Trump official triggers uproar with astonishing admission: 'Extremely serious blunder'
Kevin Hassett, who leads the Trump administration’s National Economic Council as its director, made the startling admission Tuesday that the economic harm inflicted on American consumers from the Iran war was “the last of our concerns right now” — a comment critics described as a gift for Democratic ad-makers ahead of the 2026 midterms.
“The U.S. economy is fundamentally sound, and if [the Iran war] were to be extended, it wouldn’t really disrupt the U.S. economy very much at all,” Hassett said, speaking with CNBC Tuesday.
“It would hurt consumers, and we’d have to think about – if that continued – what we would have to do about that, but that’s like, really the last of our concerns right now because we’re very confident that this thing is going ahead of schedule.”
From Democratic senators to journalists, critics of all stripes seized on Hassett’s admission as being particularly telling as to the Trump administration’s priorities, while also noting the usefulness Hassett’s admission may have for political ads.
“This guy is good for business if you’re a Democratic ad-maker,” noted political strategist and commentator Kurt Bardella Tuesday in a social media post on X. “In their own words, how the war hurts the pocketbooks of the American people is the Trump admin’s ‘last’ concern. They only care about the billionaire bros and protecting the Epstein Class.”
Journalist Greg Sargent called Hassett’s admission an “extremely serious political blunder” that he predicted would “end up in a lot of Dem ads,” and Sens. Brian Schatz (D-HI) and Chris Murphy (D-CT) also weighed in on the official’s stunning remarks.
“Trump’s team of Epstein class advisors says it out loud more often than you’d think,” Murphy wrote Tuesday in a social media post on X.
Schatz, the rising Democratic figure from Hawaii, delivered what appeared to be a deliberately understated take on Hassett’s remarks.
“Well I’m not some sort of political expert but this feels like an unhelpful thing to say,” Schatz wrote in a social media post on X.