Trump Economist Says US Debt the ‘Safest Bet on Earth,’ Calls Moody’s Downgrade Backward-Looking

White House National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett doesn’t agree with Moody’s downgrade of the US credit rating.

Hassett says in a new interview with Fox Business that US debt “is the safest bet on Earth.”

“There’s no country’s debt that I’d rather have than the United States’, and so Moody’s can do what it wants to. As Secretary Bessent said, it’s a backward-looking thing, penalizing us for all the reckless spending of the Biden Administration. But we’re cutting spending, we’re deregulating, we’ve got supply-side growth, and so we’ve got every reason in the world to believe that we’re going to have the best economy on Earth. And if you have the best economy on Earth, you’re going to have the best debt on Earth too.”

Moody’s downgraded America’s credit rating from AAA to AA1 while changing the country’s outlook from negative to stable. The credit rating agency cited the United States’ soaring national debt and interest payment ratios that exceed those of other countries with the same credit rating.

The decision stripped the US of its final Triple-A credit rating: in 2011, Standard & Poor’s (S&P) lowered the US rating from AAA to AA+ due to concerns over the government’s inability to address rising debt levels. In 2023, Fitch Ratings followed suit, citing persistent budget deficits and political infighting as key drivers of the downgrade.