Biden says he inherited high inflation, won't take blame
President Joe Biden argued that he inherited high inflation despite it only being 1.4 percent when he entered office and rose to a 40 year high of 9.2 percent in 2022.
President Joe Biden was criticized Friday for claiming that he inherited high inflation when he entered office. Last year, under his administration, inflation climbed to 9.1 percent, a forty-year-high. When he first became president, inflation was only 1.4 percent.
Biden spoke at the White House about the January jobs report when he took questions from reporters. One journalist asked, "Do you take any blame for inflation, Mr. President?"
"Do I take any blame for inflation? No," the president replied.
The reporter asked, "Why not?"
"Because it was already there when I got here, man. Remember what the economy was like when I got here? Jobs were hemorrhaging, inflation was rising. We weren’t manufacturing a damn thing here. We were in real economic difficulty. That’s why I don’t. Thank you," Biden answered, then left the podium with reporters continuing to shout questions at him.
President Joe Biden refused to take blame for inflation rising from 1.4% when he took office to a 40-year high of 9.1% last year. (Photo by ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP via Getty Images)
Twitter users slammed Biden's inflation response.
"If legacy media were not populated overwhelmingly by leftists, they’d explode over a lie told this brazenly. Inflation was at 1.4% annually until Joe Biden wanted his name on a stimulus package the country didn’t need," Duane Patterson, who works on Hugh Hewitt's show, tweeted.
Reason associate editor Liz Wolfe said, "I'm sure all the mainstream media fact-checkers will HOP RIGHT TO IT, but let's be clear: Inflation was at 1.4% in January 2021 when Biden took office."
Heritage Foundation communications official John Cooper also noted, "Inflation was 1.4% when Biden took office. It's still 5x higher than that now."
"Nope. It was not there and started after the passage of the unnecessary American Rescue Plan, which was passed solely by Democrats in early 2021," Townhall editor Katie Pavlich tweeted.
"President @JoeBiden says he bears no responsibility for #inflation, despite signing off on massive spending in budget years 2021 and 2022. He is either lying or really dumb abt the causes of inflation," Reason's Nick Gillespie said.
President Biden walks past reporters outside White House (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
"So Biden is unabashedly taking credit for the current job market (where he benefits from taking over at end of COVID restrictions), but absolutely not taking any blame for the ongoing inflation crisis, while lying about what the situation was when he took over… Seems legit…" conservative journalist John Ziegler said with an angry emoji.
"Biden just said that he takes no responsibility for the inflation our nation is facing. He's dead wrong and he knows it," Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., tweeted.
Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., tweeted, "Biden says he takes zero blame for America’s inflation crisis. Maybe his memory really is as bad as some people claim."
Jason Rantz, a talk radio host on KTTH AM770, slammed the president as "a pathological liar."
93.7 The Fan host Paul Zeise argued, "This guy doesn't live in reality and is delusional and just doesn't care about it."
WASHINGTON, DC - SEPTEMBER 13: U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris gives remarks, alongside U.S President Joe Biden, at an event celebrating the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act on the South Lawn of the White House on September 13, 2022 in Washington, DC. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
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According to a Fox News poll conducted between January 27-30, 80 percent of Americans say the economy is in fair or poor condition, while only 20 percent say it is in good or excellent. The same poll showed that even a majority of Democrats are dissatisfied with the direction of the country.
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