Those who were seeking guidance from the White House on chaotic and dramatic developments in the stock market were befuddled by the nonsensical answer from the White House press secretary Wednesday.
Social media erupted after a scheme from users on a Reddit stock market thread threatened to damage Wall Street hedge funds by driving up the price of the stocks from GameStop, a company many had heavily bet against.
When White House press secretary Jen Psaki was questioned about the incident, she offered a bizarre response.
“Well, I’m also happy to repeat that we have the first female Treasury secretary and a team that’s surrounding her,” Psaki said.
“Often questions about market we’ll send to them, but our team is of course, our economy team including Secretary Yellen and others are monitoring the situation,” she continued.
“It’s a good reminder though, that the stock market isn’t the only measure of the health of our economy, it doesn’t reflect how working and middle class families are doing,” Psaki added.
The odd answer elicited mockery and jeers from many on social media.
“Pitch-perfect expression of the defining neo-liberal mentality here. We have an extraordinary political & cultural conflict involving inter-generational wealth, vast disparities of power, and a deeply corrupt financial system, and this is all the Biden WH has to say about it,” responded Glen Greenwald.
“Dude. No f***ing way. She first begins to answer the question by bringing identity politics into it. Literally saying ‘we have the first female treasury secretary’, as if that has any bearing on anything being asked. Omfg,” replied another user.
“Oh, the FIRST FEMALE treasury secretary. Well, in that case, why ask any questions? Let’s all put on our COVID masks, circle up (six feet apart), and meditate together instead,” replied independent journalist Kevin Gosztola.
“[J]en psaki reminded reporters that yellen is the first female treasury secretary like how you jingle keys in front of a baby. i can’t. these people are just transparently manipulative lol,” replied musician Soul Khan.
While some Wall Street firms signaled that they had given in by Wednesday and swallowed a significant loss in the debacle, others cautioned that retail investors will likely lose a lot of money trying to jump onboard the bandwagon.
Here’s the video of Psaki’s bizarre response:
