Trump Blames Kamala Harris for Market Decline
Donald J. Trump wasted no time on Monday morning before attributing the day’s significant market sell-off to Vice President Kamala Harris. At precisely 8:12 a.m. Eastern time, the former president and current Republican presidential candidate took to Truth Social, stating, “Stock markets are crashing, jobs numbers are terrible, we are heading to World War III, and we have two of the most incompetent ‘leaders’ in history. This is not good.”
Notably, Mr. Trump refrained from mentioning that during his presidency, the markets had experienced even more substantial single-day losses. Additionally, economists pointed to a plethora of factors contributing to Monday’s downturn, including a disappointing jobs report from July, a steep decline in Japanese markets earlier that day, and a burgeoning consensus among investors that the Federal Reserve had delayed too long in initiating interest rate cuts.
Furthermore, he conveniently overlooked earlier claims this year when he took credit for a rally in stock prices, asserting that the surge was indicative of the public’s confidence in his potential re-election.
This response from Mr. Trump appeared to be a carefully orchestrated political strategy. By 9:45 a.m., less than an hour after the U.S. markets opened, he had dubbed what ultimately became a 3 percent drop in the S&P 500 the “Kamala Crash.”
By lunchtime, the narrative had evolved into official Republican messaging. The Republican National Committee began promoting the term “Great Kamala Crash of 2024,” while the Trump campaign swiftly produced and circulated a video linking the vice president to the market’s decline on various social media platforms. By the afternoon, the hashtag #KamalaCrash had gained traction, becoming a trending topic on X.
