Former U.S. President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump says he hopes the US economy would “crash,” within the next year – before he would assume the Oval Office should he win a second term in November.
“When there’s a crash, I hope it’s going to be during this next 12 months because I don’t want to be Herbert Hoover. The one president – I just don’t want to be Herbert Hoover,” Trump said in an interview that aired Monday on the right-wing platform Lindell TV.
The US stock market crashed during former President Herbert Hoover’s first year in office in 1929, which signaled the beginning of the Great Depression.
The comments come as Trump, who is the front-runner for the Republican nomination looks to drive home his message on the economy with less than a week to go until Iowa’s caucuses.
Trump, who regularly attacks US president Joe Biden over his economic policies, described the economy as “so fragile” in the interview and claimed it was “running off the fumes” of the Trump administration.
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen defended the state of the economy in a Friday interview with CNN.
“There has been a lot of pessimism about the economy that’s really proven unwarranted. A year ago, most forecasters believed we would fall into a recession. Obviously, that hasn’t happened,” Yellen said, adding, “We have a good strong labor market.”
Besides being spared a recession, the US stock market overcame regional banking turmoil, a debt ceiling crisis and geopolitical tensions last year. The S&P 500 ended the year 24% higher, the Dow rose 14% and the Nasdaq jumped 43%.
Despite that, recession worries linger on Wall Street, as do concerns about war in the Middle East. The election threatens to stir up market volatility, though history shows the S&P 500 index tends to gain during the fourth year of presidential terms.
