Biden said he had altered the ‘basic formula’ of the US economy. He also discussed NATO, Putin, the Israel-Hamas ceasefire, and his approach to inflation.
One day after delivering his farewell address, President Joe Biden sat down for the last interview of his term.
The Oval Office interview, which was recorded earlier in the evening on Jan. 16, saw the outgoing president in a friendly exchange with MSNBC host Lawrence O’Donnell. Biden is famously attuned to one of MSNBC’s morning hosts, ex-Republican Joe Scarborough.
The two discussed Biden’s economic record, his confrontation with Russian leader Vladimir Putin, and the new ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.
Biden Warns of Concentration of Wealth
Echoing yesterday’s farewell address, Biden warned of an “enormous concentration of wealth and power,” saying that it threatened democracy.
“I have no problem with people making millions of dollars. For God’s sake, pay your fair share in taxes and participation,” he said.
He said the world was approaching an inflection point, chalking it up to changes in communications made possible by technology.
The ultra-wealthy, he said, were gaining leverage over the media as well as the economy.
The theme follows an election upended by SpaceX founder Elon Musk, who endorsed Trump after the attempt on his life in Butler, Pennsylvania.
Along with a growing number of Silicon Valley venture capitalists and entrepreneurs, Musk donated heavily in support of the candidate. He also campaigned for him in Pennsylvania ahead of Election Day.
While Trump enjoyed more public backing from the ultra-wealthy this time than in previous contests, an October 2024 analysis from Forbes found that Kamala Harris, Biden’s vice president and the loser against Trump, received significantly more support from prominent billionaires.
Biden Says He Changed ‘Basic Formula’ For the Economy
Biden told O’Donnell his administration had a transformational impact on America’s economy, criticizing supply-side, or “trickle-down,” economics.
“We changed the basic formula of how to make an economy work,” he said, saying he and his team had empowered labor unions.
He said former President Barack Obama, whom he served as vice president, did not go far enough. One of Obama’s signature bills, the 2009 Recovery Act, included $831 billion in spending amid the Great Recession.
“We were doing the old basic, old economics from the 50s, 60s and 70s,” Biden said.
Supply-side economist Arthur Laffer has argued that Biden and his party have embraced modern monetary theory (MMT), which holds that the United States’ dominant position in the world economy means long-running deficits are acceptable.
Stephanie Kelton, a progressive economic advisor to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) presidential campaigns and author of a unity report with the Biden 2020 campaign, wrote in 2021 that the president “has adopted MMT.”
As an example of his own economic legacy, Biden cited the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act, bipartisan legislation intended to bolster the domestic semiconductor industry through the authorization of $280 billion in funding for research and semiconductor production. Taiwan currently dominates the manufacturing of that technology.
Biden said that sector originally left the United States because corporations wanted cheaper workers. The COVID-19 pandemic, he said, revealed the importance of local supply chains.
He also took credit for linking American prosperity to its posture in the world in a new way.
“There’s no way to implement our foreign policy unless, in terms of our economic policy, we’re in a strong position to do it,” Biden said.
No Mention of Trump Envoy as Biden Talks Ceasefire
The outgoing president also discussed a new ceasefire and hostage release agreement between Israel and Hamas. The deal was signed in Doha, Qatar, on Jan. 17.
Biden said he had not spoken to Trump about the ceasefire negotiations in the previous two weeks.
Pressed by O’Donnell, he said he had discussed it “very, very briefly” with Trump after the election.
“I did really put together—if it doesn’t work, I’ve got to take the blame for it—a plan with my national security team,” Biden said.
The president said he did not believe Israel’s prime minister, Bibi Netanyahu, had delayed a ceasefire to help Trump. He also voiced sympathy for the embattled leader.
“He’s got a tough coalition too, man. He’s got the most conservative cabinet of any Israeli prime minister ever,” Biden said.
He did not mention real estate investor Steve Witkoff, Trump’s envoy to the successful Doha talks.
Israeli and other Middle Eastern media sources have credited Witkoff with swaying Netanyahu.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations credited the president-elect with “putting pressure on all parties, including Netanyahu, to reach a deal.”
The Union for Reform Judaism thanked both Biden and Trump, the latter for helping to “make this elusive agreement a reality.”
Biden Talks NATO and Putin
Biden and O’Donnell also discussed the Russia-Ukraine war and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which grew under Biden. Against the backdrop of that conflict in Eastern Europe, NATO admitted both Finland and Sweden.
“We tightened NATO—made it stronger,” Biden said.
The president said the larger alliance has weakened Russia’s position in Ukraine, which it initially invaded in February 2022, a little more than a year after he took office.
He said Ukraine would not be able to join NATO, a major concern for Russia, “until they change their system significantly.”
“We’re going to continue to help them grow, if we can,” Biden added.
In the days before Putin’s invasion, the Biden administration went public with U.S. intelligence suggesting the Russian leader planned to attack Ukraine.
Biden spoke about why his administration took that approach.
“I wanted people to believe me,” he said. “I knew more what I was talking about at that point because the position I was in than anybody else did.”
Biden Says He Didn’t Want to Sacrifice Employment to Curb Inflation
O’Donnell asked the president about criticism he had taken from economist Lawrence Summers.
In early 2021, Summers warned that the administration’s stimulus policies, pursued during the COVID-19 pandemic, would unleash significant inflation.
Biden-era inflation peaked at 9.1 percent in June 2022. It has since fallen to 2.9 percent as of December 2024, higher than it was through most of the Trump era. After reaching a low of 2.4 percent in September, inflation has increased slightly in recent months.
Biden told O’Donnell he was unwilling to tackle inflation in a way that cost jobs. Low inflation typically comes alongside higher unemployment.
“If you conclude the only way to deal with inflation is to create unemployment and another recession, because you had to make sure that we lost jobs, that’s another way to keep the inflation down. But guess what? I was absolutely convinced—give the American people half a shot,” he said.
The broad decline in the rate of inflation, Biden said, showed that the economy had executed a “soft landing.”