WASHINGTON — President Biden’s chief spokesperson falsely said Tuesday that grocery prices have “come down” recently — when federal data show they cost 21.1% more than when Biden took office in 2021, including a persistent 1.1.% bump over the past year.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre made the unfactual claim when asked by a reporter if Biden agrees with Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign-trail argument that “price-gouging continues” with groceries.
“Yes, we’ve talked about this,” Jean-Pierre said at her regular briefing.
Then she added, “To be clear, we’ve seen grocery prices come down over the past year or more, and so that is important, and a lot of that has been the work that’s been done by this administration.”
Labor Department data show that grocery prices have not come down, even though they are increasing less dramatically during Biden’s final year in office.
Jean-Pierre drew viral mockery for her error, with the account RNC research tweeting, “Karine Jean-Pierre continues to show why she is the least competent press secretary in history.”
Harris, 59, revived her focus on the alleged corporate greed driving grocery-store price hikes with an ad released Tuesday in which a narrator says the Democratic presidential candidate will “make groceries more affordable by cracking down on price-gouging.”
The vice president last month announced plans for price controls on groceries — but has rarely mentioned the plan since, after withering bipartisan criticism, including from the Washington Post editorial board, which generally backs Democrats, and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.
Trump, 78, has cited Harris’ grocery price controls to depict her as a “communist” — referring to her as “Comrade Kamala” and insisting that she’s pushing the “Maduro plan,” referring to the economic collapse in Venezuela under the country’s socialist strongman, Nicolas Maduro.
The food industry has disputed Harris’ attribution of blame, arguing that groceries are more expensive because overall inflation has caused labor and energy prices to increase.
“We understand why there is this sticker shock and why it’s upsetting. But to automatically just say there’s got to be something nefarious, I think to us that is oversimplified,” Andy Harig, a vice president at FMI, a trade group representing food retailers and suppliers, told the Wall Street Journal.
Trump has campaigned on inflation under Biden, including grocery prices — saying last month that “people are voting with their stomachs, meaning they’re going to the grocery store, they are paying 50, 60, 70% more for food than they did just a couple of years ago.”
The White House did not immediately offer further comment.
