Biden White House plays the 'blame game' on inflation and gas prices: Panel
The 'All Star Panel' reacts to the Biden White House referring to inflation and surging gas prices as 'Putin's price hike' on 'Special Report.'
This is a rush transcript from "Special Report," March 11, 2022. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE BIDEN, (D) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Each of our nations is going to steps to deny most favored nation status to Russia. We're also taking the further step of banning imports of goods from several signature sectors of the Russian economy, including seafoods, vodka, and diamonds. And we're going to continue to squeeze Putin.
Direct confrontation between NATO and Russia is World War III, something we must strive to prevent.
KAMALA HARRIS, (D) VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: From everything that we know and have witnessed, Putin shows no sign of engaging in serious diplomacy.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BAIER: Well, the situation in Ukraine continues day to day as the Ukrainians battle back. But here in the U.S., the battle is on the gas pump and what you are seeing as you pay for gas. If you look at the national average of gas prices, $4.33 now, and you can see one week ago, one year ago, big changes.
Let's bring in our panel Byron York, chief political correspondent of "The Washington Examiner," Josh Kraushaar is politics editor for "National Journal," and Jeff Mason, White House correspondent for Reuters.
Jeff, pretty interesting to listen to the president. It was a political event, but saying, hey, it's not my fault about inflation. This is Putin's deal. Is that selling, do you think?
JEFF MASON, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, "REUTERS": Well, that's the event in Philadelphia this afternoon, not the clip that you just played at the White House. But I don't know if it's selling across the country, but it's certainly the argument he wanted to make in a room full of Democrats who are eyeing challenges coming up in November in a country where inflation is so high, as you mentioned, and where people are upset about that.
Whether or not the hashtag "Putin price hike" is going to take off I think is another question, but certainly the White House wants to emphasize that he at least gets part of the blame. He doesn't get all of the blame, and Republicans are rightly pointing that out. Gas prices were going up before this. But the White House wants to make sure Americans also know that they have gone up 75 cents since Putin put troops on the border of Ukraine.
BAIER: Yes. Let's take a listen to at least a piece of that from the Philadelphia event, the gas price blame game.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
NANCY PELOSI, (D-CA) HOUSE SPEAKER: Putin's gas hike, that's his gas hike.
JOE BIDEN, (D) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The Republicans are playing a game here. They are talking about the Democrats having raised prices.
SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL, (R-KY) SENATE MINORITY LEADER: The Biden administration has tried to invent some laugh-out-loud, laugh-out-loud revisionist history. Washington Democrats war on domestic energy, long, long predates Putin's war on Ukraine.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BAIER: Josh, what about this? Where does it play?
JOSH KRAUSHAAR, "NATIONAL JOURNAL": Look, it's a clever bit of political misdirection from the Democratic Party who are really feeling the heat on rising gas prices even before Putin's invasion and think that this is a good way to redirect that anger. I think it's a good short-term strategy, but the problem is that the larger polling continues to show Democrats are getting blamed for the larger inflationary problem. So I think the public still is blaming the party in power, and it's not going to be easy to redirect it that successfully.
And I think there's a larger problem, too, on energy, where Democrats, at that conference in Philadelphia, they were talking about how they need to talk to normal people, talk to the average American. And when you have the transportation secretary, when you have the president talking about buying electric cars, going green, people don't have the money to -- the average American doesn't have the money to go green and to do a lot of the things that the environmental activists want them to do. So there is a real risk that they could also sound condescending on the energy issue by trying to get people to be more energy efficient in their purchases.
BAIER: President also at that Philadelphia event fiery about inflation. Another soundbite here.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE BIDEN, (D) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We're on track right now, on track to be the first president in history to lower the deficit by over $1 trillion in one year.
(APPLAUSE)
BIDEN: So I'm sick of this stuff. We have to talk about it, because the American people think the reason for inflation is government spending more money. Simply not true.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BAIER: Byron?
BYRON YORK, CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT, "THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER": I just don't think it's going to work. The whole Putin's price hike thing is not going to work, because it conflicts with people's everyday experience. First of all, anybody who has been to the grocery store or tried to buy a car knows that inflation is not just the price of gas.
They also remember just last year inflation had hit about five percent by May of last year. People were very concerned about it. The White House was saying it was transitory. It was a major concern then. And it's even more so now. A new "Wall Street Journal" poll just came out today asked Americans what issue would you like it see the Congress and the president make a top priority? And the number of people who said the war in Ukraine was 25 percent. The number of people who said inflation was 50 percent.
So, one, it's a very, very big deal, and two, people's experience tells them what the president is saying doesn't quite add up.
BAIER: Jeff, we don't know how long this is going to last. Clearly, this is having a devastating effect on the Russian economy. "The New York Times" writes it this way, "Facing economic calamity Putin talks of nationalizing western businesses. Of particular concern are western companies that once symbolized post-Soviet Russia's integration into the world economy, like McDonald's, Ikea. Mr. Putin told officials in the televised meetings that the assets of such companies should be put under external management and then transferred to those who want to work." It sounds like big changes may be on the way in Russia.
MASON: Oh, absolutely. I think it reflects the effectiveness of the sanctions by the U.S. and by Europe against Russia and the impact that it's having on the economy. The ruble, of course, dropping over 50 percent. So it's hurting them a lot.
But the question of whether the president of Russia and Russia takes over some of these U.S. companies and other companies that are there, their assets anyway, will raise hackles for sure among these institutions that have spent the last 30 years integrating parts of the economy and investing there.
So the White House was asked about this a couple days ago, and Jen Psaki, the spokesperson said, that she didn't have a specific answer for what the White House would do, but she said that they would have a response.
BAIER: Tough to imagine those companies going back under this current environment.
MASON: Absolutely.
BAIER: Tough to imagine that. Panel, thanks so much.
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