Just like the president, Donald Trump’s administration members tell lies just so they can save face. Yesterday, White House Council of Economic Advisers Chairman Kevin Hassett went on Fox Business Network’s After the Bell to talk about the economy during Trump’s government shutdown. And as expected with any appearance by a Trump staffer, this needed some major fact-checking.
During the show, Hassett said that the president’s shutdown would be impacting the economy more than expected, but assured America that it was just “a little bit more.” But this would be debunked just a few hours later when it was reported that the real figures were DOUBLE what was previously estimated by the White House.
Fox Biz reporter Blake Burman was given this terrible information from Hassett himself, as he interviewed Hassett on the North Lawn of the White House. Burman reported that the Trump administration was now estimating that the impact of the shutdown would be .13 percent of quarterly GDP on a weekly basis, and if Trump stretched his shutdown over an entire quarter, would equal 1.7 percent.
Co-host Melissa Francis cornered Hassett over this estimate. Hassett responded:
Right, so what happens is that when the Bureau of Economic Analysis, when they calculate GDP, what they do is they basically have to estimate how much the government produces, and their estimate of how much the government produces is based on just government workers going to work and getting paid.
And so if government workers don’t go to work, then they reduce their output calculations accordingly. We made an early estimate right at the beginning of the crisis that was a little bit lower than the estimate you just cited, and have been studying hard as this has gone on and have found that actually, the damage is a little bit worse because of government contractors, something that was excluded from our first analysis.”
But just hours later, Hassett would have to fact check himself. In a story for the New York Times that was published a few hours after that interview, it was reported that the new estimate was double what the White House originally thought the damage to the economy might be.
This is devastating to America and further proves that nothing from the White House can be trusted. You can watch Hassett spew irresponsible, incorrect information below:
Featured image via screen capture
