CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — President Joe Biden on Tuesday attacked his predecessor and suggested that world leaders are fearful of what Donald Trump’s return to the White House could mean for democratic rule around the world .
“At every international meeting I attend,” Biden said, referring in particular to his turbulent trip to Germany last week, “they pull me aside — one leader at a time, quietly — and say, ‘Joe, he can not win.’ My democracy is at stake.”
With his voice getting louder, Biden then asked: “America is going away, who is leading the world?” WHO? Name me a country.”
The comments came during what was supposed to be a fairly staid speech about health care in New Hampshire. They were a dose of unfiltered politics at an event otherwise focused on Biden’s political legacy as the race to succeed him ended with just two weeks to go. And they made it clear that the president also sees the fact that Trump will not succeed him as an crucial factor in how he might go down in history.
After the speech, Biden went to a campaign office to support the Democratic candidates in New Hampshire and continued his broadsides against Trump, at one point even saying, “We have to lock him up.” Some supporters of Vice President Kamala Harris – the Biden ones who took over as the leader of the Democratic candidates in July — have shouted this during their rallies, even though such chants actually originated when Trump supporters called for a prison sentence for his 2016 opponent, Democrat Hillary Clinton.
When Biden mentioned this, he received applause from those gathered at the campaign office, but Biden quickly added: “Lock him up politically. Lock him out, that’s what we have to do.”
Trump campaign spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said Biden was “simply admitting the truth: He and Kamala always had the plan to politically pursue their opponent, President Trump, because they cannot beat him fair and square.”
Biden did not mention Harris much in his comments, although he noted that she had been endorsed by some senior Republicans. This includes former Rep. Liz Cheney, the GOP’s one-time No. 3 candidate in the House of Representatives and daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney. Instead, Biden continued to focus on Trump, criticizing him for being proud of being friends with Russian President Vladimir Putin and joking that Trump “believes in the free press, just like I believe in holding Mt Can climb Everest.”
He said Trump and supporters of his “Make America Great Again” movement have an “anti-democratic” attitude toward how the Constitution works and “virtually no regard” for it.
“Think about what would happen if Donald Trump won this election,” Biden said, adding, “He’s not joking about it, he’s absolutely serious” and “It’s a serious, serious problem.”
“We have to win,” Biden said.
Biden was in Concord, the New Hampshire capital, with Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, the last candidate he defeated to win the 2020 Democratic presidential primary. They both appeared at Concord Community College for the Department of Health and Human Services’ announcement that nearly 1.5 million Medicare enrollees saved nearly $1 billion on prescription drugs in the first half of the year.
Much of those savings were the result of a drug out-of-pocket cap created by the sweeping climate and health care law that the Biden administration pushed through Congress in 2022. It imposed an annual cap of $3,500 for Medicare recipients, the government’s health insurance plan for seniors, to pay for their prescriptions, while making recommended vaccinations for older Americans, such as the shingles shot, free.
Biden said it’s not just seniors who will benefit from the savings: “It also saves taxpayers billions of dollars.”
Next year, the cap on drug costs for Medicare recipients will drop to $2,000 a year, bringing further savings to some of the sickest Americans. But for others, the change has come at a cost: It has contributed to rising premiums for drug plans that the government has tried to keep low by paying insurers billions of dollars from the Medicare trust fund. Nevertheless, some insurers have significantly increased tariff prices – or withdrawn tariffs from the market.
However, the legislation is expected to provide significant long-term savings for taxpayers and Medicare enrollees in other ways.
For the first time ever, the federal government will negotiate the price of 10 of Medicare’s most pricey drugs. The negotiated list prices announced in August will take effect in 2026. Taxpayers spend more than $50 billion annually on the 10 drugs, including the popular blood thinners Xarelto and Eliquis and the diabetes drugs Jardiance and Januvia.
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that Medicare drug price negotiations will save taxpayers $3.7 billion in the first year.
But his advocacy for lower drug prices was overshadowed by Biden’s warnings about Trump.
“No president has ever been like this guy. He is a real threat to our democracy.”
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Weissert reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Amanda Seitz and Darlene Superville in Washington contributed to this report.
