We all knew this. We all knew that it would take more time than any of us want to dig ourselves out of this hole created by this economic crisis.

In this remark, Obama frames the economic downturn as a collective predicament (“we all”) and emphasizes realism about recovery: the damage from a major financial crisis cannot be undone quickly, even if the public and policymakers wish it could. The metaphor of “dig[ging] ourselves out of this hole” suggests both depth (the severity of the recession) and effort (recovery requires sustained work rather than a single fix). The repetition underscores shared foreknowledge and aims to temper expectations, implicitly defending longer-term policy measures by arguing that time and persistence are unavoidable components of economic repair.