Press Releases

Congressman Don Beyer (D-VA), who serves as the Senior House Democrat on Congress’ Joint Economic Committee, today reacted to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) release of its advance estimate for the gross domestic product (GDP) in the first quarter (Q1) of 2025. BEA found that: “Real gross domestic product (GDP) decreased at an annual rate of 0.3 percent in the first quarter of 2025… In the fourth quarter of 2024, real GDP increased 2.4 percent.”

Beyer said:

“Trump’s chaos is clearly and significantly raising the risk of a recession, and the economic warning lights are all flashing red.

“The economy just shrank in the first three months of Trump’s presidency, after years of growth and a strong previous quarter. This GDP report also showed inflation rising, and all of this is before we even begin to see the worst impacts of Trump’s tariffs. Private sector hiring in April declined sharply, consumer confidence fell to its lowest point in three decades, and consumer expectations for the near-term economic performance are worse than they were at any point of the pandemic. Trump just had the worst stock market performance to start a presidency in over 50 years. Recession odds from economists and forecasters paint an increasingly grim picture.

“The economic news is so bad that Trump is trying to distance himself from his own economic performance and blame others for an economy he declared, upon being sworn in 100 days ago, would ‘flourish’ ‘from this day forward.’ Even his own supporters will not believe these flimsy excuses. Trump inherited a strong economy and is running it into the ground with stupid and disastrous tariffs, as Republicans in Congress refuse to stop him.”