Kevin Hassett's Economy Looks Great — Minus the Losses

How the White House's top economist spins a bad jobs report into a "win" — and why networks keep letting him.

Photo credit: Alex Wong/Getty Images

If a person was listening to White House National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett’s television appearances concerning Donald Trump’s economy, you would think the country is in the midst of an unparalleled economic boom.

The administration is taking in billions of dollars from foreign tariffs that will fund massive construction projects which will create millions of great paying jobs, according to Hassett. Venezuelan oil is now ours, relieving the pressure on fuel costs until the Strait of Hormuz is opened and controlled by the US, too.

These are lies.

More lies:

• Corporations are fleeing their offshore manufacturing factories and building new ones in the US at an electrifying rate.

• Real wages are rising and prices are falling like never before.

• Public polling shows massive support for Trump, while the same polls blame President Biden for all their problems and the country is thankful that Donald is their president.

Wow, what a picture.

What a fantasy.

It’s a fantasy concocted by Trump’s director of the National Economic Council.

It’s a fantasy that flies in the face of all reported data.

It’s a fantasy that flies in the face of reality itself.

Yet, time and time again, Hassett goes on air, armed with a smug smile and enthusiastically spins his tale of deceit, unchallenged and undeterred.

TV hosts are the problem. They are unequipped to deal with the economic data he so easily cherry picks and corrupts.

Hassett is the favorite Trump administration stooge, sent out to refute the real economic data this country has been facing since Donald implemented his illegal tariff scheme in 2025. And by “refute,” I mean lie. He gives George Orwell a run for his money.

So far in 2026, I’ve estimated Kevin Hassett has appeared on major news networks over two dozen times. On a Fox News Sunday appearance, when asked about relief for the working class from inflation, Hassett blamed former president Joe Biden as the problem, while fear mongering a socialist takeover of the country. On a CNN appearance he denounced current polling, saying, “I just don’t believe that poll,” as if disbelief was enough to make it untrue. In another spot, Hassett scolded the Wall Street Journal for not understanding economics well enough to understand Trump’s “golden age” economy.

Hassett’s subterfuge culminated in an appearance on Fox News with host Bill Hemmer.

The Fox News host opened the segment by highlighting the terrible July jobs report.

“Employers are cutting 23,000 jobs. That’s well below the number we were expecting to add about 80,000,” Hemmer stated. “Unemployment rate did drop lower 4.1 percent.” He introduced Hassett for a take from the White House and asked, “How do you read it, strength, weakness?”

“Yeah, so the strength is what we’ve seen before,” Hassett insisted. “Construction workers, manufacturing workers, and so on.”

“The weakness in this number were really just two things - government workers and a sort of rebound from all the employment we got from the World Cup because the World Cup was ending,” he said, while smiling widely.

“If you throw out the World Cup and the government workers, we actually had a number that was about plus a hundred thousand, which is what we expected...” he added.

Conover Kennard wrote, “In other words: the jobs report looks bad only if you count the jobs that were lost.”

Hassett’s happy, shiny math is contingent on deleting the segments of the economy which make the report look bad.

His analysis is not only not incredible, it’s certifiable. Yet, networks continue to unapologetically host him.

It’s time for CNBC, Bloomberg, Wall Street Journal, Reuters, Financial Times, New York Times / DealBook, Yahoo Finance, MarketWatch, Washington Post, Politico. Axios, NBC News, ABC News, CBS and CNN to stop giving him a platform without pushback.

There is too much at stake.

These various outlets, because of their formats, are the perfect launchpad for Kevin Hassett to lie with impunity. They let him give unsubstantiated statistics, and cherry-pick economic data to mitigate the damage the Trump administration has caused to the U.S. economy.

Here’s a quick solution. After a network invites Hassett back, networks must prepare their hosts beforehand about the data they will discuss and aggressively fact-check him, live. If they don’t have enough time to study the stats, their producers can give anyone on-air up to the minute data through their earpieces.

Networks can also put a real economist on the air when Hassett shows up, to help a host with an interview not familiar with economics.

It’s not asking too much from these multimillion-dollar media outlets to finally step up and be useful to the public they serve and challenge many of Hassett’s outrageous claims. They’re not supposed to be echo chambers; they’re supposed to inform people.

They should at least make an attempt at keeping him honest, instead of giving him free air time to lie.

To any credible observer, Hassett wins the Kewpie doll as the most prolific economic propagandist in the Trump administration. Scott Bessent comes in a close second.

This is one award no person with an actual conscience should ever want to receive.