Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump told Bloomberg in mid-2009 that he would "hire" President Obama, saying "he's handled the tremendous mess he walked into very well."
"I would hire him," Trump stated. "He's handled the tremendous mess he walked into very well. He still has a daunting task ahead of him but he appears to be equal to the challenge. He has kept his eye on both national and international issues and his visits to foreign countries have shown him to be warmly received, which is certainly a change from the last Administration."
"I believe he should pay more attention to OPEC and what's going on there, but overall I believe he's done a very good job," Trump added.
In an interview with CNN's Wolf Biltzer in Sept. 2010, Trump said he did "agree" that President Obama had "saved us from another depression."
BLITZER: His economic policies, President Obama says, have saved us from another depression, is he right?
TRUMP: Well, I do agree, and this did start prior to him getting there, but he also kept it going. You had to do something to sure up the banks, because the psychology of the banks and you would have had a run on every banks, the strongest and the weakest. So, you have to do something. And I hated the ultraconservative view on that. And ultraconservative is nothing should ever happen. If they go out of business, everybody said, that's fine.
You did have to do something to sure up the banks. They probably should have done something for Lehman Brothers, because Lehman was a disaster that caused lots of other disasters. Lehman was a real disaster, but they did have to do something to sure up the banks. And it starred a little bit sooner than him, but also, it really started with Paulson. But also Obama carried it forward, and you did have to do it. Whether you had to go beyond the banks, that's another thing. Whether all of this TARP money was spent wisely, that's another thing.