CNN Analyst Alyssa Farah Griffin Says ‘TACO’ Taunt Is Actually a Win for Trump

CNN political analyst Alyssa Farah Griffin argued that the derisive Wall Street acronym TACO — “Trump Always Chickens Out” — is actually a “win” for President Donald Trump.

“Trump Always Chickens Out” 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 was attacked during an Oval Office event for asking Trump about the strategy.

But on Friday’s edition of CNN News Central, Griffin — a Never-Trumper who has moved in the direction of more balanced commentary on the president — said the net effect of the TACO trades has been a positive for Trump, protecting the market from his volatile moves:

JOHN BERMAN: Now, Alyssa, I’m really curious because you’ve been there in this White House or in the White House with this president before. He’s caught in between some different waves here. I mean, he has good political sense and he knows that he’s benefited politically the last few weeks backing off the tariffs a little bit. But he hates being ridiculed and you have people now talking about taco trays, Trump always chickens out with these tariffs. And then you have his willingness and desire to fight the judges. I wonder where you think this might be headed for him.

ALYSSA FARAH GRIFFIN: So Trump was handed three huge political wins this week, if he can accept them and just take the win.

The first, Elon Musk leaving, somebody whose approval rating is 37%. People do not like the DOGE cuts. They think that they’re reckless. They’re all for cutting waste, fraud, and abuse, but they felt like they didn’t know what he was cutting. That’s a win for this White House.

Secondly, this ruling from the courts. These tariffs have been disastrous. People are already feeling the impact of them. And this is the graceful off-ramp that I think some around the president were trying to, we’re kind of hoping was going to happen. Because his entire legislative agenda and economic agenda is gonna be dragged down if these tariffs stay in place as they were.

And then finally, TACO, he’s going to hate this. We all know what we saw, how he reacted to the reporter’s question.

But that is huge that Wall Street traders have actually learned how to sort of call Trump’s bluff. So he’s not able to cause this sort of market volatility that we saw in the first few months.

Those are all good things in the long run for Donald Trump’s economy and for his future agenda. But all of them look like losses, but actually are wins if he can simply take the win.

JOHN BERMAN: There’s some irony here, but that last question you pose is one of the big ones. Can he take, you know, what could be a win?

Watch above via CNN News Central.