Biden White House Tries to Redefine Recession

CLAY: We know that language is constantly being changed inside of the Biden administration. For instance, men can get pregnant, the definition of what a man and a woman is isn’t even set in stone and — over the weekend — the White House began to try to get their talking points out. So, to give you a little bit of a context, Thursday in the morning early, we will get the official GDP for the second quarter in this country. You’ll remember that the first quarter, that number was negative. And we have been telling you for months on this show that we believe there will be a recession and in fact that we’re already in a recession.

And the way that we’ve been defining that is by two consecutive quarters of negative economic growth is the standard definition for recession that pretty much everyone uses across the landscape of this country. So we said, “Look, we’re negative in quarter one,” and that number surprised people, and then we’ve updated you with what was likely to happen in April, May and June, and I don’t need to tell all of you how bad the economy has been, how challenging it has been from an inflation perspective — and just a growth perspective in general.

So, over the weekend on the official White House website — and I’m gonna read for you. This is the work of Jacqui Heinrich, the first person I saw do it. The White House put up a new definition of recession, really, and I want to read this — and I know you saw this, too, Buck. “What is a recession?” this is from the White House website. “While some maintain two consecutive quarters of falling real GDP constitute a recession, that is neither the official definition nor the way economists evaluate the state of the business cycle.”

And then there’s further definition: “Based on these data, it is unlikely the decline in GDP in the first quarter of this year — even if followed by a another GDP decline in the second quarter — indicates a recession.” Buck, this to me is clear evidence, as if we needed it at all, that the number is going to be negative on Thursday, that the second quarter GDP is going to be negative as well, and, that for purposes of this show — and anywhere else where people live with a functional brain — we will be in a recession, no matter what the White House might be trying to do to convince us that two consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth is not actually a recession.

BUCK: I can’t help but remember when the first 18 months of the Trump presidency, all we’re hearing was that it’s the Obama economy, right? That was the talking point from Democrats because all of a sudden, the stock market’s booming, business is flying, everything’s going great. And now we’re 18 months into Biden presidency and, “Oh, recession is not really a recession, everybody!” This is the exact thing you would expect, the redefinition of words, the “your lying eyes aren’t telling you what’s really going on.”

“Listen to us, not your lying eyes,” the Democrats, the Biden White House says, which is right in line with what you’d have to assume they would do here because, otherwise, what is it? What’s it going to be? What are we going to be told? Clay, they’re in a bad position even without the R-word, recession, coming into the equation. People already have super high inflation, high gas, high cost of everything. We didn’t even stop… The gas price is just the indicator.

Everything is more expensive now, and you’re seeing more and more analysis out there about how, oh, it turns out that it’s not just gas that you put in your car. It’s gas that’s necessary to get your milk and your eggs to the store, it’s gas that’s necessary — or diesel — to bring the products to the store and to make the fertilizer and to make actually a whole range of products. Petroleum, 50% of the petroleum use is actually going into stuff, not even used in oil and gas for cars.

So everything is more expensive. You add recession on to where the Democrats currently are, I mean, they’re heading in for the biggest wipeout certainly in terms of the end position, right? As you pointed out, Clay — and it’s important — because they don’t have a big lead, they don’t have as many seats to lose, but in the end state, this is gonna be looking like this is gonna be the worst position they’ve been in and certainly I think in the House in decades.

CLAY: It’s possible, depending on how exactly the numbers shake out, that Republicans will have the most House seats that they have had in a hundred years by the time the midterms are over, and that could happen with only a gain of 30-ish seats, depending on how exactly all of those seats shake out. That would be a hundred-year high for Republicans support in the House. So, there’s going to be an attempt — and you can already see it a little bit.

Taking over the House is a foregone conclusion. It’s a question of how much the House will be taken over. There’s already an attempt now to say, “Oh, it’s not as bad,” similarly to what we’re seeing the recession redefined before our very eyes. Buck, if you and I had come on at the end of the year and we had said in December, “Hey, inflation’s gonna be 9%,” this is just six months ago, “and we’re also gonna have two consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth, first quarter, second quarter.”

People would have lost their mind at that prediction, and it would have been a clear indication that we were going to go into a recession. We have been telling people — and I think we’re gonna be right when this number comes out on Thursday — that second quarter GDP was likely to be down as well. For several months we’ve been saying, “When that happens, we’re officially in a recession,” for all intents and purposes, based on the way that recessions are defined for decades. And now suddenly the Biden White House is saying, “Oh, technically…” and it’s true. “Technically there is a committee that assesses a wide range of factors and then says oftentimes after you’re no longer in the recession, ‘Oh, we actually had a recession.’” For everyone else we can just look at the GDP and say, “When you go negative, that’s a recession.”

BUCK: I also want to just state this. I want this to be something that we’re all thinking about. Put this on the record: The Democrats deserve this. I mean, they deserve the coming electoral shellacking. They deserve to get crushed, to have people who are elected representatives lose their jobs as they currently have them, lose their elected position. Go get a real job! They deserve to face the wrath of voters. Joe Biden and…

Remember, Biden we can use as a stand in here for the Democrats, the Pelosi in the House. They said they’d do a better job on covid, that they would unite the country, that we would return to normalcy. They were the most divisive, really, imaginable, especially around the issue of covid. Joe Biden was saying was “a pandemic of the unvaccinated.” A federal vaccine mandate that the Supreme Court had to stop. And the fundamental promise of the Biden administration was, “I’m not gonna shut down the economy; I’m gonna shut down the virus.’

CLAY: Yes.

BUCK: That’s actually the inverse of what happened. She’s shutting down the economy, he’s destroying the economy with all the spending and all the regulation and also all the anti-energy sentiment and government action, and obviously they didn’t shut down the virus. We were all very aware it’s still spreading around. Joe Biden has covid right now, so it’s pretty clear he didn’t shut down the virus. And remember, Clay, in the first couple years of the Trump presidency, what was the maniacal mangra — unbelievable… Markets booming, country’s at peace. What was the big focus? Russiagate.

CLAY: Yes.

BUCK: So if you’re looking at the result, results of the Trump presidency 18 months in are things are going great and things are way beyond the expectations the media said. Results of the Biden presidency, it’s not that bad, we promised.

CLAY: Here’s Janet Yellen, by the way, your Treasury secretary, saying, “Hey, a common definition of ‘recession,’ is two negative quarters of GDP growth.” Listen to this.

CLAY: (laughing) Buck, it really is amazing how they all get their talking points in line. They went out this weekend… Again, the number comes out on Thursday, and there are going to be a lot of people — the New York Times, Washington Post, MSNBC, CNN — who will accept that two consecutive negative quarters of GDP is not a recession because the Biden White House is trying to spin that this doesn’t qualify as a recession.

BUCK: Did you ever…? In the early days, did you ever watch the earlier scenes of American Idol?

CLAY: No.

BUCK: You didn’t? You didn’t watch it?

CLAY: I never watched. I’m the like the most tone-deaf person. I’ve never watched an episode of American Idol. I’m very familiar with what the show does.

BUCK: I would guess in terms of our audience, 75% of the audience has at least watched one episode of it.

CLAY: I agree. Wildly popular.

BUCK: In the early days, I used to watch it with my parents. It started, like, 2000, whatever, early 2000s. Anyway, I bring it up just because one of the most amazing things, one of the more entertaining things was that in every season there was somebody who would come up there who was absolutely horrible.

CLAY: Yeah, I know that. Yes.

BUCK: But their attitude to the judges was, “Oh, yeah, you think I’m out of tune? You think I’m not good? I’ll come back here when I’m quadruple platinum and you guys will be sorry.” And they were laughing and the whole thing.

CLAY: Yeah.

BUCK: That is the Biden administration economy. They are the American idol contestant who’s like, “You don’t understand how genius I actually am!” Nah. The American people are hearing it, and they realize way out of tune. It’s not good.

CLAY: Well, and here’s what they’re really afraid of, Buck. By the time we get third quarter GDP, everything’s gonna be completely baked in. And they know that going out and saying we’re in a recession and we have 9% inflation rate, nothing else really matters. I mean, this is James Carville back in 1992 famously said, “It’s the economy, stupid,” about Clinton versus Bush Sr. and Ross Perot back in that election. Nothing else is going to matter when we are in a recession, which we will be — come Thursday — officially, I believe.

And also, we already know we have 9.1% inflation. Everything else is a desperate attempt to make people not see what is directly in front of their face every time they go to a gas station, a grocery store, a convenience market. Wherever you are, you can feel that cost. It is real, and that failure of the economy — and so whether you’re trying to make it abortion or January 6th or really any other distraction, it’s not gonna work.

BUCK: Also, it’s worth noting that Bush would have won that election if Ross Perot had not run as an independent. Something to keep in the back of our minds here as we enter another presidential cycle. Bill Clinton only became president ’cause Ross Perot got almost 19% of the vote.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

BUCK: Denial about inflation. Denial about the recession. Well put there by former Trump economic adviser Kevin Hassett. This is exactly where they are. It’s not only that they don’t have a plan to fix it, which is obvious. I think, Clay, the bigger challenge for the Democrats is that the things that they would normally do, and we know this. The reflexive, “Okay, what do we do? What do we do? Let’s raise taxes and effectively push socialism a little more,” right? “Let’s try to spend a little more money.” Aat a time of super high inflation, raise taxes, redistributing the wealth is somehow going to increase the wealth and turn this situation around, which would actually make it all worse.

CLAY: Yeah. And we should mention not that it’s continuing to be news, but Joe Manchin has now tested positive for covid as well. “Why is that significant?” you might be saying. Joe Biden seems like he’s gonna be perfectly fine —

BUCK: Of course.

CLAY: — according to the latest updates, as virtually everyone is. But Joe Manchin being out means that the Senate keeps having guys test positive for covid, which means if they’re trying to break through the 50-50 logjam, senators have to be on the floor to be able to vote. So Manchin now is gonna be out for the rest of this week. I believe the Senate is in session next week. But the way things are going, somebody else is gonna test positive. My point here is…

I’m not sure, because of this covid ridiculousness, that Democrats are even going to be able to put forth 50 votes to get anything passed before they go on to their August recess. And then they come back in September for relatively short period. This is all somewhat beneficial, Buck, ’cause we’ve been arguing for a long time the best thing Republicans can do right now is just keep Democrats have passing any more awful bills and then win the House and you can’t have anything passed for the next two years.

BUCK: “Do no harm,” Democrats, which means do nothing.

CLAY: Unfortunate, because as bad as things are right now for Joe Biden, imagine how much worse they’d have been if he actually got Build Back Better passed. It’s all absolutely absurd.