and some of the most extreme far right members of the gop will have real power in the house thanks to kevin mccarthy s desperate deal making to become speaker. and also ahead, another tragic scene in ukraine. we ll have the latest on a deadly helicopter crash outside kyiv. good morning, and welcome to way too early on this wednesday, january 18th. i m jonathan lemire. thanks for starting your day with us. we begin in washington where the white house is making efforts to tamp down criticism about a perceived lack of transparency in the classified documents case involving president biden. in a phone call with reporters yesterday, a spokesman and senior adviser fielded questions. and both republican and democratic lawmakers have called on the white house to explain why it took until this month to inform the public that classified material had been found at the penn biden center in washington, d.c. and the documents were discovered back in early november. when asked yesterd
he says are threatening the very foundations of our republic. plus, trump s lawyers and the justice department face off in federal court. we ll explain the big developments to come out of the special master hearing. and, a hot holiday weekend arrives with little to no running water for nearly 200,000 people in mississippi. the state has troops on the ground to help in the water crisis. good morning. and welcome to way too early. i m jonathan lemire. on this friday, september 2nd. thank you for starting your day with us. we ll begin in philadelphia, where president joe biden issued a dire warning about threats to american democracy last night, in a rare prime time address. standing outside historic independence hall, where the united states constitution was written and signed, the president spoke directly about the dangers posed by the trump-backed wing of the republican party. here s some of what he had to say. quality and democracy are under assault. we do ourselves
how you and your colleagues had set the expectations during the interim meeting. . you said what changed was the inflation expectations data. was there something you saw that was unsettling enough to risk eroding credibility of your verbal guidance by doing something so different from what you had socialized before? chair powell: we look at a broad range of inflation expectations. you have the public, surveys of the public and experts, and we have market-based. if you look at the broad range of market data, you see expectations are still very much in the place where short-term inflation is going to be high but comes down sharply over the next couple of years. that is where inflation expectations are, and as you get away from this episode they get back down close to 2%. it is important to us that that remain the case. if you look at most measures most of the time, that s what you see. if we even see a couple indicators that bring that into question, we take that very seriously
2%. 75 basis points seemed like the right thing to do at this meeting and that s what we did. steve, cnbc. thank you for taking my question. you have not used the phrase in a long time monetary policy is in a good place, a phrase you use often. now that the committee is projecting 3.8% next year in terms of the funds rate, similar to where the market is now, do you think that s a level that is going to be sufficiently high enough to bring down the inflation problem? as a follow-up, could you break that? apart for me? how much is restricted and how much is a normal positive rate that ought to be embedded or not in the funds rate? the question really is, how high does the rate need to go? estimates on the committee are in the range of 3.5% to 4%. you could think about the longer run neutral rate. we think that is in the mid-twos. you could look at broader financial conditions, asset prices, the effect you are having on the economy, rates, asset prices, credit spreads. you c
three decades. it was necessary to address high inflation. chair powell: i will begin with one overarching message. we understand the hardship high inflation is causing. we are committed to bringing it down. we are moving expeditiously to do so. we have the tools and resolve to restore price stability. on c-span s new podcast. the next episode focuses on lyndon johnson. not everyone knew they were being recorded. johnson s secretaries new because they were tasked with transcribing conversations. they made sure the conversations were taped as johnson would signal to them. you will also hear some blunt talk. i want a report on the number of people assigned to kennedy on the day he died. i can t ever go to the the econe been through a lot over the past couple years. it is essential we bring inflation down to have a strong period of labor market conditions that benefit all. from the standpoint of our mandate to promote price stability, the current picture is plain to see.