Moody’s Chief Mark Zandi Tells CNN Trump Is Tanking ‘Rip-Roaring Economy’ He Inherited — Headed For ‘Recession By Design’

Moody’s Analytics Chief Economist Mark Zandi told CNN anchor Rahel Solomon that President Donald Trump inherited a “rip-roaring economy” that he’s now on course to take into a “recession by design.”

The economy has been roiled as fears fueled by Trump’s repeated refusal to rule out the possibility of an impending recession and policies like his whiplash tariff war and mass deportations have created uncertainty and cratered the stock market.

On Wednesday’s edition of CNN’s Early Start, Solomon asked Zandi to weigh in on what he expects from the economy as markets await Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell’s decision on interest rates.

Zandi noted “the economy came into the year rip-roaring, exceptionally strong,” and echoed CNBC’s Jim Cramer in saying that Trump is steering the country into a recession of his own creation:

SOLOMON: Fair point that he will be guarded, as he often is, maybe even especially so now. We can safely assume that he will be asked by reporters about what they’re seeing in terms of a possible recession. Mark, hopefully you can be less guarded with us. What are your expectations? What do you see?

ZANDI: Yes, I’ll do my best, Rahel. I have no loss for words when it comes to the economy. Look, the recession risks are uncomfortably high and they’re rising. I think they’re less than 50-50, but it really does depend on the president and what he does here. You know, I think if he continues to push on the tariffs, like, for example, right now, there’s a lot of talk about reciprocal tariffs. That’s broad-based tariffs coming into effect in a couple weeks, I think, early up April.

If that actually happens and those tariffs stay in place for any length of time, a couple, three, four, five months, I think that’s enough to push the economy into recession, given everything else that’s going on. So, you know, this would be — this would be a really weird recession, right? I mean, it’s recession by design.

You know, the economy came into the year rip-roaring, exceptionally strong, and we’re pushing it in because of policy. It just doesn’t feel like, you know, that’s the direction we need to go. So I suspect the president and the administration at some point will say, OK, enough already. But, you know, I don’t see that with confidence, and those recession risks are high.

SOLOMON: Yes. What do you think it would take to get to that point? I mean, do we see — will it require a significant weakening in the labor market? I mean, what do you think it will take to sort of shift policy, at least from the White House?

ZANDI: Well, let me say, I don’t think it will take a lot, right, because confidence is very fragile. You can see it in the consumer sentiment surveys. You can see it among businesspeople, you know, all the surveys of businesses and their capital spending plans, you know, the investments they plan to make, they’re all pulling back.

You can see it, obviously, in the stock market, investor sentiment. So, you know, I think the collective psyche is very, very fragile, and it wouldn’t take a lot to push it at this point. So, you know, if the tariffs actually are put into place, if we see — well, it wouldn’t take a lot to push it at this point.

So, you know, if the tariffs actually are put into place, if we see big cuts to government funding in a very short period of time, if there’s significant mass deportation that disrupts labor markets, you know, many parts of the economy depend on immigrant labor, construction, manufacturing, that might be enough to push the collective psyche over the edge and push us into recession.

Because at the end of the day, Rahel, recession is a loss of faith. You know, we lose faith that we’re going to be able to hold on to our job and businesses are going to be able to sell what they produce.

Watch above via CNN’s Early Start.