File this one under "No Good Deed Goes Unpunished."
The liberal media has been leading the charge against the Trump tariffs. So what happens when Trump heeds the warning signs and pulls back? Does the MSM applaud his statesmanship, his courage in changing course given changed circumstances?
C'mon—of course not. This is the liberal media, after all.
Thus, on today's Morning Joe, Axios co-founder Jim VandeHei, purporting to explain Trump's change of direction, declared:
"Make no mistake: he panicked."
For Trump, there's no winning with the liberal media.
Trump adapts his policy to changing realities: "He panicked!"
And if Trump hadn't changed course? "Trump ignores reality—determined to drive the world economy off a cliff!"
Note: VandeHei's subsequent words debunked his claim that Trump panicked. The Axios CEO went on to say that Trump "saw that [serious economic troubles were in the offing] and he hit pause."
Pausing doesn't automatically mean panic. Unless your only interest is constantly going on the negative.
Here's the transcript.
MSNBC
Morning Joe
4/10/25
6:05 am EDTJOE SCARBOROUGH: Jim VandeHei, the president, getting ready for Masters weekend by employing that famous golfing term, the yips—is what you say about somebody standing over a putt that doesn't know how to get it in the hole—but said that things were getting a little yippy.
That included also, of course, the bond markets, where a real concern, this one Scott Bessent and others went to the president saying this could go sideways very quickly.
JIM VANDEHEI: Yeah, I mean, make no mistake, he panicked. It's probably the first time we've seen him blink in such a public way.
He was under a lot of pressure from GOP senators, a lot of CEOs, a lot of investors, Elon Musk, people calling him saying, listen, look, not just the bond market, look at the regular market, look at the bond market, look at the dollar. That a real economic collapse was in the offing. And he saw that and he hit pause.
And then you had his entire team come out and say, no, this was like part of the art of the deal. And I don't think anyone's buying that. Certainly, a lot of people internally aren't buying it. They underestimated the effect it would have on the markets.
And now, yes, the market's surged, but if you talk to CEOs, there's still so much unpredictability. You basically replaced the largest, maybe the largest trade war of generations with another, maybe the second largest trade war, which is us versus China. Which might be a bigger deal, and it's now escalated, which still creates a hell of a lot of uncertainty for CEOs.
. . .
WILLIE GEIST: Yeah, and the stock markets did come roaring back yesterday, John, but not yet even to the point where they were just eight days ago when all this started.
