On a Tuesday episode of CNN Newsroom With Alisyn Camerota and Victor Blackwell, the hosts observed that Biden’s speech touting the success of the Inflation Reduction Act was poorly timed, noting the simultaneous collapse of the stock market.
Earlier in the day, the latest consumer price index report was released, showing inflation rose 8.3% in August from a year ago. The Biden administration chose that afternoon to hold a celebration of the Democrats’ Inflation Reduction Act on the White House lawn.
While Biden claimed the Inflation Reduction Act was the “single most important legislation passed in the Congress to combat inflation and one of the most significant laws in our nation’s history,” the Dow Jones Industrial Average tumbled in real time amid concerns about rising prices, having its worst day since June 2020.
At one point, CNN pulled back from its live coverage of the speech, noting the “unfortunate” visuals of the president celebrating while the Dow took “a total beating.”
“Okay. You’re listening there to President Biden at the White House. He’s celebrating the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act and he says he’s been fighting big pharma for decades,” Camerota began. “But there’s this unfortunate split-screen right now with the Dow taking a total beating down more than twelve-hundred points and feels like it’s hard to be celebratory for some people.”
Her co-host, Blackwell, offered a similarly grim assessment.”Yeah, this is the day on which the White House celebrates the Inflation Reduction Act and a new report shows that inflation is especially high and what we are seeing on Wall Street is a reaction to that anticipating what’s coming from the fed,” he warned. “The decision that will come on whether to increase – likely they will increase, but by how much – the interest rates another half point or three quarters of a point. We have to see in just a few days.”
But CNN wasn’t the only network to recoil from Biden’s speech.
MSNBC’s coverage cut away before the speech ended, shortly after Biden shouted at the audience. “Deadline: White House” host Nicolle Wallace appraised the president as “feisty and fired-up” and pivoted to instead talk about the potentially “historic interconnected push to unearth and investigate the conduct of the twice-impeached ex-president” Trump.
Commentators on Twitter were quick to call out the networks for their reactions to Biden’s speech.
NewsBusters news analyst Kevin Tober responded to Wallace’s segment, quipping, “.@NicolleDWallace’s Trump hatred runs so deep that she dipped out of Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act speech to obsess over the investigations into Trump.”
Former CBS News White House correspondent Mark Knoller responded by noting, “Both CNN and MSNBC cut away from Biden inflation speech. CSPAN not airing either. He’s been shut out. Maybe it’s the aviator sunglasses he’s wearing.”
