A top economic adviser to President Donald Trump argued Thursday that the economy was “amazing” despite a recent poll showing that most Americans don’t agree.
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Kevin Hassett, the National Economic Council director, told CNN anchor Pamela Brown that Trump’s economy was benefiting Americans. But Brown pushed back on that, citing recent polls that showed the opposite.
“You said just a moment ago, Kevin, that consumers are optimistic,” Brown said. “But we have this poll where 77% of Americans say economic conditions are overall poor. That is the lowest of Trump’s second term so far. Is this the ‘amazing’ economy the administration thought you’d all be boasting about when the ‘Big, Beautiful Bill’ was passed more than a year ago?”
Hassett argued the numbers back him up.
“Right now the economy does look amazing to me,” Hassett said. “The inflation is going down. The unemployment rate is low. Initial claims are like almost no one’s getting fired, and final demand was up about 4%, which is about what my friend Howard Lutnick was predicting back then. It was the sort of surge in imports of capital goods that I think caught people a little bit by surprise.”
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He claimed that there was “strong growth.”
“One of the things that I can say as an economist is that there’s a big economic literature that says that in the end, people vote based on what’s in their pockets,” he added.
Hassett tried to argue that the economy was worse off under former presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden.
“And so I think that the real incomes growing right now are really a positive sign politically and much more positive than something I would see at a poll,” he said.
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