By Katherine Tinsley
4:16am PDT, May 6, 2025
_
Donald Trump spoke with Meet the Press host Kristen Welker on Sunday, May 4, to discuss the country's financial situation.
"The economy shrank in the first quarter," Welker said. "You've been arguing all week that this is President Biden's economy. Is this now your economy, sir?"
"Well, I think certain aspects of it are," Trump replied. "Costs are. I was able to get down the costs. But even that, it takes a while to get them down, but we got them down good. We lost five to six billion dollars a day with Biden."
_
Since becoming president, Donald Trump has taken a strong stance on tariffs, which he's been heavily criticized for.
"We've essentially cut off trade relationships by putting that much of a tariff on. And that's okay," the real estate developer explained, as he continues to tax foreign goods. "We've gone cold turkey. That means that we're not losing."
"You know, we lost a trillion dollars to China. A trillion dollars," he continued. "That means we're not losing a trillion dollars when we go cold turkey because we're not doing business with them right now. And they want to make a deal. They want to make a deal very badly. We'll see how that all turns out, but it's got to be a fair deal."
_
Despite some of his constituents' fears, Donald Trump attempted to blame Joe Biden for the financial downturn.
"When does it become the Trump economy?" Kristen Welker asked.
"It partially is right now," Trump stated. "And I really mean this. I think the good parts are the Trump economy and the bad parts are the Biden economy."
_
"Do you take responsibility when [the stock market] drops?" Kristen Welker asked the president.
"Ultimately, I take responsibility for everything," Donald Trump said. "But I've only just been here for a little more than three months. But the stock market, look at what's happened in the last short period of time."
_
Donald Trump later stressed that the stock market was beginning to recover after various companies were affected by the NASDAQ.
"Didn't it have nine or ten days in a row, or 11 days, where it's gone up? And the tariffs have just started kicking in," Trump shared.
"And we're doing really well. Psychologically, I mean, the fake news was giving me such press on the tariffs. The tariffs are going to make us rich. We're going to be a very rich country," he added.
