If Donald Trump is elected president, the economy will be in jeopardy warned political comedian Bill Maher.
“I wasn’t kidding last night. Trump is going to crash the stock market,” the “Real Time” host said in a brief Facebook post Saturday evening. “I miss the days when bad Republican ideas just ruined Kansas. #‎LadyTrump.”
Some financial experts agree with Maher.
In a report from USA Today on Friday, Andy Laperriere, head of U.S. policy research for Cornerstone Macro, said investors “believe that there is more risk associated with Trump.” He cited Trump’s call for significant trade tarrifs on countries like China, as well as the businessman’s “unpredictability.”
However, recent surveys suggested many people think that Trump may in fact be good for markets.
Respondents in a Fortune-Morning Consult survey from March said they believed the billionaire businessman would help the stock market. Twenty-seven percent said that the stock market would improve under a president Trump, while only 19 percent said the same for Hillary Clinton.
More recently, Tom Lee, the founder of market research group Fundstrat Global Advisors, told CNBC that a Trump presidency “could add up to a positive for equities.” CNBC also reported that stock exchanges came out positive in the weeks following Trump’s primary victories.
Time magazine even published an article in March with a headline seemingly rebuts Maher’s comment directly, “No, the Stock Market Won’t Crash if Trump Is Elected President.”
Trump told the Washington Post in April that the economy and financial markets are “sitting on an economic bubble. A financial bubble.”
That bubble, he said, could lead to a “very massive recession.” But he said, “I can fix it pretty quickly.”
