CNN commentator Catherine Rampell called President Joe Biden’s “populist” economic messaging “silly” Friday.
Biden has recently begun accusing companies of corporate greed by blaming them for “shrinkflation,” or the lowering of product sizes to reduce expenses. Rampell said the president should stop promoting that economic message and instead criticize former President Donald Trump for an inflationary policy agenda.
“I think a lot of the stuff in Biden’s economic messaging is a little bit silly,” Rampell said. “The anti-shrinkflation bill that he endorsed, for example. Shrinkflation is maybe more salient today but it’s actually not more common today than it was a few years ago. Things like that. These are sort of populist talking points that he is hoping will demonstrate to the American public that the Biden administration is fighting for their pocketbooks.”
Companies have been resorting to shrinking product sizes as a response to inflationary conditions aggravated by the Biden administration’s policies, experts told the Daily Caller News Foundation. The president has made multiple statements suggesting companies are trying to profit more from people under economic stress.
Rampell suggested that Biden point the finger at Trump, who she admitted had a “much better” economy “in many respects.” (RELATED: ‘Ruth Bader Biden’: Bill Maher Calls Biden ‘Selfish’ For Running For President)
“That said, I think where actually Biden and Democrats have a lot more material to work with is by talking about the Trump economic agenda. Because Trump, as much as people remember his economy as being much better — and in many respects it was, whether due to him or not — Trump would implement a lot of policy proposals that would make inflation worse,” Rambell said.
“Right? He wants to have global tariffs of 10%. Those tariffs, we know, have been passed along to consumers in the past. The same thing would happen, uh, under a Trump administration,” Rambell said. “That means higher prices for regular people.”
Rambell continued her criticism of the former president, claiming that Trump wants to “shut down” legal immigration. The Washington Post columnist encouraged Biden “to make a strong argument” bashing Trump, reiterating her advice for the president to abandon “shrinkflation” talking points.
“So if Biden really wants to make a strong argument about why he is better for the economy beyond talking about these sort of silly, frivolous policies that maybe won’t do very much but sounds nice that he is proposing, he could draw attention to the things that would be actually damaging to the metrics, inflation, paycheck growth, et cetera that Americans say they care about,” Rambell concluded.