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Former President Trump’s son is pushing back on President Biden after the Democrat brushed off concerns about the economy and claimed he inherited 9% inflation when he took office.
“What a clown,” Eric Trump wrote on X, sharing a report of Biden’s remarks.
Biden’s factually incorrect claim came during a rare interview with CNN’s Erin Burnett on Wednesday evening, when he was asked about low consumer confidence about the economy, including housing costs going up, real income adjusted for inflation going down, and weak economic growth since Biden took office.
“No president has had the run we’ve had in terms of creating jobs and bringing down inflation. It was 9% when I came to office — 9%,” the 81-year-old president said on Wednesday, when inflation was just 1.4% when he came into office in January 2021. It grew to 9.1% in June 2022, 17 months later.
President Biden claimed he inherited 9% inflation when he took office in January 2021, when it was actually 1.4%. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
A White House spokesperson later told Fox News on Thursday that President Biden did not mislead Americans with his comments and in their view, the coronavirus pandemic started inflation that was already in process with Biden took office in January 2021.
Biden, a White House official says, was emphasizing the point that factors that caused inflation were in place when Biden was sworn in.
During Wednesday night’s interview, Biden also dismissed polls showing voters disapprove of his handling of the economy and said these voters trust Trump more on the issue, claiming the polling was erroneous.
Biden also presented an idyllic view of the economy not shared by those polled.
When asked by Burnett about the current inflation and the extra costs for groceries that Americans have been forced to pay under his leadership, Biden insisted: “We’ve already turned it around.”
“When I started this administration, people were saying there’s gonna be a collapse in the economy. We have the strongest economy in the world. Let me say that again, in the world,” he added.
The president then claimed Americans were “personally in good shape” economically.
A Gallup poll on the housing market, published on Thursday morning, suggests Biden was wrong about that, too.
Eric Trump called President Biden a “clown” after the remark aired Wednesday evening. (Curtis Means-Pool/Getty Images)
Americans expect home prices to rise and most see the current housing market as poor. According to the poll, 68% predict higher prices are still to come while 76% say it is a bad time to buy a house.
During the interview, Burnett pushed back and cited CNN polling data. In response, Biden wrote off the whole network.
“The polling data has been wrong all along. You guys do a poll at CNN, how many folks do you have to call to get one response?” he asked. “The idea that we’re in a situation where things are so bad.”
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He later conceded that inflation is “really worrisome to people,” but again touted his administration’s record on the economy.
Eric Trump is not the only one hitting back on Biden, as former Obama adviser and CNN political analyst David Axelrod also lambasted Biden’s defiant stance on the economy.
Eric Trump is not the only one hitting back on Biden, as former Obama adviser and CNN political analyst David Axelrod also lambasted him. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)
On Wednesday, Axelrod called it a “terrible mistake” and said it could cost him the upcoming election.
“It is absolutely true. The world was plunged into an economic crisis and America was plunged into an economic crisis by the pandemic and we’ve come back faster than almost any other country and he’s right about that. But that’s not the way people are experiencing the economy,” Axelrod told Burnett.
“They’re experiencing it through the lens of the cost of living. And he is a man who’s built his career on empathy. Why not lead with the empathy?” he asked. Axelrod continued, “And I think he’s making a terrible mistake… If he doesn’t win this race, it may not be Donald Trump that beats him. It may be his own pride.”
Fox News’ Joseph A. Wulfsohn and Alexander Hall contributed to this report.
