White House pressed on Biden’s claim inflation higher ‘everywhere’ else

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre on Thursday got into a back-and-forth exchange with a reporter who questioned President Biden’s inaccurate claim that inflation is higher “everywhere” else than in the US.

The annual US inflation rate hit a fresh 40-year high of 8.6% in May, but Biden on Tuesday claimed that Americans are faring better than other countries — even though data from other countries show otherwise.

“Why is the president saying that inflation is worse everywhere but here?” Fox News correspondent Peter Doocy asked Jean-Pierre at her regular briefing.

“First of all, inflation is a global challenge as you have said, It is caused by, clearly, the pandemic — this was the generation pandemic that we are coming out of. And also, most recently, the war that Putin started in Ukraine that has caused inflation as we look at food and as we look at gas prices,” Jean-Pierre said.

“So if you look at globally other countries, and if you look at where we are economically, when you think about the Group of Seven — the G7 — we are in a much stronger place than we are economically than the rest.”

But Doocy followed up, “He says the inflation is worse everywhere but here. That’s not true. The US has worse inflation in Germany, France, Japan, Canada, India, Italy, Saudi Arabia. So why is he saying that?”

Jean-Pierre replied, “I think what we are saying is that when you talk about inflation, it is a global thing. And it is not just about the United States. This is something that everyone is feeling because of coming out of a once in a lifetime pandemic, because of the war that Russia has started in Ukraine.”

Inflation in the US in May — 8.6% — was higher than the Eurozone average of 8.1% and South Korea’s 5.4%.

Australia’s most recent data — 5.1% in March — was lower than the US inflation rate of 8.5% that month. Canada’s most recent data — 6.8% in April — was lower than the comparable 8.3% US rate.

Doocy then segued to US energy policy after Biden this week urged oil refiners to increase processing of supplies.

“His letter was a lot about refining and increasing refining, but that’s a lot of oil that comes in from overseas. So why isn’t he so companies to drill more here in the US? Doocy asked.

Jean-Pierre said that refinery production had not returned to pre-pandemic levels and that “that is what the problem is: we need them to actually refine the crude oil, which is not happening.”

Doocy pressed, “Why not just drill more in the US, though?”

“Because we don’t need to do that we need them to do is with the oil that’s out there,” Jean-Pierre said. “We need that to them to refine that oil. So that so that prices so that capacity could go up and then prices will go down.”

Doocy followed up, “The president once said that he was going to end fossil fuel. Is that now off the table?”

“No we are going to continue to move forward with our clean energy proposal, our climate change proposal,” she said.

Biden last year sought to impose a moratorium on new oil drilling on public lands and spiked new oil pipeline projects, including the Keystone XL pipeline from Canada. This year, as gas prices surged, Biden released oil from the US strategic reserve while blaming oil companies for not drilling more using existing permits and alleged that high oil-company profits contribute to consumer costs.