The Biden Administration held quite the tone-deaf celebration about the misnamed "Inflation Reduction Act" on Tuesday, as Katie covered at the time. This came the very same day as the August Consume Price Index (CPI) numbers were released, which showed inflation had ticked up 0.1 percent in August, and 8.3 percent over the past 12 months. White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre went right along with the gaslighting during Tuesday's pressing briefing, as she claimed that "prices have been essentially flat in our country these last two months," which she then had the gall to casually say was "welcome news for American families, with more work still to do."
KARINE JEAN-PIERRE: "Prices have been essentially flat in our country these last two months." pic.twitter.com/R1t3DfmtqC
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) September 13, 2022
Mia did a thorough fact-check about claims that came during Tuesday's celebration, which all serves to pour cold water all over how Jean-Pierre has lied to the American people ever since she replaced Jen Psaki. Psaki told her fair share of lies, too, to be sure, including and especially on inflation.
This includes tweets highlighting the price of groceries has gone up overall by 13.5 percent.
Biden continues to deliver higher prices, lower wages.
— Jacki Kotkiewicz (@jackikotkiewicz) September 13, 2022
Overall CPI: +8.3% y/y
Gas: +25.6%
Fuel Oil: +68.8%
Electricity: +15.8%
Groceries: +13.5%
Meat, Poultry, & Fish: +8.8%
Milk: +17%
Eggs: +39.8%
Baby Food: +12.6%
Airline Fares: +33.4%
Real Average Hourly Earnings: -2.8%
Even Yahoo! Finance's Brooke DiPalma acknowledged in a piece from Tuesday morning this high rate, her headline pointing out that it's "the highest increase since March 1979."
Further, as Sarah covered back in late June, the State Department Special Envoy Cary Fowler itself admitted that there is "probably a three-year crisis" when it comes to how high food prices. "We're dealing with a number of issues that are having an impact on inflation, that are not issues that can be easily solved…I think we're dealing with a multiyear crisis, and we ought to plan in that regard," she also said.
Last month, Jean-Pierre and Biden himself memorably claimed that there was "zero percent inflation during the month of July," as Madeline covered.
Despite all of her lies, fact-checkers have given Jean-Pierre a free pass. As Nikolas Lanum highlighted for Fox News early on Tuesday morning, before the CPI numbers were released, PolitiFact has fact-checked her just twice, while Factcheck.org, Reuters, The Associated Press, The Washington Post’s Glenn Kessler, and CNN’s Daniel Dale have failed to fact-check her. She's been in the position since May 13.
Actual image of fact-checkers seeing this clip: pic.twitter.com/n6TI8Lo8tj
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) September 13, 2022
It's not just Republican opponents whom the Biden administration has gaslight on inflation, but fellow Democrats. Larry Summers had warned that the so-called American Rescue Plan Act, which the White House also continues to celebrate, would increase inflation, as it did. Summers served as the Treasury Secretary during the Clinton administration and director of the National Economic Council during the Obama administration.
Summers further warned about the CPI report in a Twitter thread on Tuesday.
Median inflation used to be a favorite indicator for team transitory. This month it was at its highest ever reading.
— Lawrence H. Summers (@LHSummers) September 13, 2022
With core inflation running above 7 percent this month and likely, given rent behavior, to remain elevated, I fear it is unlikely that a peak Fed funds rate around 4 will be enough to restore 2 percent inflation.
— Lawrence H. Summers (@LHSummers) September 13, 2022
As Guy and Katie have highlighted, other Obama economists are also concerned, including Josh Wingrove and Steve Rattner.
Various polls continue to show that the American people are worried about inflation and have experienced hardships as a result. It also remains a top issue as the quickly approaching midterm elections are now less than two months away. The upcoming likely railway strike is also likely to cause prices to go up further.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member