‘Hold On, Wait a Second!’ White House Economic Adviser and Martha MacCallum Clash in Chippy Fox News Exchange

White House economic adviser Jared Bernstein sparred with Fox News anchor Martha MacCallum on Monday over inflation.

MacCallum aired a clip of President Joe Biden’s interview with 60 Minutes that aired on Sunday, where Scott Pelley questioned Biden’s economic policies, given that inflation is up 8.3% as of August year over year.

“You’re not arguing that 8.3 is good news?” Pelley said.

“No, I’m not saying it is good news,” Biden replied. “It was 8.2 before. You’re making it sound like all of a sudden, ‘My God, it went to 8.2%.'”

“It’s the highest inflation rate, Mr. President, in 40 years,” Pelley shot back.

“I got that,” Biden responded. “But guess what we are? We’re in a position for the last several months it hasn’t spiked. It is just barely — it’s basically even.”

MacCallum asked Bernstein for his reaction.

“So, the White House argument is that people are supposed to feel good about the fact that it’s even, even though the core number went up six tenths, which as you know concerned a lot of economists when they dug into that number,” she said. “But here’s the number over the course of the presidency: from 1.4% inflation to 8.3. So the number has absolutely spiked over the 24-month period [sic] of the Biden presidency.”

“I don’t think you’ll hear any White House economist or policy analyst saying Americans should feel good about inflation,” Bernstein replied. “In fact, we know inflation is a significant challenge to households. And that’s why we’ve done so much to try to help.”

He then pointed to declining gas prices.

“You talked about everything spiking,” he continued. “Well, in fact, gas prices have of course spiked in the other direction. They’re down $1.30 per gallon–”

“But they’re still $1.30 higher than when the president took office,” MacCallum interrupted.

“Hold on, wait a second! I let you ask your question,” Bernstein said. “Please let me give you my answer.”

“They’re still higher,” she stated.

“A dollar thirty-four down,” Bernstein pressed on. “That’s a savings of about $70 per month for the average driver. And so that’s some real breathing room. But we also have help to make sure that goods are getting through the ports, getting from ship to shelf. Shelves are stocked the way they were before the pandemic and then there’s the Inflation Reduction Act.”

MacCallum responded by questioning whether the provisions in the bill would take effect soon enough to provide more immediate relief to Americans.

Watch above via Fox News.