Chaos broke out on CNN NewsNight when a panelist claimed President Donald Trump warned the U.S. about the economic shocks now roiling global markets.
Host Abby Phillip began by highlighting Trump’s campaign promise to tackle the high cost of living in the United States. Americans are now bracing for rising prices on imported food and household essentials after Trump imposed tariffs on more than 180 countries on April 2, triggering the stock market’s worst single-day performance since the COVID pandemic.
The White House also escalated its trade war with China earlier this month, announcing that the country faced a 245 percent tariff on imports to the U.S. “as a result of its retaliatory actions.”
“The problem,” Phillip said, “is that Americans are increasingly starting to say, wait a second… what about the issues that [Trump] ran on, which is to bring down the cost of living? Just make people’s lives better right now.”
Guest Batya Ungar-Sargon, author of Second Class: How the Elites Betrayed America’s Working Men & Women, then came to Trump’s defense, praising his decision to impose tariffs.
There were “certain things” that “urgently needed a course correction in this country” and were “unpalatable for the nation,” Ungar-Sargon said.
Washington’s relationship with Beijing was “deeply problematic,” she said, as the U.S. relied on China “for the very medications we needed to fight the pandemic that came from China,” referring to the COVID pandemic.
“We will rely on China to build the ships we would need if, god forbid, we ever got into war with them. Unsustainable. The trade relationships we have with the rest of the world—unsustainable,” she said.
“The tariffs are the reason that he is struggling in the polls, but he knew that this was going to be a period that is going to be very painful. And he still had the guts to do it. This is something that he deserves a lot of credit for. I also think he knew that it was going to hurt and he did it anyway,” Ungar-Sargon added.
“He didn’t run on that,” comedian John Fugelsang said. “He didn’t run on that.”
“He never said there’d be some pain, sweetheart,” Democratic consultant Karen Finney interjected.
“Of course he did!” Ungar-Sargon responded.
The CNN panel erupted into a shouting match, forcing Phillip to intervene and put an end to the tiff.
“Hold on a second. Let me just hit pause on this for a second because we will have a whole—we have a whole discussion coming on the economics of this,” the host said.
Markets are still reeling from policy uncertainty. The International Monetary Fund this week slashed its forecasts for world growth this year and next, warning that Trump’s escalating trade war yet could worsen the outlook.
This year, growth in the U.S. is expected to be 1.8 percent, down from its estimate of 2.7 percent in January.
IMF chief economist Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas said the global economy is now “being severely tested.”
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