During Thursday’s press briefing, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki was questioned by Fox News White House Correspondent Peter Doocy on her repeated claims over the last year that inflation was “transitory” or temporary” and her current insistence that the record high inflation was a result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Doocy pointed out that Psaki had said earlier that day that economists were predicting inflation would subside later this year and then he noted that the Biden administration had been claiming that inflation would be “temporary” since last spring – only for it to continue to rise to record levels in the following months.
“We just heard you say….you think inflation is going to be temporary. We’ve heard you say [that] since last spring, so how long do you guys think temporary is?” Doocy asked.
“Well, again, Peter, I think what we do is we rely on the assessments of the Federal Reserve and of outside economic analysts who give an assessment of how long they think it will last,” Psaki replied. “The expectations and their assessment at this point continues to be that it will moderate by the end of the year. There is also no question that when a foreign dictator invades a foreign country and when that foreign dictator is the head of a country that is the third largest supplier of oil in the world, that that is going to have an impact, and it is.”
DOOCY TIME: "We just heard you say….you think inflation is going to be temporary. We've heard you say [that] since last spring, so how long do you guys think temporary is?
Psaki: "Well…what we do is…rely on the assessments of the [Fed] and of outside economic analysts[.]" pic.twitter.com/UUCSmDBOzT
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) March 10, 2022
Doocy then addressed the Biden administration’s attempts to blame inflation and rising gas prices on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine by branding it the “Putin Price Hike.”
“And so to that point, inflation goes up today. The President’s statement blames the ‘Putin Price Hike.’ Are you guys just going to start blaming Putin for everything until the midterms?” Doocy asked.
“Well, we’ve seen the price of gas go up at least $.75 since President Putin lined up troops on the border of Ukraine,” Psaki replied.
Doocy ????????: "inflation goes up today. The President's statement blames the #PutinPriceHike. Are you guys going to just start blaming Putin for everything until the midterms?"
Psaki: "Well, we've seen the price of gas go up at least $.75 since…Putin lined up troops[.]" pic.twitter.com/WcmfcQDSWL
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) March 10, 2022
Gas prices reached an all time high this week continuing a long trend upwards that began during President Biden’s first month in office. Gas prices increased from $2.42 per gallon in January 2021 to $3.41 per gallon in January 2022 – a month before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
