President Joe Biden is telling Americans the average gas price when he walked into the White House was more than twice the actual price.
During an event on Thursday, the president tried to tout a decrease in gas prices but vastly overstated the average price before he took office.
“The most common price of gas in America is $3.39 cents,” Biden said.
He went on, “Down from over $5 when I took office.”
Watch the video below:
Joe Biden tried to claim that gas prices were $5 when he first took office.
— MRCTV (@mrctv) October 27, 2022
In reality, gas prices were at $2.39 when Biden took office. pic.twitter.com/VgY0f9Zi0E
According to AAA, the national average price for a regular gallon of gas is $3.76 per gallon.
However, his biggest misstatement in that video clip was his claim gas prices were over $5 per gallon.
CNN fact checker Daniel Dale tweeted, “Biden falsely claimed today that gas prices were ‘over $5 when I took office.'”
“The national average on his Inauguration Day was actually $2.39, per AAA data. This is the second wildly inaccurate gas-price claim Biden has made in recent weeks,” he added.
Biden falsely claimed today that gas prices were “over $5 when I took office.” The national average on his Inauguration Day was actually $2.39, per AAA data. This is the second wildly inaccurate gas-price claim Biden has made in recent weeks (the other: https://t.co/87r3RpkSdm).
— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) October 27, 2022
Where Biden got that number from is not clear at all — especially since he was talking about the most common price for gas. His number was not even close to the actual average price in Jan. 2021.
Perhaps the president is just getting desperate ahead of the midterms and hoping people will not notice he is not telling the truth. Since gas prices have surged under his presidency and become a top issue for voters, this looks like some kind of disingenuous effort to make it seem gas prices have decreased much more than they actually have.
Last week, he also falsely claimed his student debt cancellation plan was passed by Congress.
During a televised forum sponsored by the liberal media outlet Now This, Biden said of his debt plan, “It’s passed. I got it passed by a vote or two. And it’s in effect. And already a total of, I think it’s now 13 million people, have applied for that service.”
However, it was not passed by Congress. PolitiFact notes, “His administration drew on the HEROES Act, a law passed after the 9/11 terrorist attacks that allows relief from student loan payments during times of war or national emergency.” It also pointed the debt cancellation plan is not really in effect because it is facing legal challenges.
So where he got the “it passed by a vote or two” is incredibly unclear. But it sounds good and as though he was able to wrangle Congress to pass a major legislative win for the Democrats.
Earlier this month, the president also falsely claimed gas prices in Los Angeles, California have “always” been around $7 per gallon.
Perhaps Biden believes he can just say false things that sound good and people will not notice. Or he’s getting confused about the details.
