Trump wants to restart the US economy ASAP because he's afraid the tanking stock market will hurt his reelection chances, new report says
- Trump is growing anxious that the plummeting stock market could cost him his re-election bid, according to the Washington Post.
- The president has long touted the economy as his main argument for reelection. The pandemic threatens to upend that dynamic.
- Stocks have plunged throughout the coronavirus outbreak in the US, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average erased the gains made since his election in November 2016.
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President Trump is increasingly anxious that a tanking stock market will hurt his re-election odds in the fall. And he's weighing jumpstarting the American economy once again in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic, the Washington Post reported on Monday.
The Post said that Trump has been seeking advice from advisers and some GOP lawmakers on whether the severe restrictions on American economic life should be scaled back, given that they have led to soaring unemployment. He also reportedly took phone calls from nervous business leaders.
More advisers are starting to push the president to bring back a sense of normal life and send workers back to their jobs, the newspaper reported.
The president said on Monday that the economy could start returning to normal as early as next week.
"WE CANNOT LET THE CURE BE WORSE THAN THE PROBLEM ITSELF," Trump said in a Sunday night tweet. "AT THE END OF THE 15 DAY PERIOD, WE WILL MAKE A DECISION AS TO WHICH WAY WE WANT TO GO!"
Stocks have plunged since the coronavirus outbreak reached US shores, and more than 30,000 people in the US have tested positive for the infection. Scores of businesses shuttered operations, and one in three Americans is now being urged to remain indoors in an effort to curb the virus' spread.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average has plunged 38% since topping out at an all-time high a month ago, erasing all the gains its made since Trump was elected to office in November 2016.
The index shed 538 points on Monday as Congress failed to break the deadlock on a $1.8 trillion rescue package to shore up the coronavirus-stricken economy.
Economists warn the economic devastation across industries could surpass the 2008 financial crisis.
"There is a real danger that the economic crisis that comes out of this health crisis is worse than what we experienced in 2008," Jason Furman, a top economic adviser to President Obama, recently told Business Insider.
