When you’ve covered Washington for nearly half a century, as 75-year-old Andrea Mitchell has, there can be a tendency to know-it-all-ism. Add in a marriage to a former Federal Reserve chief who once tried to broaden the definition of “recession” beyond two months of negative growth, and you’ve got a dog in the fight over when a recession is a recession.
So when Sen. Mike Rounds (R-SD) gave Mitchell, hosting NBC’s Meet the Press, the long-established definition of “recession,” she didn’t hesitate to challenge him.
Her “That’s out of date, out of date!” won Mitchell our weekly liberal media scream award.
The exchange on the Sunday, Aug. 14, Meet the Press:
ANDREA MITCHELL: Given that they did take all this material, boxes of material and classified documents as well, and given how casual he was about securing documents — that’s been well established when he was president — do you think that should disqualify him from being president again? And would you vote for him if he runs?
SEN. MIKE ROUNDS: I’ll keep my powder dry with regard to your last question. I think right now we’re going to focus on the 2022 election. We want to retake the House. We definitely want to retake the United States Senate. And I think in doing that, our goal is to focus on what’s going on right now with the American people. We’re going to focus on the fact that inflation is still over 8.5%. We’re still talking about GDP, which has been going down, and as you know, sharing breakfast with the chair, the former chairman of the Federal Reserve, anytime you got two quarters in a row, you are in a recession. We want to see us get out of that recession, and we certainly want to see gas prices come down. They’re still a buck and a half higher than when Joe Biden took office. Those are not good policies to run on for Democrats. We need to focus on that. And as we get past that and get into the 2024, I think the Republican will be well positioned, but let’s get past the 2022 election first.
ANDREA MITCHELL: And we’re not in a recession yet. But we’ll wait and see what does happen. And we really want to thank you. It’s very good that you came on today, Sen. Rounds.
ROUNDS: Two quarters tell you differently than that.
MITCHELL: No, that’s out of date, out of date, even according to Republican economists, in any case.
Brent Baker, vice president of research and publications for the Media Research Center, explains our weekly pick: “Please don’t castigate Trump supporters for supposedly undermining democracy by accusing corporate media of promoting ‘fake news’ when a veteran broadcast network star does just that — and does it without compunction, to correct a U.S. senator. Rounds wins this round. The facts are on his side. Mitchell conveyed embarrassing, pro-Biden rewriting of the definition of a recession.”
Rating: FOUR out of FIVE SCREAMS.
