CNN’s Jeremy Diamond Says Biden Is ‘Actually Correct’ About Recession – After CNN’s Cillizza Trashed Him

CNN White House correspondent Jeremy Diamond said that President Joe Biden “is actually correct” about the U.S. not going into recession — shortly after CNN’s Chris Cillizza ripped into Biden for saying that.

During a White House event Monday, President Biden told reporters that even if the upcoming GDP report shows a second negative quarter, the United States will not be in a recession:

PETER DOOCY: And, Mr. President, we’re getting GDP numbers on Thursday. How worried should Americans be that we could be in a recession?

THE PRESIDENT: We’re not going to be in a recession. And in my view, we are — the employment rate is still one of the lowest we’ve had in history; it’s in the 3.6 area.

We still find ourselves with people investing.

My — my hope is we go from this rapid growth to a steady growth. And so I’ll see — we’ll see some coming down. But I don’t think we’re going to — God willing, I don’t think we’re going to see a recession.

Cillizza tore into Biden over those comments, saying “There is a technical definition, two straight quarters of negative economic growth. They clearly believe that is likely to come to pass later this week. They’re trying to prebut it.”

“You don’t get to change the nomenclature in the middle of a campaign because it doesn’t work for you,” he added.

But on Tuesday morning’s edition of CNN Newsroom, Diamond told co-anchor Poppy Harlow that Biden “is actually right” about recession:

The White House has been eager to push back on this notion that two consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth automatically equals a recession. Yes, it is a rule of thumb. But the White House is really emphasizing here, and trying to educate the public essentially, over the last week, that there are all these other economic indicators that also go into that, and that it is not necessarily indicative of a recession.

They are actually correct on that. The National Bureau of Economic Research, which is the nonprofit, nonpartisan body that effectively determines whether or not the U.S. economy is in a recession, also takes other factors into account, including employment, personal income, industrial production. GDP numbers are a significant part of that equation.

But if you listen to most economists, they don’t believe at this point that we are indeed in a recession. And that was what the president was saying yesterday when we heard him say that he does not believe the U.S. is in a recession, pointing to the low unemployment rate in the country, which remained at 3.6% earlier this month, continued job job growth with over 300,000 jobs created last month as well.

Watch above via CNN.