US President Joe Biden on Friday blamed Russian President Vladimir Putin for the record gas prices and 40-year-high inflation currently rocking the US. Amid dismal polling figures, Biden insisted that his administration is attempting to curb runaway costs.
Speaking at the Port of Los Angeles, Biden touted his administration’s efforts to ease supply-chain backlogs and called on Congress to crack down on global shipping companies that he claimed had unfairly jacked up their prices since the Covid-19 pandemic.
However, his speech came hours after the Bureau of Labor Statistics released a grim report showing that consumer prices soared 8.6% in May from 12 months earlier, the highest rate of inflation since 1981. Food and gasoline prices rose by significantly more than 8.6%, with gas increasing by nearly 50% since last year, and reaching record highs in June.
Biden attempted to blame Putin for these costs in particular.
“Today’s inflation report confirms what Americans already know. Putin’s price hike is hitting America hard,” he declared. Insisting that the US job market is “the strongest it’s been since World War II,” Biden repeated “we’ve never seen anything like Putin’s tax on food and gas.”