Right media turning against Trump over tariffs

Joe Kernen

Media usually supportive of Republican President Donald Trump are beginning to break ranks with the government leader, reports Oliver Darcy of “Status.”

Darcy writes, “On Monday morning, CNBC’s “Squawk Box” co-anchor Joe Kernen welcomed Peter Navarro onto the program. Kernen has long been one of Donald Trump’s most visible boosters on business television, frequently praising the president’s economic agenda and telling viewers that Trump’s return to power would spark a new golden age for American business. So it would have been reasonable, perhaps, to expect a friendly segment—an unchallenging platform for Navarro, Trump’s trade adviser, to spin the economic fallout of the administration’s sweeping tariffs.

“But that’s not what happened.

“From the jump, Kernen came out swinging, pressing Navarro on a tariff policy that has sent markets into turmoil worldwide. On Monday, the Dow Jones industrial average plunged another 350 points, extending a staggering slide of over 4,000 points since what Trump had billed ‘Liberation Day.’ When Navarro tried to downplay the panic—calling the current moment a ‘beautiful situation’ and dismissing market reaction as overblown—Kernen shut him down.”

Read more here.

Chris Roush

Chris Roush was the dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. He was previously Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Professor in business journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a former business journalist for Bloomberg News, Businessweek, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Tampa Tribune and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He is the author of the leading business reporting textbook "Show me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication" and "Thinking Things Over," a biography of former Wall Street Journal editor Vermont Royster.