Jeet Heer, Jim Acosta & Brendan Duke

The Nation’s Jeet Heer details Trump’s not-so-great deal-making skills.
Substack’s The Jim Acosta Show host Jim Acosta examines Trump backing down on tariffs.
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities Brendan Duke details how slowed imports at our ports affect Trump’s tariff gambit.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics,
where we discussed the top political headlines with some of
today's best minds. And Trump's economic approval rating falls to
thirty seven percent. Still seems high to me. We have
such a great show for you today. The nation's own
Geed here stops by to talk about Trump and the

(00:24):
art of the deal in case you're wondering they are
not good deals. Then we'll talk to the Center for
American Progress's own Brendan Duke about our port slowdown shipping
and how we are losing the trade war with China.
As a special bonus, we'll talk to substacks the Jim
Acosta shows Jim Acosta about Trump backing down on tariffs.

Speaker 2 (00:49):
Molly, big news out of Illinois, and usually big news
is not retirements. But we have both Dick Durbin, who's
one of the senior Mostdems in the Senate, and Repgentik House.
He both and that's of their retirement in a single day.

Speaker 1 (01:03):
Okay, it looks like a problem, but is actually pretty good.
So here's what's happening. We have a lot of older
members of Congress. This has been something that Democrats, Democrats
are nice and they're good and they're friendly, and so
they don't make each other retire. And that's why we

(01:24):
have gotten into a lot of problems with these older
members who get sick or die. We had two members
who died this year in the House, and the Republicans
in the Republican governors aren't letting their be elections to
fill the seats. This is actually a real problem. What
is very interesting and I think important is that we

(01:46):
are seeing candidates run despite this and this story Katabuzagala,
she's a young TikToker, very good at communicating. She decided
to run against her local rep who is a woman
called Jen Schakowski, who has been in office since nineteen

(02:09):
ninety eight, so that's twenty six years she did this,
and actually Shakowski has dropped out. So this is a
really good sign that when these younger people sometimes primary
a candidate, it works. And the truth is, one of
the big problems Democrats are having right now is having

(02:30):
these members who just hang on for a long time
and who aren't good communicators or who don't really have
the bandwidth to do the job. And there are a
lot of people who have done a lot of great
service for this country. And it's not that we don't
love them, it's just that right now, if America is
in an emergency, which I think all of us feel

(02:53):
that way right this creeping authoritarianism is a real thing.
If America is in an emergency, then we need Democrats
are ready to meet an emergency.

Speaker 2 (03:02):
I think Rokana put it really well today that we
should always be welcoming these primaries. He said he's probably
gonna be the only Congressman who says it, but he's like,
these are not lifetime appointments. And I applaud Rokana for
saying that.

Speaker 1 (03:13):
He's right, We really really really need this and it's
an emergency, and so we need our electeds to be
able to meet this moment. And Rocanna is right and
this is the right thing. And we should also celebrate
the members who are retiring. So we have Durbin who's retiring.

(03:33):
He has done incredible work. We're so grateful for his service.
He's retiring. Now we have a bunch of people running
for that seat. It's Illinois. We have it's a safe
Democratic seat. Lauren under What is going to run. But
also Raja Krishna Morti has already almost twenty million dollars

(03:54):
and is going to run too. So yeah, there's going
to be a big, big race for this very important
senten seed.

Speaker 2 (04:02):
My Pew has a pullout that I think is very encouraging.
I'm going to shock you here. Americans. They're kind of
into this whole rule of law thing.

Speaker 1 (04:12):
Yeah. Yeah, this was not a good day for Trump's polls.

Speaker 2 (04:18):
Earlier, it was hard to not write the whole show
off of bad poors.

Speaker 1 (04:22):
Right, It just bad poll after bad poll after bad polls.
So this one says, share say it's important that judges
are impartial in deciding cases. And you know that Trump
went after the judiciary, just like Elon went after the judiciary.
And instead of going and saying, yeah, the judiciary stinks,

(04:44):
they just sort of went after like Elon. For example,
Elon was like, he poured all this money into the
Supreme Court race in Wisconsin and he lost, and he's
decided he's going to do doge And now his profits
at TESLA are down seventy one one percent. This is
a pretty good indication of what the American people don't like,

(05:05):
and they don't like the richest man in the world
cutting their social safety net.

Speaker 2 (05:09):
Yeah, that sounds about right. So Sarah Huckabee Sanders has
written to mister Trump and she's saying, I need federal
assistants and I do feel bad. They've had a horrible
run of fourteen tornadoes in Arkansas in March. But mister Trump,
he's not feeling her vibe.

Speaker 1 (05:27):
Yeah, you know, it's funny. I looked at this headline
and I thought it might be Bernie Sanders says Arkansas
and dire need of federal assistance, and then I realized, No,
it's Sarah Sanders, the one, the first and last time
those two people will ever be confused. But FEMA exists
for a reason, and just because the Republicans don't like
it doesn't mean it's not needed. These are We're in

(05:49):
a moment where America has real climate emergencies. This is
one of them. Arkansas needs the money, they need these
federal five and now we have a Republican senator who
is asking for it. So I don't know. You know,
the whole thing with Trump is that he wants like

(06:10):
to have fivedoms and to have people come and beg him.
But you cannot think of someone who has been a
more loyal henchman for Donald Trump than Sarah Sanders. So
we'll see how this plays. But first the news. Jed
here is a contributor to the nation and the host

(06:32):
of the Time of Monsters. Welcome back to Fast Politics,
jed Here.

Speaker 3 (06:39):
It's always good to be on the program.

Speaker 1 (06:41):
There's so much dysfunction happening. I remember this from twenty
sixteen because we're that old. But like every at every place,
it's like you just when you cover this administration, you
never know where to start because there's so much dysfunction.
Should we start with trade wars are good and easy
to win?

Speaker 3 (06:59):
Yeah, yeah, I know. I mean I think that's a
good place to start.

Speaker 4 (07:02):
The obvious dysfunction that we're seeing on the surface laplohole. Well,
you know, like basically we have this pattern where like
you know, Trump announces the trade war, the stock market
starts tanking. You set out stop percent to say no, no,
we don't actually seriously read it. We're actually escalating to
de escalate, and we're using this to like have more
free trade, and the stock market calms down, and then

(07:23):
Trump has a breather and then I realizes, Okay, now
I can just say, like we're launching a trade war
to create an uh aucarchy so the US never has
to deal with other donations in the stock market tanks. Again,
it is a kind of pattern that's been set, or
you know, it's a little bit of a month we've
had this happened, but like three or four times, you know.
But having said that, I mean, I think because I

(07:44):
was just talking to the economist Marshall Steinbaum of the
University of Utah, and he made a very good point,
which is that while one is looking at the chaos,
it's also worth addressing the underlying like logic of what
Trump is doing, and which is to try to create
a more regressive tax base for the United States, because
like Trump is a doesn't just talk about like you know,

(08:06):
he doesn't like trade deficits and whatnot, doesn't wants to
reach store and have manufacturing jobs in the US. Like
a lot of what he says is like, wouldn't it
be great if we get rid of the personal income
tax at corporate taxes and just rely on tariffs. Tariffs
are like the super regressive like tax where like you know,
like basically ordinary people everything gets much more expensive. So

(08:27):
I think Marshall's plinny which I think is worth taking seriously.
Is like that lines up with everything else Trump does,
Like it lines up with his like tax policy, it
lines up with what he's doing to student debtors, like
really going after they want to have a much more
pseudocratic friendly America. And I think that, like, you know,
when the Democrats talk about this, like it's not enough

(08:49):
to talk about just the chaos, but like what's the
underlying vision?

Speaker 3 (08:52):
What is the end goal here? And the end goal
is you know, like basically the dominance of like the
super we're wealthy like over everything.

Speaker 1 (09:02):
But I'm going to pause for a minute because you
were ascribing three dimensional chests to Donald Trump, and you
should never describe three dimensions. This is always my man
is eating the checkers. Sure, there is a part of
Donald Trump that was like eighteen hundred's best time for
American life, no income tax, wildly huge tariffs. We had

(09:27):
the pores doing their thing, we had you know, our
people built mansions, and it was the best time. It
was the Golden Age, so right, the Gilded Age. He
clearly has read one book about this.

Speaker 3 (09:42):
I don't he's even read a book. Somebody told m
Steve Banden told of.

Speaker 1 (09:47):
Yes, but I'm going to add I read a story
in the Washington Post today. Now again, I don't think
this will ever happen. I don't even think it's true.
But I want you to tell me what you think
about this story, a story in the Watching Post that
said that Donald Trump is actually considering raising taxes for
people who make over a million dollars. Tell me why

(10:10):
this is absolute bullshit, but more importantly, why someone in
Trump world is pushing this narrative at all.

Speaker 3 (10:16):
Yes, I don't think that this is ever gonna happen.

Speaker 1 (10:20):
Ever, ever, ever, ever go on?

Speaker 4 (10:23):
Well there is, I mean, like you know, like I don't.
I'm not saying three dimension leveled chests. But I do
think that like Trump basically has a world that he wants,
which is a world that you can imagine from a
guy who like builds a giant building too named after
himself with gold toilets, right Like, he wants.

Speaker 3 (10:38):
To be like a king. And the thing with being
a king is like one way that you have power
is like you can decide who gets favored or not.
And we see this with the tariffs, right, Like, one
of the things with the tariffs is the carvas you
oppose the tariffs, and then but then you have all
these rich people for Silicon Valley to say, well, actually
we really need these computer parts, and can you give
an exemption, and that he can grant the exemption, and

(10:59):
by the way, you know, can you throw in money
to us.

Speaker 4 (11:02):
And I think that this threat of like taxes on
millionaires is kind of like part of that, where like,
you know, this is again, this is a good way
to get people to bow down and scrape in front Trump.
And also, I mean there's a kind of fiscal component,
which is that I think that there are people in
the Republican Congress who are kind of genuine deficit hawks.

Speaker 1 (11:22):
Thomas Massey, Yeah, yeah, looking at stuff and thinking like,
you know, like how the hell are we going to
pay for any of this.

Speaker 4 (11:29):
There's a little bit to propreciate them, a little bit
to propreciate the sort of Steve Bannon faction, which is
like out of power, but which is a component of
the coalitionion and which has been like really angered by
the Elon Musk, you know, having so much sway, you know,
as with a tear war, a lot of it is
kind of like a show and tell and also a
lot of it is I just heard about it. Trump,

(11:52):
you know, has the mind of a goldfish or of
a you know, I obvious say like a toddler, but
like toddlers have more of a span.

Speaker 3 (12:00):
I think that Trump. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (12:03):
The thing I actually like, listen to Elmo saying for like,
you know, like a couple of minutes, I think.

Speaker 3 (12:08):
Trump would get distracted. But Trump basically listens to whichever
advisor is talking to them. And we saw this recently
with the story of the Wall Street Journal, which by
the way, is doing the best reporting on Trump right now.

Speaker 1 (12:19):
Unbelievable. Let's just talk about this second. You may not
like the Wall Street Journal editorial page, but the Wall
Street Journal reporters are killing it. Emma Tucker, Bravo. Like
Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and the Washington Post,
there's still these newspapers are still reporting it out in
a way that's really good.

Speaker 3 (12:37):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (12:38):
And so they had this story where like basically, you know,
you have on the one that Scott Bissan, you know,
who wants to use tariffs, he's basically going along within
because Trump wantson but wants to like use them to
create more free trade. And you know, Peter Navarro, who's
like a hardcore crew believer. Let's have forkress America, Let's
have no trade. Navara was like camped out, like Elon
Wiss camped out at the White House. And there's a

(13:00):
reason why these guys like don't want to lead from
sight because as long as they're in the room whispering
to them, they can get his way. But Navarro had
a meeting the wall Speatji reported, Then Scott is on
sALS woman, like.

Speaker 3 (13:10):
You know, bled into the room. So I just started
like to you know, like say, like you know, the
stock market stacking and just put up this tweet saying
you know, we're gonna have a ninety day pause and
then you know, stock market recovered. I mean, your point
about like the guy eating the checkers is exactly right.
That there's a guy, you know, with not a lot
of inputs control, with a lot of warring ideas within himself,

(13:33):
willing to like do whatever whoever's talking to him says.
And so so there might be a faction you know,
within the White House, you know, that wants to recover
this of the popular stuff. But but also maybe I
actually think, like you know, this is a kind of
he he likes to sort of keep Wall Street at
Sulton Valley like a little bit fearful so that they'll

(13:54):
pay respect to him. Right. To me, that's the underlying logic.

Speaker 1 (13:57):
Well, I also think there's something else interesting happening here, right,
which is Trump has about ten different wars going on, right,
He's got the trade wars. He just has so many wars,
and China is really a foe that you don't want
to fuck with. And I'd love you to talk about
like they got to be this economy by absolutely just

(14:21):
being so obstreperous. They stole IP. I mean, just at
every point, China has really shown that they have no
respect for any of the norms and institutions. Talk to
me about what Trump has really hit his match with China.

Speaker 4 (14:39):
It's pretty clear from Besson's recent comrades that they're going
to back down on China. I mean, this is the
case that this is maybe the most politically popular part
of Trump's agenda because there are like legitimate concerns about
you know, currency manipulation, trade barriers, you know.

Speaker 3 (14:55):
The IP stuff.

Speaker 4 (14:56):
But it is the case that China has the United
States really integrated economies, like they're the two biggest economies.

Speaker 3 (15:04):
And they are really.

Speaker 4 (15:05):
There's a large part of America's depending on China and
a large part of China that's dependent on America. And
it's not just at the tech level, like you know,
like a lot of you know, China's a big country,
like one point four billion people who like have to eat,
and you know, like American farmers like sell a lot
of stuff. And you know there's this amazing like backup
tweet say, well, Okay, we're not selling beef to China,

(15:26):
maybe we could sell out to India. Well, I gotta
tell you, I was born in India.

Speaker 3 (15:29):
You're not gonna sell that, right, So, I mean, there
was way too much. There's now a bipartisan consensus.

Speaker 4 (15:37):
And Biden was certainly trying to do like you know,
like use tariffs and like try to like get tougher
with China. But the way that Trump is doing it,
like if you're gonna, as you say, multiple front wars. Right,
there's a certain like people on the Republican side who
do have some strategic wisdom and they're basically you know,
their whole argument for making friends with Russia is to
do a reverse Kissinger, will be friends with Russia.

Speaker 3 (16:00):
Uh, will draw down the Billies them can focus on China.
But actually what Trump is doing is like we'll fight
the entire world and we'll fight China at the same time,
and which makes no sense. Like like if you're as
think we'll want to have a trade war with China first,
you should get everyone else online, right, you should get
like uh, and what has happened now, Like you know,

(16:21):
the most amazing thing was Chavan Geese like making this
big trip around Asia, and China is like not that
popular for like long historical reasons in many of these countries,
like it has been an imperialist country in Asia, especially
like a place like Vietnam, right like after the you know,
America had the Vietnam War, then Vietnam went and like

(16:42):
you know, they fought China because China was supporting the camarrouge.
But here Magi went to like Vietnam, And of course
it's all stage, but it's interesting that was stage that
they had huge lines of people coming to cheer him on.
To anyone who knows the history of Asia, like for
Vietnam to become friendly with China, it's like, yo, you're
going against like centuries, if not thousands of years of history.

(17:06):
Trump is done the basic thing, which is that he's
like convinced like a large part of the world that youah, like, well,
Tina is the safer bad I think all the signs
are kind of pointing towards them, kind of like backing
down from this trade war with China and backing down
just because the whole thing was done in such a
stupid way.

Speaker 1 (17:26):
Ham handed yeah, yeah, yeah, well yeah.

Speaker 3 (17:28):
No, just just in the sense of, you know, you
have some guy you're gonna fight in the bar, but
then you also insult everyone else in the bar. You
get the vtitude like that's.

Speaker 1 (17:36):
Not what you do, but that's what it is. So
if he had gone and I think this is a
really important data point, right, had he gone to Canada
Mexico and said, you guys, my biggest trading partners, we
are the same continent. Let's remake North American trade. Let's
redo the trade agreement we've had forever to call it

(17:58):
Trump American Trade. Well, I'll pretend that it's changed everything.
I'll take the win, MAGA will be delighted. I'll lie
about a lot of stuff. And then you could have said, Okay,
now we're going to bring Japan into North American trade,
and we're going to have Japan and then we're going
to bring the EU into North American trade. But what

(18:20):
he did instead was he said, went to war with Canada,
went to war with Mexico, and then was like also China,
and then you have this problem of Japan. So over
the weekend, Navarro the trade hawks were like, we have
a deal with Japan. Japan a country that is suffering
from stagflation. Stagflation a problem that in America we're about

(18:44):
to have, right, recession, higher prices, inflation plus recession equals stagflation.
Look at Japan. Also, remember Japan. One of the reasons
why Japan is in such terrible shape immigrants, right, no immigrants,
so the birth rate declines, there's no one to work.
It's just like a disaster. That's the economic future America

(19:06):
is going to have because nobody's going to want to
come here. And also we can't get anyone to come here.
And also when they come here, we put them in jail.
All bad, all things that are bad. So what happens now,
So we go to Japan. We said we're going to
make a deal. Japan says, okay, now, Japan says, no,
We're going to make a deal with China. They are
not stupid. They know they can trust China more than

(19:26):
they can trust Donald Trump's America, and ergo, what are
we doing?

Speaker 3 (19:31):
Yeah, I know, ye know, And I will actually mention
this there.

Speaker 4 (19:34):
A strategy that you outlined was basically what Obama was
like setting up in the last years. Like he was
basically saying for US a Pacific trade agreement which was
designed to counter China, which would like try to bring
in Japan, the Philippines, South Korea, Vietnam into an alliance
with the US to give it leverage to going against China,
which to my mind like makes the you know, like

(19:55):
when you can have all sorts of disagreements on that policy,
but it actually like mad a certain degree of sense
rather than taking a fight with like everyone in the
world at the same time. Well see how this tray
stuff goes because it is actually something that Trump is
fairly committed to. He has people who around him were
like like Navara, were like fanatically committed to it, and
the sort of power that was granted to him by Congress,

(20:19):
which the publics aren't going to fight him on, so
he could actually continue to do a lot of damage.
And yeah, I actually think that like that is the
more likely scenario that they will be like this seesaw
back and forth doing damage a stock market tanking, you know,
trying to pull back a little bit. I don't see
how you get out of that doom loop.

Speaker 1 (20:39):
Well, that is the problem with trade wars, right, is
how do you get out of the doom loop? So
tariffs go on, things get more expensive. A great example
is this is something that Elizabeth Warren talked about last week.
You tearff watching machines tryers become more expensive because it's
a price war, but in the wrong direction. I think
the war the problem. The bigger problem here, and you

(21:02):
see this with Trump's wars on the educational institutions. We
see this with Trump's wars on other stuff, is that
you can't trust him. So if you're Columbia and you
make a deal with him, which Columbia did, Trump wants
more stuff. He went after this four hundred million dollars
that he had wanted from them because he had tried
to get them to pay it twenty years ago. Right,

(21:25):
Whereas if you're Harvard, you can at least go to
the courts, and the courts will say this is not legal.
So you're better off going to the courts, keeping yourself
in the public. You're safer that way than you are
trying to make a back alley deal with Trump.

Speaker 5 (21:41):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (21:41):
No, I think that's absolutely right.

Speaker 4 (21:42):
I mean, I mean this is actually very interesting that
like in the we saw this, like there's a lot
of sort of elite surrender to Trump, you knowing their
media in Wall Street, in the big law firms, in
the universities, but like because of his who he is,
and you know, like if you give him an inch,
he'll take him mine everyone. Even though all these elitian
institutions that were very inclined to surrender to him, like

(22:05):
they're certainly waking up. But I think you see the
same thing in big law and even beyond Harvard, like gee,
I think the most positive thing coming out of higher
education is I think a lot of the universities are
going to try to come together and to try to
have a common friend, which is what you have to do.
But that he you know, like they're the impulse that
people had to negotiate with surrender to him is basically disappearing,

(22:26):
you know, exactly it's still there among like you know,
some very rich, powerful people, because he does have this
thing where like it's all about like you know, deals
and favors and winning his favors. So you know, I mean,
I think the example of it persisting is like CBS
and how the executive producer of sixty minutes basically quit
because CBS it looks like they want to toll the

(22:48):
Trump line.

Speaker 1 (22:49):
Yeah, and I think it'll be interesting to see because
the thing is, we've seen so much obeying in evance
that we now have a situation where the public is
so hungry for people to take a stand. You have
people giving to Harvard. Harvard has a gazillion dollars, it

(23:09):
is so rich, but they are a symbol of resistance. Now,
this is what it is. It's real true.

Speaker 3 (23:16):
Yeah. Yeah, well I will say I don't people should
give to Harvard, they have enough, funny, but certainly, like
any other institution that resists Trump will get support and
should be supported, including like this podcast. So you know
this exactly. But but you give them all. He don't
give to Harvard, But that's the right, No, you.

Speaker 1 (23:37):
Can give it. There's you know, just listen to the podcast.
That's what you gotta do.

Speaker 3 (23:41):
Yeah, yeah, but but it's absolutely the case. Yeah, there's
absolute hunger for resistance.

Speaker 4 (23:47):
The Democrats even like the immigration like von Holland went
down tells Salvador and now like all the Democrats are like,
you know, like actually taking a stance of like going
visiting the people that Trump is trying to deport. So
I actually think that, like you know, we always seeing
people realize that, like, no, the positive incentive is like
not to give into this guy. You don't actually get

(24:08):
anything if you make try to make a deal with Trump.

Speaker 1 (24:10):
And you'll lose it quickly.

Speaker 3 (24:12):
Yeah, you'll lose it quickly. Yeah, I mean I actually think,
like you actually absolutely see this with like on the
international level, where like nobody, I mean, this is the thing,
you know, they really want to try to make a
deal with China, try to make a deal with Japan,
but like nobody is actually gonna make any sort of deal.

Speaker 4 (24:28):
There's no incentive, and you know, you actually get a
lot more by resisting Trump.

Speaker 1 (24:33):
Yeah, exactly. Get here. Thank you, thank you, thank you,
thank you, thank you.

Speaker 3 (24:38):
Always great to be on.

Speaker 1 (24:41):
Jim Acosta is the author of The sub Stack, The
Jim Acosta Show, and the author of the New York
Times bestseller The Enemy of the People, A Dangerous Time
to Tell the Truth in America. Welcome Jim Acosta.

Speaker 5 (24:56):
Hey, how are you. I'm so happy to see you.

Speaker 1 (25:00):
I'm so happy that we are here and not at Seacott.

Speaker 5 (25:05):
Give it time, give it time, no due process, right.

Speaker 1 (25:11):
So, trade wars are good and easy to win. Did
we win the trade war?

Speaker 5 (25:16):
I don't know. Is this winning?

Speaker 3 (25:18):
Is that?

Speaker 6 (25:19):
What are we tired of the winning? I mean, honestly,
what this shows is that Donald Trump will blink. Donald
Trump will back down. I mean, you know, I've covered
him for a long time now, for all the bluster,
for the image he likes to project at his rallies
and so on. He's the business guy who sits at

(25:41):
the table and yells you're fired, and does all this
stuff the art of the deal and everything else. He
backs down, He blinks, and it sounds as though, you know,
for the guy who is still super sensitive about how
he's viewed in New York and down on Wall Street
and whatever, he still can't throw his weight around with
with that crowd. That crowd came to him and said

(26:03):
you need to back down, And he backed down.

Speaker 1 (26:05):
Yeah, I think that's right. I think that's exactly right.
I mean, I think that's it almost feels like Scott
Bestent one. It was a Peter Navarro Scott Bessent contest,
and Scott won and Peter lost, Thank god, because had
Peter lost, we'd all be, you know, heading towards Jupan

(26:25):
level stagflation.

Speaker 5 (26:27):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (26:27):
And I mean, and the other thing too that's been
on my mind is, you know, if you look at
the breakdown of the vote in the twenty twenty four election,
and I take this maybe a bit more sensitively than others,
but Generation X, you know, they they pretty much lined
up behind Donald Trump. I mean that was one of
his best demographics. And your generation right as my generation.

Speaker 5 (26:51):
I know, I'm not going to lump you in with me.

Speaker 1 (26:53):
Jesse and I are at the very tale end.

Speaker 6 (26:55):
Which generation is the most hyper sensitive about there for
one case right now, it's got to be. I mean,
sure people are baby boomers, young baby boomers on the
referge to retirement and so on, but Gen xers and
it's so you got to you know, you got to
be rethinking this one, you know, right, if you're in
this age group, I mean, look, at what he's done
with the economy. And this is a generation that is

(27:17):
so dependent upon the outlook of their four one ks
and their investments and so on, and they're just you know,
it's all in the state of turmoil for the next
three years.

Speaker 1 (27:25):
Let's talk about this this because you covered him in
his first admin a ton he was super mad at you.
They took away your hard pass you've had. Here's a
question for you that Trump polling. When he came into
office this most recent time, there was a feeling that
he was actually popular, he had won the popular vote.

(27:47):
He had he said, I have a mandate. He you know,
there was a real feeling the billionaires stood on this stage.
All of those numbers are gone. He is now almost
as as he is, almost more unpopular than he was
in his first administration.

Speaker 5 (28:03):
Right.

Speaker 6 (28:06):
Well, yeah, I think it's because of the way he's
monkeyed around with the economy. Yeah, you know, not to
go back to that issue, but you know, I think
a Gallop poll that just came out shews fifty three
percent of Americans view their financial situation negatively. It's the
first time that that's happened since two thousand and one.
I believe something along those lines. You know, you can

(28:30):
only screw around with the economy so much, you can
only screw around with the financial market so much. And
people have figured out the tariffs. I went to get
my car service this week.

Speaker 5 (28:38):
Not to just give a.

Speaker 6 (28:39):
Completely weird anecdote, but I went to get my car
service and I was asking the lady at the dealership,
you know, are people freaked out? And she said, oh, yeah,
they're freaked out. People came in and tried to buy cars.
Like one hundred people came in over the weekend and
bought cars because they're worried about the prices going on.
I mean, people are starting to understand the effects of
these terroriffs. And you know, even people in Mago world

(29:02):
have figured this out. And so of course he's underwater
and he's he's going to continue to plunge. He can't
help himself.

Speaker 1 (29:07):
I think that's important just to like keep going on
this for a minute. So best in sort of one.
And now they're saying it might be forty percent, might
be fifty percent. They don't know, it might be this
might be that the whole point of the trade war
was to get manufacturing on shore. That's a one year project.
And again you are not going to have to get factories.

(29:31):
That's a big job. It's going to mean all sorts
of things. It's going to be a big deal. Now
that that did not you know now that they're they're
backing down, that is not. Now there won't be any
onshoring of manufacturing, right like you're not going to build
a factory if you don't know what's going to happen
in a week.

Speaker 6 (29:51):
Yeah, and there are so many carve outs, you know,
I mean, what's the point of having a trade war
with China if you're going to exempt Apple and iPhones?

Speaker 5 (29:58):
Now, you know, I mean, there there's that question. So
all of this is I you know, I don't know
who came up with this line of thinking.

Speaker 3 (30:08):
First.

Speaker 6 (30:09):
I won't claim credit because it's I didn't. It's not
an original thought. But basically, the point of the terrorists,
just like the point of everything else, is to have
people groveling at Trump's May's begging for mercy. It's just
it feeds into his his need to be you know,
fond over and cared for and have his you know,

(30:30):
his feelings you know, stroked and so on. And I
and I just have to think that that's what this
is all about, because if he really felt strongly about
all of this, he would be holding firm. And it
took like what a week basically back down. They're putting
out these signals that no, no, no, he's not going
to lower the terrorists on China. But it's all these
mixed signals and you turn on at CNBC for five

(30:52):
minutes and this is what they're ranting and raving about.
That the uncertainty in the markets is just it's just
wreaking absolute havoc. And you have to wonder how long
the system could take this.

Speaker 1 (31:03):
And let's get back to appeasement for a minute. So yeah,
with the back and forth on the tariffs. Now we
have these cases of the universities. Right, Trump is trying
to play a card out of the Victor Orbon school
of like of university capture, right, hunish the elites, the academics,
get them because they are absolutely the kind you know.

(31:27):
The idea is to silence the thought and dissent. He's
got a deal he's making with Columbia where they've just
given up and are doing whatever he wants. And then
Harvard is fighting back against him, who is in a
better spot.

Speaker 5 (31:41):
I think the obvious answer is Harvard.

Speaker 6 (31:43):
And this has been sort of what has been playing
out since he came back into office. Is you saw,
you know, institutions bending the knee, cutting deals, law firms
just you know, completely subjugating themselves. And it's been an
embarrassment for lots of important institutions in this country.

Speaker 5 (32:03):
And I you know.

Speaker 6 (32:04):
It's it's it's a fairly revealing episode because what Harvard
has shown and I think what you're starting to see
some for some other folks in various industry. I mean,
look what Bill Owens did over at CBS in sixty minutes.
You know, I do think that the folks who don't
bow down, the folks who decide to fight and take

(32:25):
this stuff on, they're just going to come out ahead
in the long run.

Speaker 5 (32:29):
And I think.

Speaker 6 (32:30):
There's there's a there's a tendency on Trump's part and
I've observed this over time when the fight gets to
be too tough, when it involves too much work, he
starts to back down.

Speaker 5 (32:43):
Yeah, it's like the terrorist thing.

Speaker 6 (32:45):
It's just too much, it's too much work for him
to fight it right, and and so it's just easier.

Speaker 5 (32:50):
Can I get this wrapped.

Speaker 6 (32:50):
Up by Friday, So I got down, I got a
tea time with so and so billionaire guy.

Speaker 5 (32:57):
And it's like the Harvard thing.

Speaker 6 (32:58):
I think that an eventual come out ahead because it's
too much for him. He doesn't want to keep fighting
it out, so he'll make it difficult for them for
a while.

Speaker 5 (33:06):
But look what happened to Look what just happened today?

Speaker 6 (33:09):
He backs off of Jerome Powell, and what happens within
like six hours he starts beating up on Zelenski.

Speaker 1 (33:14):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (33:14):
Yeah, he just moves from one thing again.

Speaker 6 (33:17):
Right, And I've been I've been calling it to see
and say presidency, because you know, it's like that old
toy you pull the string.

Speaker 5 (33:23):
This is a duck.

Speaker 6 (33:24):
This is a he can only do. He can only
pick on one thing at a time. And it's the
same tire talking points.

Speaker 1 (33:31):
No, I think that's really what you're saying right now
is so important and it's such a good lesson from
trump Ism. And we remember this from trump One point,
how is that if you just keep going, he will forget.
And for example, that's the difference, like I think about
the law firms that have made deals with him. He

(33:53):
is now musing about like maybe they'll represent coal miners,
maybe they'll do you know, because once you're captured by him,
you are captured by him.

Speaker 6 (34:04):
It's like, oh, well, the law firm of Dewey Cheatham
and how they're on board with us. You know, let's
let's give them, uh, you know Stephen Miller's side hustle
business of going after DEI program. I mean, it's just
like you just are just going to make more pain
and suffering for yourself in the long run. And you know,

(34:25):
like I mean, I like you brought my press pass case,
like I learned my press pask.

Speaker 5 (34:28):
When we pushed back, he backed down. It takes time.
It's messy, comfortable court. What's that you win in court?

Speaker 1 (34:38):
You win in court?

Speaker 5 (34:39):
How yeah? I mean, we still have judges in this country.

Speaker 3 (34:42):
Judge restored a voa. Uh.

Speaker 5 (34:45):
In the last couple of days.

Speaker 6 (34:46):
Judge another judge or jury slapped down Sarah Palin's bullshit
defamation lawsuit. Like and he you know, Trump understands the
clock better than anyone when he was up against it
in legal hot water during the campaign. He played these courts,
He played these judges like a fiddle. And I think
what he taught everybody a lesson is you can do

(35:08):
it right back to him.

Speaker 5 (35:10):
And I think that's what's happening.

Speaker 1 (35:12):
That's right, And I think and I think that that's
really important. And it's also just when you have when
you're put when you're up against him, what you have
to do. The other thing that I think is so
important is you have to stay loud, stay visible, stay focused.
Like one of the things that I think really helped

(35:34):
you was that you were able to stay like, you know,
you kept talking and you you know, talk about that.

Speaker 6 (35:42):
Yeah, I mean, you just keep going. And what was
funny during that entire process, It's funny we're talking about
this Sarah Huckabee Sanders. She was digging in her heels
as the press secretary and continuing to try to take
my press pass even though you know, the judge said
give it back and so on.

Speaker 5 (36:00):
And meanwhile Trump is, you know, telling reporters, well, what
Jim did wasn't.

Speaker 6 (36:04):
So bad, and that after I got my press pass
back within the day, he's a question from me. Yeah,
And it was like, you know, you just you just
have to you have to just weather the storm with him.
And I think these these folks are and it's just
a refresher course for a lot of people and their
institutions and industries that that didn't get under his thumb

(36:28):
in the first term in the first go around, and
they're they're in the cross heres this time around, and
they don't understand the playbook, and they think appeasement works,
and it's just the monster. You give the monster food,
the monster wants more food again.

Speaker 1 (36:40):
And this is the United States of Amnesia, So they
don't right, they don't remember. They don't remember what happened
four years ago, so they don't remember that you have
to push back, that you can't make deals with him
now he has gone more North Korea than the last time. Yeah,
and want to talk about this scene from the press

(37:03):
briefing yesterday where we had the guy with the beanie.
What is that guy's name, Timpoole with the bean pool.

Speaker 6 (37:11):
Yep, he always wears a beanie. And it was lovely
and Washington, yester. It was like seventy five degrees. I mean,
it's like summer. It went from winter to summer. It's
it's I think he might be the only person in
Washington with a beanie on.

Speaker 5 (37:24):
But I just I digress can.

Speaker 1 (37:27):
You even wear a beanie when it's so warm up, Like,
shouldn't you swap it out to it?

Speaker 3 (37:31):
You would?

Speaker 6 (37:32):
You would just have like the swamp season has already
started earlier. You just have like speeds of sweat coming.

Speaker 1 (37:37):
Back coming from the beanie. The beanie, you take up
the beanie, it's all wet. So he's clearly wearing the
beanie because he's losing his hair. Just who cares bebond?
Half the people in that room are bald.

Speaker 5 (37:49):
Some bald people are sexy. I don't know. That's what
I've been told, not that I'm going to go that route.
I got I got you Irish hair.

Speaker 3 (37:56):
It's is not going to happen.

Speaker 1 (37:57):
So lucky, but but I think so. So he's in there.
He's the first question. The question is basically straight North
Korean propaganda other people have given you. I don't even know.
It's like a ten minute question. And then she sort
of talked to me.

Speaker 6 (38:15):
I know these are these are not briefings anymore. They're
propaganda sessions, right, And Caroline Levitt is sort of like
the little lady on the North Korean state TV who
comes out and she reads her little talking points for
the night and Kim Jong un was a very dear
leader today and he did very dear leader things. And

(38:37):
this is what Caroline Levitt does and now just sort
of it's like a Johnny Carson Show kind of thing.
And she's like, well, she can't just do it herself,
so she's got to have a sidekick. It's kind of
like the Ed McMahon, you know, he's like the Andy
Richter and Herran.

Speaker 1 (38:51):
And he's in the new media seat.

Speaker 5 (38:53):
He's in the new media. Does that mean we could
get in a seat in the briefing room? Does that mean?

Speaker 1 (38:58):
I mean the new media is? It's all now? I
just want Temple is most famous for having been discovered
to have taken money from Russia.

Speaker 6 (39:09):
Right right right, And then they said that they didn't
know that it was coming from Russia. And I think
the DOJ. I was looking at some of this history
because I was like, what happened with that?

Speaker 5 (39:18):
Was it? Yeah? I was like Trump, it was was
it the Russia thing? You know? I was, I was.

Speaker 7 (39:22):
Thinking that and and yeah, they apparently they he and
a few other of those dudes took some some Russia money,
but they didn't know, or they claimed they didn't know.

Speaker 5 (39:33):
And the DJ said, well, we don't think that they knew.

Speaker 6 (39:37):
And it's kind of like a sad empathetic exercise that
the White House Press Secretary for the United States of
America feels like they have to bring in loyalist podcasters
to help them get their message out.

Speaker 5 (39:50):
I mean, when you're trying that hard, maybe something's not working.

Speaker 1 (39:53):
You know she is, but you could see a world
where she ends up being a resistance the hero, right,
I mean where she because you can see in her
head like she's covering so hard, but you could see
in her head like the calculus like maybe you.

Speaker 5 (40:10):
Know, I'd be a twist.

Speaker 3 (40:13):
That'd be cool.

Speaker 6 (40:13):
And I you know, what I've been saying all along
is is that you know, if she works really hard
and she studies and does her homework and does her
special exercises, she too can be as ridiculous as Sean
Spicer and Sara Huckabee Sanders. I mean, they they are
kind of like the All Stars. They're like the Hall
of Fame, the Harlem Globetrotters. She's not quite there yet,

(40:34):
you know, but she's you know, you put in the work,
you might get there.

Speaker 1 (40:38):
So everything Trump touches dies right, This is this idea
that everyone who Trump, you know, the people who he
goes through, and like if you look at Rudy Giuliani,
that's certainly been true, right, Shawn Spicer. There are certain
people who've gone through that, gone in and out of
that admin and have not left the better for it. Yeah,

(40:59):
Sarah Huckabee Sanders actually is the governor.

Speaker 5 (41:04):
She's the governor of Arkansas.

Speaker 1 (41:05):
She has a real job she.

Speaker 6 (41:08):
Does, and apparently they're in a fight with the Trump
administration over disaster relief funding. I don't know if you
saw this, but apparently the administration said to Governor Huckabee Sanders,
I'm sorry, but you're not getting her disaster relief money.
So you know, you take one for the team here
and there look where it gets you. You just don't
you don't get your disaster relief money. Which is kind

(41:29):
of a crying sham. I mean, it's one of those stories,
Molly that we don't have enough time to cover. But
we we should have enough time, yeah, because we're heading
into hurricane season. And if they're I mean, like the
way that they're goofing around with Public Health and goofing
around with the State Department and signal gait and so on.
If we're not getting our disaster relief money system straightened

(41:51):
out before hurricane season, a lot of people are gonna
be suffering in this country. And I mean, it's it's
it is actually deadly serious.

Speaker 1 (41:59):
When we talk about out a lot of people suffering
here there, it seems like we are hurtling towards something
not good. The vaccine. I just read a piece in
the Washington Post today about the people don't want to do.
You know, there's a lot of confusion about vaccines. I
think confusion is a very generous word for that. But

(42:21):
there's clearly a lot of back and forth right about
about vaccines. This is led by RFK. We have children
dying of measles. This has not never been to sarp
K Junior. This has never been the kind of thing.
This is never This is just a totally a phenomenon
that is post COVID kind of craziness. Do you think

(42:45):
that's this or most dangerous? I mean, what do you
think the most dangerous thing this admin is doing right now?

Speaker 6 (42:50):
Is that is one of the most dangerous things. It's
hard to pinpoint what is the most dangerous thing. I mean,
I do think when you have what eight hundred some
cases of measles in West Texas, I mean that is
that is scary?

Speaker 5 (43:03):
Is that should not be going on? Kids? Two dead kids.
That should not be going on.

Speaker 6 (43:08):
And you have the Secretary of Health and Human Services
not giving full throated endorsements for vaccines and it you know,
it's established science going back decades generations, and he's still
saying this cuckoo for cocoa puff stuff about autism, you know,
and and just the other day, you know, talking about

(43:29):
environmental factors causing autism, and you know, as if he
has this certainty that comes from some imaginary scientific expertise.

Speaker 5 (43:38):
That he has.

Speaker 6 (43:39):
It's really disturbing stuff. And it has the potential, you're right, mind,
it has the potential for being perhaps the most devastating
thing that's happening inside the Trump administration right now, because
if another pandemic comes along, we're just going to be
woefully unprepared, and you're going to have people in charge.
And it's not just RFK Junior Trump was making some
of these same goofy comments the other day. You're going

(44:01):
to have a situation where history repeats itself. The government
is woefully unprepared, and you have wack a doodles in
charge of public policy, leading millions and millions of Americans astray,
which of course will exacerbate the public health crisis.

Speaker 5 (44:14):
That's exactly what we saw.

Speaker 6 (44:16):
During COVID and and it could happen again. There's no
question about it. RFK Junior is probably the most irresponsible
cabinet pick. I mean, it's Pete Hegseth has got to
be right up there. But RFK Junior is without question.
I mean, you couldn't pick a more irresponsible person to
be in charge of our public health structures. It would

(44:37):
be shocking if we could just focus on that all
the time. But it's a moving target every day.

Speaker 1 (44:44):
Jim Acosta, you have the Jim Acosta shew on Subjects,
which is hugely successful.

Speaker 5 (44:51):
It's going well.

Speaker 6 (44:53):
I enjoy it. You come on, You're part of the
reason why it's successful. No, and I didn't think that
this was going to turn in anything. I thought I
left my open. I thought I was just going to
go screw around for a little while and go on vacations.

Speaker 5 (45:05):
And it went really well, right, I mean.

Speaker 6 (45:08):
I get to talk to all these cool people, I
get to have you on. I call it like my
Friends and Family program because I get to talk to
a lot of friends.

Speaker 1 (45:16):
Brendan Duke is a senior director for Economic policy at
Center for American Progress. Welcome to Fast Politics.

Speaker 3 (45:24):
Brandon, thanks for having me on, Molly.

Speaker 1 (45:26):
Okay, I'm going to introduce you in the least annoying
way possible. Jesse and I were talking about the trade
war with China. Part of the trade war with China
is this issue of the shipping. Right China, I think
it's our fourth largest trading partner. Does that sound right
to you? Third largest training partner after Mexico and Canada. Right,

(45:47):
that's right. We are having a trade war with all
of them, because why wouldn't we be. But Chinese goods
tend to come from two main ports, the Port of
Los Angeles and the Port of Long Beach, Right.

Speaker 3 (46:02):
That's right. And they sit right next to each other.
People don't realize this, but they are just right next
to each other. Nobody can tell the difference between the
two when you're looking at them from like a plane.

Speaker 1 (46:13):
And during COVID, what we saw was that we just
started to see these kind of unintended consequences of COVID,
so shipping got so backed up that we'd have these
huge groups of ships just waiting around trying to dock.

Speaker 3 (46:31):
Yeah, that's right. People ordered a bunch of stuff online
because you couldn't do anything fun. People bought too much
stuff online and it just went through those supe works
and there wasn't enough space, and they backed up and
there were one hundred container ships waiting in the Pacific Ocean.

Speaker 1 (46:44):
So, dog, that is supply chain, and that's how you
got involved in shipping was because of this supply chain story.
Now we are about to have, or maybe not, but
probably yes, a big supply chain problem, but not because
of COVID, but because of Trump.

Speaker 3 (47:03):
That's exactly right.

Speaker 1 (47:04):
Talk us through what's happening and how this went.

Speaker 3 (47:08):
Look during COVID, it was the opposite problem. So, you know,
people couldn't do anything fun, so they bought a lot
of stuff online and there's only a certain number of
reports and only a certain number of places the doctorship,
and so we got all this backup because people bought
too much stuff. What we're seeing now is that you know,
the retailers and other companies that send stuff into the

(47:31):
United States are not sending it or they're not going
to send it because they are trying to avoid the terraffs.
So the last few weeks, last few months, they've been
sending stuff like crazy because they're trying to get ahead
of the terraces. But now that the terriffs are here,
we're sharding to see a drop off in those planned

(47:52):
shippings crossing the Pacific Ocean, and so that'll start to
hit the American consumer over the coming months.

Speaker 1 (47:58):
What I saw, because I saw some of this again,
this feels obscure, This feels like not the excitement that
it should, but it actually is humongous because what happens
is that right now we're in this pause period, but
we're about to have maybe one hundred and fifty seven
percent TIFFs maybe last maybe fifty today, so fifty or forty.

(48:20):
But what's not happening is China is not packing ships
and sending them over. So talk to me about when
you look at the numbers, what you're seeing over the
next three weeks.

Speaker 3 (48:30):
Right, So, we've had an importing bonanza over the last
few weeks, and this week we're still importing a ton.

Speaker 1 (48:36):
And explain why.

Speaker 3 (48:38):
Basically, it takes about two to three weeks to send
a container ship across the Pacific. Three weeks ago to
this day was Liberation Day and the tariffs got announced,
so a lot of the ships coming in now had
no idea what the tariffs were going to be. And
then it wasn't until the following week that Trump supersized

(48:59):
the China tariff to one hundred and forty five percent,
So the container ships that are landing now did not
know that there was going to be one hundred and
forty five percent tariff when they entered here, which, if
you think about it, it is crazy that small business owners
who ordered stuff are going to have to write a
giant check to the US federal government based on a

(49:21):
cost that they had no idea they were going to
incur when they ordered the stuff. But let's leave that aside.
Next week though, the expected shipping. You know, so right
now we're up like fifty percent compared to a year ago.
Next week we're going to be about down ten percent.
So that's the beginning of people just stopped two three
weeks ago ordering stuff to avoid the terraf.

Speaker 1 (49:42):
So ten percent means that you have ten percent fewer
goods coming from China. That means that if you want
to buy something, there's going to be less on the
shops right.

Speaker 3 (49:54):
Eventually, because they've been on this ordering bonanza. Their warehouses
are full, They're fuller than usual. This is the shipping
low season. So it may be a little bit of
time until you actually see this on the shelves because
places like Walmart On and Amazon have some really smart
people who've been trying to work and figure out to
prepare for this. But if the ship stopped coming, the

(50:14):
ship stopped coming, and there's going to be in a
fact over you know, those coming months.

Speaker 1 (50:18):
So what right now, when you look three weeks out,
you start to really see a drop Yeah. Now, historically
the shipping is static, right, you have a consistent number.
So the fact that this drop off that is like,
clearly China has a plan. They're not going to buy
from China at one hundred and fifty percent tariff.

Speaker 3 (50:41):
Onto stuff and it's sitting in a warehouse in Guangdong
and Shanghai. And so especially Trump yesterday said maybe he
lowsers it to fifty percent. If that's the case, there
is no way I am putting something on a ship
right now. I want to wait to at least get
the fifty percent rat maybe right, right, So even if

(51:01):
I was planning to eat the one hundred and forty
five percent tariff just to you know, get you know,
get through the next few weeks, No way am I
doing that when there's gonna be a ninety percent cut comment.
So you know, again, you know, they're just trying to say
they're trying to wake this thing out because this clearly
they don't think this is permanent. And so I think
the financial markets feel relief because they're like, oh, maybe

(51:22):
Trump will back off on the terraces. Well, what that
effectively means is people are just not going to send
stuff across the Pacific because they're trying to avoid a
triple digit tax.

Speaker 1 (51:33):
So it sounds like what's happening here is that these
tariffs are freezing global trade for.

Speaker 3 (51:40):
The United States. Yeah, it's not a problem for you know,
Europeans buying from China. I mean stuff could get cheaper
for that, right, but says it certainly freezes our trade,
especially the trade over the Pacific.

Speaker 1 (51:51):
When we talk about freezing our trade. The whole goal
of this originally was on shoring manufacturing, build stuff in America.
But because there is not a clear message on these tariffs.
There is not a clear path for importers or exporters.

Speaker 3 (52:08):
Right, absolutely not. I think it's more like the COVID freeze,
right because if Congress legislated a one hundred and forty
five percent tariff, and you know that was enacted and
not going away, maybe some businesses would look at setting
up stock factories in the United States to avoid the tariffs.
Right now, they're you know, not willing to ship stuff
because they're trying to save a million dollars. Why would

(52:30):
you spend fifty million dollars on a stock factory in
the United States if it could go to away in
a few weeks. Basically, what this just means is businesses
are just going to sit on their hands when it
comes to buying stuff overseas as well as investing in
the United States.

Speaker 1 (52:48):
When we talk about this phrase, there are certain things
that are cut out for these tariffs. Can you explain
sort of what the thinking on these cutouts are and
what they are.

Speaker 3 (52:59):
Some things are cut out because they're tariff elsewhere. So
for example, it's a ten percent tariff on all imports
across the world China, one hundred and forty five percent.
Canada and Mexico are kind of twenty five percent. Some
things are some things aren't. Can get into that right.

Speaker 1 (53:15):
Now, everything's ten percent, right.

Speaker 3 (53:18):
Except for Canada and Mexico and China. And then Canada
Mexico is twenty five percent for like half of their stuff,
and then China one hundred and forty five percent.

Speaker 1 (53:25):
Why is this so complicated?

Speaker 3 (53:27):
Because I mean, the guy's just taking his Twitter posting
and turning into executive organs. Oh okay, that's what's going on.

Speaker 1 (53:34):
Good deal.

Speaker 3 (53:35):
And so then on top of that, there are these
sectoral terraffs, right, So the first stealing aluminum, which you
know we've done sealing illumine terraffs before. That's not topic
of a deal. Then cars, which is an enormous deal
because we don't build a car parely in America, we
buy it, built it in America, Canada, Mexico and things
across the border a million times. And then medicine is coming,

(53:58):
and then semiconductors are coming. So they've exempted, for example,
semiconductors from China from the tariffs, right, but there is
going to eventually be a twenty five percent tear now
twenty five percent seems like a deal relative to one
hundred and forty five percent, but that's the way the
you know, exemptions work.

Speaker 1 (54:16):
So we have semiconductors and Madison from China being tariffed
at a rate we have not learned about yet.

Speaker 3 (54:26):
I expect it'll be twenty five percent, but they haven't
said yet.

Speaker 1 (54:29):
We have everything else from China tariff data rate of
one hundred and fifty percent, one hundred and sixty four percent,
or perhaps today fifty percent or forty percent.

Speaker 3 (54:42):
Yeah, it's like Russian roulette with American business.

Speaker 1 (54:45):
If you are an importer from China, what is the
move urban? I mean right now, the move is for
the next three months everybody. It's because it's three weeks
since Liberation Day. There's a three month pause, So for
three months everybody is going to be importing and exporting

(55:08):
like a lunatic to try to get ahead of it.

Speaker 3 (55:11):
Well, no, the tariffs are in effect now, which is
why we're seeing the drop off.

Speaker 1 (55:15):
Oh there was a two week pause.

Speaker 3 (55:17):
No, one hundred and forty five percent tariff is in place.
Oh wow, okay, that's it is currently happening. You know,
these poor container chips.

Speaker 1 (55:24):
People who tried small businesses.

Speaker 3 (55:26):
Yeah, I mean a lot of the small business Half
of what we import in the United States are things
American businesses used to build other stuff. Right. They're not
consumer goods. They're things that businesses use, right, So they're
currently in place. And that's why you know, they were
they were shipping. When they thought the tariffs would be reasonable,
they stopped. And that's why we're seeing the extremely sharp drop,
you know, especially because you know it's like we see

(55:47):
like a thirty percent drop off and expected imports two
weeks from now. I expect that's mostly the China stuff.
The stuff from like Vietnam and Japan and stuff like that.
Those things are probably still coming because it's only a
ten percent tariffs.

Speaker 1 (55:59):
But Trump tried to make a deal with Japan, and
Japan said we're going to make a deal with China.

Speaker 3 (56:07):
Yeah, and actually I think the discussion of deals I
think has actually been hugely misleading. Yeah, for for this reason.
So Trump initially, you know, proposed the Liberation Day tariffs
of like twenty five percent or so for Japan. You
are closest allies who are supposed to be helping with
counter China. But you know, whatever twenty five percent. Then

(56:28):
everybody said this is insane, so he backed off for
ninety days, right, so he's deal, and then he moved
it down to ten percent, and it's ninety days in July.

Speaker 5 (56:40):
You know.

Speaker 3 (56:40):
The idea is we have these trade deals and then
it won't be twenty five percent, but it will still
be ten percent. He has said, the White House has
said it is going to be ten percent no matter what.
So no matter what this deal is, it is still
going to be ten percent. And we are not talking
with China, we are not talking with Canada and Mexico.
We're talking about getting rid of the steel, aluminum, car, medicine,

(57:04):
and semiconductor terrasts. So even if Phoenix deals with all
of these countries they're talking about doing, we are still
seeing the highest terraff right since the nineteen thirties. We're
still seeing a three percent increase in overall prices in
the United States. We're still seeing a five thousand dollars
reduction in American households purchasing power. We're still seeing a

(57:24):
ten increase in terrast that is ten times larger than
Trump's first term. That is with the deals. Right, So
there's all this talk of oh, if it gets these deals,
et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Getting the deals just
means we're continuing the current situation, which a lot of
people worry about. A recession. Not getting a deal would
be worse. But getting a deal does not mean we
are you know, we are home free here.

Speaker 1 (57:44):
One of the sort of nightmare of scenarios is stagflation.
It means recession with inflation. So usually in a recession,
people don't buy things, they get cheaper. You have less money,
but things are cheaper. You can get out of it
because you know, it sort of works out stagflation. This

(58:05):
night meare scenario is that things are inflated, they get
more expensive, but you're in a recession, so you have
less buying power and things are more expensive. How do
we not end up in stagflation?

Speaker 3 (58:18):
I think the only way we avoid stagflation is Congress
reasserts its constitutional power to set tariffs and takes away
the car keys from Donald Trump. That's the that's the
only way we can do it. If Trump says, well,
I'm not going to enact the tariffs, who's going to
believe him? If Congress takes away his power to do it. However,

(58:40):
I think businesses will you know, have that confidence to know, okay,
like we're you know, we're gonna avoid this. So that
is the only it's the smartest economic policy imaginable is
just taking away the car keys from Donald Trump.

Speaker 1 (58:54):
Congress can do it, but also the Supreme Court can
do it. So talk us through that, yeah, because he
doesn't really have this power. I mean, this was an
emergency power he gave himself and everyone was like, ooh.

Speaker 3 (59:05):
Guy, right, so you know, first, let me, you know,
do the non disclaimer. And you know, I've walked with
a lot of lawyers about this who know stuff, but
not a lawyer. But my understanding is this, so there's
normal trade processes by which we imposed tariffs. Trump has
actually done that for the steel and aluminum terriffs. But

(59:27):
this ten percent, one hundred and forty five percent tariff, No,
he has not done that. He's used this thing called
the International Economic Emergency Powers Act, which has never in
its history been used for tariffs. The word tariff, the
word tax does not appear in there at all. It's
what we used, for example, to clamp down on Russia

(59:47):
with sanctions, but those are not terraff right, and he's declared,
you know, these emergencies, that we have a sentinel problem
because of Canada, that the trade deficit which we've had
for like fifty years is an emergency, those sorts of things.
And then basically the Supreme Court has the question before it,
do you know, does the president have the power to

(01:00:10):
just say a law gives him that power even though
the law doesn't say that. So that's going to be
the question before the Supreme Court. There's multiple court cases
put up by conservative you know, legal organizations who do
not think the president has this power. So I think
at the very least they're pretty legally questionable.

Speaker 1 (01:00:29):
So there are two ways that we solve this problem.
One is that Congress takes away tariff powers from Trump.
Then businesses know they'll be safe. They put on a tariff,
they don't put on a tariff, but they know they
won't be back and forth, so they can buy stuff
they can on shore, they can offshore, et cetera. Or

(01:00:49):
the Supreme Court takes away.

Speaker 3 (01:00:51):
The power from him exactly.

Speaker 1 (01:00:53):
This was really interesting. I'm sorry that I made you
talk about ports, but I'm glad we got to talk
about this because this is real stuff. So thank you
for joining.

Speaker 3 (01:01:03):
Me, thanks for having me on Hope. I had never
talked about parts again, but we'll see no moment pact.

Speaker 1 (01:01:12):
Jesse Cannon smile.

Speaker 2 (01:01:15):
One of the things that you know, I don't want
to mansplait something that's happened to you many times. But
one of the things that comes with the price of
trump Ism is that your family gets terrorized when you
become on the other side of them. It is very,
very horrible to see after all the stuff that Kilbrego
Garcia's family has gone through, that they are victim to

(01:01:37):
this as well.

Speaker 1 (01:01:38):
Yeah, so Trump World has said a lot of bad
things about Garcia, including every which way of trying to
smear him. And again, like Garcia is not about Garcia
the person. This is about Duke process to the thing.
But either way, she has been now she's afraid for

(01:01:59):
her safe. She's staying in an undisclosed location with her
three children. I read this in the Times. Maybe it's
not right, but that she had three special needs children.
So this woman has now her husband is in this prison.
We don't know if he'll ever come back. She is
now in an undisclosed location with three special needs children.
This is not the kind of stuff that you want

(01:02:22):
happening in a democracy. And when you look at these numbers,
you know, when you look at the bond market and
you look at people flying from the dollar, people don't
want to live in a banana republic. And that's what
this is. This is real Banana republic stuff. So it
is our moment of fuck Ray. That's it for this
episode of Fast Politics. Tune in every Monday, Wednesday, Thursday

(01:02:47):
and Saturday to hear the best minds and politics make
sense of all this chaos. If you enjoy this podcast,
please send it to a friend and keep the conversation going.
Thanks for listening.