White House Director of the National Economic Council Brian Deese spoke with Fox News' Martha MacCallum on Wednesday in an attempt to speak to the American people about what the Biden administration is doing, if anything, to provide economic relief, including and especially when it comes to inflation. Like most in this administration — and President Joe Biden himself, who made particularly tone deaf remarks on Tuesday — he failed spectacularly with a truly scatterbrained segment.
Deese's remarks lacked any clear direction, and he certainly began on the wrong foot, by mentioning that inflation is also bad elsewhere in the world. That's not exactly making the American people feel better, though, a point MacCallum made to her guest. He went on to claim that "the United States is better positioned than any other country right now to take on high prices and to bring inflation down," yet was continuously upstaged by MacCallum throughout the segment.
He also tried to argue that, with regards to the supply chain crisis, the rise in manufacturing jobs should help, though MacCallum pushed back by pointing out that's not helping, not just when it's comes to rising inflation, but negative growth in the last GDP, as well as concerning projections.
Deese's responses got worse from there, as MacCallum directly asked him for a timeline. "So when do you expect us to see a meaningful exchange in inflation or in growth? Give us a rough idea. How many months? How many years?"
He responded by deflecting completely in an attempt to continue discuss manufacturing, leading Deese and MacCallum to discuss corporate tax rates, deficits, which MacCallum pushed back on, pointing out it's because of the lockdowns and related to opening back up and illustrating why companies facing interest rates, rising costs, and headed towards lay offs need tax cuts to expand.
MacCallum once more asked for Deese for a timeline. "All right, so you say that you have a plan, and that you believe it's going to work. So give us a time frame. We're at 8.6 in inflation right now, growth is projected to be 9/10th of a percent in the next quarter. When do you expect to see inflation that is in the 2 percent range, based on everything that you are doing in your plan? When will that happen?"
Deese tried to hide behind "a lot of predictions out there" as part of his response. "What I can tell you is this," Deese said in his response, before failing to give a proper response yet again, "that right now, the most constructive steps, that Congress and the executive branch can take, to help support what the Fed is trying to do, are to lower the costs that families face directly and to lower the federal deficit, and we have laid out a very specific plan to do." He continued to run out the clock by speaking of supposed bipartisan support, and claim that "everything that we are doing is orientated around" lowering costs for families and lower the federal deficit.
This unhelpfully clear response led MacCallum to ask her question once more. "So when you look at your charts and when you look at the plan that you have, which you have just laid out for us, when do you expect to see inflation at 2 percent? Will it take three months? Will it take a year? Will it take two years? What are your projections telling you?"
Deese was still incapable of giving a direct response, though. "Yeah, what I would say is we're focused on the policies that will actually accelerate that process and we know there's a lot of global uncertainty out there," he said without giving a timeline. His response got even worse from there, though, believe it or not, as he turned to a popular talking point of blaming Russian President Vladimir Putin on rising gas prices. "But what we also know is if we take the kinds of steps we're talking about, we will get to that process quickly, more quickly."
MacCallum became even more direct, as she asked Deese if he could define "quickly," asking him to "give me just a ballpark, like, you know, we're looking at a six month situation with the kind of numbers we're in right now, are we looking at two years, as Larry Kudlow just said that he estimates?"
This led to Deese to nervous laugh and shrug as he sputtered "look, I, there's a lot of people who are out there in the predicting business," before seeming to finally concede he will not be giving MacCallum a number. "We are in the building business. We are in the business of trying to put policies in place that will actually accelerate that outcome, that's exactly what we have done and what we can now do."
Early in the segment, MacCallum had also shown how the president's cratering approval rating has also correlated with worsening inflation. On Wednesday, for instance, his RealClearPolitics (RCP) was at 39 percent.
This is hardly the only terrible take that Deese has had. On Wednesday night he tweeted that Biden is supposedly "committed to use all reasonable tools & authorities to help increase capacity near-term." This involves having directed Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm "to engage the National Petroleum Council to identify actions."
Lack of refining capacity is pushing up gas prices. @POTUS today committed to use all reasonable tools & authorities to help increase capacity near-term.
— Brian Deese (@BrianDeeseNEC) June 15, 2022
He is asking for input & ideas, and directed @SecGranholm to engage the National Petroleum Council to identify actions.
As Townhall has highlighted, Sec. Granholm has had a particularly tone deaf and insensitive response to the pain Americans are experiencing with high gas prices, so much so that even CNN has criticized her.