Trump Torpedoes Stock Market Concerns After Years of Touting Gains — Now Favors ‘100-Year Perspective’ on Economy
President Donald Trump waved away concerns about the stock market after years of touting it as a gauge of success — instead praising the “100-year perspective” that he says China uses.
The stock market tanked after Trump’s tariffs took effect last week, leading to some whiplash-inducing shifts and voluminous criticism from across the spectrum.
Trump raised eyebrows with comments he made to Fox News host Maria Bartiromo in an interview that aired on this week’s edition of Fox News Channel’s Sunday Morning Futures in which he refused to rule out a recession.
But elsewhere in that interview, Bartiromo pressed him about the stock market turmoil that accompanied the tariff moves. Trump — who has spent years using the stock market as a gauge of his own success — suddenly declared “you can’t really watch the stock market”:
BARTIROMO: Before you came into the Oval Office the first time, you were a very successful businessman, very successful real estate executive. And a lot of people said, oh, this is the business president. This is it. He’s watching the stock market. He knows all about — he doesn’t want the market to go down.
And now we have got tariffs, and the market has been going down.
TRUMP: Well, not much, I mean, in all fairness, not much.
BARTIROMO: You said, look, we’re going to have a disruption, but we’re OK with that. Is that what you meant? The stock market going down was the disruption?
TRUMP: There will be a little disruption.
BARTIROMO: What other disruption were you alluding to?
TRUMP: Look, what I have to do is build a strong country. You can’t really watch the stock market.
If you look at China, they have a 100-year perspective. We have a quarter. We go by quarters.
BARTIROMO: That’s true.
TRUMP: And you can’t go by that. You have to do what’s right.
What we’re doing is, we’re building a tremendous foundation for the future, tremendous foundation. Everything’s been taken away. We don’t make ships anymore.
Watch above via Fox News Channel’s Sunday Morning Futures.
