Dem Rep. Castro: We Were Too ‘Reluctant’ to Blame Gouging for Inflation

On Thursday’s “CNN News Central,” Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-TX) argued that Democrats performed poorly in the 2024 election because many people “were still feeling a hit from inflation, much of it that was driven by corporate profiteering and price gouging. And, unfortunately, as Democrats, we were reluctant to point the finger there.”

Castro said, “I think that Kamala Harris and Joe Biden did an incredible job for four years in helping our economy bounce back from a once-in-a-century pandemic. We had record job growth. We had record-low unemployment. But I also think that a lot of families — including a lot of Latino families — were still feeling a hit from inflation, much of it that was driven by corporate profiteering and price gouging. And, unfortunately, as Democrats, we were reluctant to point the finger there. And so, in the election, part of what happened is that Donald Trump and the Republicans, they ran a campaign that was based on fear and resentment, that was pointing the finger at immigrants, at migrants, they wanted every American to believe that everybody who was seeking asylum to this country was a potential serial killer. They were pointing the finger at trans kids. I think they spent over $200 million in ads on the trans issue. And so, they found an enemy and zeroed in on that and worked as hard as they could to convince Americans that these folks were the problem and they were the reason that folks were feeling hardship in their lives. And so, we’ve got to go back and make sure that we stand up for people, that we stand up for people’s constitutional rights, especially because of what you just talked about with mass deportation and other issues.”

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