Larry Summers: ‘Crazy’ for Trump to brag about stock market gains

Former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers ripped President Trump’s boastful rhetoric about the stock market, saying in an interview the president is “crazy” for taking credit for stock market gains. 

“It’s crazy for a president to wrap himself in the stock market,” the former Clinton Cabinet member told the Politico Money podcast in an interview published on Wednesday. 

“The market goes up and the market goes down, and if you take credit when the market goes up, I don’t see how you can avoid taking responsibility when the market goes down.”

{mosads}Summers went on to say that he strongly avoided stock market commentary during the Clinton and Obama administrations.

“In both administrations I’ve been part of, we talked about how we focused on the fundamentals and if the fundamentals stayed strong over time, then markets would take care of themselves,” he said.

Trump has made a point of touting gains in the stock market during his administration frequently on Twitter. 

The president promoted stock market highs on Tuesday on Twitter from South Korea. 

“Stock market hit yet another all-time record high yesterday,” Trump tweeted. 

“There is great confidence in the moves that my Administration is making. Working very hard on TAX CUTS for the middle class, companies and jobs!”

Stock market hit yet another all-time record high yesterday. There is great confidence in the moves that my Administration….

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 7, 2017

….is making. Working very hard on TAX CUTS for the middle class, companies and jobs!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 7, 2017

Trump also appeared to suggest last month that the stock market gains would lead to a reduction in national debt in a Fox News interview last month. 

“The country — we took it over and owed over $20 trillion. As you know the last eight years, they borrowed more than it did in the whole history of our country. So they borrowed more than $10 trillion, right? And yet, we picked up 5.2 trillion just in the stock market,” he said.