Trump and His Allies Seize on Market Downturn to Attack Harris

Economists blamed a variety of factors for Monday’s slide. But Donald Trump was trying to disrupt weeks of momentum for Vice President Kamala Harris and her party.

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Former President Donald J. Trump at a campaign rally at the New Holland Arena in Harrisburg, Pa., late last month.

Donald J. Trump didn’t wait for the opening bell before blaming Monday’s market sell-off on Vice President Kamala Harris.

“Stock markets are crashing, jobs numbers are terrible, we are heading to World War III, and we have two of the most incompetent ‘leaders’ in history,” the former president and Republican presidential nominee wrote in a post on Truth Social at 8:12 a.m. Eastern time. “This is not good.”

Mr. Trump did not mention that markets had suffered far greater single-day losses when he was president, or that economists blamed a variety of factors — including a disappointing July jobs report, a plunge in Japanese markets earlier in the day and a growing consensus among investors that the Federal Reserve has waited too long to start cutting interest rates — for Monday’s slide.

He also did not mention that earlier this year, he had claimed credit for a surge in stock prices, which he said reflected confidence he would be re-elected.

What Mr. Trump was engaged in was a calculated attempt at political marketing. By 9:45 a.m. on Monday, less than an hour after U.S. markets opened, Mr. Trump branded what would become a 3 percent decline for the day in the S&P 500 the “Kamala Crash.”

By lunchtime, it was official party messaging: The Republican National Committee hyped the “Great Kamala Crash of 2024,” and the Trump campaign had produced and circulated on social media a video tying the vice president to Monday’s dip in the markets. By the afternoon, the Trump forces had turned “KamalaCrash” into a “trending” subject on X.

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