(NEXSTAR) — Through the last few years, Americans have been saddled with stubborn inflation. Earlier this week, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said rate cuts will likely “take longer than expected” amid a “lack of progress” on inflation.
Though it has tumbled from a peak of 9.1% in the summer of 2022, inflation has remained elevated so far this year. Prices excluding volatile food and energy costs, rose 3.8% in March from a year earlier, the same as in the previous month and well above the Federal Reserve’s target.
This comes at a pivotal time for President Joe Biden, with many pointing to inflation as a sticking point for his reelection campaign.
On Tuesday, in an exclusive interview with Nexstar, Biden was asked if he was concerned that it would hurt his bid for a second term. The president highlighted the decline in inflation, but admitted it’s being “stubborn and not going down to 2%.”
“The thing that really affects people’s lives are all the small things that add up to big numbers for people,” Biden said, pointing to junk fees, which his administration recently began targeting.
Biden also talked about his focus on the middle class.
“I’m all about making sure that we make sure the middle class continues to have a fighting chance,” he explained, saying this is the biggest difference between himself and former President Donald Trump. “I mean it sincerely now: grow the middle class. And that way, the poor have a way up and the wealthy still do well, but they still have to pay their fair share.”
When pressed on the cost of goods Americans are facing, Biden said his administration would work on “getting prices down by making sure corporate profits are under control.” He continued, calling our economy “the strongest…of any country in the world,” but adding, “we’ve got more to do.”
“We’ve created over 15 million new jobs. And the salaries are outpacing the cost of inflation. Lot of good happening,” he added. “But still, it’s those small things that matter in a big way to ordinary people. And that’s what we have to work on.”
While campaigning in Scranton, Pennsylvania, where he grew up, ahead of Tuesday’s interview with Nexstar, Biden said he wanted to make the tax code fairer, keeping more money in Americans’ pockets. He also criticized Trump, a billionaire himself, as a tool of wealthy interests.
“When I look at the economy, I don’t look at it through the eyes of Mar-a-Lago. I look at it through the eyes of Scranton,” Biden said, contrasting his hometown with Trump’s Florida estate.
Biden has proposed a 25% percent minimum tax rate for billionaires. He added that taxes are “how we invest in the country.”
When asked if he believed that tax plan could pass through the current Congress, Biden told Nexstar, “Not this one, but we’re going to win the House back, I think, and I think we’ll win the Senate, and God willing and the creek don’t rise, I’ll be president again.”
During Tuesday’s interview, which you can watch in full above, Biden touched on Trump’s legal troubles, noting that “his lack of ethics has nothing to do with me,” despite the former president blaming the current president. He also discussed pro-Palestinian protesters, who have expressed anger with his response to the Israel-Hamas war.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
