On Wednesday's broadcast of CNN's "The Lead," Senior Adviser to President Joe Biden Gene Sperling agreed with Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell's statement that there was high inflation before Russia invaded Ukraine and argued that the inflation that existed prior to the war in Ukraine was "related to" the coronavirus pandemic because the pandemic caused the economy to shut down and start up again, created supply chain issues and kept those issues from being corrected, and led to production shutdowns and lockdowns in Asia.