

If he in fact moved into Ukraine, took hold of Ukraine, and Belarus, where it is, and he’s been a threat to NATO, all those things would have even been more dire.ĪP: Why is that? Because it seems like you knew the risks on Ukraine with regard to higher gasoline prices. It was, this is not going to be cost-free, but we had, the option of doing nothing was worse. There was going to be a price to pay for it. Um, and as I said at the time, by the way, I made it clear with helping Ukraine, and organizing NATO to help Ukraine, that this was going to cost. I mean literally at the pump.Īnd if you notice, you know, uh, gasoline went up a, you know, $1.25 right off the bat, almost, when, the, Putin’s war started. But then, in my experience, the way I was raised, if you want a direct barometer of what people are going to talk about at the kitchen table and the dining room table and whether things are going well, it’s the cost of food and what’s the cost of, of gasoline at the pump. We started opening up businesses, and opening up access to go back to work, etc. People were having access to dealing with the pandemic. We were able to, ah, you know, go from 2 million shots in arms to 225 million. We came in and we started to grow the economy in significant ways. Things were much more, they were much more optimistic. (crosstalk)īIDEN: Well, if you notice, until gas prices started going up, which was about the same time, the University of Michigan survey, they had a very different view. And how do you as a president provide a sense of stability and strength. When I look at the consumer sentiment survey the University of Michigan puts out, even Democrats began to get really worried about a year ago regarding the economy and we’ve had people that have basically been through a pandemic, shortages of basic goods, inflation, some of the political divisions you’re seeing right now on the Hill with the Jan. There’s a lot of voters who are very pessimistic. The rest was sort of, I mean that literally, everything else seemed to be an afterthought.ĪP: So, let me ask about that, right, because you’ve seen the polls. And the biggest thing I think that, when I came into this job, that I have the greatest frustration with the last four years, is that, um, uh, everything was constructed and built and arranged in order for the top 1 to 3% of the population to do very well. BIDEN: I’m not a big believer in trickle-down economy, and, um, and so everything I look at from the time I took this office, but even before that when I was a senator all those years, is what’s the best shot to grow the economy from the bottom up and the middle out because when that happens everybody does well.
