![Roberts and Smith took turns pressing Bernstein. [Screenshot/Rumble/Fox News]](https://images.dailycaller.com/image/width=960,height=411,fit=cover,f=auto/https://cdn01.dailycaller.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/IMG_7918-e1717789731929.jpeg "Roberts and Smith took turns pressing Bernstein. [Screenshot/Rumble/Fox News]")
Fox News anchors John Roberts and Sandra Smith took turns pressing the Biden administration’s chief economic adviser Jared Bernstein on inflation.
Biden told Yahoo Finance on May 14 that inflation “was at 9%” when he took office, a false claim he has repeated as recently as May 8 and April 10. Smith and Roberts jumped on Bernstein for his defense of the Democratic president’s remarks, asking why Biden continuously repeats a claim that is “just not” true.
“The president continues to claim that it’s down from when he took office, and it’s just not. I mean, the Washington Post gave that four pinocchios. It was actually up 1.4% when Biden took office, so why do we see this administration continue to make those claims when really, inflation is still almost double what it was when he took office?” Smith asked Bernstein.
“Well, certainly the president knows the numbers you just said. What he was talking about there was, yes, when he got here, inflation was as you said, uh, but at the end of that year by the way, it was, it was about seven percent headed for nine percent. And so what he was talking about there is that the forces were clearly in place,” Bernstein said.
Bernstein said that inflation under Biden was “pandemic-era inflation,” saying that “every G7 country” had comparable amounts of inflation. Bernstein added that it is “unequivocally true” that inflation “is down” from its peak of 9.1%, which he refrained to say shot up in 2022 under Biden. The customer price index (CPI) measured inflation at 3.4% as of April 2024. (RELATED: ‘This Is A Blatant Lie’: Fox News Anchor Hits Back With Receipts In Feud With Biden Camp)
“Jared, let me just come back at you with that again because I’d like to try to be as accurate as possible whenever possible,” Roberts chimed in. “The president said, ‘I think inflation has gone slightly up, which was at 9% when I came in.’ Is that a factual statement?”
“You cited the inflation numbers in January of, uh, of 2021,” Bernstein told Roberts. “The president knows that number, I know that number, you know that number —”
“Then why did he say it was 9% when he came in?” Roberts interjected.
“Because, because he was talking about the fact —” Bernstein stuttered.
“‘’When I came in,’ that would be January 20, 2021,” Roberts said.
“Well, look, I don’t think it’s pretty helpful of us to continue to bandy this about. I’m telling you what the president meant. I’m also telling you that the numbers you cited are ones that we’re all very well aware of. I think the important point there is that the forces, the pandemic-induced forces that pushed inflation up to 9% were very much in place when this president got here.”
Inflation sat at 1.4% in January, 2021 the month Biden took office, according to CPI data.
