Due to a recent series of statements from Old Uncle Joe as part of a Friday speech, CNN was forced to step in and provide a fact check concerning the series of incorrect statistics about current gas prices.
While giving his speech at an event for the Democratic National Committee, Democrat President Joe Biden highlighted that the prices people are experiencing at the pump have dropped to their lowest levels over the past few months, but incorrectly stated that quite a few states are seeing prices below $2.99 per gallon.
“Gas prices — I know I got criticized for going into the stockpile. But guess what? Gas prices are down $1.30 a gallon,” stated Biden. “And in 41 states plus the District of Columbia, the average gasoline price is less than $2.99.”
CNN stepped out to rule that these claims were entirely false due to the fact that, as of writing, zero states are seeing an average gas price below the $2.99 per gallon level. Despite the small fact that Biden did accurately note that the average prices across most states were dropping to below the $3.99 level stated in previous addresses, the White House rushed to correct the official transcript being published as a result of the speech issued on Friday — not definitely not before the claim managed to go live on both MSNBC and CNN.
The national average price of gasoline was sitting at $2.38 per gallon when Old Uncle Joe took his seat in the Oval Office and spiked up to $3.53 per gallon by the time the Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine kicked off. After breaking the $5.00 per gallon mark back in June, prices have somewhat managed to drop to $3.70 per gallon as of Friday, as explained in data from AAA.
Biden has made it a point to push heavily towards more green energy policies while leasing far less federal land for oil and gas drilling since the end of WWII while watching over a drop in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve from 638 million barrels to roughly 434 million barrels. At the start of his term in office, Biden chose to cancel expansions planned for the Keystone XL pipeline project.
Despite all of this, officials with the White House have attempted to take credit for the recent leveling off of costs. “President Biden is committed to tackling these immediate challenges, without giving up the substantial economic and labor market gains our economy has achieved,” explained an economic report from within the Biden administration. “And we are seeing significant progress on that front, with a decline of more than $1.20 in gas prices this summer and overall prices in the economy declining moderately in July.”
CNN also highlighted the fact that Biden outright missed the mark when reporting strong employment data. Despite the fact that he claimed that the 3.7% unemployment level was the lowest seen in “more than 50 years,” the outlet noted that the rate was either 3.6% or 3.5% at five separate times throughout the Biden administration, while we saw the level hit that point over nine times throughout the tenure of former President Donald Trump.
“Biden not only erased the recent uptick from 3.5% to 3.7% but erased the performance of the pre-pandemic economy under his Republican predecessor,” expressed CNN. One official for the White House stated to the outlet that Biden had correctly made the claim that unemployment was “near” a five-decade low during other talks throughout the month.
