MSNBC Analyst Torches ‘Extreme’ Trump Tariffs, DOGE ‘Sledgehammer’ Spooking Markets: ‘This Administration Is All Over the Place’

Morning Joe economic analyst Steve Rattner torched President Donald Trump’s “extreme” tariffs and Elon Musk’s DOGE “sledgehammer” for causing the economic “uncertainty” that’s rattling investors worldwide.

Wall Street suffered its worst day of 2025 on Monday, with the S&P 500 plunging 2.7 percent after Trump declined to rule out a recession tied to his economic policies, pushing tariffs and threatening trade wars with partners.

The market turmoil extended into Tuesday as the sell-off continued across global markets.

On MSNBC on Tuesday, Rattner unleashed his scathing analysis, blasting the Trump administration policies as “all over the place.”

Look, they came in, and I guess you could say they did what they said they were going to do. But I don’t think anybody really expected it was going to be this extreme, that Elon Musk was going to go in there wielding his DOGE sledgehammer, smashing away at whatever he felt like, talking off the cuff about social security or this or that. And so the policies they’ve actually articulated, that they’re doing, are very extreme.

But what is really bothering the market as much as anything is uncertainty. You heard a reference in the earlier clip to the earlier guest to animal spirits. Animal spirits was a coin, a phrase coined by John Maynard Keynes, and what it really means is that you can have policies, but a lot of what goes on in an economy is how people feel. Are they excited? Are they optimistic? Do they believe it’s going to get better or are they worried?

In Trump 1.0, whether you liked it or not, at least from the point of view of the business community, it was sort of clear, it was logical, and it was things they liked in terms of tax changes, regulatory changes and so forth. This administration is all over the place: one day they’re cutting social security, the next day they’re firing everybody at USAID, and then they’re rehiring some because the courts tell them to because they realize they can’t get the social security checks out without these people. And the tariffs go on. The tariffs go off, they get suspended, they get threatened in other places. And this is what businesses really can’t live with or consumers, the uncertainty of not knowing what’s going to happen.

Watch above via MSNBC.

New: The Mediaite One-Sheet "Newsletter of Newsletters"
Your daily summary and analysis of what the many, many media newsletters are saying and reporting. Subscribe now!