Skip to content

Link Copied

QUOTE OF THE DAY: It’s Your Fault If There’s a Recession

MSNBC correspondent Jacob Ward warned on air Thursday against calling the economic downturn a recession, saying that could itself cause a recession.

THE QUOTE

Responding to the Commerce Department’s announcement that gross domestic product fell for a second straight quarter between April and June, Ward said “you can’t even really officially use that [word ‘recession’] until the Bureau of Economic Research declares it a recession.”

“[Federal Reserve Chair] Jerome Powell doesn’t get to say it, we don’t get to say it, right, and one of the reasons everyone is so careful about that is that if you say it too loudly, people start to worry, and that can in fact drag us into a recession.”

  • “So, we’re really in a very complicated position here, but … the psychology of this in addition to the raw numbers has a big effect on the American market, and that’s why we have to be so thoughtful about this ….”
  • Ward also dismissed Americans’ fears of losing their jobs, saying such thinking was “against all evidence” given “this incredible job market.”

SAME ENERGY

Hardwood was one of many reporters who embraced the White House’s talking points in response to Thursday’s bad GDP numbers, rejecting the colloquial definition of a recession as two consecutive quarters of economic contraction and pointing to jobs numbers and other positive economic indicators.

  • Some of his colleagues — including CNN White House correspondent John Harwood and Politico chief economic correspondent and MSNBC contributor Ben White — did so despite having previously advanced the two-quarters definition.

THE 4PM: A HIGHLIGHT REEL OF TODAY’S NEWS. FOR CONSERVATIVES. EVERY AFTERNOON AT 4PM.