Bulwark Takes - Trump's Base Is Getting Destroyed by His Tariffs

Episode Date: April 4, 2025

Tim Miller and Sarah Longwell join Nicolle Wallace on MSNBC’s Deadline: White House to share their takes on the fallout of Donald Trump’s latest tariffs and how voters are reacting to rising prices and job uncertainty. They also discuss the growing influence of far-right podcaster like Laura Loomer on Donald Trump. Watch Deadline: White House

Hey guys, I just got off with Nicole Wallace where we were doing a double bulwark feature, both me and Tim on in the same hour. We talked about how Trump is taking tanking the economy on tariffs, talked about crazy Laura Loomer. Think you guys are going to love it. Check it out right now. Tim, we were talking before the break about all of the seats put into motion. The Florida races aren't getting as much press. Well, nothing's getting as much press as it deserves because of the sort of volume of chaos that Trump does. But the Wisconsin seat, obviously vitally important, the liberal winning the seat on the state Supreme Court. But in a normal political climate, Democrats swinging to ruby red districts where no one spent any money. This is just pure voter sentiment.

13, 15, 17 points would be news all over the world. Yeah, it's hard to break through in the news environment when the president is tanking the global economy for no reason at all, just kind of because he likes the word tariffs. Yeah, that's going to that's going to kind of crowd other things out. But look, yeah, it would be bigger news. And what happened, you know, usually the off party does well, right? And off your election. Not 71 days in. But that, but right.

Then at that scale, and if you're looking at these Florida districts, talk about Ruby Red, and it's the panhandle, it's Floribama, it's Matt Gaetz's seat in Floribama, and then it's Daytona Beach, you know, over there. Yeah, and Walt's seat. These are red, this is red America. And, you know, they gained about 16 or 17 points between them, the two Democratic candidates without really a lot of campaigning happening. There was a little bit. But to me and I think the biggest takeaway, obviously,

is and that was all before the market crash today, 1700 points. So I think there's huge opportunity for Democrats. I like that you put up that list. Let me explain the list. Let me explain. Okay, put the list back up. So there are 38 seats that were decided by a lesser margin than the swing on Tuesday. Yeah. And so some of those seats aren't seats that there have been competitive races in in a while. And to me, I think that there are a lot of folks out there that are like, what can I do? What can I do?

Who are very upset about what's happening. And you can protest. You can call your congressman. You should do that. But one thing I've been trying to focus on on the Borg pod is telling people either themselves or helping find others, encourage them to run in a lot of these districts. And this is just a huge opportunity for Democrats, not just in the House, but in state House races and state Rep races, where they could very well win in very surprising places in 26. And that might have ramifications for years to come.

I mean, I'm in Louisiana now with Mayor Landrieu there. Just this last week, there were these ballot initiatives that the governor, Republican governor, was putting forth. He lost all of them in a landslide, and it wasn't really because of anything on the merits of the ballot initiatives. It's because people are pissed. People are pissed for what's happening, and the people that are pissed turned out to vote against it.

And so you're seeing it in a lot of very red places right now. Sarah Longwell, we talked, I feel like heading into November and coming out of November, so much of what MAGA has in terms of a grip on the voters is a vibe, a vibe that they'll be richer, that they'll be freer, that the red hat will somehow sort of transfer some of Trump's gilded golden stuff onto them. Trump has done, I think, three things this week. One, proven that that is not the case. He only has a 30 percent approval on whether anyone will ever be able to afford anything gold or anything else. And he's also with the callousness of all of it saying things aren't going to go down. They're going to go up. He's lost credibility.

I would think among some people that he ever cared at all. What are you starting to see in talking to voters? What's breaking through? Well, here's what I know from listening to voters now for years, which is Donald Trump's carefully curated impression, you know, through his years on The Apprentice for voters is that he's a businessman. And so I hear it over and over and over again when people say, look, I don't I don't like his personality or, you know, I don't always like the way he behaves this way or that, but he's a businessman and I think he's going to lower prices. I think he's going to do good things for the economy. And so right now, what you're seeing is Donald Trump taking a knife to the mythology that keeps him above water with people. And so many of the voters,

look, Donald Trump has a base of voters, maybe 32% of people who they will have to be living on the street before they will admit that Donald Trump is ruined to the economy. But there is another class of voters who just voted for Donald Trump because they were mad about inflation and they were mad about how high prices were. And so you're starting to hear people really worry about the fact that Donald Trump doesn't seem to be paying attention to the economy, that that is not what he is focused on. And it's starting to come up in even in groups that are very supportive of him and that they say, I like what Elon's doing. You know, I'm still optimistic, but even those people will express concern about the potential of tariffs. And, you know, obviously, I haven't talked to anybody since the tariffs went

into effect, but I know from listening to people that they are just they are deeply price sensitive and they were already in a place where they were hurting. It's one of the reasons they didn't vote for Joe Biden. These are not MAGA people. These are just consumers who wanted things to be cheaper. And Donald Trump raises prices on them. They will abandon him very fast. So, Sarah, you've come bearing gifts. This is some sound from your focus group before the tariffs, talking about economic hope, streams, and anxieties. Right now, I'm in the market where I want to buy a new car, but I'm scared because with the tariffs right now, what's going to happen? You know, I don't want to say it's going to hit me, but you know it's going to come to the consumer

some way or another. I mean, everything you buy, you know it's going to come to the consumer some way or another i mean everything you buy you know is overseas from somewhere uh bringing everything to the states would be great but it's not going to happen overnight like i work on the automotive sector and the tariff is going to hit them big like it might be one month down but it doesn't matter for automotives because you can't actually move the factory overnight so uh it's a lot to take in because it will impact, like, lots of people's job and my job. So, Sarah, tell us who these folks are and what's significant about their tariff anxiety specifically.

Well, they're Trump voters. They're 2024 Trump voters. And, look, this is the thing about voters and tariffs. Voters understand tariffs. There are a lot of complex economic arguments that people will have. And, you know, sometimes consumers aren't going to like tap in on them. Tariffs are one thing that Americans just get in their bones. They know that we get a lot of stuff from overseas. Lots of people work adjacent to different manufacturing sectors where they know that they're importing things. People understand that cars, steel, housing, they just they get it. And so this is the tariff issue is so interesting because it's one of those things that Trump runs on. He's explicit about the fact that he wants to do this. And voters who like him, though, or who want to like him will sort of wave off as though, well, he won't really do that because we all know how bad this would be. Like somebody will keep him from doing this or we'll just do it, you know, in some strategic way instead of this insane blanket way in which they are also lying, interestingly enough, about sort of how these were chosen and why.

And it looks it's chaotic. There's no real strategy behind it other than, as Tim said, him just loving the word tariffs. And so voters are not going to be fooled by this. They already know exactly how much everything costs at the grocery store and across the supply chain. They understand it. They feel it. They were already in a place where it was a pain point. And so they are not going to like this. There might be the hardest Formaga people out there swinging to defend this,

but most consumers are not going to like it. When you look at the Republicans, this is the saddest, the saddest part of the story, but perhaps the most important. The reason we're here is because I keep thinking of this, John Mulaney, I mentioned in the most important. The reason we're here is because, I keep thinking of this, John Mulaney,

I mentioned in the last hour, have you seen that there's a horse in the hospital? A horse in the hospital. It'll leave eventually, but it doesn't belong in the hospital. And even the horse knows it doesn't. I mean, I'm not funny, so I won't do it any justice, but Mitch McConnell knew there was a horse in the hospital.

And after January 6th, Mitch McConnell refused to ban the horses from the hospital. So to see Mitch McConnell dissent on HEGSF and I think RFK and last night on Terrorists for Canada is interesting, but above all else, too little, too late. It kind of just makes me mad, to be honest, right? Because they all knew better. They all knew better. They all know better. You could go through the list of everybody, people in this administration, Marco, Waltz, Elise Stefanik, all of them were against tariffs. None of them would have been for this random regime of tariffs.

When Derek was laying that out in the last segment, he said we tariff Fiji. I was like, how much more could bottled water get? It's already pretty expensive. I'm like pretty worried about my Fiji water now. But they all know this, right? And I think it's similar to the voters that played in that clip. They kind of convinced themselves. I don't know how, just because of partisan derangement syndrome. They just, they wanted it. It was wish casting. They convinced themselves that he wasn't going to

do all that bad stuff, all that crazy stuff. He was just going to do the stuff they liked. And that was delusional. The fact that Donald Trump appears to be getting advice on matters of national security from a far right pro-white nationalism 9-11 truther is not even the most disturbing part of the story I'm about to tell you. It's that Trump might actually be listening to her. First, the backstory. NBC News today confirmed with two sources, much of what the New York Times first reported. That prior to yesterday's tariff palooza in the Rose Garden, Laura Loomer met with Donald Trump in the Oval Office. The topic of the conversation, firing members of the National Security Council.

Mike Walz, the National Security advisor and Signal Chat enthusiast, was in the meeting defending his staff against what Laura Loomer was saying, that some members of the NSC were, quote, disloyal. Remember, Trump got rid of a career federal prosecutor last week, about an hour after Laura Loomer posted about him online. Well, this afternoon, NBC News is confirming that at least three national security aides were fired today, while other news outlets report that the number could end up being higher.

Notable that this latest purge is happening a week and a half after Signalgate, a scandal for which no one has been fired that we know of, but one for which we learned this afternoon will be the subject of a DOD Inspector General's investigation involving Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. Everyone is back. You know, if you're here, we were going to get to the Hegseth of it all

and the Laura Loomer. Just for you. I mean, that felt like a report from a movie, like Don't Look Up or something. You're a fake. You get to play yourself in a movie no that's real laura loomer is such a wild-eyed conspiracy theorist and she's an unapologetic you i think you had on quotes in the in the intro white nationalist like has said that about herself like cheered the deaths of muslims said like she hopes for more i mean like

just nasty person i will say when I was at a bar one time when Carrie Lake accosted me and Laura Loomer did de-escalate. So I don't have any personal things against her. So I appreciated that. But she is a... Are they friends? Didn't seem like it. She's a crazy person. And anybody who doesn't believe it could just Google Laura Loomer crazy or just look at her ex feed if they wanted to, to get a sense for this. The fact that she is in the White House talking to the president saying you should fire people who are in charge of national security and and he apparently said okay laura great and fired a couple of people who are in his national security council or support her support the national security advisor and that's

how the country is being run you know and we do we have a fox and friends weekend host that is running the military so it shouldn't be that surprising but i think that it is really just important to like marinate on that that the people with power in the white house or outside the white house are like these extreme fringe conspiracy theorists that have big followers online and that they can dictate they can dictate who is in charge of our country's security, your family's security. And just on this one other thing, over at the DOJ today, they had a briefing at the Department of Justice,

and it was like Bannon, Benny Johnson, and it was just a whole rogues gallery of loomer-esque weirdos that were having a briefing at the DOJ about the politicization of our government. So, you know, Justice Department national security decisions are being decided by MAGA conspiracy bloggers. So that should help you sleep at night. Sarah, again, I sort of want to widen the aperture here to the many, many conversations we had about the generals and how impactful their warnings about Donald Trump's, really, they weren't about his policies or his politics.

They were about his indifference, maybe, to long-held beliefs and norms about the rule of law, about keeping politics out of the military. They've blown all that up gleefully over 71 days. Is that sort of seeping into the body politic? Well, just really quickly, we knew that this term, if Donald Trump won, was going to be wildly different than his first term because those generals were there the first time. You were just asking in the last, you you know segment why voters sort of didn't understand and it's because you don't take your kids bowling and they're little so they put up those little gutter things that when they i put those things

yeah the bumpers right the generals were like the bumpers donald trump's first term was filled with career republicans who acted like bumpers against all of his insane ideas and who protected him essentially from himself. And those bumpers are all gone. And so we are living in the gutter 100 percent of the time with people like Laura Loomer. And the fact is, no, it is it is not clear yet, I think, to voters until they feel the negative personal consequences from what Trump is doing. And I think the tariffs, you know, I've started to hear it in the groups. And last time I was on your show was really the first time it had started to bubble up. It's the economic stuff.

Even Doge, some people are nervous about it. They don't love Elon Musk. But people have to feel, they have to touch the stove, the stove right get the feel the negative personal consequences before they're really going to turn on him and that's why I think the tariffs are one of the things that are really going to start shifting the environment for Donald Trump because they will have real-world negative impacts on people's wallets fast