Republican strategist Scott Jennings told liberal CNN panelists Monday night they had no room to complain about prices under President Donald Trump after the “historic inflation” under the Biden administration.
The Consumer Price Index (CPI) rose by 3.0% year-over-year in January, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Jennings took umbrage after talk-show host Solomon Jones and former Hillary Clinton campaign aide Karen Finney claimed that Trump wasn’t working on addressing inflation after campaigning on the issue.
“It was funny that he said, you know, he said, ‘Yes, I‘m going to cut government. I’m going to cut waste. I’m going to cut fraud. I’m going to…’ — you know what else he said he was going to cut? Prices. That hasn’t happened. That’s not what —” Jones said before Jennings interjected.
“You want that in four weeks?” Jennings said.
After Jones and Finney claimed Trump had fired 75,000 federal workers instead of reducing prices, Jennings shot back.
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“He got rid of the whole agency,” Finney said, referring to the Trump administration laying off over 90% of the United States Agency for International Development’s (USAID) workforce following a review by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
“Do you think it is a legitimate political debating point for the previous administration to have overseen historic inflation for four years, and then you to come out and say, ‘Four weeks, I guess Trump‘s a failure?’” Jennings said.
“He said, ‘On day one, I will lower your grocery prices,’ and he has not done it, prices have gone up,” Jones claimed.
The price of eggs has almost doubled since November 2023, according to the St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank, fueled by the culling of tens of millions of chickens in response to a bird flu outbreak. The price of groceries has climbed 23.6% since 2020, according to the Department of Agriculture.
“And on your point, I agree with you that the ultimate measurement of him will be on whether people feel less economic anxiety. I disagree that he hasn’t done anything,” Jennings responded. “A lot of his executive orders were aimed at energy, which is, I think, the fastest thing he can do — energy regulations. But really, what he does now over the next couple of months with the Congress, I mean, his real agenda will come in the reconciliation bill: taxes, energy, immigration.”
“I mean, the stuff he really ran on, that’s where the real policy rubber hits the road and he’s going to have to get these guys in Congress to go along with him, and they’re obviously, you know, working on it right now,” Jennings continued. “But if they cannot get that done, that will be a problem. But I think they’ll get there.”
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