Yahoo Finance Bond guru Jeffrey Gundlach rips Democratic hopefuls: 'Short them all'
Noted billionaire bond investor Jeffrey Gundlach, who accurately predicted Donald Trump’s presidency at the Sohn Conference May 2016, slammed virtually the entire field of Democratic primary contenders at the same conference on Monday.
Even as polls suggest most of the crowded Democratic field could beat Trump in the 2020 elections, Gundlach, the CEO of $130 billion DoubleLine Capital, told the crowd that he’d “short them all.”
He mentioned virtually everyone from former Vice President Joe Biden to Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, attacking their politics as well as their personalities.
“Even as the Democratic Party has descended into vilifying success and even rags-to-riches hard-earned wealth unbeknownst to most people, there are no fewer than a dozen Democratic hopefuls who want to hide the fact they are one-percenters themselves,” Gundlach said.
“But we're not talking about income here, one-percenters, we're talking about polling,” he added.
He went on to call out specific candidates — starting with Joe Biden. Gundlach blasted him as the “Rasputin of politics — the guy who won’t go away.”
Referencing Biden’s affectionate style that’s gotten him into trouble for unwanted touching, Gundlach stated that the former vice president “is grabbing the spotlight and is the Democratic frontrunner by far at this early moment in the 2020 campaign.”
Gundlach continued: “But, no, Joe, I don't want you grabbing my shoulders and giving me an Eskimo kiss.”
He added that “a two-minute trying to explain away and get past this problem is not going to work.”
Snowflakes and tornadoes
Next, Gundlach shared a photo of former Texas Congressman and Democratic presidential contender Beto O'Rourke.
“Then you got this snowflake posing with a skateboard in front of a bounce house. How perfect is that? Other than he’s 46 years old,” Gundlach told the audience.
“Actually, that’s too old to be a snowflake. If he were to win the White House, they would be mailing his AARP card to the Oval Office during his first term,” he added.
He called Warren a “tornado of anger and insincerity” who comes up with “one crazy giveaway and soak the rich scheme.”
Gundlach asked: “I mean who wants four years of this? Who wants even four hours of this? It's like being trapped with the mother in law from hell. I say short Elizabeth Warren.”
He also slammed tech entrepreneur Andrew Yang and his universal basic income policy.
"You can see he has a signature hat with the slogan 'MATH.' Are you kidding me? You really think you're going to get ahead with the slogan ‘MATH.’ Most people hate math!” Gundlach said.
He added: “The thing about the ‘MATH’ that is Yang isn't any good at math. His ‘Freedom Dividend,’ which is what he calls the free money, he doesn't seem to know it's mathematically impossible given the backdrop of our already out of control deficit spending.”
A still booming jobs market and surprisingly strong growth is expected to give Trump an edge in the general election, despite relatively low job approval ratings. On Monday, Gallup said the president’s poll numbers hit 46% in their most recent survey, up from 39% in the last showing.
Julia La Roche is a finance reporter at Yahoo Finance. Follow her on Twitter.
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