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Former Obama deputy campaign manager Stephanie Cutter on Sunday said that record inflation under President Biden will be a “big metric” influencing the midterm elections, but ignored multiple crises facing Americans while defending Biden’s “leadership,” saying he was moving the United States “forward.”
Cutter was listing Biden’s accomplishments during an appearance on ABC News’ “This Week” when she claimed the U.S. had progressed under Biden “by any metric, with the exception of inflation.”
“You know, the president has put forward an agenda to deal with inflation,” she said. “We saw how quickly he worked on the infant formula crisis. He’s handling Ukraine, pulling the world together and rebuilding alliances against authoritarian governments like Putin. You know, by any metric, with the exception of inflation, this country has moved forward under his leadership.”
President Biden walks to Marine One prior to departing from the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, DC, on May 11, 2022, as he travels to Illinois. (Photo by SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images) (SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images)
“But gas prices and inflation, that’s a big metric,” anchor Martha Raddatz interjected. “People care about that.”
“It is a big metric, absolutely,” Cutter conceded. “And you know, I think the key now for Democrats, over the [next] six months or so of this election, we have to see whether or not the candidates and campaigns matter – I think that they do.”
Cutter visibly ignored some of the other major crises that Americans have faced in recent months as a result of inaction from the Biden administration, including the rise of violent crimes in major U.S. cities and the ongoing border crisis on the U.S.-Mexico border. Fox News Digital reported on an analysis last month that estimated the number of illegal immigrants living in the United States increased by approximately a million in the first year of the Biden administration.
The Democratic consultant also ignored the botched Afghanistan withdrawal last summer.
Cutter’s comments about Biden’s “leadership” come a few days after Biden’s Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm denied that high gas prices are a result of Biden’s policies, specifically canceling the Keystone pipeline and issuing a “60-day halt on all new oil and gas leases on federal lands and waters.” Late last year, Granholm also laughed off a question about people expressing concerns about gas prices rising.
“And you see, House Democrats, who are probably more vulnerable to the president’s approval rating, really trying to put an agenda forward, get things done, and highlight the difference with Republicans, who are really not just standing in the way, but banning books, and they want to ban abortion, and they want to roll back constitutional rights. They want to raise taxes on the middle class,” Cutter continued. “All of these things drive a very sharp contrast in terms of which direction the country is gonna go in. And if Democrats can make that contrast stick over the next six months, it will matter.”
U.S. President Joe Biden speaks in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Wednesday, May 4, 2022. (Photographer: Ting Shen/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
“I’m not sugarcoating where Democrats are,” she added. “This is, you know, there are historical headwinds against them, and there are also inflation metrics that, you know, unfortunately, governments can do very little about. But if there is anything to do, this President is focused on it.”
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Cutter’s comments come after the Labor Department revealed this month that the consumer price index, a broad measure of the price for everyday goods including gasoline, groceries and rents, rose 8.3% in April from a year ago. The rate cooled on an annual basis for the first time in months, down from the 8.5% year-over-year surge recorded in March, but it rose more than expected as supply chain constraints, the Russian war in Ukraine and strong consumer demand continued to keep consumer prices running near a 40-year-high.
The Biden administration has been downplaying the possibility of the country slipping into recession as the president’s approval ratings plummet to record lows less than six months out from the midterms.
Fox News’ Megan Henney and Adam Shaw contributed to this report.