As his polls have soured in recent weeks, Donald Trump has turned to an old chestnut, warning about the hellscape that awaits America if Vice President Kamala Harris is elected.
He has said she would “obliterate” Social Security and Medicare, and “destroy” the country. He’s said she would “end” not just fracking but also fossil fuel use as a whole. He has predicted her election would lead to a stock market crash on par with the Great Depression. And on Sunday, he even predicted annihilation.
“There will be no future under Comrade Kamala Harris, because she will take us into a Nuclear World War III!” Trump said on X.
But if you are looking for your own personal American Nostradamus, you might want to look elsewhere. Trump’s prognostications on this front have regularly proved wrong. Indeed, he predicted many of the same things about the Biden-Harris administration, and they still haven’t happened.
Politics as a business is full of hyperbole, and politicians often warn broadly about their opponents’ plans. But Trump has made very specific predictions about what would befall the country in ways that allow us to examine his track record.
So let’s do that.
A stock market crash/new Great Depression
Perhaps the most illustrative example is Trump’s predictions about the stock market and an economic disaster. Just as he warns of a Great Depression-esque crash under Harris, he warned of much the same with Biden.
“You will have a depression, the likes of which you’ve never seen. Your 401(k)s will go to hell and it’ll be a very, very sad day for this country,” he said at an October 2020 debate.
“Our country will go into a depression, the likes of which we have not seen since 1929, and maybe worse,” he said in New York that month.
“We will go into a depression, no different than — maybe worse — no different than what happened in 1929. Your stocks will crash, your 401(k)s will be worthless. This is going to happen,” Trump said in August 2020.
Trump added in the same comments, “I’m very good at predicting these things.”
The U.S. economy has not faced a depression or even a recession. The gross domestic product has grown by a similar rate under Biden as it did under Trump (if you exclude the wild swings during the pandemic). The unemployment rate has been similar (again, not including the pandemic). And the stock market has continued to hit new highs — including the Dow Jones Industrial Average on Monday.
(For more on how the economy under Biden compares to Trump, see our post with all the charts here.)
Trump’s prediction about 401(k)s has also been wrong. After a setback in 2022, balances are higher today than they were when Trump was president, according to numbers from Vanguard.
Lockdowns
“If you vote for Biden, it means no kids in school, no graduations, no weddings, no Thanksgiving, no Christmas and no Fourth of July together,” Trump said in Arizona in 2020, while warning about lockdowns under a Biden-Harris administration. “Other than that, you have a wonderful life.”
But the first year of the Biden-Harris administration featured extensive school reopenings. The Education Department reported the percentage of public school students learning in-person full time rose from 46 percent when Biden took office to 95 percent by the end of the year. The school data company Burbio did a survey finding similar numbers.
The federal government did not ban family gatherings for holidays or weddings, and many schools held in-person graduations in the spring of 2021.
$7 to $9 gas
“Your gasoline will go up to 6, 7 dollars,” Trump told rallygoers in Michigan on Nov. 1, 2020.
“If Biden got in, you’d be paying $7, $8, $9,” he said the next day in the same state.
Gas prices did rise under Biden, but not to the level Trump predicted. The peak national average for regular unleaded, according to AAA, was just over $5 nationally and $5.22 in Michigan, both in 2022. The current averages are down substantially from that, though — $3.35 nationally and $3.40 in Michigan.
Gas prices under Trump were generally between $2 and $3 per gallon.
China ‘owning’ the United States
“China will own our country if he gets elected. They will own our country,” Trump said in August 2020.
“If Biden wins, China will own the USA, and you know it,” Trump said in October of that year.
This one’s a bit more subjective. But it’s worth noting that Chinese imports have fallen during the Biden administration, even as other countries have become more reliant upon Chinese products. U.S. imports from Mexico actually surpassed those from China.
Wiping out the Second Amendment
“If they get in, they will absolutely — either obliterate it to a point of no return or actually terminate it. And I have no doubt about it. I have absolutely no doubt about it,” Trump said in his August 2020 speech.
“He’ll … confiscate your guns,” Trump added in October.
The Second Amendment still exists, and there has been no real Democratic effort to repeal it or confiscate guns on a broad scale. Congress passed and Biden signed the most significant gun restrictions in decades, expanding background checks and increasing tools for preventing troubled people from having guns. But it was only the most significant because Congress rarely restricts gun rights. (The bill got some bipartisan support.)
Gun manufacturing, meanwhile, has hit new highs under Biden.
Eliminating police departments, borders and religious liberty
While making the prediction about confiscating guns, Trump also predicted Biden would “dismantle your police departments, dissolve our borders” and “terminate religious liberty.”
The federal government hasn’t dismantled police departments, and data suggest police hiring is on the rise after declines stemming from the pandemic and the racial justice protests after the police killing of George Floyd. Illegal border crossings have hit record highs, but our borders have not been literally dissolved (and crossings are now the lowest in four years, dating back to the Trump administration). Religious liberty has not been terminated.
Banning fracking and destroying Pennsylvania energy
Trump often pitched the demise of the energy industry in Pennsylvania.
“Joe Biden will ban fracking and abolish Pennsylvania energy,” he said in Erie, Pa., in October 2020.
“To all the people of Pennsylvania, hear this warning: If Biden was elected, he will wipe out your energy industry,” Trump added.
“Last year, I visited the Shell petrochemical plant in Beaver County, the largest investment in your state’s history,” he said. “Our opponents will put it out of business.”
The Shell plant is still open. Fracking (short for hydraulic fracturing) is still legal and has played a key role in sending U.S. crude oil production to new highs, according to the U.S. Energy Information Association. And Pennsylvania’s energy industry is the second-largest net supplier of energy to other states.
In the same speech, Trump made another prediction unrelated to energy.
“Kamala — by the way, she will not be your first woman president,” he said.
We’ll see if that prediction pans out in a little more than two months.
