c-spanshop.org or scan the code with your smartphone. >> president biden acknowledged the inflation rate and knows americans are feeling the hit from the rising cost of goods and gas. from the port of los angeles this runs 20 minutes. [applause] pres. biden: as we used to say in the united states senate, a point of personal privilege. i think that sal must be related closely to my friend from high school. you think i am kidding. thank you, sal.

before i begin, i want to say a few words very briefly about the january 6 hearings that were highlighted last night. the insurrection on january 6 is one of the darkest chapters in our nation's history, a brutal assault on our nation's history, a brutal attack on law-enforcement, some losing their lives. pres. biden: as we used to say in the united states senate, a point of personal privilege. i think that sal must be let in closely to my friend from high school. you think i am kidding. thank you, sal. before i begin, i want to say a few words very briefly about the january 6 hearings that were highlighted last night. the insurrection on january 6 is one of the darkest chapters in our nation's history, a brutal assault on our nation's history, a brutal attack on law-enforcement, some losing their lives. it is important the american people understand what truly happened and to understand the same forces that led january 6 remain work today. it is about democracy itself. we have to protect our democracy. i know it sounds corny to say it. i never thought it was going to be this straightforward of a challenge before.

the rule of law matters in democracy. we are seeing how the battle for the soul of america has been far from won. we can unite and defend this nation, democrat and republican, allowed no one to place a dagger at the throat of our democracy. that is what those hearings are all about. you will hear a lot more. i did not get to watch them because i was doing other business. there is a lot going on. the reason i am here, thank you, sal, and thank you to gene and the port of los angeles. thank you to the port of long beach. and thank you to mayor garcetti of los angeles and the mayor of long beach who i soon expect to be the congressman of long beach. [applause]

you guys did a heck of a job and i cannot hear a couple years ago to try to get things moving. everybody, management, labor, leaders. as well as, at the time, we also had governor newsom pushing hard, as well. we have two excellent centers, alex, you do not look any worse for the wear. you are looking awful good. you have always looked good, especially compared to these guys and me. thank you for the fire you bring. you bring some fire to this. i mean it. it is in your heart. we had a meeting together. we have to change it. we cannot give up. we have to turn this corner. john, i cannot -- you are the real deal. i will not get you in trouble, but thank you for sticking up for me. we have a labor secretary, i am his translator, he is marty walsh from boston.

[laughter] the only thing you have to know he always has your back. i had an uncle who said, joey, you are labor from belt buckle to shoe sole. today i would like to speak about my economic priority. fighting inflation. i understand americans are anxious and they are anxious for good reason. i was raised in a household when the price of gasoline rose precipitously, it was a discussion at the table. we have never seen anything like putin's tax on food and gas. americans should understand our economy has unique strength that we can build on. the job market is the strongest it has been since world war ii notwithstanding inflation. we added another 390,000 jobs last month.

8,700,000 new jobs since i took office. an all-time record, never that many jobs in that period of time. unemployment rate is near historic lows. americans are moving up to better jobs and better pay. since i took office, families are carrying less debt on average, they have more savings and we are doing it all while cutting the federal deficit by $1.7 trillion this year, and $320 billion last year. if i hear one of my maga friends talk about debt and deficits, i will be good. [laughter] they increase the debt -- that is another story. because of the progress, america can tackle inflation from a position of strength unlike any other country in the world

because every country in the world is getting a piece of this inflation, worse than we are in the vast majority of the countries around the world. but make no mistake about it, i understand inflation is a real challenge to american families. today's inflation report confirmed what americans already know. putin's price hike is hitting americans hard. gas prices up. half of the monthly price increases since may. inflation outside of energy and food, what the economists called core inflation, moderate in the last two months. it has come down. we need to come down more quickly. my administration will do what we can to continue to lower prices for the american people and congress has to act. one of the key ways to fight inflation is by lowering the cost of moving goods through the supply chain. when i first started talking about the supply chain when i came here a year ago. the american people wondered,

supply chain, that is not a usual part of their jargon everyday. but they understand fully now. if you cannot get the material needed to build a product, whether it is an automobile or whatever it is, it makes it difficult to be able to move and that is called a supply chain. that is why i have been focused on ports. last fall, ports around the world were congested because of the pandemic. we brought together port operators, shipping companies and labor to ease bottlenecks. as a result, over the holidays, 97% of all the packages were delivered on time and on shelves when you went christmas shopping. remember, we were not going to have anything on those shelves? you did it. [applause] delivery times were actually quicker. today there are 40% fewer

containers are clogging the docs than there were last november. this may was the strongest month in the port of los angeles' history, the strongest month and -- in its history. [applause] because of what my friends in congress have done, we passed infrastructure bill and we are funding major new initiatives on the docks. dog real systems -- dock rail systems. port of long beach has moved goods more quickly. communications near the ports and communities can breathe cleaner air because they are using electric machines. they are not generating with gas and coal. we expand capacity of our ports thanks to the infrastructure law. this is the time we took a different approach to trucking. last december, we brought

together industry and labor to tackle problems facing truck drivers. it took -- we had to double the number of commercial driver licenses being issued by the states to speed things up. we did it. we spent the creation of registration of apprenticeships, allowing aspiring drivers to learn. truckers' wages went up after accounting for inflation. we are going to keep at it with a new super chain envoy, general steve lyons. general lyons is a four-star general, he handled the transportation command, only tens and millions of things to move. from little things like tanks and aircraft, all kidding aside. he has come of the sidelines. he has helped us identify and get ahead of challenges that arise at our ports. our railroads, and on the roads. this is about reducing costs for families.

you know, i have to admit to you, a lot of us elected officials have been in office for a while. every once in a while, something you learn makes you angry, like if you had the person in front of you, you would want to pop them. i really mean it. there are nine major ocean alliance shipping companies that ship from asia to the united states. they formed consortium. these companies have raised their prices by as much as 1000%. everything coming from asia, they get 90% of it. they have raised it by 1000%. that is why i called on congress to crack down on -- they are foreign owned. foreign-owned shipping companies that raise prices while raking in $190 billion in profit.

a sevenfold increase in one year. sevenfold increase, $190 billion. senate passes legislation, i am hopeful the house will act soon to crack down these companies. and lower the costs. i am grateful to californians, speaker pelosi and john garamendi for leading this effort. thank you, i mean it. it is a big deal. people at home trying -- paycheck-to-paycheck, wondering, what in god's name do nine shipping companies have to do with it? almost everything you are doing, from what you are eating, to what you drive, what need in -- what you need in your home, related to the supply chains. what is coming from abroad. i am doing everything in my power to blunt putin's price hike and bring down the cost of gas and food. i have led the world to coordinate the largest release of the global oil reserves in

history. 240 million barrels to keep prices from rising even more. thanks to america's leadership, we have helped europe reduce reliance on russian oils by tripling our gas systems to europe, compared to last year. we are working closely with our european partners to get 20 million of grain in ukraine, already in silos now. ukraine and russia, two major suppliers of grain and corn. 20 million in their silos right now. we are trying to help them get that, russians are blocking the exports. they are not allowed out to the black sea, we are trying to figure out how to get it out of the country to get around the world. it will bring down prices. there is more. there is more than one way to solve this problem. we are working to bring down food prices, gas prices and save families money by dealing with

other items. my dad used to say, it is all about the standard of living. how much you have left in the paycheck at the end of the month. how much is left to do the basic things. add up the things people need to do everything from take care of kids, turn the heat on, air-conditioning, everything in between. there is a lot of ways we can reduce their cost, their cost of living. other than, while we are trying to get grain and gas. we laid out a plan, for example, lower prescription drug costs. that would fundamentally affect the well-being of every family. those of you who know somebody who has type two diabetes, has an insulin requirement monthly. it would cost an average of $647 a month, as high as $1000 in some places. you know how much it costs to make that vial of insulin? $10. no new research has been done.

the charge is outrageous. i think we should be able to have medicare do what they do when they deal with the v.a. the v.a. says, we are only going to pay so much for this. medicare negotiates the price for them. medicare will negotiate the price in insulin, guess what. it comes down a lot. outrageous numbers. we can put a cap on insulin, $35 a month, they will still make a significant profit. $10 to manufacture, $35. for example, we can cover the cost of high-speed internet. what you did dealing with the infrastructure bill, working with food as we cut the price and raised the speed. average bill for every family, $30 a month. ok, you are paying more than $30 a month to your gas. that still increases the money

out of pocket, decrease the amount you have to put out. the point is we are doing everything in our power to lower costs to families. congressional republicans led by rick scott have a different approach. if you did not write it down you would think i was making it up. i mean it sincerely. rick scott tried to change his words yesterday after he introduced -- he had the reelection of the senators on the republican side. he realized, he said, everybody, no matter what their station, if they are on welfare should pay a tax. everybody should pay a tax. well, here is the truth. one concrete plan i laid out was going to raise taxes on working families an average of $1500 a month. while we have 54 corporations out there, didn't pay any tax the last two years and made $40 billion. they didn't want to tax them.

they do not want to tax billionaires that are literally paying a lower tax rate than longshoremen. he had to walk back from his plans on health care. he says, what we have to do now that we finally got the affordable care act functioning and prices down an average of $400 for people, he wants to eliminate it again. by the way, the best thing republicans are pushing now in reelection, they think medicare -- i am not making this up, go online and look. medicare, social security and medicaid. go on the chopping block every five years. what that means is at the end of five years, they go out of existence. unless they are affirmatively voted into existence, every five years. medicare, social security, medicaid. they forget, people pay for

social security. they pay for it. you know what is going to happen. people say, they will never eliminate it. they will be able to pick it apart. they will be able to cut it back. that is the objective. folks, it is not right. it is simply not right. i disagree. this is not your father's republican party. it is a different deal. i work with a lot of honorable republicans. very conservative republicans. this is a maga gang. a maga crowd. they have a different view of the role of government and who should pay what. i am going to work with anyone, democrat, republican, independent, deliver real solutions for families. because of the strong foundation we build, we are in better position than any country in the world to overcome the

globalization we are seeing and take the next steps towards forming a historic recovery, and the new moment. i count recovery as going from where we are today in terms of the economy to stability to make it stable. it is strong as can be, but for inflation, but for gas and for food. and look, we have to keep coming together to find common ground to solve problems like we have done in ports and trucking. we continue to build the extraordinary progress we have made. we have got to continue building this economy from the bottom up and the middle out. i mean that literally. i am so sick and tired of trickle-down economics. it does not work. when the middle class is doing well, they do well because of labor, the poor have a way up, the wealthy do very, very well. they have never been hurt when the middle class is doing well. never. never. it is about time we regather and

remember who we are, get this done. there is no better place to start in right here in the port, nine foreign shippers understand the ripoff is over. thank you. [applause] all right. [applause] >> are you going to go after them? pres. biden: we will make sure everyone knows exxon's profits. exxon made more money than god this year. nothing has changed. one thing i want to say about the oil companies, they talk about how they have 9000 permits to drill. they are not drilling. why are they not drilling? they make more money not producing more oil. the price goes up, number two,

the reason they are not drilling is they are buying back their own stock, which should be taxed. buying back their own stock, making no new investments. i always thought republicans were for investment. exxon, start paying your taxes. thanks. [applause] [indiscernible chatter]

[indiscernible chatter] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2022] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> american history tv, saturdays on the spent two. -- on c-span two. join us for live coverage as they join authors across the nation against the past, present and future of democracy. scandals, the history of public housing.

and, oh former speechwriter and epa administrator talked about the origin of environmental policies. explore the american story. watch "american history tv," saturday on c-span2. announcer: march for our lives holds a gun violence rally on the national mall in washington this saturday. live coverage begins at noon eastern on c-span, also our free mobile video app or online at c-span.org. announcer: a conversation on sanctions against russia and whether they are working. we will hear from deputy assistant secretary of state eric woodhouse. this is just over one hour. over an hour