President Joe Biden shared some unexpected praise he received from President-elect Donald Trump when Biden hosted him for a meeting in the Oval Office following Trump’s November election victory.
“I was very straightforward with Trump when he got elected,” Biden told USA Today’s Susan Page in an interview published Wednesday. “I invited him immediately to the White House. I spent two hours with him.”
Despite Trump’s public criticism of Biden’s economic policies, the president said Trump actually offered praise for his record on the issue when they spoke privately.
“He was very complimentary about some of the economic things I had done,” Biden said. “He thought I was leaving with a good record, kind of thing.”
While Biden noted measures indicating unemployment fell and the economy grew under his watch, Americans appeared largely dissatisfied with the state of the U.S. economy during his presidency, citing concerns about inflation and the high cost of living. Analysts said the issue could have been part of the reason why Democrats lost the White House in November.
Meanwhile, the president touted his administration’s work on the Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal, adding that while he didn’t get much credit for it, Americans will reap the benefits of the investments funded by that bill in the years to come.
Biden said most of those investments have been made on projects in red states, which are now celebrated by conservative lawmakers, as part of a strategy to make it harder for Trump to cancel them.
“It’s the way to lock in a changed economic policy,” he said.
A few weeks away from officially handing over power to Trump, Biden also reflected on his legacy.
“I hope that history says that I came in and I had a plan how to restore the economy and reestablish America’s leadership in the world,” he said. “That was my hope. I mean, you know, who knows? And I hope it records that I did it with honesty and integrity, that I said what was on my mind.”
