MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell said Monday that Donald Trump now has the unwelcome honor of having a feared recession named after him.
The idea of a “Trump Recession” is gaining attention amid uncertainty over tariffs and the gutting of the federal government, said O’Donnell, who pointed out how “getting a recession named after you as president is not easy” because usually there’s “not an absolute straight line of causation from presidential policies to a recession.”
No recent recessions in living memory have been named after presidents, the anchor noted.
Watch O’Donnell’s commentary here:
O’Donnell criticized Trump’s attempts to pin the blame on what could become an economic downturn on his predecessor, former President Joe Biden.
Biden “handed Donald Trump the highest-performing American economy in history and the highest-performing stock market in history,” said the host. “During the Trump presidency, just these last few weeks, consumer prices have gone up and stock prices have gone down, way down.”
Trump’s recent evasive answers when asked about the possibility of a recession also drew O’Donnell’s ire.
“When a president is asked if he’s expecting a recession, the correct answer is ‘no.’ It’s always been ‘no,’” he said. “There was plenty of talk of a possible recession during President Biden’s term, with some economists actually predicting a recession because of President Biden’s policies. … Not only were those economists’ predictions very wrong, but Joe Biden always said they were wrong.”