When the stock market hit a brief slump in early August, Newsmax helped Donald Trump play the partisan and blame it on the Biden administration. The apparently unironically named Charlie McCarthy played stenographer in an Aug. 5 article:
Former President Donald Trump blamed President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris for the stock market free fall Monday amid U.S. recession fears.
“STOCK MARKETS ARE CRASHING, JOBS NUMBERS ARE TERRIBLE, WE ARE HEADING TO WORLD WAR lll, AND WE HAVE TWO OF THE MOST INCOMPETENT ‘LEADERS’ IN HISTORY. THIS IS NOT GOOD!!!” Trump posted Monday morning on Truth Social.
“‘Japan down 12%, India down 6%. Germany way down also. U.S. really bad. This is a preview of the world markets without Donald J. Trump in the White House. None of this happens if Trump is in. Kamala and the markets don’t go together. She’ll destroy the markets. She’s in power now and look at what is happening. One week of the fake media saying better polls and you get a market crash.’ The Legendary Howard Lutnick!” Trump said in posting a comment from Cantor Fitzgerald’s CEO.
The Dow appeared it could be headed for its first 1,000 point decline since September 2022.
Nick Koutsobinas helped Trump and other Republicans root against America and the economy in another article that day:
Former President Donald Trump and other Republicans are rebranding Monday’s striking market downturn as the “Kamala Crash” as they seize on an opportunity to further their campaign messaging while citing “Bidenomics” as a culprit for the financial calamity.
Within hours of the market opening, Trump took to his Truth Social platform, ostensibly blaming Vice President Kamala Harris, his newly minted rival in the November presidential contest, for the market downturn.
“Of course there is a massive market downturn,” Trump wrote. “Kamala is even worse than Crooked Joe. Markets will NEVER accept the Radical Left Lunatic that DESTROYED San Francisco and California, as a whole. Next move, THE GREAT DEPRESSION OF 2024! You can’t play games with MARKETS. KAMALA CRASH!!!”
Hours later, post-noon, Trump released a video juxtaposing Harris mentioning “Bidenomics” while market analysts broke down the bad Monday morning news.
While there is no clear indication that Harris is behind U.S. stocks plunging, it has given the GOP the opportunity to attack Harris as she ties herself to Biden’s economic policies.
“It’s a harbinger of what to expect in a Kamala presidency,” the Republican National Committee’s rapid response team said, according to The Hill.
Other Republicans also followed Trump’s lead.
The #KamalaCrash is the result of weak leadership and poor decisions being made in the White House,” Rep. Gary Palmer, R-Ala., posted to X on Monday.
The House GOP campaign arm wrote: “First, the Harris-Biden admin & House Democrats made life unaffordable. Now, the economy is headed for a recession. #KamalaCrash.”
Katie McManus hyped in an Aug. 6 article: “After the Dow and other stock markets melted down Monday, CNBC’s ‘Mad Money’ host Jim Cramer told viewers they should vote for former President Donald Trump if they want to keep more cash in their pockets.” She did concede, however, that “Experts said the market will likely remain volatile in the near future due to uncertainty in global markets, but it’s possible the worst is over.”
Dick Morris chimed in, of course, with a Harris-bashing Aug. 6 column stating that “with news of the stock market crash that spooked financial markets, fear of a recession is becoming a dominant issue. (And Republicans, particularly Trump, are more trusted on this score).” Larry Bell added the next day: “At a time of raging inflation-driven consumer costs and a tanking stock market that shrinks 401(k) plans under Biden-Harris economic policies, will voters really opt for more of the same or likely even worse?”
This, of course, is all partisan bullpuckey, and Newsmax knows it. How do we know? Because Newsmax’s money vertical was publishing articles quoting actual experts saying the stock dip does not mean the economy is, in fact, in trouble. One wire article featured how “Chicago Federal Reserve Bank President Austan Goolsbee Monday said while the U.S. employment data on Friday was weaker than expected, it does not look like a recession, but that Fed officials need to be cognizant of changes in the environment to avoid being too restrictive with interest rates.” Another wire article quoted numerous financial analysts under the headline “Traders Maintain Global Stock Rout Not a Recession Sign.” Meanwhile, actual financial news operations pointed out that August tends to be a volatile month for stocks, and the markets quickly recovered over the next few weeks.
That “Kamala crash” tag didn’t age very well — something Newsmax has yet to explain to its readers.