Last week, a historic predictor for recessions—an inverted yield curve—flashed for the first time since the run-up to the 2008 financial crisis, indicating that a downturn may be on the horizon. While it’s possible a recession could still be several years away, experts are less than optimistic, given the pileup of worrying news concerning both the global and U.S. economies, the latter of which has seen a slowdown in manufacturing and a pullback in business investment, and is expected to add an extra $1 trillion to an already exploding deficit this year. Add to that a shithouse mouse in the White House, who thinks trade wars are awesome and browbeating the Federal Reserve is normal, and the outlook is decidedly not good. That’s a big-to-very-big problem for Donald Trump, not to mention the other people who live in this country, as he is currently campaigning for reelection on the strength of the economy. But instead of, say, implementing policies that would do more good than harm, or realizing it’s counterproductive to keep Jerome Powell in a well demanding the Fed chair cut rates or get the hose again, the president is taking a different tack. That is: dispatching his acolytes to insist a recession is never gonna happen, and laying the groundwork to blame any such event on a secret cabal hellbent on taking him down.

On Sunday, the White House’s multiple horsemen of the economic apocalypse fanned out to set the the story “straight” on various morning shows. On Meet the Press, National Economic Council director Larry Kudlow told Chuck Todd, “Well, I tell you what, I sure don’t see a recession…. And let me add just one theme, Chuck, just one theme, we’re doing pretty darn well, in my judgment. Let’s not be afraid of optimism. Let’s not be afraid of optimism. It’s a funny sign of our times. And I think there’s a very optimistic economy going on out there.” Of course, Kudlow’s judgement hasn’t been entirely reliable in the past; in fact, he’s long been known for almost never being right. (Among his greatest hits: claiming, in December 2007, i.e. the month the recession started, “There’s no recession coming. The pessimists were wrong. It’s not going to happen. At a bare minimum, we are looking at Goldilocks 2.0”; declaring in February 2008 that the economy was going to rebound that summer, “if not sooner”; and stating flatly, in July 2008 (!!), that the housing market was in fantastic shape and it was “a pity [that] the mainstream media” was just “searching for more and more pessimism” to sell newspapers.)

Asked about whiffing the call on the Great Recession, Kudlow responded that he would “plead guilty,” without explaining why his powers of prognostication should be believed this time. Confronted with the uncomfortable matter of writing that tariffs have “almost never worked as intended and have almost always delivered an unhappy ending” six weeks before joining the tariff-happy White House, Kudlow claimed that he’d been talking about Trump‘s steel tariffs, not his China ones, and, most alarmingly, that the president “has taught me and others” that the levies are a good thing.

Later, on Face the Nation, Trump’s mail-order economist, Peter Navarro, insisted to Margaret Brennan that tariffs have had zero effect on U.S. consumers, despite the White House tacitly admitting as much last week when it delayed additional duties that would have coincided with Christmas shopping. “We’ve had tariffs on for over a year,” said Navarro, who has the distinction of being the only adviser who will defend the trade war in private. “The Chinese have borne the entire burden of that by slashing their prices and reducing the value of their currency by 12%.” Navarro then pivoted to place any and all blame on the Federal Reserve, as his White House contract presumably dictates, saying, “The Federal Reserve chairman should look in the mirror.”

The spin continued on Monday with Kellyanne Conway taking the reins, telling Fox & Friends that Trump, who dictates policy by tweet, is taking “the long view” on negotiations with China, and could totally cut a deal now that would cause the economy to “take off like a rocket,“ if he so chose. Later, she struck a uniquely Conwayian tone with reporters, saying, “It’s nice to see the media finally cover the Trump economy. You seem to cover it only when you can use the Sesame Street word of the day, ‘recession’…The fact is, the fundamentals of our economy are very strong, and you know it.” (Incidentally, that’s nearly exactly what John McCain said on October 16, 2008.)

And, of course, it wouldn’t be a day ending in “y” without the certifiable ravings of our commander in chief, who said on Sunday that we can’t have a recession because “our consumers are rich” thank to his “tremendous tax cut” that “loaded [them] up with money.”

Speaking of Powell, over the weekend the New York Times reported that the president has made repeated claims in private discussions that “his critics are trying to take away what he sees as his calling card for reelection,” saying that Powell—whom he appointed!—is intentionally trying to take him down and that “forces that do not want him to win have been overstating the damage his trade war has caused.” That’s the sort of thinking that generally results in people gently asking, “How long have you heard the voices?” but in this case, we’re apparently just letting him run the economy over there in his little corner, where he’s also in charge of the entire free world.

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