In an Asheville, North Carolina rally focused on the economy on Wednesday, Donald Trump took credit for a strong stock market — more than three years after he left office — and a major Biden administration healthcare victory.
The rally, or “intellectual speech,” as Trump called it, comes as his fortunes in the race appear to have changed — and here he finds an opportunity to seemingly try to interrupt Vice President Kamala Harris’ momentum, as she overtakes him in key swing state polls, national election projections, and betting markets.
“The only reason that the stock market is up is because people think I’m going to win, did you ever hear that?” Trump, who capitalized on a market dip earlier this month to attack the Biden-Harris administration’s economic record before it recovered, said.
“This will be a 1929-style crash,” Trump boldly predicted, dubbing it a “Kamala economic crash.”
Having overseen the largest single-day stock market point decline in history, he went on to call Harris an “incompetent socialist lunatic” who was “breaking our economy,” hours after newly-released figures indicated that year-over-year inflation levels had fallen below three percent for the first time since 2021.
Trump later falsely took credit for the Biden Administration’s efforts to cap the cost of insulin at $35 per month.
Harris, who took the edge this week over Trump in a Financial Times poll of prospective voters over who would better handle the economy, a feat President Biden never accomplished, is slated to appear at her own rally in North Carolina on Friday, which the campaign reportedly said would focus on lowering the cost of living for middle-class families.
Just days ago, Trump’s slurring, lisped performance in a one-on-one conversation with Elon Musk on social media platform X raised eyebrows on the candidate’s grip on the race, with a former staffer telling MSNBC news that Trump was showing signs of panic.
“I think that he feels this election slipping away from him, and that’s where you’re beginning to see him spiral,” former Trump aide Sarah Matthews told MSNBC’s Jen Psaki.