Joe Biden Challenges Critics Over Covid Rescue Package: ‘What Would You Have Me Cut?’

President Joe Biden encouraged Republican critics to approve the $1.9 trillion stimulus package he is urging Congress to ratify in order to provide economic relief from the coronavirus pandemic.

On Monday, Biden gave a speech to promote the American Rescue Plan and address the pandemic’s devastation on small businesses throughout the country. He also announced changes to the Paycheck Protection Program, saying that the $2 trillion stimulus package Congress passed last year was helpful to larger corporations, but “mom-and-pop businesses got muscled out of the way.”

As Biden elaborated on his proposed “long overdue” revisions, he eventually turned to critics who call the package “too big.”

“What would you have me cut? What would you leave out?” he asked rhetorically. “Would not help invest in [small businesses]? Would you let them continue to go under? Would you leave them out again, like the previous administration did?”

As Biden continued to address the critics, he later added that “I am prepared to hear ideas about how to make the American Rescue Plan better and cheaper. But we have to make clear who we’re helping and who it would hurt.”

Watch above, via The White House.