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Hassett Briefs Reporters on Australia, Rare Earths and the Shutdown, Oct. 20, 2025

October 20, 2025 · Roll Call Factbase Videos · 0:03:10

Embedded from the source channel — never re-uploaded. Watch on YouTube

What happened

National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett spoke to reporters outside the White House on October 20, 2025, in Roll Call Factbase Videos’ recording. On the Australian prime minister’s visit that day, Hassett said the President does not believe decoupling is the right answer — the policy is de-risking, in Secretary Bessent’s term as Hassett cited it — and said Australia would be really helpful in making the global economy less exposed to what he called rare-earth extortion from China, because Australia is one of the best mining economies on earth with capable refiners and lots of rare earths, as he stated it.

On day 20 of the shutdown, Hassett said Senator Shaheen had come out Friday saying the government should open, that moderate Democrats were perhaps free to act after the weekend’s rally, and that Republicans had voted 13 times to keep the government open under President Biden — the Democrats, he said, needed to do their constitutional duty for President Trump rather than shutting the government down, as he stated it.

Why it matters

The gaggle pairs the de-risking doctrine applied to an ally’s visit — Australia as the rare-earths answer to China — with the White House’s day-20 shutdown argument as the moderates began to move.

Scoreboard watch

Scoreboard watch: the Australia rare-earths partnership framing and the shutdown position as Hassett stated them on October 20, 2025 — flagged for the scoreboard editors; the entry itself remains review-gated.

Sources: Roll Call Factbase Videos, ‘Press Briefing: Kevin Hassett Speaks to Reporters Outside the White House — October 20, 2025,’ October 20, 2025 (video i1RUQbiJARA); transcript via Supadata (private research store, paraphrased and attributed, never republished verbatim).