Hassett Dismisses Negative Economic Polling
Left 100%
Center 0%
Right 0%
2 left · 0 center · 0 right
What happened
On Sunday, National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett said on CNN's State of the Union that he does not believe recent polls showing Americans feel negatively about the economy. Hassett said such surveys have misjudged President Donald Trump's success before and that household spending and related data contradict the poll findings. He suggested some of the results may come from partisan pollsters and called the timing a classic Democrat move ahead of an election cycle. Separate public surveys around the same period, including AP-NORC and CBS News polls, showed majority disapproval of Trump's handling of the economy and a substantial share of voters rating their personal finances as bad, while official and private data showed solid growth, a relatively stable labor market, and high consumer spending.
Sourcing check · Fully on the record · 3 articles
3 of 3 articles cite a named source for the story. It was on the record from the first report.
What these terms mean and how they're counted
- On the record · names a source 3 of 3
- On the record means the article cites a source by name for the story's main claim: a person, or an institution speaking officially, such as a company statement or a named agency's spokesperson. The opposite is an unnamed source. The count is how many of the counted articles cite at least one such source; the names are everyone named across them, each once however the articles spell it. Here: Kevin Hassett, Conference Board and University of Michigan
- Primary evidence · cites a document or data 1 of 3
- Primary evidence means the article cites a record you could check yourself: a court filing or ruling, a dataset or report, a recording or transcript, an official statement or press release, market data. A quote is not a document. The count is how many articles cite one. Here: economic data, poll, survey data
- Credits another outlet 0 of 3
- The article says the story comes from another outlet's reporting (“first reported by Reuters”). Those articles relay the story; they are not independent confirmation. Here: Each article presents its own reporting.
- Unnamed sources 0 of 3
- The main claim is attributed to people who are not identified: “people familiar with the matter”, “officials said”. The count is how many articles do this.
- How it developed
- When the first report landed and whether it named anyone; when the first named source and the first document appeared. Here: First report Oct 4, 14:40 UTC by The Hill, naming its source. First document 18 hours later, from Axios (economic data).
- Not counted 0
- Opinion, analysis and video pieces, and articles too short to assess. Every count above is out of the counted articles. An article republished under a new headline is one article.
This is about who is cited, not whether the story is true. Each source below says what it names. How we count
ONE-SIDED THIS WEEK.
Only left-leaning outlets have covered this story in the last two days;
Breitbart reported it on 2026-10-03.
Omitted — what each side leaves out
Unpacked
The White House economic adviser dismissed negative polling, but left-leaning coverage told that story without the poll results, and right-leaning coverage did not tell it at all. Left-leaning coverage reports that Kevin Hassett does not believe the polls that show negative feelings about the economy and treats that gloom as a "classic Democrat move." Right-leaning outlets had not covered this as of publication, so those readers never hear a top economic adviser reject the country's economic mood. Left-leaning coverage also never states how large that mood is, which leaves the disbelief hanging as politics instead of as an argument with a measured result.
Left-leaning coverage leads with the refusal to buy the surveys. Hassett's same-day remark that saying the economy is great "looks like I'm insensitive" is not in The Hill.
Which poll numbers was Hassett refusing to believe?
Bottom line
The Hill ran Hassett dismissing economic polls as a Democrat tactic without the 73 percent who disapprove of Trump on the economy. Right-leaning outlets ran nothing on the remarks.
The receipts — 3 facts one side's coverage lacks
- 73 percent in the latest AP-NORC survey disapprove of President Trump's handling of the economy
- Hassett said the polls have gotten the president's success wrong every time
- 38 percent of voters in a CBS News poll said their personal finances are fairly or very bad
The Left View
The Hill reported that Hassett dismissed polls showing Americans' negative feelings about the economy, quoting him as saying he just does not buy them. The coverage centered on his claim that, ahead of an election cycle, possibly partisan pollsters are saying people are really depressed, which he called a classic Democrat move. The articles presented the remarks as an administration official rejecting survey evidence of public economic discontent rather than engaging the numbers as a measure of voter sentiment.
Our Take (balanced)
The story is substantive: a named senior official made on-the-record comments on a national broadcast, and the poll and economic figures cited elsewhere come from identified surveys and data releases. Established facts are Hassett's televised statements and the existence of negative economic polling alongside stronger hard-data indicators. His claim that the polls are a partisan Democratic tactic is an allegation about pollster motives, not a documented finding. No right-leaning outlet has reported this. Watch for the full interview transcript or video, any follow-up from other administration officials, and the next consumer-confidence and approval surveys.
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