Trump, Tariffs, TACO, & Tesla with David Pivnick of McGuireWoods LLP 6-4-25
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What are the key economic issues discussed?
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. We're talking today with one of our most brilliant guests. He joins us regularly with David Pivnik, who's a partner at McGuire Woods. He also is the valedictorian of his law school class. He represents healthcare systems, healthcare companies, often in false claims cases, defending them, guiding them. He also works with private equity funds who invest in healthcare and trying to assess potential claims and challenges. A really bright guy. We're going to go off script today a little bit and talk about some of the issues of the day. We're in a fascinating economic situation. We've got... New jobs created this month, the worst in a long time, but open jobs still pretty high.
At the same time, the stock market is up. There's this new discussion, and today's discussion is really going to be around the four Ts. Taco, Trump, tariffs, Tesla. I really want Elon Musk there, but he's not a T, but Tesla's a T. But David, they've talked about this thing called taco, which is this concept or the narrative putting forth by pundits that President Trump
What does TACO mean in the context of Trump?
Trump attacks, then chickens out, and they use that to describe some of these trade negotiations. He makes a lot of noise, but maybe the bark is bigger than the bite. Any sense of this? I mean, you've watched a million negotiators over the course of your career, a lot of negotiators dealing with high-stakes litigation. What's your sense of that? Is that just a bad – take on what's going on, or is there truth to that? Or do you have any feel for how you view this new narrative, Trump attacks and chickens out? Any thoughts there?
Yeah, I'll start with it from a bit of a side angle, which is I find the whole attack on that front and the coining of the phrase taco, you know, one part clever and one part incredibly stupid. The one part that's clever about it is Clearly, the folks who are pushing it recognize fully that it's the kind of thing that will get under President Trump's skin, will irritate him, will make him unhappy. And they're doing it, clearly, to tweak him and to get under his skin. And so from that standpoint, you can see how it's a little bit clever because they're sort of succeeding politically. in their goal. The flip side of that is the very people who are doing that are the same people who in the next breath would tell you what they don't like about President Trump is that he's mercurial and unpredictable and potentially will lash out. It seems weird to criticize the tariffs and criticize the approach and then do something that is almost affirmatively prodding President Trump
to take stronger action to avoid the taco name sticking. I feel like the very folks who are upset about tariffs and how things have played out are creating a situation where they're almost priming the pump for President Trump to take a harder stand. So from that standpoint, I find it just... Clever in part, but almost too clever by half or too cute by half, where they're potentially going to make the problem they're worried about worse.
by being provocative in terms of the actual... But let me ask you a question about that, because I think that's exactly right. It's almost like waving the matador in front of the bull to try and get the bull to go. But is your sense that they don't really care? They're more interested in the excitement and what happens here than they are about what really happens. I mean, it seems like... They find that in itself half the fun of it, it seems like to me, at least for part of the pundits. I agree with you 100%. They're going to force Trump to take a harder line so he's not viewed as a chicken or not viewed as sort of pulling back. But what's your sense? I think you're right. It might inflame him. But in terms of the pundits, I guess it's hard to tell.
But I sense that they don't really care that much.
You might be right, and that's not a point I would argue. What I would say is if that's the case and you are right, I find that disappointing and somewhat intellectually bankrupt of those folks, because it's folks who are, again, fundamentally opposed to President Trump. And I think the most typical criticism that I hear about President Trump is some variation of
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
What are the key economic issues discussed?
0:00–1:11
2
What does TACO mean in the context of Trump?
1:11–10:13
3
How do tariffs affect the economy?
10:13–15:14
4
What are the implications of Trump's negotiation tactics?
15:14–16:24
5
How do media narratives influence political actions?
9:03–16:24
Speakers
1 identifiedMore from Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
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