NBC’s Kristen Welker Corners Trump’s Treasury Secretary on $6 Trillion Market Meltdown: Was This ‘The Plan?’

In a tense exchange on NBC’s Meet the Press Sunday, anchor Kristen Welker pressed Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on the economic fallout from President Trump’s new tariffs.

Welker specifically questioned Bissent as to whether the White House anticipated the staggering $6 trillion market plunge.

Thursday and Friday saw the Dow plunge 1,600 and 2,200 points for the worst two-day close since the beginning of the Covid pandemic. Uncertainty about President Donald Trump’s new tariffs has spooked investors.

Welker opened up her interview with Bissent by honing in on that uncertainty.

“Let’s start with the market reaction to President Trump’s announcement of his tariffs,” Welker said. “As I just laid out at the top of the program, the markets lost more than $6 trillion in value. Was this disruption always part of the plan, Mr. Secretary?”

Bessent responded, “The markets are organic animals. And you never know what the reaction is going to be.”

He went on to claim, “The market consistently underestimates Donald Trump.”

Welker pushed back, noting, “This was the biggest two-day crash since the pandemic. The president on Saturday urged people to “hang tough” saying it won’t be easy.

She asked, “How long are Americans going to have to hang tough?”

“I reject the assumption, there doesn’t have to be a recession,” Bessent said. “We’re looking at building long-term economic fundamentals.”

After noting Trump previously said Americans might feel short-term pain from his tariffs, Welker then asked Bissent, “Are we talking about weeks? Months? Years?”

Bessent likened the current economy to the early years of the Reagan administration.

“This has been years in the making,” he said. “This is a national security issue. President Trump has decided we cannot be at risk like that.”

Welker then asked Bissent what he could say to calm the 160 million Americans who own stocks.

“What is your message to Americans who want to retire right now and who’ve just seen their lifetime savings drop significantly?” she asked.

Bessent downplayed last week’s losses.

“That’s a false narrative,” he said.

He argued that a majority of Americans don’t look at their portfolios every day and argued despite last week’s major losses, the trading markets remain a “good investment.”

Watch above via NBC News.