Harris Surrogate, Commerce Sec’y: Biden Inherited ‘Sky-High Inflation’ of 1.4%

On Monday’s broadcast of CNBC’s “Squawk Box,” Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo — who was appearing in her personal capacity as a surrogate for the Harris campaign – claimed that when President Joe Biden took office, we had “sky-high inflation.”

After Raimondo said we know what the Trump presidency led to, and cited “massive deficits” under Trump, co-host Joe Kernen cut in to say that tariffs Trump put in were kept by President Joe Biden, there wasn’t a recession, real wages rose, the stock market performed well, unemployment hit record lows until the pandemic and we’ve also seen the results of Harris as Vice President.

Raimondo responded, “Right. What have you seen? You’ve seen more manufacturing in this country since any time since World War II.”

Kernen cut in to say, “You’ve seen an open border, I’ve seen real wages go down, I’ve seen crime –.”

Raimondo cut in to state, “That’s not true.”

After Kernen said that real weekly wages and average weekly wages have fallen, Raimondo stated, “When Biden came into office, we saw sky-high unemployment, sky-high unemployment, sky-high inflation.”

Kernen cut in to say that unemployment was low before the pandemic, and then he and co-host Andrew Ross Sorkin got into a back-and-forth over how fair it is to factor in the pandemic in the economic performances of the Trump and Biden administrations.

After that, Raimondo stated, “I would just say, four years ago, we were saying, could there be a soft landing? It’s been a featherbed landing. Inflation’s on its way down. Manufacturing is up. By the way, deficits exploded under Trump, and now –.”

After Kernen cut in to state that manufacturing has been flat for the last two years, Raimondo responded, “There is more new manufacturing construction in this country now than in any time since World War II. It’s a fact. Manufacturing jobs are on the rise, wages are on the rise, prices are coming down, deficits are high, but headed in the right direction, and tariffs will hurt this economy, hurt working people, raise prices, and I worry, tip us into a recession.”

The CPI inflation rate in January 2021 was 1.4%.

Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett

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