Chuck Todd analyzes the sweeping tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump, discussing their historic impact. He argues that free trade has made America safer and more prosperous and predicts significant political backlash for Trump and Republicans. He outlines key political developments to watch in the coming months, highlighting an opportunity for Democrats to regain control in Washington. He also examines how Trump’s promised tax cuts are now at risk, and why his presidency will be even more challenging.Timeline:0:00 Introduction3:20 America has benefitted massively from global trade 4:20 The last time we had a similar tariff regime, it led to WW25:48 What political fallout will come from the tariffs?6:32 Could congress take tariff authority back?8:25 What to watch for the next 3-6 months9:18 Trump faces huge blowback from older voters10:18 The tariffs will tank Trump’s approval rating11:52 Elected Republicans will be vulnerable13:36 Trump has no guardrails15:13 Alienating allies and partners will be incredibly damaging16:39 The Republican party is courting disaster19:46 Trump’s tax cuts are in jeopardy21:05 Getting rid of the tariffs won’t solve the problem21:50 If Democrats win the house, congress will take the tariffs keys away from the mad king
Full Episode
Welcome to a little special edition of the Chuck Todd cast specifically for my YouTube subscribers. And so this is what I want to deal with this morning on this Friday morning, which is a question I've already been getting over the last 40, 24 hours, which is simply. What do all these tariffs mean for us politically? So look, here's here's what we do know at the moment. This is not going to go.
This does not look like it's going to go very well. You have this kind of economic shock to the system, this kind of, you know, record breaking falls in the stock market. It's the type of story that everybody pays attention to. This is not the type of stories that it's just people that are invested in the stock market or just wealthy people invested in the stock market. This is a global story.
This is arguably the lead story in every major news organization around the world because these tariffs have impacted everybody. So, look, I think a few things here that we both overestimated with Trump and underestimated with Trump. And it has to do with the idea that he's a transactional guy.
And the assumption was, and frankly, this is what many in the business community, because Donald Trump campaigned on this. He said he was going to do this. He has believed in tariffs. It goes back to 1987. Back in 1987, when Roger Stone was trying to help create Donald Trump, the politician, Donald Trump bought a full page ad in The New York Times.
I believe it was The New York Times, may have been The Post, Times and Journal, actually, but it was definitely a full page ad. That talked about how Japan was ripping off America and that Japan or trade deficit. And, you know, we had idiot negotiators. If you recall, in 1987, Ronald Reagan was president. So it he in some ways, Donald Trump, who doesn't have much of an ideology. Right.
He was one time pro-choice and now he's pro-life and all these things. If there's one issue he has been consistent on, it's this belief that the American economy should all be sort of within the borders of America. So he does, I think, this is one of his actual core beliefs, that this is the way the system should work, that there should be more manufacturing in the country, that if you have
And he sees everything through this binary way. There's winners and losers. And America's the winner, so therefore they shouldn't have trade deficits with anybody. People should have trade deficits with America, but it shouldn't be the other way around. So he's somebody that doesn't really, you know, if I were a critic, I'd say he doesn't understand the global economy. But he certainly doesn't...
I would say he doesn't really, he doesn't buy into this idea that the global economy has been a success. I, for the life of me, I don't see how people don't look, why most people don't understand that if you essentially look from post-World War II to now, America's written the rules for the global economy, and it has benefited America immensely.
still the wealthiest nation, still, you know, and I say little things, go to any other country and ask yourself if you'd rather live there or here when it comes to simple things like the mail service or the quality of toilet paper, nevermind the availability of goods and services, the availability of the fact that we do have a lot more cheap goods available to us.
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