CNN economist wings it after swallowing fly on air

The US economy can be hard to swallow. For one CNN guest, so was a fly.

A live discussion about the economy took an unexpected turn on Aug 8 when economist Justin Wolfers accidentally swallowed a fly on air.

Wolfers, a University of Michigan professor, was speaking with CNN host Omar Jimenez about newly confirmed Federal Reserve chair Kevin Warsh and the surprisingly weak jobs report on Aug 7.

American employers shed 23,000 jobs in July, well short of economists’ forecast for a gain of 80,000.

Wolfers had just described the labour market as “remarkably resilient” when he suddenly began coughing and covering his mouth.

Jimenez kept the interview moving, apparently giving his guest time to recover. When he asked a follow-up question, Wolfers, an Australian, confessed: “Mate, I just swallowed a fly on live television.”

“I was trying to keep talking while you were coughing, so you could figure it out. It’s all good,” Jimenez replied.

“Aussies love eating flies,” Wolfers joked.

Then he did what economists do. He offered an interpretation.

Wolfers compared his predicament to Warsh’s reluctance to discuss the Fed’s direction, saying both had become “a little harder to understand, and a little harder to interpret”.

“I might swallow a horse; that will get the fly,” he said, invoking the children’s rhyme “There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly.”

Wolfers later took to X to assure viewers that the situation – unlike the American economy – was all good.

“A fly just zipped into my mouth while gabbing on CNN,” he wrote. “Next question was about the Fed, so I did what Kevin Warsh won’t: I swallowed hard and kept talking.”

He added one final update: “The fly is dead. And I’m no longer a vegetarian.”