Recent data from the University of Michigan shows that consumer confidence in the economy has plummeted to its lowest level since 2022.
Stumbling stock markets and all understandable concerns about it are not liberal conspiracy theories. The Fox News universe is trying to prepare Trump supporters for economic pain as a result of his policies. But rather than addressing that reality, Team Trump is trying to limit the American people to their own creative fantasylands, ground-based denouncement of former President Joe Biden’s tanking economy.
And at least one example suggests that low consumer confidence is actually manufacturing people who are gringed. Kevin Hassett, director of Trump’s National Economic Council, faced some pushbacks from Fox News, all over the place after downplaying the questions of host Martha McCollum about evidence that consumer confidence is improving. Hassett said:
“What I care most about is the hard data. For example, for people whose party has been lost or who are in a really bad mood, consumer confidence numbers can fluctuate around elections. You know, the people I didn’t vote are destroying the economy.” But when that doesn’t happen, people turn around. So I actually don’t put much faith in the consumer’s trustworthiness during election time.
The proposition that Trump’s policies could hurt the economy is not liberal propaganda. Last year, Elon Musk predicted that literally he and Trump’s economic policies would crash the economy. MacCallum interrupted Hassett’s deflection, noting that it was “well past the November election,” and once again sought evidence from Hassett that suggested that consumer sentiment was indeed good.
Hassett refused to provide anything and then continued to say he didn’t believe in the University of Michigan investigation.
See the exchange here:
If the conservative Wall Street Journal is willing to cite the same University of Michigan research, it’s pretty funny to try and spin the research as unreliable in “partisans.”
Hassett’s smokescreen shows the administration is not dealing well with Trump’s recent social media explosion over Journal’s report that Trump’s tariffs are shaky about the economy, as well as the administration’s failure to cope with the negative consequences (and unpopular growth) of Trump’s accidental and Hammed policymaking.
