President Joe Biden’s “populist” economic messaging is silly, Washington Post columnist and CNN commentator Catherine Rampell said.
“I think a lot of the stuff in Biden’s economic messaging is a little bit silly,” Rampell said on CNN. “The anti-shrinkflation bill that he endorsed, for example. Shrinkflation is maybe more salient today but it’s actually not more common today than it was a few years ago. Things like that.
"These are sort of populist talking points that he is hoping will demonstrate to the American public that the Biden administration is fighting for their pocketbooks.”
Biden, during his State of the Union address Thursday night, highlighted economic progress, telling Congress he “inherited an economy that was on the brink” but that it was now the “envy of the world.”
He said he would fight to make the wealthy pay more taxes, cap credit card late fees and lower prices for prescription drugs. He also called out “shrinkflation,” a term that applies to a seemingly covert way for companies to raise prices by ever so slightly reducing the size of their products.
“It’s called shrinkflation,” Biden said in his address. “You get charged the same amount and you got about, I don’t know, 10% fewer Snickers in it.”
The president’s focus on shrinkflation is part of a broader strategy to reframe how voters think about the economy before the November election. Biden is trying to deflect criticism about high prices and instead pin the blame on big business.
He also attempted to show everyday people that he’s fighting for them as he struggles to convince the public that the economy has strengthened under his leadership.
Rampell said Biden should focus more on Trump.
“I think where actually Biden and Democrats have a lot more material to work with is by talking about the Trump economic agenda. Because Trump, as much as people remember his economy as being much better — and in many respects it was, whether due to him or not — Trump would implement a lot of policy proposals that would make inflation worse,” Rampell said.
“Right? He wants to have global tariffs of 10%. Those tariffs, we know, have been passed along to consumers in the past. The same thing would happen, uh, under a Trump administration,” she added. “That means higher prices for regular people.”
Solange Reyner ✉
Solange Reyner is a writer and editor for Newsmax. She has more than 15 years in the journalism industry reporting and covering news, sports and politics.
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.