Trump and Biden debate their climate and environmental policies

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: You both have very different visions on climate change. President Trump, you say that environmental regulations have hurt jobs in the energy sector. Vice President Biden, you have said you see addressing climate change as an opportunity to create new jobs. For each of you, how would you both combat climate change and support job growth at the same time? Starting with you, President Trump, you have two minutes uninterrupted. [00:00:22] Donald Trump: So, we have the Trillion Trees program. We have so many different programs. I do love the environment, but what I want is the cleanest crystal clear water, the cleanest air. We have the best, lowest number in carbon emissions, which is a big standard that I notice Obama goes with all the time. Not Joe. I haven't heard Joe use the term because I'm not sure he knows what it represents or means, but I have heard Obama use it. And we have the best carbon emission numbers that we've had in 35 years under this administration. We are working so well with industry, but here's what we can't do. Look at China, how filthy it is. Look at Russia. Look at India. It's filthy. The air is filthy. The Paris Accord, I took us out because we were going to have to spend trillions of dollars, and we were treated very unfairly. When they put us in there, they did us a great disservice. They were going to take away our businesses. I will not sacrifice tens of millions of jobs, thousands and thousands of companies because of the Paris Accord. It was so unfair. China doesn't kick in until 2030. Russia goes back to a low standard, and we kicked in right away. It would have been—it would have been—it would have destroyed our businesses. So, you ready? We have done an incredible job environmentally. We have the cleanest air, the cleanest water, and the best carbon emission standards that we've seen in many, many years. And we haven't destroyed our industries. [00:01:57] Speaker 1: Vice President Biden, two minutes to you, uninterrupted. [00:02:01] Joe Biden: Climate change and climate warming, global warming, is an existential threat to humanity. We have a moral obligation to deal with it. And we're told by all the leading scientists in the world, we don't have much time. We're going to pass the point of no return within the next eight to ten years. Four more years of this man eliminating all the regulations, that were put in by us to clean up the climate, to clean up, to limit the—a limit of emissions, will put us in a position where we're going to be in real trouble. Here's where we have a great opportunity. I was able to get both all the environmental organizations as well as labor, the people worried about jobs, to support my climate plan. Because what it does, it will create millions of new, good-paying jobs. We're going to invest in, for example, 500,000—50,000—excuse me, 50,000 charging stations on our highways so that we can own the electric car market of the future. In the meantime, China is doing that. We're going to be in a position where we're going to see to it that we're going to take four million existing buildings and two million existing homes and retrofit them so they don't leak as much energy, saving hundreds of millions of barrels of oil in the process and creating a significant number of jobs. And by the way, the whole idea of what this is all going to do, it's going to create millions of jobs. And it's going to clean the environment. Our health and our jobs are at stake. That's what's happening. And right now, by the way, Wall Street firms indicated that my plan, my plan will, in fact, create 18.6 million jobs, 7 million more than his. This is from Wall Street. And I'll create $1 trillion more in economic growth than his proposal does. Not on climate, just on the economy. [00:03:55] Donald Trump: President Trump, you're right. Today came out and said very strongly $6,500 will be taken away from families under his plan, that his plan is an economic disaster. If you look at what he wants to do, you know, the, if you look at his plan, his environmental plan, you know who developed it? AOC plus three. They know nothing about the climate. I mean, she's got a good line of stuff, but she knows nothing about the climate. And they're all hopping through hoops for AOC plus three. Look, their real plan costs $100 trillion. If we had the best year in the history of our country for 100 years, we would not even come close to a number like that. When he says buildings, they want to take buildings down because they want to make bigger windows into smaller windows. As far as they're concerned, if you had no window, it would be a lovely thing. This is the craziest plan that anybody has ever seen. And this wasn't done by smart people. This wasn't done by anybody. Frankly, I don't even know how it could be good politically. They want to spend $100 trillion. That's their real number. He's trying to say it was six. It's $100 trillion. They want to knock down buildings and build new buildings with little, tiny, small windows. And many other things. And many other things. Let me have the vice president respond. And we're running out of time. [00:05:14] Speaker 1: And we have a lot more questions to get to. And you'll destroy our country. So let's hear from the vice president. I have a number of more questions. [00:05:19] Joe Biden: I don't know where he comes from. I don't know where he comes up with these numbers. When? $100 trillion. Give me a break. This plan was, this is planned and endorsed by every major, every major environmental group and every labor group. Labor. Because they know the future lies. The future lies in us being able to breathe. And they know their good jobs in getting us there. And by the way, the fastest growing industry in America are, is, is, is the electric, the, excuse me, solar energy and wind. He thinks wind causes cancer, windmills. It's the fastest growing jobs. And they pay good prevailing wages. 45, 50 bucks an hour. We can grow and we can be cleaner if we go the route I'm proposing. [00:06:08] Speaker 1: President Trump, please respond and then I have some followers. [00:06:11] Donald Trump: We are energy independent for the first time. We don't need all of these countries that we had to fight war over because we needed their energy. We are energy independent. I know more about wind than you do. It's extremely expensive. Kills all the birds. It's very intermittent. It's got a lot of problems. And they happen to make the windmills in both Germany and China. And the fumes coming up, if you're a believer in carbon emission, the fumes coming up to make, make these massive windmills is more than anything that we're talking about with natural gas, which is very clean. I love solar, but solar doesn't quite have it yet. It's not powerful yet to really run our big, beautiful factories that we need to compete with the world. So it's all a pipe dream. But you know what we'll do? We're going to have the greatest economy in the world. But if you want to kill the economy, get rid of your oil industry. And what about fracking? [00:07:08] Speaker 1: All right. Let me allow Vice President Biden to respond. [00:07:12] Joe Biden: You never said I oppose fracking. You said it on tape. I did. Show the tape. Put it on your website. I'll put it on. Put it on the website. The fact of the matter is he's flat lying. [00:07:23] Speaker 1: Would you rule out banning fracking? [00:07:25] Joe Biden: I do rule out banning fracking because the answer, we need, we need other industries to transition to get to ultimately a complete zero emissions by 2025. What I will do with fracking over time is make sure that we can capture the emissions from the fracking, capture the emissions from gas. We can do that. And we can do that by investing money and doing it. But it's a transition to that. [00:07:52] Speaker 1: I have one more question in this pod. Excuse me. [00:07:54] Donald Trump: He was against fracking. He said it. I will show that to you tomorrow. I am against fracking. Until he got the nomination, went to Pennsylvania, then he said, but you know what, Pennsylvania? He'll be against it very soon because his party is totally against it. [00:08:08] Joe Biden: Fracking on federal land, I said, no fracking or oil on federal land. [00:08:13] Speaker 1: Let me ask this final question in this section, and then I want to move on to our final section. President Trump, people of color are much more likely to live near oil refineries and chemical plants. In Texas, there are families who worry the plants near them are making them sick. Your administration has rolled back regulations on these kinds of facilities. Why should these families give you another four years in office? [00:08:35] Donald Trump: The families that we're talking about are employed heavily, and they are making a lot of money, more money than they've ever made. If you look at the kind of numbers that we produce for Hispanic, who are black, for Asian, it's nine times greater the percentage gain than it was under, in three years, than it was under eight years of the two of them. To put it nicely. Nine times more. Now, somebody lives, I have not heard the numbers or the statistics that you're saying, but they're making a tremendous amount of money economically. We saved it, and I saved it again a number of months ago when oil was crashing because of the pandemic. We saved it. We got, say what you want about relationship, we got Saudi Arabia, Mexico, and Russia to cut back way back. We saved our oil industry, and now it's very vibrant together. All right. And everybody has very inexpensive gasoline. Remember that. [00:09:31] Speaker 1: Vice President Biden, your response, and then we're going to have a final question for both of you. [00:09:35] Joe Biden: My response is that those people live on what they call fence lines. He doesn't understand this. They live near chemical plants that, in fact, pollute chemical plants and oil plants and refineries that pollute. I used to live near that when I was growing up in Claymont, Delaware, and all the more oil refineries in Marcus Hook and the Delaware River than there is any place, including in Houston at the time. When my mom get in the car when their first frost to drive me to school, turn to the windshield wiper, there'd be oil slick in the window. That's why so many people in my state were dying and getting cancer. The fact is, those frontline communities, it doesn't matter what you're paying them. It matters how you keep them safe. What do you do? And you impose restrictions on the pollutants coming out of those fence line communities. [00:10:21] Speaker 1: Okay, I have one final question. Would he close down the oil industry? It falls. Would you close down the oil industry? [00:10:26] Joe Biden: By the way, I would transition from the oil industry, yes. Oh, that's a big statement. It is a big statement. That's a big statement. Because I would stop. Why would you do that? Because the oil industry pollutes significantly. I see. And here's the deal. That's a big statement. Well, if you let me finish the statement, because it has to be replaced by renewable energy over time, over time. And I'd stop giving to the oil industry, I'd stop giving them federal subsidies. He won't give federal subsidies to the gas, excuse me, to solar and wind. Yeah. Why are we giving it to the oil industry? [00:11:01] Donald Trump: We actually do give it to solar and wind. And that's maybe the biggest statement in terms of business. That's the biggest statement. Okay. Because basically what he's saying is he is going to destroy the oil industry. Will you remember that Texas? Will you remember that Pennsylvania, Oklahoma? [00:11:16] Speaker 1: Vice President Biden, let me give you 10 seconds to respond and then I have to get to the final question. Vice President Biden. [00:11:21] Joe Biden: He takes everything out of context. But the point is, look, we have to move toward a net zero emissions. The first place to do that by the year 2035 is in energy production. By 2050, totally. [00:11:34] Speaker 1: All right. Is he going to get China to do it? No, we're finished with this. Is he going to get China to do it? No, we have to move on to our final question. [00:11:39] Joe Biden: I'm going to rejoin Paris Accord and make China abide by what they agreed to. All right. [00:11:44] Speaker 1: This is about leadership, gentlemen.