Would stocks crash with a Trump impeachment?
President Donald Trump warned in a tweet last month amid the Ukraine whistleblower inquiry that his impeachment would cause “the markets crash.” Trump’s tweet came a day after the release of a rough summary of a July 25 phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. The summary showed Trump asked Zelensky to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden. It was preceded by a whistleblower complaint that alleges Trump used the powers of the president’s office to solicit interference from a foreign country ahead of next year’s election. The complaint, along with the call, prompted an impeachment inquiry by the House of Representatives. This is not the first time Trump has warned of a market shock if Congress impeaches him. Last year amid the investigation into Russia meddling in the 2016 election, he told Fox News, “If I ever got impeached, I think the market would crash. I think everybody would be very poor.” Is Trump right? Probably not. First, the risk to markets and the economy is not really that Trump might actually get forced out of office. Barring a truly devastating revelation, the Republican-controlled Senate will not vote to remove Trump, a president with