John Podesta Lets the Cat out of the Bag on the Inflation Reduction Act

There's been a lot of discussion about who are the powers that be, controlling the Biden administration behind the scenes. Wednesday's "celebration" of the anniversary of the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act revealed a couple of the big players behind the scenes -- John Podesta and Neera Tanden.

Podesta and Tanden should have slunk off into the sunset after their respective controversies. But it says something about the Biden administration that instead, we see them featured prominently on the podium on Wednesday. Perhaps it figures that they would both be involved in something that was so falsely sold to the American people.

While Joe Biden made some creepy comments about kids and said things that were untrue about the act, he beat it out of there and left it to others, including Podesta and Tanden, to answer questions.

That's when Podesta, who Biden made the head of the White House Office on Clean Energy Innovation and Implementation in September, let the cat out of the bag when it came to the Act. Podesta admitted straight out what the administration didn't want to admit last year when they were trying to get it passed.

Top Biden advisor John Podesta: "We have to cut the carbon pollution that's driving the climate crisis and that's what the 'Inflation Reduction Act' is all about!" pic.twitter.com/DzuXZTCy9N
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) August 16, 2023

"We have to cut the carbon pollution that's driving the climate crisis and that's what the 'Inflation Reduction Act' is all about!" Podesta acknowledged.

A year later, they're finally going there, and they trying to term every disaster as being from climate change, including the Maui fire. It was always about "climate change."

At least one reporter noticed the change and asked then why they had painted it as the Inflation Reduction Act, since a number of experts noted that reduction in inflation was not a "direct result" of the Act. Then the reporter revealed just how bad it was, noting how the climate spending in the bill is now much higher than they had previously claimed — they had said it was going to be $385 billion, but now it's going to be at least $1.4 trillion according to estimates and may run even higher. Podesta then made a face.

"People are broadly unhappy" with Biden's "handling of inflation," the reporter said. Biden said that he wished he hadn't called it the Inflation Reduction Act, the reporters declared. "What should you call it?" she asked Podesta. Great question that basically left Podesta stuttering.

"Polls keep showing that people are broadly unhappy with the president's handling of inflation...and the president has said he wished he didn't call this the 'Inflation Reduction Act.' What should you call it?"

JOHN PODESTA: "It's a complicated bill" pic.twitter.com/MdNOzSzumd
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) August 16, 2023

He then tried to say it's "reduced costs" despite what the experts the reporter cited just said. He claimed it was going to reduce healthcare costs and gave rebates for things like solar panels and heat pumps. But you'll notice it does nothing for what is hitting people in the everyday expenditures, like gas and groceries, and indeed just spends more. That's why it was so falsely named.

Another reporter put that question that bluntly to Neera Tanden, who is now the Director of the Domestic Policy Council, replacing Susan Rice in that position in May. The reporter noted there doesn't seem to be anything in the bill that addresses those issues. Tanden, like Podesta, can't answer that question. She just reiterated what they were claiming about healthcare costs.

Top Biden advisor Neera Tanden takes a question about high grocery prices impacting Americans and turns it into a speech on prescription drugs pic.twitter.com/LJkFknsFPj
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) August 16, 2023

Another reporter asked a great question about how they could be sure that green companies they were going to promote with this wouldn't go under, as Solyndra had under Barack Obama. The reporter noted that Biden had been hyping the electric vehicle-related company Proterra and that went under as well.

Top Biden advisor John Podesta has no good answer on the "safeguards" in place to "ensure that there won't be another Solyndra [or] Proterra" out of the so-called "Inflation Reduction Act" pic.twitter.com/iQfyKMZZ6i
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) August 16, 2023

Will Hild, the Executive Director of Consumers First, also pointed out another unbelievable thing in Podesta's remarks -- that he was trying to point to Credit Suisse as any kind of a guarantor as to their promise that "90 percent of the solar" being deployed would be manufactured in the U.S.

This is beyond hilarious: Biden Climate Adviser John Podesta just used forecasts by Credit Suisse to support the admin's ESG plans...

Reminder: Credit Suisse collapsed this year because, after years of fraud/scandal, many of their own customers deemed the bank *not* trustworthy. pic.twitter.com/Y7Ni5AN8Mf
— Will Hild (@WillHild) August 16, 2023

Hey, who wouldn't trust these guys, right?