I enjoy Kevin ‘Sid‘ Hassett very much. He was awesome in Trump’s first term as an economic advisor, and he’s even better in term two as the Director of the National Economic Council (NEC).
When the people who controlled Joe Biden lost the 2024 election, they were angry. They wanted to leave President Trump with as big a mess as possible and all actions were taken to create chaos that Trump would have to deal with. Intellectually honest people noticed.
Part of their chaos operation was to drive up the cost of food, intentionally create inflation that Trump would have to handle. The “bird flu” issue was part of the plan. After the 2020 election the U.S. Dept of Agriculture ordered millions of chickens to be killed. Simple quarantine process was dismissed in favor of a ridiculous slaughter.
During a CBS interview today, Margaret Brennan asked Kevin Hassett what the Trump administration was going to do about food inflation, and specifically the astronomical cost of eggs. Hassett outlined the plan by first reminding Brennan that regarding spread, chickens don’t fly; ducks and geese do. I almost spit out my coffee. I enjoy Kevin Hassett. Video and Transcript Below:
“Sid“
[Transcript] – MARGARET BRENNAN: We want to turn now to the economy and inflation, which, compared to last January, ticked up about 3% last week. Kevin Hassett is the director of the National Economic Council, and he joins us now. Good morning to you, Director.
KEVIN HASSETT, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL ECONOMIC COUNCIL: Good morning, Margaret, good morning.
MARGARET BRENNAN: So, I don’t have to tell you, but the rest of the country saw their egg prices at the grocery store go up. We’re now at a record high due to that bird flu outbreak, but also labor costs, and that’s contributing to food costs overall. When will the administration get that outbreak under control?
HASSETT: Right, well, what’s going on, right, as you know, is that there is an inflation problem that’s very large. We saw the consumer price index come out, and we found out that the stagflation that was created by the policies of President Biden was way worse than we thought. Over the last three months, across all goods, including eggs, the average inflation rate was 4.6%, way above target, and an acceleration at the end of the Biden term. And, you know, this is really not just us. You could go look at Jason Furman, Larry Summers, economic advisers of President Biden kept saying, don’t do this. You’re going to cause massive inflation. In fact, Jason Furman has a very thought provoking peace in “Foreign Affairs” right now, calling the Biden economic record a tragedy. And this is them, not us, right? It’s- so, now we’ve got a lot of things that we’re doing to get ahold of it–
MARGARET BRENNAN: You’re talking about fiscal spending there.
HASSETT: Excuse me? Yeah, that’s right.
MARGARET BRENNAN: You were talking about fiscal spending there. But–
HASSETT: Well, where does inflation come from, right? And so what we’re doing now is, we’ve- we’ve got, really, a multi- multi-faceted plan to end inflation, and I’ll go quickly, because I want to end with what we’re doing with egg prices, but we’re going to have a macroeconomic change that has supply side tax cuts so we have more supply, and we’re going to reduce government spending, both through what DOGE is doing, and through congressional action. And so therefore, the macroeconomic forces that Jason Furman said were a tragedy are going to be reversed. That’s a good thing. Then we’re also going to have a lot of energy production, a lot of deregulation. And then finally, when needed, we’re going to focus on the individual thing-by-thing pieces. And so, for example, you mentioned avian flu. President Biden didn’t really have a plan for avian flu. Well, Brooke Rollins and I have been working with all the best people in government, including academics around the country and around the world, to have a plan ready for the president next week on what we’re going to do with avian flu. In fact, I was editing the thing with them tomorrow, but- but the final thing- and then I’ll give it back to you, I promise not to filibuster- that, the question is like, why did we do this? Why did we do this? That’s what everybody’s talking about. But the thing that I always start with when I’m looking at what we’re doing, what the President wants us to do, is, why did they do that? Why did they do that? And- and there are too many times where it feels like nobody thought about that in the press, or maybe–
MARGARET BRENNAN: Oh, gosh–
HASSET: –the left wing “Economist,” why did they do that? Why did Biden print so much money and cause so much inflation? Why did he do it?
MARGARET BRENNAN: Oh, Kevin–
HASSETT: That’s- that’s what I’m thinking about.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Kevin, you know, we talked about that on “Face the Nation” quite a lot. Quite a lot.
HASSETT: I don’t mean to criticize you. Okay, good for you.
MARGARET BRENNAN: No, no, no. So next week, we’ll see the plan on how to get avian flu- how to get bird flu, under–
HASSETT: I could talk about it right now if you’d like to, yes.
MARGARET BRENNAN: –well, sure, what- what is the plan you’re going to- what are you going to do?
HASSETT: Yeah, so- so again, the- the Biden plan was to just, you know, kill chickens, and they spent billions of dollars just randomly killing chickens within a perimeter where they found a sick chicken. And so you go- I just went to the grocery store. I shop for our family, in part because I love to look at prices. And there were no eggs at the store yesterday, just a few. And- and so that happened because they killed all the chickens. And so what we need to do is have better ways, with biosecurity and medication and so on, to make sure that the perimeter doesn’t have to kill the chickens. Have a better, smarter perimeter. And so having a smart perimeter is what we’re working on, and we’re finalizing the ideas about how to do that with the best scientists in government. And that’s the kind of thing that should have happened a year ago, and if it had, then egg prices would be, you know, a lot better than they are now. But the avian flu is a real thing–
MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes.
HASSETT: –and by the way, it’s spread mostly by ducks and geese. And so- think about it, they’re killing chickens to stop the spread, but chickens don’t really fly. The- the spread is happening from the geese and the ducks. And so, why does it make any sense to have a big perimeter of dead chickens, when it’s the- the ducks and the geese that are spreading it?
MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, the Department of Agriculture policy has been to kill those chickens, as you know, but we’ll watch the details of that.😂 But let’s get back to something the president said. Higher interest rates, as you know, are part of that battle against inflation that the Federal Reserve has been waging, but this past week, the President called for interest rates to be lowered. Why does he think that’s going to lower your grocery prices?
KEVIN HASSETT: Well, first of all, I- I want to say that- I, just this weekend, have arranged to begin, once again, regular lunches with Jay Powell at the Federal Reserve. And Jay and I have a long and collegial relationship, and I’m going to go over there with him and the other governors. So we’re going to talk about our views about what’s going on, and listen to his and that collegiality has been going on for four years when I was here before, and the President very much values that. I think that the- the thing about–
MARGARET BRENNAN: But that’s not to influence–
HASSETT: –lower interest rates, no, I’m going to talk about- well, Jay is going to- Jay is an independent person. The Fed- independence is respected. And- and the point is, the President’s opinion is also- can be heard. He’s the president of the United States. But here’s the thing that I think is interesting, that if we get inflation under control, then that takes the pressure off the Fed. And one way to tell whether markets think, are we getting inflation under control, is to look at longer term interest rates that the Fed doesn’t affect directly. And if you look at it, the 10 year treasury rate has dropped about 40 basis points over the last couple of weeks while we announced our plan to control inflation. That saved the American people about $40 billion, about $40 billion, just from talking about the stuff that we’re about to do.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Okay.
HASSETT: It’s pretty good.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Right. But the President’s statement contradicts economic policy, as you know–
KEVIN HASSETT: No, inflation- no, inflation rates are already- I’m saying the interest rates are already lower by 40 basis points. So, in- interest rates are lower. The one that matters–
MARGARET BRENNAN: You’re briefing the president on it. Okay–
HASSETT: –the most for the economy is maybe the 5 or 10, year rate. Those the ones that matter the most. So those are down already. So the President’s right about that.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Before we run out of time, I really want to make sure I get to you on tariffs–
HASSETT: Okay, sure.
MARGARET BRENNAN: –because there’s concern that that will add to prices, because they’ll be added on to consumers and what they pay. How are these reciprocal tariffs going to work? The President was tweeting he wants to put them on, like 175 different countries that have a VAT tax, a value added tax.
KEVIN HASSETT: You know, we’re talking to leaders of other countries all the time. Last night into the wee hours of their morning and kind of a late night for me, I was talking to Minister Reynolds from the UK about this very matter. But here’s the way I’d like to think about it, that right now, U.S. companies are spending, are paying, foreign governments about $370 billion a year in tax, and foreign comp- companies are paying the U.S. government about $57 billion in tax, and a lot of it is because of the VAT. But if we didn’t have to pay the foreign government’s tax, over 10 years, it’d be about $5 trillion of tax that U.S. citizens don’t have to pay. That would more than pay for the tax cuts that we’re debating right now. And so if we get some of that money back, either through tariffs, or for, obviously, if they reduce the tariffs of that, that that’s good for Americans, it’s going to put more money in their pockets, and- and that’s what President Trump is trying to do.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Kevin Hassett, I’d like to have you come back, sit at the table and talk through this in- in more detail at another time. We have to leave it there for today.
HASSETT: Thanks. Happy, happy to be here.
Thanks SD for taking the time of embedding the transcript. Much prefer reading to listening at times. Zelensky is one, Brennan is certainly another.
Kevin could have used the “egg “Issue to school Margaret on inflation and its causes.
Scarcity causes prices to rise. Abundance keeps prices steady or pushes them lower.
When eggs (petroleum, lumber, fertilizer, etc.) are scarce, shelves are nearly empty and what is left comes at a higher price.
Finally an Avian flu vaccine has been approved even though the vaccine has been produced in USA; it was not approved by the USDA. One PA farmer had to kill 6.5 million hens recently; 6 million fewer eggs EACH day. What took so damn long? It’s almost like the Biden admin wanted to spike egg prices for Americans.
They did. The Biden administration did everything possible in their power to make the Trump administration a failure.
The Government hasn’t Stopped killing chickens and Kerry Mullins said the PCR tests did not test for disease.
Here’s the inventor of the PCR test, Kary Mullis, saying it’s NOT accurate for testing for Covid.
I’ve read (don’t recall where) that Kary Mullis’ wife thinks he was murdered for saying this.
He was….right before covid.
They did.
Kevin is brilliant, and with that constant, sweet smile on his face, reminds me of a leprechaun who makes us cookies in his spare time. Adorable!
Several points here as a livestock farmer. Yes wild birds do spread it, but funny they don’t die from it, why, they are not confined and are for the most part healthy. Todays chickens are confined in HUGE complexes, 100,000 to 1 million to a building, no fresh air or sunshine, they are sick from the start, less that one square foot per bird almost 1.3 to that space. all they breath is air sucked in by fans, just enough to keep them alive, the dust just hangs in the air cages stacked 4 to 6 high, right out of a nightmare. Makes sense the if one is sick everything in the building is sick. This is the price we are paying for”efficiency) 100 years ago there were High hundreds of thousands of small flocks that fed the US. the lose of a few was not a big thing and there was less problems since the got outside and weren’t so damn crowded and got exercise. The entire livestock industry in the “efficient” US is sick, jumping from one “miracle treatment” to another. I operate an Organic Dairy farm and in organic we understand the need for fresh air exercise and sunshine (when the weather allows). very few organic flocks get sick, most that are destroyed are in one of the depopulation circles. RFKjr has his work cut out for him
So sad. I only by free range or pasture raised.
My friend has 3 dz chickens that free range all day everyday they are happy and healthy.. They don’t like to drink from the pond, they go to the coup at dusk and come when called.. they have personalities and can be very entertaining.. There are lot of advantages to organic farming regardless of what you raise..
Yes – the question is how did they get exposed in the first place?
I don’t know where I read it, but the Cubans under Castro had plans years ago to use infected pigeons as a form of bio-warfare against the US. I don’t recall the reason it failed.
I doubt our enemies have given up.
It failed because it was State Department/USAID/CIA propaganda.
Stop serving the Propaganda Masters by belching out their nonsense.
Angry vegans?
Interesting that you should write this. In my neck of the woods my Whole Foods Market has no shortage of eggs … their brand or the other organic eggs they sell.
Up here in NW Washington, Costo’s been out a lot, but Trader Joe has eggs, though limited in how many any one customer can buy at a time.
Organic meats can be pricey but after reading about farming practices especially with regards to meat and poultry, I live with the price tag.
Nice if you can afford it.
In Colorado they passed a free range law for all egg laying hens. “Starting January 1, 2025, all eggs sold in Colorado must be from a cage-free facility”.
More here https://ag.colorado.gov/press-release/all-eggs-sold-in-colorado-starting-in-2025-will-be-cage-free.
One of the few laws the lefties imposed that I can agree with.
This should be the law for all chickens in every state. Why must we continue to be so cruel to animals?
“Free range” means they are crowded by the thousands into large rectangular shacks. They don’t even have places to perch.
And then when the “cull” comes (mass inhumane slaughter) they are flooded with a sticky deadly foam that traps them and suffocates them.
It’s much more convenient to Big Ag. They don’t even have to hire Berry Pickers to shove the poor birds into the bajillions of filthy cages anymore, or pull the poor damaged sick birds out.
God loves chickens, and God is going to get so even with humans for this stuff. Chickens are among the best of creatures, and have ZERO protection legally.
A jewish friend sent me this years ago and worked on it locally in NYC
https://www.endchickensaskaporos.com/museum.html
Cage free only means they aren’t in cages. They are still housed in a large building all together just mingling around on the floor. Some do have a small area where they can go outside but they are not free to roam around. It’s still quite cramped for them, they are pretty much shoulder to shoulder.
Bird flu is a hoax designed to keep the Pharma-Government “public health” cabal in place and let Big Ag have control over markets and people’s minds and fears.
Stop spreading propaganda.
Any Treepers who aren’t reading deeply into the gob-smacking revelations about how “virology” and “public health” have lied to Americans, and the world, for the past 150 years need to get up to speed.
Birds who live in filth get sick from filth, it’s that simple, and same as humans.
“Flu” is a body desperately trying to detox from filth, with overloaded biological systems that are also not well supported (clean water, fresh air, good food).
People, and farm animals, live in such disgustingly toxic conditions, and then stress, fear, and despair are piled atop it.
And yes, little chickens suffer from those emotions as well.
I think Mr. Hassett is wonderful. He’s calm, cool, collected and ALWAYS smiling.
His happiness and pleasant demeanor must drive the left crazy.
He’s our Quokkarine!
???
And brilliant. And he stays focused in spite of her lame attempts to get him sidetracked.
Talk about having to suffer fools. I’m waiting for someone to use that old Saturday Night Live retort, “ Jane, you ignorant s***”.
To be fair Margie is having to interview her intellectual superior.
A chicken would be her intellectual superior.
and 10 more “likes” just for fun!
BAWK! Said the chicken IN AGREEMENT. Nor sure that it matters, but from what I could ken, “Margie” was conducting the interview in her BARE feet. LOL.
I hear she lost to a chicken playing tic-tac-toe and all she could say after was “but the chicken got to go first!”
“But she’s a chicken,” I say. “You’re a human being. Surely there should be some advantage in that.”
So she replied “The chicken plays every day. I haven’t played in years.”
That’s never stopped the LSM from showing its’ lack of intellect.
But she seems totally and blissfully unaware.
Iiiii love it love it…
LOL! I was trying to remember that line last night when I shared SD’s post of Rubio with that horrible Brennan. I could hear the delivery but I couldn’t recall the exact phrase. Thanks for the rescue!
I grew up hearing a few family stories, seeing as my great-grandpa had gained the nickname “egg man” from his trade as a farmer.
But that was a long time ago, before Big AG pushed out the great majority of small farms from the market.
Stu Peters said that about the only way a human could get bird flu from a chicken would be to “eat its poop and drink its blood.”
Considering modern processing methods, that possibility sounds almost like practice.
“Flu” = FILTH.
Filth and pollution.
That is why.
Like “polio” was.
https://aldhissla.substack.com/p/the-case-against-polio-contagion
In other words, Trump knows the bird – flu is another government manufactured weaponized hoax.
Pretending not to notice by not coming out directly and calling it a hoax is the better strategy to deal with and get past it. The MAGA administration is approaching the War in Ukraine hoax in the same manner, as it is the best way to end it by giving the players involved a dignified way out.
There is one Hoax that Trump consistently will call out for what it is and that is the fake 2020 election results. You see the apoplectic globalist response to this sunlight whenever Trump mentions it. Imagine what they would do if he called the War in Ukraine a hoax too? Better to not go there if the goal is to put an end to it.
Yeah but when’s he going to order an investigation into the ‘24 Election?
Yeah he won, because his Base of support was so great and Kamala was so bad, they genuinely couldn’t get away with rigging it. So they switched the steal down ballot to eliminate his ability to legislatively fix the nation.
2-4 Senate seats were definitely stolen- NV, WI, MI, AZ (AGAIN! and 20-25 House seats!! That makes 3 elections in a row. The R’s should have a 60+ seat Senate majority and 40-50 seat majority in the House.
He needs to order an investigation ASAP, so we have time to pressure our representatives to pass legislation to reform our elections prior to the 2026 midterm!!!
The only difference between the ComIntern and CovIntern is by degree and detail.
https://nypost.com/2020/02/28/trump-democrats-coronavirus-criticism-just-their-latest-hoax/
Crossfire Hurricane 6: The KoronaKampf Revival
“I feel like we should have learned our lesson from COVID that just because we aren’t testing, it doesn’t mean that the virus isn’t there.”
–Dr. Leana Wen, Dec. 29, 2024
Bioterror Roundup: Biden’s $300 Million Bird Flu Bonanza
https://armageddonprose.substack.com/p/bioterror-roundup-bidens-300-million
SUNDANCE: “Missed this critical response to the issues I raised in my Foreign Affairs piece.
(Will reflect on some of these in a response to many of the issues people have raised, probably next week.)”
https://x.com/jasonfurman/status/1891117831749587365
The biden disaster is worse than the Carter disaster. Reagan got us out of the Carter disaster. Trump brought us out of the obama disaster. Now Trump has to get us out of the biden disaster.
And we have to stop letting idiot liberals take control.
Now they are going after canned tuna – specifically Trader Joe’s canned Tuna – because TJ’s tuna is not injected with poison? They want to control all sources of protein. As long as people have choices, they will not eat ze bugs.
I’ll never eat bugs. I’ll become a vegetarian first.
Anger aside, it is embarrassing at this point.
This is why there so angry, President Trump has stopped the cabals leftist take over of the whole world through the USA, and it makes me so VERY happy :)!
Every time these journos open their mouth for inquiry, I feel like I am losing brain cells. Good to see Hassett back at the wheel. You can tell that he loves this kind of stuff.
It’s worse than inflation, the Democrats attacked the food supply.
That’s not policy differences, that’s enemy action. The Democrat Party needs to be defeated once and for all.
Uniparty.
Two Wings, One Vulture.
defeated
Ken Paxton: George Soros Controls 70% of Texas Through Elected DAs
https://rumble.com/v6kbh34-ken-paxton-george-soros-controls-70-of-texas-through-elected-das.html
https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/111817246417780853
Soros needs to drop dead.
His son has taken over.
It’s attempted genocide. We don’t hate these people enough.
Bless her heart, she has no clue how in over her head she is, and to his credit he was joyfully patient with her.
CNN must know that being an attack dog upon anything Trump is driving their viewership down. The corporate owners must hate this country and their talking heads tow the line for a paycheck.
These are small-minded, greedy people with no sense of loyalty to God and country. Their anti-Trump schtick is tiresome and intellectually dishonest. CNN and MSNBC should lose their broadcast licenses for spreading lies.
“But But But…it worked last time!” Brian “Tater” Stelter and Richard “Madcow” Maddow
“As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly” _Les Nesman, Thanksgiving 1978
Those people making the decision to all chickens would have been terrible if they made the same decision to humans that had covid. They would have slaughtered covid positive patients and all those who were in contact with them.
They kind of did. They just withheld early treatment, blocked effective therapies, and killed anyone hospitalized with Remdesivir (RunDeathIsNear) and respirators.
Oh, and let’s not forget NY and PA forcing COVID patients into nursing homes, where the most vulnerable were concentrated.
I wonder if Brennan goes back and looks at these performances. Because the last two have her looking pretty much like a dumb a$$!
Personally…..this is the corrupt media…..if it’s not presented here, or other conservative, informative sites….I will never see it…..I do not ever tune in to the corrupt media. And that includes Fox.
It’s kind of like your diet. If you keep putting bad in….you are going to get bad out as a manifestation. So, years ago I stopped with the bad going in…….that meant cutting main stream corrupt media out!
I saw no mention of the test they use to detect this avian flu. It is the PCR test and no mention of how many cycles they are running to find this disease in the chickens tested. They are running 40 amplification cycles to find it, just like they used for c19. I believe the whole thing is scam.