On Wednesday’s broadcast of CNN International’s “Quest Means Business,” CNN Senior Political Commentator and former Obama adviser David Axelrod stated that the country’s bad mood has “a lot” “to do with inflation” and President Joe Biden has poor approval ratings on the economy because people are “judging the economy through what they see on the cash register, what they see at the gas station, what they pay for rent, what they pay for mortgage interests, and that is a less cheerful picture.”
Axelrod said that Biden “is not getting the due that he deserves for some of these accomplishments, but that is the reality of the situation we’re in. The country is in a sour mood, I think this is partly post-pandemic, and a lot of it has to do with inflation. He needs to create a frame in which everything is kind of in the context of him versus Trump, him versus Trump. The President is fond of the saying, don’t compare me to the almighty, compare me to the alternative. He needs to start making those comparisons.”
He added, “[O]n the issue of the economy, the reason it isn’t registering is, yes, unemployment is at an almost record low, there’s been tremendous growth over the years that he has been in the White House. But, in the lived experience of Americans, inflation looms large. So, they’re judging the economy through what they see on the cash register, what they see at the gas station, what they pay for rent, what they pay for mortgage interests, and that is a less cheerful picture. But he has engaged in battles that have political currency over issues like the cost of pharmaceutical drugs and so on, and these are issues on which Donald Trump and the Republicans have been on the other side.”
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