Joe Scarborough Dares Trump Econ Chief Kevin Hassett to Accept On-Air Duel Over Wild Speech Claims

Morning Joe host Joe Scarborough dared National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett to accept an on-air data duel with MS NOW’s own numbers analyst Steve Rattner as Hassett berated the major networks for not running the White House slide deck side-by-side while airing President Donald Trump’s address to the nation on Wednesday.

Trump touched on several topics during his 18-minute address to the nation on Wednesday night, but did focus on cost of living and the economy, blaming former President Joe Biden for inflation while touting lower prices for groceries and gas across the nation.

Morning Joe co-host Jonathan Lemire pressed Hassett on Trump’s “exaggerated” claims Thursday, only for the advisor to claim that not only were the president’s claims true, but that the “facts were documented” in a slide deck provided to each network.

According to CNN, Fox News was the only network that opted to show some of the slides during the speech.

“Some networks while he was speaking they showed the slides and in some networks they didn’t. And I just thought that was kind of unusual. I was expecting when I was flipping around to just see the slides everywhere,” Hassett said.

He continued: “Gosh, we spent so much time on them. But, you know, I think that the president had documentation for the facts that he was saying, they were in the slides. And so if there’s a specific number you’d like to talk about, maybe he misspoke or something. I’m happy to talk about it.”

He then taunted: “But I wonder, like, did you guys show the slides? Do you know?”

Scarborough cut in to say that he did not know before Hassett cut in adding: “Maybe show them to Rattner and see what he thinks.”

The host then laid down a dare: “I was just going to suggest, Kevin, I think we should have Rattner’s charts and then Kevin’s charts, and you can walk us through them. So anyway, anytime you want to bring charts –”

“I’d love to,” Hassett said, smiling. “I’d really love to do that.”

“That sounds great,” Scarborough replied. “We will certainly talk to your friends behind you in the White House and see if we can make that happen.”

Watch above via MS NOW.