B (5:27)

A little over three months.

A (5:28)

Yeah, that's what I thought. And how was. How was it. How is it delivering?

B (5:35)

Oh, you know, just freeze. Childbirth, like, whatever. I don't know why people talk about it as if it's unpleasant. It's done.

A (5:42)

It's done. Well, congratulations. And so you left the Washington Post.

B (5:47)

Correct.

A (5:48)

And now you're with the Bulwark. You know, when I've done my interviews with you, what I would do is just read four of your columns and then ask you about them. And you've only written one Bulwark column.

B (5:59)

I just started last week, so give me.

A (6:01)

Is that when you started?

B (6:02)

Yes. Yes.

A (6:04)

Oh, so you wrote about the tariffs and I'll ask you about that. And you're on. Is it weekend prime time?

B (6:12)

Yes.

A (6:12)

Is that what it's called?

B (6:14)

Yes, the weekend prime time. And you are welcome to come back.

A (6:18)

Oh, thank you.

B (6:19)

We would love to have you back to talk about Minnesota politics or otherwise.

A (6:23)

And that's on Msnbc for people who don't know.

B (6:27)

Soon to be rebranded as Ms. Now, of course, I have to plug that because that's happening imminently. Of course.

A (6:33)

You write mainly economic stories.

B (6:36)

Yeah, I would say economics, broader public policy and politics.

A (6:42)

Right. Okay. Well, we have some political stories of late, particularly the end of the shutdown which is looming today. We're recording this on Wednesday and I think they're meeting the House down. They'll probably. The shutdown will be done this evening.

B (6:58)

I sure hope so.

A (6:59)

Well, good. I'm glad you feel that way. Before I get to the shutdown, though, I have to ask you about the Epstein emails. He wrote one to Ghislaine Maxwell and a few or Michael Wolf are the ones. I guess they released three of them, the Democrats on the committee, and one of which, Epstein writes that Trump spent a significant amount of time with one of the women who was one of the victims. That's not good for Trump, is it?

B (7:34)

Presumably not. Somehow he survives every other scandal. That would not be survivable. But it certainly looks bad given that again and again we've been told that Trump had nothing to do with Epstein's dirty deeds, wasn't aware of them. And if anything, if you get into like, deep QAnon lore, Trump was maybe the guy who brought Epstein down, that he was undercover, something. I think that there are all these weird.

A (8:05)

I have not heard that one.

B (8:07)

Yeah, don't. Don't dig too deep into it on the interwebs. You'll be upset.

A (8:12)

They're going to release the files right now because Grijala is seated.

B (8:18)

She's seated. I don't know enough about how the discharge petition process works, which is this. Maybe you know more about this. No, I don't on the Hill, but it's not automatic. I believe that after she is seated, there's still some other steps that have to happen. And so if Johnson, for example, calls another recess immediately after they open the government, that could maybe short circuit those attempts to release the files. But I am not a parliamentary procedure expert. That is just my vague understanding is that it's not like a done deal. Even if she is sworn in, there have to be some additional votes cast. And I think they have. You know, they're on a timer for how quickly they can. This discharge petition thing runs out. I don't know. I'm the wrong person to ask about all of that.

A (9:09)

Right. Okay.

B (9:10)

But there's definitely a pathway to getting the files released. But that doesn't mean that somebody who understands the procedures better than I Do. Couldn't foreclose that pathway.

A (9:20)

Okay, let's get to the shutdown. This was the longest in history. How many days? It was 43 days, something like that. Yeah.

B (9:32)

Yeah.

A (9:32)

What'd you make of the seven Democrats, plus Angus King joining the 52 Republicans and this thing.

B (9:42)

I understand why people are pissed off because the question is, what do they really get in exchange for ultimately caving? And it doesn't really look like much. There is a promise for a future vote on health insurance, a vote that even if it does happen, does not ensure that the bill would pass. And there's no one. There's no obligation for the House.

A (10:08)

For the House to take it.

B (10:09)

Correct. And I would definitely not trust Mike Johnson, even if he gave his word to have a vote. But he doesn't seem, based on what he said thus far, and again, it's Wednesday. Maybe things will change by the time this comes out. It doesn't seem likely that he would give it a vote. He has said as much, so it's not really clear what it was all for. Now, the counterargument, I know is they wanted to make more salient. They being the Democrats, wanted to make more salient the fact that the premium rate hikes were Republicans fault. And I think that they did more or less achieve that.

A (10:49)

Well, they had achieved that, I think, for the midterms. I think that was one of the reasons that. One of the reasons.

B (10:56)

Right. So it's like, well, what did they get? I guess they got that. I think the timing of all of this is still a little perplexing. Like, why did they wait until 40 days? I think it was 40 days when the, when the Senate vote happened.

A (11:10)

I think they wanted to wait till after the election. They do, because this motivated Democrats. Democrats are mad that they did this.

B (11:18)

Yep.

A (11:18)

And, you know, there is a counter argument which is, were the Republicans ever gonna cave? And I don't think they ever were.

B (11:27)

Yeah, I think that's part of the issue. Well, there are two issues. One is that they may have never caved on the thing that was supposed to be the only demand or the, the key demand the Democrats made, which is on health insurance.

A (11:41)

Right.

B (11:41)

If they had said, well, we would take enhanced premium tax credits, the health insurance thing, or, I don't know, something on Medicaid to something else on health insurance or, you know, like a suite of possibilities, maybe there would have been an off ramp where Republicans could have made some concession. They didn't. They basically made it about one thing and one thing only.

A (12:02)

Well, they made Concessions in the final thing that was agreed to not to fire any of the.

B (12:09)

Yeah, but why would they? They wouldn't have fired them in to begin with.

A (12:13)

Oh, Trump would have.

B (12:14)

Well, but not under the auspices of a shutdown. It's like. So I don't know that that's really so much of a win. I think the other issue is that Trump was really willing to take hostages. And what I mean by that is take food stamps. This administration worked really, really hard to ensure maximum suffering, to ensure people stayed hungry.

A (12:43)

Now, what do you think of that morally? I mean, in other words, could you believe it? I mean, could you believe that he did that?

B (12:52)

Yes. I think there's been enough hostility towards snap, the food stamp program, within the Republican Party for decades that maybe there was a little bit of callousness to begin with about taking away food stamp benefits. And if you looked at the big beautiful bill, whatever big beautiful act now that passed, that also cuts food stamp funding as well as other kinds of safety net programs.

A (13:17)

I think part of the agreement the Democrats got, thus the eight Democrats got, was increased snap.

B (13:23)

Well, it was like that they would extend funding for a longer period so that it would not be part of the hostage taking theory when this continuing resolution runs out in January. So I think part of the backstory here is a lot of Republicans don't really like food stamps anyway, even though there are farmers and other red state constituencies that benefit from it and red state residents. Plenty of people who vote Republican receive food stamps.

A (13:52)

Actually, I think that more people in red areas of states receive snap.

B (14:00)

But beyond that, there's that existing hostility. And I think they realized that this was a real pain point and Democrats were not going to be willing to allow that suffering to continue. Right. Because Democrats were making the argument that they were shutting down the government to prevent people from suffering through loss of health insurance. It's maybe harder for them to maintain that position if by the very act of not voting to reopen the government, they are enabling an administration to incur more suffering, I should say, because people can't get their food assistance. And when I say that the administration went above and beyond to make sure people stayed hungry, I mean, they were really creative. So not only did they tell courts, please prevent us from being forced to give out food stamp funding, which they very much could have done, there was definitely funding that was available to them to do that. There was this contingency funding. They went to courts, they asked again and again, please block orders from lower courts saying, we have to send this money out when some states, in a brief period on, I think it was Thursday, Friday, Saturday, when a lower court had said this, the SNAP funding had to be released. But the Supreme Court, via Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, had not blocked that order yet. A bunch of states sent out money on cards. And so they were all. If you look at social media, for example, or even, you know, local news organizations, you'll see a lot of examples of people celebrating. Finally, my EBT card has money on it. Well, what did the administration do? I think it was late Saturday night.

A (15:48)

They told, they told.

B (15:49)

They told the states to take the money back, which I'm not even sure is well legal or logistically.

A (15:57)

States had to go to court and it was. Everything delayed, people getting.

B (16:02)

Yes. And then so. So they tried to block the states. They tried to force the states to claw back the money. And then even more peculiar, cruel. I don't know what the right adjective is. When there were retailers who said, we're going to try to help out customers who are normally SNAP recipients who have had this lapse in funding. We're going to give them a discount on their groceries. And there are a number of grocery stores around the country that decided to do this. Just like there were food banks that were getting more donations and distributing more food. You know, there were a lot of community action to try to help people who were suffering during all of this. The administration sent out a letter to all retailers that participate in the SNAP program and said, you better not give people a discount. If you do, we're going to take away your ability to participate in this program. That. That was basically what they said. It's prohibited. And the way that they were doing it was through this rule that is supposed to prevent discrimination against SNAP recipients. But in this case, they're saying, you can't offer them kindness either.

A (17:11)

This feels like a Stephen Miller project. It's like he said, let me take care of this.

B (17:17)

I'm telling you. It's like, how did they even think to do this? Especially when the government was ostensibly shut down. They've somehow found the resources to, like, comb through the rule book to figure out how they could punish private businesses who were trying to offer kindness just so that they could maximize suffering and therefore bring Democrats to heel. That was the argument. Now, what's confusing about all of this is that it seemed like Democrats were winning, that people were either experiencing themselves or seeing with their eyes examples of how the administration was trying to maximize suffering. They probably didn't know about this email that went out to grocery stores Most people didn't. I happen to, because I follow this stuff. You know, they probably saw the headlines about the, the request to the Supreme Court, multiple requests to that Supreme Court, rather saying, please don't force us to distribute the money. So it's, it was like pretty transparent who to blame for this suffering that was resulting from the shutdown. And if you look at the polling, the polling reflected that, that people were primarily blaming Republicans and Trump.

A (18:31)

Now, where, where was the Supreme Court at this point? Because it was got up to the Supreme Court. But they kicked it back twice, right?

B (18:38)

Yes. Well, it's a little bit complicated, but basically Ketanji Brown Jackson is in charge of the first Circuit Court.

A (18:46)

Yeah.

B (18:47)

And so rather than saying, I'm, I'm going to have the whole court vote on this, I'm going to kick it back to the, to the lower courts themselves and say, give, give us like a meteor decision. Because the original decision was like, you got to send the money out. And with a lot, without a lot of explanation. So it was like, have a more robust decision. We will review it. And the lower courts did that, sent it back to her. And the administration was like, you got, now you got to review that and decide whether we have to send the money out. And it's a little bit silly because as we've been discussing and will hopefully be the case by the time this podcast goes out into the world, the government is about to reopen. And so, like, why are they still fighting over whether they have to release snap funds while the government is shut down if the whole thing is going.

A (19:39)

To be moved now?

B (19:40)

Yeah, but there's, I think they're still going to try to seek a decision on this because there are questions about presidential powers that are implicit in all of this. It's not just about the food stamp program.

A (19:51)

Oh, presidential powers is a big subject of this president.

B (19:56)

Yep.

A (19:57)

We're gonna take a quick break. We'll be right back with Kathryn Rampel. So we got a new sponsor, Graza, my olive oil of choice. You know, I love to cook for me and Franny and for my, my kids and grandchildren, for friends. And I love cooking with olive oil. And Graza is a delicious, easy to use extra virgin olive oil at an affordable, everyday price. Graza is always fresh. They pick, press and bottle all their olives in the same season. You can see the harvest date on every bottle. I never thought about that before, but it's comforting. Graza has two types of extra virgin olive oils to stock your kitchen. There's sizzle that's their everyday cooking oil. Perfect for roasting, sauteing and, well, anything you cook. And they also have drizzle, a flavorful finishing oil that's great for dipping bread and whipping up a salad dressing. That's sizzle and drizzle, the name of the two Graza brothers. Speaking of family, my family loves my marinara sauce. It's simple. I slowly saute garlic and onions in Graza's sizzle oil, put in the canned tomatoes, a bay leaf and basil and cooked slowly for hours. And perfect for pasta. Eggplant, parmesan, lasagna. Of course, olive oil is the healthiest fat that I add to my meals. I'd highly recommend Graza for any home chef who likes to cook. So head to Graza Co and use Franken to get 10% off and get to cooking your next chef quality meal. That's G R A Z A CO and use promo code FRANKENTODAY for 10% off your first order. Graza, the best olive oil in my kitchen. We are back with Kathryn Rampel. You write about economics. I want to get your take on some aspects of the economy. Americans are not happy. They think the cost of living is going up too fast. Trump says that's a lie. Can we play that clip? Peter it was a con job. Affordability, they call. It was a con job by the, by the Democrats. The Democrats are good at a few things. Cheating on elections and conning people with facts that aren't true. They said, oh, I don't want to talk about affordability. The reason I don't want to talk about affordability is because everybody knows that it's for far less expensive under Trump than it was under sleepy Joe Biden. And the prices are way down. It's far less expensive.

B (23:02)

None of that is true.

A (23:03)

None of that's true. And do MAGA people hear that? I mean, they must have played it once on Fox or something like that. I mean, and then said, oh, let's stop playing that. But, or maybe they never did.

B (23:17)

But I mean, no, they've been playing. I oftentimes have the TV with the four boxes on. You know, you can see msnbc, cnbc, Fox and CNN or some other mix of things. And so I've had that, I've had the TV on, on mute and I've been looking at the Kyrons on Fox and they've been covering. Trump is attacking the affordability crisis and he's gonna get prices down. You know, I haven't been listening so closely to their coverage, but they kind of Want to have their cake and eat it, too. Either there isn't an affordability crisis and it's a con job or whatever, or there is one and Trump is tackling it. I don't know. It's somewhere in some one of those two things which seem somewhat at odds.

A (24:00)

Well, they live in America, the MAGA people, and they pay. They go to the grocery store and they have to hear that and go, that's not right. Things aren't cheaper now.

B (24:12)

Well, it probably helps that again, with the government shutdown, lots of functions aren't occurring, including data releases. So we have been flying blind a little bit. We haven't gotten the recent jobs report. We haven't gotten the most recent inflation data, the 1. The report that the Federal Reserve cares more about.

A (24:30)

I'm not talking about people who follow inflation data.

B (24:35)

You're talking about people going to the grocery store. Yeah, I agree. And Trump, again, sometimes will recognize that there's a problem and sometimes will deny that there's a problem. I saw that he gave an interview, I want to say yesterday, where he said, we're going to help with coffee prices by reducing tariffs on coffee. Yeah. Whoever was the bonehead who decided to raise tariffs on coffee from Brazil and Colombia and Vietnam, that guy definitely doesn't deserve to be president. But it was Trump, right?

A (25:08)

Well, I'm Brazil. Brazil is prosecuting his friend, his buddy. Yeah.

B (25:16)

So, you know, he's like, I'm going to be the hero and reduce tariffs on coffee. Coffee prices have gone way up, partly because of tariffs, partly because of drought and some other, you know, geopolitical things. So he's like, he wants praise. It's again, the arsonist wants praise for his firefighting skills. He's the one who put the tariffs on coffee. Now he wants to be praised for maybe reducing tariffs on coffee. I don't know that he's actually done it yet. Maybe that'll happen again by the time this podcast goes out into the world.

A (25:48)

But maybe the Supreme Court. We'll get to that in a bit. Your piece on that in the Bulwark.

B (25:56)

He also said he's gonna get gas prices down to $2 a gallon. Here's a little quiz for you. When was the last time gas was $2 a gallon?

A (26:05)

Probably during the pandemic.

B (26:08)

Yes. Yeah, it was like spring 2020. You know why gas was $2 a gallon?

A (26:14)

Because no one was using gas.

B (26:15)

I mean, there was like, a giant global recession.

A (26:19)

Yeah.

B (26:20)

You know, like, I guess that's one way to get gas prices down is if you completely destroy demand.

A (26:26)

When the pandemic ended during Biden and people started using gas again and industry was, was going and using gas and diesel, the price of gas went up. And Trump kept saying, when I was President it was $2. It was less than $2 when I was president.

B (26:47)

Yeah, but it was less than $2 because we were in a global economic crisis.

A (26:52)

Yes, exactly.

B (26:54)

He just doesn't understand what he doesn't understand really anything about the economy. He doesn't understand why gas prices were low at various points and whether that's actually a good thing.

A (27:08)

He thinks tariffs are good for the economy, which is. We'll talk about that in a bit. I want to. Steve Ratner was on Morning Joe and he went over some statistics. Trump is at a 37% approval rating for his handling the economy. I don't know why that makes me laugh.

B (27:31)

You mean because he partly won on his grand economic agenda and how he was going to reduce inflation and make the economy great again? Yeah, it is a little bit funny. It would be funnier if we weren't having to deal with the consequences ourselves. But yes, it is a little bit funny.

A (27:46)

It's funny. First time home buyers are now on average 40 years old. That's crazy.

B (27:56)

Yeah.

A (27:57)

Bill Polti, director of the Federal Housing Finance agency or the FH FA has proposed a 50 year mortgage. And so if the average person gets a mortgage is 40 years old, that means they'll be 90.

B (28:17)

When they pay off the mortgage or if they try to sell it before then, presumably because I would imagine they're not. Who knows, maybe that'll be everybody's forever home. But they'll find out that when they sell it they have a lot less equity is part of the issue. I don't think the, the real scary scenario is that people are going to hold it until 90. I think the issue is people don't realize that they'll, if they get a 50 year mortgage, let's say they're going to be paying primarily interest for a very long time. They will have paid down very little of the principal. So which comes out to meaning they're not going to have that much equity in the home that they're buying. They'll have a slightly smaller monthly payment, which I guess is good. But they lose a lot of the benefits of the investment in homeownership. So it's not really clear who this helps. You know, we already have interest only mortgages that this is not functionally would not be that different from.

A (29:19)

What do you mean by interest only.

B (29:21)

Mortgages, there are non amortizing loans, so you can get them and you pay only interest. And when, when you sell the house, you have not paid. You know, you have no equity in the house, effectively you have not paid. This exists as, as a loan. Actually I looked at it when I was a first time home buyer at a, at the spring chicken young age of 38 and I would say that interest rates were high at the time. So which is why I was looking at it. It ultimately did not decide to do it, but it makes sense potentially if you think interest rates are about to fall.

A (29:59)

Okay. One of the statisticals, the unemployment rate is at 4.2% overall, which is not so bad at all.

B (30:07)

Again, that's old data because we haven't had the most recent data because the government shut down.

A (30:12)

But yes, and 9.2% for ages 20 to 24, which in that data doesn't include people in college. These are people looking for a job.

B (30:24)

Okay.

A (30:26)

Is this a recession for young people or are we. You wrote in your tariff piece that we're in danger of stagflation.

B (30:36)

Yes. Whether or not we are in a recession will ultimately be determined by this official group of economists. And they haven't ruled yet and they usually wait a long time to like make a call for like last year a recession began in such and such a month.

A (30:52)

It has to be in number of months. Right. For economic.

B (30:56)

No, if you look at the pandemic recession. So the beginning of COVID that was really brief. That was like maybe two months or. I'm trying to remember, I think it's, I don't have the, the dates in front of me, but I think it like started in March or April and was done within two months officially because it's about when the economy shrinks and when the economy starts growing again. And the economy, when it reopened, it started growing again really quickly, you know, very soon after stuff started reopening. So, you know, official recession calls are made by this one group. They haven't ruled yet. Are specific demographics really suffering? Yeah, I think that there are particular demographics that are struggling and that's because of a number of reasons. And it's not all about Trump. Normally I would say presidents don't have that much influence over the economy. This one is maybe an exception because he's done so many boneheaded things to make the economy worse, including the tariffs. The fact that young people, particularly those right out of college or maybe struggling to get jobs, could also be related to AI, frankly that a lot of like entry level job type tasks are being automated. So you know, we don't know exactly yet, but I think there are other factors.

A (32:14)

I want to talk about AI a little later, but let's talk about SCOTUS arguments on tariffs. You wrote the piece in Bulwark and you're saying that basically this is hurting businesses. I think you called it pointless tariff minimizing bullshit as you call it, which.

B (32:40)

Is term of art.

A (32:41)

These people, these businesses that have to import would have to game when they imported because of Trump changing the tariffs.

B (32:52)

Yeah, because he changes them from day to day or minute to minute. So if you are a company that is, let's say you're a retailer or a wholesaler and you have to get a lot of your products from abroad from day to day, the effective tariff rates that you pay could be wildly different. There was one business that I spoke with, for example, called Balsam Hill. They make fancy artificial Christmas trees. Yeah, you know them? Okay. Yep, yep.

A (33:22)

No, no, no, I read your.

B (33:23)

Okay, okay. I'm a good Jewish girl, so I don't have a Christmas tree, so I was not as familiar. But apparently I'm told by friends of mine who are, you know, Christmas enthusiasts that this is like the Rolls Royce of Christmas trees that, that are sold anyway, so they, they import their Christmas trees from China. This is a business that they've looked into whether they could move manufacturing to the US and it is just not feasible because these are pre lit Christmas trees. So. And so that means like they're very labor intensive. Somebody has to string the lights through the tree. And you could not do that in the United States because it just would not be like the price point that you would have to sell that at, given what it costs, you know, what, what American workers reasonably can demand because we're higher up in the value chain anyway, they couldn't move it here. So they're, they're importing from China and the tariff rates on China are all over the place from the start of this year.

A (34:19)

What's the highest it's been and what's.

B (34:21)

I mean, like well over 100%. I think at one point it was like 150%. I don't remember. And you know, what has been announced versus what has actually been implemented are also two different things.

A (34:32)

So this manufacturer that you talked about would have to change his orders and.

B (34:37)

Yeah, he was telling me, he's like, we're canceling and un. Canceling and scheduling and rescheduling.

A (34:41)

And that means he can't hire as many people.

B (34:45)

Yeah, he's spending all of his time figuring out how to keep the business viable, given these tariffs, because their costs very tremendously from day to day. He said that last year they paid about a million dollars in tariff revenue or, you know, tariff bills.

A (35:01)

Right.

B (35:01)

This year, they're going to pay about 15 million. And if they had gotten unlucky and they had shipped on the wrong dates, their bill would have been 117 million. Right. Which is many multiples of their profits. So that's huge. Last year was a million dollars. This year, they could have paid a bill of $117 million. And he's one company. And, you know, Christmas trees are a weird business. They do their own. You know, it's like they're not.

A (35:28)

It sounds very successful.

B (35:29)

Yeah. You can't generalize to all businesses, but a lot of businesses have felt. Have dealt with these same annoying constraints. And so they're. They're, like, frantically trying to figure out, do we have. Do we have the ship come over now? Do we have to have the trucks, like, circle the warehouse a few times? He referred to it as the hokey pokey.

A (35:51)

Okay. And then multiply this by all these businesses.

B (35:54)

Right, exactly. So there are a lot of businesses who. They have to pay higher tariffs. They spend. They waste a lot of time figuring out how to optimize so that they don't. So they can minimize how much they're paying in tariffs. And there's so much uncertainty that they might just, like, be paralyzed altogether and say, you know what? We're not going to invest. We're not going to hire. Maybe we'll have layoffs because we don't know what our costs will be going forward. So if you remove all of those layers of, like, just, like, weights that are weighing on these businesses. Yeah, that would be quite helpful. Not to mention the fact that.

A (36:31)

To the economy, for God's sake. And we're gonna take a quick break. We'll be right back with Kathryn Rampel. Extra Value Meals are back for just $5. Get a savory and sweet sausage, egg and cheese, McGridd hash browns, and a coffee only at McDonald's for a limited time only. Prices and participation may vary. Prices may be higher in Hawaii, Alaska, and California. And for delivery, I love to sleep. I love to get a good seven to nine hours every night. And I found out what really helps is a good bed with good sheets and a good pillow. And there's enough in the world to keep you up at night. Your bedding shouldn't be one of them. That's why I'd like to tell you about Ghostbed. Ghostbed is a family run company focused on quality and comfort and cooling. All in an effort to help people like you and me sleep better. Their mattresses are made from premium materials to help regulate temperature throughout the night so that you don't wake up overheated. And they're built to last. Backed by a 20 to 25 year warranties. You also get 101 night sleep trial to make sure that it's the right fit for you. And here is the best part. Ghostbed mattresses cost up to 50% less than comparable brands, so you're getting real quality at a fair price. I've gotten to check out their great bedding. The Ghost sheets are made of Supima cotton with Tencel fibers specially designed to keep you cool at night while also prioritizing durability and resisting allergens and bacteria growth. The Ghost pillow is a memory foam pillow that promotes cooling. Right now, during Ghostbed's fall sale, you can get 25% off site wide. For a limited time. Just go to ghostbed.com Franken and use promo code Franken at checkout. That's ghostbed.com Franken promo code Franken. Upgrade your sleep with Ghostbed, the makers of the coolest beds in the world. And we are back with Katharine Rampel. Well, let's talk about the Supreme Court.

B (38:57)

Sure.

A (38:58)

So Neil Katyala, they represented the plaintiffs, Right. He opened with three words, tariffs are taxes, which they are. And the justices, most of them anyway, agreed. Right.

B (39:16)

Well, it sounded that way from their questions. I would say that you never know. Right. Like sometimes what they say in the oral argument is different from how they ultimately come down. But from the questions that they asked, they sounded somewhere between skeptical and outright hostile to the government's arguments.

A (39:34)

Okay. And the Solicitor General who's arguing for the White House, said that under the International Emergency Powers act, the President can impose tariffs in an emergency. Except that the International Emergency Powers act, it doesn't mention tariffs.

B (39:53)

Yeah. So there are a bunch of issues here.

A (39:56)

Did any of the Justices point that out or was that.

B (39:59)

Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is the core part of this case, which is, can the President just levy tariffs whenever he wants to?

A (40:08)

And that's. Congress is supposed to levy tariffs, right?

B (40:12)

Yeah. There's a thing called the Constitution. It says that Congress has power of the purse. They get to levy taxes. Tariffs are taxes. Yep. And so the question is, can the President do this whenever he decides there's a national emergency? And then also what can count as a national emergency? Right. So there are sort of multiple questions here. The main one is about the tariffs. The other is about the national emergency piece of this. And is it a national emergency if we have a trade deficit? Trump says, yes. Is it a national emergency if. I don't know. People in Brazil are being mean to Trump's good friend Bolsonaro. Trump says, yes. Is it a national emergency if the premier of Ontario decides to have a TV ad that accurately quotes Ronald Reagan?

A (41:07)

Right.

B (41:08)

Trump says, yes. That was why he said he cut off the tariff negotiations with Canada that are about these. These national emergency tariffs because of the Ronald Reagan Act. So there is this question of, like, can the President effectively decide whenever he wants that he's going to slap tariffs on something because he. His feelings are hurt, essentially. And I'm not a lawyer, you know, I do the. More of the econ side of things. But from my discussions with legal experts, and particularly those who are like, deep into the Federalist Society, greater universe, the argument is essentially, this is like a big separation of powers question. And even though the Supreme Court has in many other cases been willing to expand presidential power, you know, this unitary executive stuff, in this particular case, they seem much more inclined, even before we heard the oral arguments, to say, no, Trump, you cannot do this. This is supposed to be the purview of Congress, particularly since the law we're talking about, IEPA does not delegate away that authority.

A (42:19)

Okay, so when will they decide this? We don't know.

B (42:23)

We don't know.

A (42:24)

Should do it soon, I hope.

B (42:25)

Yeah, we don't know. We know that the administration had asked basically for the case to be fast.

A (42:31)

And your Christmas tree company, should they decide the President doesn't have authority, will get money back.

B (42:38)

Right, Exactly. So not only will businesses and potentially the greater economy benefit from tariffs being lifted going forward, because they won't have to worry about all of this bullshit, you know, and, and moving the ships and the trucks and the warehouses around. But also they will be rebated back all of the tariff money that they've already paid. So in the case of Christmas Tree Company, they've paid, or they're expecting to pay some $15 million this year. They're going to get 15 million bucks back now, on what time frame? We don't know. And there will probably be some logistical difficulties in all of this. They don't have to be. When I've talked with trade experts, they've said, you know, like, Customs and Border Protection have been able to rebate money back pretty Much automatically before I'm sure that they'll drag their feet and. But it doesn't really matter. It's like once companies know that that money is coming back, they can spend. Markets are going to reflect that. Presumably people are going to feel more flush. I mean, I think you're already seeing this, to be fair, in markets. I think that's part of the reason why market stock markets have been relatively strong because there is an assumption that the Supreme Court is going to strike down these tariffs.

A (43:50)

Well, they've been strong because the AI too, I mean there's.

B (43:53)

That's true also. Yes.

A (43:55)

I mean, I don't know if there's an AI bubble or not. Should I buy or sell Nvidia?

B (44:04)

I don't know. I'm the wrong person to ask.

A (44:06)

Okay.

B (44:07)

But I'm happy to talk about AI and whether there's a bubble that I.

A (44:11)

Well, yeah. What is AI going to. I mean people are losing jobs in UPS and Amazon and other places and is AI going to create or destroy more jobs?

B (44:27)

Yes.

A (44:27)

In the future? Yes, both.

B (44:29)

Both. I mean every time there's a major disruptive technology, some people lose their jobs and some people get jobs and it is often not the same people. Right. Like we saw this during the Industrial Revolution. There were plenty of artisanal guild type people who were replaced by machines. The horse and buggy whip people were replaced by automobiles.

A (44:57)

How hard would it be to replace my job here when I'm doing with AI?

B (45:04)

I don't know.

A (45:05)

Are there AI podcasts?

B (45:07)

There are AI songs like composing programs. I don't know about podcasts. Probably it could be done. I don't know, probably the service already exists somewhere. You know, the hope is that like what you are doing is uniquely human and could not be. And Al Franken could not be replicated by large language model. But maybe.

A (45:34)

Thank you.

B (45:35)

I don't know, you could go into ChatGPT and say like can you write an Al Franken joke for me and see what it says and see how well it does. But it will replace a lot of creative jobs. You know, most of the other big technological innovations, disruptions that come to mind, you know, the people replaced by the automated loom or the automated thresher or the automobile, etc. I think we tend to think of those as more physical labor type jobs and not so much creative type jobs, you know, white collar, particularly positions. Lots of factory workers have been replaced by robots. So I think this will be disruptive to a different class of people than we've seen in the past. And I don't know how that's going to play out. You know, will people. Will people still want columnists and journalists? I don't know. But again, this. Whenever there are these disruptions, there are new jobs created, too, because there are new jobs that spring up that are complementary to the new technology, and then there are jobs that are just like, they're uniquely human and they're really hard to replace. So you just have to hope that you can develop skills in one of those areas.

A (46:58)

Okay, well, we have a little time left. I want to ask you a political question. Gavin Newsom is in. He's in Brazil. He's running. He was just in Texas.

B (47:09)

Yeah.

A (47:10)

So presidential politics are beginning already.

B (47:14)

Oh. I assume that all these guys have been running for president since they were about 14. So it is interesting, though, that he went to Texas because presumably Texas is not in play for the Democrats in 2028.

A (47:35)

Well, but Texas have Democrats. They have delegates.

B (47:37)

They have delegates. That's true.

A (47:39)

Right. So you have to get the nomination.

B (47:42)

That's true. That's true.

A (47:43)

And it's a big state, and there.

B (47:46)

Is a big showdown right now over gerrymandering and redistricting that effectively began with Texas and California.

A (47:54)

Oh, that makes sense. That's why I visited.

B (47:56)

So I assume that's part of it as well.

A (47:59)

Well, thanks, Katherine. Good seeing you again.

B (48:02)

Likewise. Come back on my show.

A (48:04)

Congratulations. We will. I will. I'm a we.

B (48:09)

The royal we.

A (48:10)

Yeah.

B (48:11)

You and your AI Helpers.

A (48:13)

Yeah, yeah. AI. When you. If you put it on a computer, it looks like al.

B (48:20)

That's true.

A (48:22)

It does. Well, thanks again. Congratulations on your little girl.

B (48:27)

Thank you so much. I really appreciate it.

A (48:29)

Well, I hope you enjoyed listening. That beautiful music is by Leo Kotke. The great Leo Kotke. I want to thank Peter Ogburn for producing this podcast. We'll talk again next week. Extra value meals are back for just $5. Get a savory and sweet sausage, egg and cheese McGriddles, plus hash browns and a coffee only at McDonald's for a limited time only. Prices and participation may vary. Prices may be higher in Hawaii, Alaska and California. And for delivery.