Trump Economic Advisor Asked If Trump Just ‘Undercut’ the Legal Basis For His Tariffs With Stunning Admission

Kevin Hassett, Trump’s director of the National Economic Council, joined MS NOW’s Morning Joe on Wednesday and was asked about President Donald Trump’s admission on Fox Business Network the night before that he raised tariffs on Switzerland because the country’s leader irked him.

Trump’s ability to unilaterally levy tariffs relies on his use of emergency powers to combat a declared crisis, which critics – including Republicans – argue does not exist. MS NOW’s Jonathan Lemire asked Hassett if Trump’s recent claim is further evidence that the tariffs are not being used as an emergency national security measure.

“Another matter. House Speaker Mike Johnson’s bid to block any future votes on President Trump’s tariffs did fail last night. Three Republican lawmakers joined Democrats to defeat the measure 217 to 214. This now allows members of Congress the ability to immediately force a vote that would terminate Trump’s tariffs on Mexico and Canada. Thanks for watching the show. We’ll see you next time. Meanwhile, President Trump revealed that he punished a world leader with higher tariffs after he says he didn’t like the leader’s tone during a recent phone call. Here’s what Trump told Fox Business yesterday,” Lemire said before playing the clip:

I got an emergency call from, I believe, the Prime Minister of Switzerland, and she was very aggressive, but nice, but very aggressive. “Sir, we are a small country. We can’t do this. We can do this, we can’t.” I couldn’t get her off the phone. “We are a very small country,” and I said, “You may be small, but we have a $42 billion deficit with you.” “No, no, we’re a small country.” Again and again and again. I couldn’t get her off the phone, so it was at 30 percent. I didn’t really like the way she talked to us, and so instead of giving her a reduction, I raised it to 39 percent.

“First, we should note there is no Prime Minister of Switzerland. The position doesn’t exist. But this explanation appears to contradict what the Trump administration argued before the Supreme Court last November, that national security emergencies—that’s what justifies his unilateral executive actions on tariffs,” Lemire clarified, adding:

We are, of course, still waiting for the Supreme Court’s decision in that case. But, Kevin, let’s talk about this. The president and the administration has… you know, explained these tariffs because of a national emergency, but don’t stories like the one President Trump told Larry Kudlow that we just played undercut this emergency actions claim?

“No, I don’t think so at all, and frankly, I think it’s just, you know, the president has negotiated all these amazing trade deals where we’ve got the Japanese agreeing to accept our tariffs and also invest $500 billion more in the U.S. And so, like, going through the give and take of a negotiation, I think, misses the big picture, as does the action in the House,” Hassett replied, ignoring the core of the question. He added:

The bottom line is that because of President Trump’s tariffs, we’ve got a booming economy. We’ve got a deficit that’s gone down by maybe about $600 billion over the last year. That’s six, seven trillion over the next 10, which is leading us closer to a balanced budget. And we’ve got booming U.S. jobs. One of the things that we’ve seen in the jobs report today that we were talking about just earlier is that there’s a massive amount of factory construction.

So we made it so you could expense a factory if you build it in the first four years. And we’ve got 70,000 more people building factories right now because of the tariffs. And so, you know, anyone who would look at the data and cares about America up on Capitol Hill would support the president’s tariffs. And it’s very disappointing to the president. I was at the Oval yesterday, and I could see that he was very disappointed in the people—that just a few people are basically in all-out denial about the effectiveness of these tools.

Watch the clip above via MS NOW.

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