White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre tried desperately to spin gas prices in a positive way during Monday’s press briefing, yet, once again, it was a laughable effort.
She began by pointing out that gas prices “have now been falling for almost seven straight weeks.”
“As of this morning, gas prices have dropped 81 cents per gallon since their peak in June— as you’ll see from the chart… uhhh.. to my left here.”
I’ll get back to the chart later.
“That means American families who–who–with two cars are saving $80 a month,” Jean-Pierre continued. “Drivers can now find gas for $3.99 or less at around half of all gas stations across the country. Average gasoline prices have come below $3.99 in 19 states.”
Naturally, she managed to stick in the old talking point that Putin is to blame for the historically high gas prices, all while trying to credit Biden for getting them down.
“Putin’s war is still putting pressure on global oil supply,” she said. “But President Biden is taking historic action to mitigate its impacts.”
She also claimed that American families with two cars are saving $80 a month, and that “drivers can now find gas for 3.99 dollars or less at around half of all gas stations across the country.”
Jean-Pierre brings out the gas price chart.
"American families with 2 cars are saving $80 a month. Drivers can now find gas for 3.99 dollars or less at around half of all gas stations across the country." pic.twitter.com/v0m4tx8Oph
— Washington Free Beacon (@FreeBeacon) August 1, 2022
Okay, let’s talk about the chart.
It’s no secret that you can be deceptive with charts by monkeying around with the x-axis and y-axis, or by not providing context. The graph shown by Karine Jean-Pierre is a great example of the latter. She expects us to be jumping for joy over the recent decline in gas prices, and forget the year and a half they were going up, up, and up on Biden’s watch. Here is a chart showing gas prices in context. The yellow portion is what her graph showed, and the blue area shows the time period Biden has been in office.
The @WhiteHouse graph in context. The yellow portion is what @PressSec showed. https://t.co/FilwEvztYF pic.twitter.com/o9WhlzWYzH
— Margolis & Cox (@MargolisandCox) August 1, 2022
Not so impressive, is it?
This is almost as bad as when, back in December, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) posted a graphic touting a two-cent drop in the average price of a gallon of gas and then thanked Joe Biden for the decline.
Thanks, @JoeBiden. pic.twitter.com/0iHwTLv7fB
— DCCC (@dccc) December 2, 2021
That graph was so ridiculous, even the Washington Post called them out.
Props to @washingtonpost, this is a pretty good graph to represent how terrible the @DCCC graph is: pic.twitter.com/jfp9Xn5hBP
— Brent Scher (@BrentScher) December 2, 2021
Ronald Klain, the White House chief of staff, has beclowned himself multiple times, touting graphs and charts that are equally ridiculous. In December, he bragged about a marginal increase in the labor force participation rate.
America is back at work. https://t.co/msPBhjTEng
— Ronald Klain (@WHCOS) December 3, 2021
One time, Klain even retweeted a presidential approval poll showing Biden underwater— apparently under the impression the poll was actually good news.
How bad are things at the Biden White House right now?
Ron Klain is retweeting polls that show the majority of Americans disapprove of the job Biden is doing. pic.twitter.com/E6nxCsIoRk
— Francis Brennan (@FrancisBrennan) January 13, 2022
This is the kind of nonsense we get from a White House that’s always under the impression it’s time for a victory lap. They don’t take things seriously enough to acknowledge the real problems because they care more about spinning things as good news, and trying to get the public to blame everyone else for the nation’s problems. It’s mindboggling that they’re still trying to blame Putin for gas prices, when, as the chart shows, gas prices have been going up for the entirety of Biden’s presidency. But, of course, they’re still pushing it, even though it’s been months now, and no one buys that. Even Biden’s most reliable cheerleaders in the media have acknowledged that inflation and gas prices were going up well before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The White House communications team is failing miserably, and that’s saying something because most of the time, the mainstream media is 100% willing to go along with them.
