Comedian Joe Rogan said that the Biden administration was gaslighting the public by changing the definition of “recession.” The Biden administration last week altered the definition on the White House website. Traditionally, an economy is considered to enter a recession after two consecutive months of negative GDP growth, something that has just happened in the US.
Rogan made the comments while speaking with his guest, YouTuber Chris Williamson. During the segment, Williamson tells Rogan that the Biden administration changed the info on the White House site and informs him that the Wikipedia page for “recession” had been altered to the “new” definition. The Wikipedia page was also locked, so that no one can edit it back to the real, non-Orwellian definition.
BOOOM!!! Joe Rogan just called the Brandon Administration A BUNCH OF WEASELS!!! pic.twitter.com/9gTt5oFccd
— il Donaldo Trumpo (@PapiTrumpo) August 2, 2022
The White House’s site reads, “While some maintain that two consecutive quarters of falling real GDP constitute a recession, that is neither the official definition nor the way economists evaluate the state of the business cycle.”
Rogan asks his guest, “they redefined ‘recession’?”
“Recession used to be two consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth,” Williamson explained. “A bunch of economic advisors have got quotes of them saying what a recession is, especially when Trump was in office… negative GDP growth for two consecutive quarters, and then this weekend they’re asking them, ‘are we in a recession’ because the second quarter economic just came out, and it’s an 0.9 decline again,” he said.
Rogan said that the White House was “gaslighting” the public, specifically calling out White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre.
“Have you seen the White House press secretary define the economy as being strong and the best economy we’ve had in over a decade? Have you seen her do that? It’s hilarious, it’s the wildest gaslighting,” said Rogan.
“That’s gaslighting. Just that alone—people think that it’s trivial because they’re talking about this economic downturn, but it’s not trivial. We’ve always used the term, ‘recession’ and we’ve always used it to define whether or not the economic policies that are currently in place, and whether or not the government has done a good job of making sure that the economy stays in a good place,” Rogan continued.
“They definitely haven’t done that, so in order to escape that sort of distinction, they’re literally changing the definition, which is terrible and should be pushed back against in a big way. It should be something that people get angry about, like hey, ‘you’re f*cking with definitions in order to pretend that you’re doing a good job,'” he continued.
“The reason that you attach a sequence of letters to something is to represent what that thing is. You don’t change reality by changing what those words actually mean. But if you can’t control the economy, you might as well control the language and hope for the best,” said Williamson.
“What a bunch of weasels,” Rogan said.
