Subject: Fw: VPOTUS Pool Report #3 -- GAGGLE
From: White House Press Office<[email-masked]>
To: <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 18 May 2016 16:06:57 -0500

From: Sabrina Siddiqui <[email-masked]>
Sent: Wednesday, May 18, 2016 4:52 PM
To: Dubyak, Meghan M. EOP/OVP
Subject: VPOTUS Pool Report #3 -- GAGGLE

Sorry guys, we've been running around and I haven't had a chance to send detailed pool reports from VP Biden's earlier stop, but he made a retail stop at North Market in Columbus, Ohio with Ted Strickland and then gaggled with the traveling press after.

I wanted to get quotes out asap, as Biden addressed Bernie supporters, Sherrod Brown as a VP and his general thoughts on the race.

Audio available upon request.

Thoughts on Sherrod Brown as potential VP?

"I think he'd be a great choice."

Any advice for him?

"No, no, I don't have any advice for anybody. But there's a lot of really qualified folks for No. 2. Hillary has a plethora of really good people to pick from, for real.

Are you concerned about Bernie Sanders' supporters?

"No, I'm not. Bernie Sanders is a good guy. Let Bernie run the race. There's nothing wrong with that."

But did you see the video of his supporters from the Nevada convention?

"That's not Bernie, and what Bernie's going to have to do if that happens again -- he's going to have to be more aggressive in speaking out about it. But here we are in May, as was pointed out, Hillary was still in this in May, in June. I'm confident that Bernie will be supportive if Hillary wins, which the numbers indicate will happen. So I'm not worried. There's no fundamental split in the Democratic Party."

On the importance of Ohio as a battleground:

"It is, absolutely. I was in there 23 times the last race. One of the things that would be a big mistake to do is to talk away from a base constituency. I went down the Ohio Valley, we didn't win but in every county we ran we did better than we did three years earlier."

"I know I'm 'Middle Class Joe,' I know all that stuff, but it really is about strengthening the middle class because if it's not working, it doesn't work for anybody. And we're finally getting back guys, I mean we really are. We've gone from crisis to recovery and if we just get out of our own way for God's sake, we're better positioned to compete with the world than any other place in the world. You want to trade places, you wanna run China now? You wanna run the EU now? I mean come on, man."

"I've been saying this for eight years. [And people who say] 'Well, you know I heard about how China's gonna eat our lunch.' Come on, give me a break. Give me a break. 'The EU's gonna dominate us.' You want to make any bets on that one? We want EU, we want China, we want to do better."

"But look, all kidding aside, you look at AT Kearney, they do this survey every year -- just one factoid, as they used to say on CNN -- that they do a survey of the 300 largest industrialists every year, same one. We're the best place in the world to invest. The last two years by a margin larger than any time in the history of the survey, they say the United States of America. There's a good reason for it, man. We've got the cheapest energy in the world, we've got the most productive workforce in the world.

All this stuff coming from Trump, you know, American workers are getting paid too much? Where the hell does he live? Well, I know where he lives. But I'm serious, think about it. They're three times as productive as they are in Asia, we're in a situation where we have the greatest research universities in the world, the most agile venture capitalists in the world. This is time for the United States just to step up and step in. And I think there are so many opportunities and I feel confident about this year. I feel confident about this year.

"As you know, I've been doing a lot of Senate races..."

At this point, he was cut off because traffic was beind held on his account.

"Well, that's a good reason to leave," he quipped, adding: "I don't want to cost Strickland any votes here."

--
Sabrina Siddiqui
Political Reporter
The Guardian

Cell: +1 (202) 760 0814
Twitter: @SabrinaSiddiqui
>www.theguardian.com/profile/sabrina-siddiqui<

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