The Keith Edwards Show - One Word Made Trump Snap, then the Tariff Plan Collapsed

Episode Date: April 10, 2025

Keith Edwards discusses why President Trump suddenly reversed his tariff stance, lowering them to 10% for most countries after the bond market rattled him, catching even his own trade rep off guard during a hearing. He also points out the irony of Trump praising himself for backing off a crisis of his own making.

I don't know about you, but I woke up today and the world felt a little brighter. The sun was a little warmer. The air was a bit crisper. And that's because Donald Trump caved on his stupid Trump tariff idea yesterday. And here's why that happened. First off, let us just not forget that, yes, it's awesome that Donald Trump stopped this insane idea. I mean, there's still tariffs happening, but not to the extreme degree that they were before. so that's a side issue. But it's also awesome because Donald Trump's administration for the past

two to three weeks was just saying over and over and over again that this was such a great idea. This is a great idea. The president knows what he's doing. The president will never back down. Here's Caroline Levitt literally two days ago saying that he would never delay or extend. Elena. Hi, hi, God. It's clear the president has gone the wall. attention with these tariffs. Is there, is he considering at all potentially holding off on imposing some of them before the deadline or maybe later, you know, reversing them because he's having these negotiations and having these good talks with other leaders? The president was asked and answered this yesterday. He said he's not considering an extension or delay. I spoke to him before this

briefing. That was not his mindset. He expects that these tariffs are going to go into effect. And you said something very important, Elena, in your question. You said the president, has captivated the attention of the world? Absolutely he has. And it's about time. We have a president in the Oval Office who is putting the world on notice and is putting the American people first. And again, is using the leverage of the United States to negotiate good trade. Well, it turns out he did delay. It was only two hours that the terrorists were in effect before Donald Trump capitulated. And this is the White House rapid response account when someone said breaking, Trump is reportedly expecting to announce a 90-day tariff.

They go wrong, fake news. It turns out it was right, real news. And Pee-Wee German, Stephen Miller, said two days ago that you have been watching the greatest economic master strategy for an American president in history. No, we're watching an idiot, make things up as he goes along, and he's hurting real people in the process. and this is an amazing moment. I'm not going to play all of it.

It's a long moment, but this is one of the people who was defending Donald Trump's tariffs in a congressional hearing. And this is an image of him learning in real time that Donald Trump was pausing the tariffs. And just here's a little bit of that moment. We've been discussing a variety of people. If you came here knowing that you were going to be turned off, that these tariffs were going to be turned off, why didn't you include that in your opening statement? Why didn't you reference that as part of your testimony?

Well, I don't disclose my conversations with the president, sir. These were specific questions. We asked you all along, what's the strategy? These are real consequences for the American people and small businesses. I had a group of small businesses in my office earlier today talking about the impacts of these tariffs on aluminum and steel. This is amateur hour, and it needs to stop. What does this even mean for your negotiating strategy?

How are you in charge of negotiation if the president is tweeting about this from wherever the hell he is? The president was elected, and he runs the trade policy, and I advise him and execute his trade policy. Who executes the trade policy? I execute the trade policy. Did you know that this was happening?

We have been discussing all kinds of... And there's another member of the cabinet, Bessett, who just canceled coming to the hill to avoid talking about the market because it's in turmoil. This in just days... So an incredible moment, right? So this guy is supposed to be the one leading the execution strategy, and he's asked, did you know about this? You're the one executing it? Did you know about it? And he's like, well, we talk about a lot of things.

No, he didn't know a goddamn thing. an amazing job by rep Stephen Horsford there. So good job there. Kara Swisher said the opportunity for insider trading and deep corruption with this gyrating nonsense is vast as this massive stupidity and unquenchable greed of Trump and his minions completes for dominance that the nymrods of Wall Street cheer this idiocy or rather than decry it is a testament to the Iraq. Woo. Bars. That is very, very good.

All right. I have more reactions to this, but let's get into this story real fast. I think it's not, I don't know if it's necessarily fascinating, but it is interesting that the Wall Street Journal reportedly knows what happened and why this all happened. Spoiler alert. It's because Donald Trump's a weak man and he got scared and he actually doesn't believe in anything.

But let's just get into it. Bassett was flooded with worried calls from Wall Street over the weekend, and it felt strongly he had to persuade Trump that a pause was needed. It wouldn't be a capitulation, he argued, because they were going to have so many deals. It's like treating a toddler. He revealed little publicly about why the president and his team waited until Wednesday afternoon to enact it with Trump saying that he decided on the move Wednesday morning. Besant said more than 75 countries have reached out seeking a deal to erase tariffs, to ease tariffs with Japan, quote, at the front of. of the queue. And it goes on to say Trump also was swayed by the stock market and the parade of business leaders expressing concerns about the tariffs. Over the past few days, executives and

lobbyists had flooded White House chief of staff Susie Wiles' phone, according to a person close to her. A White House A noted that it was standard, what a la la la la. The message delivered to Trump and his top advisors by chief executives was they need to find an off ramp. So Donald Trump's a little bitch. Trump played his cars close to his vest. He, He told advisors that he was willing to take pain, a person who spoke to him on Monday said. He privately acknowledged that his trade policy could trigger a recession. He knew that this could trigger a recession, but he said he wanted to make sure it didn't cause depression, according to people familiar with the conversations.

So banking officials frustrated at the apparent lack of influence with the administration, turned to Republican lawmakers in recent days to lobby Trump on the tariffs, according to people familiar the matter. The message was that Trump was going to tank the economy. Trump was also enlistening mode. Keep in mind, this is a Rupert Murdoch publication, so they're going to do this as favorably as possible, which is why when the folks who are close to this wanted to speak to someone, they spoke to a reporter who would actually cover this at least a little favorably. Over the past few days, he has been asking friends and advisors about the markets,

and he indicated he was closely watching them. on Tuesday evening, Trump said he absorbed the bad news about a plummeting bond market. Quote, I saw last night where people were getting a little queasy. Trump said Wednesday about the bond market. So it's all because of rich people getting pissed off about Donald Trump. So I guess what we've learned from this is that if we want change to happen in this country, we just have to get rich people on board. I don't know how we do that, but that seems to be the only people that he's listening to.

this is an amazing question Donald Trump was asked what's your credibility like because of these tariffs and money you said you no pause today there's a pause how can people believe your words today I love that this person asked this question I mean it's kind of

I mean it's kind of an obvious question to ask but also like one that we should be used to by now that Donald Trump doesn't believe in anything he says whatever he wants and you can't trust him because you said that these tariffs would an effect on Monday you said no pause today there is a pause so um how can you have to have

yeah it's not a question of that you have to have flexibility uh i could say here's a wall and i'm going to go through that wall i'm going to go through it no matter what and keep going and you can't go through the wall sometimes you have to be able to go under the wall around the wall or over the wall these guys know that better than anybody right you've got to go around them sometimes you're not going to go through them so i i consider you know i think you know i think you in financial markets because they changed. Look how much it changed today. We went from, you know, pretty much. No, he cannot be trusted at all. And here he is asking about the bond market being persuaded of why he reversed crouched and he said I was watching the block market. It's very tricky.

If you look now, it's beautiful. The bond market now is beautiful. But I saw last night where people were getting a little queasy. I'm just going to put this guy in here. Anthony Scaramucci, the guy that was literally White House Communications Director for, I think, nine days. Don't trust this guy because here's what he said. He said, Secretary Bacent was handled a very difficult situation extremely well. He appears he finally got through to Trump and wrestled the tariff away from Navarro. Connering China's unfair trade practices makes sense, but should be done with backing of allies. This guy is like a wolf in sheep's clothing.

I do not trust this guy. And I also don't understand why we listen into this man when he was White House Communications Director for nine days. He was unqualified for that position. So now we have to be subjected to his opinions for the rest of our life. He's still a Republican through and through. And Donald Trump

said after he put the tariffs on pause, look at what he said about how the increase the stock market was. We've been talking about for a period of time and we decided to pull the trigger. And we did it today and we're happy about it. I didn't know would have that kind of an impact, but it's, you know, I think you have the biggest increase in the history of the stock market. That's pretty good. That's pretty. You're almost, you know, if you keep going, you're going to be back to where it was four weeks ago.

Amazing that he admits that it's still down from where it was when he started this entire insane plan. And I'm going to put this up. As Madaglia says, peas on the floor, cleans up half the pee. Brilliantly done, sir. Yeah. Yeah. So this is this is the process we find ourselves now. Trump makes a stupid decision. Something really bad happens. Trump convinces his followers. The problem is now magically solved. He reverses the stupid decision. This is our life cycle for the next four years. But I think this is at least a great day because it just goes to show that Donald Trump can be persuaded. after a lot of pain, and apparently it's billionaires

that can do the persuading. So we just have to figure out how to get billionaires to start pushing back on all of Trump's insane things, like pushing people into El Salvador and anything else unconstitutional. But I hope you're enjoying your day because today's a day, we won and he lost.