Darkest day yet under Biden - Byron York

[Geee]

Washington Examiner

DARKEST DAY YET UNDER BIDEN. The specter of recession and war settled over Washington on Thursday, on top of inflation that has already cut into the public's standard of living and increased its worries about the future. It was, in short, a very bad day — one of the most concerning so far in the presidency of Joe Biden.

Many experts professed to be surprised by the news that the economy shrank by an annual rate of 1.4% in the first quarter of 2022. "Gross domestic product unexpectedly declined at a 1.4 percent annualized pace in the first quarter ... the worst since the pandemic-induced recession in 2020," the business network CNBC reported. "The negative growth rate missed even the subdued Dow Jones estimate of a one percent gain for the quarter.”

For his part, in the course of a single sentence, Biden tried to suggest that the drop was the result of "technical factors" while at the same time blaming events around the world — and, most importantly, not himself. "While last quarter's growth estimate was affected by technical factors," he said in a statement, "the United States confronts the challenges of Covid-19 around the world, Putin's unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, and global inflation from a position of strength."