Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Trump Has Public Freakout as Retailer Calls Him Out

Episode Date: April 30, 2025

The Trump Administration has declared all-out war against Jeff Bezos and Amazon because of Amazon’s plan to disclose the impact of Trump’s tariffs on pricing for each item on Amazon. Michael Popok looks at the broader issue of Trump being bad for business, simultaneously attacking all of the pillars of the US Economy in his first 100 Days: Universities; Service Professionals; federal funding and employment, and now Big Business, and wondering as he beats the US economy to death, why it is collapsing causing American sufferSmalls: Head to https://Smalls.com/LEGALAF and use promo code: LEGALAF at checkout for 50% off your first order PLUS free shipping! Remember to subscribe to ALL the MeidasTouch Network Podcasts: MeidasTouch: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/meidastouch-podcast Legal AF: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/legal-af MissTrial: https://meidasnews.com/tag/miss-trial The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-politicsgirl-podcast The Influence Continuum: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-influence-continuum-with-dr-steven-hassan Mea Culpa with Michael Cohen: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/mea-culpa-with-michael-cohen The Weekend Show: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-weekend-show Burn the Boats: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/burn-the-boats Majority 54: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/majority-54 Political Beatdown: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/political-beatdown On Democracy with FP Wellman: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/on-democracy-with-fpwellman Uncovered: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/maga-uncovered Coalition of the Sane: https://meidasnews.com/tag/coalition-of-the-sane Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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I thought Jeff Bezos was a big supporter of Donald Trump. I thought that Jeff Bezos gave Melania Trump $40 million and overpaid for her documentary in order to curry favor and get Trump office back. Well nobody gave that memo to Carolyn LeVette, the press secretary, because she said it was a hostile political act because Amazon is going to list on its giant website of goods the tariff cost of the Trump slump. So next to the pricing, you're gonna see how much of that increase in price is because of a tariff. I mean, it's really no different than listing sales tax,

how much your total out the door price is gonna be, but to Carolyn LeVette and the Trump administration who feel betrayed by Jeff Bezos, it's a hostile political act. You know, it's not a hostile political act joining me here on the Midas Touch Network and Legal AF. I'm Michael Popak. You know, it used to be, I used to like when my Republicans and friends were supportive of business. They used to be seen as good for business. Now they're on the attack against business, going after their DEI, their hiring practices,

who they do business with, where they invest. I mean, most of the economy is driven by big business. And big business, along with the rest of the voters in recent polling, do not like the Trump administration. And if you've lost business as the businessman in chief, Donald Trump, what does that say about your chances at the midterms to hold on to the House and the Senate? Why in God's name would they go after Amazon and call it a hostile political act?

I mean, I could see making a couple of phone calls. I could see a couple of closed door meetings. I could see Jeff Bezos getting a visit from, fill in the blank, from the Trump administration, but being called out as earnings are being reported for Amazon down 2%. The stock is now dropping 2%. This is what happens when you get into bed with Donald Trump. So let's back up a little bit. What is the relationship between Jeff Bezos and the Trump administration and Donald Trump in particular? Well, Bezos himself or Amazon through their computing side,

you know, they have a lot of excess capacity on their servers and in their cloud, and they offer those computing services to federal agencies. So they have billions of dollars of federal contracts, at least they did before Doge got in there. So that is a one connectivity between Donald Trump and Jeff Bezos. Jeff Bezos also did Donald Trump a solid try to curry favor with him, try to get on the good side of the administration even before the election because he toned down and

defanged and squashed First Amendment freedom of the press at the Washington Post after he bought it. He said in the masthead that democracy dies in the dark, and Jeff Bezos turned off the lights at the Washington Post. All to curry favor with Donald Trump, and it seemed to be working. If you remember at the inauguration, there was that whole – where normally family sits behind a president. Donald Trump had all of his bro, all of his tech bros and podcast bros sitting around

there. You had Zuckerberg, Facebook, you had Bezos from Amazon and their wives and girlfriends, and they had all donated millions of dollars to the inauguration of Donald Trump and to future libraries for Donald Trump and all of that. Now how's that going? Not well. Let's take a clip. Let's look at a clip right now of Carolyn LeVette attacking by name Amazon and suggesting that they are not willing to comment on whether Bezos is still a political supporter of Donald Trump. Let's roll the clip.

So it was reported this morning that Amazon will soon display a little number next to the price of each product that shows how much the Trump tariffs are adding to the cost of each product. So isn't that a perfect crystal clear demonstration that it's the American consumer and not China who is going to have to pay for these policies? I will take this since I just got off the phone with the president about Amazon's announcement. This is a hostile and political act by Amazon. Why didn't Amazon do this when the Biden administration hiked inflation to the highest level in 40 years.

And I would also add that it's not a surprise because as Reuters recently wrote, Amazon has partnered with a Chinese propaganda arm. So this is another reason why Americans should buy American. It's another reason why we are on shoring critical supply chains here at home to shore up our own critical supply chain and boost our own manufacturing here. Is Jeff Bezos still a Trump supporter? Look, I will not speak to the president's relationships with Jeff Bezos, but I will tell you that this is certainly a hostile and political action by Amazon and the secretary

if you have anything to add. All right. Now, how did we get here? And what does it mean? You know, that sends a chill down the spine of a lot of big business, most of which, let's be frank, supported Donald Trump. But everything that he's done since, in the lead up to the first hundred days, I'll go on record, I'm not the only one, worst hundred days in modern presidential history.

Maybe Herbert Hoover was slightly worse on the way into the Great Depression, but I don't think so. So big business is watching Trump. Supposed to be good for business. So far no tax cuts and no way to pay for them. He's roiling the markets on a daily basis with his tariff program. He hit the emergency brake on the tariff program, having cut no deals at all on it and hasn't cut a deal yet, although we're about 20 days into his pause, because the world has

already quickly adjusted around his decision. They've already started to cut out the United States in the global economy. They've made other arrangements, I guess is the way to put it, both in terms of logistics, supply chain, moving things on cargo ships and into ports to avoid the tariffs, and just getting their goods from other places. When the world inevitably goes downhill, which let's be honest, it's not looking great right now,

you know what's the first thing I'm gonna make sure I have with me? Nope, it's not looking great right now. You know what's the first thing I'm gonna make sure I have with me? Nope, it's not my friends or my family. It's my cat and their favorite cat food, Smalls. This podcast is sponsored by Smalls. And if you're a listener of this show, you know that my cat Chanel can't live without Smalls. To get 35% off plus an additional 50% off your first

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Keep picking on Canada, keep calling it, you know, your little buddy in your 51st state, and you're gonna get a strong central banker who gets elected. You think Trudeau was a nightmare for you? Wait till Carney every day goes after Donald Trump. I mean, he just said in his acceptance speech that Donald Trump's trying to break Canada in a way to try to unify Canada. See, that's the great thing about Donald Trump. He is the great

unifier. He unifies the world and its economy against America. So he's unifying but in the wrong direction. Let's go back to Amazon for a minute. Think of how extraordinary this is and what this message is sending to the Home Depots, the Walmarts, the Targets, and the rest. All three of CEOs just visited Donald Trump recently and told him to take his foot off their neck and get rid of the China tariffs, all three of them. Donald Trump isn't in danger of losing the Walmart voter, which is primarily in red states at the midterms. He's lost the Walmart voter. And now, if he thinks he's going to make it any better, Amazon is a thought leader in the area of retail. People, companies are going to follow Amazon's lead. As they say in retail,

as Walmart goes, as Amazon goes, so goes the market. So all the competitors or other industries are going to take Amazon's lead. They're going to draft behind them and they're going to list tariffs. I mean, you may even go into a restaurant and see a tariff number on there. Just like during COVID, you saw some sort of percentage increase to cover costs or cover credit card costs. When you go to Walmart and you go to Target and you go to Home Depot and you see empty shelves,

which you are about to see, this is the ghost of Christmas past or Christmas future that Donald Trump is worried about or should start worrying about. When you see those empty shelves, don't be surprised if in an act of economic survival, not a political act, these businesses place signs there that say you would have seen a fuller shelf

or a full shelf or your item that you're looking for had there not been a tariff program by Donald Trump, some version of that, courtesy of the Trump tariff slump. And that's what Donald Trump's doing. So he thinks the more he viciously bashes business, they will be gun shy about doing battle with the administration and Donald Trump's bully pulpit. I don't see it that way. I see it this way. Amazon, who has billions of dollars of contracts with the government, Donald Trump's bully pulpit. I don't see it that way. I see it this way.

Amazon, who has billions of dollars of contracts with the government, already has done a number of things and none of it seems to satisfy Donald Trump. I mean, Milani has this stupid documentary that nobody wants to watch and Disney or somebody wanted to give her like, I don't know, 16 million, and Amazon came in and overpaid, that's the bribery delta, for about 40 million. So they already gave her $40 million. They overpaid for the inauguration, right? They've ponied up whatever they need to for the presidential library, and it's still not enough because Donald Trump is insatiable.

It's all about me, me, me and today, today, today. What have you done for me lately? What have you done for me right now? And the rest of business has got to think of how do we survive the next 18 months until the midterms? Because when Donald Trump gets smacked along with the Republican Party, which they are going to do, anybody with an R next to their name, you got to take them out. When they get smacked, he's either going to become more contrite and stop attacking business or as is his model, he's going to continue

to go after big business the way he's going after our justice system, our rule of law, law firms and universities. Think about the things that drive the economy, really, honestly, in your hometown, in your area. Universities, including their medical centers, right? The big law firms and big accounting firms, right? The big, on the service side of the economy. And big business. And Donald Trump is busy attacking all of it,

all at once, everywhere at the same time. And wondering why the more he's beating the economy, why morale is so down, why consumer confidence is in the crapper, and why people want to see him leave office, and why the polling numbers in three consecutive polls in the last four or five days all show that 60% of America want him to just stop and go away. But this is the reason.

You can't take on in a hundred days all of these major support systems for our economy. And then I left out the fourth one. He killed the federal involvement through funding and through employment in the economy. If you cut cut the fuel line for federal funding at the same time you bash universities, law firms, you know, federal workers and big business, what's left? You know, we're, you know, only a madman would do all of this. So we'll continue to follow the fight that's broken out, the war of hostility, the act of hostilities that have broken out between the Trump administration and Amazon, and the

broader picture of what it means here on the Midas Touch Network. Follow me, Michael Popock on all things law and politics right here on the Midas Touch Network, also over on the Legal AF YouTube channel in collaboration with Midas Touch. So it's Legal AF MTN. We're trying to get to 600,000 subscribers this week. You can help us get there. It's all free, but it does signal that you want us to continue to grow that channel, bring in some amazing new content and the like.

So until my next report, I'm Michael Popock. In collaboration with the Midas Touch Network, we just launched the Legal AF YouTube channel. Help us build this pro-democracy channel where I'll be curating the top stories, the intersection of law and politics. Go to YouTube now and free subscribe at Legal AF MTN. That's at Legal AF MTN.