Axelrod: Biden Has ‘a Lot to Be Proud of’ Economically, Just Not in ‘How People Are Experiencing the Economy’

On Friday’s broadcast of HBO’s “Real Time,” CNN Senior Political Commentator and former Obama adviser David Axelrod stated that while President Joe Biden has “a lot to be proud of” economically, “the big but is, cost of living, inflation. Yes, inflation’s coming down, but stuff is 20% more costly than it was before the recession. And that’s how people are experiencing the economy, through the prism of costs at the grocery store, their rents, mortgages.”

After host Bill Maher said people are better off and asked how Biden can convince people of this, Axelrod stated, “Listen, Bill, we were faced with something of this in 2012, we had come through this horrible financial crisis, the country was recovering, unemployment was going down. But we understood that we couldn’t claim more than people were willing to tolerate. And the fact is, you’ve got to link up with people where they live, everything you said is true. The U.S. — and everything Biden has said is true, the U.S. is doing better than other countries, for sure, in recovering from the pandemic. We had a soft landing. Everybody said we were going to have a recession. That didn’t happen. There’s a lot to be proud of there, but, the big but is, cost of living, inflation. Yes, inflation’s coming down, but stuff is 20% more costly than it was before the recession. And that’s how people are experiencing the economy, through the prism of costs at the grocery store, their rents, mortgages.”

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