Jen Psaki warns economic report will show 'extraordinarily elevated' inflation and puts the blame on Putin

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White House press secretary Jen Psaki warned that the next economic report could contain “extraordinarily elevated” inflation because of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.

Psaki made the comments during Monday’s media briefing at the White House.

“So, because of the actions we’ve taken to address the Putin price hike we are in a better place than we were last month, but we expect March CPI headline inflation to be extraordinarily elevated due to Putin’s price hike,” said Psaki to reporters.

“And we expect a large difference between core and headline inflation reflected in the global disruptions in energy and food markets. Core inflation doesn’t include energy and food prices, headline inflation does, and of course we know that core inflation, you know, energy, the impact of energy of course on oil prices, gas prices, we expect that to continue to reflect what we’ve seen, the increases be over the course of this invasion,” she added.

Psaki went on to try to directly attribute increases in gas prices to the invasion of Ukraine.

“And just as an example since President Putin’s military build-up accelerated in January, average gas prices are up more than 80 cents, most of the increase occurred in the month of March, and at times gas prices were more than a dollar above pre-invasion levels,” Psaki continued, “so that roughly 20% increase in gas prices will drive tomorrow’s inflation reading, and certainly, it’s not a surprise to us, but we certainly think it will be reflected.”

The administration has been harangued by Republican critics and others who have pointed out that inflation had been spiking prior to the Russian invasion. The administration has tried to pin inflation on the pandemic, greedy corporations, and finally the Russians.

Unfortunately for the Democrats, an NBC News poll showed far more Americans blame high prices on Biden’s policies rather than any of the other excuses the administration has made.