Fox host complains that plunging stock market and recession fears are a ‘media creation’ – UK Times

Amid a multi-week Wall Street sell-off that has seen the major stock market indexes approach correction territory over economic uncertainty largely spurred by President Donald Trump’s chaotic trade war, Fox Business anchor Charles Payne grumbled that this was all the media’s fault.

With the Dow Jones index down hundreds of points on Tuesday afternoon, breaking a brief two-day comeback, Payne appeared on Fox News’ America Reports to discuss investors’ continued apprehension and the White House’s attempts to tout the “success” of its economic policies.

“As we have said for years as market watchers, markets do not like uncertainty,” Fox News anchor Sandra Smith noted. “Even if the decision is to go forward with an unpopular policy, or economic plan, the markets can accept that as long as they know what’s coming. It is that uncertainty that continues to weigh on markets.”

Payne, however, trumpeted the Trump administration’s long-term vision while blasting the mainstream press for being biased against the president and far too gloomy with its economic coverage.

“Yeah, but what we’re seeing in the last couple of weeks is a media creation,” he groused. “The media has gone to war with President Trump to make tariffs the scariest thing in the world.”

Pointing to last week’s survey that found consumer sentiment was at its lowest point since 2022 and far below expectations, Payne complained that the “negative line” on what Americans have heard about the government’s economic policies was at a point “we’ve never ever, ever, ever seen before.”

“And then just yesterday, another piece came out on negative news,” he continued. “We have never had this much negative news associated with the economy outside of Covid — the peak of Covid. I mean, we are talking 9/11, we’re talking World War II. Never! So this is a media creation right now that that they are living through.”

Payne went on to argue that he liked what the administration is doing, adding that “President Trump is not going to panic about the stock market.” He also lauded Vice President JD Vance and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent for promoting the White House’s economic agenda. Bessent, for instance, has insisted that economic data is “healthy” and he sees no reason for a recession.

“I’m not worried about the markets. Over the long term, if we put good tax policy in place, deregulation and energy security, the markets will do great,” Bessent declared on Meet the Press this past Sunday. Politico, meanwhile, reported this week that “Bessent’s muted reassurances to financial markets shows there may be no one in the administration willing to stand in the way of Trump’s emboldened mandate for reshaping U.S. economic policy.”

With the markets in turmoil, consumer spending slumping and financial experts increasingly predicting slower economic growth with a risk of recession, the administration and their allies in conservative media have desperately been looking for ways to spin the dire economic forecasts.

Fox Business anchor and Trump acolyte Maria Bartiromo, for instance, recently said that she believes an economic downturn is coming but that it would be former President Joe Biden’s recession. Other MAGA media personalities have also claimed that the stock market must “nosedive” as that could help the “working man” get a “little relief from all this inflation,” for which they’ve said DEI is to blame.