On May 3, the very day that Media Matters for America released a report documenting repeated misstatements by Hannity & Colmes co-host Sean Hannity, among others, about when the recession began, Hannity asserted again on his FOX News Channel program, "[President George W. Bush] did inherit a recession" from the Clinton administration.

Media Matters for America's report "Backdating the Recession" catalogued the numerous false references in the media to Bush's “inherited recession.” In fact, as Media Matters for America's report showed, the U.S. economy went into a recession for the first time in ten years in March 2001, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research, a private, nonpartisan organization whose business cycle announcements have long been considered the definitive word on recessions.