Read what Joe Biden our Vice President said today

THEWHITE HOUSE

Friends,
Yesterday afternoon, Vice President Biden delivered the keynote address at the Center for a New American Security annual conference in Washington, DC.

In his remarks, the Vice President stressed,\"[I]f we turn inward, if we undermine our most important relationships, or seek soundbite solutions to...issues defined by complexity; if we forget who we are; if we begin to betray our values and embrace intolerance; I think we’ll squander all of the hard-earned progress, and we’ll squander the opportunities that exist for us today.\"
Vice President Biden also addressed last week's tragic shooting in Orlando, Florida: \"We should never underestimate America’s strength or dismiss the inherent resilience of the American people....[But] adopting the tactics of our enemies, using torture, threatening to kill innocent family members, indiscriminately bombing civilian populations, that not only violates our values, it’s deeply, deeply damaging to our security.\"
He continued, \"Wielding the politics of fear and intolerance, like the proposal to ban Muslims from entering the United States, profiling Muslim Americans, slandering entire religious communities as complicit in terrorism, calls into question America’s status as the greatest democracy in the history of the world....[Alienating] Muslims — the vast, vast majority of whom, at home and abroad, are peace-loving, doesn’t make the situation better. It makes it worse. And it plays into the very narrative of the extremists.\"
Additionally, last night, following the worst shooting in American history, Congress failed to follow the will of the American people and enact commonsense laws to help reduce gun violence--voting down basic measures that could help keep guns away from extremists who seek to kill people. It was a shameful display of cowardice. While we cannot stop every tragedy, we can stop some of them. That should have been enough for Republican Senators last night. Below are White House tweets reflecting what the President has done to protect Americans at home from senseless gun violence; now, it’s time for the Senate to do its part and act.