Ginger Gibson & Joseph Ax -
After two years touting a booming economy as his own doing, US President Donald Trump is test driving a new message on the economy: Any chance of a recession is not his fault. But Democrats, who are shifting their message too, seem to be saying “not so fast.”
Trump has moved from touting positive economic indicators since his 2016 election to now trying to blame someone else for a possible economic slowdown, while his advisers and officials are scrambling to insist there is nothing to worry about.
From the moment he was elected, Trump took credit for the strong economy. Until early 2019, advisers saw it as the biggest selling point for his campaign to be re-elected president in November 2020. But softening economic data of late is raising concern his economic message could lose its punch.
Some of his Democratic rivals for the White House were quick to smell blood, although other candidates and party strategists warned they should be careful so as not appear to be rooting for economic disaster.
Most of the nearly two dozen Democrats running for the White House have been largely reluctant to talk about the broader economy this election cycle, viewing it as a losing battle given strong economic data.
Instead, they spent the past six months arguing that Trump’s economy left behind the working class.
But in recent days, several Democrats, including front-runner Joe Biden, have changed tack.
“Donald Trump inherited a growing economy from the Obama-Biden administration, just like he inherited everything in his life,” Biden, a former vice-president, said on Tuesday while campaigning in Iowa, adding that he is not hoping for a recession. “And now he’s squandering it, just like he squandered everything he inherited in his life.”
Beto O’Rourke said Trump “has made a complete mess of the American economy,” by entering a trade war with China.
“It is devastating farmers and ranchers and producers around this country,” O’Rourke, a former US Congressman, told reporters on Tuesday. “Do not allow him to escape the accountability that he deserves for what he is doing to this economy — to working Americans — the peril in which he has placed us. He’ll try to blame every other person. The blame rests with Donald Trump.”
Others have been more circumspect, suggesting talking down Trump’s economy is a political tightrope for his rivals given still largely strong fundamentals such as low unemployment.
Asked by reporters after his speech in Iowa on Wednesday whether the country was headed for a recession, US Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont pivoted to a discussion of workers who lived paycheck to paycheck even in a strong economy.
Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, who did not address recession fears like most other candidates at the same Iowa forum, said: “You beat this president by having an optimistic economic agenda.”
Former US Representative John Delaney, another Democratic candidate, was more blunt about it. “It feels like some Democrats are cheering on a recession because they want to stick it to Trump,” he told reporters on Wednesday.
DESPERATE SPINNING
Much of the political debate on both sides seems to be centred less on whether there will actually be a recession, but rather on whom voters should blame.
Trump has been castigating Federal Reserve Chairman Jay Powell for not cutting interest rates, while blaming the media for trying to “’create’ a US recession, even though the numbers & facts are working totally in the opposite direction.”
“This is the best economy that most Americans alive have ever experienced, and no desperate spinning from Democrats or the media can change that,” said Tim Murtaugh, communications director for Trump’s campaign.
For Trump, it is largely about convincing voters he, not Democrats, is telling the truth about the economy, said a source familiar with discussions inside the White House, who asked to speak anonymously. — Reuters
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