President Biden called House Speaker Mike Johnson “dead on arrival” during a strange interaction with a reporter on Monday.

The exchange came shortly after Biden called on Congress to impose term limits and a code of conduct on the Supreme Court. In a statement released earlier on Monday, Johnson condemned Biden’s proposal to “radically overhaul the U.S. Supreme Court,” and argued that doing so would “tilt the balance of power” and erode the rule of law.

“This proposal is the logical conclusion to the Biden-Harris Administration and Congressional Democrats’ ongoing efforts to delegitimize the Supreme Court,” the Louisiana Republican argued. “Their calls to expand and pack the Court will soon resume.”

“It is telling that Democrats want to change the system that has guided our nation since its founding simply because they disagree with some of the Court’s recent decisions,” he added. “This dangerous gambit of the Biden-Harris Administration is dead on arrival in the House.” 

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When a reporter asked Biden for his response after he arrived in Austin, Texas, on Monday afternoon, Biden gave a garbled response.

“Mr. President, House Speaker Johnson says your Supreme Court reform is ‘dead on arrival.’ What’s your reaction, sir?” a reporter inquired.

“Who said that?” Biden responded.

“Speaker Johnson said it’s ‘dead on arrival,’” the reporter repeated.

The president then responded, “I think that’s what he is.”

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President Joe Biden boards Air Force One at Dover Air Force Base, in Dover, Del., Tuesday, July 23, 2024. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

When the journalist asked for clarification, Biden doubled down on his retort.

“That he is – dead on arrival,” he replied.

The president then vowed that he was going to “figure [out] a way,” to get his proposed radical changes to the Supreme Court passed.

Around an hour later, Biden clarified his remarks during a speech and explained that he was referring to Johnson’s thought process.

“The Republican Speaker of the House said, whatever he proposes, [is] dead on arrival,” Biden said to the audience. “I think his thinking is dead on arrival.”

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson said Biden’s proposed radical changes to the Supreme Court are “dead on arrival.”  (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Fox News Digital reached out to the White House and Johnson’s office for comment.

Fox News Digital’s Sarah Tobianski and Anders Hagstrom contributed to this report.

Slayer Pete is back!

In 2020, Mayor Pete Buttigieg became such a savage critic of then-President Trump‘s reelection campaign that I wrote a column with the headline “Make way for Slayer Pete. Buttigieg is the Biden’s campaign’s secret weapon.” The nickname caught on and eventually made its way to merchandise.

Someone needs to resurrect those Slayer Pete coffee mugs right about now, because if you substitute “Harris” for “Biden,” that column still stands.

As Vice President Kamala Harris launched her presidential campaign, now-Secretary of Transportation Buttigieg, appearing on various news and talk shows as a private individual, almost instantly began proving once again that beneath his polite tone and mild-mannered mien lurks the heart of a political ninja warrior.

Everywhere you look, there’s Slayer Pete eviscerating the Trump campaign in no uncertain terms. On Sunday morning, he pushed back against Fox News anchor Shannon Bream’s attempt to soften the impact of Trump-appointed Supreme Court justices’ decision to overturn Roe vs. Wade. “Trump demolished the right to choose in this country. Period.”

Overturning Roe was one of the few campaign promises Trump kept during his administration, Buttigieg said — the ultimate backhanded compliment.

“He broke his promise for that kind of economic growth. He broke his promise to pass an infrastructure bill, right?” Buttigieg continued. “He said he would do that. He failed to do it. The Biden-Harris administration got it done. [Trump] even broke his promise to that Jan. 6 mob when he said, ‘I will be at your side when you march down to the Capitol.’” But, Buttigieg added, “He kept his promise to destroy the right to choose in this country. And he kept his promise on tax cuts for the rich. And if you want to know what a second Trump term would be like, I would start by looking at those rare promises that he actually managed to keep.”

When Bream pushed Buttigieg on the issue of Biden’s age and ability, he deftly turned the tables: “Unlike Republicans, who in Trump’s personality cult will take a look at Donald Trump and say he’s perfectly fine even though he seemed unable to tell the difference between Haley and Pelosi, even though he’s rambling about electrocuting sharks and Hannibal Lecter … we don’t have that kind of warped reality on our side.”

The game, set, match interview almost immediately went viral on every media platform in existence — nothing impresses TikTok users like “ultimate burn” energy, and Buttigieg did it without breaking a sweat, or even raising his voice.

On CNN, he called Trump’s vice presidential pick J.D. Vance “a regrettable choice because [Vance] is somebody who was at his most convincing and effective when he talked about how unfit for office Donald Trump is, and he has not explained any reason, other than of course his obvious interest in power, why he would have changed his mind on that.”

When, on HBO’s “Real Time,” host Bill Maher asked Buttigieg, a gay man, why he thought PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel, another gay man, was pouring money into the Trump campaign, Buttigieg refused to take the identity politics bait.

“I know there are a lot of folks who say, ‘What’s going on with some of these Silicon Valley folks veering into Trump world with J.D. Vance and backing Trump?” he responded. “‘Silicon Valley… they’re supposed to care about climate. They’re supposed to be pro-science and rational and libertarians. So, normally, libertarians don’t like the authoritarians. What’s up with that?’

“We’ve made it way too complicated,” Buttigieg continued. “It’s super simple. These are very rich men who have decided to back the Republican Party that tends to do good things for very rich men.”

Stating the obvious never sounded so refreshingly brutal.

Buttigieg, who has been mentioned as a potential vice presidential pick for Harris, is not the only Democrat surfing the wave of renewed energy in the party since Biden announced his departure from the race and endorsed Harris a little more than a week ago. Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, who has been equally passionate in his support of Harris and his attacks on Trump, has also repeatedly gone viral, particularly for embracing the Democrats’ latest characterization of the Trump campaign. “These guys are just weird,” he said on MSNBC, doubling down a few days later at a St. Paul rally by saying “the fascists depend on fear… but we’re not afraid of weird people. We’re a little creeped out, but we’re not afraid.”

Other potential vice presidential picks including Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro and Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear have also gone on the offensive, something Buttigieg himself pointed out, rejoicing in how the number of new voices underlines the strength of the Democratic back bench.

But none have the lacerating force of Buttigieg’s relentlessly unflappable delivery. Even when describing the personal pain he felt when Vance, during his 2021 Senate campaign, condemned Democrats, including Buttigieg and Harris, for being “childless” (despite Harris having two stepchildren), Buttigieg remained lethally calm.

“The really sad thing is he said that after Chasten and I had been through a fairly heartbreaking setback in our adoption journey,” Buttigieg said in an interview with CNN. “He couldn’t have known that, but maybe that’s why you shouldn’t be talking about other people’s children.”

With his nice-white-guy face and good-humored stage presence, Buttigieg remains a master of camouflage even now, the Zen master who can disarm an opponent in a single “did you see that?” move. He is so good on Fox that it’s difficult to imagine why they keep asking him to come on — no matter how often the various anchors and hosts have seen it happen, those expecting him to reveal a weak spot remain surprised when they find themselves flattened instead.

A Rhodes scholar and a veteran, Buttigieg became the mayor of South Bend, Ind., in 2012. During his tenure as mayor, he came out and married Chasten Glazeman; they adopted newborn fraternal twins in 2021. In 2020, Buttigieg ran for president, and as the first out gay Democratic candidate for the office, he faced down the predictable welter of homophobic attacks with a dismissive ease that underlined the hateful absurdity of such things.

When it became clear he could not win the nomination, he became the ultimate team player, offering up his formidable skills in support of his former opponents — Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.

That October, Fox News’ Martha MacCallum and Bret Baier asked Buttigieg a leading question about the policy differences between Biden and Harris, only to have Buttigieg feint, brilliantly.

“Well, there’s a classic parlor game of trying to find a little bit of daylight between running mates,” Buttigieg said. “And if people want to play that game, we could look into why an evangelical Christian like Mike Pence wants to be on a ticket with the president caught with a porn star, or how he feels about the immigration policy that he called ‘unconstitutional’ before he decided to team up with Donald Trump.”

The answer went viral and a star was born. While others ranted and raved, Buttigieg always remained calm, happy to go on Fox or any other platform with an arsenal of facts at the ready.

Which is precisely how he continues to show his support for Harris now. In the Sunday interview with Bream, he once again set the record straight as coolly, and cleverly, as ever: “People think that crime is up when crime is down under Joe Biden and was up under Trump. Now I don’t know how often that gets reported on this network so if you’re watching this at home, do yourself a favor and look up the data.”

Whether he winds up on the Democratic ticket or not, Buttigieg remains one of the party’s most effective communicators — the MVP of viral politicking.

Welcome back, Slayer Pete.

President Biden proposed major changes to the Supreme Court on Monday, including 18-year term limits for justices and a binding code of conduct.

Under Mr. Biden’s term-limit plan, presidents would appoint a new Supreme Court justice every two years. If that rule had already been in effect over the past two decades and each justice had served the full 18-year term, the court’s ideological split would be flipped, as this chart shows.

The Supreme Court now includes six conservative justices, appointed by former Presidents Donald J. Trump, George W. Bush and George H.W. Bush, as well as three liberal ones, appointed by Mr. Biden and former President Barack Obama. Three of the justices, all conservatives, have served longer than 18 years: Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr. and Justices Samuel A. Alito Jr. and Clarence Thomas.

If term limits had allowed the president to choose a justice every two years during the most recent four administrations, those numbers would be reversed: Six justices would have been appointed by Democratic presidents, and three by Republicans.

Mr. Biden also proposed a constitutional amendment in opposition to the court’s decision this month that presidents are entitled to substantial immunity from criminal prosecution. His three plans are unlikely to come to fruition soon. The overhaul would require congressional approval, which is not expected to come from a Republican-controlled House and a divided Senate.