PALM BEACH, Florida — Former President Donald Trump told Breitbart News exclusively on Thursday evening that if he does not win the 2024 presidential election, he expects the nation’s economy will spiral into a “depression” like the 1929 “Great Depression.”
Trump, who sat with Breitbart News for more than two hours on Thursday evening at his Mar-a-Lago resort, also said during the interview that recent stock market gains are happening because the polls show him leading Democrat President Joe Biden significantly and that people are betting on a Trump victory in November.
“I think if I don’t win, we’re going to have a depression like 1929,” Trump told Breitbart News. “I think the reason the stock market is up is because if you look at the polls, people say I’m going to win. Biden is getting lucky in that regard. I had a phenomenal stock market. Everything was good about our economy. We had no inflation.”
Trump is correct that the stock market is booming right now. According to CNBC, on Friday — the last trading day of 2023 — the market closed out the year by climbing for the ninth straight week, ending the month, quarter, and year with gains.
“Stocks fell slightly on Friday, but the S&P 500 closed out 2023 with a surprising gain of 24% as inflation slowed, the economy remained strong, and the Federal Reserve signaled an end to its rate-hiking campaign,” CNBC’s Samantha Subin wrote, continuing:
The S&P 500 rose for nine straight weeks to end the year, its best win streak since 2004. Big Tech stocks lifted the Nasdaq Composite to its best year since 2020 on AI enthusiasm. The broad index fell 0.28% to settle at 4,769.83, with a 24.2% gain for the year. The S&P 500 ends 2023 just short of a new all-time high. At one point on Friday, it climbed within 9 points, or less than 0.2%, from its record close of 4,796.56 attained in January 2022.
Trump told Breitbart News that while inflation has cooled somewhat in recent months, he thinks that it has done so because the broader economy is in trouble — and that the jobs numbers are “fake” because he said millions of people are sitting on the sidelines not even looking for jobs.
“The inflation has eaten up any gains,” Trump said. “The inflation is so rampant. The inflation has calmed down a little bit now, but that’s because the economy is not good. The jobs numbers are fake because millions of people are not looking for jobs.”
Trump’s comments came during a section of the interview when Breitbart News asked him why he thinks many in the establishment media are aggressively attacking him as an “authoritarian,” with some even going so far as to ludicrously compare him to the German dictator Adolf Hitler. Asked why he thinks they are doing that, Trump said it is “because they have nothing else.”
“They have nothing to campaign on,” Trump said of the Democrats pushing the authoritarian claims into the media. “The country is a disaster. Inflation has eaten up everything. There’s a new narrative; I’m telling you the reason the stock market is up is only because people think I’m going to win the election. That’s coming out big right now. They’re saying the stock market is up because people think I’m going to win the election. That’s happening by a lot.”
Since the interview with Breitbart News, Trump has pushed a similar message predicting a “Great Depression” if he does not win in November 2024 on Truth Social to his millions of followers there:
Recent polling from Morning Consult showed a majority of American voters — 50 percent — view Trump as the more trusted candidate between him and Biden to handle the economy. Biden clocks in at just 32 percent, 18 points worse than Trump.
Much more from Trump’s latest exclusive interview with Breitbart News is forthcoming.
