Maggie Haberman Hits Trump Over Stock Market: ‘Not Something That They Can Explain Away’

CNN commentator and New York Times White House correspondent Maggie Haberman told anchor Kaitlan Collins that President Donald Trump and his team can’t easily “explain away” a second straight week of cratering markets — and that Trump has no “clear strategy.”

The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped over a thousand points Monday and closed at -890 points amid fears fueled by Trump’s repeated refusal to rule out a recession over the weekend — first during a Fox News interview that aired Sunday morning and then during a press gaggle on Air Force One.

The plunge followed similar drops last week amid scattershot implementation of Trump’s trade policy.

On Monday night’s edition of CNN’s The Source with Kaitlan Collins, Haberman called out Trump’s history of touting the stock market when it suits him, and pushed back on the idea that the recession comments are part of some deliberate strategy:

COLLINS: When you look at, at the President’s schedule, obviously, basically every day, for the last several weeks, there have been multiple events. Even if they’re closed, the White House always opens up, typically, one of them, for the President to have the press come in. They ask him before that happens, and he makes the decision, really here, just to give people some insight into this.

How much do you think this decision today is due to what we saw happen with the stock market?

HABERMAN: I think certainly some of it is, Kaitlan.

This is not something that they can explain away very easily. This is the second week in a row, where there is a significant drop in the Dow Jones number. And as you said, this is something that Trump uses to measure his own success. It is also something that a lot of business leaders use to measure success.

And there has been a lot of private complaints, from allies, and from business leaders, privately, that people are getting an inconsistent message, from the President, about his policies, and about how he’s implementing his policies.

And so, him saying that he couldn’t rule out a recession, that’s logic, and that’s actually candid. But as you note, it was pretty striking for him, because usually it’s talking optimistically, or saying, the worst can’t happen.

COLLINS: Yes, he obviously chooses his words carefully, certainly when it comes to the economy, and predicting what his policies are going to lead to. And so, he seems to be wary of having a sound bite of him saying no recession, and there being a recession.

HABERMAN: Right.

COLLINS: But what does it say that there was no follow-up or caveat to that, about what this is going to look like, saying that the businesses are getting clarity, as he argued to Maria Bartiromo?

HABERMAN: Because I don’t think that he has a clear strategy, Kaitlan. I know that there’s a lot of theorizing about why he is doing what he’s doing. And some of the theories are that he is trying to force a recession, a la Regan, to try to get things out of the way. There’s other — there’s other theories out there that he wants (inaudible) the rates will drop. I don’t think any of that is why.

I think he is just, you know, he is a big believer in tariffs. He is — it’s the thing he has been talking about consistently, as a tool for leveling the economic playing field for 40 years, more than 40 years. So it shouldn’t surprise anybody that he is going ahead with it.

And unlike term one, there are not a ton of dissenting voices in his administration, who are against what he wants. People are either silent, or offering pretty mild pushback. He was unhappy, last week, with some of what his aides were saying in the press, about tariff exemptions. He wasn’t quite clear what he wanted to do.

I think he is not saying more, Kaitlan, because he’s not sure how this plays out, and he’s not going there.

Watch above via CNN’s The Source with Kaitlan Collins.