President Biden has forgotten important facts about the economy, foreign policy and his presidency. Interview with Time Magazine Last month he confused Chinese President Xi Jinping with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Biden, 81, has repeatedly falsely claimed wage growth was outpacing inflation during his presidency, underestimated the amount of U.S. aid to Ukraine since Russia’s invasion of the country in February 2022 and reportedly overestimated Japan’s defense spending and Africa’s population. Fact check after Time magazine interview.
“Wage increases are above the cost of inflation, above pre-COVID prices,” Biden told the magazine’s reporters in a May 28 interview.
According to the latest statistics, seasonally adjusted real average hourly earnings increased by 0.5% from April 2023 to April 2024. US Bureau of Labor Statistics reportbut the median weekly wage is Not keeping up with inflation.
Inflation is set to peak at 9.1% in June 2022, the highest increase since the early 1980s, a spike Biden has sought to blame on his predecessor.
Shortly after being asked whether newly announced tariffs on Chinese goods would push up consumer prices, Biden conflated the names of the leaders of America’s two biggest adversaries.
“No, here’s the deal. There’s a difference. I made it very clear to President Putin from the beginning that I was not involved, we were not involved,” Biden responded, pausing for a moment.
“For example, Trump wants to put a 10% tariff on everything, which would make everything more expensive in the United States,” he said.
“Biden appears to be referring here to President Xi Jinping, not Putin,” Time magazine’s editor’s note read.
Turning to the Ukraine war, Biden said at another point, “We’ve spent a lot of money in Ukraine, but Europe as a whole has spent more than the United States,” before adding shortly afterward that he “spent a month in Ukraine when I was a senator and vice president.”
Since Putin’s invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022, the United States has provided about $68 billion more in funding than the European Union.
of Total EU spending Kiev’s defense and humanitarian aid budget is approximately $107 billionThis is the same amount of U.S. aid provided to the government of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
The Post also could not find any contemporary reports that Biden visited Ukraine while he was a senator from Delaware from 1973 to 2009, during which he served as chairman of the powerful Foreign Relations Committee for 12 years.
“What would you think if I told you that Japan would spend 3 percent of its GDP on defense and make a Camp David settlement with South Korea, which is an overwhelming threat not only to North Korea but to Europe as well?” the president rhetorically asked interview participants during another question about the U.S. Indo-Pacific strategy.
According to World Bank data, Japan Approximately 1% of GDP He has been involved in defense since 1960.
After being asked about voters’ concerns about becoming the oldest president in history, Biden pointed to the trillions of dollars in federal spending he has enacted that former Obama administration officials say, along with unprecedented student loan forgiveness, contributed to soaring inflation.
“I can do it better than anybody you know,” the president said when asked if he would be prepared to serve a second term that would put him in office at age 86. “Look at my story. Name me any president who has accomplished as much as I’ve accomplished in his first three and a half years.”
“If you’re watching me, I can beat you too,” he told a Time magazine reporter, appearing to joke about the brawl.
“I remember when I went to Taiwan, no, South Korea, I went to bring back their semiconductor industry that had garnered $865 billion in private investment since I took office. Name me a president who has done that,” Biden continued, inaccurately conflating his own 2022 visit to the Asian countries with last month’s investment announcement.
He also suggested that Africa’s population, currently around 1.4 billion, is set to grow to “1 billion” in the next few years.
At another time, Biden could not remember the last time he spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The Daily Caller first reportedOr do you know the whereabouts of CIA Director William Burns, one of the Administration’s chief negotiators for the rescue of American hostages from Gaza?
The Israeli government said on Tuesday that 77 people were still being held hostage by Hamas, including five Americans.
“I believe some are still alive. I’ve met with all the families. But we don’t have conclusive evidence of exactly who’s alive and who’s dead,” Biden said.
“By the way, I’ve been calling for a ceasefire and that the hostages be rescued,” he added, asking where Mr Barnes was.
“So we are pressing: is our intelligence chief here? Where is he now?”
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
