Immediately after President Joe Biden’s speech to Congress on Tuesday night, Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers gave a brief, apparently unscripted response on social media.
On the Spokane Republican’s official Facebook page, she posted, “President Biden just delivered his State of the Union address to the American people. I’m live right now to share my thoughts.”
“What I would say to the president is, ‘Mr. President, just because you say it doesn’t make it true,’” the new chairwoman of the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee began the 96-second broadcast.
She started by challenging Biden on the economy.
“The president was saying that our economy was doing well,” she said. “Boy, in eastern Washington, people are struggling. Families are struggling.”
Next up were high gas prices and inflation.
“I continue to hear the concerns about high gas prices, gas prices that are still stubbornly high,” she said, before laying blame for much of that increase at the president’s feet.
“Gas was at $2.39 a gallon when President Biden was sworn into office,” she said.
McMorris Rodgers further charged that “energy prices drive inflation” and cited as an example of how this hits ordinary people, “food prices when you go to the grocery store.”
She contrasted the current state of the economy under Biden with his predecessor, former President Donald Trump.
“Before COVID, our economy was booming,” she said. “People were coming off the sidelines. We had record jobs being created in eastern Washington and across this country.”
She also charged that the Biden administration, “has spent recklessly. Trillions of dollars. Debt is at a $31 trillion high.”
Finally, McMorris Rodgers declared herself “most disappointed” that the president didn’t make a bigger deal out of the necessity to tackle the proliferation of “fentanyl and fentanyl analogues.”
“We have record amount of fentanyl coming across the border,” she said. “Spokane has become a crisis city when it comes to fentanyl. And I’m going to continue to lead the charge to get fentanyl off our streets, in Spokane and across this nation.”