Stephen Colbert began his monologue Monday by addressing President Donald Trump’s economy. Not only has the Dow Jones dropped significantly, Colbert pointed out, but so has the nation’s projected GDP growth.
“According to the Atlanta Fed, so far growth in the current quarter was a stunning negative 2.8 percent," Colbert said.
He noted that this means that “the GDP is shrinking at the fastest pace since the pandemic lockdown.”
ADVERTISEMENT
Colbert joked, “In the first Trump term, it took a disease to destroy the economy. This time, he is the disease.”
But although Colbert has taken plenty of shots at Trump over the past few weeks for his handling of the economy, tonight he took aim at Fox Business Network’s Charlie Gasparino for his spin on the crisis.
“Who cares if we take the Dow down to 35,000, if that’s what happens? Nobody will care,” Gasparino said in the clip Colbert showed. “We avoided a recession. We reoriented the economy to the private sector. It’s going to go up, because [Trump’s] plan is to unleash this sort of animal spirit.”
“He’s what? He’s going to unleash the animal spirit?” Colbert joked. “That’s not the advice you get from your financial guy. That’s what the shaman says as he’s pouring the ayahuasca down your throat.”
The term “animal spirit” is a fairly common one among Wall Street experts. It was first coined in 1936, and is often used to describe how herd mentality can affect market trends. For Colbert, however, it didn’t seem to be a convincing argument in Trump’s favor.
“Trump’s twitchy tariff hand is bumming out everybody on Wall Street,” Colbert noted. He quoted a TIME magazine article reporting that Wall Street investors are “exhausted” by Trump’s behavior.
“Do you know how hard it is to exhaust Wall Street?” said Colbert. “They wake up every morning to a hot cup of cocaine, and then, just to take the edge off, more cocaine.”
