President Joe Biden has given far fewer interviews to major news organizations than any of his predecessors, and his appalling performance on CNN on May 8 shows why. In just 15 minutes, the president proved himself completely ignorant about recent economic history and totally out of touch with the reality people face.
Asked by Erin Burnett if he can convince voters to trust him more on the economy than Donald Trump, Biden began by denying the premise of the question. “The polling data has been wrong all along,” he claimed. “How many — you guys do a poll at CNN. How many folks you have to call to get one response?”
Who knew Biden was such a poll denier? Has every pollster who has asked voters about Biden’s handling of the economy, from CNN, the Economist, Harvard University, the New York Times, Yahoo, Fox, Marist, and CNBC, got it all wrong? Apparently so, and only Biden knows the truth, which is that people love Bidenomics despite what every poll says.
Biden then claimed, “When I started this administration, people were saying there’s going to be a collapse of the economy.” This is also flatly untrue.
When Biden took office, the economy was already recovering at a fantastic rate. Between the nadir of the government lockdowns and Trump’s last month in office, the economy added more than 12 million jobs at a rate of just under 1.4 million a month. That is the opposite of collapse.
Since Biden took office, job growth has slowed to just 400,000 per month, which is not surprising given Biden did everything in his power to delay the end of COVID lockdowns which began under Trump.
After falsely claiming he inherited a collapsing economy, Biden then claimed he inherited high inflation from his predecessor. “It was 9% when I came to office,” Biden claimed, “9%.”
Here in the real world, the truth is that prices rose just 1.4% in the 12 months ending in January 2021, which was the 11th consecutive month that annualized inflation was under 2%. That is what Biden inherited. But instead of continuing Trump’s policy of ending lockdowns quickly, Biden passed $2 trillion of deficit spending that immediately sent inflation skyrocketing.
By June 2021, inflation hit 5.4% and by the time most of the Biden sugar rush hit consumers, inflation peaked at 9.1% in June 2022, nine months after our current president took office. Inflation has come down from those historical highs, but not fast enough or far enough to undo the damage they initially caused. As Burnett herself noted, real income is still lower today than it was when Biden took office.
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The economic pain caused by Biden’s inflation does not end with real income. The cost of buying a home is now double what it was before he took office, grocery prices are up 30%, and consumer credit card debt has never been higher.
We may never know if Biden is lying or if he does not recognize that his aides are feeding him false stories. For voters though, it doesn’t matter. They know what harm Biden has inflicted on them whether he does or not.
