US President Joe Biden snapped at a reporter after he was grilled about the recession threat during a heated interview.
During the press conference at Rehoboth Beach, Delaware on Monday, Biden had a bit of a senior meltdown moment after one of the media correspondents brought up the warnings that a recession could be inbound, which several economists released.
“Not the majority of them aren’t saying that, c’mon, don’t make things up, ok? Now you sound like a Republican politician.” Frustrated, Biden responded.
Before the reporter could respond, Biden immediately claimed that he was only joking.
“I’m joking, that was a joke.”
However, it wasn’t clear which was he referring to as a joke, whether the entire sentence or just the “you sound like a Republican politician” bit.
The president then went on to explain why he didn’t think a recession was inevitable.
“All kidding aside, I don’t think it is, I was talking to Larry Summers this morning. There’s nothing inevitable about a recession.” Biden said.
Prior to the conference, some officials from some in the Biden Administration debunked the “recession” claim.
In the recent CBS “Face the Nation” show, National Economic Council Director Brian Deese, suggested that what America is going through is a “transition”, not a recession.
“Well, I think what — where we are in the economy right now is in a transition. And I spoke to CEOs this — over the course of the past week from sectors across the economy, and they’re figuring out how to navigate this transition. Some of this is exactly what we need to see.” Deese said.
Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm also claimed during CNN’s State of the Union that a recession isn’t inevitable.
“A recession is not inevitable. The president really wants to have a steady and stable recovery.” Granholm claimed.
Meanwhile, others disagreed with the claims, arguing that a “shallow recession in the U.S. is a “virtual certainty in the third quarter,” Destination Wealth Management’s Michael Yoshikami said while the Federal Reserve launched a historic attack on inflation.
“Now the problem we’re going to have here is are they going to tip the economy into recession when the consumer is already starting to pull back? The housing market in the U.S. is really locked up with mortgage rates close to 6% right now, and I think it’s a virtual certainty that we’re going to go into recession next quarter.” Yoshikami explained.
“There is a belief that if we raise enough – let’s say we raise by 75 [basis points] and then we raise by another 75 – then if there is a problem in the economy, if it’s a shallower recession, which I suspect it would be in the third quarter, the Fed actually has some room now to come back off of some of those rate increases.” He added.
