U.S. senator admits: ‘I want to follow Jesus still, but I want to slap somebody’

Republican Louisiana Sen. John Kennedy said Tuesday that navigating Washington’s hard-left culture requires a constant search for grace.

The Trump administration has achieved positive economic results as the Consumer Price Index showed inflation easing to a 2.7% year-over-year increase in November from 3.0% in September, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Speaking with Brian Kilmeade on “The Ingraham Angle,” Kennedy said the media chose to ignore President Donald Trump’s achievements.

“I’ve said before, I don’t hate anybody. I look for grace wherever I can find it. But there’s some days when I walk to my office in the Capitol and I give myself a pep talk and I say today, ‘Kennedy, you’re going to follow Jesus.’ But by 10, I want to follow Jesus still, but I want to slap somebody,” Kennedy said. “But I love my job, and this Christmas I’m not thinking about grievances. I’m thinking about gratitude. I’m thinking about grace. I’m thankful, in addition to my God and for my family.”

Kennedy said the past year tested his patience.

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“This year, in some ways, Brian, has been frustrating in the sense that nothing that the Trump Administration does, no matter what it is, even if it’s something very, very, very positive, he’s not given credit for it by many members of the media,” Kennedy told Kilmeade. “That’s aggravating. I’ve said this before, but it’s frustrating sometimes that Washington, D.C., you know it, it’s a Democratic town, not just the Democrats in Congress, but the think tanks, the academics, the bureaucrats, and that can be frustrating.”

Harvard economics professor Kenneth Rogoff told CNN News Central co-host Kate Bolduan that the latest Consumer Price Index data amounts to “positive news” for the economy.

“I was surprised. It was a better number than anyone was expecting,” Rogoff said. “Look, inflation’s been very high, it’s stayed high and it’s not been coming down.”

At the start of Trump’s second term, Democrats blamed him over costs of goods—most notably eggs, which climbed sharply between November 2023 and March 2025 after an avian influenza wave wiped out large portions of the nation’s poultry supply, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. Trump countered those attacks in a Wednesday night address, as the White House pointed to easing prices across everyday goods, including groceries, household products, and fuel.

Price pressures ballooned during former President Joe Biden’s tenure, when inflation reached levels not seen in decades, peaking in mid-2022.

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