Joe Biden has told a lot of whoppers about his record. From his repeated claims of creating more jobs than any president in history to claiming the border is secure, he truly has no shame. Another favorite lie of his is that he's brought down inflation when in reality, inflation isn't down at all. The rate of inflation has just decreased — though it's going back up again.
He may have told his biggest whopper yet on inflation during his CNN interview with Erin Burnett on Wednesday.
"I mean, no president's had the run we have had, in terms of creating jobs and bringing down inflation," he told Burnett. "It was 9% when I came to office, 9%."
🚨Joe Biden lies every time he opens his mouth:
— Steve Cortes (@CortesSteve) May 9, 2024
“Inflation was 9% when I came to office. 9%!”
In reality, inflation was at 1.4% was President Trump left office. pic.twitter.com/sPPGfDvDqZ
Except it wasn't. It was 1.4%, and as of March, the annual inflation rate was still 3.5%.
Biden's lie was so bad that even ABC News aired a brutal fact-check of his claim.
ABC FACT CHECK: Inflation was actually 1.4% when Biden took office — NOT "9%," like the chronic liar claimed in an interview pic.twitter.com/8PLONoVaC4
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) May 9, 2024
"Biden’s critics, including prominent Democratic economists, say massive spending passed during Biden’s first year in office fueled the rapid loss of a dollar’s buying power by effectively printing more money," reports the New York Post. "Since Biden took office, the average prices of goods and services have increased 19%, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data. During Trump’s four years in office, by comparison, prices increased by 8%, or roughly 2% per year."
In the same interview, Burnett listed a slew of bad economic indicators and asked him, “With less than six months to go to election day, are you worried that you’re running out of time to turn that around?“
“We’ve already turned it around,” Biden claimed.
Polls have repeatedly shown that the public doesn't agree, and voters trust Trump on the economy much more than him.
Though Burnett didn't challenge Biden on his bogus inflation number, she did seem to challenge his claim that inflation has gotten better on his watch.
“But there’s real pain,” Burnett said. “I mean, grocery prices are up 30% — more than 30% — since the beginning of the pandemic. And people are spending more on food and groceries than they have at any time, really, in the past 30 years. I mean, that’s a real day-to-day pain that people feel.”
“It’s real,” Biden conceded. “But the fact is that if you take a look at what the people have, they have the money to spend; it angers them and angers me that you have to spend more."
The pro-Trump super PAC MAGA Inc responded to the interview with a press release saying that “Joe Biden was confronted with the poor state of Bidenomics during a CNN interview Wednesday and was asked if he’s running out of time to improve the economy. Biden lied and said, ‘we’ve already turned it around.'”
The group highlighted data showing credit card debt up 38.7% since Biden took office, with 65% of Americans living paycheck-to-paycheck and a record number of people unable to afford rent.
Prominent Democrats also have blamed Biden for the inflation crisis, which prompted the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates dramatically.
Average credit card interest rates currently are 27.64% — nearly double the 14.6% average when Biden took office — and average 30-year home mortgage rates have soared from 2.65% to more than 7% for the average 30-year mortgage.
Democratic economist Steven Rattner, who led the Obama Treasury Department’s auto bailout, branded Biden’s $1.9 trillion stimulus law, passed in March 2021 without any Republican votes, as the “original sin” of the inflation crisis.
Biden thinks he can rewrite history and change his record on inflation, but even CNN isn't letting him fully get away with it.
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