White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett isn't sure why Trump made a false claim about the economy on Twitter

White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett on Monday contradicted a claim President Trump tweeted about the economy, saying somebody must have given him wrong information.

Early Monday, the president tweeted that for the first time in 100 years, the nation's GDP is higher than its unemployment rate. But that's not true; as CNN and The Washington Post both quickly pointed out, it happened 12 years ago, in 2006.

During the White House press briefing Monday afternoon, Hassett surprisingly acknowledged that what the president tweeted was wrong. While he said he doesn't know exactly how incorrect information ended up on Trump's Twitter account, he speculated that somebody probably meant to tell him that it had been 10 years but they accidentally added an extra zero. He added, "You'd have to talk to the president about where the number came from, but the correct number is 10 years."

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

This was a rare instance of a member of the Trump administration offering a correction after the president tweeted out a false statement. In fact, Hassett suggested that he's grateful the press pointed out the mistake. You can watch the moment from this afternoon's press briefing below. Brendan Morrow