White House Press Secretary Karine Jean Pierre got pressed over the current state of the American economy, namely costs in it, and had trouble giving anything other than a terse and somewhat stumble-filled answer on the matter.
Doocy kicked off the Bidenomics inflation discussion, bringing up Thanksgiving costs and asking, “Thanks, Karine. On lowering prices. You said earlier that the actions the President has taken have worked. So, is it your sense that when people were home for Thanksgiving catching up with their family members, they were saying to each other, ‘Can you believe how much more affordable things have gotten?‘”
KJP, giving her terse answer, said, “So, honestly, I wouldn’t — I hear the question, but I want to make sure this is very clear. We take that very seriously. We take what families — families, the decisions that they make at their kitchen table, whether it’s at — whether it’s during Thanksgiving or whether it is every month as they’re trying to make hard decisions about how they move forward with taking care of their family, we take that very seriously. It’s not a joke to us. It is important to us.”
She continued, “This is a President who talks about it in a very personal way when he talks about what — what families have to go through — working families, middle-class families. And that’s why he’s taken the actions that he has. And so, look, the fact is, the data shows that the economy is improving. The data shows that households remain in a strong financial position. Household wealth is — is at a record high, with lower-income households seeing the largest gains since the pandemic. Those are indeed what we’re seeing. But we don’t — we don’t take lightly — we act- — we do not take lightly what Americans and families continue to feel. That’s why the President, at two o’clock, is going to talk about what — the actions that he’s taking to continue to lower costs.”
Doocy didn’t buy her answer one bit. Putting the question to her again, he asked, “But why do you think it is that when you say the economy is improving and President Biden says the economy is improving that a majority of Americans outside of this building are not buying it?”
KJP then tried to pin things on Trump, claiming that the American economy was in a tailspin when Biden took over and that he rescued it. “So, here’s the thing. When we walked into this administration, the economy was on a tailstin — a tailspin — that is the fact — because of the last administration, because of the Trump administration, because of how they dealt with — dealt with COVID and the pandemic, because they didn’t have a comprehensive plan,” she said.
She added, “The President came in. He passed the American Rescue Plan, which was able to get the economy back on its feet, which was able to open up small businesses — small businesses were able to open up. Schools were able to open up. And we understand what Americans have been feeling over the last two, three years. It’s going to take some time. We get that. It’s going to take some time. But it does not take away how we have seen the economy getting back on its feet. We actually had to fix the problem that we saw that the last administration left us.”
Watch that terse back and forth here:
Featured image credit: screengrab from the embedded video
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