Markets open with a selloff on Wednesday in response to another wave of negative economic projections fueled by President Donald Trump’s global tariff war. According to a Wednesday report from the Department of Commerce, GDP fell 0.3 percent in the first quarter of 2025, marking the first time the economy has contracted since 2022. Meanwhile, inflation indicators are accelerating and wage growth is decreasing. 

The Dow Jones dropped over 600 points in response to the news, while the Nasdaq and S&P 500 each dropped over two percentage points. The president — who for years has treated stock market performance as a direct reflection of his popularity — was not having it. 

“This is Biden’s Stock Market, not Trump’s,” the president wrote Wednesday on Truth Social. “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!!!” he added. 

Trump continued to try to wash his hands of a responsibility during a Cabinet meeting later Wednesday morning. “That’s Biden, that’s not Trump,” he said, talking about the economic contraction. “We took over his mess.”

Deputy White House Press Secretary Anna Kelly told C-SPAN on Wednesday that the economic report was negative because “there is an outsized influence in January in that report,” and that Trump wasn’t “elected” until Jan. 20. 

The president was sworn in on Jan. 20, and his actions in the early days of his term have completely erased the stock market bumps typically enjoyed by presidents early in their administrations. 

Trump’s insistence that he cannot be blamed for the current economic and financial landscape because he’s only been in office for a couple months is ludicrous given that one of Trump’s hallmark actions in the 100 days of his presidency was to launch an international tariff-based trade war that immediately caused markets to crater.

Trump is blaming Biden, but the current president took credit for the state of the economy when the former president was still in office. In January 2024, amid a major stock market rally during Biden’s time in office, Trump wrote on Truth Social: “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.” 

The instant reactions from former Biden and Harris administration and 2024 campaign officials were, to put it diplomatically, incredulous.

“My comment is ‘lmfao,’” Rob Flaherty, who was a deputy campaign manager on Harris 2024 who was previously digital-strategy director in the Biden White House, tersely tells Rolling Stone Wednesday morning on Wednesday a.m., when asked to comment on Trump blaming his Democratic predecessor this week.

“It’s pathetic,” says James Singer, who worked as a spokesman on the Biden and then Harris campaigns. “It’s like a toddler lying about drawing marker all over the walls. Trump is president. The harm being done to the economy and the American people are a direct result of his reckless economic policies. And it isn’t fooling anyone!”

Andrew Bates, who was Biden’s White House senior deputy press secretary, adds: “Donald Trump is the only president to have sent a strengthening economy into a nosedive in 100 days, and the only president to have bankrupted a casino. If the Trump Crime Family weren’t bilking wealthy supporters for exemptions from his tariffs, he’d probably be broke himself.”

The president’s insistence that the economic contraction has “NOTHING TO DO WITH TARIFFS” is being publicly contradicted by his own economic advisers. During a Wednesday morning interview with CNBC, Trump’s trade advisor, Peter Navarro, who is supposedly one of the architects of the president’s tariff policy, said that he was feeling great about the news because “when we strip out inventories and the negative effects of the surge in imports because of the tariffs, you had 3 percent [GDP] growth.” 

But you can’t actually erase an ongoing trade war simply by claiming victory. Americans aren’t falling for it, as Trump’s polling numbers, particularly on the economy, have been tanking as he eclipses 100 days in office.

Some Republican lawmakers aren’t falling for it, either. “By introducing tariffs to the extent that he has, this is President Trump’s economy now,” Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) said earlier this month. “I don’t think it’s believable to say that President Biden or any former administration caused what’s happening.”