RUTHFULLY YOURS

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.”

Later, when asked if he fears a recession is on the way, Biden wandered all over the place. “Well, no, I’m not concerned about a recession,” he began. “I mean, you’re always concerned about a recession, but the GDP, you know, fell to 1.4%. But here’s the deal: We’ve also had — last quarter, consumer spending and business investment and residential investment increased at significant rates, both for leisure as well as hard products, No. 1. No. 2, unemployment is the lowest rate since 1970. … So I think we’re — what you’re seeing is enormous growth in the country that was affected by everything from COVID and the COVID blockages that we — occurred along the way. Now, you always have to be taking a look. And no one is predicting a recession now. They’re predicting, or some are predicting, there may be a recession in 2023. I’m concerned about it…”

It wasn’t terribly reassuring. Biden then said the real answer to the nation’s economic problems is for Republicans on Capitol Hill to support raising taxes on rich corporations. Meanwhile, Biden is asking Congress to pass another of the giant spending measures that have contributed to inflation, which is, in turn, contributing to recession fears.

The question now is whether the factors that shrank the economy in the first quarter of this year will continue through the second quarter, creating a recession. Businesses built up inventories in the last quarter of 2021, then pulled back in 2022. Perhaps that will change. Exports declined — perhaps that will change, too. Consumer demand remains strong. And presidential leadership? While Biden seems committed to spending levels that feed inflation, he also seems, judging by his remarks above, a little confused about what to expect or what to do.

On the war front, Biden wants a huge increase in U.S. support of Ukraine. He sent Congress a request for $33 billion more, on top of the $13.6 billion lawmakers approved last month. It is a big deal. Here is how the New York Times reported it:

President Biden signaled a vast increase in America’s commitment to defeating Russia in Ukraine on Thursday as he asked Congress to authorize $33 billion for more artillery, antitank weapons and other hardware as well as economic and humanitarian aid. The request represented an extraordinary escalation in American investment in the war, more than tripling the total emergency expenditures and putting the United States on track to spend as much this year helping the Ukrainians as it did on average each year fighting its own war in Afghanistan, or more.

An “extraordinary escalation.” The level of American aid has spurred concerns that the U.S. is depleting its own weapons resources to support the Ukrainian fight against Russia. “After just two months, our aid to Ukraine has drawn down a quarter of our entire stockpile of Stinger anti-air missiles and a third of our Javelin antitank missiles,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said Thursday. “This would be less of a problem if we had a robust defense industrial base to quickly refill our armories. But defense manufacturers have admitted that the production lines for some critical components have dried up, and it could be years before they could replace the weapons we’ve sent to Ukraine.”

Biden denied the Russian charge that the war in Ukraine is now a proxy war, with Russia fighting with its own troops and the U.S. fighting through the Ukrainians. But it’s hard to see how, given the levels of aid and involvement, the U.S. effort in Ukraine is not a proxy war. Indeed, that seems to be a given at this point. As the New York Times’s Ross Douthat observed last month, “President Biden’s team seems to be following a Cold War playbook of cautious proxy war rather than embracing sweeping Bushian ambitions.” Now, perhaps, it is becoming less cautious.

In sum: Given the developments in the economy and the U.S. involvement in Ukraine, Thursday was a pretty sobering day. And yet much of the conversation among elite press outlets has been obsessed with two other things: 1) House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s recorded comment to colleagues in the days after the Capitol riot that, if he were to talk to then-President Donald Trump, he would recommend that Trump resign (in the end, McCarthy never made the recommendation and later denied he had said that to his colleagues); and 2) the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, the first to take place in its full glory, with an in-person crowd and the president attending, since the twin scourges of COVID and Trump.

The subject line of Politico’s influential Playbook newsletter on Friday morning, after the grim news on recession and war? “How to do WHCA weekend like a pro.” The subject line of Playbook on Thursday morning? “Inside Biden’s WHCA dinner speech.” The subject line on Wednesday? “Fauci pulls out of WHCD. Is Biden next?” The hype and frothiness seemed a strange contrast to the seriousness of events going on all around. But that is the reality in Washington at the moment.

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