An ad from President Biden’s 2020 campaign declaring “the buck stops here” is making the rounds on Twitter after the president said Sunday that he would be “blameless” if the US defaults on its debt in the coming days.
“I’ve done my part,” Biden said Sunday in Japan when asked about the debt ceiling, later adding, “On the merits, based on what I’ve offered, I would be blameless.”
An ad from Biden’s campaign in April 2020 slammed then-President Donald Trump for comments he made shirking responsibility for multiple pitfalls during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The buck stops here,” a narrator said in the ad. “Harry Truman said it. It means no excuses. It means taking responsibility, the ultimate responsibility for the biggest decisions in the world.”
President Joe Biden gestures during a news conference in Hiroshima, Japan, Sunday, May 21, 2023, following the G-7 summit. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
BIDEN DECLARES HIMSELF ‘BLAMELESS’ IF US DEFAULTS ON DEBT: ‘I’VE DONE MY PART’
“Donald Trump thought the job was about tweets and rallies and big parades,” the narrator said. “He never thought he’d have to protect nearly 330 million Americans. So he didn’t.”
Biden wrote at the time in a tweet that the “office of the presidency comes with the ultimate responsibility for the biggest decisions in the world.”
“Every great president throughout our history has met that duty with the leadership it demands. Donald Trump has not,” he tweeted.
Republican strategist Matt Whitlock shared the ad Sunday on Twitter, suggesting Biden’s historically low job approval ratings were due to him “failing to live up to every single thing he ran on.”
Biden argued Sunday that certain “MAGA Republicans” are seeking to cause a default in an effort to crash the economy ahead of Biden’s re-election effort.
The president made the claim during a news conference in Hiroshima, Japan, where he had traveled for meetings with G-7 nations. Republicans in Congress forced Biden to the negotiating table after months of the White House insisting there would be no debate on the issue.
“I’ve done my part,” Biden said, adding that “it’s time for the other side to move their team positions because much of what they were proposed is simply quite frankly, unacceptable.” This prompted a follow-up at the end of the news conference from Fox News’ Peter Doocy.
President Joe Biden speaks during a visit to Wolfspeed, a semiconductor manufacturer, on March 28, 2023, in Durham, North Carolina. (Melissa Sue Gerrits/Getty Images)
“Mr. President, on the debt limit, you already said, ‘I’ve done my part.’ Do you think if there’s a breach, nobody can blame you? Doocy asked.
“Of course no one will blame me, I know you won’t, you’ll be saying Biden did a wonderful job,” Biden joked.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell address the media after a meeting with President Joe Biden on the debt ceiling at the White House on Tuesday, May 16, 2023. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
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“Would you be blameless in a default situation?” Doocy pressed.
“On the merits, based on what I’ve offered, I would be blameless,” Biden responded. “On the politics of it, no one would be blameless. And by the way, that’s one of the, one of the things some [people] are contemplating. Well, I gotta be careful here. I think there are some MAGA Republicans in the House who know the damage that it would do to the economy and because I am president, and presidents are responsible for everything, Biden would take the blame. And that’s the one way to make sure Biden’s not re-elected.”
Fox News’ Anders Hagstrom contributed to this report.
