Trumpists rooted for a “Kamala Crash” — then stocks went back up

Written by Matt Gertz

Published

Image of fox screengrabs and Trump post

Media Matters

Prominent right-wing propagandists followed former President Donald Trump out on a limb by blaming Vice President Kamala Harris for a global stock sell-off on August 5, only to be exposed as opportunistic buffoons as the markets recovered this past week.

A weaker-than-expected U.S. jobs report and shift in strategy at Japan’s central bank triggered August 5’s “global mini-crash,” with all three major U.S. stock indexes posting steep losses. The Dow Jones Industrial Average, S&P 500, and NASDAQ Composite have since reversed those losses, however, remaining up significantly over the past six months and up dramatically since President Joe Biden and Harris took office in January 2021.

That’s good news for the U.S. economy and Americans who own stocks — but terrible news for Trump and his media supporters, who tried to use the single day of falling stocks to stoke fears of an economic collapse they could blame on Harris, no doubt hoping it would redound to Trump’s political benefit. 

Their argument was absurd at the time (economists said the jobs report showed that the Federal Reserve, led by Trump appointee Jerome Powell, should have moved more aggressively to cut rates), but it looks even dumber now that the markets have recaptured their losses.

As U.S. markets plunged that Monday morning, Trump launched the attack, blaming Harris for what he deemed the “KAMALA CRASH!!!”

“Of course there is a massive market downturn,” he posted on Truth Social at 9:45 a.m., “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!!!”

“TRUMP CASH vs. KAMALA CRASH!” Trump added.

Prominent MAGA influencers picked up the critique within minutes on X. 

“The Stock Market has crashed and now millions of Americans are going to lose their life savings thanks to” Biden and Harris, wrote racist conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer.

“KAMALA CRASH,” offered serial plagiarist Benny Johnson. 

“This is just the beginning of the economic collapse,” said TPUSA founder Charlie Kirk. “Kamala owns this. Kamala collapse.”

The narrative spread through the right-wing press, and by the night of August 5, Fox News’ biggest stars were desperately trying to blame Harris for the day’s stock losses.

According to host Laura Ingraham, the stock declines showed that “the Kama-lamity continues” and that “the Harris downturn began in earnest.”

Trump “calls it the ‘Kamala Crash,’” said Jesse Watters. “Economists say she detonated the biggest debt bomb in American history when she cast a tie-breaking vote on the $2 trillion spending bill.”

“This is day three of what President Trump is now calling the ‘Kamala Crash,’ and the hemorrhaging is not over,” offered Sean Hannity. “All of this being fueled by the very real fears that the Biden-Harris economy will spiral this country into a full-on recession, in spite of all the proclamations of all the success of Bidenomics.”

Before markets opened the following morning, Fox Business correspondent Charlie Gasparino was on Fox & Friends telling Steve Doocy that the previous day’s declines proved the thesis of his new book, Go Woke, Go Broke. The Biden administration “went out there and they spent like crazy, they adopted every woke policy,” he explained, adding that “that’s why you got some of the stuff that is going on right now.”

Trump’s messaging push drew some credulous mainstream coverage suggesting that the August 5 sell-off could mark an inflection point for the campaign. But the markets began their recovery on August 6, and one week later, they were back up near — or above — where they closed the Friday before the supposed “Kamala Crash.”

Trump and his supporters have struggled to find a compelling message since Harris replaced Biden at the top of the Democratic ticket. Rooting against the American economy doesn’t seem to have provided better results than being extremely racist.