Kellyanne Conway and Juan Williams Throw Down on Whether or Not Americans Are Better Off Under Joe Biden

Fox News Senior Political Analyst Juan Williams threw down on Wednesday with former Trump official and Fox contributor Kellyanne Conway about whether or Americans are better off under President Joe Biden than they were under former President Trump.

“The Inflation Reduction Act, in fact, cut the deficit hugely. He’s cut the deficit more, I think, than any other president going way back,” Williams insisted after Conway claimed the law did nothing.

“And so what you say is, wait a minute, what happened under President Trump? Oh, the deficit went up, a quarter of the deficit. This upset some people. It’s a fact, a quarter of the deficit caused by President Trump. And that tax cut, that’s spending, tax cuts for the very rich is actual spending that in fact accrues to the deficit,” Williams concluded as Conway was trying to get in.

“Everybody got a tax cut under President Trump, The Tax Cut and Jobs Act, which didn’t get a single Democratic vote, gave a tax break to everyone and corporations, individuals, research and development, all the investments in the job creators, job holders, and job seekers in this country repatriated trillions of dollars of wealth that was legally parked overseas,” Conway replied, adding:

People brought it back here. Juan, let’s talk about it. Took you 3 minutes to mention Donald Trump. I do give you credit. It’s getting better. You mention him. Let’s look at the Gallup poll. The Gallup poll today says 41% of Americans say that they’re not better off under Joe Biden. In fact, 16% say they’re better off. That is the worst indictment of our economy since 2008 and 2009 when we’re in true recession compared to 2020th January 2020. Right before the pandemic hit, 59% told Gallup they were better off. Now it’s 16%.

You can’t argue with the numbers. If you want to mention the last administration, the way people feel. People’s perception of the economy is Joe Biden’s raw political reality. They don’t feel more prosperous. And with respect to Gene Sperling, who sat here, two things. Number one, the new metric is not job creation. The new metric is how people feel about their household finances.

“And he said every single job came back. All the mom and pops did not come back. Our small businesses in so many places are decimated. The blighted storefronts, they’re not coming back,” Conway argued.

“Now we have very low, historic, low unemployment,” shot back Williams.

“That’s not the metric anymore,” quipped Conway as the two spoke over each other.

“You know why people don’t feel comfortable?” Williams finally asked.

“We had three years of the worst pandemic in our history, and it drove our economy into a pit. And Joe Biden has helped to rip it up. And in fact, when you look at it, you say to people, are you doing better? Okay, it’s 2022 to now. Guess what, Kellyanne? The big intervening phenomenon was the pandemic,” Williams declared.

“And you know what, though? But the curtailing of the pandemic sort of naturally put many of those people back to jobs. It also increased the tax revenue, which allowed them to bring down the deficit,” jumped in anchor Martha MacCallum.

“So it wasn’t any sort of magic economic levers that were pulled by the Biden administration. It was the fact that you had things opening up again and we had added $5 trillion in spending. So, yes, you’re going to see that deficit come back a bit when the when the country starts to open up again, which, as you say, was a devastating blow. So, you know, it’s they’re taking credit when you,” MacCallum continued as Williams jumped back in.

“It wouldn’t have come back, unless, in fact, we had taken steps to help mom and pop,” he argued.
Williams continued as Conway jumped in, saying, “Oh come on, you weren’t there. I was at the height of the pandemic.”

“I was there every day is everybody complained about spending too much time with their spouses and kids. I was in the White House listening to the briefings, and the PPP did help lots of people, as did PPE and everything. A lot of great things,” Conway argued of the Trump-era policies.

“Billions of dollars were wasted. By the way, those programs,” shot back MacCallum, referencing the massive fraud related to the PPP program.

Watch the full clip above via Fox News.