While “first buddy” Elon Musk continues to assail Donald Trump’s trade czar over the tariffs that have plunged the global economy into chaos, some of the president’s media allies at Fox have also ridiculed Peter Navarro while urging Trump to bench his top trade adviser.
Even before Trump announced his “Liberation Day” tariffs that have erased trillions of dollars of wealth from the stock market and prompted economists to sound the alarm of a coming recession, Navarro has sparked criticism and mockery over his defense of the sweeping import taxes.
Late last month, for instance, Navarro insisted that the president’s upcoming tariffs would end up being the “biggest tax cut in American history” and would “make America great again.” Additionally, amid the global market meltdown, he guaranteed to Fox News this week that the United States would not experience a recession.
During Monday evening’s broadcast of Fox Business Network’s The Bottom Line, co-anchor Dagen McDowell fumed over Navarro’s aggressive trade stance. She also took issue with how the administration calculated its “reciprocal” tariff rates, which investment experts say is essentially a “made-up” formula.
“To be clear, I am all-in on a fair, level trading field. I am all-in on level tariffs with all nations. But I am not all-in on Peter Navarro and his reciprocal trade–girl math that's kneecapping the United States, because the trade deficit is not a hallmark of all the cheating that goes on,” she huffed.
“And I go back to something he said last week, that ‘we have calculated the tariff rate required to eliminate the trade deficit.’ The United States issues the world's reserve currency,” McDowell continued. “You can't eliminate the trade deficit. The quicker that they get him off of TV and away from numbers, the better. And I'm not going to call it girl math anymore; I'm going to call it Navarro math!”
McDowell’s co-host Jackie DeAngelis said that she believes the White House is starting to “realize that,” noting that the administration has figured out that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent “should be the point person on this.” Besides Navarro, she also noted that Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick should be benched as well.
“I think they're gonna pull back on Lutnick; I think they're gonna pull back on Navarro a little bit too,” DeAngelis stated. “They need to get clear on their messaging and make sure there's no nuance in there.”
Amid the tariff-induced market sell-off, Musk has seen his personal wealth decreased by tens of billions of dollars, resulting in the DOGE chief lashing out at both Lutnick and Navarro — the two administration officials seen as most responsible for the president’s trade policy.
The Trump-advising megabillionaire has been especially critical of Navarro, whom he has called “dumber than a sack of bricks” and a “moron” while mockingly referencing Navarro’s “fake expert” Ron Vara, an imaginary source the Trump trade czar invented for his books. Navarro, meanwhile, has added more fuel to the fire by describing Musk as a “car assembler” rather than a “car manufacturer.”
The White House, for its part, is attempting to dismiss the growing feud between Musk and the administration’s top trade officials. “Boys will be boys,” White Hous press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Tuesday afternoon.
In the meantime, while Trump’s most loyal allies at Fox News and MAGA media continue to provide cover for the president amid the ongoing financial chaos, and some are even suggesting Trump deserves a Nobel Peace Prize, other conservatives are growing increasingly uneasy.
Specifically, CNBC’s Joe Kernen — a vocal Trump supporter — told Navarro on Monday morning that the math behind the tariffs was “non-serious” and “universally derided” while pushing the Trump adviser to admit that “this was not the market reaction you were looking for.”
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