Vaughn Hilliard
speaker
55 appearances
3 recordings
3 series
first heard Feb 2025
last heard 26 Sep
Vaughn Hilliard’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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Appearances
And I think it's important to know who is actually having this conversation in the Oval Office. We cannot move away from the point. that while he was preparing to make these Rose Garden remarks yesterday, it was Laura Loomer who was there inside of the Oval Office with him. And why is that important? Because she is a preeminent conspiracy theorist who has no regard for basic facts and the truth.
And the fact that those, when we look at the history books at this moment, On April 2nd at the White House, the fact that such an announcement like that was made at the same time that Laura Loomer was in the Oval Office with him is striking.
And I think it goes to the fact that there are serious questions from economists about exactly what the endgame here is in how the president perceives his own economic policy and its impact on people.
No. And as opposed to the first administration, the likes of Dina Powell or Gary Cohn, who were there by the president's side. I think that's where it's important when you're looking at somebody like Susie Wiles, the chief of staff to the president of the United States. She was heralded as a successful campaign manager. You know why she was successful? Why Republicans loved Susie Wiles?
Because she was not a true gatekeeper to Donald Trump. She allowed everybody to have his ear. And ultimately, Donald Trump ran his campaign. She is now the chief of staff. And what we are watching in these first two and a half months of this administration is yet again the full access to the president himself. And he is the one who is calling these shots.
And as he promised, he surrounded himself by people in this cabinet who knew what they were signing up for this go around. He was promising on the campaign trail tariffs on China of up to 60 percent. That is exactly what he's now implementing. And he had people like Howard Lutnick there at Madison Square Garden the week before the election on the stage celebrating those tariffs.
And I think notably, Eamon, convincing a great share of this American population, millions of Americans, including one I just got off the phone with, that this is the right path forward in that short term pain is the president is telling them that they are about to endure, whether it be from the farms or from the brewery or over at their local store or the 401k being wiped out today.
That short-term pain is going to be worth it in the end. And there are millions of Americans that voted in that belief and now are expecting him to come through. The question is, that first administration, he had tariffs on Canada and Mexico for nine months. He had tariffs on China for 18 months.
This is not a president who has ever shown a willingness to back down or acknowledge that he was wrong.
I think when we're talking about individuals and allies of Donald Trump, I think that so many of the stories that we are looking at, including this one, come down to who is that nucleus around Donald Trump. And one other name that I would throw out there would be Charlie Kirk.
And the reason I bring up Charlie Kirk is because one year ago, I, along with a few other NBC colleagues, reported a story in which Charlie Kirk, the right-wing provocateur and ally of Donald Trump,
He had put out in the public sphere on a podcast that he was concerned when he got on airplanes when he saw a black pilot because he questioned whether they were hired because of DEI hiring initiatives and not because they were qualified.
And at that time, there were some allies of Donald Trump's, including RNC Chairman Ron McDaniel, who went directly to then candidate Donald Trump with that specific remark. And they wanted to make sure that Donald Trump heard that because they thought that he would not want Charlie Kirk around him because of that.
that suggestion that somehow black camp pilots were not qualified to be flying in America.
And instead, one year later, when I heard those remarks from the White House, it took me back to that story one year ago, because instead of Donald Trump pushing Charlie Kirk away, he fundamentally embraced that very ideology of questioning the aviation industry and the extent to which individuals are in it, whether they be pilots or air traffic controllers or even members of the military, because of DEI hiring initiatives.
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