The Dictatorship
As the stock market falls, Trump haunted by his discredited campaign promises
It was just five years ago when Donald Trumpworried about a re-election race he would ultimately lose, warned that his defeat would lead to economic ruin. In fact, with just a couple of weeks remaining before Election Day, the two major-party nominees faced off in their final debate, which included a rather specific prediction.
“They say the stock market will rule if I’m elected,” Trump saidfailing to identify who “they” might be. He added, in reference to Joe Biden: “If he’s elected, the stock market will crash.”
As it turns out, the Republican had the right concerns, but the wrong presidents. The major Wall Street indexes fared quite well throughout Biden’s term in the White House. Unfortunately for everyone, the Democrat’s Republican successor can’t say the same. NBC News reported:
The broad-based S&P 500 had fallen 5.5% as of Friday afternoon. The tech-heavy Nasdaq also dropped 5.4%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell more than 2,000 points, or about 5.1%. The Russell 2000 Index, which tracks the stocks of smaller U.S. companies, dropped by 4.6%.
We are not, of course, talking about a one-day sell-off. On the contrary, a day earlier — the day the White House unveiled its highly controversial policy on trade tariffs — the S&P had its worst day since the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic. The Nasdaq Composite is now down 22% from its high in December, and the S&P 500 is about 17% off its high in February.
Amid the downturn, the president — who left the White House for a Saudi-backed golf event in Florida — wrote to his social media platform“MY POLICIES WILL NEVER CHANGE.”
Evidently, that didn’t make investors feel any better.
To be sure, markets can fluctuate for all sorts of reasons, many of which are often outside the control of any one administration. But that’s precisely what makes the latest downturn so politically potent: You don’t have to be a financial genius to draw a straight line between stock market turmoil, Trump’s agenda and his public rhetoric.
Indeed, as the major indexes sink, it’s painfully obvious that in this game of “Clue,” it was the president, in the Oval Office, with his trade tariffs and layoffs.
Asked a month ago about the market losses that have happened after he returned to the White House, the president blamed “globalist countries” and “globalists that see how rich our country’s going to be and they don’t like it.” That was gibberish at the time, and it’s noticeably worse now.
But stepping back, the problem isn’t just that Trump is responsible for massive Wall Street losses, it’s also the fact that he promised to deliver the opposite results.
When markets soared during Biden’s presidency, the Republican repeatedly insisted that the major indexes were only up because investors expected Trump to return to the White House. It was part of a broader push: Trump told Americans to see the stock market as the one true metric that mattered more than any other.
“If [then-Vice President Kamala] Harris wins this election, the result will be a Kamala economic crash. … A 1929-style depression,” the Republican declared in August. “When I win the election, we will immediately begin a brand new Trump economic boom.”
In hindsight, perhaps “immediately” was the wrong choice of words.
Months later, as his inauguration neared, Trump vowed a Wall Street boomand as NBC News recently reportedthe rhetorical push continued as the president’s second term got underway.
When President Donald Trump wanted to make the case for his first term’s success in an interview last month, he turned to the stock market. “I was very proud to have handed over the country when the stock market was higher than it was, previous to the pandemic coming in,” he said in a Fox News interview Feb. 9. “It was an amazing achievement.” And in his second term, he has promised that trend would continue. “The stock market is going to be great,” he told the crowd at an investor conference Feb. 19.
Just 18 days after declaring, “The stock market is going to be great,” Trump appeared on Fox News and said: “You can’t really watch the stock market.”
The problem, of course, is that we can watch the stock market; we can recognize who’s responsible for these massive losses; and we can’t help but notice that Trump is golfing instead of trying to clean up his mess.
This post updates our related earlier coverage.
Steve Benen is a producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the editor of MaddowBlog and an BLN political contributor. He’s also the bestselling author of “Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans’ War on the Recent Past.”
In an explosive interview with NBC aired Sunday, President Donald Trump cut the grilling short and left the set after peppering “Meet the Press” moderator Kristen Welker with insults.
“You’re either crooked or you’re stupid,” Trump told Welker, who kept a cool demeanor despite the president’s barrage of disparaging slurs.
Moments before he attacked her, Trump — without providing any evidence — said he believes elections in the U.S. are rigged. Then he lambasted television news networks, singling out NBC, CBS and ABC.
“They’re crooked just like you’re crooked, your press is crooked. And ‘Meet the Press’ is crooked,” Trump said.
“To be fair, I’m not crooked,” Welker shot back. “But let’s continue.”
“Let’s call it quits because I’ve had enough,” the president told Welker, who is the second woman and first Black journalist to helm the network’s flagship program.
Trump added, “Thank you, darling. Have a good time.”
It was not the first time Trump has berated a female journalist on the job covering his presidency.
In November 2025, he told Bloomberg’s Catherine Lucey to stop talking, saying, “Quiet. Quiet, piggy.” One month later, he told ABC’s Rachel Scott she was “the most obnoxious reporter in the whole place.” Last month, he called MS NOW White House reporter Akayla Gardner “a dumb person” for pointing out that the cost of his White House ballroom project had doubled since it was first announced.
He has also repeatedly lashed out at CNN’s Kaitlan Collinscriticizing her for not smiling enough.
The wide-ranging interview, which was taped last week on a farm in Wisconsin, was interrupted by the loud sound of heavy rain on the metal roof of the barn where they met. Welker questioned Trump on his war with Iran, his “anti-weaponization” fund and the upcoming midterm elections.
On his nearly $1.8 billion fund aimed at compensating people who say they were wrongly prosecuted, including Jan. 6 Capitol rioters, Trump said “people were destroyed by dirty cops and by weaponization. Many of those people should be compensated.”
He described the people who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, as people who were “being ushered into the building” by law enforcement.
A federal judge temporarily blocked the fund last month and acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said last week the administration would not be moving forward with the fundwhich faced bipartisan backlash.
When asked if the administration would pursue other avenues to revive it, Trump said he does not know what will ultimately happen and called Welker and her network “the fake dirty press.”
Despite campaigning on a promise to end foreign wars, Trump denied that he made such statements. He characterized the Iran war, launched by the U.S. and Israel on Feb. 28, as necessary to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon.
When asked about the rising cost of living as a result of the war, specifically gas and fertilizer, Trump chastised Welker.
“Are you ready? Am I allowed to talk? You keep asking questions and you don’t listen to the answers,” he said.
“I love the farmers and the farmers love me,” Trump said, adding that prices will come down after the war.
Welker suggested to her viewers Sunday that she and the president had a cordial conversation Saturday, saying they both “acknowledged the complications” posed by the rain. “He agreed to sit down with me for another ‘Meet the Press’ interview,” she said.
Erum Salam is a breaking news reporter for MS NOW, with a focus on how global events and foreign policy shape U.S. politics. She previously was a breaking news reporter for The Guardian.
Iran said visas were denied to key members of its national soccer team ahead of the World Cupwhich a U.S. official insisted was necessary so that Iran does not try to “sneak terrorists into the United States.”
In a post on Xthe Iranian embassy in Turkey said “visas were denied to a large portion of the managerial and executive staff, technical advisers, and others” on its team.
“You have now escalated the deliberate and discriminatory treatment against Iran’s national football team to its highest level,” the embassy said, accusing the U.S. of the “worst possible form of politically biased interference in sport” and “depriving Iran’s national team of its right to play in the World Cup under normal conditions.”
Iranian officials are accusing the U.S. government of violating FIFA regulations and breaching its obligations as one of the host countries of what is widely regarded to be the biggest sporting event in the world. The diplomatic standoff between the two countries comes just days before the World Cup is set to kick off and more than three months after the U.S. and Israel waged war against Iran.
A Trump administration official who was granted anonymity to speak candidly about the subject told MS NOW in a statement that the visas “necessary for Iran to compete in the World Cup, including for athletes and necessary support staff, have been issued.”
The official added, however, “We will not allow the Iranian team to abuse this system to sneak terrorists into the United States under false pretenses.”
The statement from the Iranian Embassy in Turkey came in response to a post on X by U.S. Ambassador to Turkey Tom Barrack praising embassy staff for processing visas for the Iranian national team.
According to The Associated Presssome of the team’s officials have not received visas to enter the U.S., which is co-hosting the World Cup with Mexico and Canada. Games are set to begin Thursday.
Problems with getting U.S. visas had already led Iran to move its World Cup training base from the U.S. to Mexico. But Iran is still listed on the official World Cup schedule to play its first two games in Los Angeles on June 15 against New Zealand, and against Belgium six days later before heading to Seattle to face Egypt.
The Iran Football Federation’s secretary-general and its vice president were among 14 staff and officials without U.S. visas, AP said, citing Iranian state television. The federation reportedly accused the U.S. of “vindictive behavior.”
Emily Hung contributed to this report.
Clarissa-Jan Lim is a breaking news reporter for MS NOW. She was previously a senior reporter and editor at BuzzFeed News.
A shooting near a community festival in Toledo, Ohio, wounded at least 12 people, and police said a search for the suspects was ongoing following an outbreak of gunfire that sent crowds scrambling for cover.
Two of the wounded were in critical condition, Toledo Deputy Police Chief Joe Heffernan said. He said it appeared there were at least two people firing weapons who were “probably shooting at each other.”
The Toledo Police Department said the shooting happened near the Old West End Festival, an annual gathering of live music and home tours in a historic district of the city.
The department said an active search was underway for those responsible.
“I am deeply concerned about the situation in Toledo tonight. Summer festivals should be safe spaces for families to spend time together without fear of violence,” Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine said in a statement.
Multiple videos posted to social media showed people running over the sound of gunshots and emergency officials tending to others who appeared wounded.
Kevin Berry said he was sitting in the neighborhood arboretum listening to live music with his friends when he heard a handful of gunshots ring out.
“Everybody hit the deck,” he said.
When he looked back up, he saw a gun being tossed to the ground less than 50 feet (15 meters) away from him. Police officers who were already on-site for the festival immediately responded to the scene.
Berry, who has medical training and served in the U.S. Navy, said he walked around the area looking for potential victims who might need help.
He said he saw at least five people with gunshot wounds.
“The folks who were hit were spread out around the arboretum area,” he said.
The Old West End Festival is a two-day celebration in Toledo’s historic district that includes live music, food vendors, home tours and shopping.
Berry described it as the “kick-off to Toledo’s summer festival season.”
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
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