Trump's economic advisers keep trying to downplay expectations for post-coronavirus economy: columnist
President Donald Trump has promised that the stock market will surge even bigger and better than ever, but his staff is trying to downplay the predictions to manage expectations.
“We’re going to have tremendously low unemployment,” Trump said on Feb. 26. “But this would have, you know, an impact on GDP. But we’re still very, very — we’re doing great.”
A Washington Post column by The Fix's JM Rieger cited an interview with Trump's trade adviser Peter Navarro who spoke to ABC.
“Going into November … it’s not going to be about the pandemic, it’s going to be about jobs,” said Navarro. “What we have to do now is rebuild the economy.”
Navarro and his fellow economic advisers aren't exactly the most reliable adviser, however. It was just 24 hours before the first coronavirus death that economic adviser Larry Kudlow claimed “The virus is not going to sink the American economy. What is or could sink the American economy is the socialism coming from our friends on the other side of the aisle. That’s the biggest fear that I have today.”
Kudlow also claimed "We have contained this," as numbers continued to explode.
Less than a month after Kudlow promised all was well, he promised the economic downturn would only be "weeks and months." Instead, the economy sank further, erasing all of the stock market gains Trump made during his presidency.
“It’s not going to be years, that’s for sure,” Rieger cited Kudlow saying on March 24.
It was less than 60 days later that the United States hit such a high level of unemployment it hasn't been seen since the Great Depression. It was also two months after Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said unemployment wouldn't hit 20 percent if Trump's plan was followed. Wrong again.
"And nine days after saying U.S. economic growth at an annualized rate could decline 25 to 30 percent in the second quarter, White House senior adviser Kevin Hassett on May 6 said that economic growth in the second quarter could actually decline by 40 percent," wrote Rieger. "Each of these revisions were in line with what many economists, including the White House’s own economists, had been projecting, but they have been notably at odds with Trump’s ongoing reassurances about a swift economic recovery later this year."
Whatever the White House economics team is doing doesn't seem to be working and lying to the American people about it may give the stock market a day's worth of increase, but when the truth knocks it back down again, it only makes people question the trust of the American officials.
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