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WASHINGTON — President Trump’s top White House economist downplayed Monday’s stock-market wipeout as “blips in the data” — one day after the commander in chief declined to rule out a possible recession as he slaps tariffs on America’s three leading trade partners.
Trump remained out of public view Monday, in a rare departure from form — with all three of the events on his public schedule, including an afternoon meeting with technology CEOs, closed to the press as the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell more than 2% and the Nasdaq dropped 4% in its worst trading day since 2022.
At one point, the Dow was down more than 1,100 points before paring its losses late in the day and finishing down 890 points.
“There are a lot of reasons to be extremely bullish about the economy going forward,” National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett told CNBC.
“But for sure, this quarter, there are some blips in the data,” added Hassett, known for his affable demeanor and near-permanent smile.
Hassett, 62, also predicted that the US would not undergo a recession this year after Trump, 78, told Fox Business Network host Maria Bartiromo in an interview that aired Sunday on Fox News Channel’s “Sunday Morning Futures”: “I hate to predict things like that.”
“What’s going to happen,” Hassett forecast Monday, “is the first quarter [GDP] is going to squeak into the positive category, and then the second quarter [GDP] is going to take off as everybody sees the reality of the tax cuts.”
Monday evening, a White House official said that “we’re seeing a strong divergence between animal spirits of the stock market and what we’re actually seeing unfold from businesses and business leaders, and the latter is obviously more meaningful than the former on what’s in store for the economy in the medium to long term.”
The White House official also circulated a 24-bullet-point list of positive indicators, including a spate of businesses vowing to boost investments in US manufacturing and upbeat findings from the Conference Board Measure of CEO Confidence, which said, among other things, that “the share of CEOs planning to raise wages by 3% or more over the year climbed to 71%, up from 63% in Q4.”
Stocks have plummeted since Trump imposed 25% tariffs on most products imported from Canada and Mexico and 20% duties on products imported from China — with further “reciprocal” tariffs looming against the rest of the world next month.
In the Bartiromo interview, taped Thursday, the president downplayed the index losses as part of a “period of transition.”
“What we’re doing is very big,” Trump said. “We’re bringing wealth back to America. That’s a big thing. And there are always periods — it takes a little time. It takes a little time. But I don’t — I think it should be great for us. I mean, I think it should be great.”
In the same interview, Trump suggested that “you can’t really watch the stock market” to determine economic health.
“If you look at China, they have a 100-year perspective,” he told Bartiromo. “We have a quarter. We go by quarters. And you can’t go by that.”
When quizzed by reporters on Air Force One Sunday night about his hesitation in ruling out a recession, the president initially said: “Of course you hesitate, who knows?”
“All I know is this,” he added, “we’re going to take in hundreds of billions of dollars in tariffs and we’re going to become so rich, you’re not going to know where to spend all that money. I’m telling you. You just watch. We’re going to have jobs. We’re going to have open factories.”
The uncertainty comes as Trump tried to get congressional Republicans to pass a continuing resolution this week to avoid a partial shutdown Friday night, which could further tank the economy — and as Ontario on Monday retaliated with a hike in electricity costs for New York, Michigan and Minnesota consumers.
Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) also dismissed concerns about the stock market Monday afternoon.
“President Trump has told people there’s going to be a little bit of pain with this,” the senator told Fox Business Network’s Larry Kudlow. “The stock market’s gone up and down before. It’ll come back.
“But when we start doing these, these tariffs [April 2] where everybody’s got to be on the same level, I think it’ll start leveling out,” Tuberville added.
“The only problem you have with these tariffs, there’s always a school board, and that’s going to be the stock market. And people are looking at the stock market like, ‘Hey, this is how it’s going to continue to be for months and months and months’ – that’s not going to happen.”
