Trump Called a Chicken To His Face–He Loses It On Camera

Summary

Bulwark Takes: "Trump Called a Chicken To His Face–He Loses It On Camera"

Release Date: May 28, 2025
Hosts: Sam Stein & Andrew Egger

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Introduction: Setting the Scene

In this episode of Bulwark Takes, Sam Stein and Andrew Egger delve into a recent unplanned press conference held by former President Donald Trump. This spontaneous event, initially scheduled to discuss Mark Jean "Pirro" Piro's interim appointment as U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, took an unexpected turn when Trump was confronted with a probing question about the so-called "taco trade."

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Trump's Unplanned Press Conference

[00:36] Sam Stein introduces the context:
"We just got through with a Trump press conference, an impromptu one. He hadn't scheduled it on his daily guidance, but he added it."

The press conference was meant to address the appointment of Jean Pirro but quickly shifted focus as reporters took the opportunity to question Trump on various topics.

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The Emergence of the "Taco Trade"

[01:10] Andrew Egger explains the term:
"It's not actual tacos. It's an acronym, and it stands for Trump Always Chickens Out. And it's about his approach to tariffs."

The term "taco trade" was coined by Financial Times columnist Robert Armstrong to describe Trump's tendency to backtrack on his tariff threats. This behavior has significant implications for financial markets and America's trade policies.

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Dissecting Trump's Response

During the press conference, a reporter from Financial Times posed the pivotal question:

[01:50] Reporter:
"Mr. President, Wall street analysts have coined a new term called the taco trade. They're saying Trump always chickens out on your tariff threats, and that's why markets..."

[01:58] Donald Trump:
"Are higher this week."

Trump's response was particularly noteworthy. Addressing the "taco trade" directly, he vehemently denied the accusation, attributing market fluctuations to specific tariff adjustments:

[02:00] Donald Trump:
"I reduced China from 145% that I set down to 100 and then down to another number... We have $14 trillion now invested, committed to investing."
"You ask a nasty question like that, it's called negotiation... you set a number, and if you go down, you know, a little bit..."
[02:35]

Trump's rhetoric painted him as a strategic negotiator, countering the "chickening out" narrative by emphasizing his proactive tariff policies and negotiations with global entities like China and the European Union.

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Hosts' Analysis and Reactions

[04:13] Andrew Egger breaks the silence, surprised by Trump's bold confrontation:
"All right, first of all, I don't know who asked the question, but that took some balls. Your thoughts for real?"

[04:20] Sam Stein responds candidly:
"No. Okay. I almost felt bad. A little bit of me almost felt bad for him up there. The poor guy..."
[04:27]

Sam reflects on Trump's struggle to maintain consistency with his tariff promises, highlighting the frustration among analysts and investors:

[04:45] Sam Stein:
"He's kept slapping these things on, taking these things off. And the markets have not reacted because they are actually pricing these things in now."
[05:00]

Andrew Egger adds depth to the discussion by referencing their ongoing analysis with Tim Miller about Trump's reliability on tariffs:

[05:12] Andrew Egger:
"I've been talking about this with Tim. Tim and I have this running gag about taking the over, under and whether he's going to lift the tariffs. And I always take the under."
[05:15]

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The Mechanics of Trump's Negotiation Tactics

The hosts delve into Trump's negotiation strategy, characterized by setting high initial tariffs to pressure counterparties:

[06:11] Sam Stein:
"I'm going to start with a crazy high number and that's going to put the fear of God into you and soften you up for me."
[06:17]

However, this approach has backfired as markets and analysts have grown skeptical of Trump's follow-through, leading to the prevalence of the "taco trade" stereotype.

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Market Implications and Future Predictions

A significant portion of the discussion centers on the potential economic repercussions of Trump's inconsistent tariff policies:

[07:15] Andrew Egger:
"There is the possibility that by asking this question and injecting the taco trade into Trump's mind in the zeitgeist, this reporter has inadvertently perhaps led us into an incredible trade war."
[07:18]

Sam agrees on the gravity of the situation:

[07:21] Sam Stein:
"You can't discount that at all."
[07:23]

They explore the impact on financial markets, referencing platforms like Polymarket to gauge public sentiment on the likelihood of tariffs being implemented:

[08:49] Sam Stein:
"25%."
[08:49]

[08:54] Andrew Egger:
"Too high. 15%. No one believes he's gonna go through with it."
[08:54]

This segment underscores the diminishing confidence in Trump's tariff commitments, with market participants increasingly viewing them as unreliable.

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Conclusion: The Future of the Taco Trade

As the episode wraps up, Stein and Egger reflect on the sustainability of Trump's current stance:

[09:25] Andrew Egger:
"It's so true. It's what's happening. It's the taco trade. Until it's not. Until he."
[09:29]

[09:36] Sam Stein:
"He cannot possibly reward this kind of behavior."
[09:37]

The hosts speculate on potential market upheavals should Trump decisively implement or retract tariffs, highlighting the delicate balance between political rhetoric and economic reality.

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Final Thoughts

Sam Stein and Andrew Egger provide a critical examination of Trump's fluctuating tariff policies, emphasizing the emergence and implications of the "taco trade." Their analysis sheds light on the broader economic uncertainties stemming from political maneuvers, offering listeners a comprehensive understanding of the nuanced interplay between leadership decisions and market stability.

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Notable Quotes:

• Donald Trump ([02:00]): "I set down to 100 and then down to another number... You ask a nasty question like that, it's called negotiation."

• Andrew Egger ([01:10]): "It's not actual tacos. It's an acronym, and it stands for Trump Always Chickens Out."

• Sam Stein ([04:20]): "I almost felt bad. A little bit of me almost felt bad for him up there."

• Andrew Egger ([05:12]): "I've been talking about this with Tim. Tim and I have this running gag about taking the over, under and whether he's going to lift the tariffs."

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This detailed summary encapsulates the key discussions, insights, and analyses presented in the episode, providing a comprehensive overview for those who haven't tuned in.

Transcript

[Sam Stein]

Packages by Expedia. You were made to be rechargeable. We were made to package flights, hotels and hammocks for less.

[Andrew Egger]

Expedia made to travel Zip System building enclosures streamline air, water and thermal control layers for high performance. Building envelopes in most conditions. Whatever you're adapting to our products, keep your build all zipped up. Learn [e-mail] hey, guys, it's me, Sam Stein, managing editor at the Bulwark, here with my partner in crime, Andrew Egger, author of Morning Shots. We just got through with a Trump press conference, an impromptu one. He hadn't scheduled it on his daily guidance, but he added it. It was to Mark Jean Pirro's interim appointment to U.S. attorney for District of Columbia. But he took some questions, as he's prone to do, and there was a kind of hilarious moment, but it foreshadows a potentially serious problem for us, where Trump was asked about, what is it? The taco trade.

[Sam Stein]

The taco trade, man, it's the hot new drink in all the financial markets.

[Andrew Egger]

Did you know about this before, like, literally 10 minutes ago?

[Sam Stein]

No. I think this was kind of like an inside joke for, like, Financial times columnists.

[Andrew Egger]

It's not actual tacos. It's an acronym, and it stands for Trump always chickens out. And it's about his. It's about his approach to tariffs. And I guess this is a thing on Wall street where they just assume Trump's going to chicken out on the tariffs. I want to play it with Andrew because there's so many elements to this video that are worth watch before we do subscribe to the feed. Always subscribe to the feed. All right. I'm not even going to. I'm not going to ask you for your thoughts, because I want to play it and then get your thoughts. Let's play the video. And on the other side, I'll bring in Andrew.

[Sam Stein]

Mr. President, Wall street analysts have coined.

[Andrew Egger]

A new term called the taco trade. They're saying Trump always chickens out on your tariff threats, and that's why markets.

[Donald Trump]

Are higher this week.

[Sam Stein]

What's your response to that?

[Donald Trump]

I kick out. Chicken out. Oh, chicken out. I've never. You mean because I reduced China from 145% that I set down to 100 and then down to another number. And I said, you have to open up your whole country. And because I, I gave the European Union a 50% tax tariff. And they called up and they said, please, let's meet right now. Please, let's meet right now. And I said, okay, you Got to watch Jenny Perez. I actually asked them, I said, what's the date? Because they weren't willing to meet. And after I did what I did, they said, we'll meet anytime you want, and we have an end date. You call that chickening out? Because we have $14 trillion now invested, committed to investing. When Biden didn't have practically anything Biden, this country was dying. You know, we have the hottest country anywhere in the world. I went to Saudi Arabia, the king told me, he said, you got the hottest. We have the hottest country in the world right now. Six months ago, this country was stone cold dead. We had a dead country. We had a country people didn't think it was. And you ask a nasty question like that, it's called negotiation. You set a number, and if you go down, you know, if I set a number at a ridiculous high number and I go down a little bit, you know, a little bit, they want me to hold that number. 145% tariff even. I said, man, that really got up. You know how it got, because of fentanyl and many other things. And you added it up. I said, where are we now? We're at 145%. I said, Whoa, that's high. That's high. He was doing no business whatsoever, and they were having a lot of problems. We were very nice to China. I don't know if they're going to be nice to us, but we were very nice to China. And in many ways, I think we really helped China tremendously because, you know, they were having great difficulty because we were basically going cold turkey with China. We were doing no business because of the tariff, because it was so high. But, but I knew that. But don't ever say what you said. That's a nasty question. Go ahead. To me, that's the nastiest question.

[Andrew Egger]

All right, first of all, I don't know who asked the question, but that took some balls. Your thoughts for real?

[Sam Stein]

No. Okay. I almost felt bad. A little bit of me almost felt bad for him up there. The poor guy. I mean, he's just spinning his wheels like crazy. I mean, like, oh, come on. Like, no, there's no good answer. I mean, like, it's totally true. It's totally true. He, he, he, previously, we kind of, he kind of rattled some, the fear of Trump into the markets, right? For a couple of months, we were, they were like, he can't really mean this stuff. Really, really, really. Can he really mean this? And he's like, no, I mean it. I fucking love tariffs. Tariffs are everything to me. I'm doing the tariffs now. And, and then the markets went absolutely berserk. And like two seconds later he was like, actually, you know what? We're, we're not doing the tariffs. We're out of the deal. We're pulling it all back, you know, 145. That's pretty high. You know, that's a little high even, I think. And ever since then, he's kept slapping these things on, taking these things off, slapping these things on, taking things off. And the markets have not reacted because they are actually pricing these things in now. Right. I mean, it's, it's, it's totally true. They're ignoring him, they're pretending. He, they're, they're, they're doing the taco trade.

[Andrew Egger]

So why do you feel bad for him?

[Sam Stein]

Oh, it's just, it's hard to watch anybody up there just sort of spinning their wheels where. Well, with that chiron across his chest. Donald Trump, let the record say, I did not chicken out. Jeanine Pirro in the background, like, like, just kind of like doing her face.

[Andrew Egger]

Yeah, she's. What am I doing here? I gave up a great Fox News gig for this. No, it was, it was. First of all, I had no idea that this was a thing. But secondly, it's true. I've been talking about this with Tim. Tim and I have this running gag about taking the over, under and whether he's going to lift the terrace. And I always take the under. He's always going to lift him. He never, ever, ever follows through. It's always. And he's even out there. I'd like. The best part is the emission where he's like, I'm just setting these absurdly high numbers so that I can bring it down somewhere and then proclaim victory. He' definitely pulling the curtain back.

[Sam Stein]

Have you ever heard of negotiating? I don't know, like, totally, totally. Like, I think a couple months ago you can probably roll back, but you're.

[Andrew Egger]

Not supposed to give away the, you're not supposed to just say out loud. That's what I'm doing.

[Sam Stein]

Right.

[Andrew Egger]

Sort of defeats the purpose.

[Sam Stein]

Yeah, no, look, look, I'm going to start with a crazy high number and that's going to put the fear of God into you and soften you up for me. Well, now it's not. Yeah, I mean, it wasn't before and now it's definitely not. But I think if you look back at some of our videos talking about this tariff stuff, like from early April or whatever, I was probably taking the over relative to your under because, I mean, it was hard. The guy loves tariffs. Like we know that. That's like his deepest held belief. Is that sure. Just really good for you.

[Andrew Egger]

But he loves negotiating more than tariffs. Right.

[Sam Stein]

And it's, it's start. Yeah. And it's starting to really look like, you know, that, that kind of like April, early April, like Liberation Day. And then the back off of that is like the pivot from like the first act to the second act of, of the Trump presidency.

[Andrew Egger]

There is the possibility that by asking this question and injecting the taco trade into Trump's mind in the zeitgeist, this reporter has inadvertently, perhaps led us into an incredible trade war.

[Sam Stein]

Yes.

[Andrew Egger]

And that we will, we will not tank the economy at a peak. But I'm a little bit worried about that.

[Sam Stein]

You can't discount that at all. I mean, he said it himself. He's like, that's such a nasty question. He said that's the nastiest question. Which is true.

[Andrew Egger]

I mean, like, watch this.

[Sam Stein]

If you're Trump, if you're Trump, like, what's a, what's a, what's a question that like hits at his, the core of his self identity harder than analysts who handle billions of dollars now making the financial bet that you are not going to follow through on what you say. Your response to that, like, it's like, what does he say? It's absurd. Because, because these people are not. Like, he wants these people to be making a bet on America's golden age. Right. He wants these people to be saying like, yeah, yeah, we're all in with Trump like they were when he first got elected. And now it's exactly the opposite.

[Andrew Egger]

The latest chicken out happened a couple of days ago where I guess out of nowhere he sort of bleated that he was going to, you know, put a 50 tariff on EU and went off on Tim Cook for some reason and all this stuff. And then, you know, two days ago he announces that he's actually in fact going to negotiate a trade deal before the 50 tariff takes effect and then he's going to delay those tariffs until July 9th. Yet another punt in the tariffs. So, Andrew, I'm up, I'm up on Polymarket. I'm up there all day. I'm just making money left and right. They have a bet for the percentage chance that those 50% tariffs go into effect on the EU by July 9. What do you think the percentage chance is right now per poly market?

[Sam Stein]

Do not look what you're asking me a trivia question about where polymarket sits, Right?

[Donald Trump]

Yeah.

[Andrew Egger]

What do you think? Yeah, what do you think? Poly Market's percentage. What the bettors think is the percentage chance that those tariffs will go into effect on July 9.

[Sam Stein]

25%.

[Andrew Egger]

Too high. 15%. No one believes he's gonna go through with it. Taco is the new. Is the new zeitgeist. It is. It is what we. It's everyone's belief about Trump. He's just a chicken.

[Sam Stein]

Who's this guy? Who's this guy who coined the taco trade? I ran it down a minute ago. Robert Armstrong. Look, congratulations to Robert Armstrong with Financial Times. You don't necessarily expect as a Financial Times columnist to like it sounds like.

[Andrew Egger]

A great morning shots, a little Robert Armstrong mini profile.

[Sam Stein]

Yeah, this is great. Yeah, let's hit him up. Let's hit him up. No, it's. I mean, it's so. It's so true. It's what's happening. It's the taco trade. Until it's not. Until he. Until he decides.

[Andrew Egger]

He decides.

[Sam Stein]

He cannot possibly. Yeah, he can't possibly reward this kind of behavior. He's got a. Yeah, well, we'll see. Maybe tomorrow the Dow will drop 80% as he slaps every Liberation Day tariff back on and says.

[Andrew Egger]

And tags Robert on his bleach.

[Sam Stein]

Yeah, fuck you, Robert. Yeah. Opens a criminal investigation into him. Yeah, something like that.

[Andrew Egger]

Have fun in El Salvador, Robert. All right, Andrew, it's always a pleasure. Thank you for talking tacos with me. Really appreciate it. Thank you guys for watching on the YouTubes. Appreciate that. Subscribe to the feed, we'll talk to you soon.