As Fox Business hosts continue to defend Donald Trump and his current handling of the economy, “Late Night” host Seth Meyers suspects that the “business” part of the name doesn’t actually refer to economic matters.
As part of his “A Closer Look” on Monday night, the NBC host pointed out that the stock market has been steadily falling for days now, leading to increased concerns of a recession, which Trump won’t rule out. But this week, the president told Fox host Maria Bartiromo that “you can’t really watch the stock market” as a measure of success.
The irony was thick, considering Trump regularly bragged about the stock market during his first term, and took credit for any stock market success during Biden’s tenure as well.
Even still, Bartiromo, as well as Trump allies, have gone on Fox Business, along with CNN, to say Trump simply inherited a bad situation and can’t be blamed for anything right now.
“I’m starting to feel like the ‘business’ in Fox Business is the same as the ‘business’ in monkey business,” Meyers joked. “It doesn’t mean things of an economic matter, but rather, shenanigans. I’m going to start telling my kids, ‘We’re having dinner at a fancy restaurant tonight, and I won’t stand for any Fox Business!’”
The NBC host then pulled at the thread further, picking apart the logic that Trump and his supporters are using.
“So let me see if I understand what you’re saying, when the economy is good under Biden, Trump gets the credit, but when the economy is bad under Trump, Biden gets the blame,” he said. “What you’re saying is that the stock market is falling under Trump because Trump inherited a bad economy from Biden, but when Biden was president, the economy was so good, Trump deserved credit for it.”
But Meyers wasn’t done there, really drilling the contradictions home further.
“I just want to understand. So when the stock market is rising, it’s because investors think Trump is about to become president, but then when Trump does become president, the stock market falls because the economy under Biden was so bad,” he continued breathlessly. “Is that what you’re saying? Is that? Just tell me, is that what you’re f–king saying?!”
All that said, Meyers did give Trump a little credit, noting that he never told Bartiromo that the stock market would soar under his administration.
“To be fair, Trump only said the stock market would crash if Biden won. He never said it would do well if he won,” he explained. “For all we know, his point was, ‘Look, Maria, it’s going to eat s–t either way, so let’s have some fun and get a crazy person back in the Oval Office!’”
You can watch Seth Meyers’ full “A Closer Look” segment in the video, above.
