Buttigieg on Biden Economic Polls: We’ve Had ‘Rough Few Years,’ Especially with COVID Effects, Polarization

On Monday’s broadcast of CNN’s “Inside Politics,” Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg responded to a question on President Joe Biden’s poor poll numbers on the economy by stating that everything isn’t perfect, and “Americans have had a rough few years, especially when you think about COVID and what that did to our society and effects that we are still working through. You think about some of the political polarization that’s going on. We’re not out there saying that all of the work is done. We’re out there pointing to the good work that we’re doing.”

Buttigieg said, “Well, a big part of our job, a big part of my job is to explain the good news in terms of the physical improvements that are coming to roads and bridges and tunnels and airports and ports around the country, and in terms of things we’re seeing with the big picture economically, inflation coming back down, gas prices, as you mentioned, coming back down. I would add to that, airfare is becoming much more reasonable lately. And unemployment that I don’t think has stayed this low for this long in my lifetime. But that doesn’t mean you can go around saying everything’s perfect. And we recognize that. Americans have had a rough few years, especially when you think about COVID and what that did to our society and effects that we are still working through. You think about some of the political polarization that’s going on. We’re not out there saying that all of the work is done. We’re out there pointing to the good work that we’re doing.”

He continued, “And what we’ve found is, Americans, even when they feel that we’ve got a long way to go for things to be really the way we want them in this country, agree with the steps that President Biden is leading in terms of how to deal with it, lowering the cost of [living], lowering the cost of prescription drugs, getting insulin down to 35 bucks for seniors. The focus on — in my world — on things like airline passenger protection, as well as all that physical infrastructure. We’re doing the right things, we’ve got a lot more work to do.”

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