The Media Research Center’s Joseph Vazquez grumbled in an Oct. 21 post:
The New York Times came out with a story on rising car payment delinquencies that at first glance would make readers think it was President Donald Trump’s fault. But — as always — the devil’s in the details: This issue was a lingering carry-over from the Biden administration.
“Lower-Income Americans Are Missing Car Payments,” Times business reporter Sydney Ember’s October 20 headline read. She wrote that “Inflation and a tough job market are making it harder for some people to pay back the car loans they signed in better times.”
Sounds pretty bad, unless you’re a political opportunist looking to whack Trump with any political cudgel you can get your hands on. But the hidden plot twist would make anyone paying attention do a double-take: “The share of subprime auto loans that were 60 days or more past due reached a high of nearly 6.5 percent in January and has lingered near that level, according to Fitch Ratings.”
Hmm, who was president for most of January? Because it certainly wasn’t Trump. Ember never mentions Biden at all — of course —and proceeded to keep her story devoid of the necessary context:
Vazquez appears to have omitted the necessary context that delinquencies have remain at high levels during Trump’s presidency. Instead, he went on to blame Biden:
But this has been an inflationary problem that long preceded Trump’s administration. NewsNation reported in March that “Americans owed a record $1.66 trillion in auto loan debt at the end of 2024, up 20% since 2020.” In 2023, the Institute for Energy Research estimated that “the average new car loan now has a monthly payment of over $750, with an interest rate of 9.5 percent. For used cars, the average car interest rate is 13.7 percent” in Biden’s America.
In fact, the IER article that Vazquez cites states that “Supply chain issues post-pandemic have helped to boost prices for autos” — not a Biden-created problem. The IER article also included the possible impace of Biden-proposed fuel efficiency standards that President Trump has since abandoned. Vazquez also failed to disclose that IER is a right-wing group that promotes fossil fuels and discourages development of electric vehicles.
Vazquez concluded by ranting:
It shouldn’t surprise anybody that The Times is attempting to cover up the mess that Bidenomics created over the past four years, given that it endorsed both Biden and his lefty former heir apparent Vice President Kamala Harris. But it’s an even bigger slap to the face when everybody and their mother knows where a major economic problem originated from and the supposed newspaper of record tries to pretend it doesn’t exist.
Vazquez offered no evidence that who a newspaper endorses has any bearing on reporting or that “everybody and their mother” knows exactly who to blame for this particular “major economic problem” or even that Bidenomics created the “mess” he claims.