Personally, I’m astounded that anyone could be astounded about how astoundingly stupid Donald Trump is, but apparently Gary Cohn once had enough faith in Trump to think he wouldn’t be the presidential equivalent of a drunk howler monkey with diarrhea.
From Bess Levin in Vanity Fair:
According to an excerpt from Bob Woodward‘s Fear, the book out tomorrow that the president has called a “joke,” a “scam,” and a “con on the public“ written by a “Dem operative,” the Goldman Sachs president turned National Economic Council director came away from his very first meeting with Donald Trump “astounded” by just how dumb the guy was. During a chat about various economic issues, Cohn told Trump that the Federal Reserve would likely increase rates during his first term in office, to which President Buy High, Sell Low reportedly responded, “We should just go borrow a lot of money, hold it, and then sell it to make money.” This suggestion, and “lack of basic understanding” about how federal debt works apparently sent chills up the spine of Cohn, who explained that borrowing more money would in fact increase the deficit and add to the debt, something that would, in theory, be counterproductive for a delusional president who had pledged to completely eliminate the federal debt.
Ah, but that wasn’t all, oh scared shitless little boys and girls. Trump, who allegedly ran a company connected at least tangentially to, you know, the economy, had the following to say about the solution to this little conundrum:
“Just run the presses—print money,” Trump said, according to Woodward.
Cohn suggested that would be detrimental to the fiscal and economic health of the U.S., since printing vast amounts of money is thought to lead to inflation. . . . Cohn also pointed to the federal debt ceiling, a statutory limit to the amount of debt the federal government can have outstanding. Even approaching the debt ceiling can be harmful to the stock market and U.S. economic growth.
But according to Woodward, Cohn’s message did not seem to connect.
“It was clear that Trump did not understand the way the U.S. government debt cycle balance sheet worked,” Woodward wrote.
Oh, yes, the derp is strong in this one.
As if you didn’t already know that.
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