Should Obama Follow Boehner's Advice and Fire His Economic Team?

This is a rush transcript from "On the Record," August 24, 2010. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

GRETA VAN SUSTEREN, FOX NEWS HOST: Tonight: We are standing by for primary election results in Florida and Arizona. We will bring them to you as soon as we get the results right in to FOX.

But first, House Minority Leader John Boehner wants heads to roll. He says President Obama should fire his economic team.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. JOHN BOEHNER, R-OHIO, MINORITY LEADER: Employers and small business owners are rightly frustrated by the fact that no one in the White House -- not the president, not the vice president, not his economic team - - no one's listening to them. We've been told that the president's economic team is exhausted. And already, his budget director and chief economist have moved on, or about to. Clearly, they see the writing on the wall, and the president should, too.

President Obama should ask for and accept the resignations of the remaining members of his economic team, starting with Secretary Geithner and Larry Summers, the head of the National Economic Council. Now, this is no substitute for a referendum on the president's job-killing agenda. That question will be put before the American people in due time. But we do not have the luxury of waiting months for the president to pick scapegoats for his failing stimulus policies. We tried 19 months of government as community organizer, and it hasn't worked. Our fresh start needs to begin now.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAN SUSTEREN: Vice President Biden wasted no time firing back at Congressman Boehner.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOSEPH BIDEN, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I want to respond to remarks made this morning by the Republican leader of the House, Mr. Boehner. After months of promising a look at his party's agenda, for their plans for America, their economic agenda, he made what was billed this morning as a major economic address, and his chief proposal, when you look at it apparently was that the president should fire his economic team. Very constructive advice, and we thank the leader for that.

(LAUGHTER)

BIDEN: For eight years before we arrived in the West Wing, Mr. Boehner's party ran the economy and the middle class literally into the ground. They took a $237 billion operating surplus inherited from the Clinton administration and left us with a $1.3 trillion deficit, in the process quadrupled the national debt, all before we literally turned on the lights in the West Wing.

All we know is what John Boehner and his Republican colleagues are against. I know what they're against. What I don't know, other than the tax cut for the top 2 percent of the taxpayers in America, I don't know what they're for. That's going to change our economic circumstances.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAN SUSTEREN: So should the president clean house? Who is right in that Boehner-Biden battle? You're going to hear from both sides tonight. But first, Republican congressman Mike Pence joins us live. He is chairman of the House Republican Conference. Good evening, sir. And do you agree with Leader Boehner that...

REP. MIKE PENCE, R-IND.: Good evening.

VAN SUSTEREN: Good evening. Do you think that Leader Boehner should -- that the president should clean house?

PENCE: Well, I think it'd be a good start if the president recognized that the economic policies of his administration have failed. Look, we were told that we needed to borrow nearly a trillion dollars from future generations in the so-called stimulus bill, otherwise unemployment would reach 8 percent. Well, it's nearly 10 percent. It's remained unchanged for more than a year.

Now, Vice President Biden may be throwing out his usual memorable lines about that, but out here in Indiana, people are hurting. They want to see this administration make a dramatic change of direction, back to what we know will work, which is fiscal discipline in Washington, D.C., and to preserve and promote the kind of tax leaf that will release the trapped capital in this economy and create jobs and put Americans back to work.

VAN SUSTEREN: All right, back in March of '09, you said that you were not in favor of the confirmation of Secretary of the Treasury Geithner, but you were not asking for his resignation. Are you now today asking for his resignation? And what do you point at directly, if, indeed, that's what you're doing?

PENCE: Well, I am. I'm joining Republican leader John Boehner in calling for the Treasury Secretary, Timothy Geithner, to step down. I also believe that Larry Summers should step down because, look, this economy is hurting. Americans are struggling and they want new solutions.

Timothy Geithner recently in The New York Times wrote an essay entitled "Welcome to the recovery." He recently told another network on a Sunday morning show that they would support seeing taxes increased in January of next year because he said the economy can withstand that.

Well, look, Greta, the American people don't want the president to have around him advisers that are saying that the recovery has arrived or that say that you should make economic policy based on what the American people and our economy can withstand. The president -- the president ought to ask for and accept the resignation of the secretary of the Treasury and Larry Summers, and he ought to bring a new team around him that's in touch with the American people, that recognizes that these economic stimulus policies have failed, and bring some fresh ideas to bear on getting Americans back to work.

VAN SUSTEREN: I should point out that Indiana, your state, is 10.2 percent unemployment. So you are higher than the national average. Larry Summers said last December that the recession was over. Christine Romer had predicted that we (INAUDIBLE) an 8 percent level. Nationally, we had a 9.5 percent. And now Mr. Orszag and Christine Romer have left the administration. Do you think they jumped ship, got pushed out in a recognition by the White House that it's time to change course?

PENCE: You know, I never speculate on motives of people in public life. Those other folks are entitled to leave on their own accord. I just agree strongly with John Boehner that this administration is out of touch with what's really happening in this economy, in places like Muncie and Anderson and right here in Indianapolis, Indiana. People are hurting. They know we can't borrow and spend and bail our way back to a growing economy, and they want to see this administration take a dramatic step in the direction of preserving and promoting tax relief that will create jobs, of embracing fiscal discipline, and abandoning this job-killing agenda, suggesting card check, suggesting passing cap-and-trade, maybe in the lame duck that they continue to advance.

VAN SUSTEREN: Congressman, one of the problems is that, regrettably, the economy is a product of sort of the American psyche. If we're all excited and think that we're on a road for recovery, chances are we're going to out and spend, we're going to go out and increase manufacturing, do all those things.

If everyone talks about doom and gloom and we see the existing house sales plummet 27 percent, down to the lowest in 1995...

PENCE: Right.

VAN SUSTEREN: ... it's sort of hard to get us all sort of whupped up so that we go out and buy. What -- besides the sort of the usual -- the -- you know, the tax program, extending the Bush tax cuts that I know the Republican Party want, what is it that you could do to turn it around? Because people truly are hurting. Quickly, we need to turn stuff around for people.

PENCE: Yes, look, the enemy of our prosperity is uncertainty. You know, I had a small business jobs forum in Anderson, Indiana, last week, and I heard that term again and again and again. I mean, small business owners and family farmers are asking in the city and across the countryside, What's next? I mean, they hear the administration...

VAN SUSTEREN: But -- but...

PENCE: ... has not yet given up on passing a national energy tax, card check, more of their job-killing agenda...

VAN SUSTEREN: But even that, Congressman -- and I don't mean to cut you off, but it's, like, you know, everyone talks about the uncertainty, but -- and I know that this is not -- you don't run the House of Representatives. But the House of Representatives is putting off until mid-December a bill having to do with -- that'll help small businesses, will give them that certainty, whether it's up or down, I don't know what it is. But you take off a month. So you put another month of uncertainty into the lives of all these people, the small business. I mean, you should be doing this now!

PENCE: Well, look, the greatest -- the greatest uncertainty right now is -- and you just heard -- you heard the vice president again kind of defend it in passing, their tax cuts -- their tax increases on the rich -- is this administration actually thinks that it would be a good idea to allow a tax increase on job creators on January 1st, 2011.

You know -- you know, higher taxes never got anybody hired. But it's the uncertainty of, Well, what taxes are about to go up, and by how much? Are they going to pass a national energy tax? For heaven's sakes, it's time for some new ideas. It's time for fiscal discipline in Washington, D.C., and fast-acting tax relief, both preserved and promoted. And the president obviously is hearing from his current economic team that this borrowing and spending and bail-out stuff is the way to go. The American people know better. They want the president to take a new approach. He ought to have a new team to (INAUDIBLE)

VAN SUSTEREN: Congressman, I got to go. Thank you, sir.