As Donald Trump's insane tariffs plunge America further into a trade a war, the MAGA faithful—with a few notable exceptions—fan out to defend Dear Leader. Meanwhile, Trump says he'd love to send Americans to El Salvador's mega-prison, anti-Trump protests sweep the country, and President Obama speaks out for the first time since the inauguration. Jon, Lovett, and Tommy discuss Republicans' new "suck it up" message on the economy, why Democrats should talk more about Trump's deportations, and how Interior Secretary Doug Burgum likes his cookies. Then, Lovett negotiates the intellectual rationale and practical impact of Trump's tariffs with conservative economist Oren Cass. For a closed-captioned version of this episode, click here. For a transcript of this episode, please email [email protected] and include the name of the podcast.
Chapter 1: What are the effects of Trump's tariffs on the US economy and global markets?
We're also going to talk about how the resistance to Trump is finally showing some life. There were huge protests all over the country this weekend. Barack Obama also spoke up for the first time since Trump's inauguration. Then Lovett talks to Oren Kass, one of the intellectual godfathers of Trump's tariff regime.
I called him the architect.
He didn't like that. He didn't like it? Big, big week for him. Yeah. Big week for him. Speaking of tariffs, we will start there since that is the biggest story in the world right now. Our last pod together was right before Liberation Day. And boy, has that left a mark. Yeah. Remember life before Liberation Day?
Barely. Liberated some stool for some traders, you know. Stuhl. Stuhl. Wow. I don't know what else to say.
Speaking of Stuhl, here's just a small sampling of recent headlines. Wall Street Journal. Trump's tariffs wipe out over $6 trillion on Wall Street in epic two-day route. The Economist, Trump's trade war threatens a global recession. Fox Business, after Trump tariffs, JP Morgan raises chance of recession to 60%.
CNBC, quote, this is the Trump recession, CEOs say, with price increases, job losses coming. Seems bad, but our boy isn't worried. Trump spent the weekend hosting a Saudi-backed golf tournament at his beach club in Florida. And good news, the White House put out a statement saying the president did win his second round matchup of the senior club championship.
Senior club.
I don't know what happened in the finals.
They showed his swing. His swing looks like dog shit. Really?
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Chapter 2: How do Trump's tariffs impact international relations and specific countries like Vietnam and Lesotho?
Lesotho, Derek Thompson wrote about this, and I think for... Because... What we didn't talk about was the trade deficit part because we didn't know about the whole crazy formula last week. So for people who might not understand what we mean by the trade deficit and how it's based on that, Derek wrote a piece in The Atlantic about this. He said,
Because Lesotho citizens are too poor to afford most U.S. exports, while the U.S. imports $237 million in diamonds and other goods from the small landlocked nation, we have reserved close to our highest possible tariff rate for one of the world's poorest countries. The notion that taxing Lesotho gemstones is necessary for the U.S.
to add steel jobs in Ohio is so absurd that I briefly lost consciousness in the middle of writing this sentence.
There's also this whole idea that a trade deficit means other countries are screwing you. There are a lot of I'm not an economist. I talked to Oren about this a bit. There's a lot of reasons we have trade deficits with with countries. Sometimes it's because we import their fossil fuels.
Sometimes it's because they do have unfair practices to try to using their own industrial policies to grow their manufacturing base. But overall, it's because we're the biggest, richest country around.
And so how do we expect smaller, poor countries to buy more stuff from us than we buy from them?
Listen, I don't know if you guys are history buffs, but I don't think of Vietnam as a country we've been taking shit from. I don't view it as a place like, finally, we're going to get back at those Vietnamese. What are you talking about?
But to me, I'm glad you brought up Vietnam, because the most confusing part of this is the China piece to me. Because if China is the primary concern, if China is the problem, why aren't we focused on China? Why are we tariffing the shit out of Vietnam? Because in Trump's first term, the tariffs on China convince a bunch of industries to slowly move manufacturing to Vietnam. We liked that.
The Biden administration in 2023, they've signed a big security deal with Vietnam because everyone used Vietnam as a critical partner in dealing with China. But Trump just slapped a 46% tariff on Vietnam that will put 5.5% of the country's entire GDP at risk. We're going to crush their economy. Why?
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Chapter 3: What are the political challenges and Congressional responses to Trump's tariff authority?
There are whole parts of the country that exist in a kind of permanent recession because of the hollowing out of whole different parts of our economy. Joe Biden cared about this a lot. The inflation reduction act The CHIPS Act, the infrastructure bill, a lot of this was about trying to create an industrial policy to reinvest in American manufacturing.
This is just so stupid that it is just it is so counterproductive. And there's all these reports out of Michigan. These auto parts suppliers and companies in the supply chain of making cars, we're going to have to shut down production because people cannot afford to make these cars without raising the price by $10,000, $20,000. And consumers can't afford that big difference.
They're just not going to buy fucking cars.
Well, it's like what Tommy was just saying about Jesse Waters. All these people who are saying... Well, suck it up. You got to take some pain and take the medicine and this is going to work long term. They're all fucking rich.
What if you're on fixed income?
Yeah, they don't care.
What if you're about to retire?
Donald Trump and Scott Besson and all these people, they're fine with a little economic pain. Donald Trump, he's not running for re-election again.
We have no idea what Donald Trump was doing with his money in the days before he knew he was going to fucking set this bomb off in the global economy.
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Chapter 4: How are Trump supporters and prominent conservatives reacting to the trade war fallout?
These sort of like guy influencers where it hurts in their in their wallets and they're reacting to it. And they're also like they're desperately trying to find some method to the madness, but they can't because there isn't really any. And, you know, that doesn't mean that like they're all flocking from Trump yet or they're liberals yet.
But I do like Portnoy in his long, nuanced rants today about this was like, I support the broader principles Trump is talking about. But if this is still happening by the midterms, like I'm gone, I'm voting Democrat.
I mean, the polling is, you know, it's getting worse for Trump, but it's still early days and polling always tells you about like what people felt like three weeks ago. So let's see what the next couple of weeks bring.
But John Byrne Murdoch at the Financial Times, he had a thread of charts that sort of gathered all the data from like the economic surveys and the Michigan consumer surveys and all that. And a couple of interesting points from that. Number one, Trump has had the same impact on economic uncertainty as the global pandemic. Right.
Number two, the share of adults who have a negative opinion of government's economic policy is the highest it's ever been in the United States. That is higher than the 2007 financial crisis. That's from the University of Michigan's Consumer Sentiment Survey. And then the third one is there are similar peaks in the percentage of people who expect the economy to deteriorate.
who expect their own finances to deteriorate and who expect like higher levels of inflation. And that that the inflation number is as high as it was during the peak of the higher prices under Biden. So it's getting bad.
It's we're not even like. There's so much kind of rationalizing and kind of intellectualizing. We're not doing it, but even we are just sort of, I think, this is the dumbest thing a president has done in our lifetime. We have never seen a president do something this destructive. It is very hard for one person. Certainly with regard to the economy.
I was going to say the Iraq war is way up there.
I'm saying people say Herbert Hoover and but like no one has single handedly by their own decision, no president caused this much economic.
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Chapter 5: What is the controversy surrounding the deportation of American citizens to El Salvador's prisons?
The federal judge in the case called it a, quote, grievous error that, quote, shocks the conscience. And this is from the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals unanimous decision, which called the move unconscionable. Quote, So the Trump DOJ has appealed to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court has said, OK, we will ask for a response from Garcia's lawyer by late Tuesday afternoon.
So they sort of pushed the deadline. The deadline was supposed to be midnight Monday night. So the Supreme Court will hear this. The DOJ also suspended the career prosecutor, who represented them in court for this hearing after he basically admitted to the judge that Garcia shouldn't have been deported and didn't have answers as to why he was.
This is a prosecutor who Trump's DOJ had just promoted a couple weeks ago for his good work on sanctuary cities. So this is not a career servant, deep state liberal squish, you know. There was also a 60 Minutes report on Sunday that found 75% of the Venezuelan men who the government has imprisoned in El Salvador with no hearings had no criminal records at all.
Just tattoos that ICE, in most cases, wrongly assumed were connected to the Tren de Aragua gang. The White House response to all this has basically been we don't give a fuck. Over the weekend, they tweeted an AI-generated Studio Ghibli meme of a J.D. Vance quote. What a sentence. Quote, we do not ask permission from far-left Democrats before we deport illegal immigrants.
And here's what Trump himself said on Sunday when asked about an offer from Salvadoran dictator Bukele to house American citizens at his prisons.
Well, I love that. If we could take some of our 20-time wise guys that push people into subways and that hit people over the back of the head and that purposely run people over in cars, if you would take them, I'd be honored to give them. I don't know what the law says on that, but I can't imagine the law would say...
anything different if they can house these horrible criminals for a lot less money than it costs us i'm all for it but i'd only do uh according to the law but i have suggested that you know why should it stop just to people that cross the border illegally we have some horrible criminals american grown and born he loves that she loves that he doesn't want to follow the law even though he's not following the law so far but he does want to follow the law
There was a concurrence, the Wilkerson concurrence, where he basically lays out- In the Court of Appeals. In the Court of Appeals, that lays out just the simplicity of the stakes, which is worth mentioning. The government has admitted they made a mistake in one of these cases. They have made many mistakes that they're refusing to admit and lying about, which is its own- huge problem.
But they've admitted they made a mistake. And instead of fighting to free this person, they're fighting the courts that are saying they have to free this person. And what the concurrence says is, if the government can take someone from this country and put them in a foreign prison without any due process.
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Chapter 6: How is the Trump administration responding to legal challenges about deportations?
And even if they know they were wrong to do it, say they have no recourse and that the courts have no recourse to force the government to try to bring this person home.
Also, this is now the third time that Trump has mused about sending American citizens to this foreign gulag. He did it during the end of the campaign once, because I remember like seeing the clip and being like, what the fuck is he talking about? Did everyone see that? And then it just sort of, you know, It was the end of the campaign. So no one pay attention.
Then remember, he was asked about Tesla vandalism and whether he would deport some of the the American grown American citizens who might be, you know, accused and convicted of terrorizing Tesla dealerships to El Salvador. And he said that sounded like a good idea. And now he just said he loves that.
Well, I don't remember the campaign piece, but Bukele pitched this idea in February when Marco Rubio went there. He was like, we offer the U.S. that we outsource part of their prison system, including for American prisoners, for a low, low fee. And Rubio called it an act of extraordinary friendship and said he would brief Trump on it. So I imagine that stuck with him.
i just there's been like shockingly little reaction to this and i i don't know what you guys what is it all about like do people think trump's not serious do they think the courts would be able to stop him or do people just think oh it won't happen to me i don't think anyone's hearing this there's just too much going on i mean the stock markets are melting down there's a trillion stories today i just don't get i don't think these gaggles are making it to people yeah yeah i also there's a
I think there is a little bit of, if we're talking about immigration, we're losing. I think that's in there for some of these Democrats. And I think that that's wrong. I think part of it also is there is a helplessness, which is, okay, I speak out about this. I think this is awful. I think it is terrible. It has to play out through the courts.
It has to, like, you know, the process, the lawyers, what I can't, Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
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Chapter 7: What are the implications of Trump suggesting sending American criminals to El Salvador's prisons?
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you.
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Chapter 8: Why is there limited public reaction to Trump's immigration and deportation policies?
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you.
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Yeah, he had this the other part of that right where the quote that you were talking about. He was like, there's this idea and I've noticed this among some wealthier folks who after George Floyd, they were right there and a bunch of companies were talking about how they cared about diversity and they wanted to do this and they were all for that. They're mute now.
What that tells me it's not it was okay when it was cool and trendy and when it's not not so much. And I think we all have to examine like what we're willing to do.
Yeah, look, these, their values are being tested. Their values as institutions are being tested. And a lot of these law, we've talked about this, these law firms, they are, you know, they have good values in certain respects. They are craven corporations and others, as are many institutions. The colleges too, they have their, you know, intellectual principles, their, you
great academic liberal spirit. And then they have the fact that they are giant financial institutions beholden to trustees and alumni. And those things are in conflict in some of these places. And when those values are being tested, they're caving. And you think someone like Doug Emhoff is at one of these firms. He's at one of these firms.
And Kamala Harris is giving speeches about the importance of doing everything we can. Doug Emhoff recently talked about how important it is to do everything we can, wherever we can. He said he got outvoted. And that must sting. It must sting to get outvoted.
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