白宫Hassett：强劲就业报告不意味着美联储应加息

Let's continue the conversation now. We welcome to our television and radio audiences around the world. I'm Dani Burger. I'm sitting alongside Bloomberg International Economics and Policy Correspondent Michael McKee. And joining us now, I'm pleased to say from Washington is White House National Economic Council director Kevin Hassett. Director Hassett, great to see you this morning. We're speaking just to be here. We're speaking just after a blowout's jobs report.

We saw, again, the figure beat all estimates at one sixty five. Also, on the heels of an election where people are worried about inflation, those things put together, Kevin, does it make sense to you that this is a Fed that needs to be hiking rates in December? Well, I think that it... Let's let's look back at the week because it was really one of the better, jobs weeks that I've ever seen because we had initial claims for unemployment insurance go down even from about the lowest level since World War two.

We had the jobs opening status say there are lot of jobs openings, and also that the quit rate went up, which means that people are so confident that if they leave their job, they're gonna get a better job, that they're even quitting. And now we have a jobs report that was way more than double, expectation, and the upward revisions were ginormous for the last couple of months. And so what we've got is a job market that's hitting it all cylinders.

And what I believe and I think what the White House believes is that that Kevin Walsh had it right when he gave a speech about growth like this where he said that if you have supply side growth, then it's not necessarily inflationary. And if you have demand side growth, then, of course, it is. And that since we've done so much to increase supply by, you know, having expensing for capital goods and so on, we've got a 120,000 in the shops report.

So a 120,000 people building new factories. That's a big positive supply shock isn't necessarily inflationary. And what, Kevin has has said publicly is that he's gonna watch the inflation data and watch it like a hawk and respond more to that than to growth when we're seeing such high growth that's potentially supply shock driven and productivity driven. You saw the productivity this week was also through the roof. Well, Kevin, the numbers you cited Hey, Mike.

For this week and the number we got, today that you saw last night, did you go into the Oval Office and tell the president, look. Forget about the idea of rate cuts just not gonna happen. I I didn't talk about rate cuts with him, but I did spend almost forty five minutes with him last night. His spirits are high. I I got a a veto hat. Oh, jeez. I guess it's his new hat, and and we talked about a lot things. But the fact is that he's concerned that the positive momentum that we built is something that could be upended by Democrats now that they've taken more power.

But I think that, they're gonna have a real hard time repealing all the great policies that have created the strong job, market because the president will veto it. And, we have a huge amount of executive authority to do other things like deregulation to make sure that the momentum keeps going. Well, director Hasleth, I'm happy you went there because that's where I wanted to go. This is an American electorate that voted on Tuesday that clearly they are unhappy with something.

All of the exit polls showed number one issue over and over again is inflation. Is this a White House that's prepared to change its economic policy, shift anything in order to address those voter concerns? Well, the the White House... Of course, you know, you can listen to voter concerns. But as an economist, you also have to look at the data, and the data are very strong on growth and inflation has been decelerating.

And, so I think that the policies that we've been pursuing, the supply side policies, give us prosperity, great job creation without creating Phillips curve effects that would run away inflation. And that contrasts with what happened under president Biden where they basically helicopter dropped money down, to people after the COVID crisis was over, and that's like a classic example of what creates the inflation and the inflation that you saw.

So I don't think that we think that we have a policy change that we need to to play it. I think that the policies are working. The growth is there. Inflation is coming down, But it's coming down from a high level. Remember that was, like, 22% total inflation under president Biden. And so if you're... Go up 22% and then you get it down to going up 3%, say, that it's still going up. And so the frustration that people feel is real, but we're making great progress.

Well, the inflation rate was lower when president Trump took office than it is right now. So is it any surprise that people voted the way they did on Tuesday? Do you think if they'd seen these jobs numbers, it would have made any difference? You know, I'm not a political scientist, but I could say that that the top line inflation numbers are, of course, being driven by energy prices, which are related to, you know, the the situation in Iran that the president says he has no regrets about.

And, if you look at what happened prior to the last CPI, then core inflation was back to around the Fed's target for the previous three months. And so I think that we've succeeded at creating growth and helping go down? You know, director Hassett, I would say some in your party don't necessarily agree with that, and I would point to what the senator, Tim Cruz, put on an x the other day saying that this is very real pain for real Americans, and too many Republican politicians seem like they don't understand or they didn't care.

Food is too high. Gas is too high. Diesel is too high. Insurance is too high. Life is too high. Tariffs have made everything expensive, and the war in Iran has dragged on for too long. This is Republican Ted Cruz saying that tariffs are a problem for inflation and the war is a problem for inflation. Director Hasleth, does the White House... Will the White House do anything different on both those accounts to reduce their contribution to inflation, or are you expecting more pushback from the likes of Republican senators who themselves say that they are heeding a call from voters?

Look. Look. The the bottom line is that the energy price strike spike is real, and it infects inflation numbers, like, up and down. So airfares go up and things like that. But absent that, the the policies that we're pursuing, our supply side policies that put downward pressure on inflation. Food prices, we've done an enormous amount to lower food prices. So if you look at... It used to be the only thing that you guys would talk about when I came out of there was egg prices.

They're way down. Beef prices are down four out of the last five months. But, if you if you have a big spike and then you start making progress to get the rate of increase to go down, then it doesn't mean that prices have gone down. And I think that that's one reason why people still feel those frustrations. Does the, senate flip to democratic control in January increase the urgency at the White House to get, Fed governor Lisa Cook off the Fed because, come January, you probably won't be able to get anybody confirmed to replace him.

Look. Look. The, president's team, the White House council's team has set up an orderly, fair process, has been negotiating collegially with governor Cook and her team to schedule a meeting where we can put all the evidence on the table and then prepare a report for the president on where things stand. And there's nothing that's changing that schedule at all that I'm aware of. Well, forgive me for asking this, but the president continues to insist that she be fired, and you're one of the three that will recommend whether she should be or not.

Can people believe there is any possibility that you would tell mister