Lieu wants Trump to send Hassett to every swing district to talk economy
A top House Democrat is calling on the White House to send National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett to swing districts around the country to talk about the administration’s approach to consumer prices.
Hassett on Tuesday made waves when he told CNBC the economic squeeze on consumers caused by the U.S.-Israel attacks on Iran is “the last” concern of the administration.
Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.), the vice chair of the House Democratic Caucus, said Democrats appreciate the candor and now want Hassett to take that message to all the battleground districts, where voters will decide which party controls the House in November’s midterms.
“I want the White House to send Kevin Hassett to every single TV channel, and to every single swing House district, where he can tell the voters of America that hurting consumers is, quote, ‘the last of their concerns,’” Lieu told reporters in the Capitol.
In an interview with CNBC’s “Squawk Box” program, Hassett acknowledged the Iran war has caused the price of consumer goods, most notably oil and gas, to spike in the weeks since President Trump joined Israel in launching the strikes against Tehran. He added that a prolonged conflict would “hurt consumers.”
But he also predicted the conflict would soon be over, allowing tanker travel to resume through the Strait of Hormuz, and that consumer prices would fall afterwards.
With that in mind, he said the temporary cost spike is not a concern of the administration.
“The fact is that the U.S. economy is fundamentally sound and that if [the conflict] were to be extended, it wouldn’t really disrupt the U.S. economy very much at all,” Hassett told CNBC.
“It would hurt consumers, and we’d have to think about, if that continued, what we would have to do about that,” he continued. “But that’s the like, really the last of our concerns right now because we’re very confident that this thing is going ahead of schedule.”
Democrats pounced on the remarks as evidence that Trump, who returned to the White House on promises to reduce the cost of consumer goods, is out of touch with the working-class voters who are struggling under the weight of rising costs.
“That is where the administration is,” Lieu said. “They don’t care about the American consumer, they don’t care about people [who] can’t make ends meet. And we’re going to see what happens this November.”