CNN, MSNBC, CNBC react to June inflation numbers: ‘Not good news for anybody’

CNN, MSNBC and CNBC hosts reacted to the June inflation report on Wednesday, saying that it wasn’t “good news for anybody” and that the numbers were much higher than expected. 

“If you’re President of the United States, there are four words you do not want said consecutively: ‘Worst inflation since 1981,'” MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” host Joe Scarborough said after the news dropped. “I mean, we’re going back to the days of Paul Volker, baby, that’s not good news for anybody.”

Andrew Ross Sorkin, a host for CNBC’s “Squawk Box,” joined the “Morning Joe” team to give a rundown of the numbers and said that it was “an even worse case politically” because the costs are hurting “the middle and the bottom the most.” 

“We’re talking about rent, which is higher. We’re talking about gas, which we know is higher. And we’re taking about food, which is higher. And so you’re seeing these things be persistent. It is not changing at the moment,” he continued, adding that the good news was that gas prices have come down slightly in recent weeks. 

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Inflation rose 9.1% in June from last year, hitting another 40-year high. 

During CNBC’s “Squwak Box,” the hosts debated where to place the inflation blame. Joe Kernen listed the “Putin price hike,” supply chain issues due to the pandemic, the Fed, fiscal spending and energy issues. Kernen asked Steve Liesman how much blame he would place on each of these factors. 

Liesman said he would place fifty percent of the blame on the Fed but also would put some on the fiscal spending and supply chain issues. 

Rick Santelli argued that the energy issues were at the top of the list and added that central banks also shared some blame. 

Kernen asked about another source of blame, “greedy corporations.” 

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“I want to just say this, Joe, your idea, and sort of ideology posits perfect markets, and you have to leave some room out there, Joe, that there is some decline in competition in parts of this U.S. economy that does give undue, or large pricing power to companies,” Liesman said. “We have documented research, Joe, on the idea of the growing ‘monopsony,'” he continued. 

“Biden is wrong overall but not specifically when it comes to individual monopolies that are out there,” he said. 

On CNN’s “New Day,” Rahel Solomon noted that the numbers were much higher than expected. 

“Certainly not a number that the White House would like to see, nor the Fed. So 9.1% year over year, higher than even expectations and a fresh high, 1.3% over the last month. These are not numbers that the Fed wants to see, it wants to see this moving in the opposite direction,” she said. 

She noted that core inflation, which excludes measurements of food and energy, saw a very slight decline from May, when core was 6%, and came in at 5.9%. However, on a monthly basis, core inflation rose 0.7%.

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Solomon said that the report reaffirms what most people already know, that inflation is running “rampant” and is “everywhere these days.”

CNN’s Matt Egan said on “Inside Politics” that “we haven’t seen 9.1% inflation since November 1981, back when Ronald Reagan was wrapping up his first year in the White House. Many Americans had literally never experienced anything like this.” 

He added that high inflation was being driven by the pandemic, the war in Ukraine and the “unprecedented” stimulus from Washington, D.C. “It means that, you know, paychecks are just not going as far for families. And that is very painful,” he said.

President Biden said in a statement that Wednesday’s report was “out of date” because gas prices have decreased in recent weeks.