Biden Reacts to and Roasts Trump’s Herbert Hoover Remark

In an official video on X, President Biden reacted to a clip from a recent Donald Trump interview in which the ex-president says he hopes an economic disaster occurs in 2024 so he won’t suffer the political consequences.

In the video, Trump says on a phone Biden holds that he hopes an economic disaster happens “during this next twelve months,” referring to the remainder of Biden’s term. 

As a bemused Biden watches, Trump elaborates:

“Because I don’t wanna be Herbert Hoover—the one president—I just don’t wanna be Herbert Hoover.” 

Trump is referring to an infamous former president to which he is often repeatedly compared. 

“He’s acknowledging that my economy is doing pretty darn well,” Biden said, “because he doesn’t want it to continue.”

“And by the way, the idea that he wants to see a crash in the next 12 months and that doesn’t wanna be Herbert Hoover?” Biden added, smiling. “He has to understand: he’s already Herbert Hoover. He’s the only other president who’s lost jobs during his term.”

After winning the 1928 election, President Hoover presided over the beginning of the Great Depression and was the most recent president to leave office with a net job loss—until Trump, who left office in 2021 with a net job loss of more than 22 million. 

The 26 second video on X evoked a recent interaction between the president and Ben Meiselas of the progressive political network MeidasTouch in which Biden humorously reacted to a clip of Republican Congresswoman Lauren Boebert.