It's the One Comparison Trump Wants to Avoid

In a press conference this week defending his decision to strike a deal with Iran, President Trump summoned one of his predecessors. A look at his comments, along with the views of political analysts weighing in:

• Trump said continuing the war risked "economic catastrophe," reports ABC News. "So rather than possibly going into a depression, rather than having your favorite president be Herbert Hoover, he was always the one I didn't want to be." Hoover was in office when the Great Depression started.
• "I've studied presidents ... and the one president I did not want to be was the late great Herbert Hoover," Trump said at another point. "I didn't want that and who knows what would have happened. But bad things happen. ... The one I always thought of, Herbert Hoover, and he caused ... the Great Depression."

• An Axios analysis notes that Trump embraces the notion that he has "limitless power," but the Hoover comments show one big exception—his fear of tanking the economy.
• The Washington Post similarly finds that the "remarks provide the starkest example to date of Trump describing Wall Street as the barometer for consequential decisions of his presidency." Whatever the topic, "Trump considers market reaction a key measure of success." (The analysis also notes there is "no consensus among historians and economists about the exact cause of the Depression."
• Conservative Trump critic William Kristol finds the Hoover comparison "revealing" in a scathing post at the Bulwark. "For all that Trump wanted to pretend his new Iran deal was a good one that he negotiated from a position of strength, Trump was inadvertently acknowledging the opposite: He believed he needed a deal, any deal, because of the possibility of a global economic collapse due to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. In other words, Iran was winning, and Trump cried 'uncle.'"
• Trump has made the Hoover comment previously, most famously in January 2024 with Joe Biden in his final year in office, per the Hill. "And when there's a crash—I hope it's going to be during this next 12 months because I don't want to be Herbert Hoover. The one president I just don't want to be, Herbert Hoover." That prompted Biden to say that Trump is "already Herbert Hoover" because he was "the only other president who lost jobs during his term." A Hoover descendant wasn't thrilled about the back-and-forth, noted the Guardian.