ECON 101: President Trump in an interview on Fox News yesterday declined to rule out the possibility of steering the economy into recession as his tariffs and economic policies take hold.

  Asked if he was expecting a recession Trump responded that “I hate to predict things like that” but that “there is a period of transition, because what we’re doing is very big. We’re bringing wealth back to America.” He said, “It takes a little time, but I think it should be great for us.”

  Bartiromo pointed out that Trump’s an-again off-again tariffs have caused turmoil in the stock market and that businesses and investors want clarity. “They have plenty of clarity,” Trump said and that; “They just use that. That’s almost a sound bite. They always say that we want clarity. Look, our country has been ripped off for many decades, for many, many decades, and we’re not going to be ripped off anymore.”

  Trump suggested that he might raise more tariffs on Mexico and Canada. Speaking on Meet the Press, Howard Lutnick, the commerce secretary, said he believes recession is unlikely and that tariffs would help “grow our economy in a way we’ve never grown before.”

  Trump and his allies claim that tariffs will force companies to build factories and make things in the US, “in which case they have no tariffs,” he said last week. The trouble with that is that few if any new factories are likely to open … if they are even built … by the time Trump leaves office. Right now only 8 percent of employment in the US is factory jobs. In the meantime, tariffs on aluminum and steel will make cars and everything else using metal … including a can of beer … more expensive.

  Still, Trump posted on his Truth Social feed, “We’re going to become so rich, you’re not gonna know where to spend all that money. I’m telling you—just watch!”

OH CANADA!: Canada’s Liberal party voted by nearly 86 percent to elect Mark Carney, the former UK and Canada central bank chief, to succeed Justin Trudeau as Prime Minister. Trudeau held the office for 10 years.

  Carney takes over as his country is under both verbal and tariff assault by President Donald Trump, who has said he wants to make Canada the 51^st state. In a message to Trump, Carney said his government will keep retaliatory tariffs on US goods until “Americans show us respect.”

  The new prime minister said, “I know that these are dark days, dark days brought on by a country we can no longer trust.” And he said, “In trade as in hockey, Canada will win.”

  Carney will have to call for general elections later in the year. In the handover of power Trudeau, who resigned because he had become unpopular, left the stage to a chant of “Trudeau! Trudeau! Trudeau!”  

THE WAR ROOM: Hundreds of people in Syria are reported to have been killed in an outbreak of fighting between forces loyal to the deposed dictator Bashar al-Assad and the rebels who forced him out of the country.

 Gunmen in an Alawite area of the country are reported to have been going house to house killing civilians with the count of dead reaching at least 1300. But who is killing who is not clear. Videos have circulated of gunman calling people out of their homes and killing them.

  “We will not tolerate the remnants of Assad’s forces,” said Syria’s interim president, Ahmad al-Sharaa. “They have only one option: to surrender themselves to the law immediately.”

THE SPORTING NEWS: Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen is reported to have signed a $330 million contract with $250 million guaranteed. Allen flirted with taking the Bills to the Super Bowl this year, but lost to Kansas City in the AFC championship.

  And no surprise here, former MLB slugger Mo Vaughn whose arms were huge admitted to The Athletic that he used human growth hormone in an effort to extend his career. “I was trying to do everything I could,” he said.

  Vaughn played for 12 seasons, mostly with the Red Sox, and MLB didn’t ban growth hormones until after he retired in 2003.

THE SPIN RACK: Most of the 80,000 federal employees responsible for researching diseases, inspecting food and administering Medicare and Medicaid were emailed an offer of $25,000 to leave their jobs as part of President Trump’s government cuts. — The Secret Service shot a man outside the White House early yesterday after what they called an “armed confrontation.” DC police had earlier issued an alert about a “suicidal individual who may be travelling to Washington DC from Indiana.” The gunman was taken to a hospital in hospital in “unknown” condition. — A man was arrested in London yesterday after climbing the Big Ben clock’s Elizabeth Tower and waving a Palestinian flag at the Palace of Westminster. He was up there for 16 hours before authorities brought him down. — A Palestinian student now graduated who was a leader in massive protests at Columbia University has been detained at his university-owned apartment by ICE and is having his student visa and green card revoked.

BELOW THE FOLD: A top executive of State Farm insurance was fired after being caught on an undercover recording saying the company’s California rate hikes are “kind of” orchestrated and disparaging the Pacific Palisades  residents who lost their homes in a massive wildfire. Haden Kirkpatrick, State Farm Mutual’s vice president for innovation and venture capital, was also recorded saying that houses should not have been built in Pacific Palisades and that residents want to have “natural areas around them for their ego.” 

-30-