Biden slams Scott, praises Nelson in Orlando rally
In what could be a preview of a presidential campaign of his own, former Vice President Joe Biden ripped into Gov. Rick Scott and President Trump in Orlando on Tuesday at a rally for Democratic U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson.
“Our path to winning back the House and Senate runs directly through Orlando,” Biden told the crowd at the Cheyenne Saloon on Church Street in the final stop of a tour around Florida that included Tampa, Tallahassee and Jacksonville.
Biden called Florida “the epicenter of the political universe” going into the Nov. 6 midterm election, which includes Nelson’s heated race with Scott, whom Biden called “a handmaiden of the President of the United States,” and Democratic U.S. Rep. Stephanie Murphy’s race against GOP challenger state Rep. Mike Miller. Both Nelson and Murphy preceded Biden to the stage.
“I’ve served with a lot of people in the U.S. Senate, but I haven’t served with anyone with more character, more courage and more decency than Bill Nelson,” Biden said. He praised Nelson for voting for the Affordable Care Act when others told him it would end his political career.
“He had courage to go ahead and vote his conscience,” Biden said. “And not a day goes by, and it happened four times today, that someone doesn’t tell me, ‘I’m alive because of the ACA.’”
Biden seized on Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s comments this week that Congress should look at cutting Social Security and Medicare to lessen the national debt, which Biden blamed on the GOP tax bill creating an additional $1.9 trillion of red ink.
“This is their attempt to [cut] Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security,” Biden said, his voice rising. “It’s your life. It’s the lives of millions of Americans. … Folks, they’re straight up about it. Those things pay for things you rely on, your mothers and fathers rely on. Things they desperately need.”
Republicans “have never been able to take it away before, and let me tell you something, if Bill does not win and Republicans [keep] control, they will take it away,” said Biden, one of several Democrats possibly considering a run for president in 2020.
Nelson talked about health care, taking aim at a new Scott ad about pre-existing conditions.
“I have always wanted to expand health care, and [Scott] always constantly savaged it,” Nelson said. “And he has the nerve to put an ad on right now claiming he’s in favor of keeping protections of preexisting conditions.”
Nelson said Scott is “ignoring the convenient fact that even before we passed the ACA, he was trying to stop it. And in the seven years it’s been law, he’s tried to kill it by repealing it – and continues to do that with that suit by Florida in federal courts, right now, to declare pre-existing conditions … as unconstitutional.”
Nelson also attacked Scott on the environment, saying Scott signed a bill into law that stops inspections of leaking septic tanks and drained money from environmental agencies.
“And what do we have? Red tide and green algae,” Nelson said, to chants of “Red Tide Rick.”
Biden said voters “have to choose hope over fear, unity over division, allies over enemies and truth over lies. … In the United States of America, there’s nothing we cannot do, and I mean it – get up, take it back and restore this country to its rightful place.”
In a statement, the Scott campaign called Nelson “a Washington puppet” and quoted Biden as saying, “’Whatever Bill Nelson tells you he will do, he will do.’ Close but no cigar. More accurately, ‘Whatever Bill Nelson is told what to do, he will do.’”
Referring to earlier stops on the trip which featured Democratic gubernatorial candidate Andrew Gillum, who was not in Orlando Tuesday, Scott spokesman Chris Hartline said in a statement, “In the closing weeks of this campaign, liberal Andrew Gillum is calling in the cavalry of liberal Washington politicians to prop up his campaign. Oh, and Bill Nelson was there, too.”