White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett scrambled Friday after being confronted by Fox Business’ Maria Bartiromo about the “way lower than expected” economic growth that fell far short of his previous predictions.
In early May, Hassett told Bartiromo that he “personally would make a bet” with his “friends” that U.S. economic growth would be 4% for the “rest of the year.” He doubled down on that prediction in early July.
And yet, on Thursday, the Commerce Department reported “weaker than expected” GDP growth – a broad measure of economic activity – of just 1.5% for the second quarter of 2026, per the Bureau of Economic Analysis.
“Yesterday, the GDP was slower than expected; last time we spoke, you told me you were expecting 4% growth in the second half of the year,” Bartiromo said. “We got a growth number yesterday, but it was way lower than people expected – how would you assess the macro story today?”
Rather than admit his prediction was widely off, Hassett attempted to reframe his past remarks as referencing a narrower interpretation of economic growth.
“Well I think that what we were looking at when you and I talked last was… uh… the really surging domestic demand, and so final sales within the U.S. were about 4% actually, almost exactly the number we talked about, 3.9%,” Hassett said.
“The reason why the topline number was 1.5% was that we imported so many capital goods because we’re building factories so fast that the number was different than we expected by a little bit.”
Despite Hassett’s claim that the United States was “building factories so fast,” federal data paints a different picture. Factory construction spending was actually down 22% when compared with the same time last year, having declined every month this year. Manufacturing employment is also trending downward, with the sector losing 38,000 jobs over the past 12 months while adding 18,000 in the past six months.
“The bottom line though is that if you look at that – the huge surge in capital spending – it means that the economy is really running on all cylinders,” Hassett claimed.
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