Trump Blaming Biden for Bad Economy Led To ‘A Lot of Laughter Around Wall Street,’ Says CNBC’s Steve Liesman
President Donald Trump’s attempt to blame former President Joe Biden for the state of the economy isn’t flying in the business world, according to CNBC’s Steve Liesman.
The U.S. economy contracted in the first quarter, thanks in large part to Trump’s sweeping tariffs on most imports. Those tariffs have engendered a sense of precarity among businesses and consumers alike, who are anticipating significantly higher prices in the coming weeks. Nevertheless, Trump blamed the bad data and attendant market plunge on his predecessor.
“Our Country will boom, but we have to get rid of the Biden ‘Overhang,'” the president posted on Wednesday. “This will take a while, has NOTHING TO DO WITH TARIFFS, only that he left us with bad numbers, but when the boom begins, it will be like no other. BE PATIENT!!!”
Appearing on Thursday’s Deadline: White House on MSNBC, Liesman said Wall Street isn’t taking Trump’s deflection seriously.
“Well, he tried yesterday to blame the stock market on Biden,” he said. “And I think there was a lot of laughter around Wall Street, I think on that one. I think that people pretty squarely put this on the shoulders of President Trump.”
Liesman added that the country is on the verge of a “supply shock” that cannot be easily mitigated.
“This supply shock is not easily handled through the normal tools that we handle downturns in, which is that you end up trying to get people to buy more,” he said. “But if the problem is that there’s not enough stuff and people are losing their jobs because of that, goosing demand is not gonna help. And there’s a second element to this that is more worrisome to me, which is that the normal circuit breaker on this tends to be government spending. And what’s happening with government spending, that’s coming down, at the same time, you have the supply shock. So, we could be in for a twofer here over time.”
Watch above via MSNBC.