what has caused this. this is the national retail federation. they took a survey and the respondents basically are painting a picture of the american people going into more debt and having more trouble covering their expenses. among all con soupers, 58% say they are going into debt, borrowing money or using savings to cover expenses. you go to the lower income consumers, and it s even higher, 72%. the next, those able to cover their expenses right now, only 40% of all consumers, and then the lower income bracket, just 24%. that s painting a very dire picture of the state of the economy today and where the american people are. this is fox news polling on staying ahead financially, those that say that they are falling behind, gerry, it is now a whopping 47%, and then when responding to the condition of the economy, those that rate it poor, 57%. that is a complete disconnect from the picture that the white house is painting.
short of pre-pandemic levels. the record-setting price of gas and the president visiting saudi arabia after asking the kingdom to pump more oil. critics want to see that happen here in the u.s., not the middle east. president biden once called saudi arabia a pariah. accusing the crown prince of ordering the murder of a prince. he is expected to go in july. reporting from the white house with the very latest. thank you so much. joining us now as a senior advisor to the president, jean sperling. welcome back. good to be with you. thank you, john. painting a pretty rosy picture of the state of the economy, but other see storm clouds on the horizon, one of them being jamie
page but it s time they have to start getting some quick answers. a trucker in tennessee painting a pretty bleak picture of what s to come if they don t get inflation under control. watch this. i m going to give you a reality check. $1,052 to fill a semi-truck in tennessee. it is currently right now 5.15 a gallon. what the [bleep] are we all going to do next month when your gallon of milk costs $11? that s the only quay you get milk. freezer units, refrigerated trailers. it ain t like y all are going to do without. you all better wake up.
director for the infectious diseases of the cdc, he says that he was directed in may 2020 to put an updated guidance about faith community and he says, according to the committee, he told the committee, quote, i was doing a lot of soul searching about whether or not i should have even agreed to make changes in the document. it was a directive, but a real struggle as i felt like they had been done had been done was not good public health practice. and in another case, dr. debbie birx, the head of the covid response force, she said she specifically wanted to sit out a meeting at the white house because she said that there were fringe doctors included in that meeting lineup. so all of this, again, painting a very concerning picture of what was going on in the early days of the pandemic. now, notably, cnn has of course reached out to the parties that were named in this committee document, a report and we have not independently yet confirmed
problems, that s not an overnight fix, but lastly when you talk about inflation and a look at the pain that is out there, when we look at the restaurants, dominoes, chipotle, mcdonald s, all of these restaurant executives are painting a very bleak picture going forward and many people in their home towns have seen it and seen some of the restaurant chains limit their store hours as they are restricting the way that you can order and how much, they are shortening menus because they can t get people to work and all these high prices are digging into their profit. with respect to what robert just said, i agree, i think we borrowed way too much money even in the trump administration, the tax cuts created a great economy, but we did not get control of the spending. i don t understand why that s the logic for spending $4.5 trillion more, we borrowed during the cold a crisis because we thought it was an appropriate thing to get through the crisis, the crisis is over and we should reduce our