President Joe Biden on Wednesday snapped at a reporter who asked about the state of the U.S. economy, insisting that his economic policies, known as "Bidenomics," are going well.
"Yes, yes, yes. I told you we’re going to have a soft landing, we’re going to have a soft landing—my policies are working. Start writing that way, okay?" Biden said at a press conference when asked if the United States "has beaten inflation." A Bureau of Labor Statistics report Wednesday morning showed that the annual inflation rate in July slowed to 2.9 percent, its lowest level in three years.
Inflation rates skyrocketed under the Biden-Harris administration, reaching 7 percent in 2021, 6.5 percent in 2022, and 3.4 percent in 2023. By contrast, the inflation rate stayed below 2.4 percent during former president Donald Trump's four years in office.
The remark signals a growing frustration in Biden, who finds himself sidelined and bearing the brunt of the blame for issues plaguing the Democratic Party after Vice President Kamala Harris replaced him as the Democratic nominee.
Harris, who has dodged media appearances and hardly shed any light on her policy platform since emerging as her party’s nominee, will "outline a sort of reboot of the [Biden] administration’s economic agenda" during her Friday speech in Raleigh, North Carolina, the New York Times reported Wednesday.