President Joe Biden opened his remarks at the White House on Wednesday by telling the children in attendance he knows “great ice cream places” nearby and to come to see him after his speech.
Biden took the podium in the East Room of the White House to tout the Inflation Reduction Act, which does not reduce inflation despite its moniker and passed Congress along partisan lines last year. But before he began, he told those attendance, “I want to say one thing to your children.”
“I know some really great ice cream places around here, and Daddy owes you, so talk to me afterward,” he said.
Biden has oddly raved about ice cream immediately after taking the podium in the past. In March, he opened his comments about gun control and the Nashville Christian school shooting by talking about ice cream, joking it enticed him downstairs.
“I’m Dr. Jill Biden’s husband, and I eat Jenny’s ice cream, chocolate chip. I came down because I heard there was chocolate chip ice cream,” he said. “By the way, I have a whole refrigerator full upstairs. You think I’m kidding, I’m not.”
After his off-cuff remarks on Wednesday, Biden boasted of the Inflation Reduction Act and “Bidenomics.”
“The Financial Times and the Wall Street Journal initially called my plan ‘Bidenomics.’ I’m not sure they meant in a totally complimentary way the time, but guess what, it’s working,” he said.
While Biden leans into the term and has used it to tout legislation like the Inflation Reduction Act and CHIPS and Sciences Act. Vulnerable House Democrats – including Reps. Susan Wild (D-PA) and Gabe Vasquez (D-NM) – are not embracing the term, as Breitbart News noted.
“If you use the term, ‘Bidenomics,’ but somebody can’t afford their groceries, then they’re like, ‘Yeah, Bidenomics isn’t working for me,’” Wild told the Washington Post last week.