President Donald Trump's top economic advisor Kevin Hassett drew mockery for inviting Americans to "imagine" lower fuel prices.
The president sent fuel costs soaring and shaken global markets with his war in Iran, and Hassett was asked Tuesday morning on CNBC whether the Federal Reserve should cut interest rates to curb inflation.
"Anyone wholooks at a chart for energyprices will see that they'vegone up quite a bit since thesituation with Iran began," Hassett said. "Butthe president is confident thatit can be resolved, and whenit's resolved, that thoseprices will go right back downto where they were before, and then youpile on top of that the factthat core inflation is runningaround 0.2 percent. In fact, for the Consumer Price Index, it itrounded up to 0.2 [percent], it wasactually in the 0.1 [percent] range.
"So when you've got that plus,imagine if oil prices startgoing back down because thesituation resolves itselfsomehow, then you could belooking at inflation close tozero," he added. "So that's something thatthe Fed needs to pay attentionto."
Hassett's explanation did not reassure critics on social media.
"John Lennon vibes," marveled X user Armando.
"Yes, the Fed often bases its monetary policy on wishful thinking," surmised writer Jared Ryan Sears.
"The feds need to pay attention to imaginary scenarios?" wondered X user Rodger Williams. "F------ brilliant."
"Sure, just like the Strait of Hormuz will 'open up on its own,'" doubted writer Christopher Gelarden. "It’s one of his new Jesus superpowers."
"So imagine if it wasn’t bad, it would be good," chirped X user Janet Kearney.
"F---, man, let's go a step further and imagine gas stations start paying us to fill our tanks," suggested Bluesky user Feminist Proper Gander.
"Imagine if the US had a competent president who didn't start a war with Iran because he carries a perpetual grudge against Obama," sighed Bluesky user Lucie Catnip.
"'Resolves itself somehow' is an amazing admission they have no plan for how to resolve this," noted Bluesky user Brent Travels.