Is Donald Trump intentionally tanking the stock market? Let's break it down.
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NewsTranscript
00:00So what's going on with the economy? Is Donald Trump deliberately trying to tank it?
00:04We saw the markets take a major tumble, another major tumble today.
00:08What exactly is driving this erosion of our economy, this destruction of our economy really?
00:15And I would say it's three things.
00:16First, the Trump administration is doing nothing to reduce the cost of living,
00:20nothing to bring down the cost of food or fuel or construction or housing or anything.
00:27You'll remember this was supposed to be the number one priority of the Trump administration
00:31during the campaign. Here he was on the campaign trail
00:34talking about how he was going to bring down prices on his first day in office.
00:38Grocery prices have skyrocketed. How can a family afford that?
00:42So when I win, I will immediately bring prices down.
00:45That's right. That was Donald Trump then. But this is Donald Trump now,
00:50now that prices are going up.
00:51Can you guarantee American families won't pay more?
00:54I can't guarantee anything. I can't guarantee tomorrow.
00:57That's right. He has nothing to do with it, according to Donald Trump.
01:00But what's more, you'll remember how he was always talking about egg prices
01:03and they were going to bring down egg prices.
01:05Well, egg prices have gone through the roof.
01:07Here's his message now about egg prices.
01:09Shut up about egg prices.
01:11That's right. Shut up about egg prices.
01:13This is a new message.
01:14But of course, it's not just the fact that he hasn't focused on things that would
01:18improve the economy and bring down the cost of living for people.
01:23It's that he's doing things affirmatively that are really harming the economy.
01:27And I would say exhibit A are these on-again, off-again tariffs.
01:32He's putting tariffs on Mexico and Canada and China one day,
01:36and then he's taking them down the next day.
01:38And then he's threatening more the next day.
01:39And then he's taking those threats away.
01:41And no one knows what to make of it.
01:43His own people don't know what to make of it.
01:44Even Maria Bartiromo doesn't know what to make of it.
01:47And she's nothing if not a shill for Donald Trump.
01:49Here she is asking about it.
01:51But I think CEOs want to see predictability.
01:53They say, look, I have to speak with shareholders.
01:55I've got to make plans for CapEx spending.
01:57I can't if it's 20% one day and then it's off for a month and it's 25%.
02:02So can you give us a sense of whether or not we are going to get clarity for the business community?
02:07Well, I think so.
02:08But, you know, the tariffs could go up as time goes by and they may go up.
02:12And, you know, I don't know if it's predictability.
02:15I think that's not clear.
02:16No, I think I think that they say that, you know, it sounds good to say.
02:19So the effect of the on again, off again tariff stuff is that no one can plan.
02:24No one knows what their business is going to look like.
02:26No one knows what they're going to have to pay for materials and supplies.
02:29And if there's anything business needs for a solid economy, it's predictability.
02:34It's what they don't have with Donald Trump's tariff policy, if you can even call it that.
02:37But there's a third reason why the economy is slumping.
02:40And it's because Elon Musk and his doge bros are laying off tens of thousands of people.
02:46And they're canceling existing contracts and they're refusing to pay on others.
02:50And yes, that has a major impact on the economy.
02:54It's contributing to unemployment numbers.
02:56It's also adding to the uncertainty in the economy.
02:59The combination of this kind of incompetence and recklessness is wrecking the economy.
03:05But look, they don't care because their priority is one thing,
03:10a tax cut for corporations and super wealthy people.
03:13That's where they're coming from because, you know, enough is never enough for them.
03:18Here's Michael Douglas explaining it in his term.
03:22The point is, ladies and gentlemen, that greed, for lack of a better word, is good.
03:30Greed is right.
03:32Greed works.
03:34Greed clarifies, cuts through and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit.
03:41Greed in all of its forms, greed for life, for money, for love,
03:47knowledge has marked the upward surge of mankind.
03:51And greed, you mark my words, will not only save Teldar Paper,
03:58but that other malfunctioning corporation called the USA.
04:01That's right.
04:02This is the greed is good crap.
04:04You might have the richest man in the world in Elon Musk, but it's still not enough.
04:08He still doesn't have enough.
04:11And so laying off people, laying off firefighters, laying off veterans,
04:16cutting health care to people, cutting Medicaid to fund a tax cut to make him even richer.
04:22Well, he views that greed is good.
04:23But for the rest of the country, not so much.
04:26Here's the Elon Musk view of the world.
04:30Capitalism at its finest.
04:33How much is enough for them?
04:35The richest one percent of this country owns half our country's wealth, five trillion dollars.
04:41One third of that comes from hard work.
04:43Two thirds comes from inheritance, interest on interest, accumulating the widows, the idiot sons.
04:49And what I do, stock and real estate speculation.
04:53It's bullshit.
04:55You got 90 percent of the American public out there with little or no net worth.
04:59I create nothing.
05:01I own.
05:03We make the rules, pal.
05:05The news, war, peace, famine, upheaval, the price of a paperclip.
05:10We pick that rabbit out of the hat while everybody's just out there wondering how the hell we did it.
05:16Now, you're not naive enough to think we're living in a democracy, are you, buddy?
05:21It's the free market.
05:23And you're part of it.
05:25Well, I still believe that the free market is the free market.
05:30Well, I still believe in democracy.
05:32And I don't want some unelected billionaire making these decisions for the country,
05:36let alone wrecking the economy the way they're doing.
05:39But it's more than that.
05:40It's also the lost opportunity to do things that are really positive to help the economy.
05:44We should be focused on building more housing, building lots more housing.
05:49The reason why housing is so expensive is because we don't have enough of it.
05:52So we should be incentivizing the building more housing that's affordable.
05:55We need more child care.
05:56A lot of people can't enter the workforce because they can't afford child care.
06:00They have to pay more in child care than they'd earn in the workforce.
06:04That's unfair to them.
06:06But it's also terrible economics.
06:08We need to increase the supply of things.
06:10We need more health care practitioners, more doctors to bring down the cost of health care.
06:14I favor an abundance economy where we're producing more things
06:18and bringing down the cost of living for Americans.
06:21We also need to strengthen collective bargaining to make it easier for workers
06:26to negotiate for higher wages for themselves and for better health care with their large employers.
06:31There is a lot we can do to improve the economy and make it work for everyone.
06:36And to answer what I think is the central question in American life right now,
06:40which is if you're working hard, can you still earn a good living?
06:43For too many millions of Americans, the answer has been no.
06:47And it's why our politics has been so turbulent.
06:50It's why our democracy has been so unstable.
06:53Because if a democracy isn't producing an economy that works for everyone,
06:57then all too many people start to look at other models like authoritarianism and dictatorship.
07:03That is not the road we want to go down.
07:05We need an economy that works for everyone.
07:08What we don't need is an incompetent president and a greedy, world's wealthiest man
07:15working together to wreck the economy for everyone else.