter what people try to say, we don’t want to insult other countries, there is a special relationship.
We have been locked, cheek to jowl, on almost every important issue that exists and so, without England being totally integrated into the EU, to the extent that it is distanced from that, diminishes our ability to have influence on events on the Continent. I can say much more about it, but – and I had the great honour of spending some time with your Prime Minister last night. I think it’s an almost intractable problem for any political, no matter which political party was in control. I don’t – I observe the Labour Party is not unified on these things. I observe, and so, it really is difficult and I don’t know, I don’t pretend to know. I can’t solve the problems at home, let alone your problems. But I do know, I do know, I do believe, very strongly, that the United States’ ability to play a major role in the security of the West and the prosperity of the transatlantic partnership rests, in part, upon Great Britain’s influence in Europe and I think thus, we lose, to the extent you lose influence, in my view.
Oh, I’m sorry…
Dr Robin Niblett CMG
Russia and the Ukraine.
Joseph Biden
…the last question: Russia and Ukraine. President Obama is a close personal friend, in addition to us being colleagues. I think you’ve, you know, you’ve heard about all those memes and, you know. I just want to make it clear, he made the first friendship bracelet, not me. But we truly are close friends and one of the things that when he asked me to be Vice President, I didn’t – I said no, I did not want to be Vice President, not because of him. I have great respect for him and I thought he’d make a great President. But I thought I could actually be more helpful to him as a – one of the senior members and leaders of the United States Senate. And when I asked him why he really wanted me to do this job, he said because he knew that I’d never walk into the Oval Office, be intimidated by it and fail to tell him exactly what I thought I – what I thought and what I thought he should understand, from my perspective. And so, we had very few disagreements, but I was very bullish on making sure that we engage Russia in their invasion of the Crimea, in what they’re doing to the Donbass and trying to bring down the Government.
My argument was then and is now, it’s pay me now or pay me later, because, see, the extent that we do not demonstrate that it matters what happens, and the argument some made was, “Look, when we came to office, the Ukraine was under Soviet domination as a practical matter and so, it’s now back under Soviet domination. What’s changed?” What changed was, the revolution of dignity. What changed was, there was a significant chance, for the first time in history, for the Ukraine to establish a democracy, which is still very much in doubt whether that will occur. But if we walked away from that, then what would happen in the rest of what used to be called the near abroad, for our good friends in Russia? What confidence would other countries have that we would be there as members of NATO be there with it? And so, the President was engaged fully in making sure that we maintained the sanctions.
We were talking last night, and it was the Prime Minister, I pointed out that, or someone pointed out that I was on the phone at least twice a week, for two years, with a European Head of State making the case that they have to stay with the sanctions, they have to stay with the sanctions. And so, notwithstanding what may have been initially an open question and my – in our administration and in the foreign policy establishment of the United States, I think by the time we engage that has changed. I think there is a – and I would argue that – well, I should stop arguing, yeah.
Dr Robin Niblett CMG
Good points covered. A lot of other questions are wanting to come in as well. There’s a lady here, two questions there, and we may have time for one last round after that.
Amy Pope
Thank you. I’m Amy Pope. It’s so nice to see you.
Joseph Biden
Hi Amy, how are you?
Amy Pope
Thank you for coming. So…
Joseph Biden
Two things you know about Amy, one: she’s smarter than you and two: just say yes.
Dr Robin Niblett CMG
Yeah, well, I have actually met Amy before, but I’ve learnt that.
Amy Pope
Mr Vice President, you are one of the most experienced public figures in both US domestic policy and politics, but also foreign policy. What I’ve seen here in the UK, over the last two weeks, is an unprecedented interest in what’s been happening in US domestic politics, particularly the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh. Is this just rubbernecking, or should those who are looking at, sort of, where the United States is headed, take anything away from that kind of fight or their interest in the mid-terms, etc.?
Dr Robin Niblett CMG
Okay, take the microphone back. There’s two – yeah, and then the gentleman in the checked shirt, yeah.
Vincent Delorenzo
Mr Vice President, thank you very much. Vincent Delorenzo, I’m a proud alumnus of the University of Pennsylvania and I know you were a Penn family before you joined, so we’re very happy to – that you came to the university.
Joseph Biden
They should name a sidewalk after me, based on the tuition of all my family.
Vincent Delorenzo
I actually had a question about your old committee, the Judiciary Committee and the, you know, the recent events there and really, kind of, the circus atmosphere and two questions really, one: you know, do you think comedy is possible, going forward?
Dr Robin Niblett CMG
Comity?
Vincent Delorenzo
Comity, sorry.
Dr Robin Niblett CMG
Yeah, not comedy, just for my British colleagues here, yeah.
Joseph Biden
I think you got it right the first time.
Dr Robin Niblett CMG
Yeah, I know, I may have done.
Vincent Delorenzo
And secondly, for justices going forward, do you think the process needs to change at all? Because it seems to be, you know, a lot of platitudinous questions and answers, you know, so I don’t see the point of it.
Dr Robin Niblett CMG
Could you just pass the microphone forward and the gentleman in the checked shirt, yeah?
Jonathan Turner
Mr Vice President, thank you very much for your wonderful remarks. Jonathan Turner. Firstly, I noticed that you didn’t respond fully to the CNN question, but I am looking forward to voting for and rallying support for you in November 2020. But my questions is you used the word ‘complacency’ in your very eloquent remarks and you also defined what you believe the fundamental values that we should all defend, to be. And my question is, what do you think the appropriate mechanisms, institutions, practices, should be, going forward, for everybody in this room and policymakers, to help to support and define and continue to give credence to those values across our countries? Thank you.
Joseph Biden
I’ll start with the last question and work my way back. I think that it’s important and I – what leaders say matter, no matter what you think of the particul – what – it matters. You know, there’s a Columnist in our country who’s a Conservative, but very bright, fella and he talks about – he said, “There’s an invisible moral fabric that holds up societies and it’s being shredded now.” And it’s based on basic fundamental values that England and America and Great Britain and America share: decency, giving hate no safe harbour, treating people with respect, demonstrating that there’s something bigger than you in determining what the outcome of an issue should be, and a whole range of things that are just basic things you’re taught by your mom and dad. I mean, it sounds corny, but basic, basic values and in my country, those values are being shredded right now. They’re being shredded by, I would argue, the alt-right and others in my country and there’s a nakedness about how we talk about one another and how we characterise one another. And under our system, unlike yours, a Parliamentary versus our Constitutional system, there is no way to do anything without consensus. It is impossible to get any serious problem addressed and solved, without arriving at a consensus, and this is a winner take all mentality right now, and my way or no way. And one of the reasons why the American public is so dissatisfied with their Government, overwhelmingly, the American public, in the polling data, is not happy with the United States Congress. It’s at, like, 17% or something, and the Presidency, not Donald Trump, the Presidency as an institution, is not much higher right now. The only place that was high was the Supreme Court, which has now taken a real hit. And so, I think part of it is just electing leaders who are prepared to, basically, tell the truth and be prepared to compromise.
The one thing that is most looked for, in all the polling data for who the next President should be is, can they bring the country together, Democrats and Republicans? This is not your father’s Republican Party. This is a different party. I mean, I’m not being facetious when I say that and so, it’s what leaders say and how they say it that matters. After the incident in Charlottesville, the President and I agreed, President Obama and I agreed, we were going to do for the Trump administration what the Bush administration did for us, just basically stand back, let us get our footing, give us a year or so and then, if we’re going to take us on, take us on, on our policies. But they – and that’s always been the custom, and we did that for the longest time, but when we had the lowlife people coming out of fields, carrying torches, carrying Nazi banners and chanting the same anti-Semitic bile, the same anti-Semitic bile that was chanted in Nuremburg and Berlin and in the 30s, accompanied by white supremacists and then confronted by people who were showing their distaste for this and then you had leaders talking about moral equivalency, there are good people in both parties.
I mean, it’s not parties, there are good people in both – among all those groups and what that did was it – you know, as I said, our – I wrote an article for Atlantic magazine, saying that, “We’re in the battle for the soul of America.” And I think we are in a battle for the soul of the country, in terms of what do we stand for? Who are we? When you guys watch in an American border with Mexico, children being ripped from the arms of their mothers, what the hell do you think of us? What does that do to our ability to lead the world, how we’re viewed? And so, our children are listening and our silence is complicity and so, what you’re seeing now happening is, you’re seeing a real resurgence of a desire to seek accommodation and comity, and it’s actually happening, if you look at the polling data, you look at the polling data. And so, ironically, President Trump is the only President, and I’ve been there for nine now, the only President who, when things are going very well, in terms of the economy and other things, his numbers haven’t gone up. Everybody else’s numbers have. There have been Presidents who, at this stage, have been as low in the polls, but when good things happen, they spike to 60%, or spike higher. It hasn’t. There’s a baseline there and I think what’s holding them down is, are these – this battle for the soul, who are we? Who are we? And so, I just think that you’re seeing that played out.
I’ve now been engaged in 109 races. When I announced with the President in the Rose Garden I wasn’t going to seek the Presidency, ‘cause my son was dying and died, I committed that I would do everything I could to elect a Democratic Congress. So, I’ve been either endorsed, sent money to, campaigned in and done advertising for 109 candidates and I’ve been in every – almost every state, where there is a contested or a race going on in the Senate and there’s something happening. We’ll see what turns out, but I predict to you, because of this battle for the soul of a country, I predict to you that Democrats will win 40 seats in the House and I predict to you there is a slightly better than even chance we win the Senate. Now, CNN is not going to write that down and remind me if I’m wrong, but all kidding aside, I really do think we’ll win the Senate and the core of that is not dissatisfaction at the moment with the economy, ‘cause it’s not in bad shape. I would – I think Barack should take some credit for the shape it’s in, but that’s another story. But I think it’s people are wondering what defines America these days? And I think you’re going to see some movement. I may be wrong.
With regard to the answer on the Judiciary Committee and on Kavanaugh, I’ll answer at the same time. One of the things that I learned, having to preside over the Anita Hill hearing was, I believed Anita Hill. I brought forward the FBI immediately to investigate the Anita Hill allegations and I voted against Clarence Thomas. But what mainly I did, after I saw how it’s so easy to abuse a woman who has already been abused, when she comes forward in the public, that’s why I wrote the Violence Against Women Act, the most consequential piece of legislation affecting women’s rights in our country, I would argue, and other than the right to vote, in our history and that’s why I worked so hard, so hard, to change the nature of the debate.
I have a programme nationally, when I was in the White House and I’ve kept it up through a Biden Foundation, it’s called It’s On Us, going into college campuses to change the attitude of college men toward what is appropriate and inappropriate, with regard to women. I was really happy when I – when one of the things I did, when the President asked me to be Vice President and I said, “When he gave me authority, he gave me Presidential authority,” I mean, for real. It was – he had so much on his plate, he took about a fifth of it and handed it to me and said, “Just do it.” And I asked for control of the Office of the Violence Against Women. It’s within the Justice Department, but I took it into the White House, the Vice President’s Office. So, I was the one who determined who was appointed and not appointed and what happened. And one of the things that I found out and I imagine it wouldn’t be much different in Great Britain, I could be wrong, I don’t have any data to prove it, but there was great success in the Violence Against Women legislation for women over the age of 30.
Violence was down 60 – domestic violence was down about 67%, more women were reporting, things were changing. But what stunned me was, when I had my staff go over and check the Bureau of Justice statistics, was for women under the age of 25, nothing had changed in the 20 years. One in four who were dropped off at a college campus were going to be raped or abused before they left college. The main reason why women drop out of college, in the United States, is not academic, it’s sexual abuse. The attitude – and so, I did a virtual town meeting with 30 thou – I was told, I don’t know the number, 30,000 high school and college students and I said, “What could I do, if I had the power to do it, to change the circumstances on your campus, in your school?” And I thought they’d say more lighting, Police, etc. And I was embarrassed, when over 40% spontaneously went to a website and said, “Get men involved. Get men involved.” And that’s when I started this programme, It’s On Us, going to campuses and getting – and when I show up in campus, anywhere from three to 5/6,000 people show up, depending on the size of the campus, and men and stand and make a pledge. They raise their right hand to intervene if they see something happening.
My dad used to say, “The greatest sin of all is the abuse of power and the cardinal sin of all is for a man to raise his hand to a woman or a child.” And so, we’re in the process of changing the culture, but what hasn’t changed is the culture as it relates to what’s appropriate to ask a woman, when she comes forward, so she’s not, figuratively speaking, raped again by society. And we’re not there yet, we’re not there yet, but we’re making real progress. So, the question is, what changes in the Judiciary Committee, how can we alter that arrangement? The only way we can alter that arrangement is defeat people who don’t abide by what is an ethical standard in the way in which they treat people. Because under the rules of the Senate, which my – the thing, my great regret and my apology to Anita Hill is that I wasn’t able to control the questions being asked. I wasn’t able to control an outside campaign that was vilifying her and so, this requires internal societal change and it’s beginning to happen.
I think we are at a point where there’s a cultural change. You all in England inherit – gave us that phrase, “The rule of thumb.” You all know where it comes from, probably the only people in the world who know are the folks in Great Britain. Your Common Law Courts, back in late 13 hundreds, too many women were being beaten to death by their wive – by their husbands, so your Court of Common Law said, “No man can use a rod thicker than the circumference of his thumb to chastise his woman.” No, I mean, it’s a cultural problem here. It’s a deep cultural problem and until we make more progress on it, and we are making progress, I don’t have a mechanical answer as to what you do in the Judicial Committee.
The last part of the question is –actually, the second question is, what happens in terms of comity in the court? Well, there’s always going to be a battle and there have been historic battles for the court. You had Franklin Roosevelt trying to pack the court, add additional members of the court. There’s been deep, deep, deep, vicious fights for the court, in terms of during the Civil Rights era and beyond and it’s going to come – that is not going to change, because the court has the ability to interpret the Constitution and there’s one big decision, division, I can say, in terms of constitutional philosophy, and I taught constitutional law for 22 years and separation of powers, and the biggest division in a nutshell is, in our system, is between those who think, to use the phrase that’s not understandable, whether the constitutional living evolving document or a literal document? And those who believe it’s a literal document mean there are no un-enumerated rights. Unless there is a right explicitly stated in the Constitution, then that right is not constitutionally protected.
That is a minority view, but it is a majority view of the members of the United States Congress right now, of the United States Senate right now, and so, it allows for an Executive and/or a very conservative point of view to pertain. So, it – there’s no place that says where there’s – it talks about women’s right. There’s no place where it uses the word ‘abortion’ and there’s no place where it uses the word – you know, I can go down the list. So, if it’s not mentioned the word, then the right does not exist, does not constitutionally exist. But most of us believe I have all the rights I have merely because I’m a child of God. Government didn’t give me a damn thing. They did not give me a damn thing. I and all of you decided to seed to Government certain powers. They did not authorise me. They did not give me the right to have a – the point of view I want to have and that has been the prevailing view of mainstream constitutional law for a while. We’re losing that battle right now, but it will change.
Dr Robin Niblett CMG
Mr Vice President, we’ve – even with the hour, we’ve gone well over. We’re about…
Joseph Biden
I’m sorry.
Dr Robin Niblett CMG
…ten minutes over. No, but I mean, I think it’s been – in particular, in your final remarks, you’ve confirmed the issue raised at the beginning, which is the transatlantic relationship is built around a set of values. It might be contested, they might be fallen from time-to-time, but they are certainly debated openly and honestly and that’s what we seek to do here at Chatham House. Hopefully, we’ll be able to have you and others back in the future to challenge also, more on the foreign policy, but I think, for this day, we want to thank you very much for taking the time to come here, to share your thoughts with our members and we wish you, obviously, the best of luck in the future. But thank you very much for taking the time, for sharing so many thoughts with us [applause].
Joseph Biden
My pleasure.
Dr Robin Niblett CMG
Thank you [applause].
Joseph Biden
Is that okay?
Dr Robin Niblett CMG
Yes, thank you.
Joseph Biden
Do you want to…?
Dr Robin Niblett CMG
Really, genuinely, I’ll…
