Amid the Trump administration’s bungled response to the coronavirus, the president has often seemed more concerned about the performance of the stock market than he was about the coronavirus itself. On Friday, he all but confirmed it.
According to CNN, President Trump sent his supporters a photo of an autographed stock-market chart showing Friday’s gains and bragged about how his afternoon press conference — in which he declared a national emergency over the coronavirus outbreak — had led to the “biggest day in stock market history!”
CNN reports that recipients of the message included some members of Congress, and that the note also shared screenshots of afternoon television coverage showing the market gains.
“The President would like to share the attached image with you, and passes along the following message: ‘From opening of press conference, biggest day in stock market history!’” the note began. The message did not mention the coronavirus crisis.
One of the people Trump sent the message to was Fox Business host Lou Dobbs, who then showed it on the air.
“The president celebrating his signature day today,” Dobbs said, displaying the signed chart. “The White House sent along to me a signed chart of the skyrocketing Dow, the S&P 500, and NASDAQ. The Dow rose more than 1,000 points from the time he started talking to the time the news conference was over with his decisive announcement to declare the coronavirus pandemic a national emergency. Well received by markets all around the world, I’m sure.”
Though the president declared a national emergency during his press conference, he seemed more focused on promoting his administration’s partnership with a bunch of corporations to boost the country’s coronavirus testing capacity. Trump called up executives from major American companies like Walmart and CVS to say a few words about how they planned to work with the White House. Trump praised the executives as “celebrities in their own right,” called them “geniuses,” and tried to get reporters to ask the CEOs questions instead of him. (Most reporters had more pressing concerns — about the epidemic and what the administration was doing about it.)
It’s not clear if the executives also received the celebratory note.
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