To his supporters, Hassett is a brilliant policy architect and, as longtime ally Stephen Moore puts it, a “hard money guy” who will defend the dollar. To some of his former peers, however, he has morphed into something far more concerning as an advisor to the president: a political loyalist willing to sacrifice institutional independence—and objective truth—to please his boss.
Hassett has become a regular presence on cable news, defending Trump’s policy priorities, downplaying unfavorable data, and echoing the White House line on everything from inflation to the legitimacy of federal statistics. Earlier in November, the NEC director insisted that inflation had “come way down” and that the price trajectory was “really, really good,” even as official data showed that the consumer price index had increased for five consecutive months.
The White House did not respond to Fortune’s request for comment by press time.
From happy warrior to Trump’s chief rate-cut salesman
To understand why the change alarms some of his onetime colleagues, it helps to recall Hassett’s extensive experience.
Before Trump, Hassett was a thoroughly establishment conservative economist. He did stints at the Fed and Columbia Business School; advised the presidential campaigns of John McCain, George W. Bush, and Mitt Romney; and held posts at the American Enterprise Institute and Hoover Institution. His 2017 nomination to chair the Council of Economic Advisers drew a letter of support signed by heavyweights across the political spectrum, including former Fed chairs Alan Greenspan and Ben Bernanke.
Inside Trump’s first-term White House, he became a central figure in designing and selling the 2017 corporate tax cuts, arguing they would spur investment and manufacturing. He returned later as a senior advisor on COVID-era economic policy, and now runs the National Economic Council, putting him at the center of Trump’s second-term agenda.
This time around, Hassett has acted as one of Trump’s fiercest economic surrogates. He told Fox News last week that if he were running the Fed today he would “be cutting rates right now” because “the data suggests that we should,” and predicted that Trump’s mix of lower corporate tax rates for domestic factories and new industrial policy will drive “an absolute blockbuster year” for GDP and job growth in 2026.
He has also echoed Trump’s attacks on the central bank and the statistics it relies on: accusing Fed officials of putting “politics ahead of their mandate”; calling the central bank “late to the game” in cutting rates; and suggesting there is a partisan “pattern” in the jobs data produced by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. When Trump fired BLS Commissioner Erika McEntarfer and accused her of “rigged” numbers, a smiling Hassett went on TV framing the move as a matter of accuracy and process.
That’s where some of his old allies peeled off.
“If you’d asked me a year ago, I would have said I think Kevin would be a good pick,” said Dean Baker, a progressive economist who has coauthored papers with Hassett and previously supported him for the CEA. “I wouldn’t say that today. Kevin has been incredibly dishonest.”
Baker, who has spent decades dissecting BLS data, called Hassett’s talk of partisan bias “not the least bit serious,” noting that the agency’s methodology is public and constantly refined based on internal and external research. The concern, in his view, is less that Hassett genuinely believes the numbers are “cooked” and more that he’s willing to say things he knows are false because it’s what Trump wants.
“I would not count on him doing what he, in his professional opinion, thinks is correct, as opposed to what Donald Trump tells him to do,” Baker said.
He points specifically to the contrast between Hassett and Bernanke. Like Hassett, Bernanke served as the CEA chair for a Republican president (George W. Bush) before moving to the Fed.
Unlike Hassett, however, “Bernanke never compromised himself as head of the council,” Baker told Fortune. “He defended Bush’s policies, which is what you expect, but he didn’t say things that were just blatantly untrue.”
Hassett’s willingness to provide intellectual cover for Trump’s grievances extends beyond data. He has also floated a legal theory for how the president could fire Powell before his term ends.
In July, Hassett suggested that cost overruns on the renovation of the Fed’s headquarters in Washington, D.C.—the Eccles Building—could constitute “cause” for removal. He cited a figure of $700 million in overruns on the $2.5 billion project, characterizing it as mismanagement that might have given Trump the legal opening he has long sought to oust Powell.
Gregory Mankiw, a former Bush CEA chair and Harvard professor, wrote in an email to Fortune that it has been “painful” to watch Hassett on TV in these instances, when he is “vigorously defending some of President Trump’s economically illiterate policies.”
However, Mankiw added, “I like him and have considered him a good economist.” The big question, he said, is whether Hassett would show the “degree of political independence necessary to be a successful Fed chair.”
The case for Hassett
Inside Trump’s orbit, the critique that Hassett is a Trump loyalist is dismissed as establishment hand-wringing. Stephen Moore, a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation and former Trump advisor, argued that Hassett is exactly what the doctor ordered.
“I can’t think of anybody better,” Moore told Fortune. “Kevin is a hard money guy. He understands the purpose of the Fed is to keep inflation under control.”
William Beach, a former BLS commissioner and a Trump appointee who has known Hassett for 25 years, offered perhaps the strongest defense of all.
Beach called Hassett “a fine economist” with deep knowledge of the banking system and a rare ability to communicate clearly, skills that, he said, are essential for any Fed chair.
When pressed on Hassett’s skepticism of BLS jobs data, Beach declined to weigh in and seemed irritated, saying only that the Federal Reserve “will always rely on the best statistics available.”
The hesitancy contrasted with Beach’s own past comments. In a previous interview with Fortune, he had forcefully criticized efforts to portray official jobs data as politically manipulated, warning that undermining trust in federal statistics is “highly dangerous” because “markets rely so heavily on the jobs report.”
In this case, though, Beach focused squarely on his long relationship with Hassett and on what he described as his “sound judgment,” saying he had “confidence [Hassett] would put the interests of the Fed and the U.S. economy first.”
The Inflation Risk Premium
While Hassett celebrated the market’s initial reaction to reports that he’s the front-runner to replace Powell, veteran Fed watchers see warning signs flashing in the bond market.
Jon Hilsenrath, a senior advisor at StoneX and former Wall Street Journal Fed correspondent, noted that the immediate uptick in the 10-year Treasury yield is significant.
He argued in a LinkedIn post that the higher yield suggests bond traders are betting that a Hassett-led Fed might be softer on inflation, necessitating higher long-term yields to compensate for that risk.
Furthermore, Hilsenrath added that while a yield near 4% might seem manageable, it is actually “exceptionally low” given that inflation remains above the Fed’s 2% target and budget deficits are near $2 trillion. If the bond market loses faith in the Fed’s independence, that disconnect could correct violently, sending rates soaring.
It reflects the “Mickey Mouse” danger Baker warned about: an administration that looks amateurish with staff too intimidated to correct the president and a Fed perceived as compliant, risking a revolt from the bond vigilantes.
“You have people who might understand the way the economy works, but they’re scared of Trump,” Baker said. “And at the end of the day, he’s the one who calls the shots.”
Politics8 years ago