Khanna: Inflation ‘Was Both Parties’ Trying to Get out of COVID over 4 Years, But We Did Give People Money with Checks

On Monday’s broadcast of CNBC’s “Squawk Box,” Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) stated that people have seen higher grocery prices “and that was one of the challenges of managing COVID.” And inflation “was both parties over four years to get out of COVID.”

Co-host Joe Kernen asked, “[C]an you really claim to be the party of the working class when you spend so much money that inflation just goes out of control for three or four years so that people are actually making — the middle class [is] actually making less money than they were making three or four years ago? I don’t think you can really claim to be the party of the working class.”

Khanna answered, “Well, look, we’ve done a lot to bring back manufacturing jobs in this country. We’ve done a lot to try to reverse the trend of offshoring to China. We put money in people’s pockets with the stimulus checks…the child tax credit and help them make payments. Now, it’s right that we had inflation. I’m not going to deny that. That was both parties over four years to get out of COVID. And finally, now, real wages are going up. It wasn’t going up for the first couple years. But I’m not going to deny that people, when they’re sitting in the grocery line, that they’ve had higher prices and that was one of the challenges of managing COVID.”

Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett