Bulwark Takes - Trump’s Fake Deal Was So Stupid We Can’t Stop Laughing

Episode Date: May 8, 2025

Trump held a bizarre press event celebrating a UK trade deal that changed almost nothing, bragged about tariffs, luxury cars, and claimed empty ports were a win for America. While his team showered him with over-the-top praise.

Hey guys, Tim Miller from The Bulwark here with Managing Editor Sam Stein. We just had an Oval Office tribute to Dear Leader about his deal with the UK. I was going to say, it was a tribute. It wasn't a press conference. It was a tribute. Everyone up there was just very happy with Donald Trump's brilliance. The important headline here is basically nothing happened. I mean, it's a deal about nothing, essentially. And we still have a massive tariff that we didn't have before on the UK. Yeah, that's what I was trying to get at. So as I read it, we went from 10% to 10%.

Is that right? Or the car tariffs went down a little bit, but those are like high fancy cars. Here's the outline of the deal, basically. For starters, it's tentative. There are a few details that need to be worked out still. So we're having a press conference about a deal that isn't done yet. And number two, the 10% tariff is remaining. They'll kind of blanket 10%.

It was a tough negotiation, painstaking, but they decided that 10% is the number. We're taking down to 0% though on Rolls-Royce engines. We'll get to that in a second. So 0% tariff on importing Rolls-Royce engines. The UK tariffs on beef were cut to zero. So it's something for our beef farmers who are selling to the UK, which is important because their food is terrible over there. So they should get some American meat.

It's getting a little bit better, I think. I'm going to be in Manchester in a couple of months i'll report back i don't i don't think so um the steel tariff was also reduced it was a 25 down to 10 and then there were some promised investments where they're always in promise blah blah so some some progress there but yeah i guess but like we put a 10 tariff on them and then kept it. That's basically what happened. We put a 10% tariff on them and kept it. Before we get into the details, I do want to show you, in case you guys thought we were yielding the lily or overstating it.

Here's Commerce Secretary Howard Nutlick's speech. I want to make this clear. While Jameson and I worked hard, this was the president's deal. And people think, oh, that's not the way it works. If you got to sit next to him, I have the best dealmaker to my life. And if you don't think that we take advantage of him calling the prime minister, getting that deal done, you don't understand who's the president of the United States. So he's the closer. He gets deals done that we could never get done because he understands business he understands deals and that's why we're here today wow wow what a speech by nutlick um did you see jd vance has to like breaks into a laugh how do you not and how could you sit there with a straight

face this is ridiculous i'm sorry i hadn't heard you use Nutleg before. It's really good. It's really good. This was the constant, though, because there was one point where, like, whoever the British guy is there was just, like, just lauding the president for his, like, taste in cars. And they're all joking about spending a lot of cash and stuff. It was, like, a bunch of extremely wealthy men just kind of yucking it up in the oval. What a deal.

What a closer. He is the closer. He is the closer. They're like, they're making some joke about, Oh, you should buy a Rolls Royce now, sir.

And he's like, I did that with a Tesla. At an interview today with the indivisible crowd, they're having a no Kings protest. And in June, June 14th, there's a kingly vibe to the whole thing. It's like, Oh, an interview today with the uh indivisible crowd they're having a no kings protest and in uh in june june 14th there's a kingly vibe to the whole thing it's like oh you know we have to your majesty a royal court vibe yeah royal court yeah the royal court vibe we're like he sits around they kind of like surround him standing and they all try to impress him and the little middlemen

in the court like did all the work but they know they can't get too much credit because you don't want to have your head chopped off by the king. So even though you did all the work on this deal that's barely a deal, you then still have to say, oh, this never could have happened if it wasn't for Trump's bleats and the one phone call he made. How involved was Trump? He really did nothing. Did you see the story about how Melania's not in the White House? So Trump's been taking on the first lady jobs as well like as far as the thing i thought about that is that yeah if you watch the videos though um of him taking on those traditional responsibilities the first lady he takes incredible joy out of it like he loves home decoration the flagpoles

you know reseating the rose garden putting some patio down making it look like Mar-a-Lago, the interior design and all the gold. That's the stuff he really likes to do. Oh, yeah. So that, though, I think leads then to the question of how much time was there for him to be doing these negotiations, the details of the beef, what the beef rate is. When he's doing all the curtains, the flagpoles, he's got to send a lot of bleeps.

He's having press conferences every day. He golfing they're just there is limited hours in the day um mentioned that at one point he because they're talking about uh ed martin and we don't have to get into his bed but he did announce during this that um ed martin his nominee for u.s attorney for the district columbia he's pulling the nomination this day after tom tiller said he wouldn't um support martin nomination. And Trump was asked about that. And he was like, well, you know, I could make a phone call and really just, you know, basically tell Tillis to get in line. But I'm so busy with all these countries calling me that I just don't have enough time to make that phone call. So, you know, priorities, I suppose.

Yeah. Eagle ad. R.I.P. On the Rolls Royce thing. Yeah. Let's just play a little clip of that. Sure. I can order little clip of that. Sure. I can order a lot of cars.

Mr. President, I wonder whether you'd like to buy. Oh! Well, the last time this happened, I ended up. I would be happy to suggest a discount, obviously a very modest discount. We have to protect our profit margins. I've had many of them, actually. You know, the last time that happened, I ended up buying a Tesla. Again, in normal times back in the Mitt Romney era, this would be the big controversy in 2012.

It's like, oh, rich Mitt Romney has put a zero-turn-cent tariff on the Rolls-Royce engines. But for the rest of you peons who get your allergy medicine from the UK, you're going to pay the 10% tax. But a 0% flat rate for the Rolls-Royce buyers out there. It was crazy. And, yes, Romney had the famous car elevator problem. I don't know if you remember that one. Of course I do. I was there.

I know. Yelling at you. I was yelling at you, Sam Stein. How many cars does he have um anyways so yeah he has a hundred children where is he gonna put all the kids excuse him for having an elevator elevator everyone has a car elevator sam don't you no tim um i think that's how it went anyways yeah he was in there he's like talking about all these special cars the uk has and like this was has. And this was clearly the hook that they got him to do the deal. They're like, sir, think about these Rolls Royces that you could save.

And to him, it obviously resonated. But it just felt so detached watching him talk about these fancy cars as if this is some great market that he's United States when like, you know, a couple hundred people might buy a Rolls Royce every year. If that, I don't know. We appreciate our sponsors here. Smalls, the cat food, et cetera. I'm not quite making Rolls Royce. I'm just saying I'm not quite making Rolls money yet. Maybe some of our viewers or listeners have Rolls money.

I'm just saying a lot of bad news out there in the economy. Great news if you're in the market for new Rolls. I did just saying, a lot of bad news out there in the economy. Great news if you're in the market for new roles. I did just get a text. We are on the market for a tough shed because I don't have a garage. Not only do I not have a car elevator, I don't have a garage. And so, you know, there's a note from tough shed. Prices are going up because of the tariffs. I'm sorry to hear that.

You should have moved before. Well, no, I got 10 days. So I'm having a family meeting after this. Move fast. Having a family meeting after this. Move fast. I would recommend, yeah, an outdoor shed is important if you don't have a garage. You've got to store that stuff. You do.

Okay, finally, empty ports. This was the best. Let's watch the clip. This was the best. Let's watch the clip. Because business has slowed down, as you mentioned, but we're seeing as a result the ports here in the U.S., the traffic has really slowed. And now thousands of dock workers and truck drivers are worried about their jobs. That means we lose less money.

When I see that, that means we lose less money. Look, China was making over a trillion, 1.1 trillion in my opinion. Different numbers from 500 billion to a trillion or a trillion. I think it was one point one trillion. And frankly, if we didn't do business, we would have been better off. OK, you understand that. So when you say it slowed down, that's that's a good thing, not a bad thing. OK, so Trump doesn't care.

Talk to us about that. Well, you were talking with who you're talking with. Dylan Matthews about this. No, someone. Derek Thompson. Derek Thompson. Yeah. About this sort of degrowth idea as a virtue. talking with um uh who are you talking with uh dylan matthews about this no someone derrick thompson derrick thompson yeah about this sort of degrowth idea as a virtue and i mean is this not like the like encapsulation of it he's like no we don't want more economic activity because that will make us poor i just kind of like try to think about it like what is he talking about

we're not going to sell stuff or we're not going to buy stuff and that because of that we're going to have this circular economic enclosed system in which we're all just buying and selling to each other and so therefore we don't want the ports to be active and you're sort of thinking like well no because like even the ports themselves are small ecosystems of economic activity like we want that stuff to work but to him and to me it was like very evident that he's convinced himself that a degrowth agenda is actually virtuous. It's scary stuff. Yeah. I mean I don't know that he even thinks about it in the context of degrowth.

Like it is degrowth, right? I think he thinks about it like we need to sell within our own system. Yes. We need to make our own things, right? So if things aren't coming in from the ports. If they're literally on the ocean. Yeah, if things aren't coming in, that means that we're going to be creating it here. I don't know how we imagine that happens.

I don't think, like, he doesn't seem like the kind of person that does a lot of building or manufacturing himself with the tiny fingers. But, like, I don't, you know, the idea that this is good. I think the other thing this to me relates to. Well, let me just say one thing one thing it i couldn't help but think of the the unions uh the port workers unions who not the west coast ones but east coast ones very very supportive of trump and no one's really checked in on them and i'm curious how they feel about him saying well better than that better not have that activity on the ports sounds like the assignment editors assigned himself a job um the uh probably here's what i think um the interesting thing to me um

which obviously we're going to close here because it's about me being right not you is that that comment you pair it with there was another question to trump about like that 10 rate about whether that is going to be standard or whatever. And he has response was it's low. He's like the 10% is low. He's like all these other countries that are trying to make deals. They don't have the great world Jaguars that the UK has. So, you know,

they might not be able to make as good of a deal. So the number might be higher on tariffs. And I, you know, again, if you're, if I'm a wall street person, if I'm an investor,

if I'm a business owner who is hoping that this thing, he's just going to come to his senses. Watching a press conference where he's like, empty ports are good, 10% tariff is low, does not indicate to me that there's any relief on that coming any time soon. No. In fact, the opposite. If 10% is the base, then we're in for some hurt. All right. That's a great place to end. Subscribe to the feed. That's Sam Stein.

I'm Tim Miller. We'll see you back here soon. Peace.