Hassett sees no rate-hike excuse after CPI surprise, says Warsh will bring Fed to right answer

A consumer price index reading that came in much lower than expected gave Kevin Hassett a platform on CNBC to argue the Federal Reserve has no "excuse" to raise rates. Hassett credited President Donald Trump's policies for the softer inflation print and said Kevin Warsh will push the Fed toward the "right answer."

The CPI print as Hassett reads it

The latest CPI figure landed well below expectations. Hassett, speaking on CNBC, did not treat the result as coincidence. The credit, in his telling, belongs to President Trump's policies, and that attribution underpins the rate argument he made: if inflation is falling because of deliberate policy choices, tightening into that trend requires a justification he says does not exist.

The word he chose was "excuse." Not reason, not basis. Excuse sets a threshold the data would have to clear before a hike becomes defensible, and in Hassett's reading nothing in this print clears it.

Warsh and what comes next at the Fed

Hassett's second argument points to Kevin Warsh. He said Warsh will push the Federal Reserve to the "right answer" on rates. That framing positions Warsh as someone expected to move the institution in a specific direction, one the administration holds to be correct and the current Fed posture is not.

The phrase "right answer" implies there is a wrong one already in place. Hassett's pairing of the CPI miss with the Warsh reference binds the data argument to the personnel question directly.

What to watch

Formal Fed guidance after this CPI print is the next definitive marker. Whether Warsh takes on a position of influence within the institution is a separate question that would sharpen the rate setup considerably. The tape has Hassett's CNBC read on record: a CPI print the White House attributes to Trump's policies, and no "excuse" visible in that data to raise rates.