FAIRFAX, Va. — During an election eve rally, Vice President Joe Biden said Hillary Clinton and her supporters will need to take a “hard look” at what drove “a lot” of Americans to vote for Donald Trump if Clinton is elected president.
“We can’t keep tearing each other apart. Look, we’ve got to reach out. You know, I’ve been tough on Donald Trump, as tough as anyone, but when this election is over we’ve got to let it go, we’ve got to go and take a hard look at what drove the other side. God willing, we are going to win this, but there are a lot of people that are going to vote for Donald Trump,” Biden said during a chilly Monday evening rally at George Mason University with Clinton’s running mate, Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.).
Jill Biden and Kaine’s wife, Anne Holton, were also at the outdoor campus event, which drew a mostly college-age crowd of about 1,000 based on an unofficial estimate.
“We’ve got to figure out why — what is eating at them. Some of it will be unacceptable but some of it will be about hard truths about our country and about our economy. A lot of people do feel left out, that’s the truth on both sides so we’ve got to stop being blinded by anger. We’ve got to see each other again,” he added.
Biden told the crowd he has known every world leader over the past 30 years on a “first name” basis and stressed that the world is watching this election closely.
“Here’s the deal, guys: they look at us, the rest of the world, and they pay as much as attention to this election as we are. They really truly are and they believe, they want to know, whether or not we will by the most fundamental of American notions — we hold these truths self-evident that all men and women are created equal,” he said. “That we are endowed by our creator with certain alienable rights — everyone is endowed with those alienable rights — that’s what they look at in us.”
Biden said he is more “optimistic” about the future of America today than when he was elected to the U.S. Senate as a “29-year-old kid.”
He predicted that in the next eight years “renewable energy will power every single home” in the U.S. and that every child in America will be able to go to college debt-free “regardless of their ZIP code.”
“We will end cancer in our time,” he told the crowd, predicting that children will be able to get “cancer vaccinations” in the “not too distant future.” Biden undertook the cancer “moonshot” project after his son Beau died in 2015.
“There’s nothing that can stop us,” he said. “We’re America. We don’t scare easily.”
However, Biden cautioned that there is no guarantee America will remain the wealthiest country in the world.
“There’s nothing guaranteed about democracy. Nothing guaranteed about self-governance. There’s no guarantee we will remain the greatest economic machine the world has ever seen. There’s no guarantee we will remain the most powerful nation on earth,” he said.
Biden also said Democrats have an “advantage” with millennials and encouraged them to vote.
“You are the most tolerant. You are the most forgiving. You are the most supportive generation in history and you are now the largest and it’s up to you to determine tomorrow.”
It was Biden’s last campaign event as he plans to head home to Wilmington, Del., to vote Tuesday. Earlier Monday, the Bidens rallied voters in Tallahassee and St. Petersburg, Fla.
Kaine hit the trail one more time after the Fairfax stop to rally supporters in his hometown Richmond at a late-night event.
At George Mason, Kaine encouraged voters to volunteer for the Clinton campaign on Election Day.
“We need you tomorrow. We need you to persuade and help and volunteer. I like the way the polls are looking, sort of, but I don’t trust them,” he said. “We’ve got to consider ourselves the underdog until we call ourselves the winner because Hillary is trying to do something that’s never been done — because if it had been easy to be a woman president, there would have been a woman president.”
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