Politico’s Bureau Chief: Wall St. Has ‘Snapped out of its Denialism’ on Trump

WELKER: “Jonathan, let me kick it off with you. After this week of whiplash over President Trump’s tariffs, you heard his Secretary of his Commerce Howard Lutnick basically defend the strategy. What do you make of where we are right now, and did the Commerce Secretary say anything that will calm markets tomorrow?”
Martin: “Lutnick to Wall Street: ‘Get used to it.’ It’s going to be week-to-week, in some cases day-to-day, or even hour-to-hour. This tariff regime, some are on, some are off. Look, I think this was the week, Kristen, that Wall Street woke up and Wall Street snapped out of its denialism. There was a sense, I think, among a lot of investors, in the aftermath of the election, when they were riding the Trump bump, that we are back, we have a deregulatory, conservative, pro-market, pro-business president. That was fantasy. That is not Donald Trump. He is not from The Wall Street Journal. He is somebody who does deeply believe in tariffs, not just on fentanyl or drug inflow. He believes fundamentally in the tariffs. He said it’s the best word in the English language. And so I think this was a sort of seminal week on — on Wall Street and it’s not going to change. And by the way, it isn’t just the tariffs. It’s also the uncertainty about Elon and the role of the federal government, because that involves contracts with the private sector. So, business is paralyzed on hiring, on investing. They don’t know what to do going forward.”