The Daily Signal - Tariffs Ravage Stock Market, GOP Argues, Dems Cry Fascist Conspiracy | April 4, 2025

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Starting point is 00:00:25 We'd love to talk. Business. President Trump's Liberation Day tariffs shake the stock market. Republicans debate economic and foreign policy as they reckon with the big tent full of diverse voters. And Democrats take the opportunity to claim, it's all a fascist conspiracy to crash the economy. I'm Tony Kinnett from the Daily Signals Tony Kinnett cast, syndicated nationally at 7 p.m. Eastern.

Starting point is 00:00:51 It is Friday, April 4th, 2025. This is the Daily Signals, top news in 10. The president's new tariff policies had serious effect on the stock market yesterday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 1,679 points for about 4%. The S&P was down 274 points at about 4.84%. The NASDAQ was down 1,050 points at about 6%. And the Russell 2000 was down 134 points or about 6.6%. The hardest hit were mega-cap tech companies, retail, and energy.

Starting point is 00:01:33 The president suggested that this was expected. There was going to be a little bit of pain before expected gains. He suggested that he expected both the market to boom and international trading partners to come to the table for negotiations. I think it's going very well. It was an operation. I like when a patient gets operated on. And it's a big thing.

Starting point is 00:01:53 I said this would exactly be the way it is. We have six or seven trillion dollars coming into our country, and we've never seen anything like it. The markets are going to boom, the stock is going to boom, the country is going to boom, and the rest of the world wants to see is there any way they can make a deal? They've taken advantage of us for many, many years. In many years, we've been at the wrong side of the ball, and I'll tell you what, I think it's going to be unbelievable. The thing that people have to talk about, we're up all.

Starting point is 00:02:26 Almost the $7 trillion of investment coming into our country. And you'll see how it's going to turn out. Our country's going to boom. The different factions inside the Republican Party, which have only become more diverse after the November 2024 election cycle, in which a lot of 90s labor Democrats came over in bigger swaths than they did during the 2016 elections, in which case we saw a lot of union groups, especially in the Midwest, like the UAW auto manufacturing groups that supported Donald Trump via internal polling,

Starting point is 00:03:02 now those particular groups are very in favor of the tariffs, whereas more establishment Republican groups that are more free trade absolutist, more corporatist, very much not in favor of the tariffs. Traditional conservatives appear to be kind of split down the line, favoring more of an international foreign policy lever approach to using tariffs. It's quite a circus tent of arguing. voices and concepts right now on the right side of the aisle as to the future of tariff policy. So to figure out how it will directly impact you, as well as where the party is likely to go

Starting point is 00:03:38 over the next couple of weeks and months with this new tariff policy plan, we brought on E.J. Antony from the Heritage Foundation to help us break a little of this down. Check it out. Oh, a lot of mixed feelings. Let me just say first off the bat, I really do actually like the president's strategy here. I like the idea of reciprocal tariff. In other words, if you're going to put trade barriers in place for our exporters, if you're not going to give us access to your consumer markets, then we're going to turn around and do the same thing to you. And the reason that's such a good strategy right now for the U.S. is that so many of these countries need access to our consumer markets much more than we need access to theirs.

Starting point is 00:04:16 In other words, although there's no winners in a trade war, they'll lose much more than we will. And that's why, frankly, President Trump has already had a lot of success in these negotiations. even before the April 2nd announcement, he already had a lot of countries that were essentially coming to him and saying, look, we'll do whatever you want. Just please hold off on these tariffs because they know it would hurt them so much. So that's all been very positive. Tariffs have proven to be an exceptional use, an exceptional tool when used for statecraft. And by the way, several Senate and House Republicans were not particularly pleased with the list of tariffs at that baseline of 10%. Senator Rand Paul specifically criticized the action as being a tax on all American

Starting point is 00:04:59 consumers. Tariffs have also led to political decimation. When McKinley most famously put tariffs on in 1890, they lost 50% of their seats in the next election. When Hot Smooley put on their tariff in the early 1930s, we lost the House and the Senate for 60 years. So they're not only bad economically, They're bad politically. This Giving Tuesday, Cam H is counting on your support. Together, we can forge a better path for mental health by creating a future where Canadians can get the help they need when they need it, no matter who or where they are.

Starting point is 00:05:35 From November 25th to December 2nd, your donation will be doubled. That means every dollar goes twice as far to help build a future where no one's seeking help is left behind. Donate today at camh.ca.ca. The Senate did pass a vote 51 to 48 to repeal the Canadian tariffs that Trump had imposed earlier on in March. That is going over to the House where it's really not likely to go anywhere. The four Republican senators that voted in favor of repealing the Canadian tariff were Senators Mitch McConnell, Senators Rand Paul, Lisa Murkowski, and Senator Susan Collins of Maine.

Starting point is 00:06:18 Democrat leadership was very quick to jump on this and use this as a club to hit the Trump administration and the House and Senate Republicans. Here's House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries talking about the tariffs obliquely, not just in the use of the tariffs by the President's National Emergency Authority, but just as the Trump administration's economic policies as a whole. House Republicans, Senate Republicans, and Donald Trump haven't done a single thing to lower the cost of living. in this country. Not a single bill, not a single executive order, not a single administrative action has been done by Donald Trump, House Republicans or Senate Republicans, to lower the high cost of living in the United States of America. In fact, Republicans are crashing the American economy in real time and driving us to a real-time. recession. This is one of the first criticisms by House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries that wasn't

Starting point is 00:07:27 focused on Elon Musk or the Department of Government Efficiency, only mentioning House Senate Republicans as well as Trump's administration directly. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said a lot of the same stuff, but most of the attention on Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer went to a particular tweet that he posted yesterday suggesting that the United States might have a bit of an ulterior motive on foreign policy based on who received which tariffs. He stated 54% tariffs on China, 10% tariffs on Iran, 0% tariffs on Russia. And then he included a little thinking face emoji. The issue with this particular tweet, as many pointed out in the comments and on a couple of community notes, was that this is rather disingenuous. In fact,

Starting point is 00:08:18 the United States since 2014 has put forward a bevy of tariffs on Russia, a bevy of sanctions on Russian industries, including banking, including energy production and refining, so that the United States tariffing Russia doesn't actually do very much because the United States isn't purchasing a lot of goods from the major sectors of the Russian economy. In the same way, there's a 10% tariff on Iran because 10% is the baseline for nations that we have any kind of trade with whatsoever, but Iran has so many tariffs and sanctions on it already that it would be a bit of a hat on a hat. That's not the wildest conspiracy theory from the Democrats in Congress yesterday. Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut released a wild thread over on X,

Starting point is 00:09:09 suggesting that the Donald Trump Liberation Day tariff policies, which the Trump administration has suggested is a discounted reciprocal rate against certain. trade deficits around the world, Chris Murphy suggested that these were a tool to collapse our democracy, a means to compel loyalty from every business that will need to petition Trump for relief. What follows is one of the crazier threads I have ever read in my entire life. He said, this week you will read many confused economists and political pundits who won't understand how the tariffs make economic sense. That's because they don't. They aren't designed as economic policy, the tariffs are simply a new, super dangerous political tool. Murphy then goes on to outline

Starting point is 00:09:54 how Donald Trump would be using some kind of fascist coup to create economic hardship to drive businesses to their knees and countries to their knees to pledge loyalty to the dictator Trump. He finalizes his entire thread by suggesting, once Trump has the lawyers, colleges, and industry under his thumb, it becomes very hard for the opposition to have any viable space to maneuver. Trump didn't invent his strategy. It's the playbook for democratically elected leaders who want to stay in power forever. The tariffs aren't economic policy. They are political weapons.

Starting point is 00:10:34 So, strong responses, if that's what you'd like to call it, from the Senate Democrat leadership. Before you go, check the description to make sure you're subscribed to the Tony Kinnockast and join us this evening as we round out the week with something other than tariffs to talk about, given that we've chatted about that quite a bit this week. I'm Tony Kinnett, and this has been The Daily Signals. Top News in 10. Take care.

The Daily Signal - Tariffs Ravage Stock Market, GOP Argues, Dems Cry Fascist Conspiracy | April 4, 2025

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