‘Trump Always Chickens Out’ Goes Back Further Than You Think — Started On MSNBC

The derisive Wall Street acronym TACO — “Trump Always Chickens Out” — kicked around for almost a month before it grabbed President Donald Trump’s attention this week — and actually began its media life on MSNBC.

“TACO” broke big this week when the New York Post ran an item about investors embracing the “TACO trade” strategy to outsmart Trump’s chaotic market-roiling tariff policies.

Less than a day later, CNBC Washington Correspondent Megan Cassella got attacked during an Oval Office event for asking Trump about the strategy.

Financial Times columnist Robert Armstrong has gotten credit for coining the term — which he first talked about four weeks ago. Armstrong was a guest on the May 1 edition of MSNBC’s Deadline: White House, during which he laid it out for host Nicolle Wallace:

NICOLLE WALLACE: I am endlessly interested in that category of humans and leaders and small business owners and voters.

People who thought they could put aside the democracy mumbo jumbo because Trump would make them richer. Trump is going to make everyone poorer.

ROBERT ARMSTRONG: Well, I think what Wall Street is hoping, and we have talked about this a little bit in the past, Wall Street’s hoping that Trump is ultimately going to back down on the tariffs.

And we have had a pretty sharp rally on Wall Street in the last couple of weeks. We have bounced almost to the level we were at before Liberation Day.

And I think that’s people looking at this pattern where the going gets tough, either in markets or in the economy, or the popularity ratings fall. And Trump gives concessions or folds.

And I think that’s what’s driving what optimism there is on Wall Street.

I have an acronym for this, which is TACO. Trump always chickens out. And I think the TACO trade is what is driving Wall Street up recently. Steve may see it differently, but that’s my reading.

Watch above via MSNBC’s Deadline: White House.