“We’re delivering on our promises”: Biden meets with full Cabinet for first time

Joe Biden, U.S. President: “First, the pandemic. I know folks are watching the number of cases rising again and wondering, quite frankly, what it means to them. But overall, overall, COVID-19 deaths are down dramatically, dramatically, and these last six months, about 90% down due to our vaccination program. And I want to thank you all for the great job you did and getting that done. But we have to stay vigilant, especially with the Delta variant that’s out there. While COVID-19 cases are rising, virtually all of the COVID death, virtually all of the COVID deaths and hospitalizations are from unvaccinated people. We say it again, virtually all from unvaccinated people. And that means the safest thing to do is to get vaccinated, get vaccinated. And that’s why we’re focusing on our next phase on getting the unvaccinated vaccinated. I know it seems like a constant uphill climb, but it’s gradually making progress. But we got way to go yet. With our bipartisan infrastructure framework and our Build Back Better plan, I think we can turn this this great movement into economic boom for some time to come. And I really mean, I think we’re on the cusp of not only getting us out of the hole, but setting us on a path that’s going to generate significant continued economic growth. And the American people are overwhelmingly supportive of our plans. That’s the part that a lot of our friends on the other team kind of miss. The polling data shows that they strongly support, strongly support our efforts for infrastructure. I think they’re a little tired of infrastructure week for four years in a row. I think we’re on the verge of being able to get something really done. There’s much more to be done and so much more to do. Tackling voting rights, which is an existential threat to democracy right now. The things that are being passed are just beyond the pale. The vice president has been working hard on this issue and going to continue to. We all are, but there’s much more to do. We have to tackle the immigration problem, which we’re working really hard to get done in a humane and serious way, police reform and crime. And the bottom line is we’re delivering on our promises. We have to deliver on all the promises we made because I think we’re in a situation where the vast majority of the public agrees with the essence of what we’re trying to do. And so I just think that we’re showing there’s nothing that America is not able to do while we do it together.”