Neil Cavuto Spars With WH Economic Advisor Avoiding Question on Biden Inflation Claim: ‘You’re Almost As Bad As He Is!’

Fox Business host Neil Cavuto grew frustrated with White House economic advisor Jared Bernstein on Thursday after Bernstein side-stepped questions about a false inflation claim President Joe Biden has repeatedly made.

Biden has earned some pushback in recent interviews for claiming that inflation was 9% when he entered the White House. Numerous fact-checks have called this claim false as inflation was actually just above 1% when he came into office.

“Jared, why does he keep saying that?” Cavuto asked Bernstein on Thursday.

“First of all, let me point out that in that very quote that you played the president talked about how concerned he was for households struggling with crises that he consistently —” Bernstein began before Cavuto stopped him by repeating his question.

“That’s not what I asked you. That’s not what I asked you. Why does he keep misrepresenting this?” he asked.

“He’s making the point that the factors that caused inflation to climb to 9% were in place when he took office,” Bernstein said.

“No! That’s not what he said. He said it was at 9%. It would eventually get to 9% a little over a year after that, but the fact of the matter is it wasn’t 9%, so if I can’t trust him with quoting data in real time, why should I believe what he’s talking about now?” Cavuto asked.

In a recent interview with CNN , Biden repeated his claim about inflation being 9% at the beginning of his term. It was actually 1.4% when he entered office, and it reached a peak of 9% in June 2022.

“So the annual core and growth in inflation in the second quarter of 2021 was in fact about 9% and his point about inflation down 60% off its peak is very much the case,” Bernstein said.

“No, it wasn’t. It was not at that, so you’re almost as bad as he is! Why can’t you just say it was high? It got as high as 9%. You’d be accurate in saying that,” Cavuto said.

The Fox Business host said Bernstein sounded like he was just “lying.”

Bernstein continued by saying Biden was making a “point” that is “unequivocally true,” while Cavuto argued blaming the previous administration completely for inflation is a bad look to voters.

“Look, I think what the American people care most about is —” Bernstein eventually said.

“Is truth!” Cavuto cut in.

“This only works if you let me talk,” Bernstein shot back.

“You haven’t answered my question. I’ve asked you five times, five ways,” Cavuto said.

Bernstein echoed his earlier points about the “factors” that caused inflation to rise being in place when Biden entered office, to which Cavuto muttered, “Oh, boy…”

Watch above via Fox Business .