Moody’s Downgrades US’s Credit for First in Over a Century – Trump Spox Responds

Remember when Moody’s cut the US’s outlook to ‘negative‘ during the Biden years but didn’t actually downgrade the government’s credit rating?

Well now that Trump is in the White House, Moody’s downgraded the US credit for the first time in over a century.

The US was stripped of its perfect triple-A rating.

Moody’s cited ‘growth in government debt,’ according to CNBC.

CNBC reported:

Moody’s Ratings cut the United States’ sovereign credit rating down one notch to Aa1 from Aaa, the highest possible, citing the growing burden of financing the federal government’s budget deficit and the rising cost of rolling over existing debt amid high interest rates.

“This one-notch downgrade on our 21-notch rating scale reflects the increase over more than a decade in government debt and interest payment ratios to levels that are significantly higher than similarly rated sovereigns,” the rating agency said in a statement.

The decision to lower the United States credit profile would be expected, at the margin, to lift the yield that investors demand in order to buy U.S. Treasury debt to reflect more risk, and could dampen sentiment toward owning U.S. assets, including stocks. That said, all the major credit rating agencies continue to give the United States their second-highest available rating.

President Trump’s spokesman Steven Cheung pointed out that the economist for Moody’s is an Obama/Clinton hack.

“Mark Zandi, the economist for Moody’s, is an Obama advisor and Clinton donor who has been a Never Trumper since 2016. Nobody takes his “analysis” seriously. He has been proven wrong time and time again,” Steven Cheung said.

Mark Zandi, the economist for Moody’s, is an Obama advisor and Clinton donor who has been a Never Trumper since 2016. Nobody takes his “analysis” seriously. He has been proven wrong time and time again. https://t.co/l1dUFM5BRY

— Steven Cheung (@StevenCheung47) May 16, 2025