Watch: Biden Economic Adviser Dodges When Asked if Manchin’s Warning About Spending Was ‘Right’

The chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, Cecilia Rouse, is declining to say whether Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) was “right” to raise concerns that high levels of federal spending could fuel inflation.

CNN’s Brianna Keilar asked Rouse on Tuesday morning, “Looking back, were Larry Summers and 👤Joe Manchin right about spending and inflation?”

“I’m not sure what the ‘right’ is,” Rouse responded.

She went on, “What we have here is an economy that’s recovering from a pandemic. The downturn was caused by the pandemic where we had to basically power down our economy until we had therapeutics and the vaccinations and the shots into arms…”

Keilar interjected, “They warned that the spending levels — which, of course, I understand the White House and you consider very necessary for the situation that the economy and that the pandemic was in — that it would cause inflation of maybe a higher level than certain people including at the White House were expecting.”

She asked again, “Were they right?”

“What we’ve seen is that all advanced countries are trying to address inflation, and they have historic levels of inflation. That has been the consequence of mounting an effective response to the pandemic,” Rouse said.

She added, “Because while we supported households and businesses, got shots into arms — which allowed people to start to come out of their homes and regain their lives — our supply chains could not support this demand. We are not alone.”

Watch the video below:

In Feb. 2021, Larry Summers, an Obama-era economic adviser,