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The White House took a victory lap on an article that credited consumers and businesses with getting Christmas gifts to homes on time.
Several high-level White House staffers posted tweets suggesting that President Biden’s policies led to the timely delivery of gifts, including White House press secretary Jen Psaki.
“Take that Scrooge, the Grinch and all of the doubters that this could happen,” Psaki tweeted. “Also shelves are stocked at 90% (pre-pandemic levels are 91%).”
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“Merry Christmas to all, and to this over-hyped narrative, a Good Night,” White House chief of staff Ron Klain tweeted.
“[Biden’s] action on supply chains is delivering results: ‘The warnings started to stream in early this fall: Shop early or you may not get your gifts on time,'” White House rapid response director Mike Gwin tweeted, selectively quoting the article. “‘Despite early fears, however, holiday shoppers have received their gifts mostly on time.'”
The tweets were in reference to a Wednesday New York Times article about Christmas gifts making it to Americans’ homes on time – something the article credits to consumers ordering gifts well in advance and businesses adapting to the post-COVID market landscape.
In fact, the only government entity mentioned in the article is the U.S. Postal Service, which had the smallest improvement in comparison to the growth of UPS and FedEx.
Additionally, the sole mention of Biden’s policies is when the Times article referenced conservatives criticizing the president over the still-ongoing supply chain crisis.
Critics were quick to point out this fact on Twitter.
The White House’s desperate attempt to spin the market adaptation that ensured the delivery of Christmas gifts comes as the president is meeting with his supply chain task force Wednesday morning – meaning it appears the administration was looking to generate an online fanfare ahead of the meeting.
The premature victory lap is also overshadowed by the current supply chain crisis that is still seeing nearly 100 container ships sitting off the coast of California.
President Joe Biden, with Vice President Kamala Harris, arrives to sign the $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill on the South Lawn of the White House on Nov. 15, 2021. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
The White House did not provide an on-the-record comment on the tweets, but instead pointed to multiple articles from Wednesday morning and a tweet from Long Beach Mayor Robert Garcia, a longtime supporter and former surrogate for Vice President Kamala Harris, who credited Biden and Harris for solving “serious supply chain challenges.”
“And a huge reason why is because of the Biden/Harris administration,” Garcia wrote. “They worked with ports, shippers and retailers around the clock to solve serious supply chain challenges. And they continue to do so.”
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One of the articles the White House pointed to was a blog post from Rachel Maddow’s producer that cited the Times article and then defended Klain’s tweet, saying, “It’s hard to blame White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain for taking a little victory lap this morning.”
A couple other articles they pointed to were from Reuters and NY1, which cited a White House blog post released last week about the supply chain task force. One of the statistics they point to is that the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach imported over 765,000 containers in November 2021 and over 9.3 million containers in 2021.
