Bulwark Takes - Trump Called a Chicken To His Face–He Loses It On Camera

Episode Date: May 28, 2025

Sam Stein and Andrew Egger react to President Trump losing it in the White House after being asked about TACO (Trump Always Chickens Out).

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This free virtual event brings together leaders like Senator Heidi Heitkamp, Secretary Pete Buttigieg, Governor Andy Beshear, and others for real talk and real solutions. Together we'll tackle the most urgent issues facing rural America. Register today or learn more at ruralprogress.com. Hey guys, it's me, Sam Stein,

managing editor at The Bullwork, here with my partner in crime, Andrew Egger, author of Morning Shots. We just got through with a Trump press conference, an impromptu one. He hadn't scheduled it on his daily guidance, but he added it. It was to Mark Jeanine Pirro's interim appointment to US attorney for District of Columbia, but he took some questions as he's prone to do. And there was a kind of hilarious moment, but it foreshadows a potentially serious problem

for us where Trump was asked about, what is it? The taco trade? The taco trade, man. It's the hot new drink in all the financial markets. Did you know about this before, like literally 10 minutes ago? No, I think this was kind of like an inside joke for like Financial Times columnist. It's not actual tacos. It's an acronym and it stands for Trump Always Chickens Out and it's about his approach to

tariffs and I guess this is a thing on Wall Street where they just assume Trump's going to chicken out on the tariffs. I want to play it with Andrew because there's so many elements to this video that are worth watch before we do subscribe to the feed always subscribe to the feed. All right. I'm not even gonna I'm not gonna ask you for your thoughts because I want to play and then get your thoughts. Let's play the video. And on the other side, I'll bring in a true Mr. President Wall Street analysts have coined

a new term called the taco trade. They're saying Trump always chickens out on your tariff threats, and that's why markets are higher this week. What's your response to that? I kick out? Chicken out. Oh, then I chicken out. I never heard that. I kick out.

You mean because I reduced China from 145 percent that I set down to 100 and then down to another number and I said you have to open up your whole country and because I gave the European Union a 50% tax tariff and they called up and they said please let's meet right now, please let's meet right now and I said okay I'll give you... You got to watch Ginny Pira's face you know. I actually asked them I said what's the date because they weren't willing to meet and after I did what I did they said we'll meet anytime you want and we have an end date of July 9th. You call that chickening out because we have

$14 trillion now invested committed to investing when Biden didn't have practically anything Biden this country was dying. You know, we have the hottest country anywhere in the world. I went to Saudi Arabia, the king told me. He said, you got the hottest comp- we have the hottest country in the world right now. Six months ago, this country was stone-cold dead. We had a dead country. We had a country people didn't think was going to survive and you ask a nasty question like that. It's called negotiation. You set a number.

And if you go down, you know, if I set a number at a ridiculous high number and I go down a little bit, you know, a little bit, they want me to hold that number, 145 percent tariff. Even I said, man, that really got up. You know how it got? Because of fentanyl and many other things. And you added it up. I said, where are we now got up. You know how it got? Because of fentanyl and many other things, and you added it up. I said, where are we now? We're at 145%.

I said, whoa, that's high. That's high. They're doing no business whatsoever. And they were having a lot of problems. We were very nice to China. I don't know if they're going to be nice to us, but we were very nice to China. And in many ways, I think we really helped China tremendously because you know they were having great difficulty because we were basically going cold turkey with China.

We were doing no business because of the tariff because it was so high. But I knew that. But don't ever say what you said. That's a nasty question. Go ahead. To me, that's the nastiest question. All right. First of all, I don't know who asked the question, but that took some balls.

Your thoughts. For real? No, okay. I almost felt bad. A little bit of me almost felt bad for him up there. The poor guy. I mean, he's just spinning his wheels like crazy. I mean, like, oh, come on. No, there's no good answer. I mean, it's totally true. It's totally true. Like, he previously, he kind of rattled the fear of Trump into the markets for a couple of months. They were like, he can't really mean this stuff. Really? Really?

Really? Can he really mean this? And he's like, no, I mean it. I fucking love tariffs. Tariffs are everything to me. I'm doing the tariffs now. And then the markets went absolutely berserk. And like two seconds later, he was like, actually, you know what? We're not doing the tariffs. We're art of the deal. We're pulling it all back. You know,

145, that's pretty high. That's a little high. Even I think that's a little high. And ever since then, he's kept slapping these things on, taking these things off, slapping these things on, taking these off. And the markets have not reacted because they are actually pricing these things in now. Right? I now. It's totally true. They're ignoring him. They're pretending they're doing the taco trade. So why do you feel bad for him? Oh, it's just, it's hard to watch anybody up there just sort of spinning their wheels where, well, with that Chiron across his chest, Donald Trump, let the record say, I did not chicken out. Janine Pirro in the background, like, like, uh, just kind of like doing her

poker face. Yeah. She's like, what am I doing here? I gave him a great Fox news gig for this. Uh, no, it was, it was, um, first of all, I had no idea that this was a thing. But secondly, it's true. I've been talking about this with Tim. Tim and I have this running gag about taking the over under and whether he's

going to lift the terrace and I always take the under He's always gonna lift him. He never ever ever follows through It's always and he's even out there I'd like the best part is the emission where he's like I'm just setting these absurdly high numbers So that I can bring it down somewhere and then proclaim victory is like definitely pulling the curtain back Have you ever heard of negotiating? I don't know. Like, totally, totally. Like, I think a couple months ago, you can probably roll back. But you're not supposed to give away the, you're not supposed to just say out loud that's

what I'm doing. Right. It sort of defeats the purpose. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, look, look, I'm going to start with a crazy high number and that's going to put the fear of God into you and soften you up for me. Well, now it's not, yeah, I mean, it wasn't before and now it's definitely not. But I think, I think if you look back at some of our videos talking about this tariff stuff from early April or whatever, I was probably taking the over relative to your under.

Because I mean, it was hard. The guy loves tariffs. We know that that's his deepest held belief is that tariffs are just really good for you. But he loves negotiating more than tariffs, right? Yeah, and it's starting to really look like that you know, that that kind of like April, early April, like liberation day, and then the back off of that is like the pivot from like the first act to the second act of, of the Trump presidency. There is the possibility that by asking this question and, and, and injecting the taco trade into Trump's mind and the zeitgeist, this reporter has

inadvertently perhaps led us into an incredible trade war. Yes. And that we will not take the economy out of peak, but I'm a little bit worried about that. You can't discount that at all. I mean, he said it himself. He's like, that's such a nasty question. He said, that's the nastiest question, which is true.

I mean, like watch this. If you're Trump, if you're Trump, like what's a question that like hits at his, the core of his self-identity harder than, analysts who handle billions of dollars are now making the financial bet that you are not going to follow through on what you say? Your response to that. What does he say? It's absurd.

Because these people are not like... He wants these people to be making a bet on America's golden age, right? He wants these people to be saying, yeah on America's Golden Age, right? He wants these people to be saying like yeah Yeah, we're all in with Trump like they were when he first got elected and now it's exactly the opposite The latest chicken out happened a couple days ago where I guess out of nowhere He he sort of bled that he was gonna, you know put a 50% tariff on EU and went off on Tim Cook for some reason and all this stuff.

And then, you know, two days ago, he announces that he's actually in fact going to negotiate a trade deal before the 50% tariff takes effect and that he's going to delay those tariffs until July 9th, yet another punt in the tariffs. So Andrew, I'm up on Polymarket. I'm up there all day. I'm just making money left and right. They have a bet for the percentage chance that those 50% tariffs go into effect on the EU by July 9th.

What do you think the percentage chance is right now per Polymarket? Do not look. You're asking me a trivia question about where Polymarket sits right now. Yeah. What do you think Polymarket a trivia question about where Polymarket sits right now. Yeah. What do you think Polymarket's percentage, what the betters think is the percentage chance that those tariffs will go into effect on July 9th?

25%. Too high. 15%. No one believes he's going to go through with it. Taco is the new zeitgeist. It is what we, it's everyone's belief about Trump. He's just a chicken. Who's this guy?

Who's this guy who coined the taco trade? I ran it down a minute ago. Robert Armstrong. Look, congratulations to Robert Armstrong with Financial Times. You don't necessarily expect as a Financial Times columnist to like nail it that way. It sounds like a great morning shots. A little Robert Armstrong mini profile. This is great.

Yeah, yeah. Let's hit him up. Let's hit him up. No, it's so true. It's what's happening. It's the taco trade. Until it's not. Until he decides that he cannot possibly. He decides, fuck you, I'm hit him up. Let's hit him up. No, it's I mean, it's so it's so true. It's what's happening It's the taco trade until it's not until he until he decides he decides he cannot possibly Yeah, he can't possibly reward this kind of behavior. He he's got a yeah, well, we'll see maybe tomorrow the Dow will Drop 80% as he slaps every liberation day tariff back on and says and tags Robert on his bleat. Yeah Criminal investigation into him. Yeah, something something like that have fun in El Salvador Robert all right Andrew it's

always a pleasure thank you for talking tacos with me really appreciate it thank you guys for watching on the YouTube's appreciate that subscribe to the feed we'll talk to you soon