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- [00:00]
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- [01:01]
Sam Stein
Sam Stein managing out at the Bulwark. I'm joined by Tim Miller and we are about to talk about Jeff Bezos and whether or not he bent the knee to Trump yet again. Before we get into that, subscribe to the feed. We appreciate it. All right, so backstory here, Tim, is we woke up this morning a story by Punchbowl sponsored by Amazon about Amazon which said that Amazon was going to be putting the price of the table tariffs or at least on the price of goods. They're going to explain how much of that price increase was due to the tariffs. Caroline Levitt had an absolute freak out over it when she was asked about it at her 8:30am briefing. You can take a listen to that here.
- [01:41]
Tim Miller
So it was reported this morning that Amazon will soon display a little number next to the price of each product that shows how much the Trump tariffs are adding to the cost of each product. So isn't that a perfect, crystal clear demonstration that it's the American consumer and not China who is going to have to pay for these policies.
- [02:02]
LifeMD Advertiser
Ms.
- [02:02]
Caroline Levitt
I will take this since I just got off the phone with the President about Amazon's announcement. This is a hostile and political act by Amazon. Why didn't Amazon do this when the Biden administration hiked inflation to the highest level in 40 years and I would also add that it's not a surprise because as Reuters recently wrote, Amazon has partnered with a Chinese propaganda arm. So this is another reason why Americans should buy American. It's another reason why we are on shoring critical supply chains here at home to shore up our own critical supply chain and boost our own manufacturing here.
- [02:40]
Tim Miller
Is Jeff Bezos still a Trump supporter?
- [02:42]
Caroline Levitt
Ms. Look, I will not speak to the President's relationships with Jeff Bezos, but I will tell you that this is certainly a hostile and political action by Amazon.
- [02:52]
Sam Stein
All right, so Levitt says it's a hostile act and then lo and behold, within like minutes, it turns out maybe it wasn't true or not. You know, Amazon saying, oh, this wasn't actually a policy was for a specific subsection of the group. And then we get this report from CNN that in fact Donald Trump directly called Jeff Bezos up to talk about the initial Punchbowl report. Unbelievable stuff through and through. What do you make of it?
- [03:18]
Unnamed Commentator
I think that Jeff Bezos didn't just bend the knee. I think he's fully prostrate on the ground, like with his face in Donald Trump's feet, I think is pretty much what is happening here. I don't, you know, I don't, I don't, I trust the punch forward. I don't know. Sometimes there's a miscommunication between flack and reporter back in my days when I was a PR guy. It's possible there's a miscommunication here.
- [03:39]
Sam Stein
Obviously went to Amazon with what they had and Amazon didn't dispute it.
- [03:44]
Unnamed Commentator
Yeah, I mean, or even more likely I would say the other way Amazon send it to them. So I don't know. I'm not gonna speculate on the reporting. The point is it was at least partially true cause they were doing this for the Amazon haul subsection. It's also worth noting that the Amazon's, Amazon's Chinese competitors, TEMU and Shine, they're both already doing this in a firm.
- [04:07]
Sam Stein
Amazon, they're putting the cost of the.
- [04:09]
Unnamed Commentator
Tariff, the tariff cost, yeah, I've seen this on people have been sharing those screenshots. I'm not a, I'm not a Temu user myself, but I've been seeing the screenshots and you know, like, so this is something that other companies are going to do, but this is not, you know what I mean? So like this is not like it wasn't like a huge shot across the bow by Amazon. I mean, companies do this. Like if you, any of us have been annoyed when we're buying tickets from Ticketmaster, it's like, here's the price. And then it's like building fee and ticket and tax, because the company wants you to know that, like, it's these other things that are passing, they're passing it off.
- [04:42]
Sam Stein
They're, yeah, passing off blame for it. In this case. There's a direct tie to the tariff though, right?
- [04:46]
Unnamed Commentator
Yeah, for sure. And so you can understand why Trump's mad about it. So, like, I think it was a pretty normal business move, assuming that that's what they're planning on doing. The fact they've backed off. I don't know if this is all about Blue Origin and, you know, wanting to make sure Katy Perry can go into space or whether Jeff Bezos just doesn't want to make an enemy out of Trump. And like this was some mid level manager in a company that decided to do this and it didn't get Bezos signed. Like, who the hell knows how to speculate? The point is that when it comes down to it, like, Bezos is very interested in coddling up to Trump. He's very interested in rubbing Trump's belly and making sure that he feels okay and he doesn't come after him. And no matter how exactly this came down, like, it's pretty clear that Bezos is doing his best to stay in Donald Trump's good graces for now.
- [05:32]
Sam Stein
Yeah. Yes, 100%. And there's nothing that Bezos has done over the past year that suggests that he wants to take any stand whatsoever that pits him against Trump. I mean, from what he's done with Amazon, to the donations to the inaugural committee, to apparently showing up at the West Wing when he's in town, to changing the Washington Post's editorial page and how it operates. All of it's in one direction, all of it. And so when, you know, when I should, full disclosure, pull the current up. We recorded a version of this video early this morning before Amazon came out and said, oh, no, no. But we made a prediction. We're like, well, will they back down? And I was like, yeah, within days, like maybe hours. And yeah, that's what had happened.
- [06:16]
Unnamed Commentator
Now, who knows, maybe it was Stein Stradamus over here.
- [06:20]
Sam Stein
I, I, look, I, there's a, when you play Poly Market and Kalshi as much as I do, you get to know these things.
- [06:27]
Unnamed Commentator
Do you get to buy the dip? On that Canadian election last night, there were a couple ridings that came in in favor of the Conservatives early. There was a big opportunity to make.
- [06:35]
Sam Stein
Money last Night I saw Carney went down to 54%. I was like, ooh, this seems lucrative. I should get in on it. But I just didn't have my fingers ready doing bedtime with the kids. The other thing that we were talking about this morning, which I kind of want to get your thoughts on, is the sheer sort of irony about Trump accusing Bezos and Amazon of being, you know, for a brief period, of being a stooge of Chinese Communist propaganda, when at the same, him, he's out there and he won't act on this tick tock band. If he wanted to stick it to China, there's ways to do it. He could stick it to China by enforcing the TikTok ban. He could pull the manufacturing of his own Trumpware. The Trump Bible is manufactured in China. I don't foresee that happening where he's like, you know what? We're going to actually produce this domestically. So it's all. Honestly.
- [07:24]
Unnamed Commentator
Well, it is. And it's a little bit of a disconnect by some China hawks around him who want to position this as, like, being very tough on China. And Trump himself, who just, like, wants China to, you know, wants to be nice and wants Chairman Xi to be his friend and to just concede and, like, be like, the win here for Trump has nothing to do with economic concerns or manufacturing or ideology. Like, he just wants Chairman Xi to call him and be like, hey, Donnie, I'm going to give you this one. I'm going to make you look strong. I'm going to make for you just pulling it back. Like, that's all he wants. It's a personal ego thing. And I think that's, that's the situation, but I don't know the Bezos play. Well, just one more thing on this. Just an interesting thing to monitor. I talked about this a little bit with Pablo Torre yesterday. It was interesting that Jeffrey Lurie, the Eagles owner, went to the White House when Lurie had been a Trump critic, and they didn't go to the White House last time. Zuckerberg is now on the receiving end of a full frontal attack from JD Vance and other people in the administration who are not impressed with his sucking up to Trump. Now, Trump hasn't started bleeding about him yet, but these guys around him, it's done nothing to get the government off his back as far as antitrust is concerned.
- [08:33]
Sam Stein
He's got that antitrust case.
- [08:34]
Unnamed Commentator
Yeah. And so I just, I do wonder, you know, if you're Bezos. We're three months in. Like, I got to do three and a half months, three and a half more years of this. I'm not defending this. This is totally unprincipled. But I'm just saying if you're being practical, you do wonder if, like, these guys are like, how long can I run the clock on this before I pull out of this, of this bad deal? Like, what does pull out even mean? What does stop playing nice with them? Because it's not gonna, because you realize it's not gonna get you anything. I guess my point is eventually the calculus flips, you know, if, if you don't, if you feel like you're actually losing more than you're gaining, which that calculus might already be happening for Zuckerberg.
- [09:11]
Sam Stein
So, yeah, and this is what we were talking about this morning. So I was on with, again, I was on with Edgar, and Edgar was like, look, there's a distinction between when Bezos Washington Post operation and Bezos Amazon operation. And it totally makes sense that Bezos would re engineer the Washington Post to make Trump feel good, because frankly, the Post is not a moneymaker for him. It's just a way to publicly interface with the administration in the world. Amazon is his moneymaker and he might want to just not get the blame of a bunch of customers if the costs on Amazon go up. And that's why he would do something like this. And so Eggers point was, I don't foresee him pulling back on this policy because this is actually about his bottom line. Now, of course, Andrew was wrong, but I understand.
- [10:01]
Unnamed Commentator
Release the tape. Release the tape. Let's see Andrew's full opinion so we can.
- [10:06]
Sam Stein
I don't want to throw Andrew under the bus more than I already have, but when will Bezos pull out, to borrow your phrase, you would think when they hurt his bottom line. But this is hurting his bottom line, and he's still not. So I think more has to come. One last thing on the politics of this, and I want your take. Because you know, one of the reasons that the Trump people were super mad this morning about this whole thing is because they don't want the tariffs to be blamed for people paying more money. And they don't want people pointing out that the terrorists are to blame for people pay more money. Brian Schatz, senator from Hawaii, went on Twitter. He said, quote, telling the truth about the taxes you are paying because of Donald Trump is neither hostile nor political. But this is the more important point. You cannot spin the price of things. Trust me, that was tried last year. I think that's right.
- [10:56]
Unnamed Commentator
That is Amen. Brian Shaw. It's almost like he's been listening to the Bulwark podcast. That's exactly where I'm at on this. I think that the Democrats should talk about this and whatever, but they should. There's so many areas you can fight Trump and try to impact them. The prices thing, obviously they should run ads on this next year. But like.
- [11:12]
Sam Stein
And they will.
- [11:13]
Unnamed Commentator
But, but people. Yeah, but, but like you can't jujitsu people into thinking that their grocery bill is bigger, is more, is more than it is. Like most people, not everybody, not me. I don't really pay. I'm kind of a, I'm like an absent minded professor. I have no idea how much I paid at the grocery store the other day. But like a lot of people.
- [11:32]
Sam Stein
But you do know what your Uber eats? Avocado toast.
- [11:35]
Unnamed Commentator
Of course I do. And I did notice those plantain chips. I was like 9.99 for the plantain chips. So, you know, even I can be shaken out of my, you know, kind of stupor when it comes to money. But, but like most people know what 99.
- [11:50]
Sam Stein
That's absurd.
- [11:51]
Unnamed Commentator
It was absurd. And it's a big pack of plantain chips. I get like a family pack of plantain chips. I love plantain chips. But you know, most people that have family budget like that pay attention to stuff. Like they notice, you know, there's nothing you can do. It's not because, you know, just because like Charlie Dent, sorry to pick on you, Charlie Dent. He's not even in Congress anymore. Some random congressman. I was like, I was like, I was trying to think of the first generic congressman that came to mind, my buddy, Charlie Dent. Just because some random congressman's like, prices are sure going up. That's not. Nobody pays attention to that like that, like, except for sickos. So anyway, I think that Brian Schatz is exactly right on that. And they're in, they're in tough shape on this. And this is what I talked about with Joe Weisenthal. So everybody should go check out the pod today because he is, he's really smart on all this.
- [12:34]
Sam Stein
All right, we'll check it out. Thank you, Tim. Thank you guys for watching. Really appreciate it.
- [12:38]
Unnamed Commentator
Bad on you, Jeff Bezos, I guess.
- [12:41]
Sam Stein
Bad on you. And bad on you, Andrew Egger, for such a bad prediction this morning. We won't roll the tapes. Don't worry. All right, talk to you later, buddy.