During the White House Press Briefing on Tuesday, April 9, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean Pierre was asked about what the Biden Administration is doing to fight inflation, which came in hotter than expected in March and has dramatically increased Americans’ grocery bills since 2019, among raising other costs noticeably as well. Responding, KJP defended the Biden Administration’s handling of the matter.
The question to which KJP was responding was about whether the brief reprieve from inflation of late 2023 is starting to come to an end as inflation ticks higher yet again. The reporter asked, “And th- — and then, inflation is at 3.2 percent. It’s higher than it was in January. Are there any concerns that the disinflation we saw last year is starting to stall out?”
KJP, in response, first argued that Biden is doing everything possible to fight inflation and build an economy that works for the middle class and working class, saying, “So, look, I’m going to say that this is a president that — that is doing everything that we can to fight inflation — right? — to build an economy from the bottom up, middle out. And we’ve been pretty consistent about that.”
Continuing, KJP went on to say that great progress has been made in fighting the inflation problem, saying, “And over — what we have seen over the past several months is that inflation is down two thirds and core inflation is at the lowest since it — since May of 2021. That matters.”
Building on that point, KJP pointed to the alleged strength of the job market, saying, “Wages are rising faster than prices over the last year. Since the pandemic, we’ve seen 15 million jobs created because of the policies that this President has put forward — some — some really historic — bipartisan, even — legislation that’s come into law to help create those — those millions of jobs. Unemployment is at under 4 percent.”
Not done there, she went on to say that, while there is “more work to be done,” the Biden Administration has made great strides in fighting inflation by taking on Big Pharma and “housing costs” and “junk fees” at banks, saying, “Is there more work to be done? Absolutely. We’re going to continue to do everything that we can to lower — lower cost. We’re going to take on — continue to take on Big Pharma, for example. We’re going to continue to lower housing costs, which we know really hurts families. And you hear talk — talk about, you know, junk fees, getting rid of junk fees and the gouging that we’re seeing from corporations. That’s also very important.”
She then, astoundingly, alleged that Republicans want to “do the opposite,” though the examples she gave of supposed pro-inflation Republican priorities weren’t clearly pro-inflation, much less things that the GOP base supports en masse, namely entitlement reform.
In any case, KJP claimed, “Congress — congressional Republicans want to do the opposite. They want to cut Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, cutting taxes for the wealthy and big corporations. That’s not where this — the President is. You heard him talk about it in depth during the State of the Union, and we’re going to continue to fight for Americans. So, look, we see inflation is down. It is important, and we’re going to continue to build an economy that leaves no one behind.”
Watch her here:
Featured image credit: screengrab from the embedded video
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