Former President Trump's comment this week that he hoped the economic collapse, if any, would occur “within the next 12 months” was a dangerous move that exposed him to criticism from Democrats.
The former president said in an interview this week that he expects the U.S. economy to collapse and hopes it will collapse by the time he takes office in January 2025 if he is re-elected. Above all, President Trump said, he doesn't want to be known as the second Herbert Hoover.
Democrats have criticized President Trump's comments as disrespectful to the millions of Americans who will lose their jobs due to the recession, but as the president defies political gravity, the comments have little impact on the Trump campaign. There is a possibility that it will not be given.
“Historically, candidates don't say things like that because recessions are scary for people,” said Gordon Gray, vice president of economic policy at the right-wing research nonprofit American Action Forum (AAF). Stated.
“People will lose their jobs and homes and it will take years to recover,” Gray added. “Normal candidates value that. Donald Trump is not a normal candidate, which is why he's comfortable doing this kind of thing. He's not bound by norms or normal political forces. .”
The state of the economy, and how Americans feel about it, could play a central role in a potential rematch between President Biden and President Trump.
The economy is an issue Trump sees as a success under his administration, which had low inflation and low gas prices before the coronavirus pandemic hit. Although Biden took office with predictions that a recession was imminent, the economy appears to have achieved a rather soft landing, with the president often touting successes.
Biden's campaign hopes that voters will ultimately appreciate the president's economic policies, but Trump hopes the crash will hurt Biden politically and that the economic downturn will make voters This is an unprecedented strategy for a presidential candidate that takes into account the impact it will have on the country.
“President Donald Trump's biggest concern right now is that the economy is actually in very good shape,” said Daniel Alpert, managing partner at investment firm Westwood Capital.
“He understands that his free ride with the public at this point relies on a bad memory of inflation. [As] That will fade over time, but in November you could be running against a candidate who has led a very strong economy, and the memory of inflation will be long gone,” Alpert said.
In an interview with former Fox Business Network host Lou Dobbs on the network launched by My Pillow founder Mike Lindell, President Trump called the economy “fragile” and said he hoped it would crash by the end of the year. he said.
“And when the crash happens, I don't want to be Herbert Hoover, so I hope that happens over the next 12 months,” Trump said in an interview that aired Monday night. “The only president I don't want to be is Herbert Hoover.”
President Hoover had only been in office for a few months when the stock market crashed in 1929, causing the Great Depression. Meanwhile, in many of his speeches, Mr. Biden has cited Mr. Trump as one of two presidents, along with Mr. Hoover, who left office with less work than when he took office.
“One is President Hoover and the other is Donald Hoover Trump,” Biden said in September. “My predecessor promised to be the greatest president in history. Well, it didn't really work out. He lost 2 million jobs during his presidential term.”
Mr. Biden has struggled to turn a rapid recovery from the COVID-19 recession into a political advantage over Mr. Trump, who left office as the economy moves into a new gear.
The unemployment rate was 3.7% in November, just 0.2 percentage points above pre-pandemic levels, which at the time was a 50-year low. The annual inflation rate also fell from a peak of 9.1% in June 2022 to 3.1% in November.
Financial markets also ended 2023 with record gains after suffering severe losses in 2022 when the Federal Reserve began raising interest rates.
The Fed is currently forecasting a series of interest rate cuts in 2024, which could further stimulate the economy as Mr. Biden looks to shift his power into his next term in the White House.
But while the president has sought to link the impressive economic recovery to enacting trillions of dollars in economic relief and infrastructure spending, polls show voters are not resonating with his economic message. .
Mr. Biden's aides have been quick to condemn Mr. Trump's comments on the economy, and the president is likely to feature them in remarks on economic policy scheduled for Friday.
Biden campaign official Julie Chavez Rodriguez said Trump's comments showed he “doesn't care about people.”
“In his relentless pursuit of power and retaliation, Donald Trump has reinforced the reality that millions of Americans are out of work and living with overwhelming uncertainty about how to provide for their basic needs. “I'm doing it,” she said.
Other Biden aides said the comments were vile and “revealing the distorted nature” of those who expected the economy to fail.
Josh Bivens, chief economist at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, said that while Trump's comments were “bad,” he thought a 2024 crash would be “very surprising.”
“The economy is in good shape so far, and there are no obvious vulnerabilities that would create a huge asset market bubble anywhere. Most of the spending is being financed by revenues from a strong labor market,” he said. Ta. “So my prediction is that 2024 will be pretty strong. There are always wild cards like crazy geopolitical shocks, but the economic fundamentals in the U.S. look good heading into 2024.”
Trump's comments raised eyebrows and gave Democrats an opening to bash him, but they did not negatively impact the vote count.
The former president recently said he would become a dictator on the first day of his second term, commenting that immigrants are “contaminating the blood of our country” and that Democrats liken him to Adolf Hitler.
But he still outperforms his Republican rivals and has been running head-to-head with or ahead of the president in recent polls. According to a tally of public opinion polls kept by Hill/Decision Desk headquarters, Mr. Trump has a lead of 1.2 percentage points over Mr. Biden.
Some Republicans say Mr. Trump's comments were an influence on the former president's conflict between him and Mr. Biden.
Bruce Melman says, “It's common for political opponents to downplay the strength of the economy or talk about economic risks once they leave the White House, but most voters see this as similarly disastrous outside parties.'' It will be considered a statement.” , former assistant secretary of commerce under former President George W. Bush, and founding partner of Melman Consulting.
Others, however, emphasized the unprecedented nature of his remarks.
“If you believe you're going to be president in the next election, and you think a cyclical downturn is likely or likely to occur next year, you want an upswing, not a downswing. ” said Gray.
Opponents and candidates typically downplay the economic successes under incumbent presidents and focus on their shortcomings, but Gray said Trump's comments go beyond basic campaigning.
“There are elements of his rhetoric that are not new and are completely in line with campaign rhetoric, but there are Trumpian overreaches,” he said.
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