The MeidasTouch Podcast - Connecticut Governor Lamont responds to Trump Tariff Disaster

Episode Date: April 3, 2025

MeidasTouch host Ben Meiselas reports on Donald Trump’s aides like Howard Lutnick looking to spin the economic crash they have caused as a good thing and Meiselas interviews Connecticut Governor Ted Lamont about his response to Trump’s tariff disaster. Visit https://meidasplus.com for more! 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

There are very few things that you can be certain of in life. But you can always be sure the sun will rise each morning. You can bet your bottom dollar that you'll always need air to breathe and water to drink. And, of course, you can rest assured that with Public Mobile's 5G subscription phone plans, you'll pay the same thing every month. With all of the mysteries that life has to offer, a few certainties can really go a long way. Subscribe today for the peace of mind you've been searching for. Public Mobile. Different is calling. From early morning workouts that need a

boost to late night drives that need vibes, a good playlist can help you make the most out of your everyday. And when it comes to everyday spending, you can count on the PC Insider's World Elite MasterCard to help you earn the most PC Optimum points everywhere you shop. With the best playlists, you never miss a good song. With this card, you never miss out on getting the most points on everyday purchases. The PC Insider's World Elite MasterCard, the card for living unlimited. Conditions apply to all benefits. Visit pcfinancial.ca for details. What's better than a well-marbled ribeye sizzling on the barbecue? A well-marbled ribeye sizzling on the barbecue that was carefully selected by an Instacart shopper and delivered to your door.

A well-marbled ribeye you ordered without even leaving the kiddie pool. Whatever groceries your summer calls for, Instacart has you covered. Download the Instacart app and enjoy $0 delivery fees on your first three orders. Service fees, exclusions, and terms apply. Instacart, groceries that over-deliver. Discover the magic of Bad MGM Casino, where the excitement is always on deck. Pull up a seat and check out a wide variety of table games with a live dealer. From roulette to blackjack, watch as a dealer hosts your table game

and live chat with them throughout your experience to feel like you're actually at the casino. The excitement doesn't stop there. With over 3,000 games to choose from, including fan favorites like Cash Eruption, UFC Gold Blitz, and more. Make deposits instantly to jump in on the fun and make same

day withdrawals if you win. Download the BetMGM Ontario app today. You don't want to miss out. Visit BetMGM.com for terms and conditions. 19 plus to wager. Ontario only. Please gamble responsibly. If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you,

please contact Connex Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. As the markets are crashing today as a result of Donald Trump's announcement of what he called Liberation Day, which feels more like Annihilation Day or Recession Day, Donald Trump is sending his surrogates on various media platforms, but it's definitely giving off that kind of Baghdad Bob kind of vibe or a pink dress lady kind of vibe from North Korea. I mean, they're trying to claim that everything is absolutely great and things are amazing, but the markets would tell you otherwise. Also getting very bad economic data as well today about the job cuts that are coming out, some of the worst job cut numbers that we've seen in a very, very long time.

I mean, really, since the great recessions of 2008, the third highest monthly total on record. I mean, you take a look at what Howard Lutnick is saying, though, and he's telling you, Donald Trump's commerce secretary, this is great. Everything's amazing. This is what a great day. It's liberation. Here, just just play this clip. You're right in the long term, but in the long term, we're all dead. So how long are we going to have to wait for the benefits to come pouring in? Well, you started hearing it recently when Donald Trump yesterday said we have about five trillion dollars of committed investment to America about five trillion dollars of committed investment to America. Five trillion dollars. That means people are going to start building

factories right now. And that means all that construction work begins now. That starts to employ Americans today. You're going to see plants being built, factories rebuilding. All shifts are going to be running hot across America now. You're going to see employment leaping starting today. The data would suggest otherwise. And also, factories don't get built in a 24-hour period as much as they'd like to. Well, then into existence. Let's bring in Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont. Governor, you have a business background, of course, everybody knows before becoming the governor of Connecticut. What's your reaction just generally to what's going on today?

I think Howard Lutnick is whistling by the graveyard. I think that this incredible uncertainty is a real drag upon the economy. I think investors have spoken. You see that with the market reaction today. People don't know if they should invest or not because they don't know what tomorrow is going to bring. The herky-jerky style with the tariffs is just symptomatic of this administration where every day is more incoming. That's bad for the economy. Let's talk about your plan. I mean, we can talk for probably, unfortunately, hours about the damage that Trump and Lutnick are causing

almost every single day with just the chaos and it's just the new terrible announcement. But what are you doing? I mean, what should Democrats be doing? What's the plan? What we're doing in Connecticut is working through our budget as best we can based upon the fiscal 24 numbers. We get about a third of our revenues from the feds, but we have a reserve in case there's a lot of incoming. Let's say they want to cut $800 million out of Medicaid in our state. We're modeling right now in terms of who gets impacted, what we can do to soften some of those impacts. But I got to remind people, there's no way the taxpayers of Connecticut could ever make up for all the federal if they pull it back as dramatically as they're talking about.

How about the impact of tourism on the state? You know, Donald Trump's attacks on Canada and Europe. You know, we're hearing about the boycott, 75, 80 percent tourism boycotts from Canada. We're seeing Europe now also kind of joining that movement. Are you seeing things in Connecticut that are that are worrisome on that front? Not so much. I don't think I can blame tourism here in Connecticut on the president. Most of our tourism is the greater region. Look, if you're down in Naples, Florida, Canadians have stopped coming. I know that story here. We've had more tourists visiting the state of Connecticut in the last three years than ever before in our history. But most of that is regional. A lot of that is cars.

Let's talk about the emergency measures that you talked about a few days ago that may be necessary as a result of these cuts. Can you first just talk more broadly about these kind of the Doge cuts, the Trump cuts, the or any Social Security Administration offices being shut down or services being cut off? What are you hearing from your constituents in the state? I'm hearing that Doge says we're just getting rid of waste, fraud and abuse. That's nonsense. All they're doing is pushing costs onto the state. We've already had, well, we get cuts. We don't get any notice. All of a sudden the portal turns off and they stop paying for daycare.

They stop paying for health department services. They stop paying for education. And we have a pretty substantial rainy day fund, about 18% of our budget. So we're able to manage a lot of the smaller items as they come along, at least for the near term. What worries us is the big items. Medicaid could be enormous, and there's no way we can manage that by ourselves. No, I think it's a great point that you make right there because, you know, look, you as a business person before being governor, when you roll out something new, you want to try to do it with the least amount of instability, the least amount of chaos. You want

to let people know what the plans are. And it's just interesting to hear from you to say, one of the big issues is just when Doge happens to make whatever it's going to do, you even as the governor, and I'm sure you're hearing from other governors and maybe talk to that, and it's on a bipartisan basis, it's not just because you're a Democrat, something hits and then you kind of find out about it as the governor frankly the way a recipient of the service who's relying on it in a life-or-death way would find out because the website is shut down a portal is closed and then people are panicking and they're frantic because it's not being communicated. Speak to that chaos, if you can.

Talk to us. Say, I'm going to have work rules for Medicaid. OK, I understand that. We're going to phase in over the next 12 months. And this is what you can expect. We think SNAP benefits are going to be trimmed back. Don't do it tomorrow. We'll do that over the next six months. I'm a little different than the senators and congressmen. Every day they just, you know, bang it, you know, President Trump. I also try to work with red state governors. I talk about how Medicaid cuts will hurt my hospitals.

It'll really devastate your rural hospitals in Tennessee and Kentucky. Maybe this is an issue we can work together on. And that's the thing about you. I mean, look, your reputation always has been you're someone who wants to do your best to work across the aisle and get things done if it benefits Connecticut. They're making it awfully hard.

When a tariff announcement hits like this, you know, knowing your background and you're trying to work with it, they ain't making it easy on you when you have days like today that they call Liberation Day and tank the markets and crash people's pensions and wish our deal with the federal government was the same way. It's been a partnership going back a long time. I understand President Trump won the election. There are going to be changes. Now let's work that through so it's the least harm for people. And by the way, Liberation Day, really, the only thing you're going to do is liberate my consumers' wallets of about $200 or $300 a month. That's what's going to get liberated.

Tell us briefly about your budget, how you frame things and how you think about things. And, you know, and is it different than what you're seeing at the federal level? Well, A, we have to have an honestly balanced budget. We have to have a balanced budget. That's very different than the federal level. You know, unlike a lot of Democrats, I put a big emphasis upon growth. So a lot of the investments we're making are to keep our economy growing. That solves an awful lot of problems. We're making the biggest commitment, for example, to daycare and childcare in history. I love it because, you know, we Democrats like it. It gives kids the very best head start in life. The businessman in me likes it because it allows people to get back to work. So those are the type of investments we're trying to make. And we also have some powder in reserve just to take care of the unexpected as it comes from Washington.

These are like unguided missiles that come in every day or two. You know, I think you said that, you know, this is again, Liberation Day. This is tax day. This is just another word for Americans are going to be taxed. What do you expect is going to happen, though? I mean, we're really in uncharted territories. I mean, look, we've seen historically recessions have happened, but they're usually not so self-inflicted and obvious. If you look at Smoot-Hawley tariffs back from 1930s, we know where this ends. It ends in very bad economic places. So what do you think happens? And what do you urge Donald Trump and others to do in this moment right now? History. You just mentioned Smoot-Haw smooth hauling 1930 probably two-thirds of world

trade ground to a halt over the uh succeeding year we already were moving into a depression it made it more severe and longer and uh why are we making picking fights with our friends if you want to do um more tariffs against russia god bless you but why are we we doing Canada? You know, I have Pratt & Whitney. We make jet engines here in the state of Connecticut. They probably import $3 or $4 billion a year of parts from Canada to build our jet engines here in East Hartford. All of a sudden, the price of a jet engine is going to go up $200,000. Who is that helping? And by the way, we get our fruits and vegetables this time of the year.

They all come from Mexico. So, you know, if you want to have a guacamole dip with your chips to watch the Yukon Huskies on Friday night, better buy it soon because it's got a lot more expensive. Well, other than cheering on your Huskies, any final words you want to give to the American people right now who are worried? They're seeing the markets. If they even have the fortitude, I don't, to open up that 401k and even look at it right now, they're worried. So what's your message to the people right now? You have a case to be worried. Connecticut is better positioned than most because we have the reserves. But talk to your red state governors. Talk to your red state congresspeople.

Make sure, this is what I'm doing, make sure folks know how these changes, these cuts, and they are cuts. They're not just ways for the views. These are cuts being pushed on the backs of your state taxpayers. Make sure they know how that will impact Tennessee and Kentucky and Alabama.

Let's work together, at least to soften the blow. Governor Ned Lamont, it's your first time on the Midas Touch podcast and network. We really appreciate you coming on. Hope you come back. Ned, let's do it again. Thanks, everybody. Absolutely. I'll root for the Huskies, even though I'm a USC fan. Hit subscribe. They didn't go that far. Hit subscribe. Let's get to 5 million subscribers. Can't get enough Midas? Check out the Midas Plus sub stack for ad-free articles, reports, podcasts, daily recaps from Ron Filipkowski, and more. Sign up for free now at MidasPlus.com.