trump. when we talk about the possibility of a recession, what is a recession? a recession is two consecutive quarters of kroting economy. we saw that in germany which is a much healthier economy. we saw factory starts at a three-year low. consumer spending purchasing power at a three-year low. s economists don t put a finger in the wind, maybe it s going to be a recession, maybe it s not. they re looking at data, what donald trump ignores. his philosophy with data, the chico marks data. who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes? [ laughter ] the marx brothers? what he does, like what autocrats do, they say ignore the data, ignore empirical reality, pay attention to me. don t pay attention to that. that s what he s doing overs and over. what is fox news going to do now? i mean, he s taking on fox news. so is fox news, the shoe is going to be reversed right now. he s starting to criticize fox
news. are they going to do a primetime special that s like, the american economy, growing and growing, just because that s but that s exactly what all of the anchors there have been doing. they re telling the american people that it is i mean, i try not to, but they tell the american public that everything is okay, the economy is strong, it s the media who is at fault. it s the liberal media that is trying to make the economy weak so that donald trump doesn t win reelection. as if a weak economy would be good for the american public. no. but it s this idea that they just continue to reverberate these conspiracy theories and it s like they are in this closed loop. to pick up on richard s point that connects with what you re saying, there is, on the one hand, data and how much can you fight the numbers and the facts and the evidence. and then there are these bubble events. i mean, george soros who knows his way around the markets talked about the fact bubbles do exist, and a ve
headline, shell workers would have missed pay if they had missed trump speech. one worker said they didn t want to come but thought it would look bad to miss this day of work and full pay. dozens tried to leave early before he finished the 3:00 p.m. approach. they were told secret service wouldn t let them out of the warehouse until trump had left the property. yikes. yikes. i don t know, because to me the bicker question is the game that s being played with our democracy. yeah. the game that s being played with our democracy. and just kind of like the reporting on it, the normalization of it which we re constantly seeing, guys, this is not going to lead us anyplace positive on election night. just not going to lead us to anyplace positive. it s a little like the old soviet union where you had to show up when the leader of the soviet union was there or you wouldn t have been paid. the theme of everything i m trying to unite everything that we ve been discussing, ari. the them
amplified con man can contribute as the rating agencies can. but they pop when there are reality-inducing events. that is why the recession beyond the political reasons scares trump because you can t be a con man if you don t know how to trick people. and it s much harder to trick people about, say, the temperature in this room, right, than it is about something going on over there because there are limits to that. and so it is interesting when you see his obsession with bringing on people who are effectively i don t mean to reduce them to only this, but at least as a minimum are really good at television. so larry kudlow who we are about to hear from involved in the economics, who has been on this show, who i think knows economics and is good on television, but also has a track record both in and out of government of boostering the economy regardless of the data and the recession, which worked for him. and he was called out on this a la little bit here. he currently works for trump.
about it, that s ineffective and pretty short sighted for the u.s. government. as for trump s claim that you just heard there, that economists don t expect a recession? well, one out of four don t. the other 74% of economists are now expecting a recession by the end of 2021 in a new survey out today. trump also in denial about other data, this time a fox news poll that showed him trailing his challengers. fox has changed, and my worst polls have always been from fox. there s something going on at fox, i ll tell you right now, and i m not happy with it. the fox poll, they have you under warren i don t believe it. i don t believe it. okay, he doesn t believe it. you know, the people who know donald trump best describe him as a con man. that includes everyone ranging from the currently incarcerated former lawyer, michael cohen, to his former reality show colleague which he brought famously to the white house,