The White House is pushing back against hearsay claiming that President Donald Trump is getting some cold feet about his tariffs.
To wit, Trump triggered worldwide economic upheaval when he launched a barrage of reciprocal tariffs against the rest of the world on Wednesday — otherwise known as “Liberation Day” — to fix unfair trade balances.
While the move was something Trump had long touted on his campaign trail, the president still warned about some potential “healing” pains and said that Americans would need to “hang tough” because “it won’t be easy.”
“THIS IS AN ECONOMIC REVOLUTION, AND WE WILL WIN. HANG TOUGH, it won’t be easy, but the end result will be historic,” Trump posted to Truth Social on Saturday. “We will, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!!!”
Perhaps due in part to Trump trying to temper short-term expectations, otherwise unfounded rumors began circulating that the president was considering a 90-day pause on his tariffs.
According to Yahoo Finance, this rumor actually helped spark some minor stock market turnaround, highlighting just how influential Trump and his administration are on a world stage right now.
And they’re now using that influence to squash that very rumor.
The official White House rapid response team on X responded to a since-deleted X post that made a claim that effectively said, “Kevin Hassett, director of the National Economic Council, said Trump is considering a 90-day pause on all countries except China,” per The Hill.
Included in the White House response was a clip of what Hassett actually said.
You can view both below:
Wrong. Not only did Director Hassett not say this (clip below), @POTUS has been clear — “it all has to change, but especially with CHINA!!!” https://t.co/3Kvt8AScAZ pic.twitter.com/JHucHjZm3S
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) April 7, 2025
“Wrong,” the White House X account posted Monday. “Not only did Director Hassett not say this (clip below), @POTUS has been clear — ‘it all has to change, but especially with CHINA!!!’”
“The president is going to decide what the president is going to decide,” Hassett said in the clip.
(It appears some confusion may have been caused with Hassett saying, “yeah” when asked if he would consider a 90-day tariff pause, though it didn’t appear to be as much an affirmation as it was ending his preceding line of thought.)
Additionally, a White House official called this idea “FAKE NEWS” in a text message to the Wall Street Journal.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt also told CNBC that the pause rumors were “fake news.”
Trump appeared to double down on his tariff decisions in a Truth post Monday, telling people that things may be tough now, but that it would be well worth it:
Do you trust the mainstream media?
“The United States has a chance to do something that should have been done DECADES AGO,” the president posted. “Don’t be Weak! Don’t be Stupid!
“Don’t be a PANICAN (A new party based on Weak and Stupid people!).
“Be Strong, Courageous, and Patient, and GREATNESS will be the result!”
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