Daniel Wolfram
Usually one of Trump’s biggest defender, economic adviser Kevin Hassett broke rank on live television to admit that the latest inflation surge is “disappointing.”
Outside of a couple of appearances in front of the press, President Donald Trump has not been very active or social since his historic midterm election loss last Tuesday.
If you thought that he would only hide away for a week, think again, because yesterday the Labor Department announced that the Consumer Price Index (CPI) rose 0.4% between September and October.
So Trump tried to send out his financial expert to spin the increasingly high inflation. He was unsuccessful. And Fox News did not help out either.
Trump’s financial whiz calls the inflation report ‘disappointing’
Kevin Hassett, who looks as if Chucky the doll had become a financial advisor because of his sly smile, is Donald Trump’s Director of the National Economic Council, and he is the one who is always going on cable news to defend Trump’s economy.
Usually, he blames the Biden administration for the financial shortcomings, but yesterday his interview with Fox Business had a much more somber tone.
“It’s a disappointing report. […] But things have accelerated over the last three months. […] But right now, the trickle-down from higher energy prices is definitely very palpable in the data.”
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Fox News also sounds the alarm
It was not just Hassett who sounded very down on the latest data on American inflation. Fox News also sounded the alarm over the increase in prices of everyday things right before the holidays.
“It is a deceleration on the headline numbers from the previous month, but it is hotter than expected. […] We are nowhere near good enough,” one of the Fox Business hosts said when the report came in.
She noted that the new diesel deal with Russia should have brought gas prices down, but that had not happened according to CPI data.
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Fox News predicts a bleak outcome for the American economy
The rhetoric on Fox News got worse as the discussion went on and the hosts on Fox’s business program got further into the data.
“Real earnings for all private workers are flat now. Until this starts to show significant change, real earnings flat does not get consumers out of the hole they feel they have been in. […] You’re really looking for 0.2%, which would be in line with the Fed’s 2% target. So you’re moving further away from that.”
Trump has not yet commented on the latest report from his Labor Department, nor has he commented on whether he wants the central bank to lower its interest rates.
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