Biden's populist pitch: COVID-19 relief package 'puts working people in this nation first'

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Kudlow rips Biden's plan to 'transform' US: It creates incentives against work

Fox Business host Larry Kudlow weighs in on President Biden's progressive plan to 'transform' the U.S.

President Joe Biden seized on a populist message Friday, saying that his massive $1.9 trillion COVID relief package puts "working people in this nation first."

Holding his first event in the Rose Garden in his young presidency, Biden struck a populist theme as he celebrated the passage of the massive measure with Vice President Kamala Harris and the leaders of the House and Senate Democratic majorities who helped narrowly pass the bill through Congress along party lines.

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The president emphasized that the measure "not only meets the moment," but that it’s "historical" and "transformational."

He stressed the it "changes the paradigm. For the first time in a long time, this bill puts working people in this nation first. It’s not hyperbole, it’s fact. For too long, it’s been the folks at the top."

Railing against the "trickle-down" policies that Biden argued "made those at the top richer in the past and everyone else fallen behind," the president stressed that "it’s time that we build an economy that grows from the bottom up and the middle out. And this bill shows that when you do that, everybody does better. The wealthy do better. Everybody does better across the board."

Harkening back to his stump speech from his successful year and a half long 2020 presidential campaign, Biden noted that "the backbone of this country are hardworking folks, middle-class folks, people who built the country."

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Biden touted that the package, the first major legislative success in Biden’s brief tenure so far in the White House, is "about creating opportunity and giving people a fair shot."

Working-class voters for decades were the base of the Democratic Party. But Donald Trump’s success with white working-class voters helped him win the White House, and he spent four years refashioning the GOP into a populist party. But Biden courted such voters during year’s campaign and made enough of a dent in Trump’s lock with white working-class voters to defeat the incumbent president.

In Friday’s comments, Biden also boasted about the economic impact of the package. Using a little bit of hyperbole, he said that "every single major economist out there, left, right and center, supported this plan."

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And he highlighted that "even Wall Street agreed. According to Moody’s for example, by the end of this year, this law alone will create seven million new jobs."

President Joe Biden speaks about the American Rescue Plan, a coronavirus relief package, in the Rose Garden of the White House, Friday, March 12, 2021, in Washington. Vice President Kamala Harris is at right. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell sees it differently.

Twice this week, the longtime senator from Kentucky and the most powerful Republican in Congress aimed to preemptively deny Democrats any credit for the likely economic rebound this year, as most Americans get the COVID vaccine and coronavirus restrictions are loosened.

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The senator argued on the Senate floor on Thursday that "2021 is set to be an historic comeback year, not because of the far-left legislation that was passed after the tide was already turned but because of the resilience of the American people."

Biden spoke after comments from Harris, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. In attendance were 20 House and Senate Democratic leaders. No Republicans were in attendance, as GOP congressional lawmakers uniformly opposed the package, which McConnell termed a "multi-million dollar trojan horse."