Donald Trump, a historical anomaly in more ways than one, has made it a habit to rhapsodize the ballooning market, despite the fact that, according to experts, he has almost nothing to do with it. But on Monday afternoon, a market plunge laid bare the idiocy of that strategy: following a global sell-off, the the Dow ended down 1,175 points, or 4.6 percent, at 24,346. On Tuesday, after a wild day in which the Dow opened down 568 points, the index more or less recovered, vacillating between a low of 23,778.74 points and a high of 24,946.23, before closing at 24,912.77.

The roller-coaster ride spooked traders—and highlighted why the president was insane to take ownership of the market in the first place. “Trump’s claims all along that the stock market is reflecting his presidency are as ridiculous as blaming him when the market goes down,” Dan Alpert, managing partner at Westwood Capital, told me. “At the end of the day, the markets would not have risen if not for fairly good corporate earnings and improvement in employment stats and everything that goes along with that. But Trump truly doesn’t understand any of this. He does not understand what’s going on in the financial markets.”

Greg Valliere, chief strategist for Horizon Investments, added that though the ex-real-estate mogul may “fancy himself a great expert” on all things financial, “the markets are . . . tricky and they’re really humbling. Not to be cliché, but you live by the sword and you die by the sword,” he added. “You can’t have it both ways.”

What comes next is a matter of debate. Strategas head of policy research Dan Clifton thinks that issues ranging from a potential trade war with China to the Mueller investigation to the midterm elections could “add further strain at a time of volatile markets.” Goldman Sachs remains bullish on stocks, telling clients, “we believe the fundamental drivers of the equity market remain intact and reiterate our S&P 500 year-end 2018 forecast of 2,850.” Legendary curmudgeon Carl Icahn opined to CNBC today that while the market will “probably bounce back” in the near-term, the current volatility is a “warning,” and “one day this thing is just going to implode . . . maybe eventually worse than 1929.” So, a lot of potential scenarios! The one thing we can know for certain? Both Trump and his advisers will keep their wagons hitched to the market, like the village idiots they are.

Another president may have been humbled by Monday’s proceedings, which not only made Trump look dumb, but cut into his press time (about the meanest thing you can do to the guy short of dropping his daughter’s shoe and purse line). But Trump is no ordinary commander in chief. During a hearing on Tuesday, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin told the House Financial Services Committee that the administration will “still claim credit for the fact that [the market] is up over 30 percent since the election.” (As an aside, the answer is yes: it is a medical miracle that Mnuchin can manage to sit for hearings on the Hill with his head lodged inside his boss’s ass.)

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Paul Krugman has more confidence in Louise Linton’s ability to handle a disaster than Steve Mnuchin’s

“It’s surely not a good thing that Trump got rid of one of the most distinguished Federal Reserve chairs in history just before markets started to flash some warning signs,” Kruggles writes in his Times column today. “Jerome Powell, Janet Yellen’s replacement, seems like a reasonable guy. But we have no idea how well he would handle a crisis if one developed. Meanwhile, the current secretary of the Treasury . . . may be the least distinguished, least informed individual ever to hold that position.” Ouch.