Fox News White House correspondent Peter Doocy cornered Press Secretary Karine Jean Pierre during Monday’s briefing, asking whether she truly believed that the American people could feel the economy improving.
Doocy pressed Jean-Pierre on the topic, beginning with a tongue-in-cheek question about whether families had commented — while sitting around their Thanksgiving tables — about how much less expensive things had gotten.
WATCH:
Doocy: “But why do you think it is that when you say the economy is improving, and President Biden says the economy is improving that a majority of Americans outside of this building are not buying it?”
KJP: “So here’s the thing. When we walked into this administration, the… pic.twitter.com/cF4y42vmZy
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) November 27, 2023
Responding to Jean-Pierre’s claims that prices of a number of key items had decreased, Doocy asked, “So, is it your sense that when people are home for Thanksgiving, catching up with their family members, they were saying to each other, ‘Can you believe how much more affordable things have gotten?'”
“So, honestly, I wouldn’t … I hear the question, but I want to make sure this is very clear. We take that very seriously. We take what families — the decisions that they make at their kitchen table, whether it’s at whether it’s during Thanksgiving or whether it is every month, as they’re trying to make hard decisions about how they move forward with taking care of their family — we take that very seriously,” Jean-Pierre replied. “It’s not a joke to us, it is important to us.”
She went on to repeat the Biden administration’s oft-repeated refrain, adding that in spite of what American families might be feeling, “The fact is the data shows that the economy is improving. The data shows that households remain in a strong financial position.”
“But why do you think it is that when you say the economy is improving and President Biden says the economy is improving, that a majority of Americans outside of this building are not buying it?” Doocy pressed again.
Jean-Pierre responded by blaming the COVID-19 pandemic and former President Donald Trump for any continued economic hardships — and pivoted to claim that Biden’s American Rescue Plan had made it possible for small businesses and schools to reopen.
“It’s going to take some time, but it does not take away how we have seen the economy getting back on its feet. We actually had to fix the problem that we saw, that the last administration left us,” she said.