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Sarah Wasko / Media Matters

Research/Study Research/Study

MAGA media follow Trump’s lead in blaming economic contraction on Biden

Amid turmoil following negative GDP report, suddenly it's not “The Trump Stock Market” anymore

Written by Zachary Pleat

Published

The American economy contracted at an annual rate of 0.3% during the first quarter of 2025, after growing at a rate of 2.4% during the fourth quarter of 2024 under former President Joe Biden, and the Trump administration is desperately spinning blame for the contraction on its predecessor.

President Donald Trump's supporters in the media quickly followed suit, decrying the supposed “hangover from the Biden administration” for economic contraction on Trump's watch. Their dissembling continues a glaring pattern of distracting from troubling economic news under Trump by pointing to Democrats, and crediting Trump for good economic performance under Democrats. This has included airing decades-old clips of Democrats talking about trade with China to suggest they agree with Trump's extreme tariffs.

There is no significant debate among economic analysts about which presidency is responsible for the sudden reversal of the economy’s previous upward trajectory. They posited that the economy contracted in the first quarter of 2025 as individuals and businesses shifted their consumption activity, boosting imports in an effort to “front run” price increases brought on by Trump’s import tax regime. As one economist said to The Washington Post, “Growth has simply vanished. ... There is simply no way for policy advisers to sugarcoat this.”

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  • White House blames Biden for economic contraction during first quarter of Trump’s presidency

  • In a January 29, 2024, post on Truth Social, Trump proclaimed "THIS IS THE TRUMP STOCK MARKET BECAUSE MY POLLS AGAINST BIDEN ARE SO GOOD THAT INVESTORS ARE PROJECTING THAT I WILL WILL, AND THAT WILL DRIVE UP THE MARKET." In an April 30, 2025, post on Truth Social, Trump wrote "This is Biden's Stock Market, not Trump's. I didn't take over until January 20th."

    • Trump on negative first-quarter Gross Domestic Product report: “This is Biden’s Stock Market, not Trump’s.” Trump added in his Truth Social post: “I didn’t take over until January 20th. Tariffs will soon start kicking in, and companies are starting to move into the USA in record numbers. Our Country will boom, but we have to get rid of the Biden ‘Overhang.’ This will take a while, has NOTHING TO DO WITH TARIFFS, only that he left us with bad numbers, but when the boom begins, it will be like no other. BE PATIENT!!!” [Truth Social, 4/30/25]
    • During a televised Cabinet meeting, Trump said of the economic contraction: “This is Biden, and you could even say the next quarter is sort of Biden.” Trump continued: “We’re turning it around, it’s a big ship to turn around.” [Twitter/X, 4/30/25]
    • Council of Economic Advisers chairman Stephen Miran on Fox Business: The decline in GDP is “a result of the bad economic policies we inherited from President Biden.” [Twitter/X, 4/30/25]
    • Trump trade adviser Peter Navarro: “We inherited a tremendously bad set of economic policies from Joe Biden.” According to the Washington Examiner, Navarro added: “If you look at the Biden inflation problem, it certainly hasn’t been fully cured.” [Washington Examiner, 4/30/25]
    • White House deputy press secretary Anna Kelly on C-SPAN: “If you break it down, there is an outsized influence of January in that report. Remember, this president wasn't elected until January 20.” Kelly added: “GDP is a backward-looking indicator.” [Twitter/X, 4/30/25]
    • Trump previously took credit for stock market upswings under Biden. On Truth Social in January 2024, Trump declared, “THIS IS THE TRUMP STOCK MARKET BECAUSE MY POLLS AGAINST BIDEN ARE SO GOOD THAT INVESTORS ARE PROJECTING THAT I WILL WIN, AND THAT WILL DRIVE THE MARKET UP.” [Truth Social, 1/29/24]

  • MAGA media followed Trump and his staffers in blaming Biden

    • MAGA podcaster Benny Johnson posted, “President Trump on the stock market: ‘This is Biden’s Stock Market, not Trump’s.’” [Twitter/X, 4/30/25]
    • Fox guest and former Republican National Committee press secretary Cassie Smedile: “The economic report we’re seeing today, most would say is a bit of a hangover from the Biden administration.” [Fox News, The Faulkner Focus, 4/30/25]
    • Former Trump strategist Stephen Bannon: “They’re in total meltdown today because GDP (was) negative in the first quarter. But hey, that’s Biden’s numbers.” Bannon continued: “This ain’t tariffs. Yo, Liberation Day was the second (April 2), and basically the reciprocity of the tariffs hasn’t even kicked in yet.” [Real America’s Voice, War Room, 4/30/25]
    • Newsmax host Shaun Kraisman: “A lot of” the market reaction “is an overhang from the previous administration.” Kraisman added that Trump is “not wrong in that sense.” [Newsmax, The National Report, 4/30/25]
    • Fox host Sean Hannity: “The president’s right — we’re still living under the Biden-Harris economy.” Hannity began the segment by claiming: “For the economy, he inherited a mess, just like on foreign policy. He inherited a mess.” [Fox News, Hannity, 4/30/25]

  • MAGA media have previously blamed Biden and former President Barack Obama for economic concerns under Trump

    • Fox contributor Newt Gingrich: “Just as Reagan inherited Carter's bad economy, President Trump inherited Biden's bad economy.” Gingrich added, “We are sliding towards a recession.” [Fox Business, Mornings with Maria, 3/3/25]
    • Fox Business host Larry Kudlow in early March: “Right now the economy is doing poorly. This is still the Biden economy.” Co-host and Fox Business anchor Cheryl Casone added that Trump has to “remind Americans what” he “was just handed by Joe Biden.” Kudlow concluded: “The Biden economy is sinking rapidly.” [Fox News, Outnumbered, 3/3/25]
    • Fox anchor Sandra Smith on Federal Reserve data indicating an economic slowdown: “This is still the hangover from the Biden administration.” Fox Business host Brian Brenberg added: “The Trump administration is trying to unravel an economy that was absolutely tied up in government spending and government hiring — which is totally unsustainable because it is nobody's money but the taxpayers’ money.” [Fox News, America Reports, 3/3/25]
    • Fox host Laura Ingraham: “Trump is trying mightily” to turn around a “weak” economy. Ingraham said the economy is “weighed down with $36 trillion and counting in debt,” calling it “weakness.” [Fox News, The Ingraham Angle, 3/3/25]
    • Fox guest Stephen Moore: “These numbers that have come in so far are really the Biden numbers. ... This is a bit of the Biden hangover.” After Democratic strategist Robert Wolf listed a number of economic indicators that have quickly soured in Trump's first few weeks in office, anchor Sandra Smith and Heritage Foundation economist Stephen Moore pivoted to blaming the sudden economic malaise on the Biden administration. However, Moore concluded the segment by agreeing that Trump's tariffs “are not a good thing for the economy right now,” adding that businesses and investors disliked the uncertainty Trump's policies had created. [Fox News, America Reports, 3/4/25]
    • Fox Business’ Elizabeth MacDonald excused an underwhelming GDP report at the same point in Trump’s first term, arguing that “this is what the president has inherited.” Earlier that month, Varney admitted that if the “very weak jobs report” under Trump in April 2017 had come out under the Obama administration, Fox “would be all over them” for the supposed “failure of the president's economic policy.” [Media Matters, 4/28/17, 4/7/17]

  • MAGA media also repeatedly gave Trump credit for Democrats’ economic achievements

    • As soon as Trump took office during his first term, Fox News began touting his “fantastic” jobs report from January 2017 – inadvertently praising former President Barack Obama’s record. In a March 2017 edition of The Five, then-Fox host Eric Bolling was even ridiculed by other co-hosts after attempting to credit Trump for Obama’s final economic numbers. [Media Matters, 2/3/17; Fox News, The Five, 3/31/17]
    • In 2018, Fox Business host Stuart Varney said that Trump should take credit for the good news of the stock market, but not the bad. Varney said that Trump “was right to tout” stock market growth since his inauguration, claiming that “it was his policies which created” the rally. However, Varney dismissed the February 5, 2018, Dow Jones 1,175 point drop as an overdue market correction, saying that “presidents shouldn't stick into that kind of sell-off on a day-to-day basis” and advising Trump to “steer clear of that, please.” [Media Matters, 2/6/18]
    • Trump falsely claimed credit for a January 2024 record stock market high during the Biden administration. During a Fox News town hall before the Iowa caucuses, Trump said: “I believe the stock market goes up because I'm leading” in the Republican primary, adding that if he loses the election, “I think the stock market would crash.” Yahoo reported that “it was reminiscent of similar claims Trump made during the 2020 campaign about a crash that would follow a Biden victory, which proved false.” [Yahoo Finance, 1/11/24]

  • MAGA media also tried to pin Trump's tariff chaos on Democrats with decades-old clips of trade comments

    • Fox News anchor Martha MacCallum played a 1996 clip of Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) on tariffs, and added: “Good point, Nancy.” MacCallum continued: “That is an interesting contrast to the Democratic criticism of today for President Trump's global tariffs which have only been in effect for not even 24 hours. But they have decided that it's an idea that should be dead on arrival, but Nancy Pelosi thought it made a lot of sense back in the 1990s.” [Fox News, The Story, 4/3/25]
    • Fox anchor Bret Baier also aired a nearly 30-year-old clip of Pelosi talking about tariffs: “That's former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi June 27, 1996, talking about tariffs and how it's unfair, especially when it comes to China.” [Fox News, Special Report, 4/3/25]
    • Fox host Jesse Watters: “Here's Nancy from ‘96 — she sounded like Trump in a pantsuit.” Watters added: “Nancy used to be a patriot, but then all of her pillow talk with Paulie P made her $200 million, and now all she cares about is her portfolio, not the American people.” Watters also aired a clip of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) talking about China in 2008. [Fox News, Jesse Watters Primetime, 4/3/25]
    • Fox host Sean Hannity: “Even Nancy Pelosi promoted tariffs as a critical tool to protect American industry against unfair practices of foreign countries — sounds like Trump.” “The only difference is Pelosi changed, Trump did not,” Hannity concluded. [Fox News, Hannity, 4/3/25]
    • Fox senior White House correspondent Jacqui Heinrich: “House Dems [are] planning to force a vote to undo the national emergency that underpins the president’s tariff authority, but former Speaker Nancy Pelosi had a different tune back in 1996.” [Fox Business, Varney & Co., 4/4/25]
    • Fox News: “FLASHBACK: 30 years ago, Nancy Pelosi demanded Congress confront Chinese tariffs on American goods.” The Fox article’s subheadline stated: “Despite opposing Trump's current tariff policy, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., questioned free trade in a 2008 Senate speech.” [FoxNews.com, 4/4/25]
    • Fox’s Outnumbered aired clips of Pelosi, Sanders, and Obama criticizing China on trade decades ago. Co-host and former Trump White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said: “Oh, how interesting how you just have this riveting change in heart when the guy’s named Donald Trump.” [Fox News, Outnumbered, 4/4/25]