President Donald Trump told CNBC that if Hillary Clinton had won the 2016 presidential election, the stock market would have been cut in half.

Trump said Thursday in the exclusive interview from the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland:

"Had the Democrat won — the stock market is up almost 50 percent since my election — had the Democrat won, I believe you would have been down 50. That's the direction we were headed. And you know, a lot of that, regulation. It was staggering. You could not do anything."

The stock market has had a historic run since Trump's election in November 2016. The Dow Jones industrial average has climbed 44 percent since then, notching scores of all-time highs along the way. The index recently crossed 26,000 for the first time, posting its best performance in the first year of a president's tenure since Franklin Roosevelt.

To be sure, some investors say the bull market would have continued under Clinton anyway because of the strong economic growth taking place around the world. Many say the U.S. stock market likely wouldn't have posted such gains as under Trump.

When asked about whether the economy could continue to grow faster than 3 percent, Trump said, "I think it'll be much higher than that."

"I think that the tax plan has been even better than we thought," the president added.

— CNBC's Joe Kernen contributed to this report.