Welcome back to Face the Nation. We turn now to the director of the National Economic Council, Kevin Hassett, who joins us from the White House North Lawn. Kevin, thank you so much for being with me.
Great to be here. Thank you.
I want to start by getting your take on the state of the economy because a kind of confusing picture emerged this week. The Dow Jones hit an all-time high and yet consumer sentiment hit an all-time low. Mortgage rates hit a nine-month peak. Inflation is up. Earnings at big box stores like Walmart are up in part because people from across the income spectrum are being drawn to low prices right now. Are there storm clouds gathering in the economy?
No, I don't think there are storm clouds gathering at all. And in fact, let's start with the consumer sentiment number because that was a number that was very striking to me and to you. I know when it came in very, very low. And what we did is we went to their website and we looked that they actually break it out by political affiliation. So they have it for Democrats, independents, and Republicans. And if you look at it, consumer sentiment at the sort of peak of the Biden inflation, the stagflation was way above 100. And it's dropped all the way down into the low 30s now, about the lowest it's ever been for Democrats. But for Republicans, it's held about steady. And if you look at it, independents and Democrats are really highly correlated, which suggests to us that their sample is Democrats. And so if you go to consumer confidence, which is something that's actually, I think, a more scientific survey, the consumer confidence is consistent with all the other positive numbers we're seeing right now.
But you don't dispute that the war has taken a toll on parts of the economy.
Right now, consumer confidence is the highest it's been since the beginning of the year. And so you don't see a toll of the war on consumer confidence which is the Conference Board survey. But again, GDP now, the Atlanta Fed's estimate of second quarter GDP is north of 4%. We've got initial claims for unemployment insurance as low as they've been since the 60s. And so there's so much going on that is really, I think, surprising people that think that the disruption from the Middle East is going to harm the economy. It's just not there in the data except for the consumer sentiment data. I actually think that we should stop calling it consumer sentiment and start calling it political sentiment because the variables really are, it's really a political variable, not an economic variable.
The data on gas prices is pretty undeniable. Memorial Day weekend gas prices are at a four-year high. AAA says they'll remain elevated throughout the summer at least. Last month you said that high gas prices would be a temporary phenomenon. Did the White House paint too rosy a picture of the impact that this war would have by emphasizing that this was going to be a four to six week excursion?
Well, I think the four to six week was an accurate description of like when the sort of active kinetic events were going to happen. Right now, you know, I'll let the president decide on whether he thinks the deal is ready to go this week or not. But the bottom line is once the straits are open then the tankers are going to go back and they're going to refill the refineries almost right away. A tanker goes about 300 nautical miles a day. And so places like India and Pakistan which are close to the straits are going to get their oil and then turn it into refined product right away. Singapore which is one of the places where jet fuel prices are the highest is going to get its stuff just about right away. But if you're down in New Zealand it'll take a little bit longer. But really like between a month and two months, we expect everybody to have all the oil they need at every refinery on Earth.
Well, we know that things will get better once the strait reopens. The question is when will it reopen, right?
Well, that's something for the president, Marco Rubio, and the Iranians to work out.
I realize that as director of the White House Economic Council, this $1.8 billion anti-weaponization fund is not part of your portfolio. But the backlash to that fund did derail a bill this week that included funding for ICE and the CBP, and government funding is part of your portfolio. So what is the administration doing if anything to try to cool members of the president's own party down on this issue? They seemed really angry and really blindsided.
Well, I don't know if across the board they were, but there's certainly some people who felt that way. And our head of legislative affairs, James Blair, is a real professional. He's been talking to everybody. He's been arranging for phone calls with those of us in the White House that want to talk to people and hear people's concerns. But the bottom line is that, you know, we expect the progress that the president wants to see in Congress to happen. Congress has delivered over and over under the leadership of Mike Johnson. And so I understand that, you know, there's something that was a little bit different this week than maybe you expected, but I don't expect that to go on. And one thing we've seen from primaries is that people that buck the president, you know, generally regret it politically.
The Wall Street Journal editorial board really took a swipe at the president over that fund, over the ballroom on Saturday. They said, quote, 'Republicans don't want to say this publicly, but privately they do. President Trump's personal political obsessions are hurting his presidency, hurting the chances for further foreign policy gains and putting control of the House and Senate in jeopardy.' Does the president realize that he is putting Republicans in a tough spot by forcing them to take votes on things that are unpopular like the fund, like the ballroom, like the war in a midterm election year?
Look, I respect the Wall Street Journal very much. I saw Paul Gigot at the Kevin Warsh signing on just on Friday. But the bottom line is the president believes that the ballroom is something that should have been there for a long time and he's using his own money and the money of donors to make it so that the taxpayers don't have to pay for that ballroom. And as far as weaponization, I don't think...
Well, they would have to pay a billion dollars. Correct.
No, it's not for the ballroom. That's for securing the entire White House. And my goodness, to argue about that after we were all here yesterday, I actually wasn't here. I was at my home a couple blocks away when the shooting happened. Of course, we've got to make the White House more secure. But on the $1.8 billion fund for weaponization, I don't think you would disagree, right, that the previous administration and the Obama administration weaponized government against President Trump. And what he wants to do is make sure that never happens again and compensate the people who were the targets of the destruction of their lives. You know what they would do is they would call people in to Jack Smith's office and then bury them in subpoena requests and bankrupt them. And that's something that should never happen again. Never. And I think that I don't doubt that there's anyone that disagrees with that.
Kevin Hassett, the director of the National Economic Council. Appreciate your time this morning.
And we'll be right back.
We turn now to the escalating Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Joining us to discuss is the former White House coronavirus response coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx who also previously helped coordinate the international response to the 2014 Ebola outbreak when she was global AIDS coordinator. Dr. Birx, thank you so much for being with us.
Good to be with you, Nancy.
Doctor, the WHO rather says there are now almost 750 suspected cases in the Congo, around the Congo, and nearly 200 deaths. How does the severity of this situation compare to previous outbreaks?
Well, the problem with this particular outbreak is there was probably two, three or four cycles of infection before it was even reported. And so a lot of the numbers you're seeing and the rapid rise of the numbers is because it went undetected and underreported for probably three or four weeks that resulted in a lot of case reporting all at once. And so I can't really tell you what the slope of new cases are, which is really the important thing when you're following an acute infectious disease. But just to make it very clear to your audience, the people we are seeing today that are cases were probably infected two weeks ago. And so I think that's what makes us all concerned is we're looking at this virus and this outbreak with really old data.
I want to get to that delay in reporting the outbreak in a moment. But first, we saw this week that a plane from Paris to Detroit had to be diverted to Montreal after a person from the Congo was mistakenly allowed to board. What do Americans need to know about the transmission of this disease and the risk here at home? I think people are worried.
Well, when you see this level of outbreak, ever since COVID, I can understand why people are worried. But remember DRC has had 17 or 18 of these outbreaks in the last 20, 30 years. So, this is actually fairly commonplace, although this is a large one. I think we learned from COVID how to be much more proactive about preventing the virus getting to the country. Ever since we had those cases almost a decade ago, what we did is we really strengthened hospitals. Now we have biocontainment facilities in multiple hospitals. So we're prepared if it ever happens or someone enters the country. But it's important that we are proactive like they have been. And when you have a travel ban, you have to really enforce it and it's what they did when they diverted the plane.
Is this travel ban the right answer? People from the Congo, the travel other countries not being able to come into the US, even green card holders if they've been in that area over the past 21 days or so.
You know, it's part of a comprehensive response, which it is, and I don't think it's getting that much coverage, but within four days, the US sent a DART team. A lot of the USAID people who are no longer in the USAID building are now in the State Department and have been part of Ebola responses, the 2014 and 2018 response. They're already on the ground. There's a CDC group that was in Kinshasa, is permanently in Kinshasa. They're responding. And so when it's part of a comprehensive funding response, yes, not as an only one solution.
