White House goes on offense to argue that the U.S. is not in a

WASHINGTON — The White House responded to Thursday’s second quarter negative GDP growth with a full slate of events and a well coordinated message: Despite what everyone is saying, the U.S. economy is not in a recession.

President Joe Biden appeared in public twice, and both times he delivered the same carefully crafted remarks, arguing that current low unemployment rates, coupled with new investments in manufacturing, make it impossible for the economy to be in a recession.

“Let me just give you what the facts are in terms of the state of the economy,” Biden said in a speech that was billed as remarks on the latest budget bill in Congress. “Number one, we have a record job market, and record unemployment of 3.6%, and businesses are investing in America at record rates.” He then listed several companies planning to build factories in the U.S. before concluding, “that doesn’t sound like a recession to me.”

Outside the White House bubble, however, the latest GDP data sounded a lot like a recession.

On Thursday, the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Economic Analysis reported that gross domestic product, the broadest measure of economic activity, fell 0.9% in the second quarter.

Coming on the heels of a 1.6% contraction in the first quarter, the two straight declines meet the most commonly used definition of a recession. The official arbiter of recessions, the National Bureau of Economic Research, likely won’t rule for months.

Later in the day, Biden held a roundtable event with five chief executives of major companies, also aimed at showcasing the strength of the American economy. The leaders of Corning, Marriott International, Bank of America, TIAA, and Deloitte were all present, with Marriott’s Tony Capuano and Corning’s Wendell Weeks attending in person.

“There’s gonna be a lot of chatter today on Wall Street and among pundits about whether we are in a recession,” Biden said in his opening remarks. “But if you look at our job market, consumer spending, business investment, we see signs of economic progress in the second quarter, as well.”

Biden also quoted Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, who said Wednesday that he did not believe the economy was currently in a recession because “there are too many areas of economic growth where the economy is performing too well.”

What Biden did not mention was that Powell was speaking moments after the Fed announced a second 0.75 percentage point rate hike in as many months, the first time in the modern history of the central bank that it has announced two rate increases of 0.75 percentage point back to back.

Biden was not the only major figure who went before the cameras Thursday to argue that what the U.S. economy is experiencing is not, in fact, a recession. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen held a rare, standalone press conference at the Treasury…