President Joe Biden held an hour-long press conference Thursday night and answered a range of questions about his age, his competence, his stamina, his health and his future. He also delivered several incisive disquisitions on foreign policy that Donald Trump's staff would have to use a very large coloring book and possibly a puppet show to explain to him. Not that it would work. He'd probably storm out of the meeting long before they got to the part about China and Russia, yelling about love letters and being a boss.
The media didn't seem all that impressed, judging the president's performance to only be fair to middling and virtually ignoring the substance of what he had to say. Biden offered a serious overview of the nation's relationship with its allies and adversaries and made some news about Israel, calling for its war in Gaza to end. But everyone was more interested in Biden's aesthetic performance and how he answered questions about prospective plans to quit the presidential race so any talk of his actual policies is evidently irrelevant.
Biden's criticized a lot for failing to effectively communicate his administration's accomplishments, and there's something in that. He's not good at it the way someone like Bill Clinton was, with his ability to rattle off facts and figures while simultaneously explaining how it's good for average Americans. It's a special skill. (Donald Trump touts his economic record but it's all lies, which isn't the same thing. Just saying "we had the greatest economy the world has ever known" takes no skill — just chutzpah.)
At the press conference, however, Biden did make some comments about his economic accomplishments — although nobody seemed to care:
Biden: This morning we had a great economic report showing inflation is down. Overall prices fell last month. Core inflation is the lowest it's been in three years. Prices are falling for cars, appliances, and air fares. Grocery prices have fallen since the start of the year. pic.twitter.com/EyYFITQZXc
— Acyn (@Acyn) July 11, 2024
With all the concern about inflation, you'd think this week's news that the Consumer Price Index declined again in June, beating economist's expectations, would be worth a question or two, but it's long been clear that the press isn't particularly interested in good economic news. If they were, they'd be reporting on the Biden administration's exceptional economic recovery policies which dealt with a bizarre and unprecedented economic crisis caused by the pandemic. June was the first time since May 2020 that monthly headline CPI came in negative, and the slowest annual gain in prices since March 2021.
The markets have noticed all this and rewarded investors and owners of 401ks and IRAs with a banner year. Trump, who predicted a stock market crash if Biden became president, says that the bull run on Wall Street is because traders are anticipating his return to the White House. And, yes, once again he's predicting a crash if he isn't. A new Wall Street Journal survey of economists, however, found that nearly 60% said inflation would be higher under another Trump term than a Biden term.
Yesterday, the government also reported that the number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits fell again last week and remains at healthy levels. The jobs story is incredible. As someone who has heard politicians screaming "jobs, jobs, jobs!" in every election I can remember, it's unfathomable to me that this issue appears to have absolutely no salience in this one. It is the best job market since the 1960s, largely due to the Biden administration policies, which we know because the U.S. economic performance is the best in the world. In fact, it's so good that the World Bank announced last month upgraded estimates that the global economy will expand 2.6% this year on the strength of sustained growth in the United States:
Stronger-than-expected growth in the United States — the world’s biggest economy — accounted for 80% of the World Bank’s upgraded outlook. The agency now expects the U.S. economy to expand 2.5% in 2024, the same as in 2023 but up sharply from the 1.6% the bank had predicted in January. “U.S. growth is exceptional,’’ Ayhan Kose, the bank’s deputy chief economist, told The Associated Press ahead of the release of its latest Global Economic Prospects report.
There was a time when such news would have been heralded as "morning in America" but according to polling, a majority of voters believe Trump would be a better steward of the economy than Joe Biden, which is — as the president would say — malarkey. By virtually all measures, Biden's economic performance has surpassed Trump's even before the pandemic.
GDP has grown faster under Biden than Trump, regardless of whether you include Trump’s Covid losses. @Morning_Joe pic.twitter.com/nCehuWGMMl
— Steven Rattner (@SteveRattner) July 10, 2024
When it comes to jobs, Biden’s done far better than Trump. Even excluding Covid losses and recoveries, Biden’s average job growth significantly exceeds Trump’s. @Morning_Joe pic.twitter.com/D2K5pmo36s
— Steven Rattner (@SteveRattner) July 10, 2024
Biden has supported and strengthened unions who've seen big wins in the last couple of years. And astonishingly, this economy has benefited lower-wage workers more than the 1%. Axios recently reported this amazing statistic:
Just 13% of workers in the U.S. are now earning less than $15 an hour; two years ago, that number was 31.9%, per new data from Oxfam.
As for the GOP's most sacred shibboleth, the budget deficit, Trump added $4.8 trillion in non-Covid related debt while with a similar adjustment, Biden has added $2.2 trillion. Extending Trump's tax cuts as he plans to do will add another $3.9 trillion. Not that they care. The deficit is just a weapon that Republicans use to try to cut Social Security and Medicare, which Trump insists he will protect but whose budgets attempted to cut every year he was in office.
Biden's economic performance has been exceptional, as MSNBC's Chris Hayes and The Atlantic's James Fallows both posted yesterday on the unemployment and inflation numbers:
Correct.
— James Fallows (@JamesFallows) July 11, 2024
I have been around to see a lot more of US history and of administrations' management of the macro-economy than @ChrislHayes has.
And nothing has been remotely as successful as this. https://t.co/B7j6IQIsjH
If we were living in a normal world this would be more important than any other issue in this election. Joe Biden's administration has been incredibly successful at steering the economy away from recession, and into prosperity the likes of which we haven't seen in half a century. And Trump is planning to destroy it, as USA Today reports:
“Biden’s policies are better for the economy,” says Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Analytics. “They lead to more growth and less inflation.” According to a Moody’s study, Trump’s plan would trigger a recession by mid-2025 and an economy that grows an average 1.3% annually during his four-year term vs. 2.1% under Biden. (The latter is in line with average growth in the decade before the pandemic.)
Next year, under a Trump administration, inflation would rise from the current 3.3% to 3.6%, well above the 2.4% forecast under Biden, the Moody’s analysis shows. Compared with Biden, the U.S. would have 3.2 million fewer jobs and a 4.5% unemployment rate, a half percentage point higher, at the end of a Trump tenure [...]
The consequences of allowing Trump to take over with his daft tariffs and Project 2025 wrecking ball will be the dumbest thing this country has ever done.
I sincerely doubt that the American people want this. But as of now, they don't really know about it. Regardless of whether Biden remains at the top of the ticket, the Democratic Party needs to calm down and start delivering the message that Trump is planning to kill the golden goose and serve it for dinner at Mar-a-Lago.
