Trump thought the housing market was “solid” in 2007

Donald Trump has tried to explain why he was a Democrat by saying that a Republican president, George W. Bush, crashed the economy. He told MSNBC that in the last two years of the Bush administration, the housing market “was a bubble that was waiting to explode.” Bush, Trump claimed, had a “death wish,” so he ignored the obvious weakness in the housing market and the economy collapsed.

We have shown that Trump’s explanation doesn’t hold up. He was a Democrat long before the last two years of the Bush administration.

And now we learn, via Jim Geraghty, that Trump thought in 2007 that the housing was “fine” and “solid.” In March 2007, he told Wolf Blitzer:

Well, the U.S. economy is okay, but very, very fragile. Interest rates have to start being lowered. I think that Alan Greenspan, who is a friend of mine and a great guy, came out last week and he made the statement. But I believe interest rates are getting too high, and if they are not lowered, your housing markets will really start crashing pretty big. And I think they will be lowered.

Now, as far as the housing market, I think it’s okay. It’s not terrible, it’s not great — it’s okay. It was great two years ago; now it’s fine, it’s solid.

Geraghty points out that in late 2007 and 2008, the Fed did what Trump suggested was necessary to keep the housing market “solid.” It cut rates ten times in 15 months, to the lowest rate on record. To no avail, obviously.

During the same interview with Blitzer, by the way, Trump said this about Hillary Clinton:

Very talented, very smart. She’s a friend of mine, so I’m a little bit prejudiced. She’s a very, very capable person and I think she’ll probably be the nominee. We’ll see, but I think she’ll probably be the nominee.

Blitzer asked whether Hillary is ready to be commander-in-chief. Trump replied:

I think she is. I think she’s a very, very brilliant person, and as a senator in New York, she has done a great job.

Trump also praised Rudy Giuliani and Michael Bloomberg, and to a lesser extent Barack Obama, John McCain, and Mitt Romney. You would have thought that, other than President Bush, Trump had never met an “establishment” political figure he didn’t like and respect.

Now that Trump is running for president, everyone else in politics is owned lock, stock, and barrel by people like him. And they are idiots, too.

But Trump is the one who declared the housing market “solid” as it was about to crash.

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