Kevin Hassett, Director of the National Economic Council, is a close friend and an outstanding economist. I’m not a fan of President Trump’s economics policies. But they are the President’s call, subject, as we’ve just seen, to limits set by the Constitution and its enforcer - the Supreme Court. But I am a big fan of Kevin. I’m sure that economic policy would be dramatically worse were he not helping, to the extent possible, steer our policy ship, including preventing worse policies from being adopted.
Kevin has been in the public limelight for years serving as Economic Advisor to Senator John McCain, President George W. Bush, and Senator Romney, serving as Director of Economic Policy Studies at the American Enterprise Institute, serving as Chairman of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers in Trump 1, serving as a Senior Advisor on President Trump’s Coronavirus pandemic team, and now serving as Director of the National Economic Council. This is all subsequent to a distinguished academic career at Columbia University.
Kevin is almost always very careful with his language, so I was taken aback when he so strongly condemned a Federal Reserve paper by four prominent economists that concluded that the Trump tariffs were being passed onto American business and consumers. Whatever the value of their paper, Kevin’s strenuous objection included the following:
“The people associated with this paper should presumably be disciplined, because what they’ve done is they’ve put out a conclusion which has created a lot of news that’s highly partisan based on analysis that wouldn’t be accepted in a first-semester econ class.”
The Fed is an independent agency. One of the authors is an academic. So, Kevin’s words crossed two red lines — the Fed’s independence and academic freedom.
I called Kevin who immediately indicated that he spoke out of emotion and deeply regretted his language. He then txted me the following statement to post.
“I regret suggesting the authors should be disciplined for their research. Indeed, I retract that suggestion. I was upset at what I felt and feel was the Fed’s dissemination of politically sensitive research on an issue that goes beyond its primary focus. This said, the Fed’s independence extends to its research. It and it alone must decide what research to conduct to further its mission. The authors of this study are all excellent economists. We differ strongly on this particular paper. But I did not mean to impugn their excellent reputations and regret my choice of words.”
This is nonsense. The paper was accurate in assessing the degree to which Trump’s tariffs are passed on to US companies and consumers. As a Trump ass licker Hassett of course has to be seen by MAGA as a faithful and subservient defender of Trump’s nonsensical claim that tariffs are paid by foreign countries. Even Bessent has defended that absurd notion. Both have sacrificed their own integrity and reputations to the pursuit of power. You might have been a “big fan” of Hassett before but you shouldn’t be one now.
Interesting that he would say this in a text to a friend (despite knowing the friend would likely publish it, albeit with relatively limited circulation) but not in a public statement to the same news outlet to which he made his intemperate remarks about the NY Fed’s tariff impact study.