Axelrod says people 'DON'T believe' Biden's 'Putin price hike' claim

Obama adviser David Axelrod said Friday that American's 'don't believe' the White House's branding of high prices at the pump as 'Putin's price hike.'

'[Biden] was saying, you know, everything is Putin’s price hikes. Inflation is Putin's fault. People don’t believe that either,' Axelrod said on his podcast with GOP consultant Mike Murphy and former Obama press secretary Robert Gibbs, Hacks on Tap. 

'They know that we had inflation before this. They know that gas prices were high before this so they haven't dialed this in quite right. You can't blame everything in the economy on Putin,' he said. 

'Why not just be blunt with people,' the Obama staffer added. 

Meanwhile, Republicans accused the White House of trying to 'gaslight' Americans by trying to blame the massive price spike on Russia invading Ukraine, without acknowledging that prices were already on the rise. 

'The president is literally gaslighting the American people,' Iowa Senator Joni Ernst said at the Capitol on Tuesday. 

'He feels that if he says it enough, people are going to believe that fuel prices were Putin's fault. We know that's not true,' she continued. 'So folks, let's all step up. Let's push this administration to get over their deranged climate policy and let's unleash American energy.'

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said during the press availability with a group of Republicans on Tuesday: 'I think it's perfectly clear that Vladimir Putin is not the cause of this rampant inflation that began at the beginning of the year.'

'Nobody buys Democrats' efforts to blame 14 months of failed policies on three weeks of crisis in Europe,' the Kentucky Republican tweeted. 'Inflation and gas prices were skyrocketing and hurting families long before late last month. The White House needs to stop trying to deny their mistakes and start fixing them.'

Biden has recently recruited and deployed TikTokers to blame soaring inflation on Putin. 

The most recent inflation figures show a 7.9 rise in the consumer price index in one year - the highest in four decades - and those numbers came from February, before the full effects of the invasion.  

Gas prices had already been on the rise well before Putin's invasion - in November Biden released 50 million barrels of oil to alleviate prices that at the time had reached $3.39 a gallon, up $1.27 from the year

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