With the stock market tumbling, a weaker-than-expected jobs report last week, inflation rising, and President Donald Trump holding the threat of even worse tariffs as a sword of Damocles over the economy, he’s stuck trying to explain his inability to fulfill his campaign promise that “Starting on Day 1, we will end inflation and make America affordable again.”
And oh boy, it has been quite the ride.
On Thursday, Trump blamed the “globalists” for the stock market’s selloff.
And when in doubt, blame the Jews, which he did again in an interview that aired Friday.
On Monday, his staff blamed “animal spirits,” according to a Politico reporter. And if that makes no sense to you, it’s because it makes no sense, period.
Asked whether a recession was in the cards, Trump couldn’t deny it.
“I hate to predict things like that,” he said. “There is a period of transition because what we’re doing is very big. We’re bringing wealth back to America,” adding later, “It takes a little time, it takes a little time. But I think it should be great for us.”
And how long is “a little time”?
“You can’t really watch the stock market,” Trump said. “If you look at China, they have a 100-year perspective. We have a quarter. We go by quarters.”
That might be the greatest bait and switch in American political campaign history, from “lower prices on Day 1” to “100 years of economic pain.”
Funny enough, this is the same Trump who just a few weeks ago, at an investor conference, said, “Everyone is calling it the—I don't want to say this. It's too braggadocious, but we'll say it anyway, the Trump effect. It's you. You're the effect. Since the election, the stock market has surged, and small business optimism has soared.”
Democrats will be more than happy to call all this “the Trump effect.”
On Sunday night, aboard Air Force One, Trump was asked again about a potential recession and his refusal to answer the question recently. He responded, “All I know is this: We’re gonna take in hundreds of billions of dollars in tariffs and we’re gonna become so rich you’re not gonna know where to spend all that money, I’m telling you, you just watch! We’re gonna have jobs, we’re gonna have factories, it’s gonna be great.”
Does anyone want to try and make sense of that? Sure, grocery store shelves are emptied of eggs, but we will have so much money that we won’t know where to spend it! (Which in itself would be inflationary. …)
Never mind, don’t try to make sense of it. It makes none. One thing is for sure, however, and it’s that Trump isn’t particularly concerned about the economic pain Americans are experiencing at his hands. Check out this exchange during that Air Force One gaggle:
Q: What do you say to Americans who have seen their retirements accounts fall in recent day and are getting very nervous about these tariff conversations? TRUMP: Oh, I think the tariffs are going to be the greatest thing we’ve ever done as a country. It’s going to make our country rich again.
Trump can’t even pretend to show a hint of empathy for those affected by his policies. He’s a psychopath gleefully breaking the world economy while pretending there will be some glorious payoff on the other side.
Is it any surprise? Trump never pretended otherwise. He did say on the campaign trail, “I don’t care about you. I just want your vote.”
Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos
