The Young Turks - [BONUS] Cenk & Ana Spar With Sean Spicer Over Trump's Chaotic Trade Policies

Episode Date: May 13, 2025

Sign up for your one-dollar-per-month Shopify trial and start selling today at ⁠shopify.com/tyt Sean Spicer, former White House press secretary to President Trump, evaluates President Trump's second term. SUBSCRIBE on YOUTUBE ☞  https://www.youtube.com/@TheYoungTurks FOLLOW US ON: FACEBOOK  ☞   https://www.facebook.com/theyoungturks TWITTER  ☞       https://twitter.com/TheYoungTurks INSTAGRAM  ☞  https://www.instagram.com/theyoungturks TIKTOK  ☞          https://www.tiktok.com/@theyoungturks 👕MERCH  ☞      https:/www.shoptyt.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Now we've got an interesting interview for you all. It's with Sean Spicer. He was of course the press secretary and the communications director for Donald Trump in his first term. He's now got the Sean Spicer shows on YouTube and Spotify and get more information at shonspicer.com. Sean, welcome to the show. Good to see you. All right, good to see you. I think. We're about to find out. So Sean, you were obviously integral part of the first Trump administration. Let's start out nice and What's your sense of the difference between the first term and the second term? Three things. I think the people, the policy, and the processes are different. And by the people, I mean, by all accounts, we had a lot of people that some weren't there for the right reasons.

Some wanted to enact their own agenda. Some people wanted to openly subvert the president's agenda. I think this time he's surrounded himself with people that understand the agenda that he wants to enact and are fulfilling it. Two, I think the policies, and think one of the things that I think will be looked at history-wise is four years out of office, you know, we talked about these different think tanks during the campaign that had a role in crafting policies, as well as the president's own team. And I think they had an opportune time to reflect on what they would do with a second term. And then three, the process. What I mean by that is they thought, okay, what are we going to do or have to do to get these policies enacted? And you're seeing that with a lot of the ways in which they approach things.

They know where they can go, where they have to avoid, et cetera. So I sort of, I think when you look back on history, they're going to look at this period and realize that most presidents, obviously, except for one, have had concurrent presidencies. And so they keep the same chief of staff and the same senior team. And they just keep rolling with the policies that they were pursuing. When you can actually stop and think, what did I do well? what do I need to improve on? What would I do better or worse or et cetera? That's an opportunity that most people don't get.

You think about like a team and a that's a sports team. And sometimes when you play a team, you go, okay, if we play them again further down the season, we know how to approach this. And I think that's kind of how Trump is politically speaking. So Sean, let me follow up on them because you said some think tanks had a chance to reflect and come up with policies for the next term, which they wouldn't normally. And that's true, that makes sense. And we saw them do that with our own eyes,

including the Heritage Foundation that came up with Project 2025. Now what was interesting is during the campaign, Donald Trump said, no way, we're not going to do that. But now it appears that they are implementing Project 2025. And of course, the guy who wrote it is part of the administration. So that seems like a very large turnaround. So how do you explain that? Very easily.

I mean, the Heritage Foundation, I got into politics, And my first campaign was actually in 1994. The Heritage Foundation has always put out a book. They used to call it issues back when I first got into campaigns, where they would sort of lay out various policies. That's what they do. This time they met with other conservative institutions and sort of laid out a bunch of stuff. And as they do every cycle, both midterm and presidential, they hand it over and say,

hey, if you guys are interested in tax policy, healthcare policy, here's ideas that we have. that we formulated, you can use some or all. I don't think this is any different than previous presidential cycles, although at least some of the authors, as you kind of noted, like Russ vote and others are playing a role in the administration. So they telegraphed it, but this isn't that different than like the Center for American Progress on the left or the Brookings institution on the left where they provide a roadmap for an incoming administration to say, hey, we've baked several policies for you. You pick and choose which ones you want. So some Some they choose to pursue, some they don't.

But I think that's very different. It's not like they took the manual and said, okay, we'll do everything here. But each side, Democrat or Republican, is going to look to its outside friends and say, give me some ideas on the following. Some of it will be whole cloth, some of it will be partial. But that's pretty much how it works every cycle. I get that, Sean. And I'm going to go over to Anna in a sec, but just to finish this up.

So project 2025 was real, and they did plan to implement. implemented all along. Well, I think there's parts of it that they use. But again, it's sort of like going to a restaurant. You get a menu, it doesn't mean you order everything on the menu. I'm a pretty picky eater. So sometimes I'll take something on the menu and say, can you do it without this? Can you add this instead?

I think that's what happens every cycle is that outside organizations give you baked policies on things that you should pursue according to your ideology. So, as I said, Brookings and Center for American Progress will do that on the left. Heritage, American First Policy Institute and others will do it on the right. I hear you, Sean. I hear you. But I guess the answer is he'll take. But Trump said they weren't going to do it. That's what I'm clarified.

No, no, no, he said that I don't own Project 2025, which is real, it's true. It wasn't his campaign that did that. Let's just say that there's 50 things in project. He didn't, but that was a diversion. He didn't embrace it. He's saying like, well, I didn't do it. But you guys, on your side, you knew that everybody looks to outside groups to give them some ideas, right? Yeah, I get it.

He didn't accept Project 2025 and say everything in this book I'm going to do. I think like any campaign, he said, I'll do, you know, 5%, 10%, 20, whatever it is. I don't think that that's abnormal. So he's not embracing the entire thing still to this day. I think there's some things that he's embracing, some things that he's not. But I don't think this is any different than any cycle, except I will give. the left credit that, you know, I don't like the term, but since it's colloquial, I think they weaponized Project 2025 like never before. But this has been around on both sides going back

at least a few generations. So I get what you're saying, Sean. I mean, I'll give you a specific example that bolsters the point that you're trying to make. So the current Trump administration, the DOJ under the Trump administration, has chosen to continue the Biden administration's effort in preventing the banning of the abortion pill, for instance, which was something, you know, that Project 2025 certainly wanted to do to make it even more difficult on a national level, national scale for women to decide to terminate their pregnancies. So that was good news. If you're on the left that the DOJ under Trump has decided to continue, the Biden administration's fight, to continue making the abortion pill accessible, and that goes against what Project

2025 wanted. You know, the question that I want to ask you, though, really has to do with what has happened to the Republican Party and the Republican Party's identity under Donald Trump, because I'm sure you know, he doesn't really care about what the status quo was for the Republican establishment. He's willing to go in and kind of screw around and pursue policies that historically were more aligned with what the Democratic Party wanted. So for instance, the tariff, policies. Trade, exactly. Trade is a good example. So what do you really think about his trade policies? Because I'm not buying for a second, the people who have been Republicans, their

whole lives suddenly are like, you know what? We like tariffs all of a sudden. What are your thoughts? Actually, it's a fantastic question that you're asking and you couldn't be asking it to a better person because I was the assistant US trade rep under George Bush. So I espoused some of the policies that we had been given. And I'll give you a great example. So I wasn't like a trade wonk or anything like that. I'm a communicator and I got brought into the U.S. Trade Reps Office to help communicate the trade policy.

And I advocated for several multilateral deals and several bilateral deals. But we've been told forever that that's just how things were. And so I'll give you a great example. I walked into the Oval Office, I don't know, first couple weeks. And the president said, I think I want to renegotiate NAFTA. And I wanted to sound like a cool trade wonk. And I said, well, Mr. President, the agreements in force, because that's the technical, legal way that you describe a trade agreement. And he looked at me and said, I don't care.

And I said, well, sir, with all due respect, it's in force. And he said, it's not a good deal. We're screwing our dairy farmers. We're screwing our auto workers. The IP, the intellectual property provisions are way out of whack. And I said, well, that's true. And he said, well, then why wouldn't I, as president of the United States, advocate for better policies. for the American people.

And I thought to myself, well, that kind of actually makes sense. But I guess the answer to your question is for the longest time, we just been told, well, this is what, this is the definition of free and fair trade. And when President Trump started to say to you, well, really, is that really fair that the EU is charging us 30 or 38% or whatever it is, that the UK is charging us 10? And we have the lowest tariff and non-tariff barriers in the world. Why is that fair? Why is that how a friend would treat another friend? And everyone talks about them being our allies. And frankly, people like me that had been free trade advocates for years said, you know what?

He's actually got a point there. And so I think that the point that you're bringing up is fantastic. Because for so long, the orthodoxy had been, this is the definition of free and fair trade. And Donald Trump redefined it for us and said, why is that fair? Why is it fair that a country like India has a hundred plus percent tariff plus massive of amounts of non-tariff barriers that don't allow or whether it's our ag producers, our pork producers, our beef producers, our service providers or manufacturers to come into their market. Why is that fair? How is that how another ally should treat another ally?

And you reflect on it for a moment and you go, you know what? It's not. So I actually think, I actually think, you know, some of the targeted tariffs that Trump implemented in his first term were great. I mean, the targeted tariffs on some of the products coming out of China were so good that Biden kept them in place and even expanded upon them. And so he does deserve credit in those areas. However, you know, his announcement on Liberation Day was so jarring. You know, you have that baseline 10% tariff on all of our trade partners. And then he hit a bunch of our, you know, allied countries with astronomical tariffs. And the argument, well, we've heard a number of different arguments, right? The two main ones being,

well, this is the art of the deal. It's meant to be so jarring that our trade partners, you know, come to the table and renegotiate these trade deals for, you know, a fairer deal for American manufacturers and producers. But then there's the other argument of, no, no, we actually just want to bring jobs back, manufacturing jobs back to the United States. That's what this is really about. What is your read of the situation?

What's the real objective of the Trump administration when it comes to these trade policies? policies. So if you look back over decades, you see Donald Trump doing interviews, Oprah Winfrey back in the day, I think Phil Donahue a couple of years. He's been railing against unfair trade practices and tariffs for decades. This is one thing that is unbelievably consistent in everything that Donald Trump has talked about. So I believe if you go back and look at just what he has said literally over decades, that should tell you a lot. I think there's some people around him who will, argue the merits of of tariffs for deficit reduction in others but I believe that ultimately he wants a more level playing field for our service providers or manufacturers and our produce or ranchers and farmers that's what I believe and I think that look one of the things that's interesting to me is the a lot of the criticism at least I think is over process and as I said I've been part of the process I was the assistant US trader up for three years I went to multiple

SED, strategic economic dialogue with the Chinese, where they would have a meeting after a meeting and hand you a PowerPoint presentation and a beautiful communique that would tell you results that didn't change anything. And Donald Trump came in, and I agree, he didn't do it traditionally, very disruptive. But the end of what you just said is very interesting because it's right. Now you've got these countries lining up and saying, okay, let's do a deal. Let's take down. I literally had a conversation one on one with Prime Minister Netanyahu when he was over here. And I said, what did you tell the president about your tariffs? He said, we're going to take him down. So what about your non-tariff barriers? Because that's always another issue, right?

Those are things that aren't necessarily a number, but policies that prevent our products from getting into market. And he said, I told them we're going to get rid of them. And I said, really? He goes, it's just too big of a market not to do it. But it's almost like we didn't know how to deal with this in the past. And my answer to a lot of folks who are criticizing him is the dogmatic approach in the past about, well, this is how you have to do a trade deal, hasn't worked. Like, it's just not fair. China is totally eating our lunch.

These other allies of ours that are supposedly friends of ours are eating our lunch when it comes to how they get access to our market, but we don't get access to theirs. And so, again, I think if the issue is a process one, is that, do you really, I mean, like, I'm a results kind of person. And at the end of the day, I go, are we getting a better deal or not? And when you look at the deal with the UK, for example, our farmers and ranchers in particular are getting market access in a way that they've never gotten before. That's a great deal for America. We talk about USMCA, Wisconsin dairy farmers, Alabama auto workers, intellectual property

right holders throughout the country are getting a better deal because of USMCA. So the bottom line shouldn't be about, you know, whether or not you sat in the right seat or a PowerPoint presentation, it should be, did it benefit the United States or not? Yeah, so Sean, for our critique, it has nothing to do with the process. And so the political spectrum is so interesting, because it's so jumbled now, to your point about when you were a trade rep, we were saying that some specific targeted tariffs could work, especially if they're reciprocal, and Republicans were saying no. So now it's- You're right. It's flipped, right? So but our issue here, the Young Turks, isn't about reciprocal

tariffs. We think that makes sense. These tariffs were not reciprocal, right? They were gigantic, and they were worldwide. So that's not a problem. But they got them to the table, didn't they? No, not really. No, not really. Oh, yeah, absolutely. No, but Sean, hold on, let's break it down. Let's break it down. So the British one that was announced, J.P. Morgan analyst said it was so small that it will not affect the economies at all. Okay. So there was a couple of good things about the meat, et cetera, that you referred to. And then we, but a lot of it was stuff they were going to do like the British who are already going to buy $10 billion in Boeing planes. So it was a lot of window addressing, a tiny amount of meat, overall not much effect.

China, what do we get back? We got nothing back. So he did this ridiculous 145% tariff, which by the way is a blow against tariffs, because the next time somebody tries to do a reciprocal tariff, everybody's going to be traumatized by this. And then so they say, okay, now China took away the 115% that they had put in when Trump put in the 125% but they didn't take away any of the original tariffs. So we didn't, we got no concessions from China at all so far from before Liberation

Day. So so far it's a tiny one with Britain, it's nothing with the rest of the world. And so we've got nothing from China. So I would actually say that in the first term that you were in, the establishment who I generally loathe did at least have one upside, which was that they were the brakes in the car for Trump. Without the brakes in the car, Trump is careening to out of control, in my opinion, 145% tariffs and not getting much back. So, you know, what is this big thing that we got back? Because it doesn't seem like there's any of it on paper. And I say that as a guy who,

by the way, when you guys renegotiated NAFTA, I thought pretty good job. And we said it here on the show. So we're actually looking at what's real and not real. And right now, we really haven't gotten much back at all from these threats. Yeah, so I would I get your point. I don't think that the UK deal is the biggest deal in the world. I'll agree with you on that. But I think if you're a Montana rancher or a beef producer, that that is a big deal. And for too long, our ranchers and our farmers and our ag producers have gotten screwed on market access. So it's all in the eye of the beholder to some degree. I mean that that may not be the biggest deal because we did have a relatively low tariff with the UK to begin with. But in certain sectors, that's a pretty darn big deal. And so I I would just say part of this is it was also, I believe, a roadmap, which is if you look at these other countries, and I think a lot of them are in the queue right now, I think Israel's in the queue, I think India's in the queue, Japan's in the queue. And so part of this, frankly, I think wasn't just the magnitude of the UK deal, but showing

other countries, here is the way that you can go forward to make sure that you get a good deal with the United States. So I will give you, it wasn't the biggest deal, but I do think it's instrumental in showing the path forward for a lot of countries. And two is I do think that depending on what sector you're in, in some countries, it's going to be more beneficial to one sector versus another. So for example, in India, it might be more, it might be a bigger deal to get say financial services in there. In the EU in particular, I think getting our ag products in there because of the issues that we've faced in the past with the EU would be a huge deal. Japan the same way.

in a lot of Asia, there's a lot of those kind of issues. So and also frankly, non-tariff barriers. I brought this up in the past, being able to sell our cars. A lot of times it's, you know, it's not that the car can't get sold. It's that they create some kind of emission standard or something else that basically prevents the car from getting into market. So they create a non-tariff barrier that makes it almost prohibitive for a US automaker to get that car into market. And part of this isn't always the number that comes down, but it's it's the way that we can actually allow that to happen. With China, we'll see. I think that it was instrumental how those things came down. We still keep a 30% tariff into China. You look at how quick they came to the

table. Look, I will say this, I'm still going to keep an eye on that one. But I think that China, to me, is an existential threat to the United States, both economically and militarily. And what I think more than anything, this trade deal and this trade back and forth with China did, was it put them on notice. And it really, to me, more than anything, showed their vulnerabilities. Look at the lack of exports that China put out over the last little, over the last several weeks. This showed that for a dictatorship, he's got problems. Xi Jinping, that is. Yeah. So yes, but we also had even in empty shelves. We had begun to have them. We still have a 30% tariff on China. But think, you got to admit, and I'll give you credit.

You've been, look, I get, I get it. I'm sort of a newfound convert over this. But the end of the day if any of this stuff was easy. And by the way, I will say this, for some of the people in terms of the fentanyl aspects of the China trade deal, some people, I heard this morning say, well, that's not that big of a deal. Is that? And I will tell you, if you are a parent of some kid that dealt with fentanyl, it is a big deal. It is. Another life lost. How much of a price tag can we put on children killed by fentanyl? So I will just, I think we need to pump the brakes. I will admit at the end of six months or a year, that's when I think we can analyze what we got out of this deal or not. But at the end of the day, if we can make

it safer to live in America because of the amount of fentanyl that's coming to this country from China, that in itself is a good deal. I would like to see more market access. I'd like to see them stop stealing our stuff. And look, frankly, to the beginning of your conversation, I think this is a good thing. You guys definitely were on in the forefront of this argument. But the idea that we at least can maybe all come together now and say, you know what, no matter who started the argument. At the end of the day, we all agree that we're getting ripped off by these other countries. We used trade policy as a soft power mechanism vis-a-vis the Soviet Union. And the Soviet Union has been gone for quite some time. And yet we've allowed

this to go on. So if this is a moment where we can all come together and say, hey, Republicans, Democrats left versus right can come together on an issue of fairness and trade, that's a good thing for the country. Okay. So Sean, I know you've got to go soon. So let me ask one last question here. And you know, we can debate a lot of it. And obviously we agree in some parts and disagree on a lot of things. I don't think China has an existential military threat. But that's a different conversation. No, I not a lot. I think it's militaristic. Yeah, it's militaristic to talk about it that way. They're just an economic competitor. But they got to be fair. No, no, no, no, no. So that's okay. So last question is about what Trump's done that he

did not promise. Like, I don't think he promised Project 2025. And then he gave us Project 25. He promised that he'd reduce prices and close the border. He did close the border. Give him credit for that, but then he started doing things that were unconstitutional, not listening to the courts, saying that maybe we don't need due process. Hold on, what court is he not listening to? So when the Supreme Court says you've got to bring back Abrago Garcia, he says, he says, yeah, you have to facilitate bringing him back. He's like, yeah, that means not bringing him back.

No, that means facilitate bringing him back, right? So Steve, hold on, hold on, let me just finish the question and then let your response, Sean. So Stephen Miller talking about getting rid of the rid of habeas corpus, that's a cornerstone of Western civilization, Trump talking about running for a third term when there is no such thing. No, he said no, he did not. No, he definitely said he would and then he said he wasn't joking, and then now he's starting to walk it back because it's so unpopular. But do you get why, two parts of the question, do you get why people are very concerned when

they see him doing these things that they did not vote for at all, that he did not promise? And number two, does it make you a little relieved that you're not the press secretary anymore? I'll answer the latter first. I'm relieved that Carolina is up there every day because as the president said to me on the day I left from out, you look like you have more color in your face. I agree with that. It was a very stressful job. I was honored to do it, but I enjoy hosting a show now much more than I did sitting at the podium. But I'll be honest with you, a couple of things.

One, on the price issue, look at the price of eggs, look at the price of gas, look at what he's done for energy overall. And I will say this, I mentioned this a moment ago on the tariff sink. If this was easy, somebody else would have done it. I think the question is, are we willing to put up with a little bit of disruption for a better deal that benefits our country, makes it safer, makes it more economically viable in the future? I say yes. I don't want anyone to suffer. I know that there are people who live on a fixed income that might have a savings in a 401k or something like that. I don't want anybody to have less.

But at the end of the day, these countries would not act if we didn't stare them down. And so the question is if you want to, if you, and I know you do believe that this is unfair trade, it's not like you can just go knock on their door and say, hey, guys, gigs up. Can we can we get fair trade now? Can you take your tariffs down? They would laugh at you. So I think that to some degree that you've got to have a president and a leader who's willing to stand up to these folks. And I'm for one, I'm glad that President Trump is willing to this.

I think he's doing everything that he said he would do because it comes down to fight, fight, fight for our country and for our future. Yeah, all right, that wasn't really the answer to the constitutional issues, but I hear you. Oh, on the constitutional one, hold on, hold on. Again, I think there's a, look, look, you brought up this, the 2028, he said very clearly I'd meet the press that he's not doing that. I think he can have fun with a lot of folks on the left and troll them, but At the end of the day, he also said in that I think that very same interview, of course, I'll abide by whatever the court says.

And that's what he has done. I think we can disagree on your issue of this MS-13 gangbanger that abused a woman, whether or not we should be doing everything we can to fly a Salvadorian citizen back to the United States so that they can be flown back to the country of their own. Sure, that's not the point. The point is there's a court order saying that he is not to be- facilitate. It says facilitate. No, no, the earlier court order that said, do not deport him. So they're in violation of that as well. And there's a court order that says deport the guy and it's an article to court. So at the end of the day, I believe that someone who comes into this country illegally commits a crime abuses women, I'm not going to fight for them. Yeah, I'm going to fight for the Constitution.

It has nothing to do with our Brago Garcia. All right, Sean Spicer on YouTube, Spotify, the Sean Spicer Show, Sean Spicer.com. We appreciate the open and honest conversation. Thank you. Thanks, Sean. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it, guys. All right guys. So obviously we did that instead of the bonus episode today. We're going to have great operation joy for you guys tomorrow. And so we'll see you then. This is when we say bye. Bye bye.