Let's be clear: This campaign is not about Bernie Sanders, it is not about Hillary Clinton, it is not about Jeb Bush or anyone else. This campaign is… - Bernie Sanders

During his campaign, Biden promised to be the most progressive president since Franklin Delano Roosevelt. And during his first few months in office, with the strong support of Democrats in Congress, he kept that promise. At a time when Covid was wreaking havoc on the health and financial wellbeing of the American people, under President Biden’s leadership we passed the American Rescue Plan, the most consequential piece of legislation in modern history. This $1.9tn bill was effective in providing financial support to tens of millions of American families and businesses, stabilizing the economy and improving our response to Covid. After the passage of this popular legislation in March 2021, President Biden had a 59% favorability rating, the highest of his presidency, and there was widespread support for what Democrats were doing. There was also a strong understanding that we had to go even further. The American Rescue Plan was an emergency bill that addressed the Covid-related problems facing the country. Now, with a new administration in office, the American people wanted us to address the long-neglected structural crises facing the working families of our country. Amid grotesque and widening income and wealth inequality and decades of wage stagnation, the existential threat of the climate crisis, a rigged tax system and crises in healthcare, childcare and housing, the American people wanted Congress to finally stand up and represent their interests, not just the greed of wealthy campaign contributors. And that’s what the Build Back Better Act was about. Poll after poll showed overwhelming support for virtually every provision in that legislation.

Further, as quickly as possible, we must get money into the hands of people by immediately providing a $2,000 monthly emergency payment to every person in the country until the crisis has passed. In addition, we must guarantee paid medical and sick leave to all workers. It has been estimated that only 12% of workers in businesses that are likely to stay open during this crisis are receiving paid sick leave benefits as a result of the second coronavirus relief package. We have got to increase this figure to 100%. Moreover, workers who are on the frontlines of this crisis including those who work in grocery stores, warehouses, paramedics, nurses, pharmacies, domestic workers, postal workers, farm workers, public transit, truck drivers and janitors must receive $500 a week hazard pay, childcare and a safe and secure workplace.

The problem has been that for some people in the liberal – and I consider myself a progressive and not a liberal for that reason alone. You can be 100% in support of the civil rights movement, for criminal justice reform, for comprehensive immigration reform, for women’s rights, for protecting the environment and being extraordinarily aggressive in transforming our energy system from fossil fuel to sustainable energy and at the same time be a champion of white workers and black workers and Latino workers and immigrant workers – there should not be a dichotomy. But what has happened is that for many people in the Democratic party they said, ‘Well, I believe in women’s rights, I believe in civil rights, I believe in immigration reform, criminal justice reform,’ and that has been the emphasis at the expense of the needs of a shrinking middle class and massive levels of income and wealth inequality. The truth is we can and should do both, it’s not an either, or it is both.