On May 17, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at a new all-time high over 40,000 for the first time ever, after briefly exceeding that milestone the day before. The other major American stock indexes, the Nasdaq Composite and the S&P 500, also closed trading for the week near all-time records. This event happened more than three years after then-President Donald Trump warned that the stock market “will crash” if he lost the 2020 election, and follows repeated downplaying of recent stock market gains from Trump's media allies — led by Fox News hype man Sean Hannity.

The booming stock market is one among many economic indicators that show a strong, resilient economy under President Joe Biden, which has defied constant predictions of a recession as the Federal Reserve took action to bring post-pandemic inflation under control.

Trump falsely predicted doom if Biden won the White House

During an October 22, 2020, presidential debate, Trump proclaimed that the stock market “will boom if I’m elected,” while declaring of his opponent, “If he’s elected, the stock market will crash.” Earlier that day, the markets had closed with the Dow at 28,335.57, the Nasdaq at 11,548.28, and the S&P 500 at 3,465.39.

In the time since Trump made that pronouncement, the Dow has gone up 41%, the Nasdaq is up 44%, and the S&P 500 is up 53%.

In January of this year, Trump claimed credit for stock markets closing at new high points nearly three years into the Biden presidency, claiming that the market was up only because people expected him to win the upcoming presidential election.

And again on May 10, Trump asserted that the stock market would be 30% lower if he wasn’t ahead in current polling.

Fox hyped stock markets under Trump, and criticized them under Biden

Fox personalities, particularly prime-time star Sean Hannity, have long based their commentary about stock market performance on who was president at the time.

After repeatedly praising Trump for stock market gains during his administration, Hannity dismissed increased stock values under Biden as inconsequential for most Americans, cautioning that “this thing can come tumbling down just as quickly as it went up.” (This was actually true during the Trump administration, which witnessed a global stock market crash during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.)

During the Trump administration, Hannity routinely ran a rolling list of “President’s Trump’s Accomplishments” that would scroll as he lauded Trump’s economic policies. “Stock market reached an all-time high” was often listed at or near the top of the list. Hannity did this at least 11 times between 2017-19.

In February 2018, as the stock market Trump had previously taken credit for entered a temporary slump, Fox Business host Stuart Varney said that Trump “was right to tout” stock market growth since his inauguration, claiming that “it was his policies which created” a stock market rally. However, Varney dismissed a 1,175-point drop on the Dow Jones on February 5, 2018, as an overdue market correction, saying that “presidents shouldn't stick into that kind of sell-off on a day-to-day basis” and advising Trump to “steer clear of that, please.” (Hannity also chimed in on the slump by blaming it on former President Barack Obama, more than a year into Trump's presidency.)

On the May 17 edition of his Fox Business show, Varney criticized Biden for celebrating that the Dow had reached 40,000 the day before. “When he’s not blaming Trump for just about everything that’s gone wrong, he tries to take credit for things that go right, even if he doesn’t have much to do with it,” Varney said before then claiming: “There are plenty of people on this program and elsewhere who give credit to a likely Trump win in November. They think Trump’s got a lot to do with this rally.”

Back in 2020, Trump administration economic adviser Larry Kudlow warned during an appearance on Fox Business that Biden would “completely crater the economy and the stock market” if he was elected president. Kudlow later became a Fox Business host, and admitted on the air in January 2024 that his many predictions of a recession that was supposed to happen in 2023 had been wrong.

Fox has also hyped false claims of stagflation, dismissed positive news about the economy, and repeatedly misled its audience on grocery prices.

The stock market has historically performed better under Democrats than Republicans

It’s true that the stock market is just one measurement of the economy, but on that measurement, the impression that Republicans are better for the economy or for financial markets is simply false. Forbes reported in 2020: “From 1952 through June 2020, annualized real stock market returns under Democrats have been 10.6% compared with 4.8% for Republicans.”

As CNN noted in September 2020: “Ten of the last 11 recessions, going back to the 1950s, started during a GOP-run White House. The only exception was President Jimmy Carter, who presided over a period of weak growth and high inflation driven in large part by high oil prices.”

The economy is also performing strongly by many other measurements under Biden.

The economy added an estimated 175,000 jobs in April and the unemployment rate ticked up to 3.9%, marking the 40th consecutive month of job growth nationwide and the 27th straight month with an unemployment rate below 4% (a streak not matched since the 1950s). Inflation has moderated significantly since peaking in 2022, with the consumer price index measuring between 3 and 4% for 11 consecutive months, while wage growth has exceeded inflation for 12 months. Additionally, CNN reported in April that the International Monetary Fund upgraded “its forecast for US economic growth to 2.7% this year — 0.6 percentage points higher than it predicted as recently as January.”

And despite continued efforts by right-wing media to paint a negative portrait of the economy, inflation has flattened out, America is actually producing more energy than ever, and the auto industry is in its best shape since 2006.