(Aug 24): President Donald Trump said the stock market would plummet if he were to be removed from office.

 

"If I ever got impeached, I think the market would crash. I think everybody would be very poor," the president said in a Fox News interview that aired Thursday.

 

"Because without this thinking, you would see numbers that you wouldn't believe in reverse," Trump said, pointing at his head. "I got rid of regulations. The tax cut was a tremendous thing."

 

The stock market has had little reaction so far to Trump's renewed legal troubles this week with two former advisors now guilty of criminal acts and one implicating him directly. The Dow fell slightly on Wednesday and stock futures were little changed Thursday morning. Traders say the market right now expects Trump to avoid impeachment unless the special counsel investigation can tie the president directly to collusion with Russia to sway the 2016 election.

 

The economy expanded at a 4.1 percent pace last quarter and the Atlanta Fed is forecasting 4.3 percent growth for this quarter. Under Trump, unemployment has fallen to 3.9 percent, around the lowest since 1969.

 

The S&P 500 is up 7 percent for the year and on Wednesday its run since March 2009 became the longest bull market on record.

 

"I don't know how you can impeach somebody who's done a great job," the president told "Fox & Friends."

 

In the interview, Trump suggested it should be illegal for people facing prosecution to co-operate with the government for a reduced sentence, and he didn't rule out pardoning his former campaign chief and newly convicted felon Paul Manafort.

 

He also admitted he provided the hush money used by attorney Michael Cohen to suppress the allegations of two women that they had affairs with Trump. But he insisted he only knew about payments "later on," contradicting his former lawyer's sworn statement that Trump had directed him to make the payments. Trump has denied the affairs. - CNBC