CNN data guru Harry Enten tore into President Donald Trump over his latest polling numbers on the economy.
Enten said that Trump is not pushing the economy to the top of his agenda enough, according to recent polls. Enten said a recent CBS News/YouGov poll found that 82% of Americans think that Trump should be prioritizing the economy, but just 36% believe he is doing so.
“And is he pushing the economy to the top of his agenda enough?” CNN’s Sara Sidner asked Enten Wednesday on “CNN News Central.”
“No, no, no, no. The answer to the question is no.... It’s almost as if Trump is on Planet Krypton. Look at this. ‘He is prioritizing the economy’—just 36%. My goodness gracious,” he responded.
“I don’t understand how this mathematical formula works, right? If the economy is the number one issue, if that’s what Americans think you should be prioritizing, and well less than half think that you are, no wonder Trump is having problems with the economy. Simply put, he’s not putting it to the top of his list, the way Americans are,” he added.
Sidner also asked whether Americans still care about the stock market after stocks racked up more losses on Tuesday amid Trump’s latest push to implement costly tariffs.
“That has changed tremendously. You know, sometimes I look up numbers and I’m just shocked at them. This, to me, is a shocking number, and it tells you why the stock market is so important to perceptions of the economy,” Enten said, noting that 61% of American adults had a job in January while 62% said they own a stock.
“So the stock market is as important to economic perceptions, in my mind, as is the unemployment number, given that about the same percentage of Americans, in fact, if you believe it—though it’s within the margin of error—one point more of the American folks actually own stock than actually have a job,“ Enten added.
”And that’s why the economy or the stock market going this way could lead to Donald Trump’s approval ratings following along on the roller coaster," he said.
The U.S. stock market is holding steadier on Wednesday, for now at least, following the sharp tumble that wiped out the last of the “Trump bump” it received following the presidential election in November.
The S&P 500 was mostly unchanged in afternoon trading after losing 6% since setting its all-time high last month and returning to where it was before President Donald Trump’s election. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 128 points, or 0.3%, as of 12:03 p.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite fell 0.1%.
Sharper moves may still be ahead. Wall Street is waiting to hear if Trump may announce later on Wednesday whether he’ll modify the tariffs he placed on Mexico, Canada and China early Tuesday. The moves caused the United States’ largest trading partners to retaliate with their own tariffs, raising the risk of a punishing trade war that hurts the economies of all involved.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Stories by Lauren Sforza
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