President Joe Biden on Thursday reacted to the latest report showing soaring inflation numbers for February by blaming Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“[T]oday’s inflation report is a reminder that Americans’ budgets are being stretched by price increases and families are starting to feel the impacts of Putin’s price hike,” the White House said in a statement sent to reporters in Biden’s name.
The White House reacted to reports showing that prices were up 0.8 percent in February from the previous month and that prices rose 7.9 percent from the previous year — the highest since 1982.
Biden’s statement tried to blame Putin’s war on Ukraine for dramatically affecting energy prices, causing the number to jump.
“A large contributor to inflation this month was an increase in gas and energy prices as markets reacted to Putin’s aggressive actions,” the statement read.
But gas and oil prices were already steadily rising in February, according to federal data, before they started to spike in March as a result of Putin escalating his war in Ukraine.
The White House has tried for days to shift blame for high gas prices on Putin, arguing that his decisions in earlier 2022 to send troops to bolster the Ukrainian border were already responsible for rising gas prices.
But Biden was already fighting gas prices in December by releasing historic levels of crude oil from the Strategic National Preserve ahead of the Christmas season, which only had a minimal short-term effect.
Despite Biden’s repeated promise to work tirelessly to bring down gas prices, he said Tuesday that there was little he could do, blaming Putin’s war in Ukraine.
“Can’t do much right now,” he told reporters when asked about the spike in gas prices. “Russia is responsible.”