CNN's Jeff Zeleny took issue when President Donald Trump said Monday that he wasn't aware that stocks had tanked in the wake of his weekend trade tariff declarations.
Trump spoke to reporters from the Oval Office as he signed executive orders that included making TV producer Mark Burnett — who created Trump's reality show The Apprentice — a special envoy to the United Kingdom.
"Tell us a little bit about what stood out to you," anchor Brianna Keilar said to Zeleny.
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"Well, look, Brianna, you and Boris [Sanchez] were talking about at the very end there where President Trump said he doesn't look at the stock market," Zeleny said.
"We asked that question if this was a decision he made with the Mexican President this morning because of the global stock reaction. And he said 'No,' and he said, 'I don't look at the market. What was it doing?' We know, obviously, based on watching him for a very long time, that is not true. We do not know if that's why he reached a temporary agreement with Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, but that was certainly interesting."
In a phone call with Sheinbaum Monday morning, Trump agreed to back down on a 25% tariff on goods from Mexico for one month in exchange for Sheinbaum sending 10,000 Mexican National Guard troops to the U.S. border as a deterrent for drug traffickers.
Trump also spoke with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau by phone Monday morning and was scheduled for a repeat call in the afternoon.
The Dow Jones, NASDAQ, and S&P 500 all opened down on Monday, and continued to plummet following Trump's weekend announcement about trade tariffs he imposed on the two countries and China. ABC News reported, "The Dow Jones Industrial Average slid about 150 points, or 0.35%, in early trading on Monday. The S&P 500 dropped 0.7%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq ticked down 1%."
Stocks recovered some losses after news broke of Trump's temporary deal with Mexico.