White House chief economist Kevin Hassett faced rare pushback from Fox News’ Peter Doocy on Sunday after attempting to dismiss the growing economic anxiety among Americans.
According to polling cited by Doocy, only 23% of American voters describe the economy as “excellent or good,” only 12% describe their financial situation as “getting ahead,” and 62% believe grocery prices are a “major problem for their family.”
“I want to know which of these things sets off alarm bells inside the West Wing,” Doocy said. “Do any of those make you think, ‘we’ve got a problem here?’”
Rather than address the underlying data, Hassett pivoted to discredit the polls themselves, claiming the findings were inaccurate “because [Democrats] hate President [Donald] Trump” and that the “far-left media” promotes inaccurate polls to damage the Trump administration’s reputation.
“Look, I’m the White House economist, and all I can say is that polls, over and over again, uh, harm, uh, impressions about the economy because they poll way too many Democrats,” Hassett said. “It’s a really strong economy, and rather than talk about the strong economy, people want to talk about these silly polls.”
Smiling, Doocy pushed back on Hassett’s outright dismissal of Americans’ financial anxieties.
“No far-left media here, Kevin! It’s the polls!” Doocy said. “Look, bringing drug prices down? Great! Very high DOW? Great! But would you admit, when you walk out of the White House, you ask anybody, somebody from in town, somebody from out of town, they would say that they think stuff is too expensive. Would you agree with that?”
Cornered, Hassett conceded that goods were too expensive, but immediately shifted blame away from Trump.
“Well, sure, we had 20% inflation under Joe Biden… Prices are higher because of the huge inflation that we inherited from Joe Biden, but inflation is way down over the last three months!” Hassett said as Fox News queued up a brutal splitscreen showing a gallon of diesel fuel being listed at $6.59, eight cents above the national average, which as of Sunday sat at an all-time high.
Hassett’s claim about inflation under the previous administration is false, with inflation peaking under the Biden administration at 9.1% in June 2022, and is a likely reference to cumulative price increases from 2021 to 2025, which rose around 21.5%.
Inflation was down over the past three months when using Hassett’s method of annualizing the data, but has increased when using the conventional 12-month inflation rate.
Even Fox’s @pdoocy isn’t buying Kevin Hassett’s insistence that Americans’ overwhelmingly negative view on the economy is due to pollsters polling “way too many Democrats” “No far-left media here, Kevin!” pic.twitter.com/lv4VJPMwia — Alexander Willis (@ReporterWillis) September 20, 2026
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