On Monday, Fox News host Martha MacCallum got into an exchange with President Joe Biden’s senior advisor Gene Sperling about an oncoming recession. The report that indicates whether we are in a recession arrives on Thursday.
MacCallum asked if Sperling “subscribes” to the standard definition of a recession meaning that there are two quarters of negative growth in the GDP. The advisor then argued that there are other factors that go into it including including the jobs market.
Sperling defended the President by saying that there are “three points of evidence as to why I think that the evidence is strong we’re not in a recessionary period and that in fact in the face of a very big global economy, the U.S. economy is showing special resistance.”
“It is a significant contractionary period over a few months where those that make that determination look at a lot of different factors, particularly the jobs market,” replied Sterling.
He shot back at MacCallum that the private sector has risen 3 percent and that earnings from JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley and Citi Group shows that consumers are in fact spending 10 percent more than last year.
“Well, you can see why people are a little bit weary, because we were all told that inflation was going to be transitory by the same individuals, by all of you. So that does make people weary to listen again,” MacCallum retorted.
The host said that a CNN poll showed that 64 percent of Americans already think the country is in a recession. The poll was taken on July 13 and has a 3.3 percent margin of error.
“You can tell us that everything is going to be fine because job growth is good, and I would only point out on that front that we have also had a once-in-a-century pandemic, so when you completely shut down the U.S. economy, you would expect you’re going to add a lot of jobs as you’re coming out of it. Correct?”
“I think the reality is that when you have a once-in-a-generation pandemic and then an unthinkable war that roils the global economy, it is hard to imagine that the U.S. economy would escape all that,” Sperling replied. “But Martha, I gave you very solid facts about why this economy is showing resilience, why you’re having strong markets. There’s no doubt or spin to the idea that we’ve created a million jobs in the last three months and there’s no spin to what I said about the reporting from JP Morgan or Morgan Stanley or Citi Group. Those are all reflecting strength.”
“Like I said, I think everybody hopes that you’re right and it can be tricky as a supervisor, that’s why you get elected and that’s why people rely on your sort of experience. They don’t want to be told that something’s transitory then it turns out not to be and you see how people feel when you have 64% saying ‘I’m already in a recession as far as I’m concerned.’”
Sperling then argued that our economic recovery is actually strong despite most Americans reporting that they are feeling the strain of an oncoming recession and inflation. MacCallum cut that argument off and argued that that is because the economy is recovering from the pandemic. She then continued saying that the government is at fault for inflation because they gave out “way too much stimulus” money.
“We’ll see in the end, in history’s eye, who’s actually right,” MacCallum argued.
“The core inflation rate [ in the world ] is actually higher than the U.S.,” Sperling said back.
Youth Basketball Referee Knocks Out A Dad’s Lights In Middle Of Game
“You’ve made this point before, Gene, and I think it would be nice if you made us feel better that ours wasn’t quite as bad as some other people,” she continued.
The report that will indicate whether we are in a recession or not is scheduled to be released on Thursday and will show whether the nation has faced positive or negative growth and is technically in a recession or not.
Do you think that Joe Biden is doing a good job as President or is he the one that is running our country in the ground? Most Americans would agree with you if you said the latter. The President has very little support in polling and those that do must have not understood the poll. Do you think Biden should drop out of the 2024 race like liberals are calling for?
