President Donald Trump is showing little tolerance for reporters questioning his new tariff policy even as markets tank, admonishing one questioner aboard Air Force One and blasting ‘weak and stupid’ skeptics.
Trump snapped while engaging with reporters aboard Air Force One after a weekend golfing in Florida.
It happened when a reporter asked about ‘pain in the market at some point you’re unwilling to tolerate.’ It was essentially a way to ascertain whether Trump might buckle in the face of a market meltdown amid a growing trade war or even a recession.
‘This idea of a Trump put – is there a threshold?’ she asked – trying to assess a sentiment that the administration might adjust policies to address a sinking market.
‘I think your question is so stupid,’ Trump snapped back at Annmarie Hordern, who hosts ‘Bloomberg Surveillance’ on Bloomberg TV.
‘I don’t want anything to go down. Sometimes you have to take medecine to fix something,’ Trump said, using a medical analogy for the tariffs he slapped on more than 60 countries after calculated each nation’s trade deficit with the U.S. and dividing it by two.
Later, when the reporter tried to get back to tariffs, Trump asked which outlet she was with. He then cut her off, calling for ‘another question please’ and telling reporters ‘she asked too many questions.’
‘Now we have hundreds of billions of dollars is pouring into our country, on a monthly basis. It’s already started because I put tariffs on. And eventually it’s going to straighten out,’ Trump saidin response to the earlier tariff question.
President Trump lashed out at a ‘stupid question’ when a reporter asked him aboard Air Force One whether there was ‘pain’ in the market he was unwilling to tolerate
He also stood firm Monday morning minutes before markets opened, after the initial response to the tariffs in two days of trading last week wiped away $5 trillion from Wall Street market value.
‘The United States has a chance to do something that should have been done decades ago,’ Trump wrote. ‘Don’t be Weak! Don’t be Stupid! Don’t be a panican (A new party based on Weak and Stupid people!),’ Trump posted on Truth Social.
‘Be Strong, Courageous, and Patient, and greatness will be the result!’ Trump urged, sprinkling his post with all-caps words.
Markets tanked again on Wall Street Monday as Trump stood firm on the tariffs and blasted skeptics as ‘weak’ and ‘stupid’
‘I don’t want anything to go down. Sometimes you have to take medecine to fix something,’ Trump said of the market reaction to his tariffs
Markets continued to reflect anxiety over the tariffs and recession fears, even as Trump posted that Japan was sending a delegation ‘to negotiate’ and that ‘countries from all over the World are talking to us.’
The Dow dropped 1,000 points in early trading, and the broader S&P 500 was down more than 2%.
Markets then rallied amid reports that economic advisor Kevin Hassett said Trump was considering a 90-day pause in the tariffs.
In another post, Trump cherry-picked good economic news, even as companies like Apple and Disney saw drops, following market selloffs in Germany, Japan, and Hong Kong.
Trump wrote on social media on Monday morning: ‘Oil prices are down, interest rates are down (the slow moving Fed should cut rates!), food prices are down, there is NO INFLATION, and the long time abused USA is bringing in Billions of Dollars a week from the abusing countries on Tariffs that are already in place.’
