Critics are calling out Donald Trump for saying he’s hoping for an economic crash this year.
Stocks are surging, unemployment is near historic lows and the nation appears to have avoided a predicted recession. Yet Trump claimed on Monday that the economy is “fragile” and running on “fumes” as he warned of a crash.
“And when there’s a crash, I hope it’s gonna be during this next 12 months, because I don’t wanna be Herbert Hoover,” Trump told Lindell TV host Lou Dobbs. “The one president, I just don’t want to be, Herbert Hoover.”
Hoover was president during the 1929 stock market crash, which plunged the nation into the Great Depression.
Speaking on MSNBC, Representative Nancy Pelosi (Democrat, California) said Trump may need “an intervention” from his family.
“It’s just another manifestation of the insensitivity and the grotesqueness of this person,” she told Jen Psaki as she slammed the effect an economic crash would have on people.
Also on MSNBC, former Republican National Committee chair Michael Steele called Trump’s hope “the dumbest thing in the world to say.”
“Think about it: The man says ‘I want to be a dictator’ and ‘I want the stock market to crash.’ OK, so you’re 0-for-2 in my book, Skippy,” he said, adding that Trump’s hope means the former president wants people to lose their life savings.
“Why? Because it benefits him,” Steele said.
Others on social media also spoke out against the former president: