Jim Cramer, CNBC’s fiery host, unloaded on President Donald Trump in an intense rant about the crumbling stock market as the tariff deadline looms. With the biggest round of tariffs yet set to hit on April 2, Trump’s so-called “Liberation Day” is being seen by the market as more like Judgment Day.
The Dow Jones had a slight recovery on Monday, but the damage was already done: it lost nearly 1200 points in March, and futures were headed south again. Cramer didn’t hold back in his assessment, labeling Trump as the “one man standing in the way of a great economy” and dropping a brutal comparison that Trump won’t like — to former President Jimmy Carter.
“We have declining inflation, except the president’s putting on inflationary tariffs,” Cramer started, slamming Trump’s economic moves. “We have incredibly low unemployment, except where it’s caused by the Trump administration.”
Then, Cramer really went for it: “We have a market that was doing extremely well last year, until the Trump administration sowed the level of uncertainty that I can’t recall any time since—Are you ready, Ski Daddy?—Jimmy Carter.”
That’s right, Cramer reached all the way back to Carter’s presidency, when stagflation was a real concern. He didn’t hold back on the comparison: “I cannot think of another president in my lifetime who could knock down the stock market simply by opening his mouth than Jimmy Carter. Eureka! I have found him!”
Cramer didn’t stop there. He argued that the economy should be thriving right now, but Trump’s behavior is dragging it down: “Everything about this economy is good. Everything, everything, except one thing. We have a president who’s very angry at everyone, except Vladimir Putin.”
According to Cramer, Trump’s anger is scaring off investors, who are avoiding the market and bracing for more tariffs. “People have just given up. They want nothing to do with stocks, nothing to do with this world, because they’re sure the White House will keep laying on the tariffs that seem to be wiping out your wealth and my wealth,” he said.
But Cramer didn’t just blast Trump without offering a solution. He laid out what could turn things around for the market: “If Trump can lose the anger, drop the scowl, stop diminishing our friends and rivals while making common cause with our enemies, and generally start acting like he did in his first term, well, that would be huge for the stock market!”
For Cramer, the answer is simple: less Jimmy Carter, more Ronald Reagan. “As far as the stock markets are concerned, though, we need less Jimmy Carter, more Ronald Reagan,” he said. “Bottom line, maybe Wednesday isn’t de-liberation day. It’s just the day when American investors may be finally liberated from the president’s not-so-pro-business attitude, once he gets the tariffs out of the way.”
Watch the segment below from CNBC:
