Trump impeachment probe 'side show' to 'the real threat': Ex-OMB head David Stockman

Updated Thu, Sep 26, 2019, 7:13 AM

The nation’s capital and American politics at large is now consumed by the House’s formal impeachment probe of President Donald Trump.

It’s giving one of the most vocal prognosticators of the U.S.’s looming fiscal doom even more reason to worry.

“This is a sideshow,” David Stockman, the former Office of Management and Budget (OMB) director under Ronald Reagan, told Yahoo Finance’s The Ticker on Wednesday about revelations Trump pressed Ukraine’s leader for a probe of former Vice President Joe Biden and his family’s business ties in the country.

“The real threat is the policies of the Trump administration,” Stockman warns. “They are terrible. The trade war is a disaster. The border wars are demented. The fiscal situation is out of control. He’s attacking the Fed randomly. He’s about ready to start a war in the Persian Gulf. Those are the issues.”

But Stockman believes Trump won’t be the only one swept up in the House impeachment probe and intensifying political storm.

“What this means is that the geniuses in the House Democratic caucus are going to finish off [former Vice President Joe] Biden,” Stockman says. “You get into a deep investigation of this — all the Republican think tanks will be coming the other way. Biden is almost finished already. This will kill him off.”

‘President Elizabeth Warren’

Stockman views Senator Elizabeth Warren and her 2020 presidential candidacy as the biggest beneficiary of the turmoil.

“I think the day traders, the ‘algos’ and the perma-bulls ought to wake up down on Wall Street. Elizabeth Warren will be the nominee,” Stockman argues.

WATER WORKS PARK, DES MOINES, IOWA, UNITED STATES - 2019/09/21: Candidate for the Democratic nomination for President of the United States Elizabeth Warren speaks during the Polk County Steak Fry at the Water Works Park in Des Moines, Iowa. The event drew in 17 candidates for the democratic nomination for president of the United States. The Iowa Caucasus are Monday, February 3, 2020 and although not a primary will narrow down the field of candidates for president before the first primary election in the state of New Hampshire. (Photo by Jeremy Hogan/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images) — Candidate for the Democratic nomination for President of the United States Elizabeth Warren speaks during the Polk County Steak Fry at the Water Works Park in Des Moines, Iowa. (Photo by Jeremy Hogan/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)

A new national poll by Quinnipiac University finds Warren surpassing Biden, with 27% support among Democratic voters compared to 25% for Biden. It follows recent surveys in the critical primary battlegrounds of Iowa and New Hampshire showing Warren gaining ground among Democratic voters.

“It’ll scare the living daylights out of Wall Street when they figure out you might have a President Elizabeth Warren with Medicare-for-all, a Green New Deal, giving away everything to everybody, [and] cancelling student debts,” Stockman says.

“She is the real threat to capitalist prosperity in America.”

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