Biden Loses His Place in Junk-Fee Speech: 'Anyway, I Won't Go On Now' (October 26, 2022)

Days before the 2022 midterms, President Joe Biden came to the White House to announce a crackdown on “junk fees.” Near the end, he lost the thread. “The idea that, you know, if you wanted—anyway, I won’t go on now. You’re going to hear more from me about this later,” Biden said [1].

“But it’s—I just think that one of the things that I think frustrates the American people is, they know the world is in a bit of disarray,” he went on [1].

The video above shows that moment from Biden’s Oct. 26, 2022, remarks. Quotes are from the official transcript published by the American Presidency Project [1].

”Day After Tomorrow or the Day After Tomorrow”

Biden also could not pin down his own schedule. “As a matter of fact, I’m going to be heading up to Syracuse, New York—that area—where a U.S. company, Micron, is going to be investing $100 billion. I think I go day after tomorrow or the day after tomorrow,” he said [1].

He went the next day. His remarks on semiconductor manufacturing in Syracuse are dated Oct. 27, 2022 [5]. For what he said there, see HYGO News’ page on the Syracuse speech.

”$3.30”

Biden used the junk-fee event to brag about gas. “And by the way, the price of gasoline continues to fall. It’s down for the third week in a row,” he said. “And gas prices in the decade before the pandemic were averaging $3.30—before the pandemic, before I got here” [1].

The Energy Information Administration’s annual averages say otherwise. From 2010 through 2019, the yearly average for regular gas ran from $2.143 in 2016 to $3.618 in 2012. Across those 10 years, it averaged about $2.91 a gallon, not $3.30 [2].

On Jan. 18, 2021, two days before Biden took office, regular gas averaged $2.379 a gallon. On Oct. 24, 2022, two days before this speech, it averaged $3.769, about $1.39 higher [3].

Biden offered a lower figure. “The most common price right now in America is $3.39 a gallon, and it’s going to come down more,” he said [1].

He also took aim at the oil industry. Prices, he said, would “come down even further when gas companies—when the oil companies agree to our demand—my demand to pass on the savings from the price of a barrel of oil” [1].

”It’s Illegal”

The announcement itself targeted bank fees. On bounced checks, Biden said, “You didn’t know it was bad, but you get charged 15 bucks. You get charged 15 bucks. It’s wrong. It’s ridiculous. It’s unfair. And my administration is making clear today it’s illegal as well” [1].

“Second, my administration is also making clear: Surprise overdraft fees are illegal,” he said. “Today’s actions are going to save consumers more than $1 billion each year” [1].

The fees, he said, “hit marginalized Americans the hardest, especially low-income folks and people of color” [1].

He promised more. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Rohit Chopra’s team, he said, was “developing rules and guidance that would take credit card late fees and other banking fees that cost Americans 24 million—billion dollars a year, and take them on” [1].

”Not Poor, Just Regular Folks”

Biden framed it as class politics. “One is, as I’ve said before, the view from Park Avenue, which says help the wealthy and maybe that will trickle down to everyone in the country,” he said. “Capitalism without competition isn’t capitalism, it’s exploitation” [1].

Then he addressed the reporters in the room. “I say to the press here: A lot of you come from backgrounds like I came from. We’re not poor, just regular folks. But that matters,” Biden said [1].

He said he would come back with an example: “an average family who’s going to go visit their mother or father for Thanksgiving.” He added, “It doesn’t add up to billions for the individual, but it adds up to two, three, four hundred bucks for average families” [1].

The transcript ends as “several reporters began asking questions” [1].

By the Numbers

$3.30: what Biden said gas averaged in the decade before the pandemic [1].
$2.91: the 2010-2019 average of EIA’s annual figures [2].
$2.379: regular gas two days before Biden took office [3].
$3.769: regular gas two days before the speech [3].
$8: the credit card late-fee cap his regulators set in 2024, later thrown out by a judge [4].

What Happened Next

The late-fee cap was thrown out. The bureau set an $8 cap on credit card late fees in March 2024. On April 15, 2025, “a federal judge threw out a U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) rule Tuesday that capped all credit card late fees at $8,” Fox Business reported. The bureau itself joined the motion to scrap it [4].

Congress killed the overdraft rule. In December 2024, the bureau issued a rule on overdraft fees at the biggest banks. Congress voted to overturn it in a resolution sponsored by Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., which became Public Law 119-10 on May 9, 2025 [6][7]. “Congress disapproves the final rule,” it says, “and such rule shall have no force or effect” [6].

The Trump White House backed the repeal. The rule, it said, was “issued as a midnight regulation in the final days of the previous Administration” and “would result in six million consumers facing higher fees and more bounced checks” [7].

For Biden’s airline-fee promises, see HYGO News’ page on “Flightsright.gov”, and for another White House gas-price claim, the page on “$1.60” gas.