Kevin Hassett Credits Administration’s Bird Flu Fix for Falling Costs
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| Samuel Corum / Sipa / Bloomberg - Image by: dailywire |
Kevin Hassett, Director of the National Economic Council, took a victory lap outside the White House on Thursday, March 20, 2025, touting a steep decline in egg prices and swatting down a reporter’s skepticism with a blunt, “Go to the grocery store.” The exchange unfolded as Hassett fielded questions about a Trump administration initiative, led alongside Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, to tackle a bird flu outbreak that spiked egg prices late in the Biden administration.
“Yeah, they’re down $2.50 a dozen,” Hassett declared, tying the drop to his weekend shopping trips. “I went to the grocery store, as I do every Saturday, because I’m the one who likes to shop at my family—I get to see all the prices. And the egg prices in D.C. were actually down quite a bit more than $2.50 a dozen.” He pegged the turnaround to a policy shift since President Trump’s January 20 inauguration, claiming culling of chickens—a drastic measure from Biden’s final months—has “gone almost to zero.”
Hassett pointed to data he said showed a halt in mass chicken slaughters, a stark contrast to the “more than 100 million chickens” culled at a $2 billion cost under Biden. “It’s astonishing how many chickens were killed in the last two months of the Biden administration,” he said, crediting Rollins’ “more prudent policy” for healthier flocks and cheaper eggs. “By having a more prudent Secretary of Agriculture, we got lower egg prices and healthier chickens.”
The mood shifted when a second reporter pressed him on a potential gap between wholesale and retail prices. “We’ve seen wholesale prices go down, but it’s not always reflected in the grocery stores,” they challenged. Hassett didn’t flinch. “For the latest egg prices, go to the grocery store,” he shot back. “Like I literally just went to the grocery and bought the same eggs I always buy, and they were way down.”
The back-and-forth underscores the administration’s push to claim credit for easing a crisis that had egg prices soaring, a problem rooted in a late-2024 bird flu surge. Hassett’s grocery-store zinger doubled as a dodge and a flex—proof, he implied, lies in the aisles, not the headlines.