‘The View’: Sara Haines Predicts U.S. Economy Won’t Ever Recover From Trump & Here’s Why

Amanda Bell April 7, 2025, 12:29 pm

The stock market continues to tank as the impact of Donald Trump‘s trade tariffs sets in with investors, and there’s no end in sight. So, naturally, the state of the nation’s now-ailing economy was the first “Hot Topic” of the day on Monday’s (April 7) edition of The View — and at least one cohost thinks the troubles could be here to stay.

Whoopi Goldberg started out the segment by sharing some statistics: “It will cost an additional $714 billion to bring shoes, TVs, and all other imports into the United States. And according to experts, low-income households are estimated to lose $980 annually. Clothing prices [are] predicted to rise 70%. The cost of building a new home will increase. And he keeps talking about how we’re going to build all these factories — how can you build factories when you put tariffs on all of the building products people need… What are you thinking?!”

Alyssa Farah Griffin was the next one to speak and attempted to explain Trump’s rationale, saying, “Trump believes the U.S. would thrive from having most of our manufacturing here. Personally, I think that’s a reasonable take. However, not everything that we use day to day could feasibly be produced here. It’s not even kind of true. Maybe if we were the 13 original colonies this would be sound trade policy.” She then went on to provide an example of the problem, saying, “An iPhone would cost about $30,000 [to make here]. There is a reason we are a global, interconnected economy.” She also remembered that, when she was a part of the first Trump administration, his current advisor Peter Navarro was kept from meeting with Trump “because he so often lacked information, preparation, [and] statistics.”

Ana Navarro took a dig at Trump for spending the weekend golfing in Florida while the economy crashed, saying, “This is like Nero playing the fiddle at Rome. This is Marie Antoinette with a lot less hair and a lot more makeup saying, ‘Let them eat cake.'” She went on to list the businesses he bankrupted in his own career before pulling up a clip of Kamala Harris warning that Trump’s economic policies would cause a recession.

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Sunny Hostin criticized Navarro and Trump’s trade policy for being ill-informed, saying, “People that really know history know that these types of high tariffs have never worked in the history of our country, and it hasn’t worked in other countries as well.”

Then, Sara Haines got a turn at the metaphorical microphone and shared her reasoning for why Trump’s slump might be a permanent one for the U.S.: “Latino voters who voted for Trump may be regretting as they see the way these deportations are playing out, and I feel like the other issue he won on with the economy is now seeing a lot of big money people come out and say, ‘Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, this isn’t what we voted for,'” she said. She then specifically referenced billionaire investor Bill Ackman’s recent complaints about the Trump economy, quoting him to say, “What CEO and what board of directors will be comfortable making large, long-term economic commitments?’ Some of this is not just what will happen in the near term. Nobody is going to want to come in and establish businesses here because of the chaos nature of [the country].”

Goldberg went on to close out the segment by saying that Trump’s “slash and burn” approach is “just dumb,” adding, “I am always going to try to [choose] the correct words that don’t irritate people, but I’m at the point where I need somebody to explain to me what the hell is going on because I don’t get it. It doesn’t make any sense. And if I did this, if I treated my job the way this man is treating his job, I’d be out of work.”

The View, weekdays, 11 a.m. ET, ABC