CNN’s Kaitlan Collins Bombards Trump With Receipts for ‘Declaring Mission Accomplished’ on Grocery Prices
CNN anchor Kaitlan Collins dropped a blizzard of receipts on President Donald Trump after, as she described it, Trump “declared Mission: Accomplished” on lowering grocery prices.
Trump has been fighting a battle over “affordability” since the Election Day bloodbath by citing a false claim about Walmart, insisting concerns over prices are a “con job,” and repeatedly claiming he’s already solved the issue.
On Tuesday night’s edition of CNN’s The Source with Kaitlan Collins, the anchor opened her show with a commentary about costs that was chock full of video clips featuring Trump’s shifting rhetoric:
KAITLAN COLLINS: And as we come on the air tonight, things are actually happening, here on Capitol Hill, which after 42 — 42 days of this government shutdown, is actually worth a breaking-news banner of its own, because lawmakers are now working late into the evening, tonight, to seal the deal, and end the longest government shutdown on record.
That hasn’t stopped the White House’s efforts and the President’s efforts to stop full food assistance benefits from going out, because tonight, the Supreme Court has just given the administration longer time, a longer time period, to withhold those full SNAP benefits from some 40 million Americans. This has been playing out in court, and has been a big battle during this shutdown, even as we could be just one day away from it ending.
But as we talk about more families struggling to afford the cost of dinner, the President, for months, has been insisting that grocery prices are actually coming down.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: Prices are way down. Everything’s way down.
Our groceries are down. Our energy prices are down.
We have no inflation. Prices are down on just about everything.
Prices are down. We have virtually no inflation. Everything’s going good.
Prices are down and inflation is dead.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COLLINS: Now, even as the President has been declaring, Mission Accomplished, when it comes to bringing grocery prices down, notice the difference between the absolutes that you heard him offer there, and what he’s been saying over the last few months, but also in recent days even, and the more nuanced answers that we usually get from people in his inner circle.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Under my leadership, energy costs are down.
SCOTT BESSENT, UNITED STATES SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY: So, look, there are things that the federal government can control. Local electricity prices are not one of them.
A lot of the problem lies with the state government.
TRUMP: Now we don’t have inflation.
KAROLINE LEAVITT, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: Inflation has remained low and steady, averaging just 2.5 percent.
KEVIN HASSETT, DIRECTOR OF THE NATIONAL ECONOMIC COUNCIL OF THE UNITED STATES: Inflation is down, is what he means.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COLLINS: Now, of all people, of course, President Trump knows how personal and powerful this issue can be for people. Day after day, on the campaign trail, last year, we heard the President hammering home promises, about what would happen and how quickly, if voters returned him to the White House.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: From the day I take the oath of office, we will rapidly drive prices down.
(CHEERING)
TRUMP: We’re going to get those prices down. We’re going to get them down quickly.
We’re going to get those prices down. I will, promise you, we’re going to end inflation very quickly. We’re going to get those prices down too.
We have to get the prices down.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COLLINS: Of course, the President has now been in office for about 10 months, at this point. Voters in several states have made clear, as they did a week ago tonight, that affordability is certainly still front and center for many of them, as the President has responded mostly this way.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: More than anything else, it’s a con job by the Democrats.
We just lost an election, they said, based on affordability. It’s a con job by the Democrats.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
Watch above via CNN’s The Source with Kaitlan Collins.
