Joe Biden repeated a whopper about inflation on Tuesday during an interview with Yahoo Finance, stating that the economic measure was “at nine percent when I came in, and now it’s down around three percent.”
Just a week prior, the president told CNN’s Erin Burnett that “it was nine percent when I came to office, nine percent” when asked about the ongoing inflation crisis crushing the middle class. Biden seems to have settled on telling this lie over and over for one reason or another, of which some of the possibilities I’ll explore.
READ: Biden Interview With Erin Burnett Is Hilarious Exercise in Childish Denial and Straight-Up Lying
Joe Biden has now twice in one week claimed that inflation was at 9% when he took office.
It’s a particularly hilarious lie because inflation was 1.4% when he took office and hit a HIGH OF 9.1% in June 2022.
That was the largest increase over 12 months since 1981. pic.twitter.com/TnVMVduDQw
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) May 14, 2024
Getting the fact-checking out the way, it is not even close to true that inflation was at nine percent when Biden took office. On the contrary, it was only at 1.4 percent. Even before the pandemic, it was well within the normal federal reserve range of two percent. Inflation only began to spike in the months after the current president took office, with his signing of the American Rescue Plan, another two trillion boondoggle, injecting yet more deficit-financed cash into an already overheated economy.
Inflation didn’t reach nine percent until the summer of 2022, over a year and a half after Biden was sworn in. It’s hard to think of a more blatant lie, but I’m sure if we give the president time, he’ll come up with something.
The claim that inflation is “down around three percent today” could be true depending on how much of a round down you want to give Biden. Technically, inflation in March of 2024 (the last report as of this writing) was at 3.5 percent, and all signs suggest we are going to see another spike when the April 2024 report comes out.
BREAKING: April PPI inflation RISES to 2.2%, in-line with expectations of 2.2%.
Core PPI inflation was 2.4%, in-line with expectations of 2.4%.
PPI inflation is now up for 3 straight months for the first time since April 2022.
Yet another sign the Fed can’t cut rates.
— The Kobeissi Letter (@KobeissiLetter) May 14, 2024
So why has Biden told such an easily disproven lie in the last two press interviews he’s done? Assuming that he’s senile is always a safe bet. Perhaps he really didn’t remember when he became president, and these were just two honest mistakes. Does he deserve the benefit of the doubt, though? I’d say not.
I’m much more inclined to believe Biden knows he’s lying and that he feels he’s got to change the narrative, given he’s currently losing to Donald Trump.
READ: Biden Campaign Desperation Sets in, Now Saying the Polls Are Fake
It’s hard to ignore that the president has been a prolific liar for his entire political career (and I’m sure before that as well). This is a guy who had to drop out of a presidential race for plagiarism and telling falsehoods about his college days. He can’t give a speech without making some misleading or outright false statement. Would anyone doubt that these latest lies are calculated to help his political prospects?
Unfortunately for him, as I noted, this lie is just too easily disproven. Even the mainstream media fact-checkers have gotten in on the act, with both Factcheck.org and CNN putting out “false” ratings of Biden’s inflation fib. If he’s going to lie, he needs to get a lot better at it.
