Lawrence: Trump, a 'humiliated clown' who always pretends he never backs down, backed down again

Well, once again today, Donald Trump backed down. Once again today, the man who always pretends he never backs down. Never backed down big time.

Donald Trump said repeatedly today and it seemed desperately, quote, "I have no intention of firing him. " And he was not talking about his unqualified and incompetent Secretary of Defense who shared battle plans with his wife and others. The same secretary of defense who promised to stop drinking if he became Secretary of Defense.

Donald Trump said nothing today about Secretary of Defense Pete Hegsth. He did not defend Pete Hegath today. He did not attempt to deny any of the reporting from the New York Times and NBC News about the ways that his Secretary of Defense shared battle plans.

In fact, no one in the Trump administration, including Pete Hegsth himself, to this day, to this hour, to this minute, has ever attempted in any way at all to explain, defend, or deny specifically what Pete Hegsth has been accused of doing in sharing battle plans. Hegs has insisted the information, the details of battle plans were not classified. There was a time when a secretary of defense getting caught leaking sensitive information could have, among other things, rocked the stock market and sent it into a downward spiral.

But the stock market has no time to worry about an unqualified and incompetent Secretary of Defense who may or may not have stopped drinking when Donald Trump is directly destroying the stock market in bursts of economic policy dementia that have created the most uncertainty the American economy has ever seen. And I mean ever seen because the uncertainty is based entirely on what will one person's whims be tomorrow or the next day or the next week or the next month or the next year. A year is the minimum planning horizon for economic planning and economic decisions in business or in our personal lives.

And after destroying the stock market with tariffs that are actually illegal because Donald Trump has imposed them in violation of laws that control the president's use of tariffs. Donald Trump decided that now would be a good time to attack the chairman of the Federal Reserve, Jerome Powell, who became the chairman of the Federal Reserve when Donald Trump appointed him in Donald Trump's first term. President Biden then reappointed Jerome Powell.

And on Monday in the middle of the morning trading session on Wall Street, Donald Trump decided to attack Republican chairman of the Federal Reserve Jerome Powell in a social media post that left the stock market reeling under the expectation that Donald Trump was going to fire the chair of the Federal Reserve or at least try to. And on Monday, Donald Trump said, quote, "There can be a slowing of the economy unless Mr Too Late, a major loser, lowers interest rates. " Now, so there was the president of the United States doing two things that no president has ever been stupid enough to do before.

One, predict a recession, and two, blame it on the chairman of the Federal Reserve, who he was publicly insulting. The trouble for Donald Trump is everyone on Wall Street thinks Jerome Powell is good at his job. And everyone on Wall Street now realizes that Donald Trump is much worse at his job than they ever expected him to be.

Donald Trump's tariff dementia was bad enough. But then came the trading day yesterday that the Wall Street Journal labeled the fire Jerome Powell market route. That was the Wall Street Journal headline on Monday night.

Donald Trump was in relatively polite language under the circumstances basically being accused by the Journal and others of being a dangerous fool. And the Wall Street news media for attacking Jerome Powell. And so today, the day after a disastrous day in the stock market, attributed 100% to a statement that Donald Trump made in the morning.

Donald Trump, the man who made a living on TV saying, "You're fired. " Donald Trump, the president who has fired more cabinet members and more White House chiefs of staff than any other president in history. Donald Trump who has fired people he is not legally allowed to fire.

That same Donald Trump pretended that everyone at the Wall Street Journal was just crazy to think he would ever try to fire someone he's not legally allowed to fire. Clarify, you have no intention of firing Jerome Powell because your economic adviser Kevin Hasset a few days ago said that you and people in the White House were studying this idea of possibly doing that before his term ends. Do you have any plans on doing that?

None whatsoever. Uh never did. The press runs away with things.

No, I have no intention of firing him. Uh I would like to see him uh be a little more active in terms of his idea to lower interest rates. This is a perfect time to lower interest rates.

If he doesn't, is it the end? No, it's not. But it would be good timing.

It would be it would should have taken place earlier, but no, I have no intention to fire him. I have no intention to fire him. I have no intention of to fire him.

saying it as many as many times as he could say it. He could have said, "I have no legal authority to fire him because he doesn't. " And Jerome Powell knows that, which is why Jerome Powell has said publicly that he knows he cannot be fired and would not leave if Donald Trump ever tried to illegally fire him.

So there is one person in America more powerful than Donald Trump tonight and that is Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell. And Donald Trump knows it. Any Federal Reserve chair would be more powerful than any president on matters involving the workings of the Federal Reserve and the setting of interest rates.

Every president before Donald Trump has always known that they have no power over any of that. And so now the humiliated clown Donald Trump, who has been the subject of some of the finest economic editorial writing the Wall Street Journal, has ever done, has decided that it's time to back down and desperately assure Wall Street, I have no intention of firing him. Assure Wall Street of exactly one thing.

That's the only thing he wants to assure them of and that is that he will not fire Jerome Powell who he now implicitly acknowledges is more powerful than he is. Unfortunately for Donald Trump, the country and the world, that's not enough to stabilize the stock market and stabilize the American economy, which was already sliding toward an increased chance of recession before Donald Trump threatened Jerome Powell. It's been doing that every day thanks entirely to Donald Trump's illegal and unpredictable tariffs.

Donald Trump's Treasury Secretary, who obviously does not have enough or possibly any influence over Donald Trump, thereby making him the least effective Treasury Secretary in history, admitted today that the Trump tariffs are a complete disaster. disaster is not the word he used in a private setting with ultra rich investors hosted by JP Morgan Chase. So understand that the richest people in the world were given access to the Treasury Secretary's thoughts today.

While no one in America who has already lost a job to Donald Trump's tariffs is allowed to know anything about what the Treasury Secretary might be thinking about any of this. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessant told the ultra- richch investors who spend their day trying to figure out how to get richer, quote, "No one thinks the current status quo is sustainable. " The current status quo he was talking about is the Trump worldwide tariff regime.

No one thinks the current status quo is sustainable. That's the way a guy who looks like this says this is crazy and out of control and has to be stopped. The desperate players on Wall Street were thrilled by CNBC's reporting today of that leaked quote from the Treasury Secretary.

But the Wall Street Journal would like to hear more. In tonight's Wall Street Journal editorial titled Up the Down Trump Tariff Escalator, the journal writes, "If Mr Bessant knows what Mr Trump's real China and trade strategies are, everyone would love to hear it because so far it looks like ad hoc improvisation. " If Mr Bessant can move markets merely with comments that a trade truce is coming, imagine how they'd respond if Mr Trump simply called the whole tariff thing off.

The Journal pointed out the job losses, just some of the job losses that are already happening because of the Trump tariffs here in the United States. The 800 or so Volvo employees at three different US plants that will be laid off in the next 90 days. The International Monetary Fund slashed its US and global economic forecasts, warning that tariffs were ushering in a new era of slower growth.

Goldman Sachs chief executive David Solomon said uncertainty was too high, holding back corporate decision-making and keeping asset prices under pressure. And the I finance industry trade group said the US faced a likely recession later this year. a likely recession thanks entirely to the idiotic whims of a president with economic dementia.

Elon Musk is one of Wall Street's biggest losers these days, thanks to his public support of Donald Trump's policies and thanks to Donald Trump's tariffs, which hurt all automobile companies, including Tesla. After the stock market closed today, Tesla released an earnings report that came in much lower than expected. The Wall Street Journal reports that Tesla's income quote slid 71% in the first quarter as the company struggled to overcome competitive pressure overseas and a reputational hit from Chief Elon Musk's polarizing role in the Trump administration administration.

Tesla as a company actually blamed Donald Trump for its troubles. Wall Street Journal reports Tesla said that shifting trade policies exacerbated by the administration's tariff regime are stressing supply chains while adding to the automakers costs. Tesla sales are down around the world, thanks largely to what one analyst has called the brand destruction that Elon Musk has delivered to Tesla by his association with and support of Donald Trump.

A CNBC poll showed how that brand destruction in the United States has hurt Tesla's ability to sell to the very people who were the most enthusiastic customers for electric cars and Teslas. Liberal Democrats were the buyers, especially in California, that made Tesla a successful business and pushed the Tesla stock price up to the point where Elon Musk became the richest person in the world thanks to the buying power of liberals who are now trading in their Teslas, selling their Teslas, and in many cases just giving them away as Cheryl Crowe did in donating her Tesla to NPR for them to turn into cash to support the truthtelling mission of National Public Radio. 47% of Americans have a negative view of Tesla.

Only 27% have a positive view of Tesla. 52% have a negative view of Elon Musk with only 36% holding a positive view. The poll shows that a majority of Republicans have a positive view of Tesla, which is not very helpful to Tesla because most of them would never even consider buying any electric car.

While the overwhelming almost unanimous feeling among Democrats is now negative on Tesla, but positive on electric vehicles, which seems to indicate that liberal Democrats who want to continue buying electric vehicles will be buying their electric vehicles from Tesla's competitors, competitors that are now gaining increasing share of the market against Tesla, which could be by Elon Musk promised Wall Street today to start paying more attention to Tesla and less attention to destroying the American government as we know it with Elon Musk strengthening his public association with Tesla if that's possible. Could that could result maybe in even fewer sales of Teslas among enthusiastic electric car market buyers, which in this country is dominated by Democrats. It must come as a big surprise to Donald Trump and Elon Musk tonight that their sales event in the driveway on the south side of the White House for Tesla, the most revolting commercialization of the White House in history by the two most extreme vulgarians ever to stand in that driveway was a complete and utter failure.

And so tonight, Donald Trump and Elon Musk are now the prohibitive front runners for the worst car salesman of the year award this year.