Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
Trump’s Trade War vs. Hollywood (feat. Sen. Chris Murphy)
Tue, 06 May 2025
The economy’s on edge, Trump’s tariffs are targeting Hollywood, and there’s chaos in the West Wing as Mike Waltz is out—and Marco Rubio is somehow doing four jobs at once. Plus, Senator Chris Murphy joins to break down the GOP’s sweeping budget cuts, the Democratic response, and whether voters are finally starting to pay attention. Follow Jessica Tarlov, @JessicaTarlov. Follow Prof G, @profgalloway. Follow Raging Moderates, @RagingModeratesPod. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Chapter 1: What is the economic backdrop of Trump's tariffs?
In today's episode of Raging Moderates, we're discussing the economy is one quarter away from a possible recession. Mike Waltz gets pushed out. Trump says he doesn't know if he has to uphold due process. And we have one of our favorites, Senator Chris Murphy, joining us to talk about the GOP budget bill and what Democrats are doing to message the possible harms to Americans.
All right, let's get into it. We've got our first major shakeup in the West Wing. Trump has ousted National Security Advisor Mike Walz, best known for launching the world's most famous group chat, and nominated him as U.N. ambassador. OK, so you're fired, but you get a free toaster.
Chapter 2: Why was Mike Waltz ousted from the West Wing?
Yeah, you get a demotion.
Chapter 3: Can Marco Rubio handle multiple roles in the administration?
Yeah, that's it. Stepping in, at least for now, is a jack of all trades and master of none, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who will now be juggling four top-level roles in the administration. Meanwhile, the White House is touting strong April job numbers, but the economy shrunk in the first quarter, and Trump's tariffs really haven't really fully kicked in yet.
One of them, 100% tariff on foreign-made movies, which he claims is a national security issue. Yeah. Huh, okay. He's also warning of higher prices and toy shortages this holiday season and says he's okay with that. All right, got banging porn stars that has a tacky 757 laced in four-karat gold that calls every other day. He should lecture us about consumption. Trump's new budget
proposes $163 billion in cuts to education, health, and the environment while boosting law enforcement and border security. He also floated reopening Alcatraz as a symbol of law, order, and justice and said he's unsure whether due process rights must be honored during these mass deportations, though he'll follow the Supreme Court's lead. He hasn't so far.
Chapter 4: How will Trump's tariffs affect Hollywood?
All this comes as Trump and GOP leaders ramp up for the midterms, warning that a Democratic majority could bring a third impeachment, something they're hoping will rally the MAGA base. Jess, let's start with Waltz and the shakeup. Why do you think he was pushed out and how realistic is it for Rubio to wear all those hats?
So someone had to go. And Trump invested so much in getting Pete Hegseth through the confirmation process that it was...
increasingly looking like it had to be waltz and he didn't want to do anything within the first hundred days because even though it's kind of a made-up marker i think he wanted to say you know no problems for the first hundred days besides the fact that everyone thinks that you're bringing us into a recession so that seems like a pretty good problem big problem
But that's how it kind of ended up being Waltz. And I keep thinking about the management of Signalgate after it first happened. And you know how Trump came out pretty quickly and he said, Mike's learned his lesson. And I think I've mentioned this before on the program that I'm part of a foreign policy group with Waltz. And he's a very nice man.
Smell you.
No, I just, I don't know if there's like conflict of interest.
I'm a member of Shamargo, the new hot members club downtown.
That's pretty cool. Taylor Swift went there. That's cooler than knowing Mike Waltz.
Me and Taylor.
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Chapter 5: What are the potential repercussions of the 100% movie tariff?
What's your take?
It's so hard to try and decide who was most ripe to be fired. I mean, Waltz did invite... It's just so hilarious that they're not, you know, that the real sin here wasn't a breach of national security that put our servicemen and servicewomen at risk. And, you know, as I've referenced before, if you get pulled over for a DUI, it means you've likely driven drunk an average of 80 times.
I mean, what else has gone on here? Right. I think it should have been Hegseth, but he likes the way Hegseth looks. He's been more combative on TV. I agree with you. And then the real crime was having the phone number, the contact information of who's seen as a progressive journalist. That was the real sin. So they needed a blood offering.
I actually got to say, I don't think it's gotten much attention. You know, I think they kind of accomplished what they wanted. I think it's poor leadership to say, oh, here, you go do this now. I just thought that was, and you an ambassador. I mean, talk about, talk about that's like what they did with Carrie Lake. Now she's in charge of what, Radio Free Europe as they cut funding for it.
It reminds me of, did you ever see the movie Broadcast News with William Hurt and Holly Hunter? Just a wonderful film. And Julia, I forget her name. She played a Bond girl. She played Holly Goodhead in one of the Bond films. And she was in the movie Broadcast News. And she's a competitive threat for William Hurt's affections to Holly Hunter.
And Holly, who's the assigning producer, basically sends her to do stories in Alaska. So she still has a job, but she's in Alaska. I feel like Carrie Lake and now Mike Waltz, or in Alaska, if you will.
So, Laura Loomer, who, you know, self-describes as an investigative journalist, but is really just a crackpot, and Trump loves her, and they've had to get her away from him, essentially, because she fills his head with even more craziness, apparently played a key role in Waltz's ouster. And her big thing is that Trump, in order to effectuate his agenda, needs to be surrounded by true believers.
And Waltz is not a true believer. He's a convert. And Marco Rubio is a convert as well, though it seems like he's, you know, making the cut in very serious ways now that he has, like, four jobs or something like that. But Laura Loomer, you know, she posted on X after Waltz was kicked out and just wrote Loomered. So, you know, take your victory lap. But she said something that I thought was...
Right, and that we should keep in mind as we're evaluating the administration as it unfolds. If there's anything that's going to torpedo Donald Trump and his agenda after he survived indictments and mugshots and multiple assassination attempts, it's going to be the vetting crisis and unforced errors of his administration. Contrary to what's been said, he doesn't hire the best people.
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Chapter 6: How could Trump's policies lead to stagflation?
No, I think there's something about that Galloway charm that really just really started to scare the shit out of her.
She's probably full of regret now.
Oh, can you imagine? I mean, I host a successful podcast now. Look, speaking of the tariffs, what do you make of this 100% or proposed 100% tariff on foreign movies coming into the U.S.?
It's totally batshit. I mean, we have a $15.3 billion trade surplus now. On Hollywood. That's the thing. Like when the Australians said, excuse me, you have a trade surplus. And I think it was Senator Warner was asking Jameson Greer, the trade representative, about that in particular.
And he said, well, how does this make any sense if we have a surplus, if his idea is that we have to be even Stevens about everything? And the trade representative had no answer because there is no answer beyond Peter Navarro was the only one who satisfied this tariff itch that Trump had.
And I don't know if you saw in the Wall Street Journal, so we're recording this on Monday morning, Scott Besant has an op-ed out. So now he is trying to do damage control. And... he's defending the strategy. He says Trump has this coherent three-pronged strategy that will benefit Main Street because their obsession is saying that this is for the little guy, tariffs, tax cuts, and deregulation.
And to the average Republican, that does sound good as long as the tariffs aren't the way that we're doing it. They love tax cuts and deregulation. But it's all anchored in a complete misread of what the tariffs are doing to our economy and also what these 2017 tax cuts were.
And Republicans, I get this all the time at work where they say the 2017 tax cuts benefited everybody, but they don't talk about the level of benefit that it had. So 81% of the tax benefits from the 2017 cuts went to the top 10% and 24% to the top 1%.
So just because the average person got another $800 in their bank account as a result of this doesn't mean that it still wasn't this massive giveaway to the ultra wealthy. And I was watching Bloomberg TV, which I don't do very often, but I thought, oh, they're probably going to have people on that are making a lot of sense and understand this a lot better than me.
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