PUNCH BACK TWICE AS HARD: Hassett says authors of New York Fed tariff study should be disciplined: ‘Worst paper I’ve ever seen.’

White House economic advisor Kevin Hassett said Wednesday that the authors of a recent New York Federal Reserve paper that found U.S. companies and consumers are shouldering most of the tariff burden should be “disciplined.”

In a CNBC interview, the National Economic Council director ripped the report, saying that central bank researchers ignored key aspects of how the duties worked and instead simply focused on prices. Hassett said the research also should have included the upward impact on wages and benefits that U.S. companies see by bringing more production onshore.

“I mean, the paper is an embarrassment,” Hassett said during the “Squawk Box” interview. “It’s, I think, the worst paper I’ve ever seen in the history of the Federal Reserve system. The people associated with this paper should presumably be disciplined, because what they’ve done is they’ve 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.”

As long as wage increases continue to outpace price increases — which they generally did in 2025, and one helluva quick turnaround from the Bidenflation years — Trump’s policies are working as intended, no matter what the Fed says.