White House downplays tanking market as snapshot in time while Trump insists pain may be necessary to rebuild our country
WASHINGTON — President Trump on Tuesday downplayed the financial markets’ dramatic plummet this week, saying Americans may have to endure economic pain to “rebuild our country.’’“Markets are going to go up, and they’re going to go down but, you know what, we have to rebuild our country,” Trump told reporters outside the White House.White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt echoed those comments earlier Tuesday when she called the upheaval a “snapshot in time,” insisting the US is just in a “period of economic transition.”The markets had their worst trading day Monday since 2022 amid President Trump’s global tariff threats, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average falling more than 2% and the Nasdaq dropping 4%.Adding to the markets’ queasiness was Trump’s refusal over the weekend to rule out a recession this year.The White House has insisted the dropping numbers will iron themselves out and create wealth over the long term, despite some public panic about the direction of the economy fewer than two months into Trump’s term.“When it comes to the stock market, the numbers that we see today, the numbers we saw yesterday, the numbers we saw see we’ll see tomorrow, are a snapshot of a moment of time,” Leavitt said at her White House press briefing.Leavitt then reupped the comments Trump made on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures” — in which he didn’t rule out a recession and argued, “There is a period of transition because what we’re doing is very big.“I’m here to echo the remarks of this president of this White House: We are in a period of economic transition.
We are in a period of transition from the mess that was created under Joe Biden in the previous administration,” the press secretary argued.The Trump administration has long pointed to the inflation brought about by former President Joe Biden and the high grocery prices during his term as reasons to why the economy needs time to get back on track.Trump�...