President Joe Biden met with supporters at a Hallandale Beach community center on Tuesday afternoon, touting Democratic support for Social Security and Medicare.
The president spoke at OB Johnson Park’s community center, after he was introduced by 74-year-old Boynton Beach resident Sheldon Armus, a Medicare recipient who will benefit from provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act, which Biden signed into law in August. One of its provisions reduces prescription drug costs for Medicare recipients and caps the cost of insulin for participants in the health plan for older and disabled people.
“They deserve to retire with dignity and peace of mind and that’s how it should be in the United States of America,” Biden said, adding that Social Security and Medicare are “under siege by the Republicans.”
Biden was contrasting Democratic support for Social Security and Medicare with a Republican plan the White House warns could lead to an end of the two popular programs.
“(Social security recipients) earned it,” Biden said. “Every single paycheck, they put money in since they were teenagers to pay for Social Security. And those are more than government programs. They’re a promise we made as a country to work hard and contribute and when it comes time to retire, we’re going to be there for you.”
“Millions of Americans would lose health care coverage, benefits, and protections under congressional Republicans’ plans,” the White House said in a “fact sheet” released in advance of the trip.
Later Tuesday, Biden was set to campaign for gubernatorial candidate Charlie Crist and U.S. Senate candidate Val Demings.
White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters on board Air Force One en route to Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport that Republicans have “a very different and very bad vision” for the programs.
Jean-Pierre said Biden plans to draw a contrast with Republican policies, especially a plan advanced by U.S. Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla. Scott, chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, who has a 12-point “Plan to Rescue America,” which he sees as a blueprint for his party if it wins control in the midterm elections. The president in the past has called Scott’s plan an “ultra-MAGA agenda.”
The White House warned that Republicans would try to eliminate the newly created ability to negotiate drug prices and remove the cap on out-of-pocket prescription costs for Medicare recipients.
Millions of Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security beneficiaries “would see their benefits threatened under Sen. Rick Scott’s plan to put those programs on the chopping block every five years,” the White House warned.
Biden was joined at the event in Hallandale Beach by U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Weston, a longtime supporter of the president, and other Democratic elected officials.
Wasserman Schultz and Fort Lauderdale Mayor Dean Trantalis greeted Biden when he landed at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport.
For his part, Scott welcomed Biden to the state with a TV ad he put on the air Monday night and Tuesday in South Florida. In it Scott asserted that Democrats are the enemies of Medicare, called the president a tax cheat and said people should fear new IRS agents enforcing tax laws.
“Joe Biden just cut $280 billion from Medicare, taking money from Florida seniors,” he said in the ad. “I’m Rick Scott. Biden should resign.”
It’s not a new fight. Scott has been selling his plan, which some Republican candidates, elected officials and strategists don’t like, and Biden has been highlighting provisions that voters might not like.
After the remarks on Medicare, Social Security and prescription drug costs at an official government event, Biden is headlining a Democratic Party rally for Crist and Demings. The Democratic National Committee rally is at Florida Memorial University in Miami Gardens, one of the state’s historically Black colleges and universities. The actor and comedian Keegan-Michael Key is joining them at the Florida Memorial rally.
Biden also is headlining a fundraiser in Miami-Dade County for Crist’s campaign.
Biden’s presence will generate publicity for Crist and Demings, but may not be able to do much to change the trajectory of their campaigns.
With Election Day one week away, on Nov. 8, the events are relatively late in the campaign season. Floridians began voting by mail at the end of September, and in-person early voting began in the state’s largest counties on Oct. 24.
As of Tuesday morning, slightly more than 3 million Florida voters had already cast ballots. Republicans have a growing advantage, with 137,364 more of the party’s registered voters casting ballots so far than Democrats. On Oct. 23, when almost 1.2 million mail ballots had been cast and early voting was about to start, Democrats were 45,518 ballots ahead of Republicans.
Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis is at 52.1% in the FiveThirtyEight polling average, which considers poll quality, sample size, partisan leaning of the polling organization, and how recently surveys were taken. Crist, a former Democratic congressman and former Republican governor, is at 42.2%.
Lt. Gov. Jeanette Nuñez wrote on Twitter that the Biden visit is a gift to the Republicans. “Sorry @FlaDems, but Biden’s visit to the Free State of Florida does nothing but remind voters of your radical policies and disastrous failures.”
U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., is at 50.2% in the FiveThirtyEight average, with 43.2% for Demings, a congresswoman and former police chief from Orlando.
Rubio’s campaign used the visit to remind voters of things they don’t like about the way the country is running right now, and warn them that electing Demings would make things worse.
“Congresswoman Val Demings is welcoming the failing leader of her party, Joe Biden, to Florida today to celebrate what they’ve delivered for the American people: record inflation, dangerous crime, and a wide-open border. Thanks to Val Demings’ record of voting for Biden’s far-left agenda 100% of the time, Americans are worse off than they were two years ago, and they have the Biden administration and Democrat-controlled Washington to blame,” Elizabeth Gregory, Rubio’s campaign communications director said in a statement.
Nationally, both parties are concentrating their efforts on other states where gubernatorial and Senate races are seen as closer. On Saturday, Biden will appear with former President Barack Obama in Philadelphia on behalf of Pennsylvania’s Democratic candidates for governor and U.S. Senate.
Tuesday will be the third time Biden has traveled to Florida since becoming president.
In the earlier two visits — in 2021 after the Champlain Towers South Condominium collapse in Surfside and on Oct. 5 after Hurricane Ian slammed southwest Florida — Biden was acting as the nation’s consoler-in-chief.
Biden had planned a Sept. 27 trip to Fort Lauderdale to talk about health care costs and Medicare and Social Security and Orlando for a Democratic Party rally. But that was the day before Hurricane Ian struck Florida, and the visit was canceled.
Biden’s last political visit to South Florida was Oct. 29, 2020, just five days before the presidential election. He held a rally at Broward College’s north campus in Coconut Creek and visited a campaign office on Sistrunk Boulevard in Fort Lauderdale.
On Oct. 15, first lady Jill Biden visited Plantation to urge women to get mammograms and to learn about advances in breast cancer research and treatment. Later that day, she visited Orlando to campaign for Crist and Demings.
Former President Donald Trump is also making campaign stops across the country in the lead-up to the midterm elections. He’ll be in Miami on Sunday.
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