NEC Director Kevin Hassett Touts 'Rip-Roaring' Jobs Market

0:00 And we saw U.S.

0:01 jobs jumping 115,000 in April.

0:03 It beats estimates, marking the first back to back gain in nearly a year.

0:07 Joining us now, I'm pleased to say, is the white House director

0:09 of Economic National Economic Council, Kevin Hassett.

0:12 Director Hassett, thank you so much for joining.

0:15 A strong jobs number a beat.

0:16 Let me just get your initial reaction right.

0:18 Well you know two months in a row now we've had blockbuster jobs numbers.

0:22 And the really interesting thing is that we look

0:24 at these things that you guys do to I'm sure called heatmaps,

0:26 where you look by category, like where's the green and where's the red.

0:30 And pretty much it was green across the board.

0:32 And so what it means is it's a rip roaring jobs market.

0:36 And it's completely consistent with what we saw

0:37 with the claims data just a few days ago.

0:40 Right.

0:40 Like initial claims for unemployment insurance right now are the lowest since

0:44 we've ever been counting them all the way back to the 1960s.

0:47 And so the job market is really, really, really strong.

0:51 Um, Kevin, part of the issue, though,

0:53 that people would like to focus on is the fact that the jobs creation is narrow.

0:57 It's an issues like health care.

0:59 Meanwhile, we saw financial jobs down, tech jobs down.

1:02 These are exactly the type of categories you would expect

1:05 if I is having an impact on jobs in this economy.

1:09 Is there a plan from this administration to combat job loss over ISE impact?

1:14 Who are right now what we're seeing is the eye is creating job creation.

1:18 So there are a couple of new studies out

1:20 at the National Bureau of Economic Research that show,

1:22 and one at Stanford University that show that I adjacent jobs

1:26 and I adjacent professions are actually increasing faster than everywhere else.

1:31 But of course, in the medium to long term,

1:33 people are right to be concerned about what my I mean for them.

1:37 But right now, the very,

1:38 very best thing that you could do in order to protect yourself and protect

1:41 your career is start to use AI tools yourself to make yourself more productive.

1:45 And that's what we're seeing in the data.

1:47 I guess, Kevin, will there be a point

1:50 where the white House needs to address this?

1:52 I've talked to many, many people who say that 2028,

1:55 the election will be centered around AI

1:57 and what politicians are saying about it.

1:59 You already seeing hints of it in 2026.

2:01 Does there need to be a clear plan going forward

2:04 if there are huge economic consequences of what AI does.

2:08 Oh, absolutely.

2:09 It's something that's being very, very careful.

2:11 Study carefully studied by all of government.

2:14 Uh, we've got five, uh, different, uh,

2:17 work plans, uh, depending on which direction we're going,

2:20 what topic it is, whether it's AI of the workforce, AI security and so on.

2:24 And these have been underway since President Trump took office.

2:27 Really?

2:27 And so, absolutely, uh,

2:28 we are working through policy options as we watch the data evolve.

2:32 But right now, we're starting to see the AI

2:35 adjacent jobs are the ones that are growing the fastest.

2:38 So the story the AI is destroying people's

2:40 jobs right now is not anywhere in the data.

2:43 But we could imagine.

2:44 We could imagine things, especially once robots get better and better.

2:47 Uh, the then we're going to have to have, you know,

2:50 more policies to help people, you know, reskill and so on.

2:54 So in the meantime, as you say, the figures are strong for this jobs market.

2:59 Doesn't that essentially kill any hopes of a rate cut this year?

3:03 Uh, you know, for for me, I think that when we have a strong supply side

3:07 shock then that means that there's downward pressure on inflation.

3:11 And that's what we're seeing.

3:12 And in fact, uh, even with the oil prices going up,

3:15 excuse me for the big truck running,

3:17 uh, even with even with the oil prices going up,

3:20 you saw core inflation remain stable.

3:22 And you can even see that in the wage data today.

3:25 Jobs report where there there's strong wage growth,

3:27 but not anything that was a sign of kind of runaway

3:30 Phillips curve inflation that should make the fed want to lift rates.

3:34 Well I suppose Kevin,

3:35 last time you were on the show last Friday after the CPI report,

3:38 you mentioned that you were looking forward to a Warsh Fed

3:41 chair because of the independence it would bring to the fed.

3:44 Since then, we've learned more about the dissents coming from the FOMC

3:47 that one of the language of the statement changed to take out any bias,

3:52 any sort of easing bias.

3:53 It was three dissents you can make that for if you have.

3:56 Susan Collins adding as she spoke to Bloomberg,

3:58 saying that she agreed with that idea.

4:00 Do you think that this is an FOMC, at least those four members that are gearing

4:04 up to push back against a Warsh fed chair?

4:08 Well, I can tell you.

4:09 You speak specifically about Susan Collins.

4:11 I've known her since graduate school.

4:13 She's an A+ economist who goes where the evidence leads.

4:17 Uh, disappointed that these people made the decision that they did.

4:21 But I'm sure that when Kevin works as fed chair,

4:24 that he'll have lots of people that will

4:26 be open to argument and open to evidence.

4:29 He's a very persuasive guy.

4:31 I think, uh, Kevin believes, as I do,

4:33 that a supply shock is a time when you don't

4:35 have to lift rates just because you have high growth.

4:38 And I think that he'll bring lots

4:39 of evidence to bear and convince his colleagues.

4:41 So I think we're really likely to see rate

4:43 cuts this year because of Kevin worse elsewhere director.

4:46 Last night, the Court of International

4:49 Trade once again declared unlawful president's tariffs.

4:51 This time the 122 duties on imports.

4:55 When does the administration plan to appeal this?

4:58 Well, you know, I think that we're studying all our options right now.

5:01 And Jameson Greer will have a message on that probably later today.

5:03 Are there are there any mechanisms in mind to keep

5:06 those tariffs in place or any other stopgap measures?

5:08 I'm going to leave that to the trade lawyers for you.

5:11 Okay, fine.

5:12 I guess there is this bigger question then,

5:13 if we're going to leave that part to the trade lawyers.

5:16 But the economic talks with China, then,

5:18 does this put the white House at a disadvantage,

5:21 as the president goes to have those discussions with XI next week?

5:25 You know, I don't think so.

5:27 First of all, the that this affects, you know,

5:29 one corner of the trade, uh, policy, uh,

5:31 the strategy really is to finalize the deals

5:34 that we have negotiated over the last year with, uh, 300 tons and 230 twos,

5:39 two authorities that are basically ironclad in the courts.

5:42 And so the job has always been for Jamison Greer to get ready to sort of, uh,

5:48 finalize the deals with these much stronger authorities.

5:51 We believe the IP authority that we originally used

5:54 was a solid authority and disagree with the court's decision,

5:57 uh, that is forcing us to refund the tariffs.

6:00 But we have a backup plan that is going to make sure

6:03 that the president's trade policy is made a reality very, very shortly.

6:07 Okay.

6:08 So backup plan.

6:09 My we expect to hear something today.

6:11 Director Hassett, this is from Jamison Greer.

6:14 Yes.

6:15 Uh, you have to talk to him.

6:17 Okay, okay.

6:17 Fair enough.

6:18 I spoke with him yesterday about it.

6:20 Okay.

6:20 I know it is.

6:21 It is fresh news.

6:22 But again, to your point, the white House always looking for alternatives.

6:25 Um, what about when it comes to the Europeans?

6:28 The president sent this July 4th deadline to reach some sort of agreement.

6:32 Does this also complicate things?

6:33 Well, I don't know if it complicates things.

6:35 We've got lots of, uh, agreements with the Europeans,

6:38 and they haven't really kept up their end of the bargain.

6:40 And that has the president pretty frustrated.

6:42 But my expectation is by the 4th of July that they will.

6:45 And then we'll have these this pro-American, uh, pro worker, uh,

6:49 trade deal with Europe that has already been negotiated and agreed to.

6:54 Um, Doctor Hassett, before I let you go.

6:56 There's been this outstanding question of the debt piles in the United States

7:00 and what that means going forward and the need to service that debt.

7:03 Um, we heard from Dublin's Jeffrey Gundlach speaking to Bloomberg TV,

7:06 saying that he was positioning for a world

7:08 in which the government unilaterally lowers coupons on existing U.S.

7:13 debt in order to manage those internal costs.

7:15 I just wonder what you think of that.

7:17 Might that be the direction that we head?

7:21 There's not a chance in a million years that this administration would

7:25 ever do anything that looks in any way like a debt default.

7:28 We believe in the strong dollar and we believe in a strong fiscal,

7:34 responsible government.

7:34 And so that's why we reduce the deficit

7:36 last year by hundreds of billions of dollars.

7:39 We reduce federal employment by the most it's ever been reduced.

7:42 Actually, there are fewer federal employees right now in the US

7:45 than there have been in any year since World War two.

7:48 That's the kind of fiscal responsibility that lifts confidence in the debt.

7:52 And, uh, you know, we're not done yet.

7:54 Again, with the growth that we're seeing,

7:55 the growth that was echoed in the reports, uh, today and last month.

8:00 You know, we absolutely are seeing the kind of growth you need,

8:02 as you had in the 90s, uh, to get the deficit under control.

8:05 And that's our plan.

8:06 So, of course, no way to do debt default.

8:07 But might you look at restructuring it again in this way?

8:10 Maybe lowering the coupon, something like that.

8:13 Uh, there's absolutely nothing, uh,

8:15 that we're going to do other than be fiscally responsible.