David Brancaccio

Tariffs, strict border policy, persistently high interest rates.

Maurice Rahming, president of O'Neill Construction Group in Portland, Oregon, sees it all.

He does subcontracting, often electrical, for commercial building projects.

Mr. Rahming, welcome back.

Thank you for having me, David.

All right, just as a baseline here, how's it feeling to you in your line of work?

Is it busier?

Is it quieter?

What are you seeing?

So what's your sense of why a little slower from your perspective?

I mean, what uncertainty?

You said interest rates.

Some people point to shifting tariff policy.

You presumably use quite a bit of metal in the things that your people install.

Some of that's got to be steel, some of that's got to be aluminum.

All that has tariffs if it's imported.

Contractor Maurice Rahming is president of O'Neill Construction Group out of Portland, Oregon.

Thank you so much for your time.

Tomorrow here, we delve into a disturbing development Roming is seeing in his line of work, the cost of his workers leaving his employ because they get bullied, Roming says, by random jerks they encounter who wrongly think his workers are undocumented immigrants.

What he describes are not official checks by ICE or Border Patrol, but amateur bigots hassling construction workers.