On the Monday edition of Inside Politics, CNN fill-in hosts Dana Bash and Phil Mattingly were frustrated that voters continued to believe their lying eyes when it came to the economy. Both Bash and Mattingly pulled out the tired excuse that cable pundits have been using since Biden first took office: Biden’s poll numbers aren’t bad because the economy is bad; they’re bad because voters just don’t understand how good things are.
Bash framed the discussion as though President Biden and his administration were the protagonists of the story: “Think about the frustrations that I know you hear, covering the White House... there have been, from their perspective, economic gains, and they’re not getting credit for it.”
She continued:
Just look at the latest Quinnipiac poll numbers that we can put up on the screen. And it really actually shows, first of all, if you look at now, 38% of the people in this poll approve of Biden’s handling of this economy, 57% disapprove. So he’s doing better if you look at the trend starting back in March, but he’s still very much underwater. And they believe that it’s because they can’t get their message out.”
“That they can’t break through,” Mattingly added. Perhaps the problem, he suggested, was that the Biden administration was too focused on scoring wins for the American people, and not focused enough on communicating those wins: “It’s a contradiction that I always kind of get a kick out of when talking to administration officials who make the point that, you know, 'We’re not here to get the big, flashy headlines. We’re governing. We’re getting stuff done. We have a legislative record.’”
Mattingly went on:
If you don’t want to make the headlines, if you don’t want to drive the news necessarily, maybe people aren’t going to pay attention to a resumé, a record that you believe should resonate…
As you know well, they’ve been confronting this for their entire time in office: things that they thought they succeeded on, a record that they thought people should absolutely respond to in a positive manner, that people just don’t seem to be able to settle on.
The only panelist who would even acknowledge the glaring issues with the economy was Atlantia Journal-Constitution correspondent Tia Mitchell. She saw these problems, particularly inflation, as responsible for a “disconnect” between the White House’s messaging and the actual experiences of voters. “What people are feeling at home is different than the message [administration officials] are portraying,” she explained.
So it’s hard for them to receive a message from the president saying, “Hey, you guys are doing better, look what I’ve done.” It’s just — I think there’s a disconnect there that quite frankly, there’s no easy answer for how the White House deals with that disconnect, because they don’t really have a way to fix it.
But while Mitchell acknowledged some of the problems facing American consumers, she stopped short of suggesting that the current administration might be the cause of any of them. Instead, she and the rest of the panel treated the poor state of the economy as something entirely outside of the White House’s control.
On CNN, the economy under a Democratic president is an arbitrarily fluctuating, chaotic force of nature — until a Republican takes over, at which point it neatly arranges itself into a set of easily-manipulated levers.
CNN's economic blame-shifting was sponsored by Priceline. Click “expand” below for a full transcript of the segment:
CNN’s Inside Politics with Dana Bash
06/19/2023
12:19 — 12:22DANA BASH: Think about the frustrations that I know you [Phil Mattingly] hear, covering the White House. I hear, you know, one step removed, talking to administration officials, it is incredibly deep for them that there have been, from their perspective, economic gains, and that they’re not getting credit for it.
And just look at the latest Quinnipiac polls numbers that we can put up on the screen. And it really actually shows, first of all, if you look at now, 38% of the people in this poll approve of Biden’s handling of this economy, 57% disapprove. So he’s doing better if you look at the trend starting back in March, but he’s still very much underwater. And they believe that it’s because they can’t get their message out.
PHIL MATTINGLY: That they can’t break through.
BASH: Yeah.
MATTINGLY: And I think, to some degree, it cuts both ways, and it’s a contradiction that I always kind of get a kick out of when talking to administration officials who make the point that, you know, “We’re not here to get the big, flashy headlines. We’re governing. We’re getting stuff done. We have a legislative record. We have a very clear — not just recovery from the pandemic on both the public health and on the economic health, but then durability and stability with both of those successes that they believe they had over the course of years.” Despite the fact that economists continued to predict that there would be a recession, despite the fact they didn’t believe it would be sustainable, many people, and were attacked for it. And those two things don’t necessarily come together, right?
IF you don’t want to make the headlines, if you don’t want to drive the news necessarily, maybe people aren’t going to pay attention to a resumé, a record that you believe should resonate, should prove everybody wrong. And I think it’s something that they’re going to have to confront going forward. As you know well, they’ve been confronting this for their entire time in office: things that they thought they succeeded on, a record that they thought people should absolutely respond to in a positive manner, that people just don’t seem to be able to settle on.
The reality, though, is, when you point to the things that are driving the headlines, in terms of what’s happening in the Republican primary, in terms of what the leading Republican candidate is dealing with right now, I think they take their side of things and the opportunity to build, to raise money, to lay out kind of their messages to specific groups, in this process right now, and then be able to have an idea of exactly what they want to focus on next year.
TIA MITCHELL: I think what the Biden administration is challenged by, in addition to what Phil just laid out, is that what people are feeling at home is different than the message they’re portraying. And they understand that there’s a conflict there. They do have record, they do have accomplishments, but they also know that people at home still think gas is too hight. IT might be lower than what it was a year ago, but they still say there’s pain at the pump. The same thing at the grocery store with prices, with the price goods, their rent going up, all these things that people say they don’t think they’re in a great financial position. So it’s hard for them to receive a message from the president saying, “Hey, you guys are doing better, look what I’ve done.” It’s just — I think there’s a disconnect there that quite frankly, there’s no easy answer for how the White House deals with that disconnect, because they don’t really have a way to fix it.
