The National Security council also updated the state of the u. S. Economy and the ongoing war between israel and hamas. Good afternoon, everyone. I wanted to start with a word about the horrific news out of lewiston, maine last night where we saw another tragic shooting that has taken at least 18 lives, injured others and left countless people in grief, shock and trauma. As the president said in a statement earlier today, he and the first lady are praying for the victims and their families, for those fighting for their lives and those survivors and Community Members reeling from this latest act of gun violence. And importantly, we continue to urge all residents to heed the warning and guidance of the local officials and federal Law Enforcement that are on the ground to respond. At a state dinner last night, he was informed of the shooting. He stepped out to speak with janet mills as well as senators collins and king and congressman jared goldman. He pledged full federal support in the wake of this horrific tragedy. This morning the president received another briefing on the shooting from senior advisers and he ordered that the u. S. Flag be flown halfstaff at the White House House and all public buildings and grounds out of respect for the victims as well. So, i want to echo the president s sentiments on this tragedy and the epidemic of gun violence in general. This is not normal. We cannot accept this. There have been literally hundreds of Mass Shootings in the last year alone, leaving empty seats at dinner tables across the country and leaving those that survived these heinous acts both physically and mentally scarred. And while we have made progress since the president signed the bipartisan Safer Communities act into law, much more must be done. And the president has been clear that executive action alone is just not enough. As the Vice President , who oversees the newly established office of gun violence and prevention, i know many of you watched it very closely as well, and she said, it does not have to be this way. As our friends in australia have demonstrated. Again. It does not have to be this way. It is within Congress Power to pass legislation that will make our streets safer and communities safer, schools safer. The house has a new speaker who said that hes ready to get to work and to find Common Ground. Now is the time. Now is the time to find Common Ground. Lets Work Together to ban assault weapons and high capacity magazines. Lets Work Together to enact universal background checks and require safe storage of guns and keep guns out of the hand of criminal dollars and dangerous individuals who have no business being armed with a weapon of war. The president will continue to do everything in his power to protect the American People, to protect our communities and to protect our children. And we urge Congressional Republicans to come to the table, to come to the table, if there truly is Common Ground at this time. With that, as you know, im joined today in the Briefing Room wit director of economic counsel, leo brainard lail brainard, to discuss the gop record that you saw this morning and any other Economic News out there. With that, lail, welcome to the Briefing Room for the second time. We thought this might be a good moment to look back to this time last year and recall what the experts were saying about the u. S. Economy. A year ago, the consensus view means that unemployment would need to go up to 4. 5 and the economy would need to stall out in order to get the inflation down to where it is today. The u. S. Growth has been much stronger than the naysayers believed. Unemployment has remained below 4 this entire time. But inflation has fallen in line with that forecast. In fact, today we learned that gdp grew by 4. 9 in the Third Quarter even as cor inflation on core inflation on a quarterly basis fill to 2. 4 , the lowest level in nearly three years. That Strong Economy is a testament to the resilience of American Consumers and American Workers supported by President Bidens plan to grow the economy by growing the middle class. Consumer spending is robust, as americans have rejoined the labor force in record numbers and real wages are up over the last year. President biden vowed to build the economy from the bottom up in the middle out and that is exactly what were seeing in the data. Last weeks survey of Consumer Finances showed that americans median network is 37 higher than it was before the pandemic adjusted for inflation. That is the largest gain in the history of the survey. And the wealth gains were strongest for the bottom half of the Income Distribution and black and hispanic families that have traditionally have not seen as large gains. Just yesterday, the u. A. W. And ford reached a historic tentative agreement that provides a record increase for autoworkers and is a testament to the president s strategy to ensure a strong future for auto manufacturing here in america with good union jobs. That is good news for American Workers and good news for the future of the u. S. Auto industry. So in the data in that agreement, we can see that the president s strategy is yielding real results, even as we continue to work to bring costs down. Thanks. So the president celebrated the gdp report saying that it is the testament of the american consumer. But the report also showed that personal savings dropped by 360 million. Do you have a message to the americans that dipped into the savings before inflation . As i said, what you are seeing is americans are back in the labor force in record numbers, much higher participation than was anticipated, and higher than prepandemic. So they are at work, and that is showing up also in the wealth numbers. If you look at the American Household median wealth, in inflationadjusted terms, it has gone up since before the pandemic. So i think the u. S. Consumer, u. S. Workers, they are absolutely the reason that were seeing this resilience in the economy and they are actually seeing increases in their wealth over the period. What about the americans that are dipping into the savings to afford their lifestyle . I think that, again, because because net wealth is rising, because income is rising because americans are working, that is exactly what we with a tonight what we want to see in the economy. Are you no longer worried in a recession in the near term . I think the data in recent months has all pointed in the same direction. Which is that were seeing strong ongoing growth with inflation coming down. Were seeing unemployment staying below 4 20 months in a row now with inflation coming down. And so, those data, which have been sustained now for a relatively long period of time, suggest that there is ongoing resilience there, and small we are seeing Small Business formation at a record rate. There is a lot of dynamism in the economy people are taking notice of. And you know that the president has historic legislation that is leading to historically high amounts of construction in the manufacturing sector, really leveraging private sector investment. So for all of those reasons, the ability to see the economy continue growing with inflation down, strongest growth and lowest inflation among the g7. Thanks a lot. The gdp number was released. The student loan repayments have begun for tens of millions of americans. Is this a headwind that you see in the u. S. Economy for q4 . What other headwinds do you see for the rest of the year . The consumer was very strong. In the Third Quarter. And we believe that based on the strong job market, that we can continue to see resilience there. But the president has always said that he would like to see Student Debt Relief go forward. Hes continuing to look avenues to look to find avenues to do that in the wake of the Supreme Court decision. We have already announced a number of programs that have led to large and significant relief for a large number of americans but he is going to continue working to make sure that the full amount of Student Debt Relief is available over time. And what other headwinds do you see in the Fourth Quarter . Right now, what we see going into the Fourth Quarter is continued ongoing investment on the basis of the Clean Energy Tax credits and the chips program, the infrastructure law. So there should continue to be a lot of private sector interest. We certainly see it in the number. 614 billion in the private sector. In the face of those losses. So i think those will continue to provide uplift for the global economy. There are some soft spots there. So perhaps a little head wind there. To follow the Consumer Spending, do you expect the consume spending to ease in the coming months . I have a followup. There is the possibility that from quarter to quarter, you see some variations. So it is hard to know right now what retail spending is going to look like. And Consumer Spending more broadly. Consumers have good sources of income. Real wages rising and strong employment, and strong participation labor force. But from quarter to quarter, we can see relevant evaluations relative to Business Investment for instance. How do you see the recent spike in the borrowing costs, is that affecting Consumer Spending . Certainly consumers and businesses are taking into account the cost of credit. I think that is a headwind on the economy. Despite that, we have seen really strong gdp, 4. 9 in the Fourth Quarter. The Third Quarter. We think that is because there is strong support on the policy on the investment side of the economy, the president s historic legislation there and his broader plan to grow the economy from the middle out. Thank you so much. Thank you for coming back. Okay. Were moving on. As you know, admiral john kirby is here to share at the top and also take any of your Foreign Policy questions. Admiral . Afternoon, everybody. Let me start i have a couple things that i want to get to. Let me start with the middle east, the president continues to be updated by the National Security team there and continuing to support, were continuing to support israels military, Security Assistance continues to flow to them as needed almost on a daily basis. And obviously were still laser focused on the humanitarian assistance situation and making sure that more food, water and medicine can get in. Since the 21st of this month, some 74 trucks have now gone in. 12 in the last 24 hours. Not enough. More needs to go. We need to see if we can accelerate and increase the flow of humanitarian assistance in. It remains a high focus for him and the National Security team. If you will allow me, i do want to take a couple of minutes to update you on the battlefield situation in ukraine. As we have said publicly, russia launched a new offensive in ukraine in several cities. I spoke about this recently. But this offensive was not a surprise. We have been watching this build and come. We have warned that president putin still plans to concur to conquer ukraine and they need help to defend its thats territory. Just today we announced another package of Security Assistance which includes air defense capabilities, javelin antitank missiles, more Artillery Ammunition and the himars. Thus far, using all these capabilities, the ukrainians have been able to hold off and hold on the defense against this offensive, repelling russian tank columns that have been advancing on them. Since the 11th of october, russia has suffered significant losses in the offensive attempt there, including 125 Armored Vehicles around there and more than a battalions worth of equipment. We expect more russian attacks to come. This is a dynamic conflict. We need to remember russia still maintains some offensive capability and may be able to achieve tactical gains in the couple months. In the coming months. To pursue that on the battlefield, russia continues to show no regard for the lives of its soldiers. We believe they have suffered thousands of casualties some of them on the orders of their own leaders. We have information the Russian Military has been actually executing soldiers that refuse to follow orders. We also have information that russian commanders are threatening to execute entire units if they seek to retreat from Ukraine Ukrainian artillery fire. Forces remain undertrained and underequipped and unprepared for combat as was the case during the failed winter offensive last year, they are using human wave tactics. Just throwing masses of these poorly trained soldiers right into the fight. No proper equipment, no leadership, no resourcing. No support. It is not surprising Russian Forces are suffering from poor morale given these conditions. The attempt at the offensive is a sobering remind theyre president putin is not giving up to take ukraine. As russia continues the brutal assault, we have to support the people in their selfdefense. Because his intentions are clear. You heard the president talk about this last week. He said if the western weapons stopped, ukraine would have a week to live. So, to ensure that we can continue to do that, it is critical that Congress Step up and pass the supplemental requests that the president put forward last week, which included a significant amount of resources for ukraine for the selfdefenses and the humanitarian and economic needs. Is it time now to move forward with that september supplemental with that supplemental funding. Because time is clearly not on our side or the side of ukraine going forward. The president yesterday said he has no confidence in the numbers presented [indiscernible] in gaza. What is he basing that on . How did he reach that conclusion . The Gaza Ministry of health is a front for hamas. It is run by hamas, a terrorist organization. Ive said it myself up here. We cannot take anything coming out of hamas, including the so called ministry of health at face valuable. At face value. Secondly, the president is talking more about humanitarian pause and reviving the Israeli Palestinian peace process. What is prompting this shift . The stone shift . The this tone shift . The president never backed away or never stopped affirming the need for a two state solution. Since coming in office, we have been working on that very hard. I know is it a lofty goal. But he has not stopped working towards that goal. And he believes that when this conflict is over, that still has to be the goal that were driving to, a state for palestinians where they can live in peace and security and justice. That is a strategic longterm goal in a tactical sense, as second blinken said, there should be consideration made for humanitarian pauses. These are localized temporarily, temporary specific pauses on the battlefield so that humanitarian assistance can get in to the people that need it or they, the people can get out of that area in a relative safety. That is what a humanitarian pause is. We think its an idea worth exploring. We want to ask you about the president s lack of confidence about hamas. The president and the white house, you dont dispute that thousands of palestinians, many of them innocent civilians have been killed by israeli strikes, do you . Of course not. We know that the death toll continues to rise in gaza. Of course we know that. What we are saying is we should not rely on numbers put forth by hamas. They say it is more than 7,000. Is there anyway to assess how many it is . The president said it was a pretty dramatic moment in that. You cant take hamas by their word. But it does appear that thousands of palestinians have been killed. Would you agree . We would not dispute that. Let me ask you, is the white house satisfied that israel to this point has obeyed the laws of war . As the president has indicated. Is israel doing enough to this point to protect innocent lives . Were not going to react in real time to events unfolding on the butterfield and every allegation battlefield and every allegation. But you could have an assessment. I didnt say that either. I said were not going react in real time. We have been in constant touch with her israeli counterparts from the very Early Morning hours and there is and added burden on israel to make sure they are doing everything that they can to limit the civilian casualties. And were in constant communication about that. Does the president have faith in the numbers released by the west Bank Ministry that is run by the Palestinian Authority that there has been more than a hundred west