On Tuesday’s broadcast of the Fox News Channel’s “Special Report,” Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) defended referring to the reconciliation package passed by Congressional Democrats and signed by Joe Biden as the Inflation Reduction Act in the wake of the August Consumer Price Index (CPI) report because “It’s the only thing that we have ever done that has a chance to really fight inflation.”
Host Bret Baier asked, [relevant exchange begins around 6:50] “For people at home, we’re talking about the inside politics about how to get these deals done. They look at what they’re seeing at the table. And inflation is not slowing. And this CPI report was bad today.”
Manchin responded that he has been warning about inflation for a long time and people ignored him.
Baier then asked, “But isn’t it disingenuous to call this the Inflation Reduction Act if we’re looking at a CPI that actually goes up?”
Manchin responded, “It’s the only thing that we have ever done that has a chance to really fight inflation.”
Baier then cut in to state, “Experts say that it’s not going to fight inflation at the beginning. It may over the long term. But there are independent, nonpartisan groups that look at it and say, it’s not. And then, Senator, you add onto the student debt relief, which then erases any deficit reduction that this administration was touting.”
Manchin responded by saying he “had no control” over the student debt cancellation plan and doesn’t agree with it. But he’s also not going to avoid doing things to boost energy production.
Earlier, Manchin said that the bill should help reduce energy costs “if you put more product in the market, it makes sense that, basically, the more product you have in the market, the more reduction it should be. … On top of that, we have the Medicare reduction as far as putting that and being able to negotiate. That’s — in my state, 300,000 people on Medicare are going to see a reduction of their drug prices, also capped $35 on their insulin.”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
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