“He’s always evolved,†said Ted Kaufman, Biden’s longest-serving adviser.
Kaufman, who succeeded Biden in the Senate when he ascended to the vice presidency, said Biden’s core identity hasn’t changed: “progressive Democrat,†friendly to labor and business, consistent supporter of civil rights, believer in government and the private sector.
What’s different in 2020, he said, are the country’s circumstances — a public health crisis, near-Depression level unemployment, a national reckoning on racism — and the office Biden now seeks.
Biden noted that his health care platform put him to the left of 2016 nominee Hillary Clinton and President Barack Obama, who had jettisoned a “public option†from his 2010 health care law, angering liberal Democrats.
They left Biden short of endorsing single-payer health insurance and the most aggressive timelines to achieve a carbon-neutral economy, but ratified his claims of a more progressive slate than his predecessors’.
Jayapal, who helped lead the Biden-Sanders health care task force, said that means being “alongside him, of course, and then sometimes be out in front.â€.
For his part, Trump accused Biden of “plagiarizing†his economic populism but also tarred Biden as a leftist who can’t win
“It’s a plan that is very radical left, but he said the right things because he’s copying what I’ve done,†Trump said Friday before departing the White House for Florida