Calling April 3 “a day that is now etched into history of failed economic policy and self-inflicted political wounds,” MSNBC’s Ari Melber offered blunt commentary on Donald Trump’s chaotic tariff announcement during his Thursday show.
Declaring that the “brutal reality” is that Trump’s direct actions have caused “sinking markets, economic havoc, Wall Street reeling, stocks plunging,” Melber ultimately declared that Wall Street businesses have given Trump a report card, and the grade is “whatever comes below an F.”
You can watch the full commentary below:
Noting that the essentially universal consensus among experts is that the “completely untargeted tariffs are tanking the U.S. markets, wreaking havoc on American companies, ensuring now much higher prices on American consumers, undercutting over the long haul, American jobs, risking a recession,” Melber said that the numbers “show these are the most damaging tariffs in a century, and this is now, today, the largest stock slide since the global pandemic first arrived in President Trump’s first term.”
He add that it’s “almost unheard of” for this kind of damage to be “self-inflicted by a new president in the beginning of the term.”
Noting the various scary economic indicators as measured by a falling stock market, Melber continued, “Numbers don’t lie. These are the new Trump tariffs — which, as many people warned, many experts warned, and many Trump allies, Republicans, Wall Street veterans — battering U.S. Stocks.”
“More headlines today,” the host said a bit later, “This story is well beyond politics and news nerds, if you will… This is very bad. This is not one of those things that will be viewed through different partisan lenses and it can’t be lied away, because a lot of people are going to be paying higher prices and worried about a recession and U.S. jobs will be affected, and the charts show it’s all a response to Donald Trump’s plans, which he didn’t have to do.”
“Think back to Biden, Obama era, Bush. Do you ever remember a major announcement of indiscriminate tariffs that sunk the economy? No, because it didn’t happen. Didn’t have to happen. This is Donald Trump’s choice. We are living in Donald Trump’s America, and if I may, there were a heck a lot of people, including on Wall Street, who said, ‘Don’t worry about the rhetoric,'” Melber continued. “‘This can be good for business.’ They were wrong. They may not admit it, and they may start telling different stories about what they said. But he had the business support, he had the tech support. He had a heck of a lot of people who want lower taxes saying it will be good for business. Wrong.”