Fox contributor Mary Katharine Ham pushed back against senior political analyst Juan Williams on Sunday after he claimed the numbers show the “economy is better now” under the Biden-Harris administration compared to former President Donald Trump’s.
Goldman Sachs economists released a note last week suggesting that the economy under Vice President Kamala Harris could give a “very slight boost” to GDP investment, while Trump’s plan might negatively impact growth due to “tariffs and tighter immigration policy.” Williams defended Goldman Sachs’ response to the two administrations during “Sunday Report,” but Ham interjected, noting that they weren’t addressing the concerns of average Americans at the grocery store.
“The reality is, if you look at the numbers, the economy is better now than it was then. So you’re dealing with this kind of memory sense of things,” Williams said. “But the context is Goldman Sachs, they’re no left-wing organization. They’re saying the economy will be better under Kamala Harris — ” Williams said.
“They’re also not mom buying groceries though,” Ham jumped in.
Williams then called out Trump’s speech to the New York economic club, stating he had messed up what should’ve “been a knockout.”
“I think this week there was 88 top executive who came out and said, ‘We think the economy will spur, will boost under Kamala Harris,’” Williams continued. “And this week Trump went before the New York economic club to give a speech and it should have been — given the perception he want to say the economy was better — it should’ve been a knockout for him in front of all those rich men. Instead, he delivered word salad on a question about child care.”
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“My sense is, look, the job numbers are good, the stock market is good and right now the Federal Reserve is in a position where they are likely to raise — I’m sorry_, lower interest rates, which will raise, I think, opportunities for Kamala Harris to say we have a future that’s better coming under my administration.”
Fox host Shannon Bream then returned to Ham’s comment, noting that Ham is a mother herself and hears from other mothers about “what they think.”
“My perspective is, if it’s hurting us, I know it’s hurting other people pretty much, much more. It’s hard to argue that the inflation — although the rate of it is falling — you’re not getting back to the 1.9 that we had in January 2017, 2016, when Trump was in office, right? And this hurts people,” Ham said. “When you talk about the jobs market, yes, we are adding jobs, but it’s mediocre at best. And we’re revising down every single month to [an] accumulative number that’s taken a pretty big hit on those numbers. ”
Following the unveiling of her economic plan in mid-August, Harris faced pushback from political pundits on both sides of the aisle. Her focus on a federal ban on “corporate price gouging” aimed to reduce grocery store prices, but critics warned the plan could negatively impact the economy by driving up prices and potentially create black markets.
An ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos poll from August shows that, despite Harris holding a slight national lead, Americans still trust Trump more on top voting concerns like the economy, inflation and immigration. Trump leads Harris by nine points on handling the economy and inflation alike and by 10 points on managing the U.S.-Mexico border, according to the data.
Featured Image Credit: Gage Skidmore from Surprise, AZ, United States of America
