Carney Accuses Republicans of Trying to 'Blow Up' Economy

This has not been Jay Carney's week.

On Tuesday, he got into a verbal sparring match with new Fox White House correspondent Ed Henry (previously at CNN). On Wednesday, the harsh words continued, with Carney going as far as to accuse Henry of trying to "create a thing" for Fox. So what would he say to complete the hat trick today? How about accusing Republicans of trying to "blow up" the economy.

The remarks, ironically enough, came during a response to one of Henry's questions. Henry asked what the president would be willing to concede should Republicans not back down. In the middle of a lengthy response, Carney had this to say:

"We never had a situation like this [in the past] where-- there were sometimes confrontations over this ... but the overwhelming number of times is the congress acted because this was not a question, there wasn't this one-for-one thing, it wasn't a question that I am going to blow up the economy, if you will, if you don't do what I want. It's just crazy."

He also went on to call the Republicans "juvenile." Mediaite has the audio (the relevant part of Carney's response starts at about 1:38):

It's worth noting that such apocalyptic language has popped up within the administration this week. On Tuesday, White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer said the country could sink into a "depression" if no debt deal is reached.