away. experts believe it could fall to the lowest level since last february, the white house down plays fears of a recession. my hope is we go from this rapid growth to a steady growth. so we ll see some coming down. but i don t think we re going to god willing, i don t think we ll see a recession. let s hope he s right. today s report is the first of many marking the state of the economy, especially this week. tomorrow, the fed will make its announcement on interest rates and will likely hike that interest rate. so let s begin with the economy this hour with cnn reporter matt egan and jeremy diamond. matt, we ll let you look at the numbers just coming in. but jeremy, what is the strategy for the white house as they prepare for so many consequential reports on the economy this week? reporter: we have seen from the white house a week of prebuttals ahead of all of these economic numbers this week. in particular, those gdp numbers that we are expecting on thursday. the w