White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt is acknowledging that the United States is facing an affordability crisis, something President Donald Trump has denied – but she is blaming it on Joe Biden and the Democrats.
Leavitt appeared on Fox News and was asked about the upcoming midterm elections. She insisted that the affordability crisis was caused by the Democrats, and that if Americans want the problem fixed they have to give control of Congress to the Republicans for two more years.
“I would remind the American people of who caused the affordability crisis in this country. It was Biden and Democrats. President Trump took immediate action on day one to fix that,” she said. “All these things will only get better if given two more years with a Republican Congress.”
Her comments represent a change of focus from the president, who has repeatedly insisted that “affordability” is a word made up by the Democrats as part of a hoax.
In early December, Trump insisted that the price of “just about everything is down.”
“They use the word affordability — it’s a Democrat hoax. They’re the ones who drove the prices up,” he said at the time. “I think affordability is the greatest con job. They look at you and they say affordability. They don’t say anything else.”
Trump told a crowd in Georgia earlier this month that affordability was a word “made up” by the Democrats.
“They used the word — first time I heard it. It was a word, you know, made up by the Democrats. Affordability,” Trump said on Wednesday.
While it’s true that prices are down for some items — egg prices are down after they spiked due to a bird flu outbreak, for example — prices remain high across much of the rest of the economy.
Oil and gas prices are through the roof right now thanks in part because of Trump’s war in Iran.
Back in March, Trump promised the nation that gas prices would come “tumbling down” once the war in Iran was finished. Oil prices have been on the rise since then, and despite Trump’s insistence on multiple occasions that the fighting was either over or near over, the war rages on with no end in sight.
On June 30, Trump demanded that gas retailers lower their prices “IMMEDIATELY” to $2.50 per gallon. However, the national average for U.S. gas prices on Sunday was $4.11 per gallon.
The Consumer Price Index came down a point in June, from .05 percent in May to .04 percent in June. However, those numbers were based in part on news of a U.S. ceasefire with Iran.
High prices could prove tough for Republicans heading into the midterms. A Reuters/Ipsos poll from early June found that nearly half the country — 49 percent — said concerns over cost of living would be their number one issue if the midterms were held today.
Despite all of his arguments insisting that things are fine Trump did actually acknowledge during his Georgia speech that Americans were struggling financially under his leadership, and encouraged them to hold out just a little longer.
“I just want you to remember that if you’re paying a little bit more, a lot of it’s come down now. We got it coming down very rapidly, actually,” the president said.
