Fox’s Maria Bartiromo Presses Trump Economic Adviser on Why Growth Was ‘Way Lower’ Than He Predicted

President Donald Trump’s National Economic Counsel Director Kevin Hassett had an unusual explanation for why the country’s economic growth was lower than he had expected, blaming it on “building factories so fast.”

Hassett made the comments during a Friday appearance on Maria Bartiromo’s Fox Business program, Mornings With Maria.

Bartiromo brought him on at the top of the 8 am ET hour to talk about the latest economic numbers, and started by asking him about one of his past predictions.

The U.S. had “a very good earnings period again, in the second quarter, but worries over inflation — yesterday, the GDP was slower than expected,” said Bartiromo. “Last time we spoke, you told me you were expecting 4% growth in the second half of the year. We got a growth number yesterday but it was way lower than people expected. How would you assess the macro story today?

Hassett replied:

I think that what we are looking at when you and I talked last was the really surging domestic demand, and so final sales within U.S. were about 4%, actually, almost exactly number we talked about, 3.9%. And the reason why the top line number was 1.5 was that we imported so many capital goods because we’re building factories so fast, that the number was different than we expected by a little bit.

And the bottom line though is if you look at that — so the huge surge in capital spending, which means there is downward pressure on inflation, because there is upward pressure on supply, plus CPI and PCE — those two reports were about as good as you could ever hope to see if you’re a Federal Reserve governor, it means the economy is really running on all cylinders.

Finally, don’t underestimate the labor data. So, additional claims for unemployment insurance are the lowest they’ve been since 1960s. And as you know, Maria, the labor force is much bigger than it was in 1960s, and so to have claims that low is sign that we really are running on all cylinders.

Hassett has made a number of interesting claims on television over the past few months, including blaming issues in the Strait of Hormuz on “guys living in caves,” defending Trump’s promise to lower gas prices amid strikes on Iran as “realistic,” and saying this week that the “economy really does look amazing to me.”

Watch the clip above via Fox Business.

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