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President Biden admonished the press once again to start writing more positively about his inflation numbers.
The White House hosted the first Creator Economy Conference on Wednesday which featured approximately 100 digital creators and industry members. Biden gave some remarks at the conference but initially declined to answer reporters’ questions.
However, he responded to one shouted question regarding inflation rates falling to their lowest level in three years.
“Any comment on the inflation numbers? Has the U.S. beat inflation, Mr. President?” the reporter asked.
BIDEN GETS TESTY WITH NBC’S LESTER HOLT OVER UNFAVORABLE MEDIA COVERAGE: ‘WHAT’S WITH YOU GUYS?’
“Yes, yes, yes,” Biden said. “I told you they’re going to have a soft landing — we’re going to have a soft landing. My policies are working. Start writing that way. Okay?”
CNN correspondent MJ Lee later read White House Council of Economic Advisers Chair Jared Bernstein the president’s quote and asked, “Do you know if he feels that the economic coverage has generally been off or wrong?”
“That’s the first I’ve heard that he said that [‘Start writing that way’]. I can only interpret it to mean that he thinks that that’s not being done,” Bernstein said.
Bernstein elaborated on his own opinion of media coverage about the economy, appearing to agree with Biden.
“I read a lot of your work and I see stuff I like and stuff that doesn’t resonate with me as much. There’s been some nice research on this over at the Brookings Institute. My former colleague Ben Harris and others have looked at the extent to which reporting has been increasingly negative on the economy and they find — and they’re crunching some real numbers — that that’s been the case,” he said.
He added, “There was another study that I found pretty well — looked to me that it was pretty rigorous, that suggested that the media tends to write about the gas price when it goes north of $3.50 and not when it goes south of $3.50. So the gas prices I looked this morning was I think $3.45, and if you haven’t written about it, you know, maybe you want to.”
Also in his remarks at the online creators conference Wednesday, Biden joked about the changing nature of the press.
“Now, is that the real press or the fake press back there? That was a joke. That was a joke,” Biden said. “I tell you what, I have a bunch of grandchildren, and, with all due respect, they don’t read the same newspapers or watch the same television I do. They listen to all of you. They listen to all of you.”
