Fox’s Peter Doocy Confronts Jean-Pierre About Bidenomics: Americans ‘Are Not Buying’ That the Economy’s ‘Improving’
Fox News White House correspondent Peter Doocy confronted White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre on Monday about inflation, asking her why Americans aren’t seeing the success that she and President Joe Biden keep touting.
Jean-Pierre, after beginning the press briefing with a statement about the Palestinian students who were shot in Vermont in an apparent hate crime, highlighted the continued decline in costs of several items as inflation slowly decreases, citing White House economic policies as the reason for the lower prices.
But Doocy pushed back, asking Jean-Pierre: “So, is it your sense that when people are home for Thanksgiving, catching up with their family members, they were saying to each other, ‘Can you believe how much more affordable things have gotten?'”
After she had a chart and everything showing the drop in costs, Jean-Pierre defended the sarcastic question and the effectiveness of Bidenomics:
KJP: So, honestly, I wouldn’t… I hear the question, but I want to make sure this is very clear. We take that very seriously. We take what families — the decisions that they make at their kitchen table, whether it’s at whether it’s during Thanksgiving or whether it is every month, as they’re trying to make hard decisions about how they move forward with taking care of their family — we take that very seriously. It’s not a joke to us, it is important to us. This is a president who talks about it in a very personal way, when he talks about what, what families have to go through, working families, middle-class families. And that’s why he’s taken actions that he has.
And so, look, the fact is the data shows that the economy is improving. The data shows that households remain in a strong financial position. Household wealth is at a record high with lower income households seeing the largest gain since the pandemic. Those are indeed what we’re seeing. But we don’t we don’t take lightly… We actually, we do not take lightly what Americans and families continue to feel. That’s why the president at 2:00 is going to talk about what the actions that he’s taking to continue to lower costs.
Doocy: But why do you think it is that when you say the economy is improving and President Biden says the economy is improving, that a majority of Americans outside of this building are not buying it?
KJP: So here’s the thing. When we walked into this administration, the economy was on a tailspin. That is the fact. Because of the last administration, because of the Trump administration, because of how they dealt with Covid and the pandemic, because they didn’t have a comprehensive plan.
The president came in. He passed the American Rescue Plan, which was able to get the economy back on its feet, which was able to open up small businesses. Small businesses were able to open up. Schools were able to open up. And we understand what Americans have been feeling over the last two or three years. It’s going to take some time. We get that. It’s going to take some time, but it does not take away how we have seen the economy getting back on its feet. We actually had to fix the problem that we saw, that the last administration left us.
Watch the video above via C-SPAN.
