LAS VEGAS — President Joe Biden rallied a crowd of about 400 people in Las Vegas Sunday, two days ahead of a primary election that he's certain to win.
Biden touted his record, including 15 million jobs created during his tenure, nearly 300,000 of them here in Las Vegas.
Among the items he mentioned:
- Saving seniors money on prescription drugs. "I'm just getting started," Biden said.
- Keeping his promise to appoint the first Black woman — Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson — to the U.S. Supreme Court. Biden also claimed he'd appointed more black women to federal courts around the country than all of his predecessors combined.
- Passing the infrastructure bill, and a $3 billion grant for the proposed high speed train between Las Vegas and Southern California.
Biden grew soft-spoken when he talked about toxic burn pits in Iraq that were used to dispose of hazardous chemicals, which many believe exposed service members to cancer-causing fumes. Biden's son, former Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden, died of brain cancer after the younger Biden served overseas.
But the president didn't just look backward. He promised to continue to fight for gun control if he's re-elected in November. He referenced the 1 October mass shooting of 2017, still the nation's worst with 58 people killed immediately and two others who died of their wounds later.
"We passed the most significant gun safety law in decades, but I want to make clear to you: I will not stop until I once again ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines," Biden said. "There's no rationale for it. None, none, none."
Biden and other senators in 1994 passed a ban on assault weapons, but that law expired in 2004 and there's been little appetite in Congress to take up the issue, despite the prevalence of mass shooting incidents involving the rifles.
He also didn't shy away from another controversial issue, abortion. Biden criticized his predecessor, former President Donald Trump, who has boasted about appointing three of the U.S. Supreme Court justices who voted in 2022 to overturn Roe v. Wade.
"And by the way, now they're planning a national ban on the right to choose. I made it clear, if MAGA [Make America Great Again] Republicans pass a national ban on the right to choose, I will veto it," he said to cheers from the crowd. "Give me a [Democratic] Senate and House, I'm going to bring back Roe v. Wade."
Biden also criticized Trump for saying he hopes if there's an economic crash, it happens in the next year, since he doesn't want to be compared to former President Herbert Hoover, who was president at the start of the Great Depression.
"Too late," Biden quipped.
Trump and others have criticized Biden over inflation numbers and the price of goods, especially groceries and gasoline. In a Jan. 27 rally, Trump also criticized Biden for his border policies and said that Black and Hispanic residents were the most hurt by chaos at the southern border.
Biden, whose choice of venue in the Historic Westside was no accident, didn't mention immigration in his 32-minute remarks, but he's been actively courting minority voters. In 2020, a decisive win in South Carolina propelled him to winning the nomination, and, eventually, the presidency.
