A CNN guest said Monday that struggling Americans feel a “disconnect” with President Joe Biden over high inflation and the current economic state.
Tia Mitchell, the Washington correspondent at The Atlantic Journal Constitution, said struggling Americans are not resonating with the White House’s message that the administration has mitigated inflation.
“I think what the Biden administration is challenged by, in addition to what Phil [Mattingly] just laid out is that what people are feeling at home is different than the message they’re portraying and they understand that there’s a conflict there,” Mitchell said. “They do have a record, they do have accomplishments, but they also know that people at home still think gas is too high. It might be lower than what it was a year ago, but they still say there’s pain at the pump. The same thing at the grocery store, with prices, with the price of goods, their rent going up.”
“All these things people say they don’t think they’re in a great financial position so it’s hard for them to receive a message from the president saying, ‘hey, you guys are doing better, look what I’ve done,'” she continued. “It’s just, I think there’s a disconnect there that, quite frankly, there’s no easy answer for how the White House deals with that disconnect because they kind of don’t really have a way to fix it.”
Gas prices and inflation soared under the Biden administration, leading the president to tap the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) in an attempt to relieve prices at the pump in 2022. Prices have eased since the previous year but still stand at an average of $3.57, according to AAA. (RELATED: ‘I Just Can’t Get Over This Number’: CNN Host Shocked At Poll Showing Biden Cratering Among Key Demographic)
After Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the price of crude oil exceeded $100 per barrel for the first time since 2014. The Biden administration continuously branded the rise in gas prices as “Putin’s Price Hike,” drawing criticism from Republicans who pointed out how gas prices were already on the rise before Russia’s invasion.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre has repeatedly claimed Biden has handled inflation well and has successfully brought prices down. She accused Republicans of attempting to worsen inflation by repealing the Inflation Reduction Act and the CHIPS Act.
The president currently holds a 54% disapproval rating and 41% approval rating as of Saturday, according to polling averages obtained by FiveThirtyEight.