Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump said the United States is set to experience a “massive recession” and warned Americans not to invest in the stock market in an interview published by the Washington Post on Sunday.
“We’re not at five percent unemployment. We’re at a number that’s probably into the twenties if you look at the real number,” Trump said, in a claim that lacks empirical support. “I wouldn’t be getting the kind of massive crowds that I’m getting if the number was a real number. People are extremely unhappy in this country.”
Trump’s assertion is contradicted by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The agency, even counting people who have part-time jobs or have stopped looking for work, still found joblessness under 10 percent nationally last month.
“I’m talking about a bubble where you go into a very massive recession,” Trump said. “Hopefully not worse than that, but a very massive recession.”
In advice that is close to unprecedented from a presidential hopeful, Trump offered Americans extremely bearish investment advice.
“My stock tip is that the market — I believe we’re sitting on a big bubble,” Trump said.
“You have a situation where you have an inflated stock market,” he said. “It started to deflate, but then it went back up again. Usually that’s a bad sign. That’s a sign of things to come. And yeah, I think we’re sitting on a very, very big bubble.”
Describing himself as a “lone ranger,” Trump told the Post that In his first 100 days he would cut taxes, renegotiate trade deals and military deals, including reducing the United States’ role in NATO.
He said he would be able to get rid of the nation’s more than $19 trillion national debt “over a period of eight years.”
