'Devastating': CNN's Tapper says Trump's demands would trash U.S. economy

During his town hall at St. Anselm College in New Hampshire on Wednesday, former President Donald Trump advocated for the the U.S. to default on its debt — something he called unthinkable when he was president himself. And he advocated for slashing government funding as the only option of preventing this, something that would be almost equally devastating to the economy.

Speaking to political analyst David Chalian on Thursday, CNN anchor Jake Tapper laid out just how catastrophic this is — and how damaging it is for Trump to even talk about it.

"There was, policy-wise, a lot of things that he said yesterday that were stunning," said Tapper. "One of them was when he said something very different about the U.S. defaulting on its loans than he used to say when he was president. When he was president, the government should never default on loans, always raise the debt ceiling. Congress voted to do so when he was president with no spending cuts. That's not his position now. Take a listen."

"I say to at Republicans out there, congressmen, senators, if they don't give you massive cuts, you are going to have to do a default," said Trump in a clip.

"First of all, he never pushed for massive cuts when he was president, not once," said Tapper. "Second of all, that would be, according to every, every respected expert, left, right and center, devastating to the U.S. economy. This is going to make it more difficult for Speaker McCarthy to come to some sort of deal with President Biden."

"No doubt," said Chalian. "President Trump said it's just psychological, perhaps, the impact, despite what every economic expert said, so you're right to point that out. But, yes. This is going to give comfort to some of the hardliners in McCarthy's conference as he is trying to negotiate a deal to avoid the first U.S. default ever, to avoid catastrophe to our economy, and now Donald Trump has given cover for those hardliners to hold Kevin McCarthy's feet to the fire. That makes the negotiating more difficult."

Watch video below or at this link.

Jake Tapper and David Chalian discuss Trump's demand for U.S. default www.youtube.com