Biden Busts Out Laughing After Speech When NBC Reporter Asks Advice For NEXT Republican Speaker
President Joe Biden busted out laughing when a reporter shouted for him to impart some advice for the next Republican speaker of the House — who will succeed former Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy.
The political world was stunned Tuesday night when McCarthy was voted out as speaker of the House, and then announced he would not run for the position again.
On Wednesday afternoon, President Biden gave a brief speech in the Roosevelt Room of the White House to announce further student debt relief — but he also addressed the turmoil among the House Republicans at the top of the speech.
Referencing the deal to avoid a shutdown that was a major nail in McCarthy’s coffin, the president said it was time to get rid of the “poisonous atmosphere” in Washington, DC and expressed gratitude for the work of “the former speaker” to get the deal done.
After the speech, the president took questions from several reporters who shouted out — one of whom drew a laugh from Biden by asking about the GOP “dysfunction”:
JON DECKER: Are you also concerned about the rest of your domestic and foreign policy initiatives being imperiled because of what we saw happen yesterday, the dysfunction in Congress, the chaos that we saw on the House side? Does that concern you in any way?
PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: (Laughs) The dysfunction always concerns me. The programs that we have argued over, we passed bipartisanly. I’m not concerned that they’re going to all of a sudden come in and try to undo them. Although there will be some! There will be some, I’m sure. There’s half a dozen or more extreme MAGA Republican, Republicans who would like to eliminate just about everything I’ve done. But I don’t think that’s going to get there.
After a few more questions, NBC News White House correspondent Peter Alexander got the president to laugh again with his parting question:
PETER ALEXANDER: Not that they’re asking, but what’s your advice to the next House speaker?
PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: (Laughs – Pauses) That’s above my pay grade!
Watch above via CNN.
