Things got heated between colleagues Richard Quest and Scott Jennings Wednesday night during a “CNN NewsNight” panel discussing the effect of President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs nearly four months after his so-called “Liberation Day.”
In the middle of a crosstalking debate over the state of the economy and the looming effects of Trump’s policies, Jennings implied that his beliefs were simply informed by his role as a journalist, arguing he reported on the data in front of him. Quest quickly objected to this point.
“It’s too early to give a final verdict on the tariffs,” Quest said. “You may wish to, but at the moment, it can’t be said what the long-term effect is going to be.”
“I am just a journalist –” Jennings started.
“No you’re not!” Quest fired back.
You can watch the spat below:
Joining CNN anchor Abby Phillip was a group of guests, including Quest and Jennings. The segment started when Phillip tossed Quest a question about the “weird” current state of the GDP. The Quest Means Business anchor emphasized that it’s too soon to tell what the eventual effects of Trump’s proposed tariffs will be.
“The Wall Street Journal described this as a weird GDP report because there’s a lot of stuff inside the numbers. Headline number is good, but what do you see on the inside?” Phillip asked.
“We do not know the full effects of the tariffs yet. We — to put this in perspective, pre-Donald Trump, the average U.S. tariff was 3%. Today, the average U.S. tariff is 17%, which is the highest level since Smoot-Hawley in the 1920s and ’30s,” Quest said. “We cannot know at this point exactly how that’s going to play out, which is why the fed held interest rates as they — there are two dissenters, yes, two dissenters, I’ll give you that — but they held for the time being simply because, as Jerome Powell says, we just don’t know.”
Jennings quickly jumped on the opportunity to deride Quest and the rest of the panel — which included Shermichael Singleton, Amanda Berman and Chuck Rocha — for predicting a recession after Trump’s Liberation Day.
“I would just like to go — I’d like to build a DeLorean and go back to April when everybody here was predicting likely to cause a recession, investment stops when a recession happens,” Jennings said. “They’re not talking about a U.S. recession, they’re talking about a global recession.”
“What was happening in April, Scott?” Phillip asked.
The group erupted into a collection of panelists talking over each other. After Quest’s quip, the commentator followed by bashing the tariffs one final time — much to Jennings’ chagrin.
“These trade deals are garbage,” Quest said.
“Garbage?” Jennings asked.
“Yes.”
