Looking back
Payne’s tariff defense started in earnest the day after “Liberation Day,” as Trump has described April 2. During his April 3 broadcast of Making Money, the host credited Trump with dropping an “economic MOAB” on global markets, a reference to the GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast Bomb that’s colloquially known as the “mother of all bombs.”
Asked whether he considers that phrasing extreme, Payne counters that it reflected the initial shock that greeted Trump’s announcement. “Nobody had gamed the formula out to that degree, and it was pretty mind-boggling,” he says. “It angered a lot of people, even on the right. But that’s the way Trump does things—he’s a counter-puncher and he punches hard.”
Over the next few days, Payne advanced his own case by drawing on his reading of American history, referencing how consequential figures like Alexander Hamilton and William McKinley were also pro-tariff. “Historically tariffs have helped this country more than it’s hurt,” he says. (McKinley’s use of tariffs has been frequently cited by Trump as well.)
Payne also notes that he sought to separate “soft data” like consumer surveys from “hard data” like mortgage applications and job numbers, which didn’t appear to be as severely impacted by the tariff fallout. “The hard data was largely ignored,” he claims. (Other outlets have noted that the Labor Department’s most recent jobs report covered the pre-tariff period.)
“All the touchy-feely [soft data] stuff that may or may not morph into hard data was what was killing the market,” Payne argues.
As the week progressed, though, it grew increasingly clear that pro-tariff arguments weren’t finding purchase amidst the grim headlines and grimmer forecasts. At one point, reports spread that that Fox News removed its onscreen stock ticker as the markets plunged, although fact-checking outlets like Snopes have labeled those claims as false.
For his part, Payne claims that he was unaware of the stock ticker controversy. “First time I’ve heard of it,” he remarks.
On April 9, Trump put the majority of his tariffs on pause, a reversal that’s widely been interpreted as a sign that the administration recognized the severity of the economic stakes in play. “I thought that people were jumping a little bit out of line,” Trump told reporters. “They were getting yippy… a little bit afraid.”
Directly following the pause, Payne spoke with White House trade adviser Peter Navarro, and notably slipped some criticisms into the conversation, at one point suggesting that Navarro and commerce secretary Howard Lutnick might have been “mucking up the public relations aspect” of the tariff roll-out. Asked about that back-and-forth, Payne emphasizes that it didn’t reflect any change of heart on his part.
“My thing with Peter wasn’t about the tariffs as much as the messaging,” he says. “I have a lot of respect for everyone on Trump’s team… I just think that communication is really vital.”