Donald Trump held conference call bank CEOs on day the Dow lost 800 points

Donald Trump had a conference call Wednesday with the CEOs of America’s largest lenders while the stock market was in a free fall.

They were meeting with Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin when they phoned the president, who was at his Bedminster golf club at the time.  

JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s Jamie Dimon, Bank of America’s Brian Moynihan and Citigroup’s Michael Corbat were all on the impromptu call, a White House official confirmed to DailyMail.com.

Donald Trump had a conference call Wednesday with the CEOs of America’s largest lenders while the stock market was in a free fall

STOCK MARKET SLUMP: On Friday afternoon, the Dow was still down 300 points from the previous week, and finished at 25,886.01

The Dow lost 800 points that day, as fears of a recession spooked Wall Street. Erratic tweeting from the president on China helped sustain the massive drop-off, after Trump suggested that protests in Hong Kong were disrupting trade negotiations.  

On Friday afternoon, the Dow was still down 300 points from the previous week, and finished at 25,886.01. It was off more than 1,300 points from the prior month, but the bleeding appeared to have clotted.

As the president left Thursday evening for New Hampshire, he insisted that the U.S. ‘is going to have a very long period of wealth and success’, and it’s China’s economy that’s suffering under the weight of his tariffs.

‘Tariffs have really bitten into China. They haven’t bitten into us at all — except for the reporters that want to make it look that way, but they don’t understand what’s happening,’ he said. ‘The tariffs, we’ve taken in close to $60 billion in tariff money. And the consumer has not paid for them.’

He said, ‘Now, at some point, they may have to pay something. But they understand that.’  

Trump denied that the tariffs, which he says have generated $60 billion in revenue, would send the U.S. economy into a downward spiral and a recession.

‘No, I think the longer the trade war goes on, the weaker China gets and the stronger we get,’ he contended.

Bank of America’s Moynihan appeared on Bloomberg Television on Friday also downplayed the prospects of a recession.

‘We have nothing to fear about a recession right now except for the fear of recession,’ he said.

He did attribute the slow down to Trump’s trade war with China and the adjustments that businesses have had to make to offset tariffs, however.

Trump claimed on Thursday as he make a deal with China’s Xi Jinping soon and proposed in-person talks about the agreement and the violence in Hong Kong.

‘I will speak to him. We have a call scheduled soon, President Xi. We’ll be speaking to him very soon,’ he told DailyMail.com on Thursday. ‘I really believe he can work it out. I know him well. If he wants to, he can work that out in a very humane fashion. He can work something that everybody is happy.’ 

The president was relatively quiet on Friday, making no public appearances, and tweeting less original content than he had the rest of the week.

His afternoon was taken up by a briefing at Bedminster with his secretary of state, the vice president and national security advisers on peace negotiations with Afghanistan.  

‘Discussions centered around our ongoing negotiations and eventual peace and reconciliation agreement with the Taliban and the government of Afghanistan. The meeting went very well, and negotiations are proceeding,’ the statement said.

Trump also spoke to Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan earlier in the day about tension with India, the White House said in a statement.