WATCH: Jim Banks argues US has gone from ‘America first to America last’ under Biden
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President Joe Biden celebrated his two-year anniversary in the White House this week, but one GOP lawmaker says it was only riddled with “wasteful spending.”
“I’m an Afghanistan veteran who believes that our country is a lot worse off the last couple of years than what it was for the four years that Donald Trump was in office,” Rep. Jim Banks (R-IN), who recently announced his bid to replace Sen. Mike Braun (R-IN) and has been raking in endorsements, said Friday on Fox Business.
“We went from America first to America last. I want to be a part of the next generation of young conservatives in the Senate who are there to shake it up,” he added.
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Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen revealed on Thursday that the United States had reached its debt ceiling, which could result in the country defaulting on its obligations. Banks, who previously led the Republican Study Committee, has long vowed to address the Biden administration’s debt.
“Joe Biden, this president, this administration, has spent more money than any president in the history of our country. They’ve added $5 trillion in two years to deficit spending,” Banks said, adding that it could put the U.S. on a trajectory to add $10 trillion more to the debt over the next decade.
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“The whole reason that we have a debt limit is to force us to do something about it,” he told host Larry Kudlow.
Banks said he believes voters gave Republicans the House majority in order to use their leverage to combat Biden’s wasteful spending.
“We have to fight the fight. We can’t roll over on this one. … We’re at that point, at that crisis point, where it matters,” he said.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has agreed to sit down with Biden to discuss a potential raise to the debt ceiling. The Indiana Republican celebrated the news, saying it’s “just that important” that McCarthy bring the GOP’s demands to the president and not back down.
“I’m proud of Speaker McCarthy for drawing the line in the sand, tell him that we’re going to fight back and demand spending reforms. That’s the whole point of having a debt limit,” Banks said.
“Now we have to use the leverage of this moment to send us back down a path to cut wasteful spending and get America back to a fiscally healthy place,” he said.
Banks announced his Senate bid earlier this week after Braun stepped into the race for Indiana governor. He told the Washington Examiner that he is looking to bring a “fresh brand” of conservatism to the upper chamber.
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“We need conservative senators who are going to fight back against radical Democrats instead of playing footsie with them, and that’s the type of leadership I provide in the House, but I can do even more in the Senate,” he said at the time.
In one of his first acts in the 118th Congress, Banks previewed the start of an “anti-woke caucus” that would “uproot wokeism in corporate America, in our government, in our schools.”