Fox News' Sandra Smith couldn't get Trump's economic advisor to nail down the effects of the 34-day Trump government shutdown and instead he used a word salad rant of numbers to distract from the issue.
On America's Newsroom, Larry Kudlow joined Sandra Smith to try and clean up Kevin Hassett's admission on CNN that the U.S. could face a zero growth first quarter as a result of Trump's goverment shutdown.
Smith asked him to address Kevin Hassett's remarks that "poured cold water on a lot of things on the economy and the market this morning by talking about the possibility of zero growth this quarter is to shut down continues?"
"Is it that bad?" she asked
Kudlow replied in a lengthy word salad monologue.
"Kevin Hassett is a very dear friend and colleague, he's probably the smartest guy in the building," Kudlow oozed.
Instead of addressing his concerns, Kudlow read off a bunch of economic statistics to distract from the issues, never once discussing the impact of Trump's trade war with China or the government shutdown. I edited out much of his nonsense in the above clip so your head didn't explode.
Smith tried to ask another question and he cut her off and said, "I'm not shirking your question -- some of these numbers are just going to be glitches. They're gonna be anomalies. I'd read nothing into it.”
Fortunately people are reading a lot into this data and are not sticking their heads in the sand, Larry.
Smith said, "Suggesting the impact of the shutdown, is that what you're saying? Can you quantify that at all? What you're seeing is or will be the impact of the shutdown on the economy?"
Kudlow replied, "Well, I can only give you numbers," and he continued to do so including praising the jobs numbers.
Sandra said, "Point taken, but beyond Hassett's comment, you have recently you said you you expect GDP to snap back after the shutdown ends."
"Yes."
"So snapback from what? That suggests it has taken a hit."
"Snapback from its glitch."
Sandra laughed at him, "Okay, it's a glitch."
Larry ended up saying, "We don't know."
What a sorry excuse for an economic advisor.
Instead of leveling with the American people, he lies.
