Tracking Kamala Harris’ Biggest And Baddest Lies: 20 And Counting
Democrats traded one liar for another when they replaced their presumptive presidential nominee Biden with Harris.
President Joe Biden was swiftly fact-checked Thursday for falsely claiming that gas cost more than $5 per gallon when he entered office.
While speaking at a community college in New York, Biden recounted what he claims are his presidential successes — including bringing down the price of gas from record levels.
"Because of the actions we’ve taken, gas prices are declining. We’re down $1.25 since the peak this summer, and they’ve been falling for the last three weeks as well," Biden said.
"Today, the most common price of gas in America is $3.39 — down from over $5 when I took office," he added.
\u201cBIDEN: "The most common price of gas in America is $3.39. Down from over $5 when I took office."\n\nThe average price of gas when Joe Biden took office was actually $2.39.\u201d— Townhall.com (@Townhall.com) 1666903377
There are numerous problems with Biden's statements.
Not only was the national average price of gas $3.76 per gallon on Thursday — nearly 40 cents more than what Biden claimed — but the price of gas was only $2.39 per gallon for the week ending on Jan. 25, 2021, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
That means gas cost less than half per gallon when Biden took office compared to what he claimed on Thursday.
Moreover, Biden claimed that gas prices drooped because of the "actions" his administration has taken. But when gas prices were increasing last spring, Biden blamed the spike on Russia. The truth is that presidents cannot control the price of gas, but Biden clearly wants to blame others for the bad and take credit for the good.
Snopes, a fact-checker friendly to Democrats, swiftly called out Biden's claim as "false."
Of course, Biden also used his speech to attack oil companies, suggesting they are price gouging. Oil companies, however, do not determine the price of gas at the pump.
"We need to keep making that progress by having energy companies bring down the cost of a gallon of gas that reflects the cost they’re paying for a barrel of oil," Biden said. "There used to be a direct correlation: A barrel of oil goes down, the price at the pump goes down at the same time."
But, according to calculations by the Dallas Federal Reserve, only 59% of the price at the pump is the cost of oil.