Hassett go biography of barack obama

1:05 P.M. EST

     MS. LEAVITT:  Hello.  Good afternoon, everybody.  I brought some heavy hitters in here with me today. 

Today marks one month of President Trump’s return to the Oval Office, and there is no denying this administration is off to a historic start.  The President has already signed 73 executive orders.  That is more than double the number signed by Joe Biden and more than quadruple the number signed by Barack Obama over the same period.

These executive orders have ended burdensome regulations; sealed the border; unleashed our domestic energy sector; eliminated divisive DEI from our federal government; stopped the weaponization of government; cut waste, fraud, and abuse; reinstituted “America First” trade and foreign policies; and ultimately restored common sense. 

The President also signed the Laken Riley Act into law, which ensures ICE will detain illegal aliens arrested or charged with theft or violence. 

As of today, the Senate has already confirmed 18 Cabinet-level nominees, which is more than at this point under the Obama administration in 2009 and more than double the pace of the Biden administration in 2021. 

And today, we expect Kash Patel to be confirmed as the next director of the FBI. 

We are proud to announce that the president will host his first official Cabinet meeting here at the White House next Wednesday, February 26th. 

In just four weeks, President Trump has already hosted the leaders of Israel, Japan, Jordan, and India.  And next Monday, the President will host France’s President, Emmanuel Macron, and on Thursday, the UK Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, will visit the White House as well. 

As you all know, over the past month, the President has taken questions from the press — all of you — nearly e

American economist (born 1962)

Kevin Allen Hassett (born March 20, 1962) is an American economist who has been the Director of the National Economic Council since 2025. He was the senior advisor and chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers from 2017 to 2019. He coauthored Dow 36,000, published in 1999, which argued that the stock market was about to have a massive swing upward and would reach 36,000 by 2004. Shortly thereafter, the dot-com bubble burst, causing a massive decline in stock market prices. The Dow did not reach 36,000 until late 2021.

Hassett has worked at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservativethink tank. He was John McCain's chief economic adviser in the 2000 presidential primaries, as well as economic adviser to the 2004 campaign of George W. Bush and 2008 campaign of McCain. He was an economic adviser on Mitt Romney's 2012 presidential campaign.

In the Trump administration, Hassett was the 29th chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers from September 2017 to June 2019. He returned to the White House in 2020 to work on the administration's response to the coronavirus pandemic. Hassett did not focus on public health poli

>> Bill Whalen: It's Thursday, April 20, 2023, and welcome back to Matters of Policy and Politics, a Hoover Institution podcast devoted to governance and balance of power here in America and around the world. I'm Bill Whelan. I'm the Hoover Institution's Virginia Hobbes Carpenter distinguished policy fellow in journalism. But I'm not the only Hoover fellow who's podcasting these days.

I recommend you go to our website, which is hoover.org. Go to the tab at the top of the homepage. It says commentary, then head over to multimedia and up will pop 18, no excuse me, 17 audio podcasts and all, including matters of policy and politics, which is the top of the page.

Joining me today for a conversation about economics and a few other things on his mind is Kevin Hassett. Kevin is a Hoover Institution distinguished visiting fellow. He's also a former chair of the White House's Council of Economic Advisors, a post held by two Hoover Institution senior fellows, Michael Boskin and the late Eddie Lazier.

Kevin's also an accomplished author of books. He's written, including Dow 36,000, Bubble Ology, The amazing science of stock market bubbles, and most recently, the Drift: Stopping America's slides of socialism. That could never happen in America, Kevin.

>> Kevin Hassett: Yeah, we'll never stop it, probably.

>> Bill Whalen: Hey, thanks for coming on the podcast, my friend.

You and I may be the only two sober people in California at this hour, as it is literally 4:20 in the afternoon on 4:20 here, and people are out imbibing and having a rather good time. But let's talk about more serious matters, shall we?

>> Kevin Hassett: Absolutely.

>> Bill Whalen: So we're gonna start with something not economic here, Kevin, and I think it's appropriate, seeing as you and I are children of the new frontier, ultimately.

You mentioned the other day you happen to run

Nope, not an Onion headline. Kevin Hassett, co-author of Dow 36,000 — which proffered exactly the sort of advice that you might reasonably infer from its title — has now penned a column accusing Barack Obama of deliberately attempting to sabotage the economy.

It is no wonder that markets are imploding around us. Obama is giving us the War on Business.

Imagine that some hypothetical enemy state spent years preparing a “Manchurian Candidate” to destroy the U.S. economy once elected. What policies might that leader pursue?

He might discourage private capital from entering the financial sector by instructing his Treasury secretary to repeatedly promise a brilliant rescue plan, but never actually have one. Private firms, spooked by the thought of what government might do, would shy away from transactions altogether. If the secretary were smooth and played rope-a-dope long enough, the whole financial sector would be gone before voters could demand action.

To review, Dow 36,000 came out in October, 1999, within months of the tippy-top peak of the tech bubble … this is when stocks were as overvalued as at literally any time in American history, including the Roaring 20’s — and Hassett was telling you to double — nay, triple-down on them! It would be hard to identify an individual who better embodied the phrase “irrational exuberance” — well, maybe the Pets.com sock puppet — or who destroyed more wealth with charlatanic financial advice.

And this guy thinks it’s all some big conspiracy against him. Literally.

Wall Street needs to get its house in order. A big reason for the financial crisis is because of market failures — the country had to endure the weight of two consecutive bubbles, first in tech stocks and then in housing. Another big reason is because the Fed kept interest rates much lower than they ought to have been. There were a number of reasons for that, but the fact that the NASDAQ