WATCH: Reporter Explains Recession Exactly Like Biden White House Flacks Do – On Fox News – In 2012

President Joe Biden‘s take on whether or not we’re in a recession has found an echo in time — a 2012 Fox News segment that explains the definition of a recession exactly the same way, and calls the Biden critics’ definition “just a thumbnail.”

There has been a considerable amount of wrangling over the definition of a recession lately, with President Biden and his advisers arguing that two negative quarters of GDP growth doesn’t necessarily mean recession and that a raft of positive economic indicators alongside them mean that the United States is not in a recession. Biden and multiple news outlets have pointed out this is the standard used by the National Bureau of Economic Research, the nonpartisan organization that determines whether a recession exists.

In fact, earlier this week, Fox News White House correspondent Peter Doocy challenged White House adviser Brian Deese’s invocation of this explanation by confronting the administration with a 2008 quote in which Deese said that “economists have a technical definition… of recession, which is two consecutive quarters of negative growth.”

“What changed?” Doocy asked.

In a similar vein, Fox News aired a report in which Elizabeth MacDonald of Fox Business Network put forth the exact same explanation of recession that Biden is using now and called the GDP indicator “just (a) thumbnail.” From the October 1, 2012 edition of Happening Now:

ELIZABETH MACDONALD: So you may hear after the fact that the US economy was in a recession and it’s not just two consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth. The NBER, the National Bureau of Economic Research, again, they are the umpires who call U.S. Recessions. They look across a range of data, including productivity, employment numbers and the like. So it’s not just that thumbnail, you know, two quarters, two consecutive quarters of negative growth. They get to call it, and we haven’t heard from them yet. They’re staying mum on this for now. Back to you, Jenna.

JENNA LEE: That would really change the dynamic a lot with the political conversations. A great reminder, though, that data is mostly backwards-looking and we’ll keep that in mind this week —

ELIZABETH MACDONALD: Yeah, that’s right.

JENNA LEE: — when we get the jobs data.

What changed?

Watch above via Fox News.