Breaking News from Pod Save America - Trump Lashes Out Wildly At Apple, Europe and Harvard in Chaotic Spree

Episode Date: May 24, 2025

Jon, Jon, and Tommy react to Trump's latest tariff threats and anger over Harvard's acceptance of foreign students. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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You talking to me? Kayak, got that right. It's not often I wake up and there's like multiple. pull breaking news, New York Times notifications on your phone about Donald Trump. Really? Do you not like most days? Well, this one was like a couple right in a row because first he threatened the EU. Right, yeah, which is one of his favorite punching bags with a 50% tariff because apparently

the trade negotiations aren't going well with Europe. So starting on June 1st, he wants to recommend a straight 50% tariff. so it'll be tough to drink those French wines, Tommy. No. Zut al-a-l. I need a better one of those. No. And then right after that, he said, I've long ago informed Tim Cook of Apple that I expect their iPhones that will be sold in the United States of America will be manufactured and built in the United States, not India, or anyplace else.

If that's not the case, a tariff of at least 25% must be paid by Apple to the U.S. I mean, most of the weekend, I'm walking around. with an apple, an iPhone in one hand, and a glass of wine in the other hand, that's like both of my modern man. Wow, look at this. Yeah. What did happen to been in this country? Scrolling and sipping. Scrolling and sipping.

Yeah, you flawlessly wove those two narratives together. I was thinking about it. I'm like, wine and one iPhone. No, I do think the tariffs are happening to you. I think you're right. Also, all of our kids desperately want to work at Foxcon. That's where this is going.

And then, of course, Dan and I talked a little bit on Friday's episode about the threat to Harvard and trying to revoke their ability to enroll any international students whatsoever. Harvard sued. There was a temporary injunction granted this morning, Friday morning, but it's still chaos. I don't know if you guys have read some of the stories there about these students who, students who are already there, who don't know if they're going to be able to finish school, students who are incoming students. to Harvard international students who have already like turned down other colleges and we're ready to go to Harvard and now don't know if they can. Anyway, Trump versus the world. What do you guys all think? It is, it is very cruel to those students. Could be a good day for somebody got waitlisted. It's like 6,800 kids. It's 27% of the last year's class, I think, is

international. I just saw a story, I saw a Harvard professor tweeting about how among those at risk of not being able to go to Harvard this year are IDF veterans. So to combat anti-Semitism, we are telling Israeli combat veterans that they can't go to Harvard. That makes total sense to me. Is that what we're doing? We're combating anti-Semitism by kicking these foreign students, including Israeli students out of Harvard? That is the ostensible purpose of this. It's hard to keep it straight.

There's also a DEI element to it. They're saying they also employ DEI policy. So it's anti-Semitism promoting pro-Hamas sympathies on campus and DEI policies. Yeah, and what the letter from, what's her face? Christine Noem said is that they were demanding from Harvard video footage, records of all the international students' potential disciplinary action. So basically, like, have they ever, you know, participated in a protest? That's sort of what they're looking for. Not just illegal activity, protected speech, protest activity.

They're demanding any footage of protests that might involve international students. Yeah, just, you know, Harvard responded. It's bracingly unconstitutional. They're not pretending at all that this has anything to do with their international student program or any kind of illicit or illegal conduct by Harvard that would justify shutting down the program. They are explicitly saying for this other reason that we care about, which is anti-Semitic protest on campus, we are going to use all the levers of power we have at our disposal to fuck with you. The judge blocked it because Harvard basically is saying this will do a ton of harm even before we're able to litigate it,

but it's also just bracingly unconstitutional. Yeah. And then the, you know, the markets are taking the tariff threats well. Well, I think the markets, I think they're shrugging off the EU portion of it because, I mean, the problem with Trump making these threats now is they've, the Europe has already watched them cave. Like multiple times. He caved to them. He cave to China. Like, war. What's this like round, what, two or three of these tariff threats? The new thing, waking up and threatening a foreign country or a block of them, I think I'm kind of used to by now. Waking up and threatening one of like the crown jewels of the U.S. tech community or like one of the biggest U.S. companies period is insane. And the idea that Apple is going to shift manufacturing from China to the United States is nonsensical. They're trying to shift from China to India in part because of like U.S. government pressure that we want all these major companies to diversify supply chains and not be captive to the Chinese Communist Party. Now the Chinese are making it very difficult to shift those supply chains.

in manufacturing out of China through a bunch of restrictions that are too boring to get into. But the idea that Apple wouldn't just, like, eat the 25% tariff and make our iPhones $100, $300 more expensive as opposed to trying to completely redo the company in the United States is ludicrous. Trump think that there's some, like, magic factory in a box button that Tim Cook is not pushing. Like, even if he were to say tomorrow, like, yes, we're going to make more. It would be years upon years before you could start making the iPhones in the United States. Yeah. And it's basically what happened to the Mattel guy, the CEO of Mattel, because he said the same thing. He's like, oh, we're moving out of China. We're going to try to move more production and manufacturing into India. And Trump's like, no, no, no, no, no, you don't get to move from China to India. You have to move here. And if not, no more Mattel toys. That's what we're dealing with this Memorial Day weekend.

I was actually more alarmed by the EU tariffs because, what's the? he fucking doing? Is he actually going to go through with this? It's like more of the same chaos. I could have like far-reaching consequences. With Apple, it's like, all right, the most profitable company in the history of planet Earth. They've made an incredible amount of money making iPhones in China and selling them at tremendous profit in the U.S. Like, do I think this is the way the U.S. President should behave? No, but like, do I care that much? I really don't. But I do think it speaks to how little Tim Cook has gotten for his obsequious bowing before Donald. Trump. Like, is it working?

Is your charm offensive and your donation? Is it working? It doesn't seem like it's working. It's not working, but like the net effect of this is that Apple, Apple sells like 75 million iPhones in the U.S. What's most likely to happen is that they all cost $300 more. So, yeah, that would really suck for like a huge chunk of the country. Well, yeah, political impact. They will make us

eat the cost. Like, it's a big deal. You can go to Samsung. You can definitely. No, I know. No. All right. That's it for the news. The full episode will be out on Tuesday. In the meantime, please subscribe to the Save America YouTube channel. It's very easy. All you have to do is literally just press the

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