PALM BEACH, FLORIDA: Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump expressed his desire for any economic crash in the US to occur this year and not during his prospective second term in a recent interview with host Lou Dobbs on an online platform run by Mike Lindell, an entrepreneur, and his supporter.
Trump stated that he hopes the economy continues to thrive and that any economic crash occurs within the next 12 months as he wishes to avoid being likened to Herbert Hoover.
Trump expressed concern that the current US economy is fragile and is only running on the fumes of what was previously done under his administration.
Trump has a history of predicting economic breakdown under President Joe Biden, a trend that began during their 2020 presidential race and has continued to date despite little evidence to support his claims.
What did Donald Trump say in his interview on Monday?
In the interview that aired on Monday, January 8, 2024, Donald Trump suggested that unless he is re-elected, a depression like the one witnessed in 1929 would be inevitable, an era when former president Herbert Hoover was in the White House, as per Rolling Stone.
"We have an economy that's so fragile and the only reason it's running now is it's running off the fumes of what we did," the former president claimed.
"And 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," Trump stated, adding, "The one president I just don't want to be, Herbert Hoover."
The 77-year-old GOP presidential frontrunner also claimed in the interview that gas prices in the US have reached $8 a gallon which is far from the ground reality.
"You had gasoline selling for less than $2. And now you have selling at $5, $6, $7, and even $8 a gallon," he said.
It is worth noting that Hoover lost the presidential election of 1932 after he failed to alleviate the widespread unemployment and suffering that characterized the Great Depression.
President Hoover took office in 1929 when the market was at record highs, and in his first year, the 31st POTUS witnessed the stock market bubble burst, triggering the economic downturn.
In recent times, former president Donald Trump cautioned that if he was not re-elected in 2024, the United States would experience an economic downturn similar to the Great Depression of 1929.
This statement was made amidst a record high in the Dow Jones Industrial Average, with the Labor Department's data revealing that the US economy added 199,000 jobs in November 2023 under the Biden administration, resulting in a decline in the unemployment rate to 3.7 percent.
In December 2023, the U. economy added 216,000 jobs, surpassing economists' expectations and maintaining the unemployment rate at 3.7 percent.
The Labor Department's data further indicated that the annual inflation rate had decreased from 9.1 percent, a four-decade peak, in June 2022 to 3.1 percent in November of the same year, as per DC News Now.
President Biden has compared Donald Trump to Herbert Hoover in the past.
Last month, Biden remarked at a campaign reception in Boston, Massachusetts, "In the four years Donald Trump was president - and he's the only president other than Herbert Hoover who actually lost jobs in a four-year period. And that's why I often re-think of him as Donald ‘Herbert Hoover' Trump."
Internet mocks Donald Trump for his claims about US economy
People on X trolled former president Donald Trump for his absurd and baseless arguments surrounding the current state of the US economy and for the reasons why people should re-elect him in 2024.
One X user remarked, "He left the economy in shambles. He has no grasp on reality. It's all just the self-aggrandizing story he's invented in his mind. He can't "make America great" because great nations engage with reality."
Another user wrote, "Stuff like this makes it easier to make fun of Trump supporters to their face with video proof."
Another user said, "He is lying, bigly!"
One user remarked, "Trump at his core is a grifting snake oil salesman."
Another X user claimed, "Just give him enough time and he will push The Invisible God to the side, and claim he created light from the void of darkness. Bank on it!"
One user tweeted, "The economy was in the toilet when he left office."