TRANSCRIPT

                          June 06, 2025

                          NEWS PROGRAM

                                

   KEVIN HASSETT, DIRECTOR OF THE NATONIONAL ECONOMIC COUNCIL

                                

                                

                                

    KEVIN HASSETT, DIRECTOR OF THE NATONIONAL ECONOMIC COUNCIL

                    VIQ Media Transcription, Inc.
                   20 East Thomas Road, Suite 2200
                          Phoenix, AZ 85012
                      asc.info@viqsolutions.com

Copyright 2025. Provided under license from VIQ Media Transcription, Inc.
   All materials herein are protected by United States copyright law
  and/or license from VIQ Media Transcription, Inc., and  may not be
     reproduced, distributed, transmitted, displayed, published or
          broadcast without the prior written permission of
                   VIQ Media Transcription, Inc.
    You may not alter or remove any trademark, copyright or other
                  notice from copies of the content.


     KEVIN HASSETT, DIRECTOR OF THE NATONIONAL ECONOMIC COUNCIL

     JUNE 6, 2025

     SPEAKERS:
     KEVIN HASSETT, DIRECTOR OF THE NATONIONAL ECONOMIC COUNCIL

LARRY KUDLOW, HOST: Joining us now, Kevin Hassett, director of the National Economic Council.

Welcome back, Kevin. Great to see you. So...

KEVIN HASSETT, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL ECONOMIC COUNCIL: It's great to be here, Larry.

KUDLOW: You know, this may not be the greatest jobs report in the history of jobs reports, but it's pretty solid across the board. Certainly, no recession. I mean, I think that's one of the headlines here. The left-wing media's been talking about recession for months. There's no recession in these numbers, is there, Kevin?

HASSETT: No, not at all. And -- and the way I like to think about the numbers, Larry, is that sort of all the fake things people have been saying about President Trump's economy were disproven today. And so the way to think about it is there's three months in a row where we've radically outperformed the expectations. Remember the ADP number was 37,000? This is 140,000. But -- but the point is that if you go into the details, they're astonishingly exactly what President Trump talked about on the campaign trail.

So for example, we've created about 500,000 jobs so far since he's taken office, but while we've done that, we've cut federal government workers by 50,000.

KUDLOW: Yep.

HASSETT: Back when President Biden was here, as you remember, it was like half the jobs every time were coming from government workers.

The other thing people said is that if we enforce our borders, we're not going to have enough workers, right? That's what they were saying, because there aren't enough Americans to do the jobs. Well, all of the job creation is native-born workers. And so what's happened is, and this goes back to your old friend George Borjas, who has studied and said that when illegals take job with, then they take the jobs away from the people who need them the most that are already in America. And so we're seeing that in the jobs report too. And, of course, core inflation right now is the lowest it's been by every indicator for more than four years. And wage growth is really high. So this is Donald Trump's economy, just like it was in the '17, '18, and '19, we're seeing it right now, right there in the data.

KUDLOW: You know, wages plus hours worked over 4 percent, twice the...

HASSETT: Right.

KUDLOW: Basically -- basically twice the underlying inflation rate, which is pretty cool. Four-point-two percent employment is just fine. And you made a good point, I had mentioned this with Steve Miller, the federal government has shed 59,000 jobs since January.

HASSETT: Correct.

KUDLOW: And while that's been happening, Kevin, private payrolls are now running ahead of their year-ago, 12-month average. I mean, for example, this month private payrolls up 140,000. The 12-month average for private payrolls is 122. So you're starting to cross, the government stuff's coming down, and the private stuff's coming up. We haven't even had the bill passed yet, but I think in anticipation of that we're seeing a shift in the economy. It's very important.

HASSETT: Yeah, it's a really profound shift in the economy. And there's this old famous paper in economics, Larry, where they say what happens when a government worker loses their job. And they looked at state-level experiences. And the bottom line is that -- that usually the federal government workers are -- you know, they're hard working, a lot of them are highly skilled, but they're sitting, you know, doing government work that isn't much value. And then when they lose their government job, which happened in the past because of state cuts, then it usually creates about two jobs, one for them and one for someone else. Because actually if you put them to work in the private sector, then it's great for them and for the private sector. And so I think we're starting to see that -- imagine, we've got 50,000 fewer federal government workers and private sector jobs are through the roof. And it's exactly what we've seen in the literature before.

KUDLOW: So you and Scott Bessent negotiating the tax bill with the Senate and House finance people. You had a meeting in the -- a meeting with the president this week. How are they doing, Kevin? Are we going -- are we going to get -- are we going to get full of -- you know, full expensing? Are we going to get lower corporate taxes? Are we going to get a growth dividend? You know, John Thune's been running around talking about a growth dividend. Of course, I plugged in our number of 3 percent. We'll put it up on the full screen once again, the Kudlow chart. But basically, on top of 3 percent growth, including the CBO revenues, including the mandatory spending, you're looking at deficit reduction of $8.5 trillion, lower deficits...

HASSETT: Correct.

KUDLOW: ... with a -- with a big, growing economy.

HASSETT: Yeah.

KUDLOW: So how'd you do with the -- with the senators?

HASSETT: Yeah, and in fact, Larry, mindful of the fact that I knew that that was the way you were going to want to present it to the...

(LAUGHTER)

HASSETT: ... that, when I went into the cabinet room with the senators, we had our people make the -- make the chart that you just showed. But I know that you were making it on your own as well. So -- so but they saw that chart. And, you know, it's a little bit -- it's not the president's style to go into a room with a bunch of senators and have them have to go through a chart show. And so I brought in just one copy of the chart, and then everybody's, like, oh, email that to us after the thing. And -- and we emailed that up to everybody.

And -- and so, again, if we get 3 percent growth, everything else, and we get the tariff revenue that the CBO just gave us, that they put out a report saying that it's going to be $2.8 trillion over 10, then it's the $8 trillion that you're talking about. And also the $8 trillion requires the current policy baseline, just as an FYI.

KUDLOW: Yeah. So, you know, they're -- you're basically saying they're on it. There is momentum for this thing.

HASSETT: Yeah.

KUDLOW: I know there's some people who want to put their -- you know, they have issues, they put them out there. But I -- you know, I don't know if you heard this Steve Miller interview. It's such a compelling case, the one big, beautiful bill.

HASSETT: It is.

KUDLOW: On the economy, on the deficits, OK? On the welfare and Medicaid reforms, OK? This -- and on the growth. I mean, it's so compelling, I can't imagine not getting this thing through.

HASSETT: Right. And -- and, again, the other message that we had for the senators, both when I spoke up at the Senate lunch on the Hill and then was in the cabinet room with the president, the other message that they need to understand is that if this bill doesn't pass, if this bill doesn't pass, then what's going to happen is we're going to have the biggest tax hike in American history. And our Council of Economic Advisers' chair, Steve, an old friend of yours, has said that that causes GDP to drop 4 percent.

KUDLOW: Wow.

HASSETT: And if GDP drops 4 percent, then revenue goes down, as you know, about 6 percent. And so it actually burns a hole in the deficit. It -- it's terrible. And if that bill doesn't pass, you're causing a recession and making the deficit go up.

KUDLOW: Yeah...

HASSETT: And so I can't imagine how anyone would want to do that, anyone.

KUDLOW: You're right, man.

(CROSSTALK)

HASSETT: Democrats or Republicans.

KUDLOW: You'll double the deficit. You want to vote against this bill because the deficit's too high? If you vote against this bill, the deficit will be twice as high.

HASSETT: Right.

KUDLOW: Yeah, that's a very good point.

All right, Kevin Hassett, NEC director...

HASSETT: Thanks, Larry.

KUDLOW: ... appreciate the time very much.

HASSETT: Bye-bye.

END