English transcript

I understand that.

Look, I'm saying this as somebody who knows what it's like to be sent to war by a U.S.

president.

And when a president sends you to war, when you and your buddies are on that great tail

plane going into a war zone, you do it with some level of confidence, some level of assurance

that your chain of command, all the way up to the President of the United States, would

not do this if they didn't have a choice.

Now that we're there, do you hope this has a successful outcome?

There were 40,000 Iranians that were slaughtered by the same regime.

47 years of killing Americans, stirring trouble all around the world.

And how do you feel about that regime being left intact by this president?

I don't know if that's going to be the case, and I don't know what might happen.

Is that an argument?

So you don't want this to work, and it was just a bad move, you want us to pull out now?

Look, there's no obvious way out now, but I want to make sure that this ends in a way

that, first of all, our economy can recover, that we're not paying so much for gas.

I mean, right now, oil's $100, jet fuel's $200, gas is over $4, diesel's like $5.

You averaged $3.80 under Biden for four years.

Yeah, and when we left, inflation was lower than it is today.

You accounted for 21.5% pricing.

This president took the inflation rate up.

This president took the inflation rate up.

It's 2.7%.

It's more than 3% year on year.

You saw the numbers just come out.

It's more than 3% year on year.

Okay.

Isn't it 3.3% year on year?

It is.

The math is direct.

The math is the math.

It could be simpler.

Inflation went from 2.7% to 3%.

It's higher than when he got here, Joe.

It's not 9%.

His central campaign promise was he was going to take inflation and drive it down, and instead

he took inflation and it's up.

I thought in the Fed, obviously.

It was 3% when he got here, and now it's more.

It could not be simpler than that.

It's around 3%, and we're involved in a war where it's 3%.

He said on day one it would go down.

He came in on day one, and now it's up.

It's up to 3%.

It was 21.5%.

Price increases over four years.

Over four years, it was 21.5%.

He promised it would go down.

Democrats own the affordability crisis.

Listen to me.

Period.

Why did the president fail?

You're laughing?

You don't think Democrats own the affordability crisis?

Why did the president fail to keep his promise to lower prices, in your opinion?

I'm laughing because this piece of it is basic.

The president did say that he wanted to be in office to bring inflation down, and he

has not brought inflation down.

That's all.

He drove it up.

He not only failed, he drove it up.

Mr. Secretary, let's talk about that.

The tariffs have had a minimal effect on-

You tell a family where I live that $1,000 per household is minimal.

From the 21.5% increase that you're- the Democrats.

We can argue all day about just how bad COVID was and how bad it got and what it took to

come back from that.

Okay, and all the-

You call it-

Unnecessary.

Unnecessary.

Where I live, $1,000 per household isn't minimal.

Now you found- now Democrats found religion on inflation.

After presiding over the worst inflation in 40 years, now you found religion.

It's 2026.

I'm aware of that.

They're in charge.

You guys are in charge.

I'm aware of that.

What are you going to do differently?

Look-

What are you going to do differently to make the prices actually go down like you promised

a year ago?

Number one, we've got to get through this war, and you've heard people-

We've got to get through this war.

We didn't have to be fighting this war.

What are we doing?

That's a matter of opinion.

You can't say that.

It's a matter of opinion that I share with most Americans, and a large number of Republicans,

and a whole bunch of MAGA people who bought into this president because they actually

believe it-

He's got 75% Republican approval for the war.

You don't start with the approval you have within your own party, but the point is the

MAGA coalition-

Democrats aren't going to approve of anything.

Sign up for the-

I'm talking about Americans.

Americans disapprove of the president and their right to do so.

He's got the same approval rating other presidents have had at this point in the term, a little

bit above, 42%.

Right now, he's unpopular for very good reasons.

One of which is that he's made-

He's no more unpopular than Obama was or Biden was at the same point of his presidency.

That depends on which poll you're looking at, but by and large, no.

I'm sorry, but I've been out on the trail.

I was in Marjorie Taylor Greene's district.

Marjorie Taylor Greene.

This is a Trump plus 38 district, or it was.

I've seen-

We have 500 people.

You'll get a chance to approve that in November of this year.

We had a chance to approve it last week.

The Senate might go.

I understand.

Yeah, because people are press.

Presidents make difficult decisions, obviously.

Yeah, but usually they make difficult decisions to try to make other people better off.

This president's made decisions to make himself better off.

That's definitely happened.

If you're the kind of person who can pay a million bucks for the entry fee to Mar-a-Lago,

then you're doing great, but everybody else is hurting right now.