When even one of CNN's most reliably CNN-ish on-air apparatchiks is admitting that President Joe Biden "risked p***ing off" voters with his tone on the economy during a softball interview with CNN, you know it's really bad.
And it was -- so bad, in fact, that during the short one-on-one with CNN's Erin Burnett which aired Wednesday, Biden told almost a lie a minute by the count of the New York Post. (They counted 15 in an interview that lasted just under 17 minutes.)
He lied about the jobs he's "created." He misled voters on cutting the deficit. He lied about how much billionaires are being taxed. He lied about former President Donald Trump's position on Medicare.
But, most importantly, he lied about having "already turned [the economy] around" and that "the polling data has been wrong."
CNN: "Voters, by a wide margin, trust Trump more on the economy ... are you worried that you're running out of time to turn [the economy] around?"
BIDEN: "We've already turned it around! ... The polling data has been wrong!" 🤔 pic.twitter.com/kM6aBqgAyf
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) May 8, 2024
Even CNN's John King -- not some covert Republican or former Trump administration official brought on to give the false appearance of balance but one of CNN's most CNN-iest CNNers, and currently the network's chief national correspondent -- ripped into Biden even before the interview aired when the clip about having "already turned it around" was shown as a teaser by the network.
When anchor Jake Tapper asked King about his "reaction to President Biden's economic pitch there," King claimed that Biden was "right on the numbers about the economic turnaround, but he is on very dangerous ground."
"I would say he risks offending, forgive my language, I would say he risked p***ing off some of the voters I've talked to in my travels over the last six or seven months because they don't feel it," King said.
"And so when he said at the top of that, 'we have turned it around,' and he said in the middle of that, 'the polls are wrong,' --
trust me from my travels, we have a vote, a group in Milwaukee just north of where the president was today. And when we visited, then there used to be a lot of factories in their neighborhood. Those factories are gone," King said.
Those voters in the swing state of Wisconsin, King said, "talk a lot about the cost of living and the cost of groceries."
"Just last week, I was in Michigan talking to auto workers, auto workers who are prepared to vote for President Biden," King continued.
"They believe he's the most pro-union president. But even they seem beleaguered when they talk about the cost of groceries and how hard it is, and they can't move out of their house because they want to upgrade, but they can't afford a newer house, a bigger house right now because of mortgage rates.
"So the statistics back up the president's argument that economy is much better and is growing and is strong, the strongest in the world. He is correct. However, voters don't feel that way, and voters don't like being told they're wrong."
Well, at least King ran damage control for an administration that continues to labor under the misapprehension that everything's going peachy keen, to use the vernacular of President Biden's time. He's very right about the fact, however, that people aren't feeling this -- because it simply isn't happening.
There are underwhelming GDP numbers and jobs reports. Biden tries to cover himself by claiming he "created" 15 million jobs \-- which is basically his attempt to take credit for the jobs "created" by various locales lifting COVID-era lockdown restrictions. This is a bit like saying you've improved someone's respiratory health by ceasing to continue strangling them -- and doubly so when you consider which party was responsible for the worst of the COVID-era economic damage.
In fact, the employment rate under Trump was higher before it was tanked by COVID and the raw numbers of full-time jobs in America are nearly identical -- which is a loss for Biden considering that number should always be going up with an even marginally healthy economy, what with population increases and such.
Then there's inflation, which Biden claimed was "9 percent when I came into office." The highest it ever was under the Trump administration was 2.9 percent -- although thanks to President Biden's policies, it soon reached those "Welcome Back Carter" levels by 2022.
Those price increases are now baked into what Americans are paying for pretty much everything, and even still the year-over-year inflation rate is above the Federal Reserve's target rate. Furthermore, wage increases have only recently caught up to the inflation rate, meaning that purchasing power is still well below what it was when the 46th president took office.
So, yes, like King, I would say that Biden "risked p***ing off some of the voters" that'll be casting ballots in this November's election. You know, the ones that have been paying attention to what's actually been going on in America, not what they're being told by the White House and its enablers in the media.
