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Fox Business anchor Dagen McDowell on Tuesday got into a high-octane squabble with contributor Lou Basenese over the potential economic effect of President Donald Trump ramping up strikes against Iran.
Basenese said on The Big Money Show investors and Wall Street were bullish on Trump hitting Iran and did not have much “fear” about oil prices temporarily spiking because of it.
“You saw this in the last inflation prints, right? The oil coming back down brought inflation back down with it,” Basenese said. “So investors right now I think are having an optimistic outlook of, ‘Hey, we’re escalating this 10 nights in a row. We’re gonna go to 11, 12, whatever we have to do to get this over with. And we know even if there’s a temporary inflation because of oil re-spiking back to $90—”
McDowell then jumped in and told him, “It’s not just inflation, it’s the spend!”
She then pointed to Trump threatening to attack the Houthis and Iran’s Pickaxe Mountain “pretty soon.” The mountain is where one nuclear site is under construction and another nuke site is nearby. McDowell suggested those strikes could spook investors.
“But the market’s not freaking out about that,” Basenese told her.
“Well look at the 10-year! The stock market is not freaking out YET,” she shot back.
The three major stock indices — the S&P 500, Nasdaq, and Dow — increased between 0.74% and 1.29% on Tuesday.
They continued arguing a bit more, with Basenese saying defense spending is usually a good sign for the market.
“Not if it drives up longer-term interest rates,” McDowell told him.
“But what’s going to drive up long-term interest rates? The deficit or oil prices?” he asked.
“It’s both… longer-term interest rates started going up at the very onset of this conflict simply because of the spending on military,” she said. “And it was the inflation from oil prices showin’ up in the CPI [data].”
Basense then told her he was willing to bet on the market responding positively to the next ceasefire being announced. Before he could finish saying what he was wagering, McDowell scoffed.
“Oh you’re bettin’ on a ceasefire? That’s really gonna take care of Iran,” she said. “Have we lived through that — I don’t want to say idiocy —didn’t we live through that before?”
He then said he’d prefer to just see Iran pummeled so the war wraps up ASAP.
Watch above.
Jason Cohen contributed to this report.
The post ‘It’s Not Just the Inflation!’ Fox Business Hosts Clash Over Iran War’s Economic Fallout first appeared on Mediaite.
