serious, dynamic, forward-looking answers to problems we have. we should not kid ourselves also. this compromise they ve worked out on guns is a good thing for the country. i hope democrats and republicans support it when it comes up for a vote. bill: thank you, gentlemen on the monday. dana. dana: several big primaries taking place tomorrow. one is the nevada republican senate race by adam laxalt is holding a commanding lead and joining us straight ahead. lloyd austan accusing china of provocative behavior around taiwan meeting with his counterpart. general jack keane will tell us more next. thanks, dad. that s right, robert. and it s never too early to learn you could save with america s number one motorcycle insurer. that s right, jamie. but it s not just about savings. it s about the friends we make along the way. you said it, flo. and don t forget to floss before you brush.
have an 8 1/2 inflation rate, that means the rest of the economy has to grow by more than 8 1/2 just to stay even. and that s the curse of this inflation problem we have. so now we have real growth that is falling, real wages are falling, real savings rates are falling. it is a really distressing situation. and i don t buy for one minute this idea we have all these other problems with the economy and why we re slowing down. covid is basically we have some problems with covid but it s basically in retreat right now. i actually think with the right economic policies like trump put in place we would be booming now if it weren t for the biden policies. dana: austan, when you think about the american rescue plan and people looking back and saying it was way too big and the president said he would go back on a campaign promise and likely to forgive significant portion of student loan debt. is that just the wrong policy at the wrong time? well, look, i haven t been a
summers, the treasury secretary under bill clinton. this is what he said. we have this serious problem of inflation, which is well above the goals that we have and causing a great deal of economic distress to the public. and experience suggests that inflation rarely, if ever, comes down without some kind of economic downturn. dana: setting the stage that way, austan, what do you see as the scope of the problem and do you think the president had it right yesterday or was underplaying it? it felt a little like the president was underplaying the risks. the whole back drop of this thing that we found out in the last week that this war in ukraine is likely going to be quite extended, the u.s. is getting further involved, russia cut off gas to europe. i do think there are some substantial geopolitical risks that could usher us toward
recession. let s keep an eye on that. i think we got information that the gdp actually shrank in the first quarter. and that should make people nervous. we ve been saying for months oh, the economy was growing too fast. it was too hot. that was generating inflation. now we re in a circumstance where the stimulus is rolling off and so we better keep an eye on the ball. dana: and i would actually say my esteemed colleague, bill hemmer who loves this so much, one of the things he pointed out as the wall street journal editorial said today the number caught everybody by surprise. what lies under the surface that we also might not know about? i m not surprised by this number. i ve been saying for nine or 10 months on show with austan i m very concerned about inflation and it has gotten worse. let s be very clear about this, bill and dana, the reason these numbers were so bad is when you
anthony blinken with the increasing complexity and advanced weaponsblin a and p training that s going on and what kind of being we re being lulled into involvement l in thr war and i m afraid that it s t going to get much, much t more obvious in the weeks to come. well,o billions and billionsio and billions of dollars not going to enforcing our border, that s for sure. ornow the state department is s basically echoing what austan said, john, and maybe even a more stark terms swatch. not only will ukraine emerge sovereign and independent when this is over , but moscown wille emerge weaker as long as moscow escalates. we will escalate. this type of aggression can t be repeated. whether that s in days, weeks or months or years from the conclusion of of these hostilities.