Bad Consumer Confidence News Drops — Minutes After Trump Spox Brags About It

The board that produces the Consumer Confidence dropped some bad news shortly after Trump White House National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett bragged about it to rebut negative consumer sentiment.

On Tuesday morning’s edition of Fox Business Network’s Mornings With Maria, anchor Maria Bartiromo pressed Hassett on record low numbers on the Consumer Sentiment index, and Hassett responded by suggesting the University of Michigan survey is rigged, and promoting the Conference Board’s Consumer Confidence Index as the more reliable:

What they have done is they have somehow devised a political survey that tells us how Democrats are feeling about things.

If you want to look at how people are thinking, you should go to the conference board consumer confidence. The consumer confidence measure is actually the most reliable thing and right now it’s the highest it’s been in a year.

But even as Hassett spoke, the Conference Board was preparing to break bad news with a 10 a.m. press release announcing that Consumer Confidence fell .7 percent in May, which the group’s chief economist, Dana Peterson, chalked up to the intensification of “the inflationary impacts of the war in the Middle East.”

On Tuesday’s NewsNation Live with Marni Hughes, anchor Marnie Hughes and NewsNation National Correspondent Lia Lando noted the “disconnect” between Wall Street and the average American:

NEWSNATION’S MARNIE HUGHES: A new consumer confidence report today says U.S. Consumer sentiment is lower in May than it was last month.

Experts point to consumers’ concerns about rising costs of prices and everyday goods across the board due to instability in the Middle East.

The report comes at a time when more than 75 percent of Americans say the economy’s in bad shape. While Wall Street has scored some major wins, Americans are stretching their paychecks and they feel a disconnect.

NewsNation National Correspondent Lia Lando is here with us now live on Wall Street to square up the feeling versus the reality.

NEWSNATION’S LIA LANDO: Exactly. There is a disconnect, as you mentioned, between what’s been happening here on Wall Street and what consumers are saying that they are feeling in that report.

That consumer confidence report for May just released this morning within the last hour or so, and it does show a dip slightly once again for the third consecutive time.

Watch above via NewsNation Live with Marni Hughes and Fox Business Network’s Mornings With Maria.

New: The Mediaite One-Sheet "Newsletter of Newsletters"
Your daily summary and analysis of what the many, many media newsletters are saying and reporting. Subscribe now!