If Sunny Hostin were grading President Donald Trump‘s handling of the U.S. economy, it sounds like she’d hit him with a big fat F. The View co-host criticized Trump’s economic policies on this morning’s episode of the show after he gave a non-committal answer when asked by a journalist about the possibility of a recession.

(Editor’s Note: The View has not been canceled; The View is currently on hiatus. This story was originally published on March 11, 2025, when the episode first aired. The View will return with new episodes next week.)

Trump, who came into office for the second time with the stock market at an all-time high saw a jarring drop in economic growth, said in a March 9 interview with Fox News that the U.S. will undergo a “period of transition” as he and his administration work to bring”wealth back to America.” When asked if the country is likely to enter a recession this year, he told Fox, “I hate to predict things like that.”

Hostin was skeptical of his claims, saying on today’s episode of The View that more people need to be discussing what’s happening with our economy under Trump’s leadership while looking back on his past economic record during his first term in the White House.

“I thought when Trump left office [in 2021], we had one of our highest deficits in history,” Hostin said, as former Trump staffer Alyssa Farah Griffin countered that the deficit was the result of the PPP program, in which the government cut checks to Americans during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Hostin shot back that scientists have claimed Trump could have saved more lives if he has “handled the pandemic better,” declaring that he “has to take responsibility for that,” before pivoting to Trump’s second term in office.

“Now, job numbers are down. U.S. employers cut more jobs — 172,000 jobs last month — than any February since 2009 during the global financial crisis,” Hostin said, as Joy Behar asked, “What’s going to happen to all of those people that are out of work?” and Hostin replied, “They’re gonna lose their homes, they’re gonna lose everything.”

She continued, “Stocks are down. The recession risk — he’s saying that there may, maybe not, he doesn’t want to say anything. Well, the people that do study that say that the recession risk is now about 40%.”

Hostin then told the panel, “It’s just fascinating to me that more people aren’t talking about the fact that he is tanking the economy that he got.”

The View airs weekdays at 11/10c on ABC.