The Daily Beast Podcast - Time to Pull the Plug on Trump’s White House Press Pool

Episode Date: April 27, 2025

On this episode of The New Abnormal, hosts Andy Levy and Danielle Moodie think it might be time to close up shop on the White House press pool as press secretary Karoline Leavitt muddies the water with “new media.” Plus, Katya Schwenk and Luke Goldstein, reporters at The Lever, investigate how Trump's tariffs are helping corporations hike prices on consumers. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi, I'm Andy Levy, former Fox News and CNN-HLN guy, and current cable news conscientious objector. I'm a former libertarian who now sits pretty comfortably on the left. Hi, I'm Danielle Moody, former educator and recovering lobbyist. But today, I'm an unapologetic, woke commentator on America's threats to democracy. And I'm producer Jesse Cannon, and I'm here to make sure things don't go too far off the rails. We're here to have fun, smart conversations with some of the most knowledgeable and entertaining people in politics, media, and beyond. Our goal is to try and make sense of our current crazy world, our new abnormal, and hopefully even make you laugh through the tears. Welcome back to another bonus episode of The New Abnormal, and we thank you so much for being here.

Today we have extra special guests, Kaccha Swank and Luke Goldstein, are reporters at the lever and they are here to talk all about their new investigation into how Trump's terrorists are helping corporations hike prices on consumers and what this says about the state of regulation under his administration. But first, let's have some fun. Are you guys ready to listen to some clips? Clips. That's enthusiasm you're going to regret. Oh, okay. So, Attorney General Pam Bondi, one of the worst to ever do it. She has a brand new dystopia she's going to unveil for us.

Thank you all for joining us today. We're excited to be here for the launch of the Task Force to eradicate anti-Christian bias as outlined in the President's Executive Order. Joining me today are members of the Task Force and individuals who have been impacted by the anti-Christian bias. Together, this task force will identify any unlawful anti-Christian policies, practices, or conduct across the government. Seek input from the faith-based organizations and state governments to end anti-Christian bias. Find and fix deficiencies in existing and regulatory practices that might control.

tribute to the anti-Christian bias. As President Trump has... Just a quick reminder, executive orders are not policy. Yes. So that folks don't get it twisted. Was she wearing her big, shiny cross when she was stating this? This is the same person who told us most recently referring to Abrago Garcia's wife as that

woman he married and those kids that he has, not his family, saying that they were better off without, fuck you and your fucking faux Christian bullshit. Thank you and good night. Just want to say her title card was blocking with the visibility on whether the cross was on. Really, the only thing I have to say to this is there is no anti-Christian bias in this country. You sure? There's a lot of pro-Christian bias in this country. These people are, first of all, they are the most fragile snowflakes that their God ever created.

And but what they call anti-Christian bias is basically, for the most part, it means being forced to recognize that queer people are people. And really, I do think that's what it boils down to for the most part is they start out by saying we shouldn't have to have our kids taught that the gay lifestyle is good. And they move from that very quickly to, oh, we don't think our kids should. be taught or should have to see anything that acknowledges that there are gay people in the world. That is anti-Christian bias. And it's just, I mean, maybe I'm wrong, but we're going to see what this so-called anti-Christian bias directive, what kind of things people bring up. It's going to be things like that woman, I'm blanking on her name, who was forced to issue a marriage

license to two gay men. Oh, yeah. They're going to say that's anti-Christian bias. No. That's called doing your fucking job. No one's asking you to be involved in a gay marriage. But if you are the person who issues licenses for marriages, you have to issue licenses for all marriages, not just marriages you personally approve of. It's not anti-Christian bias to say that.

It's bigotry to allow you to do that. And that's what they want. They want to codify bigotry and make bigotry okay by law for government officials and for people like that. So these are the worst people in the world, and they are horrible, horrible Christians. See, I think that this is going to end up going the way they've been going with Mahmoud, Cleo and Abrago Garcia, where I think they're going to try to triangulate. So let's say they go after Lucien Graves for, and for those not familiar, he is the president of the Satanic Temple. And let's say they prosecuted him. And then it's, oh, my God, you're defending a Satanist?

And that's literally what it seems like they've been trying to triangulate support for their disgusting, disgusting policies. by doing is go for these culture war issues by finding someone to point at and then say, well, how could you be on their side? Yeah, and I'm not saying this to you, Jesse, because obviously you know this, but you're allowed to be a Satanist in America. It's not anti-Christian bias to allow someone to establish a church of Satan. Anti-Christian bias would be you're not allowed to have a Christian church. Yeah, and for those who don't know, the Satanic Temple is largely just a free speech prank

out like it's not something like they don't actually sit there and worship Satan all day. They mostly file bills. If there's going to be 10 commandments put in a courthouse, then they say they want to have a satanic statue. Yes. But even if they did flat out worship a being that they consider to be Satan, that's perfectly legal in this country and should be. But again, these people are absolute snowflakes. They profess to have very strong faith. But it really seems to me that their faith is incredibly weak because they can't take anyone not agreeing with them. And that to me is just you don't believe in your faith very strongly if the fact that there are people who disagree with you bothers you that much and makes you angry and you want to outlaw it. That's not someone who has a

strong and firm religious faith. I'm sorry, it's just not. This is also the strong case for whenever you see a character emerge on the Republican Party go, wow, that person's a real idiot. but we'll probably never see more of them. You're making the wrong bet. Yeah, exactly. Speaking of idiots who I never thought would amount to anything when I first met them, Tim Poole, who was recently found being taking an insane amount of money from a Russia propaganda out. Well, he's now a White House press pool reporter and let's listen to his first appearance in the pool.

Individual in our new media seat today, his name is Tim Poole. He's a political commentator and a media entrepreneur with millions of followers, is a very big platform. Currently host Timcast, IRL, a daily news and discussions show, and The Culture War, a weekly podcast exploring cultural and political issues. His programs feature in-depth conversations on topics such as free speech, censorship, identity, politics, and societal change, often engaging with a diverse range of guests. He's in Washington today because we are also hosting a local media row across the street in the Eisenhower building,

which is a testament to our commitment to bring new voices into the White House to cover the president in this administration. So Tim, why don't you kick us off today? Yes. Many of these organizations that are represented in this room have Martin Lottstep on false narratives, such as the Very Fine People Hoax, the Covington Smear, and now what's being called the Maryland man hoax, where an MS-13 gang member adjudicated by two different judges, I believe, is just simply being referred to as a Maryland man over and over again. Now, in an effort from the White House to expand access to new companies, you've created this new media seat. So I'm wondering if you can comment on following this expansion, you've had numerous outlets disparage the companies

that you've had sit here as well as the reporters. I'm wondering if you can comment on the unprofessional behavior as well as elaborate if there's any plans to expand access to new companies. Sure. Well, we certainly welcome diverse viewpoints in this room, which is one of the reasons we have you in here, and there's many new faces in this room in comparison to the previous administrations. We want to welcome all viewpoints into this room. We welcome unbiased journalists who really care about the truth and the facts and the accuracy and you rightly pointed out. Yeah.

Stop. Make it stop. Jesus fucking Christ. Like, I can't. I can't anymore. Like, I can't. I fucking, like that, this bubblehead of a press secretary, I cannot stand. I can't stand listening to her voice.

I can't stand the bullshit that she parrots out of her mouth. She is a younger version of Sarah Huckabee Sanders. Like, reading the script, reading the script, unbiased. as he drivels on a whole bunch of lies, but you don't have the associated press in there, an accredited outlet that is accredited and used all around the world, but this fucking, like, give me a break. Just stop.

Oh, okay, you've succeeded because I'm like, I'm done today. I have a modest proposal. The White House pool should be dissolved. Oh. And by that, I mean, I think all the quote unquote, real news organizations should just stop going. Yes, 100%. And cable news networks and whatever, other than Fox, obviously, and News Nation. But CNN, MSNBC should not be televising these things. There's no information gleaned from these things. It's just, as you said, Danielle, it's lie after lie

after lie. And there is absolutely no point to giving air to these lies. Under this president, the White House pool is meaningless. It's a cesspool. Thank you. Yes. It's a cesspool of Tim Pools. There is no reason for, look, we talk on this show all the time. We go after the New York Times, the Washington Post. We're not, you know, we're not in the pocket of big legacy media. But there is no world in which the New York Times, the Washington Post, Reuters, whatever, Wall Street Journal, should be sitting in a room as co-equals with the likes of Tim Poole, who is one of the dumbest people on the planet, who is as just a he pointed out before he played the clip that broke our brains, receives an awful lot of money or a nice chunk of change from being a Russian asset, apparently unwittingly, which I believe because he's that stupid. Yes. So no, just stop it.

Stop the farce. Stop pretending that it's business as usual. And every single one of these White House correspondents should just say, I'm not doing this anymore. This is ridiculous. I wish they would. I wish they would. Yeah.

I think the other thing that took me back is I was watching this and I was like, I remember when Ari Fleischer's press outlet in the White House placed a fake reporter that was a male escort in the pool and we were like, wow, this is as low as it gets. And then you listen to that clip and you think, what about those good old days of Ari Fleischer just lying his ass off with a gay male escort asking softballs instead of anyone asking hard questions? That was just the most bootlicking performance I have ever seen him. my life and yet again, I should have expected it when I first met the stupidest person I thought I had met that month when I first met him many years ago. Yeah. Folks, I am very happy to welcome back and I think then welcome for the first time.

So very interesting. I love the lever. I love the work that you guys do there. I think that the reporting is important and smart. So I'm happy to welcome back Katia Schwenk. And I'm happy to welcome Luke Goldstein, who have written a very good piece, investigative piece, on how Trump is helping price gougers exploit his tariffs because why wouldn't he? You guys write this emboldened by the new administration's regulatory reprieve, quote, price optimization consultants, are showing corporations how to weaponize import levies to fleece consumers. Katia, I'll start with you.

talk to us about Donald Trump's sweeping Liberation Day. Liberation Day was supposed to be the day America apparently was liberated. I don't know from what. I'm assuming our 401k's and our pensions. But talk to us about Trump's liberation day and what has ensued following his escalation of the tariff war. Yeah, yeah. So, you know, Trump's Liberation Day, obviously he had been sort of touting it. touting tariffs is like the, you know, central plan for his administration on liberation day, we get this like very sweeping, chaotic tariff rollout that is hitting all these different countries that sends the global economy into something of a shock. And then a few days later, Trump is sort of continuing his trade war with China, but has rolled back

many of these tariffsies announced on Liberation Day. And sort of the chaos has continued since then. What we were interested in was the way in which this sort of really chaotic, potentially armed full tariff rollout was enabling companies to take advantage of the kind of uncertainty we've seen, both for markets and for consumers who are unsure, like, how these tariffs would seem to be changing, like, day to day are going to be impacting, you know, their daily lives, the things that they're buying from the grocery store. So, Luke, in your piece, you are quoting pricing guru, which I didn't even

know was a title. Pricing guru Craig Zawatta, who you write held an urgent summit for his clients. And here is the quote that I find really interesting. He says this, there is perhaps more of a window to make changes to your pricing than there has been before, Zawada said. Customers expect change. Now he said is the time to take advantage. Unpack that for us. Yeah, yeah. And thanks for having us on. So that was one of the many webinars that we were kind of checking out for this piece. And I guess sort of before I get into it, you know, I mean, the whole question here that we were, you know, interrogating is at a very basic level, you know, tariffs increased costs for businesses. And the big question is, you know, how much are those costs going to be passed on to consumers?

And what does it sort of mean more generally for pricing writ large? We just went about this by basically paying attention to what companies are saying on their own earnings calls with investors about this topic. And also going to pricing consultants such as the one you mentioned. And this is a whole kind of cottage industry that he's a part of that's popped up in recent years. And they're advising companies on, you know, what to do about their pricing, especially when you have these kinds of shock events such as tariffs or really, you know, the inflation that we experienced for the last several years coming out of the pandemic. That was really a period when they

honed a lot of these tactics and strategies that we lay out in the piece. And, you know, this whole playbook, really, is a way to not just pass on as much of the costs from increased, you know, inputs or tariff duties on to consumers. It's also to find basically ways to nickel and dime consumers at just about every angle. And we can talk about that in detail. But I think for some of the context of what Craig's saying there and other things we'll get into, I think what you have to kind of understand at one level rate is you go to the grocery store, okay? Or you're shopping somewhere, right? And you're not necessarily in tune with what the whole supply chain is behind the good that you're buying. The company knows that. They know what the costs are. So, you're not,

you are put at a significant information disadvantage, let's say. The companies have their costs, and they're trying to basically find out how far are you willing to go? How far can we increase the price on this to boost our margin, not necessarily in connection to what we know the actual cost is that we've incurred? Here's the thing, though, I guess, to Luke's point, you say as a corporation, I have to price at a certain rate, right, in order to not only make my money back of what I'm putting, out for this particular good, but actually to make money on it. Customers understand that they are paying a markup, but a reasonable markup for the goods that they have. They know, right? For instance, if I'm looking at, let's say, you know, which is always a good one, the price of avocados, I know on average, if I'm buying avocados every week, how much they cost from one store to the next.

If now, because of the trade war with Mexico, which hurts the avocado industry, and I know that, okay, the price is going to go up. I'm thinking it's going to go up, but I'm not thinking I'm going to be paying $10 in avocado. So like, to what extent are these corporations able to gouge to the point where people are just like, you know what? I just need to cover my basics, my basic needs, which means that I'm no longer going to look for said avocado. I'll just stick with the cucumber. Do you know what I'm saying? Like there are ways in which consumers begin to tighten their own belts knowing that they have a limited amount of funds to go a certain distance. What used to be considered like, oh, the little extras, guess what? They're not going to be the

extras anymore because people don't have the extra money. And if they begin to see that corporations now are taking advantage of an already terrible situation that is a consumer tax, right? Like, aren't they afraid to kind of shut off the consumer altogether, I guess is my point? Yeah, yeah, no. I mean, I think this is kind of an interesting push and pull that you see and it's kind of the reason why these like pricing gurus, pricing optimization consultants have like such a role here, at least that we found in our reporting is that like of course like there is, you know, whether it's avocados or like online shopping or like, you know, toothpaste at the pharmacy, like all of these goods, even if they're essential ones. Like there's a limit at which the consumer will no longer buy them,

right or like a limit to which companies can actually raise their prices before they're going to see this drop off in consumer interest or demand or whatever. But like, and that is sort of the role of these pricing optimization consultants and that and that's sort of how they describe it is like we want to push prices like to the very point that consumers won't be scared off. And in many cases, that point is going to be actually, it's going to allow them to raise prices higher than they would have needed to to simply cover the cost of tariffs. or in some cases these businesses aren't really seeing impacts yet from the tariffs,

you know, if they already have an inventory here that they haven't yet sold and things like that. So I think that is sort of like, you know, as these pricing optimization consultants, you know, become more and more, or as we're seeing like pricing optimization more and more integrated into all sorts of both grocery stores, retail shopping and all of these different things, you're going to see companies try all of these different tactics to push prices like as high as they possible. can and maybe changing them even like minute to minute so that they can do that. The thing here is that normally, right, given a normal administration, right, one that actually believed in democracy and wasn't trying to weaponize government against the citizens of

this country, you would roll out policies to protect, to protect consumers from price gouging, right? And that's not at all, Luke, what customers can expect from this administration. it's kind of like, I don't know, every person for themselves, right? Like, hey, if you, you know, if you get gouged or you're hit over the head with these prices, like that's your problem, right? Like it's every person for themselves. And so what responsibility, if any, do you think that this administration will take in order to protect consumers

or do they just not care at the end of the day? And I mean, we know that they don't care. But I believe that they care about money or at least that's what I think, if anything. Yeah. So, I mean, the quote that we have in this piece from a former Biden regulator that we spoke to is that essentially companies at the moment have a green light to more or less gouge. That comes through from the sort of perceived impunity with which they are talking very publicly and putting in writing about what these pricing strategies are that they're ready to deploy.

There's not a lot of inside sources here in this piece. This is really everything that's being aired out publicly. And I think to kind of bring this full circle or take a step back, you know, your question earlier about what the constraints are on how much you can price is absolutely right. There's two constraints. It's one consumers will just pull back spending or if they see a better price at one of your competitors, right, they'll go there. What the whole price optimization consultant industry is about is finding exactly at a granular level of data what the limits are to both of those. And the other thing I'll add is that, especially on the retail side, but in many other industries, there is much greater market power now that firms have accrued over the last, you know, several decades, right? So there isn't as much competition on one side. And again, these new data tools is what allows them to really test the boundaries of the limits of pricing. And during the inflation period, this was a whole test run for these new strategies.

You had things like drip pricing, you had surge pricing. So one, I think, good example here is what Uber does, where you have your app out, they can see what your battery level is at. So if you have a low battery level, they know, wow, you really need this ride so they can increase price. I mean, it's gotten to a very kind of sophisticated level. Under the Biden administration, with the Democratic Chair Lena Khan, this is an antitrust regulatory agency, they started looking into some of these practices that they saw being. used out in markets. And last year, they opened what was what's called a market study to start, you know, kind of probing, investigating what's really going on here with pricing. They served orders to a whole handful of companies and their consultants to hand over, you know, documents. And, you know,

they started really looking into this. They released a whole report based on those documents that doesn't allege lawbreaking, but it kind of was putting companies on notice, you know, that we're scrutinizing you with the hopes that that would impact behavior. At the start of this year, under the Trump administration, the new Republican chair of the Federal Trade Commission, Andrew Ferguson, had shut off comments on that staff report, basically intended to try to gather more information about what was going on here. And that was really the point where companies saw, oh, the regulators asleep at the wheel here, we kind of have a free pass to move forward. I'm so grateful because like what you all are unerthing is just obscene. All the ways in which people who don't have a ton are being asked to stretch their dollars as far as possible. And no one is looking out for the quote unquote little person. Nobody is looking out for the average person, the average family and what it is that they need. And just to know that this administration, I'm certain, will benefit. from the grifting that is going that is happening at the hands of corporations. Katya, can you talk to us more about where the FTC is in a bit in a bit more detail, the Federal Trade Commission, what you

foresee their role is right now. We know what their role was under Biden, which was going after gaugers, but where their role is now and what you see as this either Trump announced this week, he's going to ease off of the tariffs with China. We have no idea if that's true where you see this war headed. Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, you know, the FTC's role here, I think is it's really important to emphasize, right, that like, you know, as Luke was saying, we had this study into these companies. I think companies that were using these really sophisticated pricing tools and also companies who were doing what's called surveillance pricing. So it's sort of adjusting consumers, personal data from different sources, and then use.

using that to tailor prices, you know, according to demographic information or like, you know, your browsing history or whatever they were doing. Personal data potentially, they were put on notice by the FTC under Biden. And then, you know, really one of the first actions that the FTC chair took upon becoming in charge of the Federal Trade Commission was to drop this. So it was really kind of like a, you know, intentional like immediate green light just as the tariff rollout was beginning to happen. But, you know, I mean, as to what we're going to see next, I think what's important here is that like, and this is something again that these companies were saying and that we were listening to them say as we were doing this reporting is that, you know, it doesn't, like,

it is just the uncertainty, you know, regardless of what, you know, how the trade work progresses, right? They are going to be using sort of this uncertainty as backing to raise prices because I think they sort of are preying on the fact that consumers really don't actually know. how much the tariffs are impacting the price or would impact the price of goods that they're buying on a daily basis, right? Like, they don't really, they don't really know exactly what's going on with the supply chain. So regardless of where things sort of had, economically, it remains a really good pretext for companies to use to drive prices. And, you know, I mean, obviously, the FTC could play another important role in this by addressing the impacts of monopoly power on all of

this, we're like, if we were breaking up big grocery chains, right? Grocery retailers wouldn't be as enabled and emboldened to raise prices, even if they have this tariff pretext. But, you know, obviously we're seeing the FTC take, you know, back. So you don't on these issues at least compared to what it was doing under Lena Kahn. So, you know, as the FTC official told us, it's really, it's a green light. It's open season on consumers. It's open season on consumers. And Luke, you're. final thoughts as well on what you think, I guess, the ultimate reaction is going to be from consumers and how this will ultimately affect the way that we shop. Yeah, I think what the playbook looks like

from here moving forward. Now, obviously, there's not literally a playbook. I mean, we're kind of putting this together, but it's a composite of similar trends and similar kinds of rhetoric that we've seen across companies and consultants. Really, the first stage that we're going to start seeing rolled out that's already begun is one other limitation as well for companies raising prices is they don't you know they don't want it to hurt their you know quote unquote brand reputation right you don't only known as a gouger so what started happening is companies that know that they're going to have a hit on their supply chain to some extent right they are putting some language on their websites or you know on lydam saying tariff surcharge or trump tariff surcharge right to kind of start

getting consumers acclimated to the idea that this is why prices are going up. And you're going to start seeing that, you know, across the economy in many of the areas that are hit the hardest. And, you know, the other thing that's already been happening, I think, that we unearthed, is you already have certain large companies that for months have just been saying, we know that the Trump plan for tariffs is going to hit us, be that auto tariffs or other areas. And we're going to start already pricing in increases, anticipating costs that will go up from disruptions, but, you know, not at some exact formula level. We just know that we need to protect our margins moving forward because we're going to have to deal with disruptions. That's at the very, you know, I think basic level.

What we'll then see is kind of more sophisticated technological means to really just kind of choose markups. Well, we will have to leave it there today. I want to thank you both for your continued work in investigative reporting. It is so incredibly important, folks. The piece is up now at the lever. How Trump is helping price gougers exploit his tariffs. Caccia Swank and Luke Goldstein, thank you both so much for making time for The New Abnormal and thank you for your work. Yeah, thanks for having us on. Yeah, thanks so much, Danielle. This is great. Hope you enjoy checking out this episode of The New Abnormal. We're back every Tuesday, Friday, and Sunday. If you enjoyed it, please share it with a friend and keep the conversation going.

This podcast is a Daily Beast production with production by Jesse Cannon and Seamus Calder. Want more great listens? Check out our comedy podcast, The Last Laugh, and our star-studded The Daily Beast podcast at the Daily Beast.com slash podcasts. If you enjoyed this episode, consider becoming a Daily Beast subscriber. Subscribing is the best way to feed the beast and support all of your podcasts as we cover what might become the darkest timeline. Head to the DailyBeast.com slash membership slash podcast and sign up today.