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kevin hassett
Trump Aide Claims Americans ‘Spending More Money on Everything’ Shows They're ‘Optimistic’ About Economy
Multiple consumer surveys have shown that Americans have never been more pessimistic about the state of the economy.
May 26, 2026
For the second time in a month, National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett on Tuesday claimed that Americans spending more money on gasoline and other goods is a sign of strength for the US economy—rather than evidence of the Trump administration's inflationary policy decisions.
During an interview with Fox Business, Hassett tried to counter recent data showing US consumer sentiment hitting all-time lows during President Donald Trump's second term.
"The thing that I've seen when I look at credit card data," Hassett said, "is that while people have been spending more money at gas stations, they've been spending more money on everything else, which means that they're still very, very optimistic about the state of the economy, and they should be."
Hassett: "The thing I've seen is that while people have been spending more money at gas stations, they've been spending more money on everything else, which means they're still very very optimistic about the state of the economy"
(Consumer sentiment is actually at an all time… pic.twitter.com/oyWfsCGy8O
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) May 26, 2026
In fact, multiple consumer surveys have shown that Americans have never been more pessimistic about the state of the economy.
Last week, the University of Michigan's latest Surveys of Consumers showed consumer sentiment hitting the lowest level ever, driven primarily by concerns about the cost of living.
Gallup last week published new data showing that Americans’ economic confidence has fallen to its lowest level since October 2022, with just 16% of Americans rating the economy as excellent or good, and nearly half describing it as poor.
Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo asked Hassett about these surveys, and he said they should be dismissed because they only show negative sentiment from Democrats and independents, who combined make up the majority of US voters.
"They call it 'consumer sentiment' but I don't think those words mean what they think they mean anymore," Hassett said. "We find that basically the consumer sentiment indicator at the University of Michigan, it's just a political survey. And in fact, what the correlation between what Democrats say and what independents say... it's almost exactly perfectly correlated."
BARTIROMO: Consumer sentiment is a record low. What's the most important messaging you can put out there to help sentiment?
HASSETT: They call it 'consumer sentiment' but I don't think those words mean what they think they mean anymore. The correlation between what independents… pic.twitter.com/kAM3JyWUjD
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) May 26, 2026
In fact, consumer sentiment surveys taken during President Joe Biden's administration showed that independents joined with Republican voters to rate the economy significantly more poorly than Democratic voters, indicating that independents' views of the economy are not in lockstep with Democrats'.
Polling averages calculated by elections analyst Nate Silver currently show Trump's approval rating on his handling to the economy to be just 34%, with disapproval standing at 63%.
The numbers are even worse when it comes to the president's handling of inflation, where an average of 28% of Americans approve and 69% disapprove.
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Trump Economic Adviser Boasts That US Consumers Are 'Spending More on Gasoline' and 'Everything Else'
"Is this supposed to be a brag?" said Democratic US Rep. Mark Pocan.
May 06, 2026
National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett on Wednesday tried to put a rosy spin on President Donald Trump's economy by highlighting the large credit card bills being racked up by US consumers.
During an interview on Fox Business, Hassett cited credit card spending as a purported sign of strength in the economy as a whole.
"I had the head of one of the Big Five banks in my office yesterday, going through credit card data," he said. "Credit card spending is through the roof! They're spending more on gasoline, but they're spending more on everything else too."
Hassett on American consumers: "Credit card spending is through the roof. They're spending more on gasoline, but they're spending more on everything else too." pic.twitter.com/zayCSaxhwr
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) May 6, 2026
The price of oil has been surging since Trump launched an illegal war with Iran in late February, and on Wednesday the average price for a gallon of gasoline in the US topped $4.50, a high not seen since 2022 in the wake of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
As the Iran crisis persists, economists project that the price of energy will be reflected in increases in other consumer goods, most notably food.
Given this, many critics were astonished that Hassett decided to brag about consumer credit card spending as a way to reassure Americans concerned about the economy.
"Working-class Americans are maxing out their credit cards to pay for groceries and gas," wrote House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY). "The Trump Cartel thinks this is something to celebrate. Shameful."
Hassett's claims about credit card spending also earned a swift rebuke from Warren Gunnels, staff director for Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).
"Americans are putting more stuff on credit cards because they don’t have enough money to pay for the skyrocketing cost of virtually everything," Gunnels wrote. "Trump promised to put a 10% cap on credit card interest rates. Instead, the average credit card interest rate today is 22%. Obscene."
Fred Wellman, a Democratic candidate for the US House of Representatives in Missouri, could not hide his disgust at Hassett's performance.
"He’s smiling," Wellman observed. "He's celebrating that we are all maxing out our credit cards because they have torched the economy. He’s not smiling for working people. He’s happy for the corporations and billionaires. It's good for them. We can all die poor. This is why I'm running for Congress."
Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) expressed bewilderment at Hassett's argument.
"Is this supposed to be a brag?" Pocan asked.
Jon Favreau, former speechwriter for President Barack Obama and current co-host of Pod Save America, found Hassett's messaging so tone-deaf that "we must consider the possibility that Kevin Hassett is secretly working for the Democrats."
The Democratic House Majority Political Action Committee had a response similar to Favreau's, recommending that the GOP make Hassett "the spokesperson for the entire Republican Party."
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‘Disgusting’: Trump’s Top Economic Adviser Brags About Killing 300,000 ‘High-Paying’ American Jobs
"Everybody is hurt by what he's celebrating," one public employee union official told Common Dreams. "I guess it's just par for the course from this administration, but it's still a disgusting thing to hear."
Apr 10, 2026
President Donald Trump's top economic adviser boasted on Fox Business Thursday that the government had slashed more than 300,000 "high-paying" jobs from the federal payroll during the president's first year back in office.
Asked by anchor Maria Bartiromo about the administration's efforts to cut government spending, National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett said it had made "a huge amount of progress."
"I think the biggest thing that we can point to is that we've cut government employment by 300,000 workers," he said. "Those are jobs that are very high-paying that are gone forever."
He claimed the cuts reduced government spending by "an unthinkable amount of money," perhaps $1 trillion over the next ten years.
He also said that the administration "reduced the deficit last year by $600 billion" through a combination of higher-than-expected economic growth, tariff revenues, and "supply side effects" of Trump's massive tax cut, which mostly benefited the wealthiest Americans while gutting the social safety net.
Dean Baker, a longtime collaborator of Hassett’s despite their opposing political beliefs, wrote on social media that Trump’s economic adviser was dramatically exaggerating the deficit reduction that occurred during the administration's first year.
According to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the deficit was about $1.8 trillion for fiscal year 2025, just $41 billion less than the previous year and $56 billion lower than the $1.9 trillion deficit CBO projected in its most recent baseline.
"In the real world, the deficit fell... less than one-tenth of what Kevin claims," Baker said.
Trump has touted the layoffs of hundreds of thousands of government employees from their "boring federal jobs" as one of his crowning achievements.
Among the agencies hit by mass layoffs were the Department of Veterans Affairs, where more than 12,700 employees got the axe; the Department of Health and Human Services, which lost more than 14,400 workers; the Social Security Administration, whose staff shrank by more than 6,600; and the Environmental Protection Agency, which lost more than 4,000 employees.
Jacqueline Simon, policy director at the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), the largest labor union representing federal workers, told Common Dreams that even if slashing jobs did reduce the deficit as Hassett claimed, the harm far outweighs any such benefit—not only for the fired employees, but for the millions of Americans who depend on services they provide.
"When you say 300,000 jobs, it is a nice round number, and you link it to deficit reduction, which he was lying about," Simon said. "The fact of the matter is, the disappearance of those 300,000 jobs means degraded healthcare for our veterans; slower or nonexistent service at the Social Security Administration for the elderly and disabled who rely on Social Security for their income; and the elimination of huge swaths of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that help ensure we have clean air to breathe and clean water to drink."
"You have federal prisons absolutely overwhelmed by too many inmates and too few corrections officers, endangering public safety," she continued. "Consumer product safety has been eviscerated. There are also serious public health concerns involving substance abuse, childhood nutrition, and vaccinations."
She decried Hassett's comments as "ignorant" in light of his false claims about deficit reduction, but also "just demonstrably pretty cruel and disdainful" given the impact these job losses have on individuals, families, communities, and society as a whole.
"It's cruel," Simon said, "not only on the people who held those jobs—about a 100,000 of whom are military veterans—but the impact of the disappearance of those jobs also falls on children, the elderly, anybody who consumes agricultural products, breathes air, or relies on clean water."
"Everybody is hurt by what he's celebrating," she added. "I guess it's just par for the course from this administration, but it's still a disgusting thing to hear."
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