DES MOINES, Iowa Bristling at Elizabeth Warrens suggestions that hes a milquetoast moderate with small ideas, presidential candidate Joe Biden countered Saturday that he offers a bold vision for the country and warned that Democratic primary voters should not get distracted by the partys increasingly tense battle over ideological labels.
DES MOINES, Iowa — Bristling at Elizabeth Warren’s suggestions that he’s a milquetoast moderate with small ideas, presidential candidate Joe Biden countered Saturday that he offers a “bold” vision for the country and warned that Democratic primary voters should not get distracted by the party’s increasingly tense battle over ideological labels.
It was a departure from Biden’s usual campaign speech and signaled perhaps a new phase of Democrats’ search for a nominee to take on President Donald Trump, with Warren, the leading progressive candidate, and Biden, the top choice for most moderates and establishment liberals, ratcheting up the intensity three months ahead of the Iowa caucuses.
“The vision I have for this country, there’s nothing small about it. It is like going to the moon,” Biden told supporters in Des Moines, as he hit the high points of a policy slate that would increase the federal government’s spending and scope on everything from health care to the climate crisis.
Without naming Warren, the former vice president said his ideas — such as a “public option” to compete alongside private health insurance, as opposed to Warren’s “Medicare-for-All” plan run altogether by the government — actually set the progressive standard in 2020 for a simple reason: They’re more achievable.
“I’m not promising anything crazy,” Biden said. “But it’s a vision — a vision of how we can get things done.”
With reporters afterward, Biden zeroed in on Warren’s estimated $20 trillion price tag for the first decade of single-payer insurance.
