Biden : FDR Led When Market Crashed

Joe Biden :

"When the stock market crashed, Franklin Roosevelt got on the television and didn't just talk about the princes of greed. He said, Look, heres what happened."

But :

1. Franklin Roosevelt didnt become president in 1929 during the crash. He won the 1932 election and took office in 1933, largely because of the 1929 crash and the incompetent protectionist policies that transformed it into a Great Depression.

2. If FDR and President Herbert Hoover didnt talk about the princes of greed in 1929, by the time FDR took over, that kind of populist rhetoric had certainly taken root. FDR greatly escalated the scope of federal government to institute the kind of redistributionism that Obama and Biden now champion.

3. If Hoover or FDR appeared on television in 1929 or even 1933, only a few hundred people would have seen it. Television was still an experimental medium and wouldnt be introduced to the public for at least another decade.