The Young Turks - Tariff Turmoil

Episode Date: April 4, 2025

Trump Declares Tariff Victory Despite Tumbling Stock Market. Republicans Speak Out Against Trump’s New Tariffs. Senate Budget Calls For More Tax Cuts & A Debt Ceiling Raise." HOST: Ana Kasparian, Cenk Uygur 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

You're listening to The Young Turks, the online news show. Make sure to follow and rate our show with not one, not two, not three, not four, but five stars. You're awesome. Thank you. Oh my God. Begha! Welcome to the Nurturks, Janku Granikas, sparing with you guys, look, we're going to do a great show for you. Tariffs, well, we got a plan of attacks. Okay, barely, barely.

Okay, so we're gonna explain why Trump did these extreme tariffs, how Republicans are reacting. A little bit of drums there. I think actually a decent amount. Does anybody say drums? No, only I do. I know, I get it. And then we've definitely got some panic.

And then I'm gonna show you why they're doing the exact number that they are, there's also drama with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at health and human services. So drama for everyone. Oh, Obama, Ron Clayne, you know, what did they actually think about Joe Biden, Kamala Harris? Significant drama there. So let's get started. Well, we begin with the fallout from Donald Trump's tariff policies. He got specific yesterday during his day of liberation speech. But are the markets feeling liberated? I don't think so. Big market sell-off this hour. It is ugly out there. The S&P 500 down 3.7%. The NASDAX down 4.5%. Not many places to hide in this equity market today. The Dow is down 1,400 points as we speak.

As the onslaught of tariffs is announced by President Trump and the administration. Calling these reciprocal is not really- We don't use that word. We're done using the debt because that's just, I don't want to call it. to lie, it's dissembling. At this moment in time, with the market down 1,238 points right now on the down industrials and the NASDAQ down 800 right now, and the market's not even open. Futures indicating a very ugly opening. Now would be the time for some clarity on extending the tax cuts. But President Donald Trump has declared that America had survived his tariffs, which seems like a premature statement, but nonetheless he made that statement before the market had even opened this morning. And you just saw what happened in the market. So things are not

looking good, very grim for investors. But let's get to his full statement. Trump posted, the operation is over. The patient lived and is healing. The prognosis is that the patient will be far stronger, bigger, better, and more resilient than ever before, make America great again, in all caps. Yeah. I think Anna, that if you have to explain that the patient survived, that maybe you shouldn't have gotten in that direction. So like, it's a hell of a thing to say, I've got liberation, this is like the greatest

thing that's ever happened for this country. We barely survived, we're still alive, okay, but I think we're gonna make it. But not really comforting. Look, I know that he's saying, yeah, there's gonna be short-term pain and they knew the market it was going to turn out. But I don't think they expected to turn out this much. It finished at over 1,600 down. And it's an epic disaster. And as you're going to see throughout the show, Republicans panicking over and going for the first time, Trump, what name so? I don't know anything about Trump. So, and I'll tell you why they're doing this. And Maria Bartaromo, what she said

at the end of that clip we just showed you is a huge part of the reason why they're doing this. And look, part of the issue that is leading to this downturn in the stock market is the the fact that there's even now still a lot of uncertainty. Is Trump serious about this? Is he really going to go through with these astronomical tariffs on foreign imports to the United States? And of course, it really varies depending on which country we're talking about. But as he announced yesterday, there is a baseline 10% tariff on all countries or companies

from other countries that import products into the United States. Those tariffs are not paid by the foreign countries or the foreign countries or the foreign companies that are, you know, exporting products to the United States, those tariffs are paid by U.S. companies and those U.S. companies tend to pass off the costs to American consumers. So certainly inflation, which is still a problem, is going to be more of a problem if Trump does, in fact, move forward with these tariffs. So with that in mind, you know, we've heard all sorts of arguments from the Trump administration in regard to why he wants to do this early on in his second term, we heard that he was doing it because he wants to stop the flow of fentanyl into the United States.

But one of the more consistent messages from Trump is that he wants to bring manufacturing back to the U.S. And what I found really fascinating is that while Trump says one thing, you have Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnik speaking to CNBC, and he's done these types of statements and other interviews as well, essentially talking about what the real plan is in regard to American jobs. Let's take a look. We all hold our iPhones, which we love. Why do they have to be made in Taiwan and China? Why can't those be made with robotics in America? And you know what Donald Trump has said?

They're going to be made in America. Factories are coming back. And here's the key. Factories now can use robotics. And so American workers can be much more efficient with robotics. You're going to see the greatest surge in training for, or what we call trade craft, teaching people how to be robotics mechanics. I feel pretty comfortable stating that I don't think this is really about bringing jobs to

America. And you also have to keep in mind, the unemployment rate is still pretty low. And I mean, it's so low that right now in the state of Florida, as a result of the mass deportation of undocumented immigrants in this country, the state legislature is looking to to loosen up child labor law so they have enough workers to fill the jobs vacated by undocumented immigrants. Yeah, actually, if you pay attention to what Lutnik is saying, he just started talking about robotics. You know what robotics does, it replaces jobs. Humans, it replaces humans. Yeah, so he's like, oh, we'll have a couple of mechanics left to run the robots after we fire all of you.

And you see how this is going to lead to job creation in America? No, I don't actually. Like, you can say positive things about robotics and AI taking over, but you can't say that it creates a net positive jobs when the whole point is to eliminate assembly lines, truck drivers, on and on and on. So that's just an, they say these talking points and no one challenges them. So that was outrageous. And then guys, for this to work, if you wanted to do tariffs, you would do them in a targeted way for industries that you want to get back up on their feet, right? And you would have a sense of what's my mission, how long am I going to do this for, when do I know that we've won, right, et cetera.

But no matter how you slice it, it would take years for these tariffs to work because it would require people to then build factories here, have the factories create products, and then put them into cars or whatever else that they're doing. That would take, I mean, two, three years at a bare minimum, but probably five, ten years, realistically. So really we're going to have all of these tariffs for 10 years? For three years? No, we're not. This is all a giant trick. Again, I'll tell you why in a sec. So as for the markets, you know, obviously things are very turbulent right now. Time will only tell what Trump will actually decide to do. Obviously, there are a lot of people who are hoping that he's not really

going to go through with this. But as I had mentioned yesterday, after he made these announcements, there are some tariffs that he had threatened to implement, and he did in fact implement them. You know, the 25% auto tariffs, those are now in place. The tariffs that he had implemented against Chinese companies, importing products to the United States, those tariffs are also still in place. Those are from his first term. So I think he's serious about some of these tariffs. The others, I'm not entirely sure. And again, that uncertainty is really playing out in the stock market. Now, as far as Trump's approval rating goes, these policies could be a huge issue for the president and the whole of the Republican Party as Harry Enten is about to lay out.

Opposed new tariffs on other countries. All goods, look at this. 56% of Americans oppose new tariffs on all goods. How about cars in particular? 56% of Americans oppose new tariffs on imported cars and car parts. Look, the bottom line is the American people oppose, oppose, oppose. No, no, no, no, they do not want new tariffs. I looked at a ton of polling. It's really hard to find any in which you find folks supporting new tariffs, maybe against China, but against all other countries, especially our allies. No, no, no.

72% of Americans overall say that the prices will go up in the short term. How about among Republicans, the Republican base? This was a shocker to me. 64% of Republicans believe that tariffs will, in fact, cause prices to go up in the near term. And get this, just 5%, 5% of Americans overall believe that tariffs, at least in the short term, will bring down prices. You don't have to be a mathematical genius to know, Mr. Berman, that 72 beats 5. Should be a high priority for Trump. Number one, the economy at 82, number two, inflation, 80.

Look at this, tariffs, eight out of eight on the list in terms of things that should be a high priority for Donald Trump at just 30. So will Trump be creeped out by some of the numbers that are coming out in these polls? I mean, his approval rating in regard to his handling of the economy was already bad. He was underwater in that regard. This isn't going to help. And it's, there are two different things happening. So Trump seems to care to some extent about what his base thinks. There are some voters in his base who are super active on social media and they're super active on social

media and they're super supportive of what's happening right now, which I thought was interesting. But the other thing that I'll say is, you know, Howard Lutnik in early February had a meeting with all these, you know, corporate executives, you know, Jeff Bezos was part of this meeting, Tim Cook was part of the meeting. And they wanted to kind of get ahead of this tariff's announcement, hoping that Trump wouldn't go through with it. And Lutnik basically told them to kick rocks and think about what they can do to help the country. So there's a part of me that, Oh my God, they're really serious about this. But then there's another part of me that thinks maybe not and maybe there would be enough backlash from, you know, the Trump base or American voters that he'll change the direction he's going in.

But I don't know. Yeah. So I'm a little bit more confident about what's going to happen. So let me get to it. First of all, to be fair, 64% of Republicans think that prices are going to go up, as Anton pointed out. But they're not all against it. Because in this case, Trump and his team did a decent job of telling people the markets aren't going to turn down.

There is going to be some pain in the short term. So that's why Republicans also know that there was not like myth making nonsense about how price are magically going to go down, right? And they were savvy enough at least to do that because they would have been wrong instantly, right? So okay, so that doesn't mean all Republicans are against it. But I thought the last poll that I just showed was more important. 30% saying tariffs are their top issue and are the right way to go.

That's Trump's base. Like, that's just core, core base, 30%. But the other 70% are anywhere from skeptical to hell no. And so that does not bode well for him. And so one of our members on t.yt.com, Spider-Man Dragon had a good line. He said, Trump better be careful. Bush declared victory in Iraq, and we ended up staying there. So I was saying the same thing as Trump was declaring victory on liberation.

day like brother I'm pretty sure the mission ain't anywhere near accomplished yet and the first he's been very very rocky so but don't worry a lot of people writing in as well about oh my god this is going to destroy the 401ks etc it's not going to do any of those things because it's not going to be around that long so first let me explain why they did a nuke here when they actually could have done tariffs that made sense like I said you could do specific industries manufacturing you could do it in a way where it actually was reciprocal these were not reciprocal they did this crazy math on how they came to these outrageously high numbers. So why do it in the first place?

Well, there's three reasons. Number one, Trump loves tariffs and believes you're going to eliminate income tax with them. In fact, I'm going to show you a clip about that in a sec. And so he said that many, many times, like really eliminating income tax, but he genuinely believes it. Number two, there have been no consequences in the past for his tariffs because he would threaten tariffs, giant tariffs, He would bluff and do all these things, and the other side would crumble, and they folded almost every time. So there seemed to be no downside to doing massive tariffs, because the other side always folded. In this case, the markets are convinced, and you're about to see soon from Europe, Japan, South Korea, Canada, Mexico, etc., that no, they're not going to fold.

They're going to fight back, and when they fight back, we're going to fold. So number three is, this is all an excuse, this is the most important one, to cut taxes by trillions for corporations and the wealthy. Ding, ding, ding, ding. And that, so that's why you saw Barteromo say at the end, they're like, well, we better get news on those tax cuts soon, right? So because what they're going to do is, oh, look, renewing Trump's tax cuts, well, that's $4.5 trillion. And they decided recently, and we're in a story we're going to share with you in a little

bit, that they're going to add another $1.5 trillion in tax cuts. Insanity. So, and guess, oh, that's $6 trillion. Guess what they said last week about the tariffs, that they would magically raise $6 trillion. Okay, so once, and by the way, they're pushing them through right now. That's why it's a story later in the rundown, right? So if those, whatever happens with those tax cuts, very likely they'll pass because the Democrats will go, oh my God, we are so upset.

Oh, there was nothing we could do, right? And the rich will get another $6 trillion. The minute that's, you know, signed, you can forget about the tariffs. You'll never see the tariffs again. Okay, they'll take away all the tariffs. Maybe they'll leave a couple of symbolic ones in. But overall, last time you'll ever see the tariffs, because there's all a total BS way of saying,

don't worry about the $6 trillion we're about to give the wealthy. It won't create any deficits. They needed an excuse. This is it. You gotta give Trump some credit for being a unifier because he is unifying, you know, the globe against the United States, because even if, you know, the prediction you're making here, and I think there's a good reason for why you're making this prediction, I think you, you know, you have good reason to believe this, even if it plays out the way you suspect, our trade

partners have already begun forging new trade relationships, right? So Japan and South Korea, figuring out ways to make trade deals with one another to squeeze us out entirely. So even if this is temporary, there is some potential permanent damage that can be done. Yeah, two things about that. So first, even some Republican commentators and politicians are being to say, yeah, but when people in my district go bankrupt because of these, they're not going to be able to rebuild their businesses. So like once the prices go up for them terms of their supply chain, right? And they have to pass those on and people don't want to pay them. They're out of money. And it's over. You can't get those businesses back. So he's doing massive short term pain here, as I wouldn't

worry about the long term because they're not going to last. But in the short term, he's going to break a lot of things and all just for a little magic trick to distract you from their real goal, which is the tax cuts. But you know, if you think, yeah, but Trump, guys, you guys must be doing hyperbole. Like, he can't really think we're going to get rid of all income tax because of tariffs. That's mental. It's the great majority of the way that we get revenue for the federal government. Watch. From 1789 to 1913, we were a tariff back nation in the United States was proportionately the wealthiest it has ever been. Then in 1913, for reasons unknown to mankind, they established the income tax so that citizens, rather than foreign

countries, would start paying the money necessary to run our government. Then in 1929, it all came to a very abrupt end with the Great Depression, and it would have never happened if they had stayed with the tariff policy. It would have been a much different story. You know, in the old days, when we were smart, when we were a smart country, in the 1890s and all, this is when the country was relatively the richest it ever was. It had all tariffs. It didn't have an income tax. Yes, sir. Okay? Now we have income taxes, and we have people that are dying, they're paying tax and they don't have the money to pay the tax. You know, we used to be an all tariff country, and then in the 1900s, they brilliantly went to the income tax, where everybody gets tax,

and foreign companies could come in and just, uh, steal our treasurer. This knucklehead really thinks that he could get rid of income taxes. Because they did it in the 1890s. That's been his dream for a long, long time. I didn't come up with this out of thin blue air. Donald Trump's been saying this actually for decades. And I just, we just grabbed a bunch of clips for you guys while he was president.

He really believes that. And he's about to find out that dream isn't going to come true. Those were clips from when he was running to become president for, for a second term. And I'm glad that the Democrats were on it. They really campaigned against it, you know? Because it was the one thing, by the way, that Trump has been very consistent on. But anyway, all right, let's move on.

I wanted to just quickly talk a little bit about how the Trump administration arrived at the numbers they arrived at, right? Because different countries are going to get hit with a different percentage in regard to tariffs. And it was kind of difficult to decipher how they reached those conclusions, especially since The speech happened two hours before we went live yesterday. But now we have a little bit more clarity and I want to get into that. So take a look at this graphic because it shows you, you know, just a little screenshot of

the chart that Donald Trump was showing the public during his speech yesterday. He held up the chart claiming that the numbers on the left represented how much other countries were charging us in tariffs in addition to any currency manipulation or trade barriers. But it's not exactly true. So the US trade representative has released the formula that the Trump administration used, and I want to tell you how it worked. So the formula took the US's trade deficit in goods with each country as a proxy for alleged unfair practices, then divided it by the amount of goods imported into the United States from the country. Okay, let's pause for a second.

I don't know why Donald Trump is under the impression that it's necessary. It's necessary, it is mandatory that we trade an exact equal amount of goods with our trade partners. Or you have a trade surplus. That's not necessary at all, guys, a trade deficit is totally different than a federal deficit. A federal deficit has a whole host of problems if you let it get it out of control. And we've kind of let it get out of control, and they're about that $6 trillion. dollars to it through their tax cuts or five. Let's see what difference doesn't make. And Donald Trump added over eight trillion last time in just four years. He broke every record

there was. So but a trade deficit is not the same thing at all. We don't owe them money. It's just the accounting thing like oh with some countries we have a trade surplus with other countries we have a trade deficit. It doesn't really matter. What matters is it's not like we owe them money. That transaction already happened. And we happen to buy more. more from Japan than they bought from us. Would we like them to buy more from us? Sure, we would, right? But it's not like the money piles up somewhere and we owe it.

No, those transactions already happen. So he's like obsessed with trade deficits in a way that makes no sense at all. Right, now the unfairness that I've noticed in the system is when we will import, you know, items or products from other countries, you know, without tariffs at all. But the country that we're trading with, they'll charge American goods that are being imported with a tariff. Yeah, so that's a problem. Yeah, that's an actual problem.

Yeah. And that might create trade deficits, but the deficit is not the issue in that case. The tariff is because it's unfair. Right. Why does, why do American car companies have to, you know, get a 10 or 20% or whatever tariff attached to them when they go to China or Europe, et cetera? And when their cars come in, they don't get a tariff. You can make that argument, and I would make that argument on some industries in some areas,

especially if it's actually reciprocal. But listen to what Anna just told you. This is not reciprocal at all. This is a completely different made up calculation. Yeah. Like no one's ever used before. It's not the actual tariffs they're charging us. And I have a pretty spectacular case of how it doesn't make sense in a minute.

And shockingly, it has to do with Israel. So financial times continues to write that the resulting tariff equals half the ratio between the two resulting in countries such as Vietnam and Cambodia, which, large amounts of manufactured goods of the United States, but import only small quantities from the US, attracting punitive tariffs of 46 and 49% respectively. By contrast, the UK, with which the US had an equal surplus of goods trade last year will be hit only by the baseline 10% tariff that applies to all countries barring Canada and Mexico. And then there's one country that's absent.

from Trump's list of tariffs, and that country is Russia. According to press secretary Caroline Levitt, that was because sanctions on Russia preclude any meaningful trade. The value of U.S. Russia trade plummeted from around $35 billion in 2021 to $3.5 billion as of last year. But the U.S. trades more with Russia than other companies, more with Russia than other companies that got hit with the tariffs. So like countries like Fiji have less trade with us than Russia does.

Russia still has three and a half billion. There's a whole bunch of countries that have less trade. So if you were saying, well, it was de minimis trade. So that's why we didn't bother hitting Russia with tariffs. Right. That's not really true because they did a lot of other countries that did. By the way, apparently Russia sends us a lot of fertilizer, which some logic behind. They are sending a whole load of crap to us in a couple of different ways.

But it's also important to our farmers. So by the way, there are real potential reasons for excluding Russia from the list, to be fair. One is that he's threatening further tariffs in the peace negotiations. So he might want to reserve that, the sanctions and tariffs for that venue, as opposed to this, don't mix apples and oranges. And to be fair, he also only did 10% tariff on Iran, perhaps for similar reasons. Okay, now, fair is shown America, get a load of this. So we tell you all the time, Israel controls.

Trump and Biden, we always give them endless checks and cheerleaders for their war crimes, etc. But in this case, we found an instance where Israel does not control us. Hey, so let's report that as well. But it also shows the absurdity of these tariffs that they are not at all reciprocal. So a couple of days ago, Israel decided that they were going to cancel all their tariffs. They were tariffing American goods being imported into their country. I mean, already that's like outrageous. It is outrageous. All that we've given you, 300 billion in U.S. taxpayer money, but they had tariffs. But okay, but fair's fair, they took them off two days ago.

Right, like they thought, no, number one, we don't want tariffs from America, okay? And number two, we want to, don't want Americans to realize we've been tariffing him the whole time. Anyways, but good move, and we'll take it, right? And so I thought for sure that Trump would be like, oh, I happened, did I leave Israel out? Oh my God, but he didn't. He actually put a 17% tariff on Israel. So, okay, give him credit for independence. and a little bit of, you know, actual control by America.

America first, again, fairest show in America. Okay, but think about it, guys. If they have 0% tariffs, how could a 17% tariff on them be reciprocal? It's by definition not reciprocal, because they're using this cockamamie new formula that they came up with of dividing the trade deficit by imports, and then you come up with that number, and then you divide that by half. Yeah, I don't care.

I think that the tariff on Israeli made goods is too low. I think we should increase it to 100%. Yeah, look, I think that nobody should buy any goods from Israel as long as they're continuing to genocide and ethnic cleansing in Gaza. And I think that the whole world should do that. But in this case, it clearly highlights that it is not reciprocal tariffs. That's not what we're talking about here. This is an invention of Trump that that's why the numbers are so high. They're like, what, people don't have 67% tariff on us?

That's, if that had happened, there would be a giant issue decades ago, right? It's because they invented it out a whole clause. And as I explained earlier, they're doing a giant nuke with these tariffs to justify the six trillion tax code that's coming. So let's take a break. But when we come back, I want to talk a little bit about the various reactions from Trump's friends on the right. Are they mainly supportive? Are they critical? You're going to find out when we come back.

back. All right. All right, back on TYJJanganana with you guys. And John Diamond, American Hero, gifted 20 Young Turks memberships on YouTube. And I'll get to your super chats in the next social break. social break. A lot of good points. 20 is a lot. Thank you, John. Yeah. Appreciate it, brother. I want to get into this conversation about what Trump supporters have to say about his tariff policy and the announcements he made on so-called Liberation Day. So why don't we start

with this? Look, I think it is a mistake to assume that we will have high tariffs in perpetuity. I don't think that would be good economic policy. I am not a fan of tariffs. If the result is, Our trading partners jack up their tariffs and we have high tariffs everywhere, I think that is a bad outcome for America. Tariffs are a tax on consumers, and I'm not a fan of jacking up taxes on American consumers. So my hope is these tariffs are short-lived and they serve as leverage to lower tariffs across the globe. Republican Senator Ted Cruz, who typically kisses up to President Donald Trump, has decided to come out against Trump's tariff policies. In fact, he's,

He is hoping that Trump is bluffing here, that these tariffs will be short-lived. But the uncertainty about the future of the American economy has certainly had an impact on the stock market. The stock market is just reeling over this news. And they don't believe that this is necessarily going to be a temporary situation. There are other people on the right who have been speaking out against what Trump is doing here. But what do you make of this? Do you think that Ted Cruz is right in his prediction?

This is just going to be temporary? It fits in with exactly the theory I'm telling you guys. And look, I want everybody left, right, center, everybody pay attention. And if I'm wrong, hold me accountable, okay? So I think that Ted Cruz is saying that because he knows that as soon as they do the tax cuts for the rich and for corporations, they're going to get rid of these tariffs because the stock market wants the tax cuts and doesn't want the tariffs. And the stock market and the donor class always gets what they want, 100% of the time. Do you think that Trump is implementing these tariffs in the short term to cause some pain among American consumers and then they're going to be desperate for those tax cuts as well?

Because right now Donald Trump's tax plan is not polling well, it's not popular. Because Americans aren't dumb. They know that it's mostly a big gift to the rich and corporations. Do you think that he's maybe inflicting some pain on ordinary American consumers to drum up support for his tax plan? Yeah, maybe. That's a really interesting theory I hadn't thought of, right? And so you might get a two for there. Oh, don't worry, the tariffs are going to magically raise $6 trillion so we can give away $6 trillion to the rich. Also, boy, you could really use a tax cut now after I punish living crap out of you by raising prices so much. That's an interesting theory. And there's a third thing here. As we talked about earlier in the show, Trump actually believes in tariffs. He does. And but in a comical way, right? Like he thinks they're magic that we can get rid of the income tax. It'll create trillions of dollars.

So I think he thinks it's a three for a word I think I just made up where he thinks, oh, no, it'll work, right? He's the only one who thinks it'll work. Plus the other two things, which is why the rest of his team are doing it and he's also doing it. So I think those are all reasons why he's doing this. God, I feel there's chaos. I feel internal chaos right now, right?

Because I feel like there's finally an opportunity to implement smart tariffs that could be beneficial. Sure, tariffs are always gonna have some short term pain, I acknowledge that. But this was an opportunity to implement targeted smart tariffs that actually in the long run are beneficial to American workers. And I'm just angry because I feel like an opportunity is being wasted here. Yeah, actually real quick on that, and then I want to, I'm gonna tie later Wisconsin and Florida election results to this story. It's part of why you're seeing the Republican rebellion. But Anna, if you care about tariffs and doing it right and you're a real populace,

whether you're on the left or the right, and you think that it could help our manufacturing base if we targeted it right and executed it, right? This is going to do enormous damage. We'll never talk with tariffs again. After the short-term pain this causes and after they pull it and you don't get any of the long-term benefits because they pulled it, nobody will ever talk of tariffs again. So if you were in that camp, that camp is about to be lit on fire. Because guys, look, understand this, okay?

There's a reason why most of the jobs in the American economy are service sector jobs. And that's because we have outsourced all of our manufacturing jobs or most of our manufacturing jobs. And I don't think it's been beneficial for American workers to just rely on the service sector for work. It's been pretty disastrous. In fact, you know, the lever had previously published this. We don't have a graphic on it, but I want to read it to you because I think this is definitely true. And it's so weird to see things flipped around now because they had written that when Bill Clinton rammed the North American free trade agreement, NAFTA, through a Democratic Congress in the early 1990s, the most democratic trade exposed districts in America quickly became the country's most Republican districts. So voters actually turned on the Democratic Party as a result of NAFTA and some of these free trade agreements for obvious reasons, right?

Those free trade agreements absolutely decimated American jobs. Yeah, and by the way, there's something that no one's talking about in the context of all these trade deals and tariffs, etc., which is that the number one problem isn't that we have trade deficits or even that other countries impose some tariffs on us. The number one problem is that the trade deals are not written by us, as in the US government and our representatives, they're written by corporations. So all the trade deals are geared towards helping multinational corporations. I mean, it's literal. The legislators literally give it to the corporate lobbyists, the corporate lobbyists write the trade deals and then bring it back. So what do you think is going to happen? They're going to let you, they're going to let the companies outsource your jobs because it's going to cost them less money.

money. The corporation isn't going to write the trade deal to benefit you and give you higher wages and more jobs. Yes. So that's exactly right. And let me ask. That's the actual cancer that Trump is not addressing at all. And of course, neither are the Democrats. Yeah. And by the way, I mean, why how did they placate Americans? Not all Americans, right? A lot of Americans have been angry and frustrated. And I think that led to a situation in which someone like Donald Trump gets elected. But how did other Americans feel placated or get placated? Well, it was through cheap goods, right? You exploit labor in other countries.

They get paid way less, but it's okay. Americans will be happy because they're going to have their cheap plastic goods. And look, for some, that was good enough. But for others, we'd rather have better jobs and American made goods. But look, again, I really do feel like an opportunity for those targeted tariffs is being squandered here. Now, let's move on to Fox Business, where Charles Payne got into a bit of an argument with one of his co-hosts. So Dagan McDowell is her name and she doesn't seem to be very happy about these tariffs. Pain is a little more open-minded. Take a look.

BMW is going to rethink South Carolina because it's not going to import tariffed parts engines from Germany than to send those vehicles to export them. So again, it will mean if that plant stays open, it will mean fewer jobs. because they're going to make those vehicles somewhere else. Well, were they going to sell them now? They sell them to China. They sell them to China and they sell them to Europe. Every American customer who could buy a BMW could be replaced overnight by a Chinese customer.

They sell them from, they export them to China. No, no, but I'm saying you can't make that for our- They import, they import the parts, which will be tariffed, and then they will export them from the United States where they're manufactured back to Europe, where they will be tariffed again, and then to China. And then to China and nations around the globe, right? So these are the problems that a U.S. manufacturer faces because the parts are coming from somewhere else. They can also just make the parts here.

They can make the car there. No, they can't. Absolutely not. That's a fallacy. Yeah, 10 years, 15 years, 20 years. How about it? It wouldn't take that long anyway. Okay.

Yeah, it would. It would take that long. I don't know about 15 years, but it would take several years. Yeah, look, this is just anecdotal, but it backs up everything I've ever read. One of our members just wrote in, I read it during the break about how they moved the plant to Colorado. Same exact plan in the US, it took 12 years. Wow, 12 years? 12 years. So these things, building a plant is an enormous enterprise.

It's not a thing you do in three months. Like if you did it in three years, it would be amazing, right? So these tariffs are not going to be around for three years, 12 years, 15 years, she's 100% right. So Payne, you know, also spoke to someone by the name of Ed Yardeni for a one-on-one interview and I your Denny is not holding back. I think he's just calling it like he sees it and I think he makes some really good points here.

So let's take a quick look at that. The markets interpreted is basically bad for the stock market, bad for the US economy for the global economy and I think there's clearly a real potential here for all all this to add up to at least inflation, if not going to outright recession in the second half of the year. So the market's down because suddenly all that uncertainty is driving valuations lower and earnings expectations are being notched down. But you know what? I think that the reaction here, the stock market may get the attention of the White House. I know they said they don't pay attention to the market, but they have to pay attention

to a day like today. A big job in the stock market can feed a recession. by having a big negative wealth effect. And I also think that there's going to be a lot of negotiations going on here. I mean, some of these tariffs are just ridiculous. So not only that, you know, later in the interview, Yardini mentioned that Donald Trump really wants interest rates to go down. He's been pushing the Federal Reserve, Jerome Powell, the head of the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates. And while, you know, in this last, you know, public disclosure, the Fed did not lower interest rates. They did say we're planning on lowering interest rates two more times

in, you know, the rest of this year. Now it seems unlikely that that would happen because how are you going to lower interest rates when there are inflationary pressures brought forth as a result of Donald Trump's tariffs? Yeah, you're not yeah. So there's a whole host of problems here. But first, I want to address the stock market issue. Yeah. So some people, well, some people as in almost all mainstream media normally say that if the stock market goes down, bad for our economy. That's not necessarily true at all. And they say, oh, it's bad for the average American, the stock market goes down. Well, it depends. And now I think some of the Trump fans are making the opposite mistake. They're like, oh yeah, we stuck it to the stock market and we

stuck it to Wall Street. So it's good for the average American. No, not necessarily. It depends, right? So what does it depend on? So if we stuck it to the stock market because we decided that that American government is going to negotiate drug prices. So the drug prices come down and we're closer to actual free market, rather than this crazy, you know, monopoly, corporate cronyism advantage that the big pharma has because they purchased our government, right? Well, it's true the stock market would go down because you would have the drug companies have reduced earnings.

But those reduced earnings were just profit taking off of us, right? The US taxpayers and the US citizens and consumers. So that stock market going down would be a good thing in regards to that particular thing. And you can't negotiate drug prices and not have those companies' stock price go down. They will go down and they should go down. Yes. They're artificially inflated by basically robbing us. So on the other hand, if you do tariffs like this and people go, all right, well, now the price of aluminum is higher,

price of steel is higher, price of everything is higher, right? Well, that gets calculated in because then you won't make as much profit. your company is not worth as much, and hence your market cap goes down. So then that happens to enough companies, the stock market goes down. That is not helpful because all you're doing is devaluing those companies. You're not getting any benefit out of it. Also it's hurting your pensions, the 401ks, etc. So please, guys, there is no easy answer for stock market up or down, good or bad.

No, you have to look at the actual policy and see if it helps the average American or hurts it. Exactly right. And you know, you give a specific example, there is no specificity here. I mean, a 10% baseline tariff on all imports to the United States. And then you have that tricky Pazicki math that the Trump administration did to slap on much higher tariffs on, you know, specific countries with no rhyme or reason. But people like Charlie Kirk feel that there is rhyme and there is reason, and he's about to defend Trump in this next clip. Take a look. It's necessary. We have been on borrowed time. We have been on borrowed future promises.

And you are not a nation if you do not make stuff in your nation. So I might say, what does that mean? A lot of tariffs, that's what that means. It's gonna be a lot of tariffs with China. And they could reciprocate, and I'll be very honest. It might be harder to go by piles of plastic that you do not need. Do you want to be reliant on the Chinese Communist Party? Do you want to be subservient to a foreign land?

Are we a colony or are we a country? Well, look, fact of the matter is this isn't just about China. This is about literally every trade partner that the United States has. And these tariffs are not reciprocal thanks to the weird math that the Trump administration used to determine which percentage they're going to slap on to any given country. You know, bad faith countries as they've determined or good faith countries, which get a little bit more of a deal, I guess. But the way Charlie Kirk is framing it makes it appear as though this is just about China and like plastic items that we import from, you know, Chinese manufacturers. This goes way beyond that. I mean, we're talking about cars getting hit with the 25% tariffs.

Foreign made car parts getting slapped with a tariff as well. So even if the cars are manufactured here in the United States, if they're using parts that were made in other countries, well, that's obviously going to have a tariff attached to it. And that's going to increase the value of the cars that are being sold in the U.S. And so, like, I understand the argument. Like, the thing that drives me nuts is, like, I'm not just against tariffs. Again, I think that tariffs make sense if there's a rationale, there's logic behind it, and it's specifically done in order to protect American workers and certain American industries, that's not what's happening here. Yeah. So there's an argument to be made that Biden should have used a tariff.

So but first, on Super Chat, Deb Long wrote in and was joking around about how, you know, he tariffed an island that only is inhabited by penguins. So like, that's why it's so thoughtless. like did you did anybody bother to check who we were tariffing why how much why what industry is the anti-penguine tariffs going to help right so now the reality is that you could do tariffs that helped and in fact we don't need to make everything here we need to make some things here and we need to have some manufacturing etc but especially things that could be related to national security so for example and I probably talked about the chips act under Biden more than it probably any show combined, right? And so it really, so do we need to make shifts here for semiconductors?

Yes. Yes. Is that an actual national security issue? I would argue yes. Okay. Pharmaceuticals I think we need to make here in the United States. I mean, during COVID, there were pharmaceutical drug shortages in the United States because the drugs are manufactured elsewhere and we had issues with our supply chains. Yeah. So that would be targeted. That would make sense. So for example, Biden, instead of doing the Chips Act where he just gave over $50 billion in corporate subsidies with no strings attached, and then Intel and other chip makers laughed in his face afterwards and fired a whole bunch of American workers. What he, I would be super curious to see how this debate would work out between economists, because I don't

know. But I'd be, I wonder if you could have done a tariff there on Taiwan that mainly produces most of our chips for the semiconductors. Instead of giving it, $50 billion corporate subsidy, right? So I don't know the answer to that, but that's how we should be thinking about it. Let's have an actual analysis of each industry and doesn't make sense or does it not. And what's the best way to go?

But this was just a nuclear blast on all the countries, on all the different products, and it can't possibly last. It's way too drastic. And by the way, and other members wrote in, and guys, I love doing the show with you guys. You're making a lot of terrific points, so saying, you know, this is going to unite a lot of the world, including bricks, right? So those are, you know, Brazil, India, et cetera, unite them against us.

That's exactly right. That's another reason why if you were targeted, maybe with Taiwan on chips, then you're not uniting the world. You're actually addressing the need that you have. Instead, when you blast it out to everyone, you force them to unite against you. So finally, I promised, why are some Republicans like Ted Cruz and John Kennedy? and Rand Paul, et cetera, rebelling on this one when they normally never rebel. For a couple of reasons. Number one, there's just too many of them.

And Trump, when there's only a couple, can go, primary him, get rid of him, right? But now they're an open rebellion, so that's harder to do. Second of all, all of their corporate donors are saying that they hate this. So Ted Cruz reports to his donors even more than he reports to Trump. So that's part of it. Third reason is Wisconsin and Florida. Those elections just happened. Democrats won by a lot in Wisconsin and even though they lost in Florida, they made up 20 points

in those races. Just a couple of months Trump's in and they already lost 20 points in Florida and they were lucky that they were deep red districts. So now the Republicans are actually worried in the Senate in the House are actually worried about losing their seats and their power. And finally, as Ted Cruz pointed out, they all kind of know they're not going to stick around. The minute we pass the giant tax cuts for corporations, these tariffs are gone. So there's not going to be much of a price to pay for opposing Trump on this. Interesting. All right, well, we got to take a break.

When we come back, we'll move on to some other news. There is other news to get to, including that tax bill. Yeah, the budget bill that the Senate has been working on and will ram through. Looks like there's an additional $1.5 trillion in tax cuts on top of the $4.5 trillion. We'll give you those details and more when we return. We appreciate it. What? That beautiful join buttons right below.

Zelensky's brothers watching the show. That's kind of cool. Not a big deal. Not as well known as Vladimir Zelensky, but Frank Zelensky. No, spell differently. Totally differently. But Frank, welcome, brother. We appreciate it.

Thanks for being part of the community. Nook and Futt, gifted 10 memberships. There's a different way to pronounce that. And XMR 2024 gifted 10 memberships. You guys are awesome. We love you guys. Thanks for being part of the show. Casper.

We got to talk about the budget blue blueprint in the Senate. So let's get to those details. We are in conversations, as you know, with the parliamentarian about the best way to get budget reconciliation we're trying to accomplish across the finish line. But we think the law is very clear. So Republicans in essence want to pretend like their trillion dollar tax cuts are free, like magic. Or as Chip Roy, one of the most conservative Republicans around here said, Like fairy dust, a middle school math student could tell you this is ridiculous. Remember the $4.5 trillion in tax cuts that Donald Trump was pursuing? Yeah, make that $6 trillion.

And that's based on the Senate Republicans release of a 70-page budget blueprint that would pave the way for an additional $1.5 trillion in new tax cuts on top of the four-point. $5 trillion. And that's a lot. That is certainly a lot. But they are doing some tricky Pazicki math to pretend as though their tax giveaways aren't really going to cost us all that much, that it's not going to add to the American debt. It will. Now, Senate budget chairman Lindsey Graham unveiled the sweeping new budget resolution that raises the debt ceiling, moves forward with Trump's tax cuts, includes Trump's border policies, meaning more funding for border security and his defense and energy priorities. Now the resolution they unveiled on Wednesday would increase the debt limit by

$5 trillion. Additionally, the measure opens the door to a $150 billion increase to military spending and 175 billion more for immigration enforcement to help Trump carry out his mass deportation plan. And as for the spending cuts, still a work in progress. The Senate sets a much lower floor of $1 billion in reductions, each for committees handling healthcare, food stamps, and other programs. However, that can be raised if needed to compromise with the House's estimated $2 trillion in cuts. So do you guys understand what's happening here? The Senate blueprint added even more in tax cuts.

And they're like, whether you're talking about the House or the Senate, for the Senate, both chambers are looking to cut our social safety net in order to justify increasing tax cuts. Yeah, so the number one goal of the Unip Party, whether it's established from Republicans or established women Democrats my entire life has been tax cuts for the rich and for corporations. So Donald Trump ran as a populist, said that he wasn't going to do any of that. But that didn't make any sense because he He'd already promised a giant tax cut during his campaign. And then when he got in, of course, number one priority was a giant tax cut.

So renewing his tax cuts from his first term cost four to four and a half trillion dollars, depending on which source you look at, right? So now the point that Anna made is that we're gonna add another one and a half trillion dollars, okay, on top of that, because it's never enough for the rich, it's never enough for the donors. So guys, number one, first of all, understand this, doge, all big cuts, big cuts, cuts, even if every cut was true and correct, it's only $130 billion, okay? So then you've got the gold cards, Donald Trump's like, it'll create trillions of dollars. My knowledge, no one's bought one, maybe three people will buy one eventually.

The gold card is basically rich foreigners who want U.S. citizenship, so they buy it for $5 million. These nuclear tariffs, I wonder how much they say they're going to raise. Well, let's show you the math real quick, and then we'll come back and tell you their magic trick. They have this hilarious magic tree. So 4 trillion at a minimum, but other places like the higher tax foundation says it's four and a half, then you add the one and a half, you get the five and a half to six trillion. Now where have I heard this number before six trillion? Well, let's find out.

The other tariffs are gonna raise about $600 billion a year, about $6 trillion over a 10 year period. So far it looks like we're gonna have about $6 trillion of investments and you wouldn't do that in years in this country over the last number of years, $6 trillion, and that's going to be much higher by the end of the year. And think of what $6 trillion is. You wouldn't have even a small percentage of that under this other system. We're going to be an entirely different country. Hmm, they need to account for $6 trillion in Texas for the rich. And here comes this tariff plan, which they magically, this week, starts saying, is going to save us $6 trillion. dollars. Gee, look, I challenged Carrie Lake and others on Pierce Morgan panel about this.

Let's take a quick look at that. All of this is actually just a ruse to pass that $4.5 trillion tax cut because they want to be able to say what you guys just talked about. Oh no, the tariffs will magically bring us $6 trillion over a decade. So don't worry about that $4.5 trillion are going to funnel to all of our donors, to Elon Musk, the Donald Trump, and to all the richest people in the country and to corporations. That's what all of this tariff nonsense is about. That's what the gold card nonsense is about. That's what Doge nonsense is all about. It's all to say, oh, don't worry about how we're going to blow up the debt and the deficit by doing another gigantic tax cut for the rich and for corporations. What I loved about that is at the end of the show, Pierce Morgan invited

all of us to come back on four months from now and see how it turned out. Because Carrie Lake and Batya, we're like, oh, no way. Okay, these tariffs are going to last forever. And They're going to be amazing and they're going to bring on all this money. And you know, a lot of Republicans voters don't even realize that we're about to give away $5 to $6 trillion to the rich. Like they don't even know it. Like when I say they're like, that can't be true, right? What? Really?

Yeah, they don't. Because all we are talking about is tariffs and doge, et cetera. No one's talking about the giant tax cuts. That's true. And you know why they're not talking about them? Because number one, the Republicans, they want to pass it in the middle of the night. They do. That is true.

And there's all sorts of convenient distractions. And they know that if they make a big deal out of it, it'll be deeply unpopular. It's already polling very, very negatively. And they're not releasing the details of how much it's going to go to corporations and what an enormous percentage go to the rich, right? They're trying to keep that all under wraps, pass it in the middle of the night, and then go, oh, well, look at that. I guess that's what the American people won.

And the Democrats should be screaming from the rooftops about this giveaway for the rich. You saw Schumer mesh in it there, but really there should be a coordinated attack here, and I just don't see it at all, because this is super unpopular and not at all populist. Yes, I'm sure the super wealthy Democrats in Congress who have become super wealthy as a result of their insider trading on information that we're not privy to, I'm sure they really do not want to cut taxes. They're very worried about this tax bill. I don't believe, I don't buy for a second that Democrats in Congress don't want to cut taxes. So look, my whole life, we've cut taxes under Republicans, even though Democrats had plenty of people in Congress that blocked them.

No matter what happens, the Democrats' excuse is always, there was nothing we could do. There was nothing we could do. And they're getting ready to sing that imminently right now. And by the way, you know, that Pierce Morgan appears was just yesterday. Between yesterday and today, they added another one and a half trillion dollars in tax cuts. That's the story we're reporting now. Okay, so understand. Take a look at the big picture, okay?

Because understand what's happening right now. American consumers are about to deal with an insane amount of inflation as a result of Donald Trump's tax policies. And you're right, he is a real believer. He genuinely thinks you can even just get rid of the income tax and replace it with high tariffs on foreign import. And that's how the federal government will raise revenue to function. Okay, but what that ends up doing is it moves all of the taxes because tariffs are taxes onto American consumers while giving the wealthiest among us a massive tax cut. Oh, that's such a great point.

Again, that's like a double whammy against populism. Because even if tariffs did work, Anna's right, we all pay that when we have higher prices for cars. higher prices for cars, beer, coke, et cetera, right? But meanwhile, they're like, oh, it's all even. It's not even because the tax cuts are almost all going to the rich. Yeah, it's redistributing wealth from the bottom to the top. Again, it's just another method of doing it. Least populous thing you can do.

That's a great point, Anna. Oh my gosh. Okay, so. So now the magic trick. So let's talk a little bit about the Senate parliamentarian. Yes. You know, because. Because he's the most, that person is the most important person in government.

Most important person in government, according to Democrats, yeah, Democrats are in charge. You know, we really wanted to pass the build back better agenda, but we just couldn't do it. The Senate parliamentarian really stands in the way. So in order to pass legislation in the Senate, you have that legislative filibuster, right? And that legislative filibuster requires a threshold of 60 out of 100 senators in order to pass legislation. However, there are certain instances where if the policy has an impact on the federal budget, you can actually pass it through reconciliation or through a simple majority of 51 senators as opposed to 60 senators. Now, the individual who weighs in on whether or not you can do that with any

given piece of legislation is the Senate parliamentarian. And in this case, with the Senate's blueprint for their budget, they're like, yeah, yeah, we're not really that worried about the Senate Parliamentarian, essentially, not essentially. They just said it. Yeah, they're like, look, the Senate parliamentarian said basically that they could do, the budget can go forward. But that's not a controversial thing to say at all. Yeah, the budget involves money. It makes perfect sense. That person did not rule on whether taking four and a half trillion dollars in tax cuts and making them permanent does not affect the budget, right? They that and the Republicans just pretended that they did.

Yeah. Just made it up out a whole clause. But that goes to the point that Anna and I have been saying for a long time on this show. So the Republicans are like parliamentarian, who cares? We're just going to ignore them, okay? Yeah. And now what does that do? That puts the Democrats in a position of trying to defend the parliamentarian,

which is going to play very poorly in politics, right? right? Oh no, but you cannot do that bill that you want because of the parliamentarian. But they will. They look, Democrats love the parliamentarian. They love the legislative filibuster. It is the convenient excuse for why they can't get anything in their agenda passed. And I say agenda because look, when Republicans want something, they bulldoze, they steamroll, they do whatever they need to do to get it done. Democrats will campaign on things that might be popular, economic policies that might be popular, knowing that there are certain obstacles baked into the system that they can point to as their excuse for why they couldn't

get it done. And by the way, just to give you the specifics, as reported by the Associated press, typically the current policy baseline proposal would need to pass the muster of the Senate's nonpartisan parliamentarian to make sure it abides by the strict rules of the budget process. Senators from both parties have been arguing in closed door sessions. with the parliamentarian staff for and against the idea, but Republicans are pressing ahead for now, regardless of the outcome. They know that they're gonna get what they want. They're gonna, look, they're gonna pass this tax bill. That's what this is essentially, it's a tax bill. They're gonna pass it. And here's another instance, and we're really going on a limb here,

because the Democrats claim the parliamentarian is maybe the most powerful person in all of government, because they can literally stop bills and say, no, you need a 60 person vote on that, and they can never get a 60 person vote, right? So our theory, and we told it to you, not now, but years ago, for all these years, we've been telling you, the parliamentarian is irrelevant. You could just either fire them or ignore them. So now the Republicans are going to try to ignore the parliamentarian as we told you that they could. Will they be allowed to get away with it?

Or will the entire government stop and go, Republicans, you are wrong? The parliamentarian is the most important person and they will decide the fate of this bill. Let's find out. Let's find out together, okay? Because the Democrats will ask for that. And my guess is, you all see it with your own eyes, nobody's going to give a rat's ass about the parliamentarian. Well, we got to take a break. When we come back for the second hour of the show, we have to talk about these pro-Israel activist groups and organizations that have essentially put together a hit list for the Trump administration. And it's playing out exactly how you would expect.

We've got that story and more coming up, don't miss it.