• President Biden touted his economic record during a Tuesday speech at the Brookings Institute.
  • Biden suggested that he should've had his name printed on the 2021 stimulus checks, similar to Trump in 2020.
  • Trump won a second presidential term in November with a heavy economic message for voters.

President Joe Biden during a Tuesday speech said that it was "stupid" of him to have not signed COVID-19 stimulus checks that went out as part of the American Rescue Plan, contrasting himself with President-elect Donald Trump.

While speaking at the Brookings Institute, Biden touted the effects of the $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief bill, which Congress passed in 2021, as a major economic accomplishment of his administration. But the president also reflected on the actions of Trump, his predecessor and soon-to-be successor.

"I also learned something from Donald Trump — he signed checks for people … and I didn't," he said. "Stupid."

In March 2020, Congress passed the CARES Act, a $2.2 trillion bill signed into law by Trump at the outset of the coronavirus pandemic that provided $1,200 relief checks to millions of Americans. Trump's name, controversially, was added to the relief checks by his administration.

This year, many Americans, who yearned for the pre-Covid economic conditions earlier in Trump's first term, chose Trump at the ballot box over Vice President Kamala Harris.

Biden from the earliest days of his administration sought to tackle some of the biggest pandemic-era economic issues.

The American Rescue Plan provided $1,400 checks to most Americans.

But inflation dogged the Biden administration's economic message, and the president was unable to articulate a convincing defense of his policies ahead of the 2024 election. His standing, coupled with concerns over his advanced age, led him to step aside as the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee in July.

Harris assumed the mantle as the Democratic standard-bearer, but she had to run a 107-day campaign and was unable to overcome Trump's advantage on the economy among a broad swath of voters.

Read the original article on Business Insider