Trump says he hopes the US economy crashes this year for his own benefit

Donald Trump has declared that the US economy is “running off the fumes of what we did” and said that he “hopes” it crashes before the end of year to hurt Joe Biden.

“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. It’s just running off the fumes,” the Republican front-runner claimed during a Lindell TV interview with Lou Dobbs aired on Monday evening.

“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. The one president I just don’t want to be, Herbert Hoover.”

He was alluding to the US 31st president, who succeeded Calvin Coolidge at the tail-end of the Roaring Twenties before swiftly being hit by the Wall Street Crash in the autumn of 1929 and then drummed out of office in March 1933 as the Great Depression bit.

Mr Trump also drew derision online last night after falsely claiming in the same interview that a gallon of gas now typically costs as much as $8 at the pumps.

Although the candidate has tried hard to argue that the American economy is now much worse off than it was during his tenure in the White House, playing to voters’ frustrations at the post-pandemic rise in the cost of living and high interest rates, it is actually in pretty strong shape.

Inflation fell from a four-decade high of 9.1 per cent in June 2022 to just 3.1 per cent in November while unemployment is now down to 3.7 per cent and, it was announced last week, 216,000 new jobs were created in the final month of 2023.

“What we’re seeing now I think we can describe as a soft landing, and my hope is that it will continue,” US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told CNN on Friday after those numbers were posted.

“The American people did it. The American people go to work every day, participate in the labour market, form new businesses.

“But President Biden has tried to create incentives that give Americans the tools they need to help this economy grow.”

Mr Trump appeared to be trying to distance himself from the president’s brutal recent comparison between him and Hoover last month, when he said of his rival: “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 think of him as Donald ‘Herbert Hoover’ Trump.”

Elsewhere on the economy, Mr Trump’s short-lived director of communications, Anthony Scaramucci, has attacked Wall Street for its “nonchalant” attitude towards the prospect of his estranged former boss’s re-election in November.

“It’s painful for me to admit this, but Wall Street is basically nonchalant to this election,” Mr Scaramucci told The Hill.

“I think they view Donald Trump by and large as benign to somewhat beneficial to the economy and business, despite the fact that he spent $7.8 trillion of additional deficit spending.

“And I think that they’re viewing this as a Fed-driven market, more than it is a Democratic or Republican presidency market.”

Mr Scaramucci warned against this short-sighted standpoint, arguing that a second Trump would “ultimately [be] really bad for business”.

He described the status quo as, “unfortunate, because, as President Biden is pointing out, Mr Trump is at great risk to the institutions of America.

“And you know, I think if we lose any of those cherished institutions, it’s ultimately really bad for business. So it’s a great irony that people aren’t focused enough on what’s at stake here.”