Speaker of the House of Representatives Mike Johnson joins Varney & Co. to criticize Republican leadership, the Supreme Court upholding Texas’ congressional map, the affordability issue and more.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent He expects the US to end the year with better-than-expected gross domestic product (GDP) growth of 3%.
Bessent appeared on Sunday CBS News’ “View of the Nation” and was asked by host Margaret Brennan whether President Donald Trump was wrong when he predicted this spring that Americans would buy “two dolls instead of the thirty dolls” and that “the two dolls might cost a few dollars more than normal.”
“The economy has been better than we thought,” Bessent responded.
“We have had GDP growth of 4-4% in a few quarters. We are going to end the year, despite Schumer’s shutdown, with real GDP growth of 3%,” the Treasury Secretary added.
FED expects a third direct interest rate cut this week
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent predicted that the US will end the year with GDP growth of 3%. (Eric Lee/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
The US economy was volatile in 2025 increases in rates and changes in immigration policy.
First-quarter GDP contracted 0.6%, partly driven by a surge in imports to prevent tariffs from taking effect.
In the second quarter, real GDP rose by 3.8% year-on-year from April to June, mainly reflecting a decline in imports, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA).
With that data, the U.S. economy had annualized growth of about 1.6% in the first half of 2025.
THE FED’S FAVORITE INFLATION GAUGE SHOWS CONSUMER PRICES REMAIN HIGH IN SEPTEMBER
Americans are pessimistic about the economy, amid high prices and persistent inflation. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
The federal government shutdown from October 1 to November 15 delayed the BEA’s release of third-quarter GDP data, with the initial estimate pushed back to December 23.
The Federal Reserve The Bank of Atlanta’s GDPNow estimate of third-quarter real GDP forecast third-quarter GDP to have risen 3.5% as of December 5. This would leave GDP at around 2.2% for the first three quarters of 2025.
Brennan also asked Bessent about polls showing that Americans disapprove of the Trump administration’s handling of the economy. issues like inflationand whether the government should show that it feels the pain of Americans who are struggling economically.
TRUMP CALLS AFFORDABILITY ‘A DEMOCRATIC SCAM’ AS INFLATION CONCERNS CONTINUES NATIONWIDE
The Minister of Finance criticized media reporting on the rise in inflation during the crisis Biden administration and said that “affordability has two components: there’s inflation, and then there’s real incomes. Real incomes have gone up about 1% and what we’re not going to do is say that Americans don’t know what they feel.”
“The Democrats created scarcities, whether it was in energy or over-regulation, which is why we are now seeing this affordability problem, and I think we will move toward prosperity next year,” Bessent said.
“I said the Biden administration has created the worst inflation in 50 years, and perhaps for working Americans the worst inflation of all time. And we have brought that number down,” he added.
The cconsumer price index (CPI)a popular inflation measure, fell to an annual rate of 2.3% in April, the lowest rate since 2021 and well below the four-decade high of 9.1% reached in June 2022.
GET FOX BUSINESS ON THE GO BY CLICKING HERE
However, inflation has recovered in recent months and reached 3% in September, the same level as in January.
