US President Joe Biden appeared “confused” during an exclusive interview with CNN, where he rambled on about Israel and repeated a debunked claim about Snickers bars.
Biden, 81 years old, spoke to CNN’s Erin Burnett for a rare, one-to-one television interview on Wednesday. The conversation took place in Wisconsin, a pivotal battleground where Biden aims to showcase his agenda for bolstering manufacturing and technology jobs in the Midwest.
Against the backdrop of Biden’s efforts to revitalize the region’s economy, the interview coincided with his lagging performance in both national and swing-state polls, with former President Donald Trump maintaining an edge. Biden’s steadfast support for Israel has also alienated some younger, progressive voters within the Democratic Party, .
When asked about Israel, Biden was branded “confused” by the conservative @RNCResearch which posted an extract in a video on X of Biden rambling: “If you look at the data, these demonstrations are real but they’re not nearly, I mean, look, and everybody – I made a speech on the Holocaust the other day”, flitting from one idea to the next.
Biden was also asked about the rising inflation throughout the US, with Burnett telling him that “Grocery prices are up 30 percent, even more than 30 percent since the beginning of the pandemic, that’s a real day-to-day pain that people feel.”
If you can’t see the video above, please click here.
“It really is, and it’s real. but the fact is that people have the money to spend”, Biden replied.
“For example, the whole notion of shrinkflation”, he continued. “Snickers did a thing and it’s 20 percent less for the same price, and it’s corporate greed. It’s corporate greed, and we’ve got to deal with it and that’s what I’m working on.”
Shrinkflation, a portmanteau of “shrink” and “inflation”, has remained a running theme in Biden’s reelection campaign. The term refers to a product’s size being reduced while its retail price holds steady.
Users on X were outraged at Biden’s comments, with one writing: “The prices are not corporate greed, they’re caused by you! YOU crippled the energy sector, nearly doubling energy costs, those costs are passed onto the consumer. YOU have flooded the economy with spending and when you do that, monetary supply increases which creates demand which drives up prices!
“The fact you don’t understand these basic economic principles is why America is crumbling and why you should never have been president! November cannot come soon enough! Trump2024!”
Another explained that the only reason people “have the money to spend [is] because they have to eat. Most are sacrificing tremendously to buy groceries.”
One joked: “He says they have the money…who is the ‘they’ he’s talking about? It ain’t me!”
Snickers manufacturers themselves have vehemently denied selling smaller products for the same amount of money, saying in a previous statement: “We have not reduced the size of Snickers singles or share size in the US.”
This statement came after Biden repeated the apparent falsehood at his State of the Union speech earlier this year, saying: “You probably all saw that commercial on Snickers bars. And you get…charged the same amount, and you got about, I don’t know, 10 percent fewer Snickers in it.”
According to a recent CNN poll, Biden’s approval ratings for the economy and inflation stood at 34 percent and 29 percent, respectively. Notably, voters consistently highlight the economy as their primary concern when evaluating presidential candidates.
