The stock market had a great run during the Trump presidency, and the latest boom might reflect Wall Street’s hope that Donald Trump could get re-elected, Breitbart Economics Editor John Carney said in a Tuesday interview with Fox Business host Larry Kudlow.
“John Carney, smart guy that you are, why is the stock market booming?” Kudlow asked.
Carney identified two possible factors. First, the market on Tuesday might have responded positively to the news that Trump could be facing another indictment from the Biden Department of Justice’s Special Counsel Jack Smith.
“People say Trump is getting more likely to get elected every time they’re threatening to indict him, and everybody remembers that the stock market did really well when Trump took office. So, I think people are saying, ‘Yeah, look, that’s happening,’” he explained.
“I think there’s also a little bit of interpretation of the retail sales number,” he continued. “People said it came in weaker than expected. It was 0.2 on the headline number rather than 0.3. So, they said maybe that means the Fed doesn’t have to raise as much, maybe we’re going to get a soft landing. I think that’s wrong, but I think that’s what boosted the stocks.”
Kudlow displayed a graphic comparing the stock market’s performance during the Trump and Biden presidencies.
“Look at the Trump stock market versus the Biden stock market,” Kudlow said. “Even with this rally, last year was a very, very bad year for the stock market. So, some of it’s coming back. But Trump did very well. So, I just wonder, I mean, I know it’s a bit cynical, but nonetheless, the more Biden wants to throw Trump in jail, the more people come around to Trump’s side because they see Biden politicizing and weaponizing the justice. Now, I have no idea if that is having an impact on stocks. But I do think stocks prefer lower taxes and deregulation. Tell me if that’s unreasonable.”
“I think that’s absolutely right,” Carney answered. “I think people are saying, ‘Look, every time they come after Trump, he gets more popular and more likely to get reelected.’”
Carney also commented on Biden’s attempts to capitalize on the good economic data.
“I’m glad that we’re above where we were before things started to go down because of Biden inflation. That’s what caused the stock market to go down. And now we’re just catching up with that,” he said. “It’s ironic because Biden keeps bragging about Bidenomics, but the Bidenomics is really just us catching up to all the damage that he’s done.”
He noted that irony of Biden’s recent Tweet touting the increase in “real wages.”
Right now, real wages for the average American worker is higher than it was before the pandemic, with lower wage workers seeing the largest gains.
— President Biden (@POTUS) July 16, 2023
That's Bidenomics.
“He said wages are getting better,” Carney said. “They’ve gotten better for two months, and we’re still catching up to where they were before he took office.”
“Wages are now above where they were pre-pandemic,” he continued. “This was three years ago. Also, by the way, Mr. President, they definitely should be above where wages were three years ago— especially when we’ve had so much inflation that we’re just now getting past it. That’s a big problem.”
Carney touched on this theme in Monday’s Breitbart Business Digest, noting:
A better rejoinder to Biden’s touting real wages being higher than before the pandemic is just to point out that it has been more than three years. Meaning, it took the economy three years to cross the threshold where people are earning more than they were before we got clobbered by COVID and lockdowns. That’s hardly an impressive feat.
Even more pointedly, average real hourly earnings still are underwater when measured against the beginning of the Biden presidency, when they were $11.34 in constant dollars. For almost the entirety of Biden’s presidency, inflation has outpaced wage gains. In the chart below, the red line represents inflation and the blue line is private sector average hourly earnings. Beginning in April 2021, prices were rising faster than wages. This has only reversed in May and June.
Carney also noted in the Monday’s newsletter that Americans are still not sold on the White House’s spin about Bidenomics. The latest Economist/YouGov poll shows that only 14 percent of respondents say they are “better off” than they were a year ago, and 42 percent say they are worse off.
Rebecca Mansour is Senior Editor-at-Large for Breitbart News. Follow her on Twitter at @RAMansour.
