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Hassett Briefs Reporters on the Shutdown's GDP Cost, Nov. 7, 2025

November 7, 2025 · Roll Call Factbase Videos · 0:02:45

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 November 7, 2025, in Roll Call Factbase Videos’ recording. Hassett said the shutdown had lasted long enough that the stopgaps were running into blocks — disruptions in air traffic control and permitting throughout the economy — and put the drag, as he stated it, at a one to one-and-a-half percent reduction in GDP growth this quarter, roughly cutting growth in half, an estimate he said Wall Street firms were making and the Council of Economic Advisers was now looking at as well.

Asked whether the lost growth could be recovered, Hassett said there should be a big bounce back right away once the government reopened, because unpaid federal pay would be made up and counted in the following quarter, and because workers who were not being paid were not spending at restaurants and elsewhere in the meantime, as he stated it. On the mood inside the White House, he said the view was that the Democrats thought they would slow the agenda down and would not — the staff was working every day so it would be ready with more proposals than Congress dreamed imaginable when it reopened, as he stated it.

Why it matters

The gaggle prices the shutdown at its longest point — a point to a point and a half off the quarter, in the NEC’s own estimate — and lays out the mechanical bounce-back case the administration made when the reopening came.

Scoreboard watch

Scoreboard watch: the shutdown GDP estimate as Hassett stated it on November 7, 2025 — a 1 to 1.5 percentage-point reduction in the quarter’s growth — 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 — November 7, 2025,’ November 7, 2025 (video dxeesVBUBfw); transcript via Supadata (private research store, paraphrased and attributed, never republished verbatim).