Joe Kernen Brutally Roasts Trump Adviser Over Tariff Policy Amid Global Financial Panic: ‘Universally Derided’ as ‘Non-Serious’

CNBC’s Joe Kernen brutally roasted Trump adviser Peter Navarro over the administration’s implementation of its trade policy on Monday morning, declaring that it had been “universally derided as being non-serious” during a testy interview.

President Donald Trump’s imposition of sweeping tariffs on countries around the world last week have sent the stock market into a freefall and inspired fears of a global recession, but Trump and his team have nevertheless remained steadfast in their position that the tariffs will yield a new American golden age.

On Monday, Navarro held the line after Kernen declared that there had been “tumult in the markets” and asked if the president was open to negotiating with other countries to get the tariffs lifted.

“Sure, Joe, but let me first take you back in a time capsule, because this feels a lot like the day after the election in 2016, and I don’t know if you remember that day, but I was on the set with you. The futures were dead red down. And I made the prediction that the Dow would hit 25,000, and Andrew’s head exploded, he’s like, ‘Wow!’ but you correctly pointed out that wasn’t that heavy a lift, and we did hit that not in four years, but in less than two years,” began Navarro. “And what I’m seeing, Joe is a beautiful situation where we will hit fifty thousand on the Dow and we’re gonna have a broad-based recovery in the S&P 500. The market’s trying to find its bottom now. The thing I would say to retail investors is don’t get panicked out by all of this, and what the president could have added to that fine Truth was the fact that the biggest tax cut in American history, the broadest based tax cut in American history is coming within a matter of months so any discussion of recession seems silly when you factor that in. Plus the fed, the fed is not going to do its job but the long bond is doing it, we’re lowering our oil prices which is just amazing.”

“And here’s the one other thing I want to say macro-wise, Joe. Because look, this is all about people worried about global recession. That’s what they’re worried about. The restructuring that’s going to happen, Joe, globally, is going to start with China, and Vietnam, and Germany, heavily export-dependent countries,” he continued. “They’re going to have to engage significant fiscal stimulus to reorient their economy. So that thing is going to go on, and in the meantime, we’re going to boom here.”

“They’re much bigger, I think they’re much bigger than most people thought,” shot back Kernen. “And I think from policy institutes on both sides of the aisle, the methodology that was used has been universally derided as being non-serious. I don’t know whether you know exactly who came up with the formula, but it allowed you to at least characterize most of these countries as being, their tariffs, well above the reality of the situation so that when you say that we’re going to do half on them, it was much higher than anyone anticipated.”

“I think you’d have to concede that this was not the market reaction you were looking for,” he continued. “There’s a way of maybe incrementally trying to accomplish some of the things that the president wants to do in a reasonable, serious way. And this just, almost across the board, has caused what you’re seeing in the stock market and a lot of head-scratching and head-shaking on Whether anyone really knows what they’re doing in this case, Peter. Can you at least acknowledge that?”

Watch the full exchange above via CNBC.