White House economic adviser says Fed researchers should be punished [View all]

Kevin Hassett, a top economic adviser to President Donald Trump, assailed a Federal Reserve study, calling it an “embarrassment.”

Kevin Hassett, a top economic adviser to President Donald Trump, on Wednesday assailed a study from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York finding that U.S. companies shoulder most of the costs of tariffs, calling for the central bank to punish the researchers behind the work, which he characterized as an “embarrassment.”

“What they’ve done is they put out a conclusion, which has created a lot of news, that’s highly partisan, based on analysis that wouldn’t be accepted in a first-semester econ class,” Hassett, who heads the White House’s National Economic Council, said Wednesday on CNBC.

The comments represent the latest attack on the Federal Reserve from an administration that has repeatedly sought to bully the central bank, with the president himself repeatedly attacking Fed Chair Jerome H. Powell for not slashing interest rates.

The Justice Department is separately examining whether Powell misled the Senate over the summer in testimony that touched on a $2.5 billion renovation of the Fed’s headquarters. Powell has forcefully pushed back against the probe, calling it a pretext to undermine the central bank’s independence on monetary policy.

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