President Donald Trump continued to downplay cost-of-living concerns and boast about stock market gains under his administration in an interview on “60 Minutes” Sunday.
After Republicans lost control of Congress Tuesday in midterm elections hinging on affordability, Trump went on CBS’ “60 Minutes” to defend the economy. Trump’s message continued to follow a pattern of touting stock market gains and dismissing worries about affordability, while failing to acknowledge voters’ concerns about corruption allegations involving him and others in his orbit.
“In poll after poll, people say they’re unhappy with this economy in a way they weren’t in the first term. Cost of living, inflation, and so on. Is that all just the Iran war?” “60 Minutes’ correspondent Ross Douthat asked Trump.
“Well, it’s not really the Iran war because the numbers are phenomenal. The numbers that we have are historically good numbers […] We have the highest stock market in history. Now, we lost yesterday, because of the election, $3 trillion. The market lost almost 2,000 points because of the Democrats,” Trump replied.
Later in the interview, Douthat asked Trump about his personal net worth, which has grown by roughly $3 billion since taking office.
“But your net worth went up by $3 billion since you returned to –” Douthat was cut off mid-question.
“Well, so did everyone,” Trump interjected.
“Everyone’s? My net worth did not go up by $3 billion for –” Douthat said.
“Well, you should have had stock,” Trump explained.
This growth is largely because of the Trump family’s cryptocurrency company, World Liberty Financial. Trump pardoned Changpeng Zhao, the founder of cryptocurrency exchange Binance, who has shared business interests with World Liberty Financial. There are further concerns that investors are buying access to the Trump administration through the $TRUMP crypto coin.
Over 70% of midterm voters disapproved of Trump’s handling of inflation, which was cited by midterm voters as on of their top concerns. Only 27% of voters believed the economy was on the right track under Trump.
The wealthiest 1% of Americans own about 50% of the stocks, and the top 10% of Americans own nearly 90% of stock market wealth, according to Yahoo Finance.
(DCNF)