Fox News’ Chris Wallace called a passionate tout of the American economy by White House chief economic adviser Larry Kudlow during an interview Sunday a “campaign speech.”
The dig raised the specter of a Hatch Act campaigning violation just weeks after a federal ethics official called for the firing of White House adviser Kellyanne Conway for relentlessly and illegally promoting her boss and bashing Democrats in press interviews.
Wallace asked Kudlow about attacks in the Democratic primary debates about the economy that Donald Trump takes credit for is inequitably benefiting the wealthiest in the nation. That’s when a revved-up Kudlow took off and running, saying he couldn’t “understand what planet” the Democrats were describing — as Wallace tried to ask a follow-up question. Kudlow claimed that “blue collar workers are doing the best.”
Finally, in frustration, Wallace said: “Let me interrupt your campaign speech ... there is clearly a stark income inequality in this country.”
Kudlow snapped: “It’s not a campaign speech. I’m citing facts and figures, my friend.”
In fact, by 2027, the richest 1% of Americans will reap 83% of the benefits of Trump’s tax cut law (as taxes actually increase for those in the lowest two quintiles), according to a report by the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center. And while top executives have collected record payouts and corporations have used their 40% tax cuts to buy back record numbers of shares in their own companies, middle-class wages have increased only modestly. CEO pay jumped 7% last year, compared with a 3% increase for the typical worker at one of the top 500 U.S corporations.
Check out the Fox clip up top.
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