Steve Forbes, chairman and editor-in-chief of Forbes, has endorsed former President Donald Trump's warning about the threat of communism within the United States, asserting that internal issues are the primary danger to the nation. Forbes, who was a presidential candidate in 1996 and 2000, stated that what he terms communism, socialism, extreme leftism, and anti-Semitism are manifestations of the same underlying problem.
During an interview at Freedom Fest in Las Vegas, Forbes drew a parallel to Abraham Lincoln's observations from the 1800s, quoting the 16th U.S. president who said, "It won't be foreign forces that destroy the United States. It'll be things we do internally."
Forbes suggested that public dissatisfaction with economic conditions often leads to blame being placed on capitalism and free markets, when the actual cause is government policies. "What happens is when governments start making mistakes and doing things that people don't like and that hurt people's prospects for getting ahead, upsetting society, they blame it on capitalism. They blame it on free markets," Forbes said. "So they help wreck free markets and then say, 'The victim is the cause of it.'"
He highlighted the role of freedom in fostering prosperity and innovation, citing the rapid advancement and decreasing cost of personal technology as an example of human creativity. "Take your handheld," Forbes remarked. "If you'd said 30 years ago [that your] grandma could operate a supercomputer, you'd have gotten a rather strange look. Now we take it for granted."
A vocal critic of the Federal Reserve, Forbes argued that the notion of prosperity causing inflation is flawed. He believes the central bank's primary role should be to preserve the dollar's integrity, not to manage economic activity through interest rate manipulation. Forbes compared controlling interest rates to rent control, noting that controlling the cost of borrowing money distorts the market.
For the Trump administration, Forbes recommended a domestic agenda focused on tax cuts for individuals and businesses, coupled with continued deregulation. He suggested that promoting tax reductions, such as not taxing overtime or tips, could be a winning issue to present to voters. "Bring out examples of people who have benefited enormously from not taxing overtime, not taxing tips, and saying, remember those old late night TV commercials [where hawkers would say] 'But wait, there's more?' They can say, 'But wait, there's more. We're going to have big tax cuts. Everyone's going to benefit,'" Forbes explained. "And continue with the deregulation. You go on that path, and good things will happen."