Raskin: We Had 'Envy of the World' Economy at End of Biden Term, Can't Build Economy by Throwing Money at People Like Trump's Doing

On Wednesday’s broadcast of CNN’s “The Source,” Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) argued that at the end of the Biden presidency, America’s economy was “the envy of the world” and has now been ruined and Trump is attempting “to compensate for the tariffs’ ruinous effects on rural America by throwing money at farmers, and now he’s trying to throw money at soldiers. But that’s not how you build a strong economy.”

Raskin said, “[O]n the substance, it was like opposite day in third grade, it was just the exact inverse of the truth about everything. I was thinking back to October 19, 2024, right before the election, and The Economist magazine had a cover story on the U.S. economy, and it said, ‘The envy of the world.’ And it was talking about how the U.S., which had just surpassed all the other developed countries in every measure, whether it was inflation or unemployment or investment infrastructure, and, indeed, was the envy of the world. And Donald Trump has turned it into ruins.”

He continued, “And this manic scrambling episode of firing a bunch of phony statistics at people is a reflection of the fact that the country understands that completely, and they understand the president has made a hash out of everything with his terrible, unconstitutional tariffs. Then he tries to compensate for the tariffs’ ruinous effects on rural America by throwing money at farmers, and now he’s trying to throw money at soldiers. But that’s not how you build a strong economy.”

Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett