There’s a reason most presidents are cautious when talking about the stock market. President Donald Trump is learning it the hard way this week.
The outbreak of the new type of coronavirus in China and its spread to other nations was not something Trump could have prevented. But even as public health officials start to warn that many Americans may become infected, the Trump administration has devoted lots of effort to talking up the stock market.
Ideally, even economic officials who don’t have expertise in disease transmission would spend their time trying to understand what industries are likely to be heavily affected and whether government can do anything to help them work through the supply chain disruptions and other bad effects of the virus.Tuesday afternoon, the chief White House economic adviser, Larry Kudlow, was interviewed on CNBC in the midst of the sell-off, and focused on talking up the markets.
“It’s not so much of a question of if this will happen anymore, but rather more of a question of exactly when this will happen,” said Dr. Nancy Messonnier, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases.“We are asking the American public to prepare for the expectation that this might be bad,” she added.
Then there is the broader question of credibility. During the global financial crisis in 2008, White House and Treasury officials were acutely aware that if they seemed too boosterish in public comments on the crisis, it would undermine their credibility and the sense in markets that they were taking the threat seriously enough.