Raging Moderates: The Price of Trump’s Trade War

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0:01:16 Hey, this is Peter Kafka.
0:01:20 I’m the host of Channels, a podcast about technology and media
0:01:23 and how they’re both changing all the time.
0:01:27 And this week, I’m trying to figure out how Donald Trump is changing the media
0:01:30 in Washington, in the courtroom, and in the boardroom.
0:01:33 On to help me figure it all out is Sarah Fisher,
0:01:37 the excellent Washington-based media reporter for Axios.
0:01:42 That’s this week on Channels, wherever you get your favorite podcasts.
0:01:49 Welcome to Raging Moderates.
0:01:50 I’m Scott Galloway.
0:01:51 And I’m Jessica Tarla.
0:01:52 Should I run for president, Jess?
0:01:54 It seems like the internets want you to.
0:01:55 Yeah?
0:01:56 Stack ranking.
0:01:58 Give me the pluses and the minuses.
0:01:59 The dog.
0:02:00 Dog 28.
0:02:01 A chicken in every pot.
0:02:03 A Cialis in every cupboard.
0:02:04 We’re going off script here.
0:02:06 I’m coming in hot.
0:02:07 What do you think?
0:02:08 Give me the negatives first.
0:02:09 I can take it.
0:02:11 I’m thick-skinned, although I may never speak to you again the rest of my life.
0:02:11 Go ahead.
0:02:12 Oh, well, that would be a bummer.
0:02:15 I would hope that you could at least give me a low-level campaign position.
0:02:17 You’re going to be ambassador.
0:02:20 No, you’re going to head up, what is it, American Free Radio?
0:02:23 To the islands with the penguins that got a big tariff?
0:02:24 No, the one they just canceled.
0:02:26 You’re going to be my Carrie Lake.
0:02:29 I’ll send you to Voice of America and then fire you the next day.
0:02:31 I’ll put you in charge of Doge.
0:02:35 Just use sub-congressional authority and ramp up the spending on everything.
0:02:37 I like that.
0:02:39 I won’t be in it for that.
0:02:40 I’ll think about what position I would want.
0:02:45 But the big negative, I would think, would be your family.
0:02:48 I do not feel like they would be excited about this.
0:02:49 100% agree.
0:02:51 My son brought it up.
0:02:53 My 17-year-old came home, panicked, and said, are you running for president?
0:02:54 I said, no.
0:02:58 And my partner said, the only thing, she listed off about 15 reasons I shouldn’t.
0:03:02 Then the one she liked said, I’d like the outfits.
0:03:06 And see, that almost compensated for the 15 negatives.
0:03:08 Yeah, the outfits are pretty serious.
0:03:19 And if they’re now even dressing first ladies that they don’t like, imagine what she would have access to if the couture were available to her.
0:03:22 I mean, saving the country seems like a good thing.
0:03:32 I feel like we’re moving into a world in which a traditional politician is going to have a much harder time winning a primary.
0:03:41 At least there’s going to be a need for some pushback of someone with, like, real-world experience, also understands media very well, which you do.
0:03:48 And not to be too positive, I guess, at the beginning of the show, because I don’t want you to get too big for your britches in minute three.
0:03:50 It’s happened already.
0:03:51 I’m already there.
0:03:52 We’ve already arrived.
0:03:53 Dad, when are we getting there?
0:03:54 We’re here.
0:03:55 We are here.
0:04:07 But it does feel as if an abundance Democrat, because now we’re a cohort, is going to have, I don’t want to say a very easy time, because I think the primary is going to be super fierce.
0:04:20 But if you’re looking at where the electorate is and how people moved in 2024, it feels like someone that thinks like you slash Ezra Klein could do very well.
0:04:22 So, I mean, I’m excited.
0:04:26 And once I figure out what it is that I want to do for the campaign, that’s going to be very important.
0:04:28 Well, you’re clearly, at this point, you’re comms director.
0:04:30 If you bring up Ukraine, you’ll be secretary of defense.
0:04:32 We’re going to pivot back and forth.
0:04:33 This is all inspired.
0:04:39 I was on a college tour this week, and it was a really, really lovely and emotional week for me.
0:04:45 And I spoke at the University of Chicago at the Institute of Politics, run by David Axelrod, and he interviewed me.
0:04:48 And he said, what should Democrats do?
0:04:51 And I said, this is the platform Democrats should adopt.
0:04:55 And then everyone weighed in and said, you should run.
0:05:04 And then, over the weekend, I heard from all people or organizations, a guy who runs a law firm who’s very involved in democratic politics.
0:05:06 And this is how the sausage gets made, I guess.
0:05:09 And he said, I slash we will put in $10 million.
0:05:18 If you put in $10 million, that’ll get you the name recognition you need and get your ideas out there.
0:05:20 And we’ll see how you do, and we’ll go from there.
0:05:23 And I thought, that’s really interesting.
0:05:33 They clearly want people with money, but there’s a machine out there kind of behind the curtain working to identify candidates.
0:05:46 And it’s also sort of a signal of just how desperate things have become when they reach this far into the barrel that someone is willing to give me $10 million to announce I’m running for president and start putting my ideas out there.
0:06:01 Well, I think, and I don’t want to diminish the importance or the weight of this early ask, but I think that people are pretty smart about the fact that we’re going to spend several billion dollars on doing this.
0:06:08 Again, if it’s possible that they’re going to hit a winner or someone who at least can get the conversation started.
0:06:14 Remember when we were on the bulwark with Tim Miller and he said, like, why doesn’t someone just start running for president now?
0:06:22 And you could be that person because you’re not the governor of Pennsylvania right at this particular moment.
0:06:33 So I think a $10 million investment makes a lot of sense when they, A, could have someone who could go on and do it, and B, looking at the total haul that’s going to be spent on this.
0:06:34 So are you taking the money?
0:06:35 Are we going?
0:06:39 Well, first I’ll tell you what my platform is because I made it up on the spot.
0:06:42 I think our platform, I don’t think we can go back.
0:06:48 I think the current platform of we need to return to normal is not what Americans are looking for.
0:06:56 The right is coarse and mean and stupid, but the left is corporate elitists who tell us what we want to hear and then just continue in this grift that’s not helping Americans.
0:06:57 Can’t go back.
0:07:05 And my campaign or my platform that I thought the Democrats should adopt is very simple.
0:07:08 We all do this because we want to have purpose in our life.
0:07:09 We want to have meaning.
0:07:17 And the thing that is the source of that purpose and meaning, I think for most people, is the ability to partner with someone and raise children.
0:07:23 And I don’t think you have to do that to be happy, but I think that’s table stakes for the most prosperous nation in the world.
0:07:33 And so I would reverse engineer every policy up to this great unifying theory of everything, and that is young people should have the opportunity to meet and fall in love.
0:07:34 What does that mean?
0:07:49 National service, more freshman seats, more mental health, starting kids later, boys later, getting more funding in pre-K and education, putting a lot more money in their pockets, tax subsidies for third places.
0:07:59 Give more young people the opportunities, break up big tech, tax the shit, hold them liable for things that radicalize young men and sequester them for society.
0:08:02 Give people the chance to meet and fall in love.
0:08:07 And we don’t like to talk about it because it sounds sexist or weird, but not enough young people are getting together.
0:08:36 And then should they decide to have kids, table stakes, 7 million manufactured homes, which are 30% to 50% less expensive than homes built on site within six years, minimum wage of $25 an hour, every state that’s done it has grown their economy, stop the bullshit that it’s going to destroy jobs, tax holiday for people under the age of 40, such that young people, should they decide, can start the most meaningful, purposeful voyage in life.
0:08:43 And that is to have a family and should they decide not to have kids and spend that money on brunch and St. Bart’s more power to you.
0:08:49 But for me, that’s table stakes, and we should reverse engineer any policy that gets in the way of love.
0:08:56 If you can’t be in an emergency room or in a hospital room with someone because you’re the same sex, we do away with that law.
0:09:04 If you’re putting a family in poverty because you’re forcing a 16-year-old to carry a baby to term, no, we’re not going to lie.
0:09:09 We’re going to redo family court to try and get dads more involved in people’s lives.
0:09:11 And also, I’m a war hawk.
0:09:20 I’m just a big believer that the far left doesn’t understand that the moment people have the ability to take our Netflix and espresso away with violence, they will.
0:09:23 Anyways, love and prosperity, 2028.
0:09:24 What do you think?
0:09:24 I’m in.
0:09:26 I’m living it.
0:09:28 Well, a little bit less on the prosperity.
0:09:29 I see a vice president.
0:09:31 I see a vice president.
0:09:33 Oh, now I get upgraded?
0:09:34 Why not?
0:09:37 You’re literally more qualified than half the cabinet right now.
0:09:37 I mean.
0:09:38 You are.
0:09:39 Low bar, but thank you also.
0:09:41 I’m not sure about that.
0:09:42 Well, I don’t know.
0:09:44 I am a little bit sure of that at this particular moment.
0:09:55 But I’m looking forward to talking about your platform for the Democratic Party with our special guest of the live show, which is coming up next week.
0:09:56 He should run.
0:09:56 It’s Hakeem Jeffries.
0:09:57 Oh, Hakeem.
0:09:59 I was thinking Mark Cuban.
0:10:00 No.
0:10:01 He’d be amazing.
0:10:06 I think Mark Cuban has kind of the sauce in terms of witty banter and fleet of foot.
0:10:09 And also, he has the money, which unfortunately is hugely important.
0:10:11 Do you think Hakeem Jeffries should run for president?
0:10:18 I think Hakeem Jeffries is pretty busy right now, but I think it’s important that we tell our listeners that we have this amazing guest.
0:10:18 Oh, yeah.
0:10:19 He’s coming on with us.
0:10:20 Talk about that.
0:10:23 Well, we have our live show coming up on April 17th.
0:10:23 Sold out.
0:10:24 Sorry, folks.
0:10:24 You’re out.
0:10:25 Wait outside.
0:10:27 I might sign.
0:10:28 I might sign something.
0:10:31 I might say hi on the way out as I dash into my suburban.
0:10:33 Is that like a thing that people do at the Y?
0:10:35 They wait to sign autographs?
0:10:40 I’m expecting a suburban with one of the Kardashian sisters waiting inside adoringly for me.
0:10:45 That’s, you know, potential number, what am I, 48?
0:10:47 I should be dating a Kardashian.
0:10:50 You are the Benjamin Button of the podcasting world, huh?
0:10:51 That’s right.
0:10:53 I’m aging in reverse, 100%.
0:10:57 But Mark Cuban and Hakeem Jeffries are both probably in the top 10.
0:11:00 I haven’t heard Hakeem’s name a lot.
0:11:00 Really?
0:11:02 Is that because you’re not paying attention to politics?
0:11:03 Is that right?
0:11:06 Is that because I’m ignorant to all of this?
0:11:09 Yeah, the minority leader, the leader of the Democratic Party.
0:11:11 You’re not hearing a lot about him.
0:11:14 Is anyone hearing a lot from any Democrat right now?
0:11:15 Well, you were on school tour.
0:11:18 But anyway, we’re very excited to have him with us.
0:11:21 And it’s a big deal that he wanted to do it.
0:11:26 And we’ll see for those of you who can be there on the 17th, but you can also watch online.
0:11:31 There’s an option to buy tickets for that on the 92nd Street Y site.
0:11:32 Okay, Secretary of Commerce.
0:11:33 Oh, I’m sorry.
0:11:34 Be careful.
0:11:35 Pretty soon you’re going to be Secretary of Transportation.
0:11:37 Although you look great this morning.
0:11:38 I’m going to make you director of HHS.
0:11:40 Is that the good looking one?
0:11:46 Well, you got to think someone who’s in good shape and looks good should be, would be better than some anti-vax weirdo.
0:11:51 I mean, sure, but RFK Jr. is like not hot to me anymore, like post kids dying of measles.
0:11:55 I’m like, it’s overriding my attraction to him.
0:11:57 I mean, he looks great for his age, but all right, get into it.
0:11:58 He’s a good looking guy.
0:12:00 All right, let’s get into it.
0:12:05 Last week, President Trump shook global markets by announcing sweeping tariffs on nearly everything the U.S. imports.
0:12:15 In a Rose Garden appearance, he imposed a 10% baseline tariff on all countries and with much deeper rates for countries he called the worst offenders, including China, the EU, Japan, and South Korea.
0:12:20 Basically, our largest trading partners, if not our strongest allies.
0:12:26 China alone was hit with a 54% tariff and quickly responded with 34% of retaliatory tariffs.
0:12:28 Markets tanked.
0:12:35 The Dow posted its biggest back-to-back losses since March 2020 when the pandemic created, obviously, incredible uncertainty.
0:12:42 So it’s just important to note, we are now have the same level of uncertainty about what’s going to happen as when a global pandemic was killing,
0:12:47 when they had to have makeshift refrigerator trucks as morgues outside of Langone here in New York.
0:12:54 The S&P 500 entered bear market territory on Monday, and tech giants, including Apple and NVIDIA, were hit hard.
0:13:00 On top of that, Jess, a separate 25% tariff on foreign-made cars also took effect Thursday.
0:13:09 The Fed warns this could fuel inflation, and a Yale study estimates it’ll cost the average U.S. household over $2,000 a year, with low-income families hit hardest.
0:13:12 That’s usually U.S. economic policy.
0:13:19 And Congress is now pushing back with a bipartisan bill to limit the president’s power to impose tariffs without approval.
0:13:22 Jess, Trump has urged patience.
0:13:29 That’s the party line, that somehow he’s playing 40-chest, and we should just wait, and we’re taking some pain, but the pain will be worth it.
0:13:36 However, China’s slapping on a 34% retaliatory tariff, and the EU gearing up for its own responses.
0:13:39 Are we officially, do you think, in a full-blown trade war?
0:13:44 It feels, I mean, I’m looking forward to listening to your markets coverage again.
0:13:48 With that, I thought you guys did a great job on that episode that came out this morning.
0:13:55 It feels like someone formally has to declare that, someone more important than me, as I’m only the HHS secretary.
0:14:08 But it feels like we’re inching closer to it, and this level of whiplash is not comfortable for anyone but the true, true, truest of believers.
0:14:13 And it seems like even some of those people are just not having it anymore.
0:14:17 You kind of see top Trump defenders from the finance community.
0:14:22 Like, Bill Ackman has been having a meltdown on social media for the last few days.
0:14:28 He’s going after Lutnick, which I find that part pretty amusing in all of this.
0:14:38 But you have people like Stan Druckenmiller who tweeted, I guess this is not a regular occurrence for him, that he does not support tariffs in excess of 10%.
0:14:48 The Wall Street Journal wrote an article even about the fact that he had a tiny tweet just to say that people are taking his words out of context when he talked about the potential benefits of tariffs.
0:14:54 And, I mean, there were so many reactions to this that I found interesting.
0:15:05 But one in particular was the Singaporean prime minister who did a direct-to-camera, two-and-a-half, three-minute speech about what’s going on here.
0:15:12 And how this is a total shakeup to the global order and that this is not so bad for Singapore at this particular moment.
0:15:23 But as a country that relies heavily on trade, that they know now that we are entering a new, what do you say, arbitrary and protectionist phase, that America is not a reliable partner.
0:15:37 And he brought up the fact that when we did have a trade war in the 1930s, we ended up in armed conflict leading to World War II, which was a pretty scary forecasting to be hearing in all of this.
0:15:46 And, I mean, some things as a political strategist with, you know, I have a Ph.D. in political economy, but definitely politics more my business.
0:15:48 Remember, you’re going to be Secretary of State.
0:15:49 Oh, my God.
0:15:53 By the end of this, maybe I’ll be president and you can be my VP.
0:15:54 I’ll be comms director.
0:15:55 You just want to be comms director?
0:15:56 OK.
0:15:59 No, I’ll be like Billy Carter, just embarrassing you if you go.
0:16:03 No, you never embarrass me, or at least I wouldn’t admit that in such a public forum.
0:16:09 But I keep thinking about the job of government.
0:16:19 And we’ve this has been a theme in our conversations as, you know, we’ve gone the last six months and that the parties have a different vantage point on what role government is supposed to have in your life.
0:16:23 But fundamentally, we all agree that the government is supposed to protect us.
0:16:33 And Trump ran on that with the border, right, saying Biden opened it up and Harris was even the borders are and they did nothing about this policy.
0:16:36 And millions of people got in here.
0:16:42 Americans are dead as a result of undocumented people that came across the border during the Biden years, et cetera.
0:16:53 And I’m looking at an administration that tells you to keep holding the line when 62 percent of Americans own stocks or mutual funds.
0:16:57 This isn’t a problem only for the top 10 percent or something.
0:17:04 Scott Besant gave a big interview to Tucker Carlson and was making this out to be a rich person’s problem.
0:17:06 He did the same thing on the Sunday shows.
0:17:07 That is not true at all.
0:17:13 This is a middle class and upper middle class and certainly upper upper class problem.
0:17:27 But this collective F you to the majority of Americans who are not too dumb to understand what’s going on and are aware of the fact that also this calculation was based on a mistake.
0:17:33 There’s an incredible article from the conservative think tank, the American Enterprise Institute,
0:17:45 where they were the ones that figured out that they had done the equation improperly in determining what the tariffs are that led to that chart that they paraded out there that Ed was talking about on Prof G markets.
0:17:52 And people know it is not just about Nike doing more here or more auto plants here.
0:17:54 Like this is a small business problem.
0:18:08 The amount of small businesses in America that run off of cheap imports is in the millions and they can’t afford to pay a $500,000 tariff in order to stay in business.
0:18:16 This is going to wreck every sector of the economy if it keeps up like this.
0:18:19 And this morning there was and we should say it’s 11 a.m.
0:18:21 On Monday morning that we’re recording.
0:18:30 There was a rumor that Kevin Hassett from the president’s team had said that there was going to be a 90 day pause or they’re exploring a 90 day pause on everyone.
0:18:32 But China market jumped up.
0:18:35 Then the White House confirmed that that wasn’t the case.
0:18:37 And now the market is back down.
0:18:40 And how are we supposed to survive this?
0:18:46 Yeah, just to the point about playing the populist argument of like a small number of people.
0:18:54 I think the Dow and the Nasdaq are in fact terrible metrics because they give the illusion of prosperity and that everything’s fine.
0:18:58 So life expectancy has gone down for the last five years.
0:19:00 Our kids are more obese and anxious.
0:19:12 But we don’t have these really elegant metrics to track that that everybody talks about every day at the beginning of every news program if it goes up a lot or down a lot.
0:19:15 So we’ve decided that that’s more important.
0:19:18 And the argument they’re making is one they’ve never made before.
0:19:20 They didn’t make it until it was convenient.
0:19:27 But I do believe that the Dow and the Nasdaq are not an accurate reflection on the health and well-being of America.
0:19:27 They’re an indicator.
0:19:28 They’re a signal.
0:19:31 But people think, oh, market’s up 2%.
0:19:33 That means America is 2% better today.
0:19:34 No, that’s not true.
0:19:42 And there are reasons you would probably want to sacrifice or justify the long-term investment or tradeoff of the markets going down.
0:20:05 If we were to decide that people in the most prosperous nation in the world should not live in poverty if they work full-time and we need to create incentives for work and we need to buttress the American brand, which includes central to that, that we work, Americans work hard, and we raise minimum wage to $25 an hour, where it would be naturally if it had kept pace with productivity or inflation.
0:20:13 And McDonald’s and Walmart stock went down, and so did Chipotle, because they’re dependent upon labor at $12 or $15 an hour.
0:20:14 I think that would be worth it.
0:20:16 I think you could make the argument.
0:20:35 If we were to say we’re going to – these deficits are out of control and we need to be more responsible and stop taxing young people in the future and we’re going to substantially increase the tax rate on corporations, which are paying their lowest taxes since 1929, okay, I get it.
0:20:38 And the market would go down because I remember being on the board.
0:20:39 I was on the board of Dex Media.
0:20:43 I remember one quarter of them saying, we beat earnings by 30%.
0:20:44 And everyone was like, what?
0:20:45 What happened?
0:20:47 What good thing happened?
0:20:50 And they said, well, the Trump tax cuts just took effect.
0:20:51 And our stock went up.
0:21:05 So if you created a more progressive tax structure and took corporations back to, say, not even the median of what they’ve usually paid, but in the 30th percentile versus the lowest, which is where they are now, I think that’s worth it.
0:21:07 This is an own goal.
0:21:13 This is shooting yourself in the feet and then after recognizing what you’ve done, you take the gun and you put it in your mouth.
0:21:18 Lumber comes across or steel and aluminum comes across the border from Canada.
0:21:19 We tax it.
0:21:20 We collect some revenue.
0:21:27 But it makes it more expensive for our cars, which supposedly are going to go up $10,000 to $12,000 per car.
0:21:35 And aluminum that goes into everything, including a workout bench, including steel that you build in buildings, everything goes up in price.
0:21:39 So the demand for those products goes down so people can have less of them.
0:21:42 And then the other nation puts on reciprocal tariffs.
0:21:51 And Jack Daniels or Brown Foreman, one of the biggest companies, I think, in Kentucky, sells less and they make less money.
0:21:53 So our prices go up.
0:21:55 We make less money.
0:21:58 And the demand for our products goes down.
0:22:05 And the amount of money collected in the tariff is dwarfed by the loss in capital.
0:22:10 So this is just the oldest, this is the biggest un-goal or own goal since Brexit.
0:22:12 It’s an economy that’s $25 trillion.
0:22:15 So we’re taking everyone else down with us.
0:22:17 And it’s the definition of stupid.
0:22:20 Smart people help themselves while helping others.
0:22:23 That’s the basis of capitalism and, quite frankly, free trade.
0:22:26 We don’t want these manufacturing jobs back.
0:22:29 We are the second largest manufacturer in the world.
0:22:38 People don’t want to go back into a manufacturing facility and put on a hazmat suit or work with a robot doing repetitive tasks.
0:22:43 They would rather be in higher-paid service work or very high-end finished goods manufacturing.
0:22:45 We have purposely made these trade-offs.
0:22:48 Now, have we done a good job protecting the people outplaced?
0:22:49 No.
0:22:59 But this is a conscious decision to move to more higher-end, higher-margin, higher-paying lines of business in the service economy or very high-end manufacturing.
0:23:08 The other thing that people aren’t recognizing is that these tariffs are especially punishing on us.
0:23:09 And this is what people are missing.
0:23:13 Toyota trades at 0.6 times revenue.
0:23:16 Their market cap is equivalent to 0.6 times their top-line revenue.
0:23:19 Tesla trades at 8 times revenue.
0:23:26 So assume these tariffs sort of diminish each company’s revenues by a billion dollars.
0:23:32 That means the market capitalization that Toyota loses is $70 million.
0:23:36 The market cap that Tesla loses is $8 billion.
0:23:44 So just the general level of prosperity and wealth is massively decreased in America relative to other countries
0:23:48 because when they bring in a Mercedes, it trades at 0.23 times revenues.
0:23:54 When we export Meta or NVIDIA, NVIDIA trades at 24 times revenues.
0:24:05 So free trade is overly accretive to us because we’re selling them high-margin products and we’re importing low-margin products.
0:24:18 Every dollar we increase from selling our products abroad, we recognize a much greater increase in market capitalization and value and prosperity than when they lose a dollar.
0:24:29 This is the biggest own goal in history, maybe since we tightened the fiscal programs of 1929 and 30 and just made things worse.
0:24:30 What’s your thoughts?
0:24:31 I agree.
0:24:47 I mean, it all sounds reasonable to me the way that you’re putting it and it just runs completely counter to what Trump is saying, the quote-unquote goal of this, which is no more trade deficits, which is a complete impossibility.
0:24:59 We’re not set up anyway to be the kind of economy that you would need to be, a manufacturing economy, not less because we have to take, you know, two to three years to even build a factory.
0:25:06 But Larry Fink from BlackRock was speaking at the tariffs and he said, we don’t have the workers for this and we don’t have the interest in it.
0:25:25 Like to your point about people are not dying to go get an assembly line and you have the commerce secretary out there talking about how people can be the ones putting the screws in the iPhone, like as if that’s the goal for everybody who’s feeling like they’re getting a bad deal with the way the global economy is structured.
0:25:42 And I think as usual, I don’t want to say the fundamental problem, but at least a fundamental problem in what’s going on with this tariff strategy implementation is that nobody who’s speaking on behalf of the administration has the same story.
0:25:44 So Lutnik saying we want to reshore everything.
0:25:46 Besant wants more free trade deals.
0:25:48 Navarro wants to burn it all down.
0:25:53 Now Elon wants this robust free trade zone, right, an EU free trade zone.
0:25:56 So which official has the actual policy?
0:26:07 And, you know, I’m going back to the fact that it was all predicated on a mathematical error and the economists who they even whose paper is being cited in this have even now spoken out.
0:26:15 There’s have an op-ed in the New York Times saying they completely missed the point, which doesn’t surprise me at all about this administration and the kind of clown car that we have going on.
0:26:18 But what is the policy?
0:26:36 And if you were setting it, I’m curious as to what you would be doing about China, because I’ve been reading a lot, particularly in the FT, about how much China is pumping their products through other Asian countries,
0:26:44 particularly Vietnam, and that that’s the way that they’re going to try to get around any tariffing, also looking even to Mexico.
0:26:50 So they can kind of huff and puff and President Xi can say we’re going to have a retaliatory tariff to 34 percent.
0:27:00 But if China is the big dog problem in all of this for the U.S., how can they address that problem in particular?
0:27:05 Let’s use China as an example to bring it home down to a ground level.
0:27:06 Get this, Jess.
0:27:09 Seventy-seven percent of toys imported in the U.S. are imported from China.
0:27:14 As a result of the new tariffs, toy prices could jump as much as 50 percent.
0:27:15 Think about this.
0:27:20 Four-fifths of America is going to have half as many toys under the Christmas tree.
0:27:21 That’s what this president means.
0:27:23 You don’t think your kids are going to notice that?
0:27:27 Half as many toys this holiday.
0:27:29 And they do pay some tariffs.
0:27:30 I think it’s like 10 or 12 percent.
0:27:34 This is going to take those tariffs to 34 percent.
0:27:46 And the clowns of the Trump administration or Peter Navarro will say, well, actually, the company that we are exporting from that is sending their products into the U.S. will absorb those costs.
0:27:56 That would make them a monopsonist, meaning that they have so much power that essentially they’ve been able to dictate prices to this point.
0:28:03 And they can easily take the price down and still make a lot of profits if they could have if that were, in fact, the case, they would have already done it.
0:28:07 They would have already raised their prices and captured that additional revenue.
0:28:11 They will basically not have as much demand.
0:28:13 They will not lower their prices because they can’t.
0:28:14 They have to make a profit.
0:28:18 So the prices will go up and there’ll be less demand.
0:28:21 Now, 70 percent of people have hand to mouth.
0:28:24 So they’re not going to go, oh, toys are a little bit more.
0:28:26 But Trump has this master plan.
0:28:27 No biggie.
0:28:39 They will have to buy 20 percent less toys to meet the same Christmas budget, meaning that every kid in America, the family, is going to have eight toys under the Christmas tree, not 10.
0:28:43 This immediately impacts American consumers.
0:28:46 In addition, 40 million jobs in the United States.
0:28:49 And you think, well, it’s a big country, 350 million.
0:28:49 That’s not as bad.
0:28:52 Only 150 million people work.
0:28:58 So a quarter of workers, their jobs are directly linked, if not dependent, upon trade.
0:29:06 So this will have huge impact on unemployment, prosperity, inflation, prices.
0:29:08 And this leads me to one place.
0:29:15 And it sounds, I realize I’m going to sound a little bit Laura Loomerish, but just free your mind.
0:29:25 And that is, if somehow we had elected Putin as president and Xi as vice president, and they said, okay, what do we need to do with America to help us?
0:29:27 We need them out of Ukraine.
0:29:36 We need to fragment the alliances between the largest economies in the world that believe in democracies and pushing back on autocrats.
0:29:44 We need to thrust every large economy and trading partner into the arms of China, of me, Mr. Xi.
0:30:05 What would be different about the major policies that the Trump administration has implemented since inauguration than the policies that the Putin-Xi administration would be implementing had they been elected president and vice president of the United States?
0:30:35 And effectively, I believe, and I’m paranoid, it doesn’t mean I’m wrong, but he either has such weird acolytes and a cultish group around him that have bought into this cult of Trump, and he is really, really stupid, or they have taken advantage, Putin and Xi, of this ultimate grift, the Trump coin, where they essentially opened a Swiss banking account that people can put money in.
0:30:47 And it’s not disclosed and have called Trump and said, hey, I need you to figure out a way to get out of Ukraine, I’m losing, I’m losing, I’ve lost 800,000 people, it’s draining my military, it’s weakening me.
0:30:55 And Xi to say, I’d love for Japan and South Korea to get over their differences with us and start trading with us.
0:31:04 What would be different about America if it had been the Putin-Xi ticket than the Trump-Vance ticket?
0:31:09 It’s just, I mean, we don’t like to say that because we don’t want to be the pizza gate guys.
0:31:17 There is more legitimacy to the conspiracy I am outlining than any conspiracy they have put forward.
0:31:23 What would they do differently had they been elected president and vice president?
0:31:23 Your thoughts?
0:31:52 Well, I think that you’re touching on something that has become kind of omnipresent, I guess, in democratic circles or in buyer’s remorse circles as well about President Trump, which is the number of people, including first and foremost Hillary Clinton, who was on record, essentially calling every single thing that was going to happen through the first and beginnings of the second administration, save for the Abraham Accords, which I do think are a bright shining light in this.
0:32:01 And I’m not sure that President Xi and Vladimir Putin would have been as into that as Trump administration 1.0.
0:32:08 But you see, like, video circulating now of Mitt Romney calling it, saying we’re going to have a recession.
0:32:11 Kamala Harris calling it, saying we’re going to have a recession.
0:32:15 They were predicting by the summer, I think Kamala said.
0:32:16 So this could come a little early.
0:32:19 I think Goldman has it up to, what, a 60 percent chance.
0:32:27 And if the tariffs, the April 9th tariffs go through in full, they’ll say it’s immediately up to the 100 percent likelihood of a recession.
0:32:29 So I think your point is well taken.
0:32:37 But it gets to this larger issue of how do you say that without seeming like someone who needs to be wearing a tinfoil hat?
0:32:39 Because we’ve gone through this before.
0:32:46 People have been chicken little screaming for years about, you know, he’s a Russian agent.
0:32:48 He’s not on the side of America.
0:32:53 He’s on, you know, the side of the most terrible authoritarians that are out there.
0:32:59 And the American electorate rejected that argument at the ballot box.
0:33:10 And so now we are stuck with this mess and also in finding a way to articulate a cogent counterargument to it.
0:33:16 And I already mentioned a few minutes ago that I was listening to Scott Besson on with Tucker Carlson.
0:33:18 What do people say?
0:33:20 Like, I listen so you don’t have to.
0:33:23 But it was actually, you know, a pretty thoughtful conversation.
0:33:32 But I was stuck on, you know, the number of times that Besson says we’re heading for a financial calamity because of our debt.
0:33:35 Not something that you say the same, right?
0:33:36 He’s talking about wealth inequality.
0:33:38 He sounds like an economic populace.
0:33:40 He sounds like Bernie Sanders or Donald Trump.
0:33:47 And then the problem is, is that their solution does nothing to get us out of that jam.
0:33:51 You know, talking about lowering the corporate tax rate, benefits accruing to the richest people,
0:33:57 cuts to food stamps, cuts to food stamps are part of their policy, $880 billion in cuts to Medicaid.
0:34:01 And society will not be better off.
0:34:02 It will not be more balanced.
0:34:12 It will not be freer or fairer under the Republican legislation that they’re trying to get through, the big reconciliation bill, or frankly, under their leadership.
0:34:26 And, you know, you’re seeing because it has to do with money and money brings Republicans out of hiding and you’re seeing this pushback on whether Trump even has the right to do this in the first place.
0:34:36 So there are seven Republicans in the Senate that are signing on to this bill, which is a bipartisan co-sponsored bill, to limit his tariff ability.
0:34:46 But, like, I was watching Rand Paul on the floor give this speech, a completely historical speech, looking back, saying, like, this is why we left.
0:34:48 There is no taxation without representation.
0:34:52 The Constitution is clear that the president cannot do this.
0:34:56 And the power to tariff goes through Congress.
0:34:58 Ted Cruz has said something similar.
0:35:05 James Lankford was on TV last night, very conservative senator, talking about it as well, that this is going to be an issue for the courts.
0:35:07 There’s going to be a House bill.
0:35:12 Congressman Don Bacon, who’s a Republican, is bringing up on the House.
0:35:13 Obviously, all the Dems are going to sign on.
0:35:18 I don’t know how many Republicans will feel the same.
0:35:25 But he’s told us who he is more times than I can count.
0:35:32 You know, this is someone who gets to the Supreme Court, which ends up granting him a level of immunity that you never expected.
0:35:39 But this is someone who wants the ability to shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and for nobody to care and for there to be no penalties about it.
0:36:00 And I feel, you know, borderline despondent about this, not only because of the economic consequences of it, but this feels like a constant affirmation of the fact that this man has no limits and that society may not be structured in such a way that we can push back effectively and make a real change.
0:36:01 I’ll show a couple of things there.
0:36:02 Let’s talk about the deficit.
0:36:04 We’re a family.
0:36:07 If we’re a household, we make $50,000 a year.
0:36:11 We spend $70,000 and we have debt of $320,000.
0:36:15 And unfortunately, this debt, our kids will get it.
0:36:17 Our kids may not want it, but they’ll get it.
0:36:20 So mom and dad are going to Cancun and doing tequila shots.
0:36:26 And they have this amazing credit card and they keep getting more and more offers because they’ve always paid their debts.
0:36:28 And they continue to live above their means.
0:36:32 There is a really solid argument that we need to get our fiscal house in order.
0:36:36 I think the Democrats should become dead hawks.
0:36:40 Having said that, there’s two ways you address the deficit.
0:36:43 The first is to cut spending and raise taxes.
0:36:44 You just have to.
0:36:48 But you also need to continue to grow.
0:36:54 So if you were to, for example, massively raise taxes and cut spending the way they’re cutting.
0:36:57 People stop spending money.
0:37:03 And we’re not going to solve the deficit if we don’t continue, if we shrink the top line.
0:37:07 And the reason we’re headed, in my opinion, towards a deflationary economy.
0:37:09 I think inflation is going to come down and they’ll claim victory.
0:37:11 But I think we’re going to go deflationary.
0:37:21 And a deflationary economy is especially bad because what happens is if you have a mortgage or credit card debt or student loan debt, you end up paying with more valuable dollars.
0:37:23 You have less money, more valuable dollars.
0:37:29 Inflation, in some ways, is good for people with large fixed debt because they’re paying with less valuable dollars.
0:37:34 So you have to, you can’t put the economy into a coma.
0:37:39 If you were to cut Social Security or I don’t want to cut it, I want to means test it.
0:37:40 I want to move the age limit up.
0:37:44 It’s now three people for everyone supporting someone on Social Security.
0:37:45 It used to be 12 to 1.
0:37:48 It’s absolutely the thing we don’t talk about on Social Security.
0:37:49 It’s an aggressive tax.
0:37:53 Someone making $160,000 on my team pays $9,000.
0:37:58 If I make $10 million in a year selling stock or companies, I pay, wait for it, $9,000.
0:38:03 So we tax the middle class and lower class households full freight on Social Security.
0:38:04 But rich people, it’s capped.
0:38:08 But you wouldn’t want to cut it too much.
0:38:18 You wouldn’t want to cut spending too much because the last thing you want to do is diminish the second weapon of getting us out of the deficit, and that is growing.
0:38:29 If we just grow 3.6% a year GDP growth, which is real growth, that means in 10 years the economy grows by 50%, which should grow our tax base 50%.
0:38:38 And who knows, if we’re thoughtful and even keep spending flat, maybe take it down, we substantially reduce the deficit.
0:38:46 But you can’t just come in and start cutting and put the economy into a coma thinking you’re being responsible.
0:38:47 You’re not.
0:38:49 There are two sides to debt reduction.
0:38:50 Growth.
0:38:53 Growth isn’t everything, but it’s mostly everything, as is productivity.
0:38:55 You have to have both.
0:39:06 So attempting to, quote unquote, use it as an excuse to put the economy in a coma, that is cutting off your nose to spite your face.
0:39:09 It absolutely makes no sense.
0:39:25 The other thing we should just keep in mind here is that, and this is the reason why I believe that U.S. stocks are going to vastly underperform the rest of the world, is that there’s two components to a stock price.
0:39:33 There’s the earnings that represents the underlying innovation, culture, industry they’re in of a company, right?
0:39:38 The profits, and then the stock is a function of the profits times the earnings multiple.
0:39:47 The earnings multiple on the S&P 500, all 500 of our biggest, best companies, is around 28 until Wednesday.
0:39:48 Now it’s about 26.
0:39:52 The S&P multiple in the German stock market is 22.
0:39:53 Japan, 18.
0:39:55 China, 14.
0:40:03 Now, why do great companies trade as a whole on different multiples when they’re under the umbrella of a different nation or a different index?
0:40:05 And that’s why everyone wants to go public on U.S. exchanges.
0:40:11 It’s because we have certain attributes and features that people and investors all over the world really like.
0:40:13 America is more risk-aggressive.
0:40:14 It has more risk capital.
0:40:15 It has great universities.
0:40:16 It has great IP.
0:40:18 It’s really flexible.
0:40:19 It’s agile.
0:40:21 And it has rule of law.
0:40:26 No one’s going to come and just, China put Didi out of business.
0:40:28 We don’t like your practices around information.
0:40:29 You’re out of business.
0:40:31 They can put a company out of business.
0:40:35 Jack Ma, you’re talking, you’re a little too big for your britches.
0:40:36 We don’t like what you’re saying.
0:40:39 We’re going to disappear you for six months.
0:40:41 The U.S. has rule of law.
0:40:45 So companies feel somewhat safe that when they’re investing, they’re protected.
0:40:47 Their money is protected.
0:40:49 Two, we’re seen as consistent partners.
0:40:51 They’re not stupid.
0:40:52 They’re not sclerotic.
0:40:53 They don’t have these epileptic seizures.
0:40:57 They don’t just weigh in and decide not to do business with certain people or kick these
0:40:59 nations out or kick these companies out.
0:41:01 They respect rule of law.
0:41:07 We haven’t seized the $300-plus billion in Russian assets, despite the fact they’ve invaded
0:41:11 a neighbor, because we have rule of law.
0:41:17 Because we no longer in the last two months have those associations with the American brand
0:41:21 of rule of law and consistency, I believe you’re going to see a re-rating of the price earnings
0:41:26 multiple on the S&P down from 28 to more like what China’s at at 14.
0:41:30 And this is what that means and why it’s so important to investors.
0:41:42 You can’t outrun multiple contraction if the multiple on U.S. stocks gets cut in half, which it very well could, and it’s happened before.
0:41:46 You know, all of these nations had traded at higher multiples in the U.S. before.
0:41:56 Then a company like Meta, a company like P&G could grow its earnings 18% a year, which is incredible.
0:41:59 And in five years, its stock would still be down.
0:42:03 In Latin America, it didn’t matter how good your company was.
0:42:12 The flows of capital out of Latin America because of different policies, inconsistent governments, unreliability, lack of rule of law,
0:42:18 have taken their multiple consistently down for the last 10 or 20 years, and no one’s made any money.
0:42:35 So the multiple contraction we’re about to endure in U.S. stocks because of the puncturing, because of the exit of this notion of this brand America that includes rule of law and consistency,
0:42:47 is going to result in a massive contraction in market capitalization in the U.S., which will trickle down to U.S. households, prosperity, tax revenue.
0:42:53 This is, I mean, you never like to predict a recession because people like me have predicted nine of the last three recessions.
0:43:05 But if you see this kind of multiple contraction that I think we’re about to incur because of the puncturing and erosion of the brand U.S. right now,
0:43:13 you’re going to see just a massive, you’re going to see companies overperform, hit all of their earnings, and their stocks are going to go down over the next couple of years.
0:43:14 That’s an uplifting story. Thank you.
0:43:15 Right?
0:43:15 Yeah.
0:43:17 There you go. I should write children’s novels.
0:43:20 Oh, my God. Your children’s novels would be so weird.
0:43:22 Dog, 2028. Things are about to get worse.
0:43:29 Sometimes, sometimes it’s darkest just, sometimes it’s darkest just before it’s pitch black.
0:43:31 How’s that on a bumper sticker?
0:43:37 I mean, I’ve seen worse ones, but that would be up there for sure.
0:43:40 But it feels like the mood that folks are in right now.
0:43:43 But we have to take a quick break. Stay with us.
0:43:49 Support for the show comes from NetSuite.
0:43:51 Nobody knows what the future will bring.
0:43:56 Sure, you can keep an eye on trends and cross your fingers, but rates will always rise and fall and rise again.
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0:44:04 And until they invent a crystal ball, your next best bet is NetSuite by Oracle.
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0:45:06 It’s been a rough week for your retirement account, your friend who imports products from China for the TikTok shop, and also Hooters.
0:45:10 Hooters has now filed for bankruptcy, but they say they are not going anywhere.
0:45:15 Last year, Hooters closed dozens of restaurants because of rising food and labor costs.
0:45:23 Hooters is shifting away from its iconic skimpy waitress outfits and bikini days, instead opting for a family-friendly vibe.
0:45:30 They’re vowing to improve the food and ingredients, and staff is now being urged to greet women first when groups arrive.
0:45:33 Maybe in April of 2025, you’re thinking, good riddance?
0:45:37 Does the world still really need this chain of restaurants?
0:45:44 But then we were surprised to learn of who exactly was mourning the potential loss of Hooters.
0:45:50 Straight guys who like chicken, sure, but also a bunch of gay guys who like chicken?
0:45:55 Check out today’s Explained to find out why exactly that is, won’t ya?
0:46:05 So we want to introduce you to another show from our network and your next favorite money podcast, for ours of course, Net Worth and Chill.
0:46:09 Host Vivian Tu is a former Wall Street trader turned finance expert and entrepreneur.
0:46:14 She shares common financial struggles and gives actionable tips and advice on how to make the most of your money.
0:46:27 Past guests include Nicole Yoder, a leading fertility doctor who breaks down the complex world of reproductive medicine and the financial costs of those treatments, and divorce attorney Jackie Combs, who talks about love and divorce and why everyone should have a prenup.
0:46:30 Episodes of Net Worth and Chill are released every Wednesday.
0:46:34 Listen wherever you get your podcasts or watch full episodes on YouTube.
0:46:35 By the way, I absolutely love Vivian Tu.
0:46:37 I think she does a great job.
0:46:41 Welcome back.
0:46:46 According to Politico, Trump told cabinet members that Elon Musk will be stepping down from his role in the White House by the end of May.
0:46:50 Musk had been working under a special government employee designation.
0:46:52 It’s called the mail abandonment designation.
0:46:58 Anyways, which limits him to 130 days per year, and that clock runs out soon.
0:47:01 But the possible exit comes at a very tense moment.
0:47:12 Musk’s Doge team, the Department of Government Efficiency, has been pushing aggressive federal budget cuts, and his unpredictable behavior, especially on X, has reportedly frustrated cabinet officials.
0:47:24 Critics say his entire billionaire mindset clashes with the realities of governing, especially after a major GOP loss in the Wisconsin Supreme Court race, a race Musk spent over $23 million trying to win.
0:47:30 The news follows a new Marquette poll showing just 41% approve of his working government, with 58% disapproving.
0:47:38 And while Trump publicly praised Musk early on, some insiders say may now be using him as a scapegoat for recent political missteps.
0:47:47 Meanwhile, Tesla is also feeling the heat, with Q1 sales down 13%, raising questions about whether Musk’s political ambitions are hurting his business.
0:47:49 Jess, what do you think?
0:47:50 Do you think Doge is coming to an end?
0:47:51 Do you think Elon’s leaving?
0:47:52 I think those are two separate questions.
0:48:07 So I think Elon is leaving, and, you know, he talked about being a special government employee, which has this 130-day limit on it, in his interview with some of the Dogettes with Brett Baer a couple weeks ago.
0:48:25 So that was the expectation, but it couldn’t come at a better time for how tense things are in D.C. between Musk and the other cabinet secretaries who are trying to do their job or at least trying to do their job less bad.
0:48:34 And Musk keeps getting in the way of it, because every time that he makes a cut from somewhere that has to be reinstated, that’s something that these cabinet secretaries need to deal with.
0:48:40 And there’s been public reporting about pushbacks in meetings and complaints.
0:48:49 Secretary Rubio and Secretary Duffy, in particular, have been very frustrated by Musk’s outsized role in this, and apparently Trump himself.
0:48:57 And, you know, you could see that something was changing by the content of Musk’s tweets.
0:49:02 So the last kind of week, he doesn’t talk about DEI much anymore.
0:49:05 He doesn’t talk about massive fraud.
0:49:13 He’s actually talking about business again and going to space and Tesla and Neuralink and Starlink.
0:49:20 And, yeah, he’s still red-pilled and getting into some of the conspiracies, but he was so far off the reservation that you can tell that something has changed.
0:49:31 And I think that this moment where he is advocating for a free trade zone at the time when Trump is putting forward these crazy tariffs,
0:49:33 And he’s going straight at Peter Navarro.
0:49:37 Those two seem to have a bit of a war going on.
0:49:43 I think Navarro called him not a carmaker, but a car assembler on CNBC this morning.
0:49:45 So that’s Monday morning.
0:49:48 You know that there was massive trouble in paradise.
0:49:57 And I don’t know if you caught it because you were on school tour last week, which was way more important than this, but Musk joined the five.
0:50:08 And I got to ask him a question last Tuesday, the day of the Wisconsin Supreme Court race, which he spent more than anybody else, you know, dwarfing George Soros, who loves to buy off elections.
0:50:12 Musk spent $23 million it was versus Soros spent $2 million, I think.
0:50:17 But I had just a couple hours to figure out what I wanted to ask him.
0:50:22 And there are so many things when you have the opportunity to talk to someone that is doing these other cool things.
0:50:23 Like, I’d love to talk about Neuralink.
0:50:28 I’d love to talk about global population trends with him and things like that.
0:50:29 But I was like, you know what?
0:50:35 I need to talk to or at least try to get him to answer something about these conflicts of interest that he has.
0:50:48 And so I brought up him firing all of the folks that are looking into his companies and then he keeps getting government contracts and he keeps accepting these subsidies for Tesla, even though he’s advocated against subsidies.
0:50:51 And he totally dodged, which is what I expected.
0:50:53 And I lured him in.
0:50:59 I was friendly and I smiled and I made a joke about being a liberal Tesla lover and not throwing a Molotov cocktail myself.
0:51:18 And that dichotomy between what he says that he’s doing, that this is a totally transparent process and they’re just trying to make government more efficient and what they are actually doing is what is animating and kind of setting the Democratic base on fire as of late.
0:51:24 I mean, Elon Musk is the most unpopular figure in government by far and away.
0:51:44 And I think that Trump saw the writing on the wall with all this, looked at the results of the Wisconsin Supreme Court seat, but also these special elections in Florida where Democrats overperformed 15, 16 points and just said, like, it cannot come soon enough for you to leave.
0:51:45 Maybe he’ll continue to be an advisor.
0:51:55 I’m sure they’ll have their alliance for time to come, but he can’t be someone that’s in every press conference and became a political liability for them.
0:52:01 And likewise, the government became a liability for Musk to continue to be a successful businessman.
0:52:09 I predicted, I think, three weeks ago on Pivot that Musk would fade to black and leave within 30 days.
0:52:24 And the reason why is if you want to understand anything or you want to understand behavior across big tech and for the most part across almost every individual in America, just reverse engineer to what decisions, what motivations would give them more money.
0:52:35 America used to be about your character, your partner, your reputation indicated a decent amount of what your life was like.
0:52:37 Now, you can have none of those things.
0:52:40 And if you have money, you can have an amazing life and you can have all of those things.
0:52:44 And if you don’t have a lot of money, you can have almost none, you know, none of the prosperity.
0:52:49 So all incentives are do whatever you can to make a lot of money.
0:52:57 And when I think it was the province of Alberta announced that they were canceling their start their SpaceX contract for Starlink.
0:52:58 I’m like, that’s it.
0:52:58 He’s out.
0:53:00 All he cares about is money.
0:53:01 He’s not trying to help America.
0:53:05 He’s trying to remove inspectors so he can get his autonomous out there faster.
0:53:13 He’s trying to remove any sort of oversight around merging X and XAI and data privacy.
0:53:19 He hates subsidies after he’s taken, you know, after he’s taken 15 to 50 billion.
0:53:22 These guys are all about money.
0:53:23 And there’s a few lessons in here.
0:53:28 The Democrats need to move away from identity politics.
0:53:36 There’s a very loud minority of people who see at Ivy League universities and in the media and cultural elites who see everything through the lens of race.
0:53:44 America, the people who decide the president, see everything through the lens of money.
0:53:47 Who’s going to put the most money in my pocket?
0:53:50 Yeah, I’ll give some lip service to women’s rights.
0:53:53 I’ll give some lip service to Ukraine.
0:53:58 But for the most part, I’ll vote for the criminal because I’m under the impression he’s going to put more money in my pocket.
0:54:01 So and it’s also the most dynamic issue.
0:54:07 If you’re a fierce, if you’re one of those voters that just votes on bodily autonomy, you know which party you’re going with.
0:54:11 But the swing voters basically vote on the economy.
0:54:15 And the economy is dynamic in the sense that sometimes Democrats get the benefit of the doubt around the economy.
0:54:23 If anyone does any homework and realizes over the last 50 years, Democratic administrations have created 40 million jobs and Republican administrations have created 1 million.
0:54:29 Or they say this guy is not a failed businessman and reality TV game show host.
0:54:30 He’s actual businessman.
0:54:38 And Biden and Harris were trying to tell us when we couldn’t afford to put food on the table that everything’s great, not to worry about it.
0:54:41 They went Republican, but it’s about the economy.
0:54:45 And this is what is so disappointing in my view.
0:54:49 Even though I know this is happening, but it shocks me when it happens.
0:54:52 What have we had in the last couple of months?
0:54:57 We’ve had a reversal in the global order.
0:55:09 We’ve said we used to use our massive tax base and military to support democracies and nations that believe in civil rights, women’s rights, trying to do the right thing.
0:55:10 We’ve torn it up and said, you know what?
0:55:14 Let’s pretend that Russia won the Cold War.
0:55:16 Let’s not support Democratic allies.
0:55:19 Let’s support murderous autocrats.
0:55:34 Let’s create an environment where we have judges where if a woman is bleeding out or dying from sepsis in an emergency room parking lot because people, doctors are so scared to treat her, you know, her pregnancy gone wrong.
0:55:36 Let’s create that environment.
0:55:57 Let’s decide that a woman who is a conspiracy theory fucking loon, Laura Loomer, that she gets to fire General Hawk, who is arguably one of the brightest generals, government men in the world who’s responsible for intercepting signals and making sure our troops are safe overseas.
0:56:09 Let’s hire a group of people that are so incompetent that they’re sharing attack plans on an unsecure phone, on an app, and then start calling the reporter they invited in a loser.
0:56:17 You know, let’s do everything we can to tear up 90-year alliances.
0:56:26 Let’s start picking up people with the wrong tattoo, shipping them to El Salvadorian prisons, not even where they’re from, and then claim we can’t get them back.
0:56:29 When that’s just a bald-faced lie, one call they could get this person back.
0:56:34 All of these things in my mind are well ahead.
0:56:38 I lost several million dollars on Thursday and Friday, which is the bad news.
0:56:42 The good news is if you lose several million dollars, it means you’re already wealthy and you’re doing just fine, and I am.
0:56:42 I’m doing just fine.
0:56:48 I was much less triggered by the markets than I have been about these other things.
0:57:00 And so if it took the markets going down 10% to convince you that this ass clown was the wrong person to be overseeing the greatest experiment in history, you still have your head up your ass.
0:57:04 I was kind of like, this is what it took to get people upset?
0:57:09 All of a sudden, the tech bros, the most powerful people in the world, are decided they need to go down to Mar-a-Lago.
0:57:19 Okay, when a 14-year-old girl in Mississippi has to carry a baby to term after being raped, you know, okay, that’s bad.
0:57:23 But when my stock goes down, I’m on a plane.
0:57:30 So what I know, but it always disappoints me, is the following.
0:57:32 Look what money has done to us.
0:57:42 We forgive a guy and idolize a guy that’s being sued concurrently by two women for abandonment, for not seeing his kids.
0:57:45 I mean, look what money has done to us.
0:57:53 And the thing we get outraged about, the thing that is the call to arms, is the markets go down fucking 10%.
0:57:59 This is number 15 on the reasons why we elect our leaders.
0:58:03 So I actually found this week, it didn’t trigger me at all.
0:58:04 I was on the college tour.
0:58:06 I was emotional for a lot of reasons.
0:58:06 I didn’t care.
0:58:14 I, you know, whether I’m worth X million or, you know, whatever, 0.95X, it doesn’t fucking make any difference.
0:58:23 What makes a difference is your kids growing up in a nation that’s no longer America, where, you know, their friends who aren’t them, who aren’t in the top 1%,
0:58:28 don’t have the same rights we had, don’t have a shot at getting out of the bottom 90.
0:58:37 So I find what’s happened in the last week disappointing because, not disappointing because Trump makes a stupid decision.
0:58:37 He’s been making them.
0:58:42 I actually am disappointed that this is what it took to get people into the streets of America.
0:58:48 That, okay, the war on poor women, well, okay, that’s too bad.
0:58:52 But, you know, what’s profound is if the NASDAQ goes down.
0:58:53 Your thoughts?
0:58:54 Depressing, but expected.
0:58:58 And that has been the lesson of the last few cycles.
0:59:06 And to your point about wanting to get away from identity politics, this is the game that we have to play.
0:59:19 And that the most compelling stories are going to be the ones that are rooted in the oligarch class taking something away from people with a lot less.
0:59:23 Man, that does come down to Social Security payments.
0:59:24 That’s been resonating.
0:59:24 That’s money.
0:59:26 How do you put food on your table?
0:59:27 Right?
0:59:28 Your Medicaid.
0:59:32 That’s money that you need to spend on your health care.
0:59:33 And they want to come for that.
0:59:40 And I do think that the Democrats are getting hip to the fact that those are the types of arguments that are going to resonate.
0:59:43 And that they’re the most powerful motivators.
0:59:54 And I still feel like heart’s in the right place, of course, to want to amplify those incredibly depressing stories that you’re talking about.
1:00:00 You know, young women being forced to carry children that they don’t want to term.
1:00:12 And what’s going on to the going on with the global order and how we’re treating our allies versus our enemies and that the world is moving on without us, whether we like it or not.
1:00:22 And, you know, we’re stuck here with this administration that feels like isolationism is the way to go.
1:00:26 But nothing is going to move the needle unless it’s bank accounts.
1:00:31 And I don’t want anyone to suffer.
1:00:33 I have said this multiple times.
1:00:36 And also, obviously, I’m fine financially.
1:00:46 But the stock market change makes a big difference in my life, thinking about how I’m going to send my girls to college and what retirement looks like and all of that.
1:00:57 But it feels like this was the fuck around and find out moment for a lot of people, those 62 percent that are invested in the market.
1:01:10 And I’m not sure that that’s such a bad thing for us to have this reminder this early in the Trump administration that he doesn’t care about anyone but himself and a few select friends.
1:01:11 And that number is dwindling by the day.
1:01:13 Let’s take one more quick break.
1:01:14 Stay with us.
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1:02:33 Welcome back.
1:02:38 Before we go, we wanted to briefly touch on the record-breaking speech from Senator Cory Booker last week.
1:02:41 He spoke on the Senate floor for over 25 hours straight.
1:02:47 The longest speech in congressional history urging lawmakers to reconsider proposed GOP cuts to Social Security.
1:02:54 He called on Democrats to unify and fight harder, even as the party continues to debate how aggressively to take on Trump’s policies.
1:03:01 This speech was followed by a massive hands-off protest in all 50 states over the weekend.
1:03:05 Groups including Indivisible and MoveOn organized around a simple message.
1:03:12 Trump’s economic policies, including cuts to healthcare, education, and Social Security, are hurting everyday Americans while helping the wealthy.
1:03:13 Actually, I should correct myself.
1:03:16 A lot of those protests weren’t just solely a function of the market decline.
1:03:19 They had been planned around some of these other issues.
1:03:21 So that was not fair to me.
1:03:24 Booker’s marathon moment wasn’t just about policy.
1:03:28 It’s also being read as a potential turning point in democratic leadership and strategy.
1:03:35 Jess, what are your thoughts on Booker’s Senate floor, diatribe speech, marathon?
1:03:37 We have a pulse.
1:03:45 I feel a little alive in terms of being a strong opposition force.
1:03:47 And there are going to be detractors.
1:03:56 And I work with a lot of them who were calling him Spartacus and mocking the whole scene of it all.
1:04:00 But it animated people.
1:04:06 And he made a lot of points that I think are really important to take stock of.
1:04:11 That, you know, we’re in a moral moment in American history.
1:04:15 And our coalition does not look like it used to.
1:04:18 Well, also, we used to win and now we don’t win as much.
1:04:19 So that’s part of it.
1:04:23 But he said, I’m standing here because of a national crisis that’s growing.
1:04:24 We talked about Social Security.
1:04:25 We talked about health care.
1:04:26 We talked about education.
1:04:28 This is a crisis for us.
1:04:36 And you’ve taken responsibility for going too hard about the market because those are things that are causing people to show up at town halls.
1:04:39 That are causing millions to go to these hands-off protests.
1:04:53 I saw that the Google searches for the protests this weekend rivaled the Women’s March in 2017, which I remember and participated in the New York one.
1:04:59 So I feel like we have a pulse.
1:05:03 And Musk has been the linchpin, I think.
1:05:12 And it’s the money component of Musk that he continues profiting off of us while trying to fire us and steal from us.
1:05:18 But Musk was a huge gift and something that I wanted to ask you about that occurred to me.
1:05:30 Do you think actually now looking at what’s happened in the few weeks since the continuing resolution passed that actually Chuck Schumer was right to make sure that we keep the government open?
1:05:35 Because now the Republicans own absolutely everything that’s going on.
1:05:41 There’s no way to blame a Democrat, right, for any of the cuts that are happening, for what’s happening in the market.
1:05:47 Like, you pick your pet issue, and we are nowhere near any position of power.
1:06:04 And I am feeling a little bit wrong that I was so hard on Schumer because I think it is a good thing that we can just point squarely to Mike Johnson, Donald Trump, Senator Thune, and say, Musk, you know, you did this.
1:06:05 So I love what the military does.
1:06:10 Whenever they have an operation, so the best performing organization in history is the U.S. military.
1:06:18 And a lot of corporations take their cues from military procedures and best practices because they’re so good at what they do.
1:06:35 And one of their best practices is that they review every combat operation, what went right, what went wrong, how can we improve the culture, the chain of command, the weapons, the intelligence, such that we iterate to become a more lethal force moving forward.
1:06:42 And one of the key sort of paradigms or lens through which they look at decisions is they say, it’s not about the outcome.
1:06:48 It’s about, did that officer, what did that officer know at that moment?
1:06:54 And did he or she make the best decision based on the available information at that point?
1:07:01 And given what’s happened in the market with these tariffs, you’re right.
1:07:07 It worked out well because they can’t say, well, if the Democrats hadn’t shut down the government, this wouldn’t have happened.
1:07:19 So it’s ended up, I think we would rather be here right now with the government open and then not having a, you know, a punching bag or a voodoo doll to blame this all on.
1:07:24 So it, the, the, the, the outcome here is good.
1:07:29 Having said that, given what we knew back then, I think it was still the wrong decision.
1:07:43 So I hear what you’re saying and I wouldn’t change anything now, but it doesn’t excuse the fact that based on what we knew then, he should have gone upstream and shut it down and said this, you no longer believe in government.
1:07:56 Fine, we’re no longer going to fund something that is nothing but a vehicle for you to raise, raise taxes on the young, uh, bypass congressional authority, make budget cuts that are supposed to have congressional approval.
1:07:58 We’re done.
1:08:02 We’re no longer going to fund your clown car, but I agree with you.
1:08:06 This is actually ended up turning to Democrats advantage.
1:08:23 I think we could judge it a little and we can meet in the middle and just say maybe he just, he should have messaged everything better, which we were talking about at the time and had a plan to keep the government open from the Democratic side.
1:08:35 And tried to do some negotiating, Nancy Pelosi styles, um, and maybe then we could have won on all, on all fronts, but I feel a bit better.
1:08:37 Like we’re a real opposition party.
1:08:41 I feel like 2026 could go well for us.
1:08:44 I already mentioned the overperformance in those Florida special elections.
1:08:56 One was by 16 points, one was by 22 and Elise Stefanik, who was headed to the UN to be our ambassador, was called back to her New York district, which is a Trump plus 21.
1:09:02 So, and they’re clearly afraid of the fact that they could possibly lose that or it would get so close.
1:09:09 That’d be another, you know, big moment of embarrassment for the Republican party and a harbinger of things to come.
1:09:22 So, you know, the country is in turmoil, but on the politics side of it, I, I feel like we’re getting our ducks in a row and I have not felt that way for several months.
1:09:24 There was so much I loved about Senator Booker’s speech.
1:09:25 You’re right.
1:09:27 It, it pulses the right word.
1:09:28 I love that.
1:09:33 And just because I like to trigger our listeners, I thought it was a very masculine thing to do.
1:09:38 Uh, I think the Democrats lack a certain level of aspirational masculinity.
1:09:44 I think showing that sort of physical strength and endurance and people will say, well, could a woman do it?
1:09:45 Not as easily.
1:09:46 Men are stronger.
1:09:47 We definitely have to pee.
1:09:50 Women can endure more pain because they have to endure childbirth.
1:10:02 Notice how I, my politically correct instincts moved in and I had to say something nice about when you say, or if you say something nice about women, you don’t feel a need to compensate with saying something nice about men, but we need to say something nice about women.
1:10:14 But anyways, I think the Democratic Party is lacking aspirational masculinity and demonstrating that sort of strength and endurance demonstrates some of that masculine energy, which I think we’re desperate for.
1:10:17 So hats off to you, Senator Booker.
1:10:27 It also convinces me that he’s going to get married or engaged in the next two years because these guys realize it’s like, who is that?
1:10:30 Who is the senator?
1:10:31 Is he a senator from?
1:10:32 Tim Scott?
1:10:37 Yeah, who was making a run for VP, so decided to get engaged in the middle of his run for VP.
1:10:42 These guys, they’ve all figured out you can’t be president as a single man.
1:10:43 I’ll be like, that would be a good rap.
1:10:44 What do you do?
1:10:45 I’m president.
1:10:48 Hey, you want to go back and, you know, watch some TV?
1:10:51 That would be a good rap, right?
1:10:53 Well, I mean, nothing better than the American president.
1:10:55 He was a widow, widower.
1:10:56 That was such a fantasy.
1:10:59 A nice Democrat who’s single.
1:11:01 That was so ridiculous.
1:11:02 It’s the best.
1:11:04 Annette Bening, God, she’s hot.
1:11:05 She’s really hot.
1:11:05 Yeah.
1:11:14 Andrew Shepard, though, he is, I think he usually is the top for fictional presidents on all of those lists.
1:11:16 She was great in Bugsy.
1:11:18 I mean, she’s great in everything.
1:11:22 And she makes that haircut so hot, like the little pixie cut.
1:11:24 Yeah, I hadn’t thought about that.
1:11:30 She was in one of my favorite movies, which is how I would describe almost every tech bro right now.
1:11:32 Did you ever see Grifters, The Grifters with Angela?
1:11:33 No.
1:11:34 Oh, gosh, what’s her name?
1:11:35 Am I saying the movie right?
1:11:39 The woman who was dating John Cusack, Annette Bening.
1:11:41 It’s a fantastic film.
1:11:45 And the woman, Angela Houston, that’s her name.
1:11:48 That is a fantastic film.
1:11:53 Well, I need something to watch because I saw the White Lotus finale, and I am not pleased.
1:11:54 We shouldn’t talk about it.
1:11:54 No spoilers.
1:11:54 Don’t say anything.
1:11:55 You don’t know?
1:11:56 You’re the star of White Lotus?
1:11:57 You don’t know what happened?
1:11:59 Well, I’m glad you recognize I’ve carried the season.
1:12:01 It’s pretty obvious.
1:12:02 It’s pretty obvious.
1:12:12 No, but I think Cory Booker basically is now one of the top three or four contenders for the Democratic nomination for president.
1:12:14 All of these guys want to be president.
1:12:16 So, one.
1:12:16 Mostly you.
1:12:18 I’m probably the most recalcitrant.
1:12:19 I’d have to give abettables.
1:12:22 I just don’t think I could be president.
1:12:22 Would you?
1:12:23 To be president?
1:12:25 Look what’s going on right now.
1:12:25 Would I?
1:12:27 I mean, he’s sober, but he’s.
1:12:29 Yeah, but it’s a different standard.
1:12:30 It’s a different standard.
1:12:33 I’d have to go so fucking crazy like him that nothing mattered.
1:12:37 Edibles would be the least of your issues, I think, if you were.
1:12:37 Yeah.
1:12:39 No, I love the idea of running.
1:12:41 I just don’t like the idea of actually being president.
1:12:44 It’s like the key to happiness is to be rich but anonymous.
1:12:46 I’d rather.
1:12:48 I’m going to fade into anonymity.
1:12:57 Anyways, but my prediction here is that Cory Booker, in the next 24 months, as he makes a move towards announcing his presidency, is he going to realize he needs to be married.
1:13:02 So, ladies, if you like the Senator Booker, he is looking right now.
1:13:05 Because, you know, marriage, as I coach young people, I’m really going off script.
1:13:08 I’m like, it’s not about meeting the one.
1:13:09 There is no such thing as the one.
1:13:14 It’s about where you are and where they are at that point in their lives.
1:13:24 So, but he’s at that point because he realizes that he actually has a shot at doing what he’s wanted to do his whole life, be president.
1:13:26 But he needs to be married.
1:13:28 Anyways, kind of an odd prediction, but I’m standing by it.
1:13:31 First person to ever say timing is everything, huh, Scott?
1:13:32 That hurts.
1:13:35 A chicken in every pot of sea.
1:13:36 Alice in every cupboard.
1:13:36 All right.
1:13:38 That’s all for this episode.
1:13:40 Thanks for listening to Raging Moderates.
1:13:42 Our producers are David Toledo and Chinenye Onike.
1:13:45 Our technical director is Drew Burroughs.
1:13:47 You can now find Raging Moderates on its own feed every Tuesday.
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1:13:50 What a thrill.
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