House Dem Shreds GOP Lawmaker for Backing Trump as Stock Market Slides: ‘It Seems Like You’re Defending a Recession’

A Democratic congressman ripped into a GOP lawmaker during an intense grilling on Capitol Hill Wednesday, at one point blasting the Republican for implying the economy is “running well” despite a week of stock market turmoil.

The tense exchange occurred during a hearing by the House Rules Committee hearing as Rep. Joe Neguse (D-CO) questioned Budget Committee chair, Rep. Jodey Arrington (R-TX), about Republicans’ approach to the nightmare on Wall Street.

At one point, Neguse accused Arrington of defending a recession.

The confrontation came to a head as Neguse used Arrington’s own words against him, citing both an X post in which the Republican said, “Nobody knows how to get an economy running like President Trump,” and a press release chiding the Obama administration for a fiscal decline.

Read the tense exchange below:

NEGUSE: How about this? How would you describe a 1,000-point drop in the stock market? How would you describe it?

ARRINGTON: I would say the stock market rises and falls. It’s more sensitive to … changes in policies and a tremendous shift — I think you would agree — with the policies of the last administration, where this president wants to take our country.

NEGUSE: Is it a big deal or not? I don’t mean to filibuster you. A 1,000-point drop in the stock market. How would you describe that to your constituents?

ARRINGTON: I think it’s going to be a much bigger deal when the stock market over the long run improves along with this economy and along with the worker wages-

NEGUSE: That’s not what you were saying last year.

ARRINGTON: Tell me what I said last year.

NEGUSE: So last year, here’s a statement, a press release — Chairman Arrington on the drop in financial markets and the fiscal decline of the Biden/Harris administration’s economy. When the stock market dropped 1,000 points several years ago, you rushed to bemoan President Biden’s actions and the economy he was presiding over. You condemned it. Now the stock market drops 1,000 points every day for the last week and you claim it’s the economy running well. Do you understand why that would be a tough argument for the American people to understand?

ARRINGTON: Yeah but I can explain it to you. Because you had consistently bad fiscal and economic policies that resulted in persistaently bad economic, mainly 40 year high inflation. This is year after year, quarter after quarter when we’re transitioning from that failed agenda to one that’s going to put us in a stronger position

NEGUSE: So you want to give him some time, I get it.

Neguse is no stranger to tough questioning of Republicans.

In 2023, he stumped Rep. Guy Reschenthaler (R-PA) while asking specifics on the crime Republicans were investigating with the impeachment probe into then-President Joe Biden.

That same year, Neguse confronted GOP Rep. Clay Higgins (R-LA) with his own prior remarks about how COVID-19 “nearly killed me” after he took the position that the virus was “far from dangerous.”

Watch above via YouTube.