'Mixed feelings': Conservative leery as Trump injects 'new economic theory DNA' into GOP

Conservative Scott Jennings rarely breaks with President Donald Trump on CNN — but even he conceded late Thursday he has "mixed feelings" about the MAGA leader's economic plan, which sent the global economy into a tailspin.

The markets plummeted on Thursday, with major indices in the U.S. stock market seeing sharp declines. The NASDAQ Composite dropped by nearly 6 percent, losing over 1,050 points, as the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell by roughly 4 percent, down nearly 1,680 points. The S&P 500 declined by just under 5 percent, shedding about 274 points.

The spiral came as Trump celebrated what he dubbed "Liberation Day," enacting A baseline 10 percent tariff on imports from all countries, with higher rates for nations he deemed "uncooperative." Some tariffs could reach as high as 50% for specific countries.

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CNN anchor Abby Phillip blasted the Trump administration, railing that its methodology used to calculate the tariffs was "not math."

"It's also not economics. It's kind of no way to run the economics of the greatest economy in the world," Phillip said, turning to Jennings, a staunch Trump defender on the network.

But this time, Trump found no such shield.

"Well, look, I'm not going to get into the mathematical formulas they came up with because I wasn't there and I don't know how or why they did it," he said.

Jennings then acknowledged he didn't quite know how to feel about Trump's measure.

"I have mixed feelings about this, truthfully," said Jennings. "I wasn't trained to believe in tariffs. You know, if those of us who grew up with traditional Republicans have always thought what Ronald Reagan thought. What he's doing here is implanting new economic theory DNA inside the Republican Party."

Jennings said some Republicans are rejecting the theory, some are going "reluctantly along with it," and some are "enthusiastically embracing it."

"I know people in the business community who are on both sides of it, frankly, back home in Kentucky and elsewhere. I am also persuaded frankly by the Trump argument regarding the working class in this country and also by the fairness argument. So, I will just say this. If it works, it will be the ballsiest and gutsiest thing a president has done in a decade," Jennings said.

If it doesn't work, however, he added, "the political consequences all on the shoulders of one man."

Watch the clip below or at his link.