On Monday, President Biden attempted to deny the likelihood of an upcoming recession, telling a reporter who asked about it that she sounded “like a Republican politician.”
The encounter occurred as Biden was walking on the beach during a trip to his vacation home in Delaware when a reporter asked about economists who have warned that the United States is entering a recession.
“The majority of them aren’t saying that. Come on, don’t make things up, okay? Now you sound like a Republican politician. I’m joking. That was a joke, but all kidding aside, I don’t think it is,” Biden responded.
WATCH: Biden snaps at a reporter for asking about economists warning of a recession.
“C’mon, don’t make things up" pic.twitter.com/eqEh2f9fEh
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) June 20, 2022
The exchange came just days after The Wall Street Journal released a survey of a group of economists who put the probability of recession “at 44% in the next 12 months, a level usually seen only on the brink of or during actual recessions.”
“Since the Journal began asking the question in mid-2005, a 44% recession probability is seldom seen outside of an actual recession,” the report stated. “In December 2007, the month that the 2007-to-2009 recession began, economists assigned a 38% probability. In February 2020, when the last recession began, they assigned a 26% probability.”
Biden’s comments also came shortly after the Bureau of Economic Analysis revealed that the United States economy shrank at a 1.5% annual rate during the first quarter of 2022.
