Remarks by President Biden in Press Gaggle

Baskin-Robbins
Portland, Oregon

3:26 P.M. PDT
 
Q    How do you feel about the trip?
 
THE PRESIDENT:  I feel good.  Feel good.
 
Q    How are you feeling about Democrats’ chances here?
 
THE PRESIDENT:  I think she’s going to win.  I really do.  I think people are going to show up and vote.  I think it’s going to work.
 
Q    Are you nervous about the third-party candidate?
 
THE PRESIDENT:  Well, if you take it — if she takes it seriously.  But you know.  Who gets nervous, right?
 
Q    You were talking about President Trump’s impact on local races.  What did you think about the January 6 hearings this week?
 
THE PRESIDENT:  I think the testimony in the video are actually devastating.  And I’ve been going out of my way not to comment and see what happens.  But it’s — I think it’s been devastating.
 
I mean, the case has been made, it seems to me, fairly overwhelming.  But any more I say about it, you — justified — are going to ask me if I’m trying to influence the Attorney General.  I’m not.  I’ve not spoken with him at all.  But it was —
 
Am I going — (pauses to speak with staff).
 
Q    Mr. President, there’s a terrible fire happening at Evin Prison in Iran, the prison where political prisoners are held.
 
THE PRESIDENT:  The Iranian government is so oppressive, you can’t have anything but an enormous amount of respect for those people marching in the streets.
 
I mean, I have to admit, I was surprised — not by the response; I was surprised by the courage of people and women taking the street — taking off their head scarf.
 
I mean, it’s really been amazing.  It’s really been amazing.  But they’re — they’re not — they’re not a good group, in the government.
 
Q    Mr. President, you were talking about being a bubble-up person on the economy and not a trickle-down.  What’s your take on what’s going on in the UK and Prime Minister Truss’s trickle-down plan that she’s had to back away from?
 
THE PRESIDENT:  Well, it’s predictable.  I mean, I wasn’t the only one that thought it was a mistake.  And —
 
Q    Her plan?
 
THE PRESIDENT:  Yeah. 
 
But, look, she — excuse me.
 
(Pauses to pay.)
 
But I think that the idea of cutting taxes on the super wealthy at a time when — anyway, I just think — I disagreed with the policy, but that’s up to Great Britain to make that judgment, not me.
 
Q    And are you concerned about — just one more economic one.  Are you concerned about the strength of the dollar right now?
 
THE PRESIDENT:  I’m not concerned about the strength of the dollar.  I’m concerned about the rest of the world.  Does that make sense?
 
Q    Can you explain that?
 
THE PRESIDENT:  Our economy is strong as hell — the internals of it.  Inflation is worldwide.  It’s worse off everywhere else than it is in the United States. 
 
So the problem is the lack of economic growth and sound policy in other countries, not so much ours.  And that’s having — it’s worldwide inflation, and it’s consequential. 
 
3:32 P.M. PDT