White House, CNBC Tensions Mount

The tension between White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs and CNBC anchors mounted on Monday as Gibbs took a swipe at Jim Cramer's comments on the Obama economic plan.

While on the Today Show Monday morning, Cramer called the administration's budget a "radical agenda" and said it was "the greatest wealth destruction I've seen by a President."

NBC reporter Tom Costello asked Gibbs to comment on Cramer's pronouncements.

"I'm not entirely sure what he's pointing to, to make some of the statements," said Gibbs. "And you can go back and look at any number of statements he's made in the past about the economy and wonder where some of the back-up for those are too."

Then, when pressed further by Costello, Gibbs continued: "If you turn on a certain program it's geared to a very small audience. No offense to my good friends, or friend at CNBC. But the President has to look out for the broader economy and the broader population."

The quips followed comments last week from Gibbs about another CNBC colleague, Rick Santelli.

Santelli tried to foment rebellion on the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange recently, ranting about the Obama mortgage plan and riling up nearby traders, who applauded his monologue. During his rant, he called the traders representative of the American public.

He later found himself the target of derision from the White House:

"I'm not entirely sure where Mr. Santelli lives or in what house he lives," Gibbs said during the daily briefing, "but the American people are struggling every day to meet their mortgage, stay in their jobs, pay their bills to send their kids to school, and to hope that they don't get sick or somebody they care for gets sick that sends them into bankruptcy. I think we left a few months ago the adage that if it was good for a derivatives trader, that it was good for main street. I think the verdict is in on that."

The saga continued, with Santelli later suggesting the White House was threatening him and that his kids were unnerved.

WATCH Jim Cramer on the Today Show:

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Comments

[Moderatenation]

It was uncomfortable, but Stewart was not going after Cramer, or CNBC, as much as he was going after the MSM/Free Press. CNBC had been promoting the views of Wall Street without doing any in-depth investigation of that information. They accepted the information and passed it on as fact. The Free Press has become a promoter of the institutions, and policies that they cover. They are rarely critical. People were coming forward with the real story on Madoff for over a decade but the Free Press did not investigate this. When the Bush Administration decided to invade Iraq, why didn't the Free Press do their job and question the fabricated intelligence? Questioning power must be the role of the Free Press. They have to be the critical eye that asks the hard, uncomfortable questions. They must demand answers and accountability. The worst thing about the Stewart/Cramer interview is that it had to be done by a comic on Comedy Central. The MSM/Free Press are not doing their job. This is not the Free Press that "Spoke to Power" of past generations. The Free Press and CNBC in particular should be ashamed of their roles in the economic crisis facing our nation. The job of the Free Press IS NOT to entertain. THE JOB OF THE FREE PRESS IS TO INVESTIGATE, INFORM and be the WATCHDOG OF DEMOCRACY. If the Free Press doesn’t do its job someone else needs to. Bravo Jon Stewart!

[ibm621]

I SIDE WITH JIM CRAMER. WORST DAILY SHOW in 10yrs. Sounded more like a DINK crying fowl, than a comedy show. Valid point or not, that was just WRONG.

[Mary Smith]

We're back to the medium is the message.

[LizzieTish]

You're right. Now the news is about what Cramer said, what Stewart said about Cramer, what Gibbs said about Rush, etc. etc. ... They're lost.

[funkalicious]

Cramer touched briefly on the next shoe to drop and that is pensions, not new inflows to pensions but the pension insurers.

All of those government guaranteed pensions held by PBGC is a federal corporation created by the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974. It currently protects the pensions of nearly 44 million American workers and retirees in more than 29,000 private single-employer and multiemployer defined benefit pension plans. PBGC receives no funds from general tax revenues. Operations are financed by insurance premiums set by Congress and paid by sponsors of defined benefit plans, investment income, assets from pension plans trusteed by PBGC, and recoveries from the companies formerly responsible for the plans.
Time to take a look kids is this joint solvent? because if this is just another AIG there will be hell to pay.
And withthe market dumping every single day its time for real action.
Go Cramer keep speaking the truth to power.