Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick rejected recent projections that the American economy is contracting and perhaps heading for a recession, telling Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo that the forecasts were “ridiculous” while reassuring her that everything is “awesome” right now.
“It’s not that bad!” Lutnick exclaimed, adding that nobody is feeling any “deep pain” at the moment.
With the stock market in freefall and entering correction territory over President Donald Trump’s chaotic and scattershot trade war, the president’s allies have begun to focus their ire on Lutnick as polls show Americans are increasingly rejecting the administration’s economic agenda.
“It’s an exasperation compounded by recent television appearances, they say, that suggest a lack of understanding of even the basics about how tariffs and the economy work. He has also at multiple points over the last week gotten out in front of the president on announcements and contradicted his messaging,” Politico reported this week.
“Those factors, coupled with an abrasive personality, have left Lutnick with few friends in the administration — and a growing consensus within it that he could be forced to take the fall for the economic turmoil generated by the president’s unsteady tariff policies, according to five people close to the administration,” the outlet added.
Bartiromo, a Trump acolyte who nonetheless pressed the president recently on the lack of “clarity” with his tariffs, gently prodded Lutnick on the growing fears of a recession, bringing up the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta's recent projection about a sudden economic decline.
“We’ve seen worries about growth. I know you said you’re not expecting a recession, but investors are on edge over the possibility of a recession this year after the Atlanta Federal Reserve said that it’s predicting a 2.4 percent contraction in the first quarter,” Bartiromo noted, setting Lutnick over the edge.
“Wait, what?! Say that again, what?! A 2.4 percent contraction?! … right here, right now that is ridiculous,” he exclaimed.
“Have you told the Atlanta Fed that you say it’s ridiculous? Because they’re out with this contraction prediction, and I know that you and President Trump were handed a mess. I’m not arguing that,” Bartirimo replied, referencing her previous claims that an economic slowdown would be former President Joe Biden’s fault. “But now we’re talking about recession. And I asked President Trump about it this week, and he didn’t say no.”
Lutnick, meanwhile, asserted that “the Donald Trump economy” would really start taking off “in the fourth quarter” of this year, invoking a number of promised investments from large tech firms and manufacturing companies.
“It is the mess that we were left with, but it's not that bad!” Lutnick declared. “Remember: Overstating ridiculous things, I mean, you feel it, Maria! Do you feel deep, deep pain in the first quarter?! I've watched your show all along, I don't remember you saying, 'Oh my God!' No, come on! America is awesome!”
While Bartiromo said she agreed with the commerce secretary, she reiterated that she “was surprised by the Atlanta Federal Reserve expecting a contraction,” which many economists look at for their forecasts.
Meanwhile, earlier this week, Lutnick defended the president’s haphazard tariffs, going so far as to say that they’re “worth it” even if they trigger a recession. “The markets are going to learn, let the dealmaker make his deals,” he proclaimed during an appearance on CBS Evening News. That declaration came just two days after he vowed that there “will be no recession in America.”
