CNN Pushes Back Against Republican Back-to-School Shopping Ads: ‘Misleading’ to Blame Biden for Higher Prices
CNN decried the “politicization” of back-to-school shopping and refuted Republican attack ads that blame President Joe Biden for higher prices.
On Thursday morning’s edition of New Day, co-anchor John Berman wryly told viewers “All right, so how is this for a headline? Back to school shopping has become political.”
He then introduced CNN Chief business correspondent Christine Romans, and quipped “My Trapper-keeper, now political?”
“Nothing is sacred, John,” Romans said, and then she launched into a brief refutation of this new National Republican Congressional Committee ad that places blame on Democrats for rising prices:
“The ads will run in the districts of 15 vulnerable Democrats, including Representatives Tom Malinowski, Josh Carter, Matt Cartwright and others,” Romans said, adding that the Republicans are “zeroing in on inflation in the booming economy.”
Romans conceded that Consumer prices did rise 5.4 percent over the past 12 months” as of July, but added “it’s misleading, of course, to blame it on Biden.”
“The reality is inflation is the downside of an economy roaring back to life from an unprecedented collapse. Demand for just about everything is coming back faster than producers can keep up. And supply glitches mean they can’t make and deliver goods as quickly,” Romans explained.
She also said that blaming stimulus efforts is “risky for the GOP that began in the Trump administration.”
Romans also fact-checked remarks that House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy made on Fox News, in which he claimed “Oil prices, the highest that we’ve seen,” by saying that “presidents, of course, don’t control oil prices,” and that “oil prices are not the highest ever. Not even close. They were higher also various times in the Trump administration. And they’re nowhere near the peak in 2008 when George W. Bush was president.”
Watch above via CNN.