Fox Host Says Trump’s Economic Updates Are ‘Not Helping’: ‘It Starts to Smack of Desperation’

BAIER: “I watch your show Making Money all the time and you had this great conversation about conversations. Take a listen.”

[Clip starts]

NELSON: “I wish the administration would just talk a little less. I don’t want to hear about trade deals in the works or we’re talking to China, we’re going to get something. Tell me after it’s done.”

PAYNE: “I know Wall Street, to me, has a a vetted interest. Like, they don’t want to see a change. They like that profit margin.”

NELSON: “And that’s the problem.”

PAYNE: “They like that profit margin.”

NELSON: “They like — they like the status quo.”

[Clip ends]

BAIER: “So, talking about all of this and like, maybe there’s a deal and it’s, we’re going to see de-escalation from China. Is that not helping? It’s making it more volatile?”

PAYNE: “It’s not helping because I think what you need here is, if you’re going to start to really have these conversations, give us some real listed markers. Over the weekend, Apollo published a piece that said the average trade deal takes 18 months to put together and 45 months to implement. Obviously, no one wants or hopes that this is going to be the case this time around. But if you come up every other day, ‘Yeah, we just had a great call with so and so, and these guys,’ it starts to take away credibility. It starts to smack of desperation, and we just don’t necessarily need it. Also, you can see the way the market reacts. No matter what Scott Bessent has to say, they like hearing from him and he’s typically, you know, not the kind of person who’s going to offer pie-in-the-sky kind of stuff. So the American public just wants the White House just to level with us. Hey, listen, this is not an easy undertaking. We understand that. If you’ve got a timeline, great. If you got real news, share it with us. And other than that, I think the ups and downs, the miscommunications have probably been the worst part of this.”