One of the most enduring questions of the 2016 campaign is, does Donald Trump really want to be president? The answer is elusive. He says not particularly, that he has a great life. But that’s a traditional and canny way of playing hard to get. He’s certainly competitive enough, with his polling obsession and sadistically brilliant way with an insult. And there’s no question he has the ego you need to lead the nation. Far too much of it, in fact.
Sure, there were those pesky problems like when he said that, theoretically, he’d penalize women for having illegal abortions while at the same time he seemed to support no penalty for campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, charged with battery for manhandling a female reporter (an incident caught on tape). Musing that his supporters would stick with him even if he shot somebody. Defending Vladimir Putin. Suggesting repeatedly, to the horror of many, that other nations should develop their own nuclear weapons.
But Trump backed off that abortion stance, turning it into just one of several abortion positions he’s held during the past days and months. He quietly reduced Lewandowski’s role and hired some professionals. He announced some semi-plausible foreign policy advisers. He even met with Reince Priebus, the chairman of the Republican Party, and talked about bringing the party together.
So maybe he really does want to be president?
Then again, maybe not. Trump has just provided a new reason for doubt and it’s a doozy — a Washington Post interview in which he predicts “a very massive recession” and tells Americans not to invest in their own stock market. This at a time when the jobless rate is 5%, participation in the labor force is increasing, wages are beginning to rise, and March was the 73rd month of job growth in a row — “the longest string of private-sector jobs growth in U.S. history,” according to economist Justin Wolfers.
Of course, Trump doesn’t put stock in any of that. The unemployment rate is “probably into the twenties if you look at the real number,” he told the Post. “I wouldn't be getting the kind of massive crowds that I'm getting if the number was a real number.”
The top two maddening things about his statements are that one, crowds often signify nothing (as Mitt Romney learned in 2012 and as Bernie Sanders may learn this year if, as looks likely, he doesn’t win the Democratic nomination).
And two, while all expansions eventually end, most Republicans have never even acknowledged the Obama recovery and relatively robust Obama economy — and now their frontrunning presidential candidate is already predicting an economic disaster
A hat tip here to economist Doug Holtz-Eakin, president of the center-right American Action Forum who was once director of the Congressional Budget Office and an adviser to GOP Sen. John McCain. In a statement last week headlined “The labor market marches forward,” he called the March jobs report “very solid” and “another rebuke to the Wall Street pessimissm about an imminent downturn.”
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The Post notes that Trump’s predictions have “misfired” in the past and that this one is counter to “mainstream economic forecasts.” It’s also counter to how Chinese and U.S. business leaders view America. It is the world according to Trump and no one but Trump.
And it is dangerous. Trump’s doomsaying could, as the Post noted, affect the markets and — taken to its logical extreme — become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Alternatively, most financial experts and American voters could dismiss his ramblings and him as a joke, and proceed as if the country were doing well. Which it is. That would be better than a Trump recession, but it would be a sad statement about the stature of a “very major” candidate.
There is no point in predicting that at last, with statements that contradict the evidence and could even threaten jobs and the economy, Trump’s support is bound to erode. It probably won’t, even among his backers who most need a rising economic tide and could be swept under if his words were to be taken seriously on Wall Street and around the world.
What we can hope for is that this latest episode will stiffen the resolve of GOP leaders and primary voters to make sure Trump isn’t the 2016 Republican nominee for president.
Jill Lawrence is the commentary editor of USA TODAY. Follow her on Twitter @JillDLawrence.
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