I feel like a perfect meme of the economy would be like Ben Affleck like with cigarette

like looking sad like coming out from Duncan with like an overpriced coffee.

This would be my followed story.

That's good. I like that.

I'm John Favreau.

Welcome to offline.

Hey everyone, Max is on the road this week,

so we're going to get straight to the interview,

and it's a good one. Our guest this week is Jeff Stein, an

economic reporter at the Washington Post and I'm talking to him about a recent piece

he wrote with Taylor Lorenz that's caused quite a stir partly partly because of the headline, which is,

the viral $16 McDonald's meal that may explain voter anger at Biden.

If you missed it, a couple weeks ago, conservative media jumped all over a nearly year old

Tik-talk in which an influencer posted his receipt of a McDonald's order, a burger, fries, and a drink that

cost $16. Their argument, of course, is that the high price is Joe Biden's fault.

And of course, the actual story of the economy is more complicated.

Which is where Jeff and Taylor's piece comes in. They try to figure out

why voters still disapprove of President Biden's handling of the economy, even though a lot of

the economic indicators are relatively good. One argument they unpack is that, quote,

the digital world is painting a bleaker picture than the statistics report. I know, shocking.

But I still think there's more to the story than

Tik-Tocker's trash-talking the economy for clout. So I invited Jeff on to talk about the

...