Abby Philip, an anchor for CNN, claimed that despite the attempts from the White House to try and throw the blame for these most recent and insane gas prices as the “Putin Price Hike,” tying the blame almost entirely to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, but the American people do not seem to think that’s the case at all.
During one panel discussion which included Hans Nichols, a political reporter from Axios, both Nichols and Phillip seemed to agree that no matter what good news concerning the economy that the White House may try to spin, or what excuses they would try to make in attempts to shirk blame, the insane prices people are experiencing at the pump were unavoidable, and they do not seem to on the way out any time soon.
“When inflation is where it’s at, when you see gas prices going where it’s at, we can talk about a jobs report here, we can talk about the latest PCE [personal consumption expenditures] numbers or the CPI [consumer price index], and all of us former Bloomberg reporters can really get into the weeds, right?” started Nichols.
“But there’s one number that they can’t really change right now,” he warned. “And that is what the placard says at the local gas station.”
Phillip went on to highlight the fact that the White House had tried to spin the spike in gas prices as the #PutinPriceHike, even going so far as to try and bring in groups of TikTok influencers to try to propagate that message, a plan that just did not work out in the way that the Biden administration might have wanted it to.
“Look, when I’ve passed gas stations that say ‘blame Putin’ more than they say ‘Let’s go Brandon,’ I’ll know the White House has been successful in messaging,” answered Nichols.
“That is fascinating in its own right,” responded Phillip in agreement, going on to share the results of a recent poll that proved that the attempted message had outright failed. “Take a look at this Quinnipiac poll. Americans just don’t buy that this is related to the war in Ukraine, and most of it, frankly, is not. 41% say it’s Biden’s policies, just 24% say the war in Ukraine. 24% also say the oil and gas companies are raising prices. But the White House is trying to do both, blame Putin, blame the oil and gas companies, but Americans just don’t agree.”
Along with throwing the blame on Putin, President Joe Biden and many others in his administration have tried previously to throw the blame for increased fuel prices on the companies themselves, stating that many of them are just sitting on land leases and refusing to use them in order to force the American public to pay more and bring in record-breaking profits for their shareholders.