Trump turns to dubious Nostradamus claims of apocalypse — when he's losing: columnist
When Donald Trump starts losing, he goes straight to predicting the apocalypse, Washington Post columnist Aaron Blake wrote Monday after the ex-president did exactly that.
As momentum in the election has shifted, Trump has raged that Vice President Kamala Harris will “obliterate” Social Security and Medicare, and “destroy” the United States. In one speech, Trump even claimed she would “end” fracking, and allies on Fox Business claimed she might even go so far as to "ban" oil.
Trump "has predicted her election would lead to a stock market crash on par with the Great Depression. And on Sunday, he even predicted annihilation," Blake said of the new panic campaign.
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“There will be no future under Comrade Kamala Harris, because she will take us into a Nuclear World War III!” Trump said on X.
However, the personal prognostications of what Blake calls the "American Nostradamus" haven't quite panned out the way he promised. In fact, some things he's said about Harris he recycled from saying about Biden just months ago.
"Politics as a business is full of hyperbole, and politicians often warn broadly about their opponents’ plans," Blake explained. "But Trump has made very specific predictions about what would befall the country in ways that allow us to examine his track record."
Blake goes on to cite examples like Trump's comments on predicting the destruction of the American economy under Democrats and claiming credit for the successes today.
One of Trump's favorite examples of hyperbole: a 2020 claim that under Biden, gas would reach $6 or $7. It didn't, but now Trump says it will climb as high as $9.
Trump also promised in 2020 that China would "own" the United States and deployed a favored GOP claim that Democrats would eliminate the Second Amendment. Nonetheless, neither came to pass.