My advice to the tea party freshmen: Slow the galloping horses to a trot. Big government was built over decades; it can't be dismantled in a year, especially when Democrats control the White House.

The tea party movement and its passion arose in response to trillion dollar deficits as far as the eye can see and out of a sense that Washington is in need of dire fiscal reform.

Let's be very honest about what this is about. It's not about bashing Democrats, it's not about taxes, they have no idea what the Boston tea party was about, they don't know their history at all. This is about hating a black man in the White House. This is racism straight up.

I can't really criticize the Tea Party people, because I came into the White House pretty much on the same basis that they have become popular. That is dissatisfaction with the way things are going in Washington and disillusionment and disencouragement about the government.

Unfortunately, the Republican leadership in the House right now seems to have been strangled by the tea party.

The NAACP believes the Tea Party is racist. The Tea Party believes the NAACP is racist.