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Fox vs. Fox: Trump apologists defend tariff chaos while experts raise alarm

Written by Zachary Pleat

Published

Following days of historic stock market chaos after President Donald Trump's so-called “Liberation Day” announcement of massive global tariffs on April 2, financial professionals and market analysts have warned Fox News and Fox Business audiences about the dire consequences of a global trade war. Meanwhile, Fox’s roster of professional Trump apologists and sycophants have continued to spew their pro-Trump and pro-tariff propaganda, assuring audiences that the short-term pain will be worth it in the long-term.

Bloomberg explained that “the market crash Trump has stoked is one for the history books,” pointing out that the “Nasdaq 100 has plunged into a bear market. More than $5 trillion was wiped off the value of all US shares in two days.” CNN reported that “the awfulness of the past two days of trading were matched only by the 1987 crash, the 2008 financial crisis and the Covid crash of 2020,” reporting that “the S&P 500 had lost 15% of its value since Inauguration Day as of Sunday night.” Comparing the current sell-off to the 2001 market crash caused by the dot-com bubble the year before, CNN noted: “Trump, on the other hand, inherited a bull market. … Indeed, it is quite easy to say that Trump is directly responsible for the dive under his presidency given how much of it occurred since Liberation Day.”

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  • Finance industry professionals interviewed on Fox expressed alarm over Trump’s tariffs, repeatedly warned of recession

    • Fox Business guest Brad Gerstner: “These were not reciprocal tariffs, right? This was a Navarro nuclear-style assault on American business.” Gerstner, a hedge fund manager, reserved special condemnation for Trump’s Director of the Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy Peter Navarro, labeling the White House’s trade war “The Navarro nuclear approach to tariffs” that “is going to land us squarely in a recession.” [Fox Business, Mornings with Maria Bartiromo, 4/7/25]
    • Fox Business guest James Iuorio: “I think we're going into recession now.” Iurio, the managing director of a financial services firm, continued: “So, do I think recession is coming? Yes, I think we're probably already there. If you take the buying power out of the people's hands who were driving inflation, who are driving the expansion, let's say, of course it's gone away.” [Fox Business, Mornings with Maria Bartiromo, 4/7/25]
    • Fox Business guest Ryan Payne: “Talk to any economist in the country, and you’re definitely going to slow the economy, and you’re definitely looking at a possible recession.” When asked directly by host Stuart Varney if he was worried about a recession, Payne, an investment planning strategist, responded, “Yeah, I think 100%,” but later hedged his prediction by saying, “There's going to be some backtracking, and there’s going to be negotiations.” [Fox Business, Varney & Co., 4/7/25]
    • Fox Business guest Dennis Gartman on the negative effects from the tariffs: “This is going to get much worse. I am really quite fearful that things are coming apart.” On the stock market, economist and long-time investment analyst Gartman added: “I think we're going to go down quite a good deal further before this is over.” [Fox Business, Mornings with Maria Bartiromo, 4/4/25]
    • Fox Business guest Ken Mahoney: Trump has “put us in a really bad situation” with his tariffs. Mahoney, an asset management CEO, pointed out that Trump voters are being hurt by the crash as well, saying: “Those same people that voted for him, played by the rules, put away money for taxes, put money away for retirement, are really feeling the brunt of collateral damage of this.” [Fox Business, Mornings with Maria Bartiromo, 4/4/25]
    • Fox Business guest Ed Yardeni: Trump's tariffs have “a real potential ... to add up to at least stagflation, if not outright recession.” Yardeni, an economist and financial investment strategist, added: “It's very likely for the next few months we'll see higher inflation” as a result of Trump's “ridiculous” tariffs and “disastrous trade policy.” [Fox Business, Making Money, 4/3/25]
    • On Fox Business, former GOP Sen. Pat Toomey warned Trump's tariffs will be “probably the largest tax increase on American consumers in the history of the country.” Toomey, who worked in banking before his tenure in Congress and now sits on the board of Apollo Global Management, added: “I think taxing American consumers when they buy imports is going to do much more harm than good.” [Fox Business, Mornings with Maria Bartiromo, 4/3/25]
    • Fox Business guest and financial analyst Darius Dale said he would “absolutely not” buy stocks the morning after Trump's tariff announcement. [Media Matters, 4/3/25]
    • Fox Business guest and hedge fund manager Jay Hatfield: Trump’s tariffs are “really too much, too soon” and “we’ll almost certainly have a recession” without Federal Reserve interest rate cuts. [Fox Business, Mornings with Maria Bartiromo, 4/3/25]
    • Steve Forbes on Fox Business: “You've got a lot of small companies with small margins that are going to be hurt by this, put out of business.” Forbes, the editor-in-chief of the business magazine Forbes and a long-time conservative economic commentator, later warned of the upward pressure Trump’s tariffs would have on domestic automobile prices. [Fox Business, The Bottom Line, 4/2/25]

  • Fox hosts dismissed the stock market crash, defended the tariffs, and suggested it was a good time to buy into the market

    • Fox host Jesse Watters: “These tariffs are for the children.” Watters described Trump’s “vision” for his extreme tariffs as turning “the country into a place with thriving main streets and hometowns where American workers make American products sold to the American public. Doesn't that give you a nice, warm, fuzzy feeling inside?” [Fox News, Jesse Watters Primetime, 4/4/25]
    • Fox host Laura Ingraham dismissed the stock market collapse over Trump’s tariffs: “You have to think beyond the short run.” During the segment, Ingraham aired a graphic advising viewers to “ignore the Dow doomsdayers.” [Fox News, The Ingraham Angle, 4/4/25]
    • Fox host Greg Gutfeld: Trump’s tariffs are “already a win. We are already getting results.” Co-host Jesse Watters added: “Vietnam called and they want to drop their duties down to zero.” [Fox News, The Five, 4/4/25]
    • On his radio show, Fox host Sean Hannity urged listeners to wait out the “minor pain” caused by Trump’s tariffs. Hannity continued: “For whatever short-term, minor pain that may be inflicted on us, the long-term benefits are going to be massive.” [Premiere Radio Networks, The Sean Hannity Show, 4/4/25]
    • Watters: “If you're worried cars are going to cost more, buy American.” [Fox News, Jesse Watters Primetime, 4/3/25]
    • Ingraham: “I personally know a lot of people who are buying into this market. That's how people always make money. The panicked sellers always regret it.” Ingraham added: “I'm waiting to see how things play out in the next 3 to 6 months. That'll tell us a lot more than one day.” [Fox News, The Ingraham Angle, 4/3/25]
    • Fox host Jeanine Pirro: “I don't really care about my 401(k) today. You know why? ... I believe in this man.” Pirro also told viewers “don’t look” at the stock market “for the next few weeks.” [Fox News, The Five, 4/3/25, 4/3/25]
    • Hannity on Trump’s tariffs: “My level of confidence is pretty near 100% that this is all going to work out fine.” Hannity also said: “I am absolutely a thousand percent confident that things are going to work out in the end for everybody.” [Premiere Radio Networks, The Sean Hannity Show, 4/3/25, 4/3/25]
    • Watters on Trump’s tariffs: “It's an exciting time to be alive.” Watters continued: “We've rewired the entire world in a way we haven't seen in 100 years. And it's great. And hopefully, it works out. I haven't looked at my 401(k) today. I'm going to look at it tomorrow — actually, maybe not, I won't look at it for another month.” [Fox News, The Five, 4/3/25]
    • Fox host Will Cain: “We should see” Trump’s tariffs “as a potential restructuring of the American spirit, the purpose of America.” Cain suggested that work will set us free from a “a depression of purpose”: “Americans need a reason to get up and work has been our primary purpose, and work has been destroyed for middle class Americans.” [Fox News, The Will Cain Show, 4/3/25]
    • Fox host Kayleigh McEnany: “These are enormous, they're historic, they're going to reset the American economy.” McEnany added: “I would not be surprised if the great negotiator has an endgame in mind here.” [Fox News, Outnumbered, 4/3/25]
    • Hannity: Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs “will be remembered as a turning point and the start, I hope for every American, of a new golden age of American wealth and exceptionalism.” [Fox News, Hannity, 4/2/25]
    • Fox Business anchor Maria Bartiromo: Trump’s tariffs are “brilliant.” She continued, “I would be buying this market with both hands.” [Fox News, The Ingraham Angle, 4/2/25]

  • Economists also warn of enormous economic damage from Trump’s tariffs

    • Tax Foundation: Trump’s cumulative tariffs will shrink U.S. GDP by 0.7% and lead to the equivalent of 605,000 fewer jobs. The Tax Foundation also calculated that “the Trump tariffs will reduce after-tax income by an average of 1.9 percent and amount to an average tax increase of more than $1,900 per US household in 2025.” [Tax Foundation, 4/4/25]
    • Yale’s Budget Lab: “The price level from all 2025 tariffs rises by 2.3% in the short-run, the equivalent of an average per household consumer loss of $3,800 in 2024$.” The analysis added: “Annual losses for households at the bottom of the income distribution are $1,700.” [The Budget Lab, 4/2/25]
    • Budget Lab: “US real GDP growth is … -0.9pp lower from all 2025 tariffs.” The analysis continued: “In the long-run, the US economy is persistently … -0.6% smaller,” the equivalent of “$180 billion annually in 2024$.” [The Budget Lab, 4/2/25]
    • Peterson Institute for International Economics President Adam Posen: “US recession risk is going up, but expect inflation either way growth goes, up or down.” Posen added: “This will not generate a fraction of the rise in employment in US manufacturing that the administration claims. In fact, it will reduce US companies' share of global auto sales.” [Peterson Institute for International Economics, 4/3/25]
    • PIIE Executive Vice President Marcus Noland: “These tariffs are regressive, tilted toward low-income countries from which we source clothes and footwear, and will have a profoundly regressive impact on the US.” Noland continued: “They will contribute to slower growth, higher prices, and greater unemployment.” [Peterson Institute for International Economics, 4/3/25]
    • UCLA Law School tax policy professor Kimberly Clausing: Trump’s tariffs “risk economic catastrophe.” Clausing continued: “The largest tax increase in more than fifty years will burden US consumers, generating thousands of dollars in tax increases for the median household. Retaliation and the tariffs on intermediate goods (a majority of US imports) will harm US investment, production, and growth. Trump may wager that tariffs will return us to a better economic time but, in reality, they will leave behind only broken partnerships and economic devastation.” [Peterson Institute for International Economics, 4/3/25]
    • University of Michigan economist Justin Wolfers: If Trump “sticks with the tariffs: 75% chance of recession within 12 months.” Wolfers added: “If he abandons the tariffs: 25% chance.” [Bluesky, 4/7/25]
    • University of Massachusetts Amherst economics professor Arindrajit Dube on the stock market crash: “At some point expectations will take over - and a combination of wealth loss and psychological shock will lead to drop in capex and consumer purchases, triggering a downturn.” Dube added: “At that point reversing the tariffs won't be enough, and we will be in deep trouble. We may be crossing the Rubicon soon.” [Twitter/X, 4/6/25]
    • Moody’s Analytics chief economist Mark Zandi: “Unless sentiment recovers quickly, a recession is dead ahead. Indeed, I would put the odds of a downturn now at 60%.” [Twitter/X, 4/6/25]