White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre and Jonathan Karl, an anchor with ABC News, went head to head with an intense back and forth over the new “Inflation Reduction Act” and whether it would actually do as it says and reduce inflation.
While speaking in a segment on “This Week” early Sunday, Jean-Pierre bragged about the new bill, which was able to squeeze through the House this past Friday and is slated to get an autograph from President Joe Biden at some point this coming week. However, Karl highlighted that despite the name of the bill, Those with the Congressional Budget Office claim that it would have quite a minimal impact on overall inflation levels.
“Inflation has been a number one priority for this president, lowering costs has been a number one priority for this president,” expressed Jean-Pierre. “If you look…what Democrats in Congress did with this Inflation Reduction Act, the work of this president… you see that anti-inflation bill, you see that it’s going to lower costs for Americans.”
Karl was bothered by how it was being framed by the Press Secretary.
“But let me ask you, it’s called the ‘Inflation Reduction Act,’ but the Congressional Budget Office, which is nonpartisan, said that there would be a negligible impact on inflation this year and barely impact inflation at all next year, isn’t it almost Orwellian?” questioned Karl. “How can you call it inflation reduction when the nonpartisan experts say it’s not gonna bring inflation down?”
“I appreciate the question. We’ve actually addressed this with the CBO,” stated Jean-Pierre. “It was the top line number; there’s more in there that shows it will have the money from– remember how we’re doing this, too, it’s making sure that billionaires in corporate America are paying their fair share, making sure that the tax code is a little bit more fair, and so when you do that, put it in its totality, you will see that it will bring down, lower the deficit, which will help fight inflation.”
“Look, here’s the thing,” she went on. “We have 126 economists, both Republicans, both Democrats who have said it’s going to fight inflation, five former secretaries of treasury–”
“So you disagree with the assessment of the CBO?” continued Karl.
“Well, there’s more to it than that,” she answered. “It was just the way that Republicans did that was so that [they] could make an argument that is false. It is going to fight inflation, it has been proven and said by economists across the board, on the Republican side and the Democrat side.”