William Brangham:

Heading into today, several of the major stock indexes were already in bear market territory for the first time in a decade.

That includes the Nasdaq and the Standard & Poor's 500. A bear market is when an index drops 20 percent from a recent high. Then, over the weekend, there were new revelations that further unnerved investors. President Trump was reportedly considering firing the chairman of the Federal Reserve, Jay Powell. Administration officials have since denied the president had any such intention.

But the president again went after the Fed today, tweeting — quote — "The only problem our economy has is the Fed. They don't have a feel for the market."

On top of that, yesterday, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin issued this puzzling statement, saying he'd spoken with the heads of the biggest U.S. banks to reiterate the strength of the financial system and to confirm their reserves of cash for lending.

To many, this hearkened back to a concern not seen since the Great Recession in 2008.

Annie Lowrey watches all this for "The Atlantic." And she joins me now from New York.

Annie, thank you for being here.

You wrote a column in "The Atlantic" where you were describing this letter that Mnuchin put out yesterday, and equated it to going to the doctor when you have the symptoms of a head cold, your doctor can't stop talking about cancer, and how alarming that is.

I mean, what do you think the secretary was up to?