Fox News host John Roberts on Monday delivered a blunt assessment of the economy under Donald Trump as U.S. stocks plunged after the president declined to rule out a possible recession over the weekend.
“Obviously, the Dow is 1,500 points below where it was when Donald Trump took office. That’s not a good look,” said the “America Reports” co-anchor off-camera as he turned to the Dow Jones Industrial Average — which fell over 1,000 points and ultimately was down 890 points (or 2.08%) by day’s end.
Roberts’ remark arrived just one day after the network aired an interview on “Sunday Morning Futures” where Trump spoke to Maria Bartiromo about his plans for wider “reciprocal” tariffs that would go into effect on April 2.
He previously planned to hit Mexico and Canada with 25% tariffs on imports before swiftly changing course and delaying them (again) on Thursday.
In his Fox News interview, the president predicted that tariffs would turn out “great” for the country but refused to flag a possible recession on the horizon, despite the growing uncertainty and fears among economists.
Roberts, in a separate Fox News appearance early Monday afternoon, weighed in on Trump’s comment, “If a recession happens on his watch this year after all of the grand economic promises he made, I take it that would not be a good thing.”
Steve Moore, senior fellow with conservative think tank Heritage Foundation, acknowledged that the numbers looked “pretty bad” amid Monday’s stock market sell-off.
Moore, after praising Trump’s economic plans, called it a “problem” for the president to kick matters off with a “barrage” of tariffs.
“And I think it’s very unsettling to markets and it’s sort of the one thing that Trump is doing that’s probably not, especially in the short-term, healthy for the economy,” he said.
“So if I were President Trump and the White House, I would kind of shift and move back to the kinds of things that really will help the economy grow in both the short and long-term.”
Later in the afternoon, Roberts asked Jonathan Kott — an ex-communications director for former Sen. Joe Manchin (I-W.V.) — to chime in on Monday’s plunge.
“If tariffs are such a good idea, why does he keep putting them on, taking them off, putting them on, taking them off?” Kott asked.
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Kott then argued that Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and the president had differing messages on the economy on the same day.
“That’s not giving the market any sort of ease or certainty for investors so I wouldn’t be surprised if we have an even greater crash,” he added.