There is often little use in psychoanalyzing Donald Trump: His behavior is so erratic, his thinking so shallow that any definitive assertion about his character or temperament is disproven within minutes. Moreover, given that the president is angry more or less all the time, it’s particularly difficult to isolate moments when he is especially angry, let alone single out moments when he is angry about something important. This is, after all, someone who spends most of his day live-tweeting cable news.

Nevertheless, President Trump has seemed to be particularly upset over the past week. He has ranted about the supposed disloyalty of American Jews, and at Denmark for refusing to entertain an offer for Greenland. He joked that he was the Messiah and freaked about reports that he had openly and repeatedly asked aides to investigate the possibility of nuking hurricanes. But most of the president’s rage was aimed at the economy.



There is good reason to believe that bad economic news—a wheezing stock market, a trade war that’s become an increasingly costly boondoggle, and, above all, a looming recession—inspired the week of tantrums. Over a memorable Friday, he accused Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell—whom Trump handpicked for the job but whom he now openly detests—of treason, saying he was an “enemy” on par with Chinese leader Xi Jinping. Amid signs trade negotiations with China were hitting more roadblocks, the president took to Twitter:

....better off without them. The vast amounts of money made and stolen by China from the United States, year after year, for decades, will and must STOP. Our great American companies are hereby ordered to immediately start looking for an alternative to China, including bringing.. — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 23, 2019

By the weekend, aides were grumbling to The New York Times’ Peter Baker that “he was hurting the economy and was doing lasting damage to his own prospects for reelection.”



All in all, it was a fair preview of what to expect from the president should a recession begin during his time in office. Not a disciplined, unified response to a crisis from this White House; instead, an unhinged president issuing feeble edicts from his bed, many of which could cause a sputtering economy to spiral. As the economy tanks, Trump’s poll numbers will also stumble, risking a pattern that could grow worse and worse.

