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Biden Says Republicans Will Have ‘Epiphany’ If He Is Elected

Biden Says Republicans Will Have ‘Epiphany’ If He Is Elected

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden predicted Friday that big wins for his party in November could lead to an “epiphany” that convinces Republicans to join Democrats in pulling the country out of crisis.

“If we win as big as we possibly can, there’s going to be a great, great epiphany that’s going to take place, as we Catholics say,” Biden told donors at a high-dollar virtual fundraiser.

With Donald Trump out of office, congressional Republicans will lose their “fear of retribution”and “they’re going to begin to wonder about whether or not if they take me on and lose by just being obstructionist, whether they’re going to lose the rest of that blue-collar vote out there in the nation,” Biden said.

“It’s going to be a different time,” he added. “Doesn’t mean it’s going to be, as they used to say when I was a kid, ‘kumbaya’ and everybody’s happy but it will -- they know things have to be done and I think we can get a lot done.”

Biden has gained a strong lead over Trump in many polls, with surveys also showing a majority disapproving of what they view as a divisive tone from the president amid demands for racial justice and as the nation reels from the coronavirus pandemic and its economic fallout.

During the Democratic primaries, the former vice president and six-term senator from Delaware often spoke of the potential for an “epiphany” by Republicans and a productive presidency if he were to win, drawing skepticism from people in both parties.

He’d backed away from the language in recent months. But he returned to the message in response to a question about how he’d govern, citing a Friday New York Times column by David Brooks, who wrote that Biden is proposing “an agenda that could reshape the American economy and the landscape of American politics in fundamental ways.”

Biden also said Friday that he hoped his greatest legacy as president would be “making sure that we took advantage like Roosevelt did of a crisis and turned the nation in a better place than we found it.”

©2020 Bloomberg L.P.