WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump’s top economist on Wednesday urged that Federal Reserve economists be punished for research last week that showed American companies and consumers paying for nearly all the new tariffs imposed by the White House last year.

“The paper is an embarrassment,” Kevin Hassett, director of the White House’s National Economic Council said in an interview on CNBC. “It’s the worst paper I’ve ever seen in the history of the Federal Reserve system. The people associated with this paper should presumably be disciplined.”

Hassett’s comments represent the latest attack from the Trump administration on the Fed, which has traditionally been independent of day-to-day politics. It also suggests the White House remains sensitive to concerns about rising costs for groceries, housing, and big-ticket items such as furniture and cars, as surveys show Americans remain disgruntled about the economy.

Several other studies have reached similar conclusions as the New York Fed, including one by economists at Harvard and the University of Chicago; a separate report by the Kiel Instituta German think tank; and a report last week by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s study, published last weekfound U.S. businesses and consumers are paying nearly 90% of the tariffs that Trump has imposed. Average tariffs on imports have risen from 2.6% at the beginning of last year to 13% at the end of the year, the economists found.

Since U.S. importers pay the tariffs to the U.S. Treasury, the main way overseas companies would bear the burden of the costs — as the Trump administration has said they do — would be if they ate the cost of the tariffs by lowering the price they charged to importers.

The New York Fed research found that foreign exporters have only slightly lowered their prices, by much less than tariffs have increased, leaving U.S. importers bearing the cost of the tariffs.

This isn’t the first time the White House has attacked economists for concluding that Americans are paying the tariffs or will soon do so. Last August, the chief economist at Goldman Sachs projected that Americans would pay an increasing share of the tariffs over time. Trump responded by calling on David Solomon, the CEO of Goldman Sachs, to fire the economist.

It’s true that overall inflation hasn’t risen as much as many economists expected from the tariffs, though that is in part because Trump has delayedreduced, rolled back, or allowed exemptions to many of the duties. But the cost of many goods, including furniture, appliances, and tools has risen in the past year after the duties were imposed.

Both General Motors and Ford, for example, have said they have paid billions of dollars in tariff costs. Last fall GM said it expected to pay $3.5 billion to $4.5 billion in tariffs in 2025, while Ford said it paid $800 million in just the second quarter.

Overall, the government has received nearly $100 billion in tariff revenue since October, more than it received in all of the 2024 budget year.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Food and Drug Administration plans to drop its longtime standard of requiring two rigorous studies to win approval for new drugs, the latest change from Trump administration officials vowing to speed up the availability of certain medical products.

Going forward, the FDA’s “default position” will be to require one study for new drugs and other novel health products, FDA Commissioner Dr. Marty Macary and a top deputy, Dr. Vinay Prasadwrote in a New England Journal of Medicine piece published Wednesday.

The announcement is the latest example of Makary and his team changing longstanding FDA standards and procedures with the stated goal of slashing bureaucracy and accelerating the availability of new medicines.

Since arriving at the agency last April, Makary has launched a series of directives that he says will shorten FDA reviews, including mandating the use of artificial intelligence by staffers and offering one-month drug assessments for new medications that serve “national interests.”

It contrasts with the FDA’s more restrictive approach to other products, including vaccines.

In their piece published Wednesday, Makary and Prasad state that dropping the two-trial requirement reflects modern advances that have made drug research “increasingly precise and scientific.”

“In this setting, overreliance on two trials no longer makes sense,” they write. “In 2026 there are powerful alternative ways to feel assured that our products help people live longer or better than requiring manufacturers to test them yet again.”

The FDA officials predicted the shift would lead to “a surge in drug development.”

Dr. Janet Woodcock, the FDA’s former drug director, said the change makes sense and reflects the FDA’s decades-long move toward relying on one trial, combined with supporting evidence, for various life-threatening diseases, including cancer.

“The scientific point is well taken that as we move toward greater understanding of biology and disease we don’t need to do two trials all the time,” said Woodcock, who led the FDA’s drug center for about 20 years before retiring in 2024.

The two-study standard for drugs dates to the early 1960s, when Congress passed a law requiring the FDA to review data from “adequate and well-controlled investigations,” before clearing new medications. For decades, the agency interpreted that requirement as meaning at least two studies, preferably with a large number of patients and significant follow-up time.

The reason for requiring the second study was to confirm that the first trial’s results weren’t a fluke and could be reproduced.

But beginning in the 1990s, the FDA increasingly began accepting single studies for the approval of treatments for rare or fatal diseases that companies often struggle to test in large numbers of patients.

Over the last five years, roughly 60% of first-of-a-kind drugs approved each year have been cleared based on a single study. The shift reflects laws passed by Congress that directed regulators to be more flexible when reviewing drugs for serious or hard-to-treat conditions.

Woodcock said the new policy announced Wednesday will mainly impact drugs for common diseases that previously weren’t eligible for reduced testing standards.

“It’s not the cancers and the rare diseases that will be affected by this,” she noted. “The agency has been approving those on a single trial already.”

The latest approach from FDA leadership contrasts with the agency’s recent actions on vaccines, gene therapies and other treatments.

Last week, the FDA’s vaccine division, headed by Prasad, refused to accept Moderna’s application for a new mRNA flu shot, saying its clinical trial was insufficient. Then on Wednesday the agency reversed coursesaying it would review the vaccine after Moderna agreed to conduct an additional study in older people.

Separately, Prasad has rejected a string of experimental gene therapies and biotech drugs, citing the need for additional studies or more definitive evidence. The trend has weighed on the stocks of many biotech companies and clashed with Makary’s public statements promoting the speed and flexibility of the FDA’s reviews.

Woodcock said the drug industry will have to wait and see whether the FDA’s approach to promising experimental therapies changes.

“Implementation will be everything,” she said. “Since the agency’s approach is unclear, and the industry is already baffled, I don’t think this adds any illumination.”

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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Stephen Colbert’s comments that network executives pulled his interview with Democratic Texas Senate candidate James Talarico over fears it would violate regulatory guidance from the Trump administration has prompted a conversation about the rules governing how media outlets treat political coverage.

The concern about the interviewwhich the late-night host referenced in his Monday night show and later posted in full online, stems from a requirement that broadcast stations give equal time to political candidates when they appear on-air.

Although there are multiple exemptions to the provision, the Trump administration through the Federal Communications Commission — which regulates the nation’s airwaves — has been moving to clamp down specifically on programs like Colbert’s, which the agency has suggested may be “motivated by partisan purposes.”

“He was supposed to be here, but we were told in no uncertain terms by our network’s lawyers, who called us directly, that we could not have him on the broadcast,” Colbert said on his program, ”The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.”

In a statement issued Tuesday, CBS said Colbert’s show “was provided legal guidance that the broadcast could trigger the FCC equal-time rule for two other candidates” in the March 3 Democratic primary, “and presented options for how the equal time for other candidates could be fulfilled.” Thereafter, the network noted, it was decided “to present the interview through its YouTube channel with on-air promotion on the broadcast rather than potentially providing the equal-time options.”

Talarico, a critic of President Donald Trump, posted a nearly minute-long clip of his interview with Colbert on X and called it “the interview Donald Trump didn’t want you to see.”

What does equal time mean?

The Communications Act of 1934, the wide-ranging legislation that for nearly a century has broadly governed use of the nation’s airwaves, includes a provision that applies specifically to coverage of political candidates. If a station gives airtime to one candidate, then the same station must offer comparable time to other candidates competing in the given contest, should they ask for it.

It also delves into campaign advertising airtime sold by stations and networks. If a station sells airtime to one candidate, then it also has to offer to sell the same amount of time to other candidates for the same office.

There are exceptions to this rule, including newscasts, “bona fide” interview programs, coverage of live events or documentaries. But if candidates host TV shows or appear in non-news, entertainment programming, that does trigger the provision.

Equal time also only applies to broadcast television and radio. So pieces on cable, streaming services or social media aren’t included.

How the Trump administration has treated equal time

The rule requiring networks to give equal time to political candidates hasn’t traditionally been applied to talk shows, but the Trump administration has made moves to change that.

In January, the Federal Communications Commission issued new guidance warning late-night and daytime hosts that they need to give political candidates equal time, with FCC Chairman Brendan Carr questioning the talk show exemption and positing that hosts were “motivated by partisan purposes.”

“The FCC has not been presented with any evidence that the interview portion of any late night or daytime television talk show program on air presently would qualify for the bona fide news exemption,” according to the public notice.

FCC eyes talk shows like ‘The View’

The notice also said that television networks would need to apply for exemptions for individual programs.

In his comments, Colbert noted that the equal time provision applies to broadcast but not streaming platforms. Subsequently, his nearly 15-minute interview with Talarico was posted to the YouTube page for Colbert’s show, with the host noting specifically that the segment was only appearing online and not on broadcast.

Carr, appointed by Trump to lead the agency last year, has often criticized network talk shows, suggesting last year that probing ABC’s “The View” — whose hosts have frequently been critical of Trump — over the exemption might be “worthwhile.”

The FCC did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment Tuesday.

What about the Fairness Doctrine?

Created by the FCC in 1949, this rule mandated that broadcasters present contrasting viewpoints when covering publicly important and controversial issues. Unlike the equal time provision of the Communications Act, this was an FCC rule, not a law.

It didn’t apply specifically to political candidates, but topics. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the doctrine on a First Amendment challenge in 1969, with the court writing that the limited availability of broadcast spectrum justified regulation.

In 1987, the FCC repealed the rule, arguing that spectrum scarcity was no longer an issue, and then-President Ronald Reagan vetoed Congress’ attempt to codify it into law.

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Associated Press reporter David Bauder contributed to this report.

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Kinnard can be reached at http://x.com/MegKinnardAP