As the stock market plummeted more than 500 points, Fox News White House Correspondent Kevin Corke took his cues from Donald Trump’s Twitter feed and blamed Fed chairman Jay Powell, rather than assigning any of the real blame belonging to Trump and his trade war with China.
A Reuters roundup of investment experts put the blame for the market plunge squarely on Trump and his irresponsible tweets about China. Barron’s wrote that Trump’s comments “sent markets reeling just moments after comments from Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell had soothed investors’ nerves and helped stocks recover from early declines.” Fast Company wrote, “As soon as Powell managed to calm investors’ fears, Trump’s tweets stoked them again. The timing may have been intentional, as Trump name-checked Powell in his tweetstorm, calling him an ‘enemy.’”
But Corke and Outnumbered Overtime host Melissa Francis seemed more interested in promoting Trump’s talking points than the facts to any worried investors watching. In her introduction to Corke’s report, Francis never mentioned how Powell had calmed the markets. Instead, after noting Trump’s hideous "enemy" tweet, Francis justified it, saying it had come “after Powell, in a speech this morning, refused to indicate whether the Fed will lower interest rates further.”
Then it was time for Corke to dupe viewers into absolving Glorious Leader of any responsibility.
First, Corke ran through the $75 million in retaliatory tariffs China just hit us with, calling it “the latest escalation in the ongoing trade dispute between the world’s two largest economies.”
“Instead of a tariff being used to sort of nudge negotiators back to the bargaining table,” Corke continued, the latest round “has really spooked the markets and obviously angered the president as well.” That’s how Corke framed a Trump tweet ordering American companies to “immediately start looking for an alternative to China.”
That command is the tweet that Reuters, Barron’s and Fast Company blamed for the renewed market plunge. But not Corke! As we saw that the Dow Jones Industrial Average had dived by more than 500 points at the time (it closed down 623.34), Corke took a Trump-friendly, truth-dubious dig at Powell. “Obviously, the market not helped by Powell’s comments which, frankly, seemed to express a bit of disinterest, perhaps in really going far in a rate reduction, maybe by a – say, a half a, half a basis point.”
At that point, we saw Corke looking off-screen in a bit of confusion, as though he were trying to read White House talking points he had not memorized. Turning back to the camera, he said, “I don’t know, we’ll have to see how this all plays out.”
Watch a supposedly “straight news” correspondent acquit Trump of all responsibility for the market plunge above, from the August 23, 2019 Outnumbered Overtime.
Published with permission from News Hounds.
