I'm truly disappointed with Biden! Only Trump is capable of leading America.
House Speaker Mike Johnson praised President Donald Trump and his administration this week while also revealing that former President Joe Biden’s team left behind a “much bigger mess” than most people realize.
During an interview with CBS’s Tony Dokoupil, the Speaker spoke about the state of the country under the Trump administration ahead of November’s midterm elections.
Dokoupil claimed that CBS polling shows that Americans are feeling prices “rising faster than their wages.” Johnson accused Biden of creating an “economic” mess and claimed Trump had “reversed literally all of that.”
Johnson acknowledged that voters are still struggling but that the president and Republicans are working to provide more relief.
Below is a transcript of the exchange:
DOKOUPIL: “What can the president say tonight to change that? What can he do with Congress to fix it?"
Johnson: “I think you’ll continue to hear the president sharing the exciting facts about what we’ve been able to accomplish after his first year of his second term. Remember, we inherited a real mess, the Biden-Harris economy was a disaster. We had the highest inflation in 40 years. We had paychecks were getting smaller, taxes were getting higher. We reversed literally all of that. Now, it takes a while to reverse that trend. You don’t flip a switch right after the election and it all just is fixed magically.”
DOKOUPIL: “But, Mr. Speaker, I mean, on groceries, for example, they’re still 20 percent higher than they were in 2022 under Biden and Harris. But 20 percent means that when someone spends $100 at the grocery store today, they are paying $120 for the same things they were getting a few years ago.”
Johnson: “Inflation is gradually coming down. It’s not completely fixed yet, but we are on the right trajectory. Wages are going up. We have the lowest gas prices we’ve had in many years. Under Biden, for example, with gas prices, they hit a peak of $4.99 a gallon and the national average was about $3 for most of his term. The president reversed that. It’s the result of policy changes that have made this possible. And the working families tax cut, the Big Beautiful Bill, we infused it with pro-growth policies. And that legislation, seismic in nation shaping as it is, was written for lower and middle class earners. So they’re beginning to feel that relief. It’s going to result and is already resulting in bigger tax refunds for people as they file their taxes this year, bigger paychecks that will be coming. The estimate is $10,000 per citizen on average that they’ll have more money in their pockets because of the Republican policies that have been implemented and signed into law by President Trump. So we’re on the right trajectory.”
DOKOUPIL: “The president campaigned on closing the border and mass deportation. They were waving signs with that at the RNC. Something seems to have gone wrong, and terribly so. He’s now underwater on that issue, and I think we all know why.”
Johnson: “Well, there’s a perception out there that it was overzealous in some respect, but the president’s intention has always been to rid the country of dangerous criminal illegals. That’s what they’ve accomplished.”
DOKOUPIL: “Is it merely a perception?”
Johnson: “I think Tom Homan has done a great job when he went into Minneapolis, for example, and he brought calm to the situation and restored common sense. Immigration reform has to be done in a smart, strategic way. We have to follow the law. That’s what the American people demand. The polling is still high on removing people who are here illegally and causing harm to our communities, and that’s been a top priority. They’ve done it well. I think Tom Homan’s brought a steady hand to that issue, and Minneapolis is a great example of that, how we did it in short order. And of course, we removed the extra agents from there now because it was mission accomplished. Tom brings 40 years of experience to the job. He’s been awarded by Democrat presidents and Republican presidents alike. And that’s the kind of steady hand, I think, that you’ll see going forward.”
Obama Accuses JD Vance Of Promoting ‘Blood And Soil’ Politics
Former President Barack Obama rarely mentions Vice President JD Vance by name, but that changed this week with one of his sharpest public attacks since Vance took office.
The comments immediately fueled speculation that Democrats are beginning to focus more attention on the vice president as Republicans look ahead to the post-Trump era.
Speaking Thursday during a conversation with author Malcolm Gladwell, Obama accused Vance of promoting what he described as a “blood and soil” vision of America, despite being married to Usha Vance, the daughter of Indian immigrants.
Obama made the remarks while discussing the Reconstruction era and arguing that many of the same debates over citizenship, voting rights and national identity continue today.
“We have a politics now that at least one of our major parties has been captured by politics that is not that subtle about suggesting that ‘We the people’ means a certain kind of people,” Obama said.
“When you have the vice president, current vice president, making a speech that is basically a blood and soil version of ‘We the people,’ that it matters who your parents were and how long they’ve been here despite him being married to a daughter of an immigrant himself.”
The phrase “blood and soil” is historically associated with Nazi Germany and white nationalist ideology.
Obama went on to argue that debates over who belongs in America remain central to the nation’s politics.
“That echoes, then, ideas about who can be a citizen, who belongs, who gets to make decisions,” he said.
Gladwell followed by accusing Vance of hypocrisy, arguing that the vice president was making what he called a nativist argument despite his own family’s immigrant background.
Obama agreed.
“That is progress,” Obama said.
“Listen, hypocrisy is progress. It is, because it means that you feel guilty enough to either lie to yourself or others.”
Fox News Digital reported that it reached out to Vance’s office for comment.
Obama did not identify the specific speech he was criticizing, but Vance’s most recent nationally televised remarks came during Independence Day celebrations marking America’s 250th birthday.
In that speech, Vance encouraged Americans to reject what he called a “two-dimensional view” of the country focused only on its historical failures.
“So what I’d ask you to do, my fellow Americans, on our 250th birthday, is to reject the two-dimensional view of your fellow citizens and reject the two-dimensional view of your country,” Vance said.
“Reject the view of your nation that sees only its sins, but not its grace and its greatness.”
He also emphasized that America’s accomplishments were achieved by “a common people working towards a common future.”
Obama has generally avoided making Vance a regular target since the vice president took office.
One notable exception came during the 2024 presidential campaign when then-Vice President Kamala Harris selected Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate.
Without naming Vance directly, Obama contrasted Harris’ choice with the Republican ticket.
“When a presidential candidate chooses a running mate, it says a lot about who they are and what kind of president they’ll be,” Obama said at the time, Fox News reported.
Political observers have increasingly discussed Vance as a potential frontrunner for the 2028 Republican presidential nomination, though he has not announced any plans to run.
Against that backdrop, Obama’s unusually direct criticism is likely to fuel speculation that some Democrats are beginning to sharpen their message against a politician they view as a likely future standard-bearer for the Republican Party. While no Democratic leaders have publicly described their strategy in those terms, prominent figures often begin drawing contrasts with potential future rivals well before a presidential campaign officially begins.
Whether that proves to be the case remains to be seen, but Obama’s remarks marked one of his most pointed critiques of Vance to date and ensured the vice president once again found himself at the center of the national political conversation.
