Mr. Biden was asked to respond to the economic pain Americans are feeling from inflation, from the grocery store to the housing market. The president figuratively pointed the finger directly at Trump.
“We need to take a look at what I was left with when I was president, what Mr. Trump left me,” the president said, his voice noticeably hoarse. “We had an economy that was in freefall. The pandemic was so mismanaged… What we had to try to do was put things back together, and that's exactly what we started to do.”
The president pointed to several moves his administration has made to lower prices for Americans, including lowering insulin costs to more than $15 from $400.
Mr Trump insisted the US “had the biggest economy in the history of our country” when he was president and pointed the finger at Mr Biden.
“Inflation is killing our country, it's absolutely killing us,” Trump said.
Trump's claim that during his presidency the US had “the greatest economy in the history of the country” is false by many of the common metrics used to judge economic performance. The claim struggles when looking at GDP. Excluding the 2020 pandemic, growth after inflation under Trump averaged 2.67 percent, according to World Bank figures. That's a far cry from the 4 percent GDP growth under Democratic President Bill Clinton, according to World Bank data. Including the time after the spread of COVID, this average drops to 1.45%.
Trump also falsely claimed that the only jobs Mr. Biden created were for “illegal immigrants” and jobs “recovered” from the COVID-19 pandemic.
Trump falsely claimed that the only jobs Mr. Biden created were for “illegal immigrants” and “recovery” jobs after the COVID-19 pandemic.
Trump also defended his proposal to impose a 10% tariff on all foreign goods entering the US
“It's not going to get them higher,” Trump insisted, contradicting the view of many economic experts. “It will only cost countries that have ripped us off for years like China and many others, in all fairness to China.”
