Fox News White House correspondent Peter Doocy pressed White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre on President Joe Biden’s claims about inflation.
Doocy asked the press secretary why the president claims inflation is worse everywhere else around the globe than in the U.S.
“First of all, inflation is a global challenge as we have said,” Jean-Pierre began. “It is caused by, clearly, the pandemic, this once-in-a-generation pandemic that we are coming out of, and also, most recently, the war that Putin started in Ukraine that has caused inflation as we look at food and as we look at gas prices. So, if you look at globally other countries, and if you look at where we are economically, when you think about the G-7, we are in a much stronger place [economically] than the rest.”
“I did look globally, though,” Doocy interjected. “He says that inflation is worse everywhere but here. That’s not true. U.S. has worse inflation than Germany, France, Japan, Canada, India, Italy, Saudi Arabia. So, why is he saying that?”
Jean-Pierre repeated that inflation is a global issue and does not solely impact the U.S. (RELATED: Karine Jean-Pierre Appeared To Dodge When Peter Doocy Asked About How Raising Corporate Taxes Lowers Inflation)
Doocy then asked why the president is not urging oil and gas companies to drill more oil domestically, given that he threatened to take action against seven major U.S. companies if they do not refine more oil and ramp up production in a Wednesday letter.
“Due to decreased demand at the start of the pandemic, U.S. oil refineries reduced their capacity by more than 800,000 barrels per day,” she replied. “Now that consumer demand has returned thanks to the president’s recovery plan, oil refineries have still not brought refinery capacity back to the pre-pandemic levels. That is the problem and that’s what we’re trying to address.”
She also pointed to the president tapping the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) to release 60 million barrels of crude oil after prices skyrocketed in March and added that the U.S. is at its highest levels of domestic production, but argued that not enough crude oil is being refined.
“Why not drill more here in the U.S., though?” Doocy asked.
“Because we don’t need to do that. What we need them to do with the oil that’s out there, we need them to refine that oil so that the capacity can go up and then prices would go down,” Jean-Pierre said.
The Fox News correspondent then asked if the president still intends to end the use of fossil fuels and shift to green energy.
“We are going to continue to move forward with our clean energy proposal, our climate change proposal,” she said.
“Is that a priority? Climate change over gas prices?” Doocy continued.
“No, that’s not what we’re saying,” she said.
“Is his priority lowering gas prices or is it addressing climate change?” he pressed.
Jean-Pierre answered that both issues can be dealt with at once and that the White House is seeking to “lower costs for American families.” She said oil companies are using the war in Ukraine to make profit though they can lower costs by refining crude oil.
“He’s released 10 million barrels, how much has that lowered prices?” Doocy asked. Jean-Pierre replied that prices would be higher if Biden has not taken the actions he has taken.