not drinking a drink because i want to eat. >> can you imagine, kids, who ate the fork? no soup, johnny ate the spoon, bad idea. >> sandra: edible straw is not a bad idea, a milkshake, candy straw at the end. >> seltzer water. >> sandra: wish i had more time with you. see you tonight. i'm sandra smith. >> john: john roberts. i only had paper straws when i was a kid. "the story" starts right now. >> thanks. good afternoon. i'm trace gallagher in for martha. the white house hitting the airwaves to ensure voters that we're not in a recession despite the economy shrinking for the second quarter in a row. >> there's a lot of chatter today on wall street and among

pundits about whether we're in a recession. if you look at our job market, we see signs of economic progress in the second quarter as well. >> bank of america, citigroup, j.p. morgan, they have all said nothing in the data is consistent with the economy being in a recession. >> you don't think this is an indicator of an impending recession or one here? >> 64% of americans say otherwise. here's what some folks told fox digital this week. >> i believe we're in a recession. >> have you checked gas prices lately and the interest rates? clearly we're in a recession. >> people are not going to have money to adjust to the prices. people buy less. people don't want to buy anything. >> lauren simonetti and joe concha are standing by. first to the white house correspondent jackie heinrichs live on the north lawn. good afternoon. >> good afternoon. as far as the white house is

concerned, this is not a recession at all. the administration has been trying to get ahead of the numbers since at least about a week ago. making clear that they reject the technical definition of a recession under the common definition of the word. that is two consecutive quarters of negative gdp. the white house sees it as a transition to stable growth. >> this is following the strongest rebound in american manufacturing in three decades creating 613,000 manufacturing jobs. that doesn't sound like a recession to me. >> the republicans have been circulating video of biden's economic advisers defining recession the old fashioned weigh, two consecutive quarters of negative growth. they're also refusing to lay out what criteria would constitute a recession. president biden is now making a case for even more spending after senator joe manchin

unveiled a reconciliation bill that he crafted with chuck schumer. it includes new corporate taxes. what the white house is not going to say the world recession, they are willing to say the word inflation. they have dubbed the party line bill the inflation reduction act. they're touting support from larry summers that is lately a critic of biden's economic policies. >> this bill is fighting inflation and has a set of collateral benefits as well, but it's fair to call it the inflation reduction act because it's directly fighting the rate of inflation. >> they say it fights inflation by bringing down the deficit. critics that disagree say when you combine negative economic growth with rising consumer prices, wages are not able to keep up, it's a bad time to impose a corporate tax, a

minimum corporate tax because then consumers might be -- might have that tax passed off on to them by the companies. that is the view from the other side, trace. >> bingo. jacqui heinrich live. let's bring in lauren simonetti and joe concha, media and politics columnist for the hill and a fox news contributor. welcome to you both, this is a lot more than potato potato. why do they have to constantly change the definition? they're not fooling anyone. you remember the economic version of the reporter standing in front of the burning building saying the protests are mostly peaceful. why not just accept it and deal with it? >> because if they accept it, they're owning the recession that we're now technically in. right? we did get the second quarter straight of contracting growth. if you look at the expectations, if you play that game, we're expecting the economy to expand in the spring contracted.

this is worse than anybody imagined. it is potato potato. i don't know about you, but the past couple months, i've been told a couple things. they're changing the definition of the recession. they changed the name of build back better. they're calling at this time inflation reduction act. they're trying to tell people what you see and feel that you're paycheck is not going as far, that that doesn't really exist and they're going to fix everything by spending more when their spending caused the problem in the first place. >> by the way, everything went fine in afghanistan in case you're checking a year later. if you read "the washington post" and "the new york times" and the l.a. times and the two negative quarters, they're all on the same page saying it fans the fears of recession but the numbers tell a different story. here's the condition of the economy the way voters feel. how would you rate the economy, 84% say only fair or poor.

17% good. you wonder what the 17% are doing for a live. people that are pessimistic and negative. >> and they see inflation as the number 1 concern overwhelmingly over anything else, trace. about 90% of voters say this is our top concern. it's impacting our families, whether it's inflation or gas prices. i have to say this network had the perfect run earlier. quote "biden denies recession as u.s. entering recession." that's true. the president of the united states gets up there and says this doesn't feel like a recession to me. okay. if you're so confident in that argument, mr. president, just maybe you take a question or two from reporters and defend that ridiculous statement. overall, look, you have janet yellen before saying that "we've entered a new phase in our recovery." which phase is that, i wonder? the really painful phase? just the way they're playing

this. you can put any lipstick you want on this pig, the bottom line americans feel inflation near 10%, feel gas prices, feel the wages aren't going up and they see the fed has raised interest rates 75 basis points, twice in the past two -- buying a home now is a nonstarter when you have prices where they are and inflation and interest rates where they are. they want to say everything is not that bad. nobody is buying it, trace. >> lauren, joe makes a good point. he was talking about gas prices. a piece was highly read saying gas prices are falling. is it too late to save the dems? with just over 100 days to go until an election that could end democratic control of both houses of congress, it appears that gasoline prices may have peaked too soon to remain the lethal campaign weapon for republicans. now it's no longer all about gas prices. there's so much other bad news

out there. your thoughts, lauren. >> gas prices are still $1.11 per gallon more today than they were one year ago on this same day. so you're still paying more to fill up the gas tank. what if we have a major hurricane as we approach that season? we don't have the policy or the infrastructure in place to deal with that and keep the price of gasoline low. i'd argue that gas prices could spike again just before the election. any good politician knows that democratic or republican, that when gas prices are low, that increases your chance of being popular among the american people, whether you're a consumer or business. energy, cheap energy is what makes the country go round. >> joe, you talked about spinning it, they did, not you, but as lawyer pointed out we expected the gdp to be up a point or 2% and now it's down 9. you think that is a 11-point swing. a big spin. >> trace, just yesterday, we

hear about the audaciously named inflation reduction act where we're going to inject $700 billion of additional spending in to this economy and then expect inflation to go down? look, i'm not an economist. i did take econ 101. when you put more dollars in to the system, they devalue said dollar. so that's where we are. by the way, on gas prices, if you read what is going to be happening in the fall, there's more embargoes on russian only and the energy will probably go back up to $5 or $6 a gallon. whoever wrote that piece for political, you can't look at them now. the future doesn't look good there either, trace. >> a fair assessment. joe, lauren, thanks both. >> thank you. >> well, our breaking recession coverage continues with connell mcshane later this hour. also breaking right now, mayor

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>> trace: mayor bowser now asking the feds to send in the national guard as migrants flood in causing a humanitarian crisis which she says is the fault of republican governors in border states. >> i asked for the deployment of the guard to deal with the humanitarian crisis. we expect it to escalate. the amount of people crossing the border, we expect to only go

up. >> trace: let's bring in tony gonzales. a humanitarian crisis. the border is secure. everything is good to go. but humanitarian crisis in d.c. and some other cities around the east coast. your thoughts on this. >> yeah, my message to mayor bowser, welcome to the biden border block party. this is a party you don't want to get invited to. this is how the party goes. starts off good and gets worse. when you think it can't get worse, it does. this is a federal problem and only joe biden can solve this. yes, it's absolutely a humanitarian crisis. what i'm going to do, i'm going to reach out to the mayor and contact her with democrat mayors in my districts that have seen this first hand. >> trace: and we all know that, of course, arizona governor doug ducey and governor abbott have

been going through this already. i want to play another sound bite from the mayor. it has a very unique ending. i want your thoughts on that. >> it's obviously politically motivated. the reason why we're different in this is that people aren't coming to d.c. as their final destination. what we see is that they are moving on to their final destination through d.c. and also, what makes us different is we need to ask the president for use of our national guard. >> trace: not the national guard on the border, mind you. no, no, you don't want to send them down there to try to maybe stop this crisis coming across the border. they need them in the cities to help people assimilate into society. doesn't sound like a rationale, reasonable response. >> it isn't. it is politically motivated. the politics are on the democratic side.

politics are with joe biden and their failed border policies. you know, it's not just d.c. this is happening. every city in america this is happening, whether it's in the dead of night. we need to do as the federal government starting with this administration instead of bussing folks and flying folks to cities all over the united states, if folks do not qualify for asylum, we need to bus them and get them back to their country of origin. this is the only way it stops. otherwise, it will continue. this week it's d.c. maybe next week it's chicago. the week after that it's san francisco. >> trace: you talk about numbers, congressman. these are the number of buses and migrants that have been bussed to d.c. buses 150. migrants, 6,000 plus. over the past 18 months, the estimates there's been two million plus migrants that have crossed in to the united states and all across the united states. >> yes. the d.c. mayor is begging for help right now.

they're a city of 700,000 and they have gotten roughly the same amount of migrants that pass a city of 29,000, the same amount that we have gotten in one week. so imagine, we've been at the forefront of the crisis over a year. it's not going to stop. what needs to stop, every mayor needs to get together and get the white house to the table and says this has to stop. it's not going to end with d.c. it's a federal issue. congress has a role to play. i'm witting to sit down with anyone to make sure our border is secure and this nonsense ends. >> trace: tony gonzales, great to have you on. thank you. >> thank you. >> trace: fellow texas republican mike mccaul on his invite from speaker pelosi to visit taiwan under china threats. this is john. he hasn't worked this hard to only get this far with his cholesterol.

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from some republicans who say she should not back down. republican congressman michael mccaul was invited to join the speaker on that trip. he serves as the ranking member of the house foreign affairs committee. you said you believe you have other obligations and cannot join her. would you go if you could? >> i mean, sure. i think look, any member of congress should visit taiwan to show our commitment to that tiny island being pressured by the chinese communist party, particularly the speaker of the house. speaker gingrich was the last one to go to taiwan. the fact that the president of the united states is trying to tell her or any other member to stand down when he exhibits so much weakness as we saw from the phone call that i just got briefed on. i got the notes from that call where he -- biden talks about hey let's work together.

xi reponds with those that play with fire will perish by it. >> we got the same notes. it lasted two hours and 17 minutes. xi said china will never leave space for taiwan's independence. the u.s. does not support taiwan's independence. china believes that that is changing. that whole policy is changing and that could lead to really a tick-up in the problems there. >> well, we do know with putin invading ukraine, you know, xi wants to invade taiwan. president xi and president putin have that compact against the west. they want to redraw the matchup for world war ii. we know taiwan is in the bulls eye of the ccp and he's taken

the solomon islands over already. if we don't show strength and deterrence and in this case, any member of congress would show political deterrence to stop an invasion of taiwan, which, again, that island is strategically important for a lot of reasons. many of which say 90% of the advanced semi conductor chip manufacturing capability. can you imagine if china took that island over controlling the global supply of semi conductor? >> i'm going to talk about that in a second. i want to go back to what you say. you cannot let china off the hook on this thing. you talk about the threat level and pressuring. the u.s.s. ronald reagan is in the south china sea. is there a way that we could ever defend taiwan even if we wanted to, sir? >> trace: here's one of the

problems, trace. i sign off on all foreign military weapon sales. the ones that i signed off to taiwan three years ago, the biden administration has held them up and they have yet to be sent to taiwan. so how can they defend themselves if we can't send the weapons to them. deterrence is the key here. the only reason that putin invaded the ukraine and president xi is thinking about taiwan, they see weakness. weakness invites aggression just like with neville chamberlain and churchill and hitler. so as long as biden is president, i think we're in a very dangerous position. >> trace: deterrence will be difficult the way the south china sea has been set all militarily by china. i want to end by the house just passed the $280 billion chips bill that subsidizes the semi conductor manufacturing. 24 republicans sided with

democrats. you're against this. what happened? >> well, actually, trace, when secretary state pompeo came to me and the trump national security team came to me, they asked me to introduce this bill. it wasn't on this scale. it was a way to incentivize manufacturers to produce these chips in the united states while protecting our national security here at home. we're going to have trillions of dollars now invested in the united states. we can't let these manufacturers go overseas and particularly any country vulnerable to china. it puts us at a national security threat. our most advanced weapons systems depend on these chips. we got to wake up to the fact that to get off the supply chain from china. >> trace: congressman, great to have you on, sir. thank you. >> thank you, trace. >> trace: meantime, with today's

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prolia® can cause serious side effects, like low blood calcium, serious infections, which could need hospitalization, skin problems, and severe bone, joint, or muscle pain. don't wait for a break. call your doctor now and ask how prolia® can help you. >> trace: the country's entrance to recession likely not going to help.these grim new poll numbers just 15% of the voters believe that the u.s. is headed in the right direction. 76% say the country is on the wrong track. remember, just 100 days away from the mid-terms. let's bring in mercedes schlapp, cpac foundation senior fellow and mark penn, former clinton adviser and chairman and ceo of stagwell. mark, i want to read in from the hill. it says the allies say the lack of a personal touch from biden has left them underwhelmed with calls going unanswered. simple requests, lack ago reply

and little if any proactive outreach from staff inside the white house. you know what people say when you don't feel loved and needed, you don't go to the mat for that person. your thoughts. >> really, joe biden is not on the ballot this fall. it's congress that is on the ballot. i mean, i don't know. those are anecdotal remarks. i think it was significant that manchin-schumer deal was done by manchin and schumer and not activated by the president and the white house staff. that was very atypical from what i'd normally see where the white house and the president would lead in negotiations on a bill like that. so to that extent, that is accurate. >> joe manchin will read that bill again. wait. there's a tax on coal in virginia? maybe there's changes on that. i want to put up the polls. the conditions on the economy. now how many think the economy is going bank busters?

17% says it's excellent or good. 84% think it's bad. these are kinds of numbers that really do great damage to the party in power during elections, mercedes. >> yeah, there's no question. i think that there is this recession denial happening within the white house. i actually hurt was biden and his administration. when you have his press secretary saying we don't see a recession, when you have president biden saying we're not in a recession, yet when you look at historical trends, when economists are speaking, they're saying, okay, there's two quarters in a row with negative growth, that would mean that we would be in a recession. guess what? the american people, whether they're saying no recession, yes recession, they feel like we're in a recession because the prices are so high and because they're having problems paying their bills. >> i'm wondering if you're

surprised, mark. i'm wondering if you watch the president's statement. it wasn't a news conference. the statement on the recession and no, this is great. this is going great. not a single question. were you surprised by that? >> yes. i mean, look, the president has gotten a lot of benefit of the doubt when it comes to words. you can google recession and it's two quarters of contracting gdp. so technically we're in a recession. it doesn't make much sense to say there's no recession. you can see there's a minor recession. by after all, you have to acknowledge the experiences and problems that americans are facing and the economy in their personal lives. >> trace: we had a guest earlier that said if you acknowledge that, you acknowledge what you said earlier, you take ownership of it. at this point you think it would be beneficial for the biden administration to actually take

leadership? they haven't taken ownership of the border or afghanistan. they haven't taken really ownership of anything. the gas prices. you name it. so would this be something that you think would be beneficial? >> look, mark knows this as well. in the white house, there's an office called the political affairs office. they're looking at these poll numbers. i'm sure they're sweating. they're very concerned about the massive red wave that is about to hit in november. can joe biden recover? the only way for joe biden to be able to recover -- and i would say one of his strengths is he's a pretty -- he comes across being empathetic. he's not used it to his benefit. president trump was in power, one of the things he did effectively is he would talk about prosperity and energy independence and job creation. really honed in on making america an economic super power. i think that that really helped

in selling his message. for joe biden, he has to play catch-up. he's too much on defense and has no plan other than spending his way out of this problem. >> it's a fair assessment. presidents historically that are good at giving pep talks are looked upon well. mark, mercedes, thanks very much. appreciate it. >> thank you. >> trace: americans are facing great stress right now. that from the treasury secretary today as inflation causes consumers to cut back. we'll dig in with connell mcshane and victor davis hanson. well until you hear what he has to say about this next. hi, my n. i'm 76 and i live on the oregon coast. my husband, sam, we've been married 53 years. we love to walk on the beach. i have two daughters and then two granddaughters. i noticed that memories were not there

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>> trace: the gdp contraction, the story federal interest rate hike, a lot of action this week. but it's the consumer confidence index, how americans feel and what they feel could be key to cooling red hot inflation. gerri willis has more. >> good afternoon, trace. consumers are responsible for 3/4s of economic spending here in the u.s. our economy largely depen department on people like you and me spending our money. the biden administration is trying to spin the latest economic news. they say there's no recession here. watch. >> we have resilient consumer that are continuing to spend and businesses investing. >> look at consumer spending and jobs, you see the underlying strength. >> consumers are spending, consumers, personal household

balance sheets remain strong. >> trace: spending may be strong now, but the forecast is not rosy. us is consumer confidence dropped to 1 1/2 year low in july. that is the third straight down month. now wall street has a sharp eye on corporate earnings and the latest earnings report have some companies flashing their warning lights. walmart flashing the back half of the year forecast, rallying investors. the company saying that spending habits are changing and less electronics, more money spent on just the basics. one example of that, best buy is forecasting a larger than anticipated decline in sales. and more dicey news from silicon valley. apple will have reported that they have sold fewer iphones in the second quarter than the year before. that hasn't happened in two years. not all companies see the weakness. for example, mastercard

reporting strong results on robust consumer spending. trace, as i send it back to you, rising credit card debt can be a signal of consumers paying as folks pull out the plastic to make ends meet. >> trace: thanks, gerry. let's bring in connell mcshane, the national correspondent and hilson wrath. thanks for being here. connell, when you listen to gerrie there, it's interesting. can you say over and over again that we're not in a recession, the economy is strong, that $20 burgers taste better. does it make us feel better or we're being buffaloed a little bit? >> what is interesting about it, a lot of people are trying to figure out why does the biden administration want to have this battle over semantics? are we in a recession? the only economic reason to have that battle is what we just heard. because consumer confidence or consumer sentiment has this

habit of being self-fulfilling. as you hear on the news that meme are changing their behavior at walmart or best buy, you're more likely to change your behavior. in the president makes the argument that also has some viability to it, that the labor market is strong and the xyz portion is strong, maybe you won't change your behavior as much. they're trying to get ahead of this to the extent that they can because these things do tend to be self-fulfilling. >> trace: yeah, connell makes a good point. i listen to the numbers and listen to gerri willis. the shocking thing is that apple iphone sales are almost never done. the walmart ceo said the following.

>> trace: when they say requiring more markdown dollars, they mean put things up for sale. when walmart is pessimistic, america is pessimistic. >> a lot to unpack there. if walmart is marking down prices, that's the good news we've been waiting for. in my mind, i agree with connell, this debate about whether we're in a recession or not, a lot of semantics here what people feel is inflation. that is why consumer confidence is so low right now. and that is really what the federal reserve, which raised interest rates and what the biden administration has to get under control. we're going to go into a recession if we're not already in one if inflation isn't tamed. the fact that walmart is discounting is good news. the fact that gasoline prices have come down a little bit,

that's also good news. but i don't think the coast is clear yet on inflation. until that coast is clear, there's a lot of volatility in markets and going to be a lot of unhappy consumers. the paychecks we bring home are not going far enough to cover the rising expenses. so yeah, you can go back and forth on recession. the real issue right now remains inflation. >> trace: help me out there, connell. when somebody says walmart is dropping prices, that's good news. aren't they dropping priceses because they have to? >> yeah. we need them to. the chairman of the federal reserve talked about that. it sounds counter intuitive for people to say we need the economy to slow down. that's the fed's argument that we need the economy to slow down. they don't want to slow it too much. maybe they already have. again, the semitic argument of the recession or not becomes

somewhat irrelevant. if we're not, there's a chance we could have a mild recession or a soft landing if it's managed properly. they're trying to slow it down a little bit. just not too much. >> trace: i have to go, gentlemen. i want to put these numbers on the board. >> i was going to say -- >> trace: is the economy in recession? 64% say yes. 35% say no. 15 seconds, john. wrap us up. >> the reason walmart is discounting is because they took on too much inventory. the economy has to slow down. too much of a build-up late last year and that's what we're going through right now. >> trace: gentlemen, thank you both. well, new legs between vice president biden and hunter biden's business partners as two high profile investigations place merrick garland in a bit of a pressure cooker.

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>> trace: there were at least 14 business meetings between joe biden and associates of his son, hunter, during the eight years he was vice president. that is from a review of obama white house logs. the revelations fuelling pressure for merrick garland. in a moment, victor davis hanson. first to david spunt at the department of justice. good afternoon. >> trace, good afternoon to you. attorney general merrick garland says he feels no pressure. some say he's in a pressure cooker taking aim from both sides of the aisle. democrats want him to pursue a

prosecution against former president donald trump. republicans want him to charge and indict president biden's son, hunter. we know the hunter biden investigation has been going on since 2018 at least. but first to the former president. "the washington post" is reporting he's under criminal investigation by the doj for his alleged role in a fake elector scheme following the 2020 election. listen here. >> the indictment of a former president or candidate for president would tear the country apart. is that your concern as you make your decision down the road here? do you have to think about things like that? >> we pursue justice without fear or favor. we intend to hold everyone, anyone who is criminally responsible for events surrounding january 6 for any attempt to interfere with the lawful transfer of power

accountable. that's what we do. >> a source familiar with the hunter biden investigation claims that the grand jury was looking at potential evidence surrounding tax deals and foreign business dealings. the case may now be in the hands of the doj and merrick garland would be getting regular briefings on this. and there's a rule here at the doj that they stay away from political prosecutions as we get closer to an election meaning for the former. or hunter biden, we're just a few months away from the mid-terms so if anything was coming down the pipeline, you figure it would come down soon. trace. >> trace: thanks, david spunt. let's bring in victor davis hanson. i was interested to here merrick garland just talking about prosecuting without fear or favor. you know, it's amazing to me that you look at the evidence piling up against hunter biden. you look at all of the computer evidence we have and now you

have these logs revealing that when he was vice president, he met with his son 14 times, victor davis hanson. why is this being ignored by much of the world? >> well, it was a lie that was advanced in 2019 primary and general election. everybody knew then. there were photographs of these oligarchs and lobbyists with joe biden. there was tony bobulinski, there was the lab top, the opulent lifestyle that was inexplicable for joe biden himself. but there was a lie and promulgated by the left and the democratic party. without it, they were afraid donald trump would be elected. now that liability, that asset, joe biden, is a liability. so low in the polls that they're going to blame him for their honey progressive message failing to attract voters. now automatic of this administrative state and the

fbi, the doj, maybe the white house, people are starting to leak. we hear this world whistle-blower. they're saying he met 13, 14 times. we're getting elements out of the laptop. so when he's dispensable, the government reacts. that's what the government is doing. we impeached a president because he got on a phone call with a foreign leader and said we're going to delay aid because we believe you're corrupt and you had poor business dealers with the biden conglomerate. is that true or not? that was considered impeachable. we had 50 intelligence officers retired who swore that that laptop was russian disinformation, this is an indictment of a lot of people that played along with this lie just because they found it useful to stop trump. now when it's no longer useful, they'll come clean and say maybe

he's facing a criminal exposure or joe really did or maybe this brave whistle-blower came forward. it's all opportune. >> trace: i want to play this clip from ted cruz. it's fascinating. >> hunter biden, this guy -- how many films has he made of himself committing multiple felonies? i have to say, jesse, if you put out a film with you with crack and prostitutes, somebody would come knocking on your door and prosecute you. but if daddy lives at 1600 pennsylvania avenue, apparently the criminal laws do not apply. >> trace: it seems like a proper assessment. your final thoughts on this. >> john: victor. >> yeah, he's toxic. he has a toxic touch. he turned the fbi into a retrieval service to the biden family that goes after laptops, diaries, lost guns. crack pipes, this is a toxic

person. everything he touches sours. any other person in america would be indicted long ago. >> trace: i wonder if you see evidence as we get closer to the mid-terms, the left will be more, you know, apt to leak more of this information about hunter biden so maybe they can silently push the president out before 2024? >> yeah, especially after the mid-terms. they'll take a big hit and blame not their own messages that they put down the throat of joe biden but blame joe biden. as if the messenger was responsible and then we'll hear a lot about hunter biden after the mid-terms to get rid of him. they don't want to wait to 2024. they will look to the next two years of his presidency, which they think is so toxic, it will take the democratic party down the drain. >> trace: yeah. that's also a very fair assessment. victor davis hanson, great to

have you on, sir. great knowledge as always. thank you. >> thank you. >> trace: things are heating up between the doj and hunter biden investigation. that is "the story" of thursday of july 28, 2022. as always, the story goes on. we'll see you back here tomorrow at 3:00 p.m. eastern. "your world" with neil cavuto right now. >> tried to change it from a technical explanation to whatever it is now, i don't agree. we started feeling it months ago. you feel it every time you pay for grocery, every time you buy gas. everything is more expensive these days. >> cars, rent, housing. food. everything. everything has gone up in price. >> we are not able to do as much traveling because we don't have as much money. everythi c