By Katabella Roberts
Former President Donald Trump has taken aim at soaring inflation under the Biden administration and warned that the situation is going to get “a lot worse.”
Trump made the comments during a Save America rally in Youngstown, Ohio, on Saturday in support of Republican Senate candidate J.D. Vance, who is running for office in the November midterm elections.
Vance faces Democratic Rep. Tim Ryan in the race to fill the seat vacated by Republican Sen. Rob Portman, who is retiring. The rally drew thousands of people.
“Under the Trump administration, we had the greatest economy in the history of the world with no inflation,” Trump said. “Biden and the Democrat Congress created the worst inflation in 50 years and that’s going to get a lot worse because right after the election when they stopped pumping the oil out of that beautiful strategic reserve that we had, millions and millions of barrels we pumped in, and now they’re pumping it out so that we can keep the prices down a little bit.”
Trump noted that while oil was down 32 cents a gallon in July, it is still “double and triple what it was.”
Inflation Still Running High
Trump’s comments come as inflation hit 8.3 percent in the United States in August, while the core inflation rate, which excludes the volatile food and energy sectors, increased to 6.3 percent.
Red-hot inflation is now costing American households an extra $717 each month, according to an analysis from the Joint Economic Committee Republicans.
Trump on Saturday said that Americans are being “wiped out” by the increased cost of living, adding that “surging food, energy, and electricity prices are busting family budgets, crushing small businesses, and causing shortages.”
He warned that inflation will soon surpass June’s figure of 9.1 percent, adding that that number will “go way up.”
“And that’s a tremendous number,” he said. “We’re now in a recession. There’s no reason for us to be in a recession. ”
The former president also issued a stark warning regarding Democrats’ tax hikes and their impact on jobs. The Inflation Reduction Act recently signed by Biden includes a 15 percent minimum tax on the domestic profits of large American corporations.
‘It’s Going to Pulverize Your Jobs’
Elsewhere, the Biden administration’s 2023 federal budget proposes raising the corporate income tax rate from 21 to 28 percent.
“The radical Democrat Congress just passed one of the largest tax hikes in the history of our country, pulverizing the middle class,” Trump said. “It’s going to pulverize your jobs. Wait until you see the numbers starting to come out.”
Biden said in an interview with CBS’s “60 Minutes” that aired on Sunday that he has not yet decided if he will run for reelection in 2024, and is instead waiting until after the midterm elections in November to make a choice.
Trump during the rally accused Biden of keeping energy prices down ahead of the election but warned they would soon furiously rise.
“Now, he’s using that to keep prices down as much as he can just before the election. And right after the election, it’s going to double up and go higher than anybody ever believed,” he said.
“The choice this November is simple. If you want to continue this national catastrophe, vote for the radical left Democrat. Let’s do it, go ahead. You won’t have a country left,” Trump added.
