This week in Trumponomics

Yahoo Finance's Rick Newman joins Myles Udland to give this week's Trump-o-meter reading.

Video Transcript

MYLES UDLAND: All right, we'll go back to "Yahoo Finance Live." Myles Udland here in New York. Let's get a quick look at where the market settled out. As we mentioned about 20 minutes ago, we had a very-- very chaotic close, a huge sell off in the market as we headed towards the final closing bell of this week. When the dust settled, the Dow was the biggest loser, off some 4%, a 915-point drop for the Dow. The S&P fell more than 3% today, the NASDAQ 3.8%, though the S&P and the Dow-- well the Dow is a couple of thousand points higher than where it was last Friday, S&P a couple of points higher than where it finished last week, certainly volatile days ahead in this market.

We'll hear for more on the market from Jared Blikre in just a little bit. But let's get now to our latest Trump-o-meter score. Rick Newman joins us now. For new viewers, Rick has been tracking the state of the Donald Trump economy since his inauguration. We've called it the Trump-o-meter.

Rick, we have seen some very good readings. We've seen some bad readings. So I can imagine what this week's rating is. But I guess just talk us through what you're looking at right now as the most important things that are happening in Trump's economic universe.

RICK NEWMAN: Myles, I'm very encouraged to hear we have new viewers out there. That's great news. It was a terrible week in the economy. I mean, it goes without saying. To wrap it up, the bad news, 3.3 million unemployed people. That is four times worse than the worst number four initial unemployment claims ever, which was in 1982.

We know GDP's going to fall off the cliff for the second quarter. And it's probably going to get worse, not better. So I guess on the upside this week, markets, we had a bear market rally. A lot of our guests don't think that's going to last. We think that's going to be erased.

And we did finally get this $2.2-trillion stimulus bill from Congress. So that'll help at some point. But you know what I've been paying attention to is all the scapegoating that's going on at the White House in listening to Trump. He's blaming everybody for-- for everything that's happening.

He's blaming the Democrats. He's blaming the media. He's having these ridiculous spats with the governors of California and New York. And it seems to me like Trump is basically just-- the only thing he-- the thing that is dominating his thinking is how do I escape the blame for this terrible recession that's about to happen or that is happening now?

So I know you are expecting a sad reading on the Trump-o-meter, Myles, at least that's what I think. I'm going to disappoint you. It looks like the Trump-o-meter this week says failing. Can anybody see that?

MYLES UDLAND: Wow.

RICK NEWMAN: We got that?

MYLES UDLAND: We got that.

RICK NEWMAN: That's the second-worst reading. And the only redeeming virtue in the economy this week is that big stimulus bill from Congress. I think they actually got that right. Now, that was not so much Trump's doing. Congress did that with-- on their own initiative. But that's a pretty good Main Street bailout.

MYLES UDLAND: OK. So-- but-- so I am very surprised to see this not sad because we were talking right in the break about how-- it couldn't have been more than five weeks ago-- we did this segment on our set. And it was probably right when the market was at a record high, and we had some pretty good jobs data, great consumer [INAUDIBLE]. I mean, I remember writing a story based on a JP Morgan report that recession risks were at a 15-month low.

This was, like, February 18th or something. The perfect contra for everybody who knows the media will call the top. And I think our conversation then was a recession would send the Trump-o-meter to sad. Well, Jay Powell said we're in recession. And we call the bill stimulus.

But it's not stimulus. It's-- it's just trying to stop gap--

RICK NEWMAN: Repair.

MYLES UDLAND: Right. The economy is frozen. And so I am a little bit curious to why it wouldn't just be-- why the Trump-o-meter wouldn't just be pinned to sad until this is over.

RICK NEWMAN: It could be, but how interesting would that be? Not very. So Myles, just in my defense, the Trump-o-meter did read sad the last two weeks prior to this week. And honestly, I'm thinking we might have to recalibrate to Trump-o-meter. I mean, we might have to have different degrees of sadness here because this is just going to be terrible.

You know, when we dreamed this up a couple of years ago, we created six scores. And I don't think anybody foresaw, you know, the worst-- the worst week of unemployment in modern history and some of the GDP numbers we're going to see and whole sectors of the economy just completely shutting down probably for months, like the airlines. So I take your criticism. And we'll take it under advisement here at Trump-o-meter headquarters and see if maybe we need to recalibrate this thing.

MYLES UDLAND: All right. I'm glad that the committee is at least--

RICK NEWMAN: Trump-o-meter committee will be convening an emergency meeting.

MYLES UDLAND: Yes, I'm-- I'm glad that at least my concerns have been lodged. And whether they are taken or not. remains to be seen.