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If you just look at the market you'd say we're headed for really
tough times the economy is that what you're seeing. Is that what

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you're telling the president.
Well look I think if you could take a step back all we have now

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is a global inflation problem not just in the United States
across the world the United Kingdom Eurozone Canada all looking

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at extraordinarily high inflation driven in large part by
Putin's actions in Ukraine. What distinguishes the American

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economy from the rest of those economies is how strong the
fundamentals are here and how well prepared we are to face these

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headwinds. You look at consumer spending in the United States.
You look at business investment. All of those numbers are very

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robust. I think it paints a picture of an economy that's in very
good shape and well equipped to handle the challenges that are

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facing us. Might well be. And we certainly hope that that's all
true at the same time. If you have a 4 1 K out there if you're a

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retiree on a fixed income it's pretty rocky right now. Given
what we're seeing with the inflation eating into your returns as

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well as the markets down what do you tell those people.
Look the president is deeply sympathetic to that. His number one

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priority right now is tackling inflation. He's made that clear
for for several weeks several months

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for now. But I think what we need to take a step back and look
at is that American households as a whole are doing very very

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well. If you look at where we we before the pandemic and where
we are right now. Wages have been up obviously. Direct

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government support has been up. And American households are
doing very well. The labor market is extremely strong as well.

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What the president has been clear about is the need to for
Congress to step up to the plate and tackle some of these cost

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issues. We've actually made some really good progress on that.
Just yesterday the House passed a bill that is now heading to

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the president's desk that will bring down the costs of ocean
shipping. And that may not seem like such a big deal. But all

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those goods that come across the ocean from Asia to the United
States the prices of those are going to be affected by this

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bill. Ocean shipping costs are up 1000 percent during the
pandemic. This bill will crack down on those types of excessive

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prices which means that apparel appliances all those goods that
get important to United States are going to pass along some of

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those cost savings to consumers. That's some concrete progress
heading your way. We have the Federal Reserve's decision coming

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out tomorrow. And I know there's strict independence between the
executive branch and the Federal Reserve. And we both want to

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respect that. At the same time it may well be that a decision
has to be made at some point between risking recession on the

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one hand or runaway inflation on the other. From the White
House's point of view as a matter of policy which is the bigger

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risk inflation or recession.
As you said we have deep respect from the president on down from

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the Fed's independence. What the president has done is put in
place leadership at the Federal Reserve that he has trust in

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tackling inflation is their top priority and it's his number one
priority. He's going to let them do their work. That said our

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hope is that there's not that choice that we can walk that fine
line between transitioning from the extremely fast recovery that

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we've had to date to more stable steady growth without causing
huge disruptions in the labor market share. Powell has talked

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about his view that we can walk that path in part because of the
strength of the U.S. economy. And our hope is that we can do

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that as well. Shery Ahn worthy of hindsight's always 20 20 and
often not profitable. Sometimes you need to know what went wrong

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to know what can go right in the future. It's pretty clear that
there was a mis estimate at the Federal Reserve as well as at

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the White House. In fact we've had Secretary of Treasury Janet
Yellen admit they were off on the inflation expectations in the

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military. You do an after action report to figure out what went
wrong. Are you doing that right now to the white to figure out

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what went wrong.
Well look I think if we if we're being honest here what we have

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to look at is that in March April May of last year across the
board people's projections were for inflation to temper by the

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end of that year. What we couldn't anticipate. I don't think
it's fair for us to have anticipated this number one set of

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Covid variance. They had an enormous effect on supply chains and
most importantly Russia invading Ukraine which is responsible

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for a huge portion of the inflation that we are seeing today.
Just to give you one example since the beginning of the year

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when we saw Russia began began threatening Ukraine gas prices
are up nearly two dollars a gallon at the pump and a huge

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percentage of that is attributable to those actions. So we have
to be clear that yes it's always good back. Good to go back and

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look at what we could have done better. But there is a set of
things that happened that have had a massive impact on inflation

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that were impossible to project at the time that we were passing
the rescue plan. No question about that. Some things happened

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that no one could have anticipated symptom.
There were some people back last March who were saying we're

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really looking at inflation because of the size of the fiscal
stimulus. I mean Larry Summers have been ISE or Fairmont saying

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that. So. But I want to make sure I understand. Are you saying
you've looked at and decided nothing went wrong with the models.

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What I'm saying is that we are facing a global inflation problem
right now that is spurred on in large part by Russia's actions

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in Ukraine exacerbated by lockdowns in China that disrupt supply
chains. And I for one am extraordinarily thankful that in March

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of 2021 we passed a rescue plan that provided a significant
amount of support to middle class families in the United States.

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And that allowed them to weather these ups and downs much better
than middle class families in other countries. The world in

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which we did not pass the rescue plan we would still be looking
at historically high inflation. If you look at what's going on

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across the globe just our families would be much worse position
to deal with that inflation. So I'm very glad that we passed the

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rescue plan.
I think it was the appropriate size and the appropriate design

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and it was appropriately designed in part because we knew that
there was some unexpected twists and turns to come and we wanted

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to make sure American families could weather that. That's what
they've done. One of things is feeding sorry headline inflation

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right now is energy. And so that is prompted of course by that
Russian invasion of Ukraine. The president was out of the West

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Coast last week and he really condemned some of the energy
companies I think called Exxon specifically for some of the

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excess profits. Is there serious consideration of the White
House right now of an excess profits tax on oil.

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Well look we're open to a number of different ideas to tackle
the energy situation and to provide additional relief to

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American consumers. As the president noted in the first quarter
of this year the big five biggest oil companies made 35 billion

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dollars in profits.
That's four times what they made in the first quarter of the

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year before. And if you drill down on that sorry for the pun.
Drill down on that a little bit. What you can see is that a lot

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of the issue is that the refining level to give you a little bit
of context on that. The last time that the price of oil was a

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hundred and twenty dollars a barrel the cost at the pump was
four dollars and 25 cents a gallon. Now it's nearly five dollars

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a gallon. Where's that difference coming from. It's coming from
refiners and the huge margins that they're racking up in

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particular that makes a case as I listened to it for possibly an
excess profits tax on oil. Is that on the table. I'm sure you're

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not going to say you're going to do it today but is at least on
the table up for consideration at the White House. We're not

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ruling that out of consideration. We've made that clear. When we
have an announcement we'll make that announcement. But what the

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president has made clear is that there's a real issue here with
the level of production by the oil companies and the profits

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that they are making right now after the Russian invasion of
Ukraine. And as I said the real issue if you look carefully at

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it is that the refining level.