Trump economic advisor Kevin Hassett lied about the inflation rate under Biden while telling everyone not to believe these pesky "Jimmy polls" on the economy.
Hassett made an appearance on Fox's The Sunday Briefing and was asked by host Peter Doocy about recent polling on the economy, and Hassett responded by accusing polling firms of polling "too many Democrats" before citing the combined inflation rate under Biden when inflation under Biden actually peaked at around 9%, not 20%.
DOOCY: I want to know which of these things sets off alarm bells inside the West Wing. We're going to put up a couple of polls: only 23% of voters think the economy is excellent or good, 12% of voters describe their personal financial situation as "getting ahead," and 62% of voters say grocery prices are a major problem for their family. Do any of those make you think we've got a problem?
HASSETT: Look, I'm the White House economist, and all I can say is that these polls over and over again give a harmful impression about the economy, because they poll way too many Democrats.
If you look, for example, at the Michigan survey, the Democrats in that survey are saying we've got the worst economy since the Great Depression because they hate President Trump.
Republicans are basically seeing what we see, which is a very strong economy with low inflation. GDP in the third quarter is now supposed to come in at 5%. We just had a blockbuster jobs report. We've got real income growth. We've got huge progress on affordability.
Do you realize that the decline in drug prices because of what we've been doing is the largest in 64 years? There's so much economic good news, but what happens is that the far-left media, instead of letting you talk about the facts — the 5% GDP growth, the large income growth, the $3,000 decline in real incomes under Joe Biden — instead of talking about that, what they want to do is talk about these gimmick polls.
I'm just not convinced at all. And I can tell you that in the economic literature, the one thing you see is that what matters in the end is what's in people's pockets.
Think about this: one of the worst things that could happen to someone is getting laid off. Additional claims for unemployment insurance are the lowest on record, going all the way back to World War II, so people aren't losing their jobs.
It's a really strong economy, and rather than talk about the strong economy, people want to talk about the silly polls.
DOOCY: No far-left media here, Kevin!
HASSETT: No, but you're saying what they say! [crosstalk]
That's the point. Put up some facts — "What do you think about the 5% GDP growth? What do you think about jobless claims being the lowest ever? What do you think about drug prices having the biggest decline in 64 years?" That's all I'm saying, Peter. I'm not criticizing you as being partisan.
DOOCY: And I totally get it. Look, bringing drug prices down — great. The Dow at an all-time high, seems like every couple of days — great. But would you admit that if you walked out of the White House and asked anybody, somebody from in town or somebody from out of town, they would say that they think stuff is too expensive right now? Would you agree with that?
HASSETT: Well, sure — we had 20% inflation under Joe Biden. And if you look at the last three months and annualize it, inflation is almost flat. So there's been a big reduction in inflation, but prices are higher because of the huge inflation we inherited from Joe Biden.
But inflation is way down. Again, over the last three months we're right at the Fed's target, and it's dropped sharply despite what's going on in the Middle East.
I go to the grocery store every weekend, and I noticed, for example, that the hamburger for my barbecue yesterday was down $2 from a couple of weeks ago. So I'm seeing prices move in the right direction.
Doocy followed up by asking him about the recent rate hike by the FED and what their plans are to counter that. Hassett proceeded to brag about them getting rid of regulations on refrigerators and how that's going to help truckers, ignoring what the price of diesel is doing to them now, and again attacking Biden and pretending they had to clean up after him.
Of course, the opposite is true. Biden inherited a mess and a badly managed pandemic, and managed to get us back on track better than most of the rest of the world, and now they've squandered what they inherited... again.
