White House National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett insisted Thursday that Donald Trump “always wins,” even after the president’s vacillating tariff policies faced a massive defeat in federal court.
During an interview on Fox Business’s Mornings With Maria, host Maria Bartiromo asked Hassett for his reaction to a journalist teaching Trump about a new investing theory, TACO, which stands for “Trump always chickens out.” The economic adviser replied to the dig with another slogan.
“I think if President Trump had just a minute more, if you go back into the room behind the Oval, he’s got all his hats and things over there, and he has a hat which is the accurate response to what that person said, which is ‘Trump always wins,’” Hassett said. “If you go look, a lot of people are wearing that hat, ‘Trump always wins’ and ‘Trump was always right.’”
Hassett claimed that Trump’s tariffs had forced other countries to “come to the table with massive concessions, opening up their markets to our products, and lowering their tariffs on us.” So far, only Israel, India, and Vietnam have moved to slash tariffs on U.S. products. Negotiations with other trading partners, such as the European Union, are still ongoing.
Hassett insisted that Trump’s volatile tariff policies had been “really, really effective for the American people, and it’s unfortunate that people would attack it, as the journalist did or the way the judges just did, that these activist judges are trying to slow something down in the middle of really important negotiations.”
A panel of three federal judges in the U.S. Court of International Trade unanimously ruled Wednesday evening that Trump had exceeded his legal authority by imposing sweeping tariffs on dozens of countries, based on vague claims of “national emergencies.” The Trump administration has already said it will appeal the decision, and through his broad smile, Hassett desperately attempted to downplay the loss.
“And the idea that the fentanyl crisis in America is not an emergency is so appalling to me, that I’m sure that when we appeal that this decision will be overturned,” Hassett continued. Trump had used a domestic public health crisis as a rationale for imposing steep tariffs on China, claiming the country had failed to thwart fentanyl production and trafficking.
But contrary to Hassett’s claim, the panel had not found that the fentanyl was not an urgent issue but simply that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act did not authorize the president to impose worldwide, retaliatory tariffs.
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