Appearing on the CBS News program “Face the Nation” with Margaret Brennan, top Trump administration official Kevin Hassett, the National Economic Council Director, sounded off on the Biden Administration’s strategy for combatting avian flu, blaming its chicken-killing strategy for rising egg prices.
Beginning, Mr. Hassett noted that the Biden Administration ordered the mass culling of “random” chickens, saying, “Yeah, so- so again, the- the Biden plan was to just, you know, kill chickens, and they spent billions of dollars just randomly killing chickens within a perimeter where they found a sick chicken.”
Continuing, he explained how his own experience with grocery shopping has led to his understanding of and continued noticing of the egg price and scarcity issue, saying, “And so you go- I just went to the grocery store. I shop for our family, in part because I love to look at prices. And there were no eggs at the store yesterday, just a few.”
He then returned to blaming the Biden Administration for what had happened, saying, “And- and so that happened because they killed all the chickens. And so what we need to do is have better ways, with biosecurity and medication and so on, to make sure that the perimeter doesn’t have to kill the chickens. Have a better, smarter perimeter.”
Then, changing tacks, Mr. Hassett explained what the Trump Administration is doing differently, saying, “And so having a smart perimeter is what we’re working on, and we’re finalizing the ideas about how to do that with the best scientists in government. And that’s the kind of thing that should have happened a year ago, and if it had, then egg prices would be, you know, a lot better than they are now. But the avian flu is a real thing–” Interrupting, Brennan said, “Yes.”
Mr. Hassett then told her, “and by the way, it’s spread mostly by ducks and geese. And so- think about it, they’re killing chickens to stop the spread, but chickens don’t really fly. The- the spread is happening from the geese and the ducks. And so, why does it make any sense to have a big perimeter of dead chickens, when it’s the- the ducks and the geese that are spreading it?” Watch him here:
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Brennan then tried to move on, obviously frustrated at his excellent rebuttal of the egg price talking point Democrats are using. She said, “Well, the Department of Agriculture policy has been to kill those chickens, as you know, but we’ll watch the details of that. But let’s get back to something the president said. Higher interest rates, as you know, are part of that battle against inflation that the Federal Reserve has been waging, but this past week, the President called for interest rates to be lowered. Why does he think that’s going to lower your grocery prices?”
Hassett told her, “Well, first of all, I- I want to say that- I, just this weekend, have arranged to begin, once again, regular lunches with Jay Powell at the Federal Reserve. And Jay and I have a long and collegial relationship, and I’m going to go over there with him and the other governors. So we’re going to talk about our views about what’s going on, and listen to his and that collegiality has been going on for four years when I was here before, and the President very much values that.”
Featured image credit: screengrab from the embedded video