President Donald Trump calmed concerns of an impending recession, asserting “everything’s OK.”
The Bureau of Economic Analysis published its report this week, finding that the economy shrank by 0.3% from January to April. Imports negatively affected GDP by 5%.
NBC host Kristen Welker asked Trump in an interview for Meet the Press about the possibility of a recession in the short term. The president dismissed the question twice.
“Look, yeah, it’s — everything’s OK. What we are — I said, this is a transition period. I think we’re going to do fantastically,” Trump explained in a clip shared ahead of the full Meet the Press interview’s airing.
While Trump assured he personally wasn’t worried about a recession, he admitted, “Anything can happen, but I think we’re going to have the greatest economy in the history of our country.”
This report comes as Trump is in the middle of a 90-day pause on tariffs against 86 countries. The strategy has faced criticism and stoked fears of a recession. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, among other Trump officials, has largely dismissed predictions of an impending recession.
TRUMP’S APPROVAL RATING BRISTLES REPUBLICAN PARTY
Trump’s strategic response to the report, along with his administration, has been to blame “the Biden ‘Overhang,’” as Trump called it in a Truth Social post. Council of Economic Advisors Chairman Stephen Miran blamed a poor first quarter gross domestic product report on January being “a very weak month” caused by “lingering problems with the economy left to us by President Biden‘s economic policies.”
The excerpt of the interview was recorded Friday at Mar-A-Lago for an episode that will air Sunday morning.