Tapper Confronts Biden Official on President’s Inflation Gaslighting

On Wednesday afternoon’s The Lead on CNN, anchor Jake Tapper had a random act of journalism when interviewing Cecilia Rouse the chairwoman of the Council of Economic Advisers on the topic of the astronomical inflation numbers that the Biden administration has unleashed on American consumers over the past year and a half he’s been in office. 

Tapper, like most Americans, is fed up with the Biden administration’s excuses every month when the new inflation numbers come out and he called Rouse and her colleagues in the administration out.

“I just feel like every month one of you nice people from the White House comes on this show to talk about inflation, and you talk about these tools in the President’s tool kit and you don’t use them. You don’t use these tools” Tapper said. “you know, there’s debating and discussing going on, and meanwhile, prices are still going up” he added. 

After Rouse continued to give excuses for why inflation continues to reach new highs each month Biden has been in office, Tapper interjected: “He’s the Democratic President and the congress is controlled by Democrats. So it’s not as though you guys don’t have each other’s phone numbers.” 

He then called Biden out for being either overly optimistic or just plain naive last December when he insisted that we saw the inflation peak in December of 2021. “CNN’s Kaitlin Collins asked President Biden about inflation on December 10. It’s July now. On December 10, and President Biden told her then that he thought December 10 was the peak of the crisis” Tapper noted. 

After playing a clip from December 10, 2021, Tapper came back and said “it just seems clear that the Biden administration has misjudged how bad inflation was going to get, for months and months and months.” 

To read the relevant transcript of this segment click “expand”:  

CNN’s The Lead
July 13, 2022
4:12:40 p.m. Eastern 

JAKE TAPPER: I just feel like every month one of you nice people from the White House comes on this show to talk about inflation, and you talk about these tools in the President’s tool kit and you don’t use them. You don’t use these tools. And you know, there’s debating and discussing going on, and meanwhile, prices are still going up.

(…)

4:14:10 p.m. Eastern

TAPPER: He’s the Democratic President and the congress is controlled by Democrats. So it’s not as though you guys don’t have each other’s phone numbers. Listen, CNN’s Kaitlin Collins asked President Biden about inflation on December 10. It’s July now. On December 10, and President Biden told her then that he thought December 10 was the peak of the crisis. Take a listen. 

JOE BIDEN: And I think you’ll see a change sooner, quicker, more rapidly than it will take than most people think. Every other aspect of the economy is racing ahead. It’s doing incredibly well. 

TAPPER: Obviously, the war in Ukraine has happened since then. Which is partially to blame for higher gas prices, although Putin’s forces were on the border right then. But it just seems clear that the Biden administration has misjudged how bad inflation was going to get, for months and months and months.