'Just false': Trump adviser insists economists are wrong and tariffs won't raise prices

An economic adviser for President Donald Trump told MSNBC host Ali Vitali that long-held beliefs by nearly every economist that tariffs will raise prices are "just false."

Ahead of Trump signing another executive order on tariffs, Kevin Hassett was probed on why Trump thinks he's right over experts.

"It's just false that it's necessarily bad for consumers," Hassett asserted. "And a way to think about it is imagine right now we did the estimate that last year. U.S. companies, U.S.-based companies paid foreign governments $370 billion in taxes. Meanwhile, foreign companies paid the U.S. $57 billion in taxes. So, we mailed foreign governments $370 billion in taxes. And those taxes are being paid for by us citizens. And so if you think that that asymmetry is something that could be addressed and improved upon, and if we did that, it would be good for us citizens."

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He continued, "Is it good for us citizens to mail $370 billion to them, while they're sending $57 billion to us? And are we supposed to keep doing that because of some economic model that doesn't have the whole real world in it, that says that we're better off because of inflation if we keep sending $370 billion to foreign governments? It just doesn't make sense. And so if you'd like, we could go to the blackboard and talk about the economic modeling and the elasticity of supply versus demand and all that stuff. But I usually save that for Ali Velshi."

Vitali asked if he could "without invoking the past administration, guarantee that prices won't rise because of these tariffs?"

Hassett tried to dodge the question.

"I, you know, prices move up. Prices move down. That's the way the world works, right?" he said before Vitali interrupted.

"But you're an economist. You forecast trends like this," she cut in, asking the question again.

He ultimately acknowledged prices could rise — but insisted it won't be because of Trump.

"My expectation is that prices will fluctuate," he said. "When economists study the fluctuations of the prices, they'll wonder what the causes were. And there will be many."

Instead, Hassett rephrased the question. "And, so, am I confident that there won't be strong evidence of a price effect of tariffs? Yes, I am confident."

Trump has acknowledged tariffs "might" hike prices on U.S. consumers.

"It's a little bit of pain, but people understand that," he said.

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