Top Trump Administration Officials Use Sunday Talk Show Circuit To Quell Recession Fears

On the heels of key recession indicators in the markets last week, several officials from President Donald Trump’s administration made the rounds on the Sunday talk show circuit to reassure viewers that a recession isn’t on the way.

White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow defended Trump’s “pro-growth program” and assured Fox News Sunday host Dana Perino that a recession wasn’t looming, as has been reported in various mainstream media outlets.

“I don’t see a recession at all,” Kudlow said to Perino, according to The Hill.

But many economic experts outside of the Trump White House have a different take on the matter, pointing to a scary key indicator of a looming recession known as a yield-curve inversion. The marker has been a historical predictor of past recessions.

According to Forbes, the inverted yield curve that made recent headlines happened on Wednesday, which sparked the stock market to plummet by 800 points. In layman’s terms, the phenomenon happens when “long-term interest rates fall below shorter-term interest rates.” Forbes also called it an “unusual” event.

In another interview Sunday with NBC’s Chuck Todd, Kudlow echoed his dismissal of recession fears. Todd recalled similar statements made by Kudlow before the 2007 Great Recession, in which he wrote at the time that “There’s no recession coming…. The pessimistas were wrong.”

Kudlow told Todd that he pleaded guilty to being wrong.

Peter Navarro, the chief White House trade adviser, appeared on ABC’s This Week and also downplayed predictions of a coming recession. He pointed to his 20-year’s of experience in finance before asserting that America’s economy will remain strong.

“Before I came to the White House, I spent the better part of 20 years forecasting business cycle and stock market trends and what I can tell you with certainty is that we’re going to have a strong economy through 2020 and beyond.” Navarro said.

He made similar statements while appearing on CBS’ Face The Nation.

White House economic advisers Peter Navarro and Larry Kudlow took to the Sunday morning talk shows in an effort to ward off fears of a coming recession. Many of the points they made were demonstrably false. https://t.co/BRn031tuCL

— Axios (@axios) August 18, 2019

But Trump officials weren’t the only ones taking advantage of the Sunday talk shows to talk recession fears. Several 2020 Democratic presidential candidates raised concerns about the issue, pointing to Trump’s policies as the reason for what they predict is a coming recession.

South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg said on CNN’s State of the Union that a recession was “probably” on the way. He blamed Trump for not caring about Americans not being able to get ahead.

Former Texas lawmaker Beto O’Rourke had a similar prediction on NBC’s Meet The Press. He claimed that Trump is “driving the global economy and our economy into a recession.” He also pointed to Trump’s trade war with China and its negative effect on farmers across the country.

As Forbes reported, the yield-curve inversion has successfully predicted the last seven U.S. recessions.