Economist on Fox Blames Obama for 2007 Recession, Predicts Future Crash if Market ‘Sees an Obama Coming’

Economist, former advisor to Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump, and famous curve guy Arthur Laffer was on Fox talking to Bill Hemmer on Tuesday about Democratic candidate give-away schemes when he mentioned what he says brought on the last economic crash, and could bring on the next.

In both cases the same answer: Barack Obama.

The beginning of the segment covered the free tuition talk from Sen. Elizabeth Warren and other candidates, as well as other freebies on the list from 2020 Democrat candidates, and anchor Hemmer and supply-sider Laffer were in equal parts bemused and dismayed.

“Here are some of the details. Cancel $50,000 student loan debt for people with a household income under a hundred grand. Eliminate tuition and fees at every public college, hundred billion dollar in Pell grants for ten years,” said Hemmer outlining Warren’s list. “How about that?

“That’s true, and Medicare for all, remember that. Universal healthcare. And then there’s also all sorts of other programs she said that– child development programs for kids and all that other sort of stuff, and all this will be handled by a 2 cent tax. It should be so easy.”

They discussed the difference in her phrasing between “two percent tax” and “two cent tax” and what that means as burden on income. Laffer said that it would be so onerous it would destroy the wealth that Warren wants to use to fund all those programs and thus crash the economy. After pointing out that Warren is fighting for attention in a big field he asked Laffer how it would play out for.

“It plays out really well for Donald Trump,” said Laffer. “I remember we got George McGovern running in 1972 and, you know, Nixon won 49 out of 50 states.”

He was comparing Trump to Nixon in the sense that Democrats will lose by promising so many free things and that people don’t want that.

Hemmer then showed Trump’s tweet about the economy, and asked Laffer whether the good economy would work in Trump’s favor. Laffer enthusiastically said it will play for him, and listed the ways the economy is doing well. He said if they run “a McGovern” it will really hurt them. That’s when he offered the Obama theory.

“If you’ll remember, coming into the election in 2008, when Obama started rising in the polls and doing well in the polls, the stock market crashed,” he said. “The stock market tells you what will be, not what has been.”

“The stock market looks forward. And if they see an Obama coming into office they’ll crash, and that’s what led to the great recession,” he said. “I’m going to look at it very carefully in March of 2020 to make sure that Trump’s going to get reelected, otherwise I’m going to move my portfolio and make it a much more risk-free portfolio.”

“We’re watching the calendar with you,” said Hemmer.

Watch the clip above courtesy of FOX News Channel.

[Featured image via screenshot]

New: The Mediaite One-Sheet "Newsletter of Newsletters"
Your daily summary and analysis of what the many, many media newsletters are saying and reporting. Subscribe now!