Trump Says Biden Plunging U.S. Into Depression. The Stock Market Hit a Record High

During his third trip to Iowa this month, Donald Trump warned that if he was not elected president in 2024, the U.S. would see its economy plunge into a “1929”-era depression. His words arrived as the Dow Jones Industrial Average hit a record high Wednesday.

Trump, who accomplished the feat of becoming the first president since Herbert Hoover during the Great Depression to leave the country with fewer jobs by the end of his one-term presidency, claimed that the “Biden administration is running on the fumes of the great success of the Trump Administration.” He added, addressing his supporters: “Without us this thing would have crashed to levels never seen before, and if we’re not elected we’ll have a depression the likes of which I don’t believe anybody has ever seen… maybe 1929?”

While Trump’s economic legacy has been hotly debated, under his administration the unemployment rate surged to 14.7 percent in April 2020 and by the time he left office the following January, the rate had receded to 6.3 percent. Many economists have pointed to the former president’s disastrous leadership during the Covid-19 pandemic as having exacerbated the country’s economic downturn at the time.

According to data released in early December by the Labor Department, under the Biden administration, the U.S. economy added 199,000 jobs in November, and the unemployment rate fell to 3.7 percent.

Despite signs that the U.S. economy is getting stronger, Trump dug into the president and tasked supporters on Wednesday with naming “one thing” that has gotten better under Biden’s leadership (to which we ask, how long you got?) Trump also urged state residents to vote in the upcoming elections, saying, “We are leading by a lot but you have to go out and vote. That margin of victory is so, so powerful.”

During the ex-president’s first visit to Iowa, Trump declared that he’d swoop the blue states if Jesus himself “came down.” On his second return, he evaded questions on whether he would abuse power if he were re-elected president. When asked whether he’d exact retribution, he opted instead to say he’d make an exception “for Day One.”

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