In his remarks Thursday urging Congress to pass a revived version of his bloated Build Back Better bill, President Joe Biden again denied the existence of a recession just hours after his Commerce Department reported a second consecutive quarter of negative GDP growth — the literal definition of a recession.
"That doesn't sound like a recession to me," Biden declared after cherrypicking anecdotal evidence to try and present the image of a strong economy while omitting the serious economic woes his policies have inflicted on Americans. In typical fashion, Biden trotted out of his briefing without taking questions after his quixotic remarks.
Watch:
"That doesn't sound like a recession to me."
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) July 28, 2022
Biden takes ZERO questions on the day that Q2 GDP showed that America has entered a recession. pic.twitter.com/BipE8GK1Yn
Whatever it sounds like to President Biden, the American people know exactly what's going on and who's to blame — nearly every poll done in recent weeks shows the president's approval when it comes to handling the economy at all-time lows.
Still, throughout his remarks, Biden denied, denied, denied that a recession had hit the U.S. just a day after he said the U.S. would not see one — despite GDP data released Thursday morning showing the opposite had come to pass.
BIDEN: "Both Chairman Powell and many of the, uh, um, significant banking personnel and economists say we're not in recession." pic.twitter.com/Bri2wUjnUO
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) July 28, 2022
In his speech, Biden issued a "plea" for Congress to quickly pass the ironically named Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 that, with federal spending on radical climate change priorities and other Democrat pet projects, would not reduce inflation.
To be clear, the dubiously named Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 contains a lot of the original Build Back Better legislation but on a slightly smaller scale that is still problematic for the U.S. economy as it struggles under Biden.
BIDEN: "It's called the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022. Some of you will see lot of similarities between the beginning of the Build Back Better initiative..." pic.twitter.com/JSg5EgpECO
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) July 28, 2022
The revived version of Biden's BBB legislation is being taken seriously again only due to a significant two-pronged flip-flop by Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV). Despite previous statements from Manchin that he would oppose more federal spending amid high inflation and that a recession meant taxes shouldn't be increased, Manchin and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) reached a deal on legislation that would do both.
Biden ended his remarks by calling on legislators to "put politics aside" and move the bill forward — Democrat double-speak for "put your own politics and constituents aside and do what I want" — before continuing to brag about how well he apparently believes the economy is doing under his administration.
The president, of course, did not mention that inflation has accelerated over the summer months to more than 9 percent or that a recession hit the country this week as the Fed continued hiking interest rates to counter the inflation that was spurred by Biden's earlier spending. All of that pain circles right back to Biden and his party's agenda, but he still won't take responsibility or answer questions about what Americans suffering under his policies are supposed to do.
The country is now dealing with a four percent cut to real wages, more than two-thirds of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck, and those who had to take on debt in order to make ends meet amid soaring inflation are now seeing their balances balloon out of control due to increased interest rates. But President Biden still can't be bothered to take questions from the press.