Conservative commentator Scott Jennings, known for rarely straying from Donald Trump’s corner on CNN, expressed rare hesitation Thursday night over the former president’s sweeping new economic policy — one that has already sent shockwaves through the global financial system. “I have mixed feelings about this, truthfully,” Jennings admitted during a segment with anchor Abby Phillip. “I wasn’t trained to believe in tariffs.”
The uncertainty followed a catastrophic day for the markets. U.S. indices nosedived after Trump declared “Liberation Day,” unveiling a broad 10% baseline tariff on all imports, with some tariffs potentially spiking to 50% on countries he labeled “uncooperative.” The NASDAQ Composite dropped nearly 6%, losing over 1,050 points. The Dow Jones fell by about 4%, shedding nearly 1,680 points, while the S&P 500 declined just under 5%, down by around 274 points.
Related: Trump’s New Tariffs Could Push U.S. to the Brink of Recession in “Largest Tax Hike Since 1968”
The sweeping tariffs marked a seismic shift in U.S. trade policy, prompting concern not only among economists and international partners but also from typically loyal conservative voices. CNN’s Abby Phillip didn’t mince words. “It’s also not economics. It’s kind of no way to run the economics of the greatest economy in the world,” she said of the administration’s logic behind the tariffs, adding that the math “was not math.”
Turning to Jennings for a defense, she found an unusually conflicted ally of Trump. “I’m not going to get into the mathematical formulas they came up with because I wasn’t there and I don’t know how or why they did it,” Jennings responded, cautiously.
He then acknowledged that Trump’s aggressive trade stance represents a fundamental transformation in Republican economic orthodoxy. “What he’s doing here is implanting new economic theory DNA inside the Republican Party,” he said. Jennings added that Republicans are split, with some rejecting the approach, some going “reluctantly along with it,” and others “enthusiastically embracing it.”
Related: Trump Shrugs Off Market Drop After Announcing New Tariffs
“I know people in the business community who are on both sides of it, frankly, back home in Kentucky and elsewhere,” Jennings said. “I am also persuaded, frankly, by the Trump argument regarding the working class in this country and also by the fairness argument.”
Still, he conceded that the policy is a massive political gamble. “If it works, it will be the ballsiest and gutsiest thing a president has done in a decade,” Jennings said. “If it doesn’t work, the political consequences [are] all on the shoulders of one man.”
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