Kevin Hassett Defends Trump Tariffs, Touts Job And Inflation Numbers

Speaking to reporters, White House National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett defended President Trump's tariffs.

Transcript

00:00A question on Maloney meeting?

00:02Sir, I think one of the things that irritated the president here is Powell's remarks on inflation.

00:08We heard a similar message yesterday from the head of the IMF who said that next week,

00:14when they release their forecasts, they're going to be notable markdowns in terms of growth,

00:19but also notable markups in terms of inflation.

00:22Can you walk us through, from your point of view, what the tariff impact will be on inflation

00:27and how long or short-lived it will be?

00:29What I'd like to do is just think of the policy rather than the personalities.

00:38And the policy of this Federal Reserve was to raise rates the minute President Trump was elected last time,

00:44to say that the supply-side tax cuts were going to the inflationary,

00:49even though supply-side tax cuts could get growth without inflation,

00:52to not go out there on TV and at IMF meetings and warn about the terrible inflation

00:58from the obvious right away spending from Joe Biden.

01:03And the obvious right away spending from Joe Biden was textbook inflationary,

01:06and we didn't see anybody warning about that.

01:08And then they cut rates right ahead of the election.

01:11And so if you think that it's unacceptable because it's frustrating with the policy history of the Fed,

01:17that I think that you've got to fulfill explaining to you.

01:21And so I think that, you know, we'll see what the record is.

01:24But right now what we're seeing is that the tariffs are on-shoring activity at a remarkable rate,

01:29that capital spending is moving towards an all-time high,

01:32that the jobs numbers were way better than we expected,

01:36maybe about 70,000 or 80,000 jobs higher than we expected of us.

01:39And so President Trump's policies are working.

01:41And meanwhile, inflation numbers have been going down.

01:44And so against that backdrop, to have everybody who refused to warn about the runaway spending,

01:50you know, out there saying, oh, this is going to be a catastrophe for inflation because of tariffs,

01:54is that people need to, like, improve their models and improve their messages.

01:58And with that, I'd like to keep going.

02:00A question on the line.