GOP presidential candidate blames Silicon Valley bank failure

Former President Donald Trump and other Republican 2024 presidential candidates spoke about the Silicon Valley Bank debacle this weekend, giving the first hints of their different approaches to the markets.

Trump, widely seen as the frontrunner among the official and likely early nominees, took the opportunity to challenge President Joe Biden, without specifying how he would handle the situation differently.

In a Truth Social post on Saturday, Trump tweeted an all caps prediction: "We are going to have a Great Depression that is bigger and stronger than 1929. As proof the banks are starting to fail!!!

Trump's spokesman said in a statement to Fox News, "Biden presided over a disastrous economy that destroyed ordinary Americans and caused misery across the country due to his anti-American policies.

Meanwhile, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, seen as Trump's biggest Republican challenger, has declared diversity, equality and inclusion, though he has yet to officially declare for the White House, this decision was to blame for the collapse of the bank.

"This bank, they care so much about DEI and politics and all kinds of things, and I think that really distracts them from their core business," DeSantis told Fox Sunday morning in the interview.

The SVB's website has a page touting its support for the diversification movement - but experts attribute the collapse to a ripple effect from rate hikes and banks' inability to hedge effectively.

DeSantis also appeared to complain about overregulation, saying, "We have a huge federal bureaucracy, but they never seem to be there when they have to stop this kind of thing from happening." The institution closed, the biggest failure of a bank institution since the financial crisis of 2008. The sudden collapse of the 16th largest bank in the country, a major player in the technology sector, triggered a wave of panic over whether the fallout will trickle down to other major banks.

The government announced a plan on Sunday evening to ensure that depositors at SVB and Signature Bank – a major cryptocurrency industry lender which is also closed – will have full access to their deposits. .

The banking watchdog stressed that taxpayers would not pay for deposit insurance. A special fee would be charged to federally insured banks to supplement the deposit insurance fund, they said.

In a speech on Monday, Biden called for a "full account" of the situation and for steps to reduce the risk of future bank failures. He also noted that “investors in banks will not be protected”, adding that “this is how capitalism works. The rivals gave speeches following their involvement in the crisis.

Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley said late Saturday that "taxpayers absolutely shouldn't bail out our Silicon Valley banks." of big government and corporate bailouts must end,” he said in a statement, adding that “the era of big government and corporate bailouts must end.”

In a follow-up tweet on Monday, Hailey took issue with the rotation.

"Joe Biden pretending this isn't a bailout. It is," she tweeted. "Healthcare bank depositors are now forced to subsidize Silicon Valley Bank's mismanagement. When the deposit insurance fund dries up, all of the bank's customers are trapped.

It's a public lifeline. SVB depositors should be paid for selling bank assets, she says.

Trump also blames "runaway Democrats" for Trump's downfall. Some lawmakers, including Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.

Trump and other critics have recently pointed out that legislation Trump signed in 2018 removes some banking regulations. The bill enjoys bipartisan support in Congress, although some Democrats criticized the measure at the time. "Let's be clear. The failure of Silicon Valley Bank is a direct result of the ridiculous Banking Deregulation Act of 2018 that Donald Trump signed into law, which I strongly disagree with," Sanders said in a statement Sunday.

Vivek Ramaswamy, a conservative entrepreneur and political commentator who ran in last month's Republican primary, argued on Twitter that the government should "bankrupt" SVB.

Ramaswamy tweeted on Saturday that the FDIC "needs to get out of the way for anyone who wants to buy SVB to do the trick."

Another Republican presidential candidate, Steve Laffey, said in a statement Saturday that his party and America at large "have avoided confronting our issues head-on for years, and the result is abysmal.