White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt grew defensive over the White House’s handling of the economy in exchanges with reporters Thursday, standing by President Donald Trump’s comments that parents should “give up” certain products this Christmas if they have affordability concerns and insisting things have improved under Trump’s watch.
The exchange kicked off when CNN’s Kaitlan Collins asked about Trump’s comment Tuesday to an audience in Pennsylvania about cutting back on purchases. “You don’t need 37 dolls for your daughter. Two or three is nice,” the president said.
If the economy was as strong as Trump suggested, Collins asked, why was he telling parents their kids only needed two or three dolls?
Leavitt responded that Americans may have to pay “a dollar or two more” for some products, but would see better quality by buying American.
“What the president is saying is that if we want products made right here in America, if we want them to be made from American small businesses, which is a large part of the reason the president has effectively implemented tariffs, then we’re going to have better quality products right here in the United States,” she said.
Leavitt then criticized press coverage of affordability concerns, claiming incorrectly that reporters did not cover inflation under the previous administration, as she sought to push back on questions from Collins and CBS’s Nancy Cordes about the current state of the economy.
“The president inherited 2.9% in January, today, it’s at about 2.5%, so we’re trending in the right direction with more to come,” she said. “Nobody reported on it being high under Biden, my predecessor was standing at this podium. But now you want to ask me a lot of questions about it, which I’m happy to answer, but I will just add, there’s a lot more scrutiny on this issue from this press corps than there was.”
Inflation has been accelerating since the spring, CNN reported last month. As of September, the year-over-year inflation rate had increased for five consecutive months.
The September rate, 3%, was the same as the rate in January, when Trump returned to the White House.