Trump Adviser Says Record-Low Consumer Sentiment Is Basically POTUS' Fault for Caring Too Much

White House National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett has offered a striking explanation for why American consumer confidence has fallen to its lowest point since records began in 1952 — suggesting the reading reflects not economic failure, but the sheer ambition of President Donald Trump's agenda.

In a clip posted to X by FactPost on 11 May 2026, Hassett told CNBC: 'Trump has sort of taken every problem on Earth and gone 100% at fixing it. And I think that that can be stressful for people to see so much change going on.' The remark came as University of Michigan consumer survey data showed confidence falling to a preliminary reading of 48.2, the lowest on records going back more than seven decades, surpassing lows seen during the Great Recession, the pandemic, and the post-Covid inflation surge.

A Record Nobody Wanted

The University of Michigan's survey director, Joanne Hsu, pointed to two clear culprits. 'About one-third of consumers spontaneously mentioned gasoline prices and about 30% mentioned tariffs,' she said. 'Taken together, consumers continue to feel buffeted by cost pressures, led by soaring prices at the pump.'

The numbers behind that misery are stark. According to an NPR/PBS News/Marist poll published on 6 May, more than 8 in 10 Americans said current petrol prices are a strain on their household budgets — including 79 per cent of Republicans. The same poll found that 55 per cent of Americans believe the economy no longer works for them, the highest number recorded in the poll's history. Just 35 per cent approved of Trump's handling of the economy, tied for the lowest mark ever recorded in the survey.

The strain is being felt unevenly but widely. An ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos poll found that 4 in 10 Americans say they are not as well off as they were when Trump returned to office in January 2025, with nearly a quarter saying they are falling behind financially. Among those hit hardest are white non-college women, at 72 per cent, those earning under $50,000 (£36,824) a year, at 71 per cent, and millennials, at 69 per cent, according to the NPR/Marist data.

What It Costs at the Pump

The national average price for a gallon of petrol has been stuck above $4 (£2.96) for weeks, driven by the ongoing closure of the Strait of Hormuz following the US-Israeli conflict with Iran. Petrol prices have surged more than 30 per cent since the war began, according to AAA, and a majority of Americans surveyed by CNBC said they expect higher prices to last at least six months. Nearly 80 per cent of respondents to that same CNBC All-America Economic Survey said they had already changed their spending habits in response.

A Pew Research Center survey conducted in late March found that higher petrol prices were the single outcome Americans were most concerned about from the Iran war, cited ahead of fears about ground troops, military casualties, and terrorist attacks on US soil.

'The Last of Our Concerns'

This is not the first time Hassett has drawn criticism for downplaying the strain on ordinary Americans. In March, he told CNBC that consumer pain resulting from the Iran conflict was 'the last of our concerns right now,' insisting the administration was confident the war would end on schedule. The comments were met with immediate backlash from Democratic lawmakers and media commentators.

His latest framing is unlikely to land much better. Financial market economist Oren Klachkin of Nationwide wrote in an analyst note following the May sentiment release: 'In sharp contrast to investors, consumers feel miserable right now. It's hard to see a path for sentiment to rebound at least until gasoline prices start coming down on a sustained basis.' Appliance maker Whirlpool also missed analyst expectations in its first-quarter results, with CFO Roxanne Warner telling Yahoo Finance that demand had 'reached recession-level lows,' directly citing weak consumer confidence.

Consumer sentiment data is widely regarded as a leading indicator of household spending, which accounts for roughly two-thirds of the US economy. Economists have warned that while oil prices may dip later in 2026, they are likely to remain above pre-war levels throughout the year, with the Personal Consumption Expenditures price index potentially hitting 4 per cent by year's end — double the Federal Reserve's target rate. Whether the White House's framing holds politically may depend on whether petrol prices fall before the damage to household budgets becomes impossible to spin.