Joe Biden Embraces Bernie Sanders Amid Discontent Over Gaza | EUROtoday

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden, going through growing stress from the left wing of his social gathering to get more durable on Israel and alter its navy marketing campaign in Gaza, spent Wednesday rhetorically and actually embracing considered one of his fiercest critics on the problem, internet hosting an occasion on the White House the place he and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders celebrated a latest victory over the prescription drug foyer.

Sanders, an impartial who ran in opposition to Biden within the 2020 Democratic presidential main, has repeatedly urged the president to cease sending navy help to Israel except it ceases its bombing marketing campaign and permits extra humanitarian help to succeed in Palestinians within the Gaza Strip.

The occasion centered on Biden’s actions to decrease the prices of prescribed drugs, together with the price of bronchial asthma inhalers — a significant legislative victory Democrats are hoping voters will keep in mind in November’s elections. Lowering well being care prices can be an enormous precedence for Sanders, who has prioritized it throughout his tenure as chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee.

“Finally, we beat Big Pharma,” Biden mentioned on Wednesday, earlier than heaping reward on Sanders. “I wouldn’t have done it without Bernie. Bernie is the one who has been leading the way for decades which is why we’re here today.

“Bernie and I have been doing this work for a long time. I know we don’t look it. But we have,” he quipped about his fellow octogenarian.

Sanders, in flip, thanked Biden and mentioned he was wanting ahead to proceed working with him on drug pricing sooner or later.

“These companies, as well as many others in the pharmaceutical industry, are beginning to catch on to the fact that the American people are tired of being ripped off and paying astronomical prices for the prescription drugs they need to stay alive or ease their suffering,” Sanders mentioned.

The occasion was pure terrain for collaboration between Biden and Sanders, in accordance with Ari Rabin-Havt, a former senior advisor to Sanders. Many observers keep in mind Sanders and Biden’s fierce disagreement over common well being care in the course of the 2020 Democratic presidential main.

Prescription drug pricing, nevertheless, was “one area where Bernie had agreement was this particular area of health policy — that American consumers are getting taken advantage of,” Rabin-Havt mentioned.

“Having someone like Bernie there who is unafraid and uncowed is to their advantage,” he added.

Unlike a few of his friends on the progressive left, Sanders has by no means wavered in his help for Biden’s reelection. Sanders endorsed Biden in April 2023, earlier than Biden even made his second run official.

He has even praised Biden’s legislative document, arguing that payments just like the American Rescue Plan and the Inflation Reduction Act have furthered targets Sanders himself sought to perform throughout his personal two presidential runs. “I think he is a much more progressive president than he was a United States senator,” Sanders mentioned on CBS News’ “Face the Nation” in Feb. 2023.

Lately, Sanders’ marketing campaign pitch has been extra centered on the threats posed by a second Trump time period. In a March video on XSanders appealed on to progressives dissatisfied with Biden’s refusal to use extra stress on Israel.

“[There] are a number of areas where the administration’s response has been inadequate or, in the case of Gaza, dead wrong,” Sanders mentioned. “But while we may have our disagreements with Biden, it’s important to take a minute to think about what a Trump presidency would mean to our country and, in fact, the world.”

A second Trump time period can be “a horrific disaster for our country,” he mentioned in a MSNBC interview Tuesday. Still, he warned that Biden’s coverage towards Israel would harm him politically, notably with youthful voters and voters of coloration.

“The polling is very clear ― the Democratic base wants to stop funding for Netanyahu’s war machine,” Sanders mentioned.

It’s not clear if Sanders introduced up Gaza with Biden on the White House on Wednesday. A request for data with Sanders’ workplace was not instantly returned.