← The Bulwark Podcast
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- [00:00]
Ryan Seacrest
Hey, it's Ryan Seacrest for Albertsons and Safeway with the Stock up sale at Safeway and Albertsons. Stock up and earn four times points at your local store when you purchase participating products. Save now on your favorite beverages, from Red Bull to Coke, Monster 7Up body armor and Pepsi. Clip the offer in the app for event savings and look for participating items throughout the store. Shop in store or online. Plus, you can even have your groceries delivered or use drive up and go to have your groceries brought to your car in the store. Restrictions and exclusions apply this. Visit Albertsons or Safeway.com for more details.
- [00:38]
Tim Miller
Hello and welcome to the Bulwark Podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller. We got a double header today. Congressman Jason Crow from Colorado in segment two. But first, delighted to bring back a syndicated opinion columnist at the Washington Post. She's joining MSNBC as co anchor for a new weekend show. Also special correspondent for the NewsHour. She's busy. It's Katherine Rampel. What's up?
- [00:59]
Katherine Rampel
Doing okay. How are you feeling?
- [01:02]
Tim Miller
A lot happening? Doing okay. Personally, I'm well.
- [01:04]
Katherine Rampel
Well, I don't know. My 401k doesn't look great. Democracy doesn't look great. But I have my health. Yeah, that's what I'm supposed to tell myself. Right.
- [01:12]
Tim Miller
And we have a long path in front of us. You know, the college fund. I still got 11 years to rebound the 401k after today. Or it's not the 401k but the college savings account.
- [01:25]
Katherine Rampel
Well, you're assuming colleges will still be around.
- [01:28]
Tim Miller
That's a good point.
- [01:29]
Katherine Rampel
Which they may or may not.
- [01:31]
Tim Miller
We're moving to Autarky, as our friend Derek Thompson said. So, you know, it'll be kind of a home college, you know, where the we'll bring in someone from the Capitol to give the approved lesson plan. Who knows? Could be an interesting future. I was gonna start with candy, though. You took us dark to the dark possible future. I'm gonna start with just a little. The people deserve candy because there's going to be a lot of negativity, I think, on the podcast, I sense. So I want to just remind people that we did have a campaign last year in 2024, and there was a candidate to Kamala Harris who expressed some thoughts about the economy and what she thought might be coming. And I want to play a little sizzle reel.
- [02:10]
Katherine Rampel
Include the fact that Donald Trump's plans for the economy would accelerate inflation and.
- [02:16]
Jason Crow
Invite a recession by the middle of next year, increase inflation, and by the middle of next year would invite a.
- [02:22]
Katherine Rampel
Recession, increase inflation and invite a recession by the middle of next year, a recession on by the middle of next year to a recession by the middle of next year. Recession by the middle of next year.
- [02:33]
Jason Crow
Recession by the middle of next year.
- [02:35]
Katherine Rampel
A recession by the middle of next year. Recession by the middle of next year.
- [02:42]
Jason Crow
A recession by the middle of next year. Recession by the middle of next year.
- [02:48]
Tim Miller
She tried to warn you, are we gonna have a recession by the middle of this year?
- [02:51]
Katherine Rampel
Catherine, she's not the only one. She was actually citing a study that looked at what Donald Trump's effect on the economy would be if he put in place his full agenda. And I also said last year, if he put in place his full agenda, yes, this would be devastating to the global economy. But we should not assume that's the base case. Right, Because Donald Trump says a lot of things that he doesn't car out. And so, you know, there's certainly a chance of Armageddon, but who knows what he's actually going to do? And then there were obviously people on Wall street who were even. Who were much more sanguine even than that, who, like, heard Donald Trump say again and again, I'm a tariff man. I'm going to put 10% tariffs on every product around the world. But all they absorbed was, what was that? Corporate tax cuts. And so markets were more joyful and euphoric even last year shortly after the election, because they didn't think at all. You know, they seemed to think that there was zero probability that he would do the thing that he said he was going to do, and they would only get the goodies, essentially. And now we're seeing people absorb the reality.
- [04:14]
Tim Miller
It's pretty amazing that the Berkeley Communist Kamala Harris had a better sense for what was going to happen with the economy than people who are paid to be experts on the economy or people whose livelihoods and finances are dependent on their bets on what the economy is going to do. It seems like a pretty big goof for all of the biggest finance experts to be like, you know, I'm just going to take a flyer on the guy that bankrupted a casino and keeps telling us that he has plans that will tank the economy. And I'm going to just assume that he's going to, you know, do what I want instead. That feels like a miss.
- [04:55]
Katherine Rampel
Yeah, I feel like there's a lot of schadenfreude about random Trump voters who supported him thinking he was going to bring down prices or make IVF free or want One of various other ridiculous promises that he made. And now they're getting what's coming to them. And that's not really how I feel. I feel like Trump lied a lot on the campaign, during the campaign about what he was going to do. And normal American voters generally don't have the bandwidth to do a lot of in depth research about, for example, what happens when you impose a tariff. Right. Some of these things that he talked about were not super intuitive. Some of them were in terms of what effects they would have. Some of them were just outright lies, like the IVF thing. But things like, oh, he's gonna bring down prices and he's gonna make China pay for the tariffs or whatever. I think the fact that the falsity of all of that didn't penetrate regular Americans is not entirely their fault. I think the media didn't do a great job in covering things and most people are a lot, probably the, the marginal voter who made the difference here at least is somewhat disengaged from politics. So for those people, it's easy for people to spike the football. But for, for those voters who thought they were getting one thing and are, are now enduring a bait and switch, you know, I don't entirely blame them, but for the people on Wall street, right, they are paid to get this right. They are paid to make accurate predictions, to read all of the white papers, such as they are, to figure out what Trump's proposals would be, or at least the range of what they could be and then the range of outcomes that though they're paid to know how tariffs work, things like that. And for them, I have much less sympathy because besides the fact that, like, they clearly got the economics wrong, I think they also made some other Faustian bargains, like, oh, well, we're going to get tax cuts in there for. Even if he does all of the other stuff, forget the tariffs, like, forget the destructive economic stuff, if he, you know, acts on all of these openly stated plans to weaponize government against his enemies, to curb civil rights, et cetera, that's a trade I'm willing to make. So, like on multiple levels, the support from a lot of, not everyone on Wall street, but the support of people on Wall street and various other executives in corporate America, I am much less sympathetic to. The problem is they're not the only victims.
- [07:37]
Tim Miller
I feel like if you're a finance expert, you donated to Donald Trump and you made a bet that he was going to help the people invested in your fund, I feel like bringing back tar and feathering would be the appropriate thing for this crowd, because Ida was just like, what? What were you thinking?
- [07:55]
Katherine Rampel
Even poor Elon Musk, as I've been saying, he invested $200 million into Donald Trump's campaign so that he and Trump could run government together. And it turns out, unfortunately, they suck at running government. And now he's like $130 billion poorer. Right, because Tesla stock has gone down.
- [08:19]
Tim Miller
But a 2% tax cut have helped have offset that. I don't know. I'm not good at math. I don't think so. I don't think a 2% top tax bracket tax cut would have offset it.
- [08:28]
Katherine Rampel
I think he lost like a quarter of his net worth since the beginning of the year. Something like that. It's much bigger than 2%, whatever it is.
- [08:36]
Tim Miller
My favorite meme I've seen recently was something like a reporter sent a tweet that was like, republicans on the Hill think that they can get the capital gains rate down to 0% or the capital gains tax rate down to 0% this year. Somebody replied, no shit. Yeah. Like, yes, I'll pay zero taxes on my zero capital gains this year. I don't think that's a problem. Let's nerd out for a second on some of what we're seeing in the markets. I'm hoping you can explain things to me because I just took macro 101 and didn't go to business school like my dad wanted me to. Larry Summers this morning says this long term interest rates are gapping up even as the stock market moves sharply downwards. This highly unusual pattern suggests a generalized aversion to US Assets in the global financial markets. We are being treated by global financial markets like a problematic emerging market. That seems bad. What do you think?
- [09:33]
Katherine Rampel
Yeah, to unpack that a little bit. Usually when stock markets go down, it means people are selling off their stocks. Right. And then they have cash and then they dump that cash into bonds. So, like Treasuries.
- [09:51]
Tim Miller
Sure.
- [09:51]
Katherine Rampel
Okay. So they put the cash into bonds. When they buy bonds, the price of bonds goes up and their interest rate goes down. They're sorry for, like, all the technical steps. But this is just to explain that usually when equities fall, you see bond rates falling too. We are not seeing that now. And Trump clearly expected it to happen. And it did happen, like, very initially. At the beginning of Tariff Mageddon, we saw rates come down a little bit and he was like, aha, see, I'm reducing interest rates and the Fed is behind because, you know, Trump loves low interest rates. But then in Fact, this weird thing happened that Larry's talking about where, where long term interest rates went up. That's not usually what you would expect. And so there's been some debate about why that might be happening. It might be that everybody's totally freaked out and they just want to hold cash. They're like, I'm not gonna take my sellings from the stock market and put it into bonds. I'm just gonna like, hang tight and put it under my mattress or whatever.
- [11:04]
Tim Miller
Could be that we're going into the woods, we're digging a hole, we're putting our cash in the hole. This is Eddie Murphy's advice to young actors to not waste their money. You know, just go into the woods, dig a hole, put the cash in the hole. So that way I'd be some Eddie Murphy ing happening out there.
- [11:20]
Katherine Rampel
Well, it could be good advice if we didn't have high inflation, which may be what's going on here. So there's some questions about like, okay, maybe it's that people are just like holding on to the cash. Maybe it's that they're expecting higher inflation, which could happen as a result, like, you know, sort of trend inflation could happen as a result of all of these tariffs. You know, the tariffs are going to raise prices at least one time, like when they initially go into place. The question is, will they like, feed on themselves and will continue to have higher inflation going forward? And that's quite possible. Another possibility, which is what I think Larry is raising, and there's some evidence for this, is that it's not that people are just like taking the cash and holding on to it. They're like, I do not want any money in the United States. So it looks like they might be investing it in like Japanese or Swiss or German bonds instead, which is not a good sign. But that's what he means when he.
- [12:25]
Tim Miller
Says, so the bad guys in World War II have become the stable. Have become the stable advanced democracies.
- [12:32]
Katherine Rampel
They're good guys now. They're good guys now. So, yeah, so it could very well be that people are like, screw that. The US Economy is too risky. I do not trust this maniac who is in charge, who is potentially screwing up not just the US Economy, but the global economy. I want my money out. I will invest it in something else. I'm not going to hold cash. I'm just going to invest it in like, something else that looks safer by comparison to U.S. treasuries, which is like a really bad sign because historically US Treasuries have been considered the safest of safe assets. That's part of the reason why we have that we enjoy the dollar as the global reserve currency because like, everybody trusts that the US Is safe, we're going to pay off our bills and blah, blah, blah, blah. And that's like the benchmark for everything else. We are, we are how you determine what is safe and then everything else is like a little bit less safe, but how much. So that's not what we're seeing right now. So again, we don't know exactly what's happening. Given some of the evidence we've seen, probably Larry is at least partly right and really not a good long term sign. Even if Donald Trump, for example, finds an off ramp here from these tariffs, and I don't know that he will because I don't even know what that would look like.
- [13:56]
Tim Miller
Well, him declaring victory, even if he.
- [13:58]
Katherine Rampel
Does, he may have permanently damaged the reputation of the United States geopolitically and economically.
- [14:03]
Tim Miller
I agree with you that there's no real off ramp. There's some potential ones and they're all fraught. So just kind of again with you doing Econ 201 for me here, the other thing that's happening, the Wall street editor of the Economist was kind of piling on. What Larry was saying is the dollar's down at the same time that we're seeing these yields surging and stock down. So are all of that the same interplay that you're just discussing as far as just people moving money out of.
- [14:34]
Katherine Rampel
The U.S. yeah, if people don't want dollars, that will make the dollar less attractive and so the dollar value falls.
- [14:43]
Tim Miller
So my European vacation this summer is getting more expensive if they'll.
- [14:47]
Katherine Rampel
Well, yeah, if they'll even have us.
- [14:50]
Tim Miller
Okay, that's concerning. I'm not worried about it. They'll have me, I think, you know, I'm resisting with them.
- [14:58]
Katherine Rampel
Yeah, okay, you'll be arrested.
- [14:59]
Tim Miller
But can I get back into the country? Not sure. But if they don't let me back in, we'll probably be pretty good for the podcast. And you know, we have a lot of listeners around the world. I'm sure somebody will have a guest house for me.
- [15:09]
Katherine Rampel
I don't know. I don't know what your, your wi fi signal will be like in federal detention, so.
- [15:15]
Tim Miller
Well, that would be a problem though. Federal detention would be a problem, but. Well, we'll see, we'll see how it goes. So far they're focusing on lawyers and foreigners. So, you know, podcast hosts have not come under the Watchful eyes yet of ice, but I wouldn't count it out. What about the China side of this is the other thing I wanted you to explain to me is a, this is retaliatory tariff happening. China said they're raising their tariff on us to 84%, up from 34% effective April 10th. So that's tomorrow. There's some chatter out there in nerd econ world that like China might be dumping Treasuries, which might possibly also be related to explaining, you know, the, the phenomenon that Larry Summers and the Economist were pointing out. What do you make of the China element to this?
- [16:06]
Katherine Rampel
Yeah, so that's, that's definitely a risk. I don't know if we know yet how China's position has changed, but that's definitely a risk. And that's part of what I was talking about. Like people don't want any money in the United States and they may not want money in the United States because they think it's too risky. Like I said, they may not want money in the United States because they want to retaliate. Right. They want to draw if China dumps its Treasuries. It's not intuitive, but like treasury prices go down and rates go up. And so when like Larry was talking before about an emerging market, that's sort of what he meant, that it's like people don't want it in buying by that government's debt. And so it becomes much more expensive for that government to borrow because like they have to offer an increasingly higher interest rate to attract investors. So yeah, so China has a lot of leverage here. China doesn't own as much in the way of Treasuries as it once did or at least as like a share of all of the Treasuries out there. But they could be deciding this will be painful for Washington and that's why we'll do it. I don't know.
- [17:20]
Tim Miller
Woof. That seems not great.
- [17:23]
Katherine Rampel
Sorry, this is like a much more technical discussion than I was expecting.
- [17:26]
Tim Miller
Oh, sorry, sorry.
- [17:27]
Katherine Rampel
Fewer hot takes and more like boring econ 101.
- [17:33]
Tim Miller
Yeah, we're about to enter the hot take segment of the show. But you know, when I have smart people on, I like to ask them smart people questions. You know, this is just what I'm trying to do. So, so trying to get, get as much from you as possible because I didn't like, honestly before you said I did not intuitively understand the relationships between the rates and the treasury sell off and like that, that makes a lot of sense. I just knew it was bad. I just knew that chart go up on interest rates and chart go down on stocks was not good. That was like the, my, you know, the level of information that I have.
- [18:06]
Katherine Rampel
That'S the correct intuition. And Trump is apparently about to find that out because again, he was not anticipating this. He had been bragging, I think even as recently as yesterday or the day before, he's like, see, we're getting interest rates go down. And it's like, look at the chart. Chart not match words. Which is quite a common phenomenon obviously for Donald Trump. But it's really hard to lie about these things. I saw this great quote the other day from an economist at JP Morgan of all places, who, who was saying that like the, the thing about the stock market is that it can't be bullied, intimidated, deported, primaried in the next election or otherwise censored. Right. Like Trump has no power here to get it to, you know, confess the outcome that he wants. And it's, it's like a real time voting box, essentially. Sometimes it gets it wrong and sometimes it gets it right, but at least in real time, Trump can't force it to do what he wants. And now we're getting real information out of the stock market, which is obviously contradictory to the happy talk we're hearing from the White House.
- [19:25]
Tim Miller
And it can be conned for a little while, but like, eventually earnings come out. So that was like the one skill that Trump had was he was able to con them for a little while. I have one more nerd question for you and then we'll get to the Hot Take segment, I promise. This talk of the Winnie the Pooh with the tuxedo, Trump supporters trying to come up with a post hoc rationalization for all this. I'm sure you've seen some of this. We have a new Bretton woods coming. There's a Mar a Lago Accord. They're going to try to tank the economy so that interest rates go down so that they can refinance our debt and reorder the world trading system on more favorable terms to us. Like, to me this just all seems like epic cope, but I was just wondering if you had any insight into that, that fancy explanation for what's happening.
- [20:18]
Katherine Rampel
Yeah, I saw bits and pieces of this a few days ago and I needed like a special decoder ring to figure out what the origin of the crazy was, was. I feel this way with a lot of Trump related talk that he'll say something that's like totally confusing and then I end up spending way more time trying to figure out what his logic or intention was than he spent putting thought into what his proposal actually was. I used to have a rule for myself. It's like, don't spend more time thinking through the thing that Trump said than he did, because it's like an exercise in frustration and futility in this case. Yeah. I think what people are proposing is, again, that if Trump tanks the stock market, then bond rates go down. Right. Which is what I was saying, like, very initially happening. And normally what you would expect to happen because people sell their stocks again, they put it into bonds, and then that pushes bond rates down. And then maybe because we're talking about government borrowing, when those interest rates go down, we can refinance the national debt, just like Donald Trump would refinance one of his properties. Right. If you're a real estate investor or a homeowner for that matter, and you borrowed at a very high interest rate, you're excited when rates fall because you can refinance. And so that maybe he could use that as an opportunity to not, like, negotiate our debt down, but just like, when it rolls over, roll over it at lower rates or refinance otherwise anyway. I think that's the theory of the case. First of all, I don't think that's, like, nearly as plausible. Even if markets did what you would normally expect, which is, again, having interest rates fall, I don't think that's remotely plausible. But again, we are seeing the opposite happen instead. We are seeing treasury rates increase, maybe because nobody wants to invest here, maybe because people want to hold cash, maybe because they're worried about inflation. All the things that I was talking about before, you know, we don't know which of them it is, but whatever. We will soon, probably. But whatever the cause is, the outcome means it becomes much more expensive for the federal government to borrow. And so, in fact, this will worsen our debt obligations in the United States. And they're already on a totally unsustainable path, and nobody wants to do anything about it. If anything, Republicans on the Hill are trying to increase our debt through the coming tax cuts. Yeah. So whatever. This kooky theory is not going to happen. Virtually the opposite is likely to.
- [23:07]
Tim Miller
All right, y'all. You know, pants. Pants sizes are changing. Things are changing out there in the world of pants. Was hanging out with the fancy crowd last night in New York, you know, the cool crowd. I'm noticing the pant cuts are changing. The pant sizes are changing. If you want to, you know, if you want to fit in I don't know for me I still like them skinny but I'm curious. I'm different sized pants curious. So if you want to fit in, you want to make sure you've got pants that are comfortable and also on trend. Should look at our sponsor for today, Public Rec. Usually when you order comfortable pants, you only get to pick from small, medium, large and extra large sizes. With Public Rec pans, you get to select the exact width and length you need. Whether you're a 30x30 or a 44x36, you can find your perfect fitting pants. Public Rec pants also come in unique colors. You got a dark olive or a stone gray or something else that's right for you. Public Rec has comfort for every occasion, making them perfect for whether you're heading to work, going to a basketball game, grabbing dinner with friends, running weekend errands or have a long day on the plane like I got ahead of me. So it's comfortable enough for the couch, sharp enough for the city. For a limited time you can get 20% off at public Rec by using code the Bulwark at checkout. Just head to publicrec.com, use code the Bulwark and you are all set. Oh, and when they ask you how you found them, be sure to mention our show. It really helps us out. Upgrade to Public Rec and feel the difference. Let's go to the Hill. I do want to talk about the debt busting budget proposal they have planned. But first I want to talk about their tariff obligations. You wrote recently. Who will tell the emperor he has no clothes? I'm here to tell you it will not be Congress, it will not be the Republicans in Congress. Trump was at an NRCC National Congressional Committee gala of some kind yesterday. I'm breaking my not rule, my guideline of not making people listen to his voice. So you can fast forward 45 seconds if you want, but I want to play for Catherine Trump kind of noogieing Congress yesterday over the tariffs. I'm telling you, these countries are calling.
- [25:22]
Jason Crow
Us up, kissing my ass. They are, they are dying to make it to you. Please, please sir, make a deal. I'll do anything.
- [25:31]
Tim Miller
I'll do anything, sir.
- [25:32]
Jason Crow
And then I'll see some rebel Republican, you know, some guy that wants to.
- [25:36]
Tim Miller
Grandstand say I think that Congress should take over negotiations. Let me tell you, you don't negotiate like I negotiate. You don't negotiate like I negotiate. Don Bacon. So it doesn't seem like the Republicans are about to wrest control back from him to me. Does it to you.
- [25:56]
Katherine Rampel
A few thoughts on this. The AP reported today that, yes, foreign leaders have been calling the White House and no one is answering their calls. And also that they don't even know what to offer Trump, right? They don't know what concessions he's demanding. And I think that's the problem here. He does not know what concessions he is demanding or even if he wants concessions because half of the time he or his underlings say, no, no, no, this isn't for negotiation because we need the revenue, right? We need the tar revenue to help pay for corporate tax cuts or other, you know, personal income tax cuts or what have you, getting rid of capital gains, as mentioned before. So they need the revenue. They don't want to negotiate down the tariffs and or they want the tariffs to stay in place because that's the only way to encourage companies to move their manufacturing back to the US Also a flawed premise for different reasons. But in any event, so sometimes they say it's permanent, sometimes they say it's temporary. If it is temporary, if they are negotiable, what is the end game? What is he trying to get out of it? And how do you negotiate with someone who does not know what they want? That is the fundamental problem right here. At one point, members of the administration had said, oh, the goal is to get other countries to lower their tariff rates. So then, you know, they'll lower them and then we will lower them as well and then we'll have freer trade. That was one proposition for like, how this could go. But the countries, the countries that have offered to have, in fact, 0% tariffs, I think Vietnam may have been one of them. They said, no, we don't want that. So it's like, what do you even give him? And this comes back to what I was saying before, what we alluded to before. How do you find an off ramp? When Trump announced what feels like years ago, but I guess was only a couple of months ago, tariffs on Canada and Mexico, he had some like, fig leaf about how this was about immigration and fentanyl. And it is true that with Mexico at least, we do have a lot of people coming over the border without permission. We do have fentanyl coming over the border with Canada. Like, neither of those things appears to be true. In fact, we send more fentanyl to Canada than they send to us, or so it seems.
- [28:27]
Tim Miller
You're welcome. Have you said thank you yet, Mark Carney?
- [28:32]
Katherine Rampel
In any event, the solution that Canada solution, I'm using air quotes for people who are only listening to this and not watching. The solution that Canada came up with was like, we're gonna have a Fentanyl Czar. And also, even though there's not really.
- [28:47]
Tim Miller
A Fentanyl Zara, it's gonna be like a Mountie. They have one. Moun has like, a. Just a little button that says Fentanyl Czar on it. Yes.
- [28:55]
Katherine Rampel
I don't know.
- [28:56]
Tim Miller
You can take a picture next to them.
- [28:58]
Katherine Rampel
The other concession, also in scare quotes that Canada made, was, we're gonna invest more money in border protection. Except they had already announced the same amount of money back in. I wanna say, December. December or November. Like, before Trump took office, they had some plan to invest, like, a billion dollars. I forget what the number was, but it was some large amount of money in their border and, you know, increasing the tech or something like that. And so like, they just offered up these things that were either existing plans or fake. And Trump was like, victory. And, you know, he's really good at repackaging the status quo as a victory. Although in this case, the, you know, status quo before all of this was arguably much better because Canada didn't hate us before, but whatever. They didn't actually have to do anything, but they came up with something that kind of sort of had the veneer of scratching the itch that, like, appeased Trump, the things that he was complaining about. But now Trump has done this on virtual, you know, imposed tariffs on virtually every country around the world. Are they also going to create fake Fentanyl czars? I don't know. Clearly, reducing tariff rates is not actually what they're looking for. What is it that he wants from them that they can offer? And if he won't take their calls? It's very funny to me as an aside, that, like, all he cares about is people calling him. Like, how lonely is this guy? He's like, oh, they're calling me all the time. But, you know, they're calling him because they want to know what the after suppose, you know, like, what is it that he's looking for so that he doesn't drag the world into another global recession or depression? And they don't know. They're not calling because they want to be his friend.
- [30:52]
Tim Miller
Well, send some croissants to Doral. You know, if you cut it down on the French, it's like, no, the whole thing is preposterous. And this gets back to the Republicans in Congress because this is their, like, safe space that they're falling back to now. No, no, please, no, it's okay. No, that was a good tangent. Their safe space right now is like, well, you know, he's negotiating. We could end up with a more free trade. Like you heard like Ted Cruz and other people. We could end up with more free trade after. And it's like, what is the scenario? Like, even in the best case scenario, like the best case scenario that I can see is that shit gets bad. Trump decides he wants an off ramp. He cuts a couple deals with like Europe and Israel and Vietnam, the people that have already kind of, even though Europe kind of wants to escalate. But I'm sure you could do an EU deal, uk, where you got some sort of deal, declare victory. But like, even still, like, even in that situation, we're in an insane trade war with China. Whatever you think about what Chinese tariffs should be, it shouldn't be 104%. You know, we have all these other things, like all the other random countries on the chart, you know, like, have like these bizarre, like tariff rates. The 10% across the board probably gets kept. And the economic uncertainty that he has unleashed doesn't go anywhere because people are like, this dude is insane. Like, I'm not going to start investing, you know, making big investment capital investments into America. Who the fudge knows? What if he changes his mind again in a month, right? It's like that to me is like the best case outcome off ramp for this and like that. And so to me, that is why the whole I'm negotiating thing is just nothing. Like there's no hope there.
- [32:32]
Katherine Rampel
There is no hope there, whatever outcome he is trying to achieve. And again, it is unclear what that outcome is. Whether it's revenue or a manufacturing renaissance or some, you know, whatever more fentanyls are, it's not clear that any of this will happen. Meanwhile, Congress, according to the Constitution is supposed to be regulating commerce with foreign nations, right? They are supposed to be in charge of trade.
- [33:04]
Tim Miller
Maybe the funniest thing that has ever happened to me on the Nicole Wallace show happened yesterday. Cause she had Doug Holtz Eakin, who's this like traditional conservative economist on. And he said that exact same thing that you did. And Nicole goes, really? Is that right? And he did not catch that she was being sarcastic. And he was like, yes, it is true, Nicole. And then he gives the history of what the actual power of the purse from. And I was like, oh, these cute economists, you know, very serious about it. And again, Nicole looks at me and she's like, duh. Like, I was just like being sarcastic. So anyway, yes, Congress has the Power of the purse. But. And what are they gonna do with it?
- [33:41]
Katherine Rampel
Nothing. That's the problem.
- [33:44]
Tim Miller
Nothing.
- [33:45]
Katherine Rampel
There are a few different ways that Congress could intervene here. Right. There's this one piece of legislation that says, basically, the President has to give 48 hours notice before he imposes tariffs. Whoop de doo. It tells you how much notice they got this time around. And that I believe the tariffs can only last 60 days. And then Congress has to renew them, otherwise they lapse. Something like that. Which, to be honest, seems like a pretty mild restraint on Trump's current, you know, insanity. So they could do that. Even if they get enough Republicans to go along with it in the Senate, it seems very unlikely that that legislation will even come for a vote on the House floor, given things that Speaker Mike Johnson has said about, like, Trump's making great deals. We have to be patient. He knows what he's doing. Okay. Based on what evidence? No clue.
- [34:44]
Tim Miller
Yeah. And right before we got on this morning, Don Bacon, you know, who is, like, has this resolution, you know, one of those ones that you reference. Yeah. The question the reporters then ask him are, well, there is a way to force something in the House floor via privilege resolution, you know, and, like, 10 Republican. Four, really, but he says he has 12. Only two, I think, are on the record. The other ones are secret. So I've seen how that story goes before in the past, but, you know, all he really needs is four.
- [35:10]
Katherine Rampel
These are all girlfriends in Canada.
- [35:11]
Tim Miller
Yeah, exactly. Don has a lot of girlfriends in Canada. I had a girlfriend in Canada once. Man, was she cute. Four Republicans could force this to the floor. Do it. The privilege resolution. Reporters asked don, are you planning to do that? And he's like, you know, we want to see how it goes. I don't think this month or I don't think in two months. And it's like, okay, we're going to be in a recession by the time you do that. So that's the plan. The plan is to wait until it's, like, officially official that we're in a recession, and then maybe I might consider forcing Mike Johnson to do the job that the Constitution requires him to do. That's essentially their current position from the good Republicans.
- [35:53]
Katherine Rampel
Yeah. This is not encouraging. There are so many, so many ways that Congress could intervene so they could do the thing that I was talking about before where they say any of these tariffs lapse unless we renew them. They could just say, there is not an emergency right now, because the power that Trump is using to impose these global tariffs is by declaring an emergency because there's this law, I. E. But I forget what it stands for, but one of the E's must stand for emergency. And it basically says the President has some wiggle room to impose tariffs if there's an emergency and they could just say there isn't one, that's it, and then we're done. And they won't even do that. It's bizarre. It's like they are waiting for the emergency to happen before they then do anything to curb the President's emergency powers. He is the one single handedly causing this catastrophe. And whatever the founding fathers thought about Congress controlling power of the purse and regulating trade with foreign nations, et cetera, they clearly thought that having Congress and the President be separate branches would be sufficient to impose checks and balances on each other and the judiciary for that matter. And that's not what happened. Now we have, it doesn't feel like we have multiple branches. We have multiple parties, one of which is basically a cult at this point. So they're just too afraid to go against him. They know it's bad. They absolutely know it's bad. They will say so privately. Some of them will say that publicly. But they know it is making their constituents poorer not just by tanking stock markets, but by raising prices. Right. If it's going to raise prices, that means their dollar goes less far. Their, their constituents dollars go less far, they get poorer. If we have a recession and there are layoffs, their constituents lose, their jobs get poorer. All of these things are pointing in the same direction. Bad news. And at some point one would imagine those constituents, those voters are going to fight back and say throw these bums out. They've screwed up my life. But they just, for whatever reason, they're not willing to face that right now.
- [38:25]
Tim Miller
Here's some evidence they know it's bad. Let's listen to Steve Doocy this morning on Fox and Friends. There's an item in the New York.
- [38:31]
Jason Crow
Post that we all have in front of us.
- [38:33]
Tim Miller
It's an exclusive story and it talks.
- [38:35]
Jason Crow
About how with these 104% tariffs and went into effect, you know, we think that China is going to have to pay for it.
- [38:43]
Tim Miller
But it tells a story of a, a special needs toy importer.
- [38:49]
Jason Crow
And when the tariffs went into effect at midnight, his tariff, he's been paying.
- [38:55]
Tim Miller
A tariff because he gets stuff from.
- [38:56]
Jason Crow
China, $26,000 a year. His, his tariff bill went from $26,000 at midnight to $346,000.
- [39:06]
Tim Miller
And that's money he's got. He's got to come, going to have to come out of his pocket.
- [39:10]
Jason Crow
It sounds like he's going to have to go ahead and close down part of his business.
- [39:15]
Tim Miller
Pretty good. Tariffs 101 from Fox and Friends. Yeah, that's one of the President's favorite shows.
- [39:21]
Katherine Rampel
This is not an isolated example. There are so many industries, business owners, employees who are dealing with this new reality, these new constraints. Trump said China was going to pay the tariff and that's wrong, right? China will still be hurt, to be clear, China will still be hurt, as will our trading partners. Because even if, let's say 100% of the tariff cost gets passed along to American consumers, and I don't think it's going to be quite that, but let's just for the sake of argument, let's say it's entirely paid by American consumers. American consumers will respond to those higher prices by buying less stuff, buying fewer of those special needs toys, fewer cars, fewer appliances, maybe fewer groceries. You know, healthy groceries, produce, things like that that get tariffed. Coffee, vanilla, whatever. People will buy less stuff. And so that will hurt our trading partners, that will hurt everybody else in the supply chain, the retailers and wholesalers who depend on bringing in those imports and then ultimately selling them to consumers. So it is true that other countries will be hurt, but so will Americans, the consumers and the businesses out there, whether they're selling toys or anything else. And Kevin Hassett, who is the National Economic Council director, a moron, he went on TV this weekend and I was like screaming at the TV because he said, if you say that it's really only Americans who are paying the cost of the tariffs, why is our phone ringing off the hook from all of these other countries? Clearly they must be paying the cost of the tariff and we'll be fine if they're the ones trying to make a deal and negotiate. And it's like, no, you idiot, how did you get a PhD in economics and never learn about this thing called dead weight loss? It's like when the price goes up, yeah, somebody's going to absorb the price, but also the quantity of stuff sold goes down. And that's basically going to hurt everybody. That's going to hurt the sellers. Whether, you know, it's a foreign manufacturer, whatever foreign supplier, it's going to hurt the retailers, the wholesalers, and it's going to hurt the consumers. So it's just like he, he knows better. The people who annoy me most in this administration are less the people who are just like complete ignoramuses and, and, and liars. And like just don't even bother learning the truth. And more so the people who really know better, they don't even need a PhD to know the answer to this question. They needed to have taken what you took. You said you took like introductory macro or whatever. Like, this is not hard to understand. Besant Hassett, people like that, I just, they are the worst enablers, I think, because Trump, I'm sure, surrounds himself with people who tell him what he wants to to hear and that's bad enough. But then some of these people seem like they have some credibility because they're a PhD economist or because they were, you know, a Wall street titan that markets trust. And when they go on TV and lie about the economics here, I think that is so much more destructive because it encourages Trump to keep on doing the stupid, stupid, stupid thing and it hurts any credibility they might ultimately have with markets who can see through this clearly. And as things get worse, we will need someone to, to go on TV and present a credible plan, I hope, for how to get ourselves out of this. And there's just no one left to trust.
- [43:15]
Tim Miller
Agreed with everything that you've said on this podcast so far, except for the implication that Kevin Hassett is not an ignoramus. And so I just, I think, I feel like there's a long body of work pointing the other direction on this, but we can agree to disagree. So I'm sure Kevin appreciates you giving him the benefit of the doubt.
- [43:32]
Ryan Seacrest
Hey, it's Ryan Seacrest for Albertsons and Safeway with the Stock up sale at Safeway and Albertsons. Stock up and earn four times points at your local store when you purchase participating products. Save on household essentials from General Mills, Kellogg's, Philadelphia Quaker and Tide. Clip the offer in the app for event savings and look for participating items throughout the store. Shop in store or online. Plus you can even have your groceries delivered or use drive up and go to have your groceries brought to your car at the store. Restrictions and exclusions applied. Visit Albertsons or Safeway.com for more details.
- [44:04]
Tim Miller
Since you mentioned it earlier, I think it's very important because, you know, you and I are one of and a couple of our listeners are like among the 19 people left who have genuine concerns about our debt and the cost of our debt service and what it's going to mean for the country in the medium and long term. Ostensibly, the Republicans pretend that they're caring about that. It underlines a lot of the point of what they're doing with Doge. They have put forth A plan for what they're going to do with the budget and with taxes, et cetera, this year. And you wrote the column on this. They did this fucking gimmick where they're basically like, extending the tax cuts that we passed 10 years ago don't count towards the deficit. They're just like, we're not going to count that. So we're only going to count the new stuff that we do. And as a result, they're planning a bill that would increase the debt more than anything, more than any of the Biden spending stuff or in the Bush tax cuts, more than more than anything that we've ever done. Like that is their current plan. Is that an accurate assessment of what the state of play is?
- [45:05]
Katherine Rampel
Yes. So the word Orwellian gets overused a lot. Everybody and their grandmother has been called Orwellian at some point. But there's this famous line in 1984 that actually George Orwell had used versions of elsewhere as well, where he said something like, it would get to the point where if the party said two plus two equals five, you would just have to believe it was so. And. And that is quite close, if not exactly what Senate Republicans just did. Historically, what has happened is they get to say, okay, our bill can lose this much money because it's always losing money. At least when we're talking about tax cuts, our bill can lose X amount of money. And then the Congressional Budget Office and the Joint Committee on Taxation, these sort of neutral referees, get to say, okay, does it actually meet that or not? And then there's this person called the Senate parliamentarian. It's like all, you know, all of these, like, trappings of whatever Senate procedure. Senate parliamentarian gets to say, your number equals their number or it doesn't. And if it doesn't, it's much harder to pass the bill effectively. Right? Like, if the things match, then they only need a majority vote and Democrats have no way to kill the bill. That's why they're doing this special process, so that they can now have a majority vote, can't be filibustered, et cetera. That is how it normally works. What Lindsey Graham, who is the Senate Budget chair, has said is, nope, none of that matters. I get to decide how the math works. And I am deciding that tax cuts that we passed before and are set to expire, if we re up them, they will be free. And that's it. Right? Two plus two equals five. Or in this particular arithmetic, $4 trillion equals zero. That's what's happening here. It's a fancy way of saying Republicans get to control the laws. Arithmetic, they get to rewrite the math and the normal checks and balances. You know, just looking at, like in a spreadsheet, does this thing equal this thing? None of that matters anymore. So that's like the overarching takeaway that I would have on this, that they are just, it's, it's truly Orwellian. They get to decide how arithmetic works. The specific thing that they're doing, which is what you were talking about with saying, like, well, the old tax cuts are free to help people understand this. Why it makes no sense, is it's like if you had a car lease and the lease ended, that's like saying the next lease won't cost anything. Because I got really used to having a car, even though of course the new lease will cost you something every month. But that's basically what they're doing with tax cuts. They're saying, we got used to having the tax cuts. If we have another round of tax cuts at the same levels, that won't cost anything. I think that the bigger long term problem is they are now setting a precedent where they get to decide, the majority gets to decide effectively how math works.
- [48:43]
Tim Miller
That's alarming.
- [48:44]
Katherine Rampel
There are a whole bunch of reasons why this is interesting, but including that, of course Republicans and some Democrats were like apoplectic about the idea of ruining or ending other Senate norms, like ending the filibuster and things like that. And these are all related. Like the norms only matter when Democrats are in charge, not when Republicans are in charge.
- [49:05]
Tim Miller
All right, well, this has been uplifting. Not really. It's been pretty negative about the state of affairs for where things are going economically. So I want to close with some good news for everybody. They don't have a math solution. They don't have an off ramp. They don't really have a plan. They don't know what they're doing. But maybe there's something else that could save us. Trump's spiritual advisor, Paula White tweeted this yesterday in all caps. I cancel every demonic attack against you, your mind, your body, your calling, and your finances in the name of Jesus. So the demons are just being expelled. The bad juju, the bad economic demons that are sending the stock market down. We are expelling them in the name of God, Trump. I mean God and everything will be okay. So does that make you feel better?
- [49:54]
Katherine Rampel
Well, it means we don't need 180 new fentanyl SARS.
- [49:57]
Tim Miller
So that's good news.
- [49:59]
Katherine Rampel
Yeah.
- [50:00]
Tim Miller
I'm picturing the Swiss.
- [50:01]
Katherine Rampel
The economic demons are gone.
- [50:02]
Tim Miller
She's got a little box of chocolates. You know, I'm just like, oh, the French fentanyl czars. Like carrying a baguette as a weapon. It'll be nice. It'll be very wonderful. Catherine Rampel, thank you as always, always a delight. Appreciate you very much.
- [50:17]
Katherine Rampel
Thanks for having me.
- [50:19]
Tim Miller
Everybody. Stick around for Jason Crow.
- [50:38]
Ryan Seacrest
Hey, it's Ryan Seacrest for Albertsons and Safeway with the stock up sale at Safeway and Albertsons. Stock up and earn four times points at your local store when you purchase participating products. Save on household essentials from General Mills, Kellogg's, Philadelphia Quaker and Tide. Clip the offer in the app for event savings and look for participating items throughout the store. Shop in store or online. Plus you can even have your groceries delivered or use drive up and go to have your groceries brought to your car at the store. Restrictions and exclusions applied. Visit Albertsons or Safeway.com for more details.
- [51:09]
Tim Miller
All right, we are back with a Democratic congressman representing the district I grew up in, Colorado 6th, which used to when I was a kid be represented by Tom Tancredo, the anti immigrant far right firebrand that presaged our current era. So, you know, a lot of changes in Colorado 6. Now it's a guy named Jason Crow. How are you doing, Congressman?
- [51:31]
Jason Crow
I'm good, Tim. It has come a long way since the Tancredo days. There's no doubt about it.
- [51:38]
Tim Miller
A lot of changes in Colorado, all of them good. You are kind of a shining light out there for Democratic governance. There's some dark spots, but for folks who don't know you, maybe just give us just a really quick penny tour through your backstory.
- [51:53]
Jason Crow
Sure. Well, I'm in my fourth term. Just started my fourth term as the representative for the 6th district of Colorado. This is the first time I've ever held office. I hadn't run for or been in politics. Before that. I was practicing law in Colorado. Before that was in the military. Was an infantry officer and paratrooper and Army Ranger. Did three combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. My military career actually started when I got out of high school. I did well in school and didn't have money to pay for college. I was working in construction to help finance my way through school and joined the Wisconsin National Guard. Actually, I was born and raised in Wisconsin and joined the Guard to help pay for college. I was driving down the road, saw one of those billboards that said 100% tuition one week in a month, two weeks a year. And this was before 9 11. So it was what we used to refer to as the weekend warrior days. And I'm like, wow, that's a pretty good deal. You know, all my tuition paid for with one weekend a month. And obviously after 9 11, that that changed pretty drastically. So my military career started as a private in the National Guard, and then I ultimately became an officer and went active duty into special operations. So here. Here I am. Came to Colorado after I left the military. So it's been about 20 years now.
- [53:09]
Tim Miller
And classic Colorado story, people leaving the Midwest for Denver. No shortage of you guys out there. It's my parents, too.
- [53:16]
Jason Crow
It's true.
- [53:17]
Tim Miller
There's so much happening with the Trump administration. Obviously, I want to get to the tariffs. Obviously, I want to get to some of the Democratic kind of consternation on where the party goes. Obviously, I want to get to the nuggets firing their coach. But I do want to, since you were in the military, talk to you a little bit about the Trump foreign policy, because I think that's getting overshadowed by our economic dysfunction at the moment. But I was just curious, your two cents on what we've seen. Obviously, from my vantage point, pretty horrific across the board. But what's jumped out at you on the foreign policy side of things?
- [53:48]
Jason Crow
Yeah. Well, first of all, to say that there is a defined, cohesive Trump foreign policy, I think would be giving them more credit than they deserve. There is no foreign policy or Trump doctrine that I've been able to really discern. What it is, is it's a series of grievances, a series of isolationist worldviews. Bullying, you know, things that Trump wants to talk about publicly, that's kind of his economic approach. It's his domestic approach, it's his law enforcement approach, like anything else, for that matter. So, you know, spending time talking about Greenland and Panama and bullying Canada and maligning some of our closest allies, getting into shouting matches with President Zelensky. It's pretty awful stuff. I served with our NATO allies when our NATO allies came to our aid and fought with us in Iraq and Afghanistan and died with us on many occasions. And to see the manner in which Vice President Vance and Donald Trump malign and attack these folks publicly is pretty terrible to see.
- [54:52]
Tim Miller
Yeah, it's crazy. I was talking with Kinzinger last week about just how much respect the Lithuanians showed, you know, following that tragic death of our soldiers there and the military, the parade that they gave them and the honor. And to see that in contrast with J.D. vance, whatever trying to make Zelensky thank him or Pete Hegseth, like trashing our European allies on a signal chain. It is just kind of astonishing the way that we've treated folks that have fought with us, fought with you my entire adult life.
- [55:28]
Jason Crow
Your entire adult life. You know, we've grown up with America as the leader of the free world.
- [55:33]
Tim Miller
Right.
- [55:33]
Jason Crow
And that leadership takes so many forms, economic, moral, military. And to see, you know, decades and decades of that leadership squandered in a matter of weeks is completely astonishing. Right. And. And the idea that you can deduce.
- [55:50]
Tim Miller
Yeah.
- [55:51]
Jason Crow
Our alliances and our partnership and our leadership down to a series of business transactions, as if our relationships with the UK or the Germans or the Norwegians simply can be deduced down to a ledger sheet of deposits and withdrawals and you can monetize. That shows just such a fundamental misunderstanding about what leadership really means and what our alliances really mean in the world. And that's not to say that we shouldn't push our partners to invest more to up defense spend. I mean, yeah, there's actually bipartisan consensus on that. Right. Like people say, yeah, they need to step up and do more, but obviously maligning them and treating them the way that we have been is not the way to do it.
- [56:37]
Tim Miller
Right. You said there's no doctrine. I guess the one through line, he is pretty nice to the bad guys as compared to our allies. And I just, in particular, you know, with regards to Ukraine, and you have some Republican colleagues of yours who are ostensibly pro Ukraine who've gotten pretty silent. What do you assess what's happening right now? Like, every indication to me seems like they're basically on the Russian side of this negotiation. There's no pressure on Putin. There's no ask for, like, major concessions. We didn't tariff Russia. We did tariff Ukrainians. I mean, it's an insane situation. Like, what do you assess, particularly with regards to the Ukraine war?
- [57:16]
Jason Crow
Well, Donald Trump has had this long affinity for Vladimir Putin and for Russia that goes back decades, actually. And I don't know whether it's kind of business self interest because he's tried to build hotels in Moscow and has wanted to get into the Russian market for a long time. As a businessman, you know, I don't. There's a. There's a lot of theories about why this is. But regardless of the theory, actually, in reality it's true. Right. He isn't willing to be tough on Vladimir Putin. And there's all this talk about peace through strength. Right. And my Republican colleagues now, you Know, just yesterday, we had an Armed Services Committee hearing, and a bunch of folks were invoking Reagan in peace through strength. And Ronald Reagan must have been rolling in his grave, because showing affinity and cozying up to dictators and autocrats is not peace through strength. Right. He just isn't willing to call him out. Isn't willing to call out the war crimes, isn't willing to call out the kidnapping of tens of thousands of Ukrainian children, isn't willing to say there is a right and a wrong here. There is an aggressor and there is a victim. Russia is the aggressor. And to be firm, Right. And if anybody knows Vladimir Putin, which we actually do pretty well, I mean, one of the benefits of Putin is that we actually know him.
- [58:38]
Tim Miller
Yeah.
- [58:39]
Jason Crow
Like, he's been on the scene. He's been around. He's been on the scene for three decades. We've observed him for a very long time. We understand how he operates. He respects only strength. He never keeps promises and deals. He only does what he's forced to do. And he's not somebody you can trust. And he also believes that his life's work is to rebuild the Russian empire. And he has actually shown us, you may have seen these videos, he holds up a map of what he thinks the Russian Empire should be and what he wants to rebuild, and includes a lot of European countries. So there's no secret as to what Putin is doing here. And of course, Trump is unwilling to call it out.
- [59:23]
Tim Miller
What about your fellow vets? Is tune changing at all? Folks you're talking to. And obviously the cuts, va having a weekend TV talk show host leading the military. And, like, what's the vibe like from fellow veterans?
- [59:36]
Jason Crow
Yeah, well, certainly there's been a dramatic shift. I've seen this right, in, like, rural districts and red districts, these huge town halls, people that are standing up and saying, wow, this is not what I bargained for. Whether it's, you know, the increase in prices because of the tariffs, whether it's drastic cuts to health care, whether it's huge cuts to the VA system. You know, by the way, at the same time as he's talking about cutting the VA system, he also wants to hold some big military parade in D.C. right, because he likes to spend money on pomp and circumstance and big parades, but he doesn't want to actually spend money to help disabled veterans. And he went golfing during a dignified transfer of remains ceremony the other week, too.
- [60:20]
Tim Miller
So I think we call that small penis syndrome. It's kind of like a casual term for what happens when you need a big, big a lot of pomp and circumstance to your birthday.
- [60:28]
Jason Crow
But yeah, I think that explains a lot. I'm no psychologist, but you know, I play one on TV sometimes. So I mean, I think the through line for me is that Donald Trump doesn't believe he cannot comprehend selfless service. Then the notion of serving something bigger than yourself, he, he literally cannot comprehend that. Right. Everything has to be. What can you get out of it? Everything has to be a business transaction. Right? So this entire notion that people would stand up and give their life and serve the country, that's why he calls veterans suckers and losers, Right? Because it just doesn't make any sense to him.
- [61:14]
Ryan Seacrest
Hey, it's Ryan Seacrest for Albertsons and Safeway with the stock up sale at Safeway and Albertsons. Stock up and earn four times points at your local store. When you purchase participating products, save on family snack favorites like Frito Lay chips, Tim's Cascade chips, Dan and yogurt and Oreos. Clip the offer in the app for event savings and look for participating items throughout the store. Shop in store or online. Plus you can even have your groceries delivered or use. Drive up and go to have your groceries brought to your car at the store. Restrictions and exclusions applied. Visit Albertsons or Safeway.com for more details.
- [61:45]
Tim Miller
So let's just talk about the tariffs, obviously, and the markets are still down. There's real life impacts outside of the markets. You've been talking about that I see with the sheet metal workers, I guess last week. What's your sense for how bad this is and if there's any, what is the right thing to do in your shoes to combat it at this point?
- [62:06]
Jason Crow
Well, it's pretty damn bad. There's no doubt about that. The markets are tanking, retirement accounts are tanking, where we're further marginalizing and isolating ourself in the world. I think it's really important to state that like most things, Trump, he identifies a legitimate problem.
- [62:22]
Tim Miller
Right.
- [62:22]
Jason Crow
But then his solution is all wrong and makes it worse. Right. And there are trade imbalances, there are unfair trade practices. Everybody can agree that we need to fix those.
- [62:33]
Tim Miller
And I guess kind of though, like not really. I mean, the US has benefited pretty well. Well from the freed from the trade on balance. Right. There's certain industries like the shrimpers have been hurt by this. Right. There's certain industries you could do targeted things. On balance, the free trade system has pretty much benefited the U.S. i don't.
- [62:50]
Jason Crow
Know if I'd agree With that. I'm from the Midwest and the upper Midwest and I think if you go to the industrial Midwest, people would vehemently disagree with that. Vast swaths of this country have been left behind from the 80s through the early 2000s. The gutting of our industrial base has decimated entire communities and swaths of this country in the name of free trade. There have definitely been winners and losers. And where I'm from, they have largely been losers. And there's an angst and an anger that I see and I share. So I think that is a problem. And tariffs can be a surgical tool. Right. They should be used as a scalpel and a surgical tool to address trade imbalances in a pinpointed way. This of course is not the way the administration is doing it. They're doing across the board massive tariffs that aren't even tied to the reality of the situation. They say it's reciprocal tariffs, but the numbers they're using on their so called spreadsheet aren't even in many cases tariffs. Right. And economists don't even know where these numbers are coming from. And of course, several of these locations aren't even inhabited territories or countries. So they are just sledgehammering everything. And it's going to make it worse, far worse.
- [64:12]
Tim Miller
Right.
- [64:12]
Jason Crow
Because you talk to businesses, I talk to businesses all the time and manufacturers all the time. And what they say is the single biggest issues right now in rebuilding our industrial base, which I would love, love to do, is we don't have the workforce and we don't have the infrastructure. Right. And we don't have predictability in our taxation and economic system. Right. So those are the things we need to address, which is going to take a little while. It's going to, you know, five to 10 years to address those. You just can't snap your finger and create a workforce and have the infrastructure. So he's decimating the system.
- [64:46]
Tim Miller
Yeah, the workers think is such a good point. That's why like just a lot of this is just a farce. Is that like the whole argument over Springfield was that there was a manufacturing renaissance in Springfield but there weren't enough workers there to do it. And so that's why there were Haitians that were in town. And then he was out there saying that they were eating the dogs and the cats in the neighborhood. Right. So this is a very complicated thing. And having Peter Navarro and these guys just randomly pulling numbers out of their ass and being like, we're going to tariff you 54%. I mean like we're seeing the results, it's going to be, I think, extremely tragic for working people who are going to be hurt by this. Not just the bankers.
- [65:25]
Jason Crow
Yeah. The admin likes to say, and Trump and all the billionaires around him love to say, oh, this is going to be short term pain for long term gain. Right. And you know, where I'm from, I grew up in a working class community around working class folks. Right. And these are people, people who are, who I was raised with often lived paycheck to paycheck. Most of my constituents live paycheck to paycheck. Right. They're, they're trying to figure out where their rent is coming from, where their mortgage is coming from for the end of the month, how to put food on the table. And what I realized growing up, what working class people know, is that when people at the top are talking about short term pain, they're not talking about their pain.
- [66:09]
Tim Miller
Oh yeah, right.
- [66:10]
Jason Crow
They're not the ones that are going to feel the pain. They're talking about everybody else's pain, working people's pain. And frankly, this short term pain is going to end up in people losing homes, losing health care, not being able to feed their children. This is crazy and devastating stuff.
- [66:27]
Tim Miller
Don Bacon out today saying that, you know, he's looking at a resolution getting some Republicans, maybe a privileged resolution to take the power of the verse back for Congress. But like in the same voice or in the same quote, he's saying, you know, we're going to see how it goes. We'll do it maybe in a month or two. Like we might be in a recession in a month or two. I mean, what is your sense for your Republican colleagues? Like they were getting pantsed by Trump yesterday at the, at the NRCC thing and they're not really standing up for themselves.
- [66:53]
Jason Crow
Yeah, well, I mean the Republican Party is prostrated themselves at the altar of Donald Trump. There's no doubt about that. They're constantly getting pantsed. And it's bad. Actually, it's more than bad, it's terrible. It's a tragedy. I was raised in a Republican family. Most of the people I know and love are actually Republicans. And for our system to work, we need to actually have a viable independent Republican Party. And right now we don't have that. It's hard to negotiate and compromise and legislate when you don't have a viable party right now to negotiate with. And you know, we just this week are recognizing the hundred day mark of this administration. Are you freaking kidding me? It's only been 100 days.
- [67:37]
Tim Miller
I don't think it has. I don't know.
- [67:40]
Jason Crow
I guess it's coming up. Maybe it's at the end of this week. I don't know. I'm losing all sense of time.
- [67:45]
Tim Miller
Yeah, me too. Okay, just on the working class thing with Dems, this is something you've been pushing. There's a good New York Times piece we'll put in the show notes if you want to read about your work. You're recruiting candidates. I've got two thoughts on this. Number one, the one maybe area of disagreement I had with you was you said that Democrats have an issue with being out of touch with vast swaths of the country, but it's less to do with policy and more to do with visceral matters. Is that really right or did the Democrats get misaligned from folks in red parts of the country on certain things, be it crime or immigration, et cetera?
- [68:18]
Jason Crow
Yeah, it's not totally binary like that. I think it's largely a cultural issue, an understanding issue, because our policies really are working class policies. The exceptions would be at the state and local level. In a lot of places where Democrats govern, a lot of communities have become unaffordable. How can we be the party of the working class? When you look at the cities where we govern that have crime issues, that it's too expensive to build homes and condos and working folks are actually being priced out of those cities.
- [68:57]
Katherine Rampel
Right.
- [68:57]
Jason Crow
I mean, it's happening over and over again. In fact, one of the few cities in the country where it hasn't really happened has been Denver. I know Denver still is not as affordable as it needs to be. The prices are skyrocketing. But you look at almost every other city in the country and working class people are leaving the cities and they're going to more affordable places. So how can you say if we're governing those areas that we're the party of the working class? Right. We have to make housing more affordable. We have to be able to build things quicker and cheaper, and we need policies that allow us to keep our communities safe. So those are the policy issues that I think need to change. But I will say at the federal level, I'm a Democrat because I'm not looking for a handout. I'm not looking for somebody to solve all my problems for me or to tell me how to live my life. I'm looking for a level playing field and a fair shake. Right. I want to be able to work hard. Honest day's work, honest day's Pay and make sure that the game isn't rigged. And that's why I became a Democrat, why I'm a Democrat. And that's what we're about.
- [70:04]
Tim Miller
What about the recruiting side? This is going to be your job, partially for the detail. We'll see A. Are you going to go out and recruit people in some of these R+12, 13 districts? Expand the map. And can you find people with Jason Crow's background who did construction instead of nerds like me who did Model UN and then went to Washington, D.C. because there are a lot of Model UN candidates in the Democratic Party and not a lot of people who know how to use a hammer.
- [70:27]
Jason Crow
Model UN's all right, Tim.
- [70:29]
Tim Miller
Nothing wrong with it, but I just. You could use a little of both in the context. That's all I'm saying.
- [70:33]
Jason Crow
But you went to high school in my district, so, you know, I'm not gonna bang on.
- [70:37]
Tim Miller
That's great. I went to a great. I'm great. Nothing wrong. I love Model UN kids. I was at the valedictorian. Love people in the front of the classroom raising their hands.
- [70:44]
Jason Crow
Yeah.
- [70:45]
Tim Miller
Could also use some people that went. That excelled in shop class, I think, in the Democratic Conference.
- [70:50]
Jason Crow
Yeah. There's no doubt.
- [70:51]
Tim Miller
Can you recruit people like that is the question.
- [70:53]
Jason Crow
Yeah, there's no doubt. Well, you know, first off, what we're not doing is we don't. I want to dispel any myth that we're, like, you know, parachuting into communities and, like, selecting the candidate and clearing the field. That's actually not at all what happens. Right. What I'm doing is I'm trying to demystify the process, and I'm trying to encourage people to throw their hat in the rank. And there'll be primaries. Everyone needs to run their race, run their primary and earn it. Right. Every candidate has to earn it. Just like I did. I went through a primary, too. But what we have found. What I have found is that the people that we most need to step up, right, the small business owners, the combat veterans, the nurses, the people running local nonprofits, the school board presidents, people that actually have lived experience and are living their lives, aren't clamoring to run for Congress. Right. They're not like, oh, I want to just, you know, quit my business and spend half my time away from my family to go to Washington to jump into this freight because they have lives. They're doing things right.
- [72:00]
Tim Miller
Yeah.
- [72:01]
Jason Crow
So they actually need encouragement. They need people that be like, hey, it's time to step up and Serve your country. We need you. This is about service, right? Because they're doing it not to their benefit. They don't need the job, they don't need the money. They're doing it simply out of service. So those are the candidates. And that's how I view my role is, you know, going out, visiting with them, sitting in their living room, calling them, talking to their spouse and being like, all right, this is what it looks like. This is the sacrifice. This is what the lifestyle looks like. This is how you run a race. And oh, by the way, now is the time for all good men and women to step up and come to the aid of their country. And your nation needs you.
- [72:40]
Tim Miller
I have to pick on you about one thing, and it's all the Democrats. You just are the one that happens to come on this pod right now. The Venezuelans, we disappeared some people, like this government took somebody off the street and put them on a plane and shackled them and sent them to a fucking concentration camp in El Salvador. And I looked at your social media feed. I haven't seen you say anything about it. Why are the Democrats not talking about the people that we sent to this prison without knowing whether or not they're criminals or not?
- [73:08]
Jason Crow
Well, you must have missed my statement the other day on this. I actually put out something a couple of days ago. Joe Rogan commented on this and he's like, this is not okay. This is actually an area where sometimes I agree with him.
- [73:19]
Tim Miller
Yeah, great.
- [73:20]
Jason Crow
And he said, why are people not getting due process? Why are we kidnapping people off the street? This is not all right. And I, and I retweeted that and made a similar comment. And I've spoken up about it. And I actually had a pretty fierce debate, I guess it was three weeks ago. I went on Brian Kilmeade's show on Fox, because I do Fox a lot. And we debated this for a good 10 minutes. And he, he said, he said, you know, we should just be getting rid of these foreign gang members. You know, why do you have a problem with deporting these 200? Because it was this, you know, flight of 260 Venezuelans at the time. This was, this was last month. He's like, why do you have a problem with that? Why, why are you trying to, you know, protect gang members? And I said, brian, you're misunderstanding the point. Right? Nobody's debating the fact that if there are violent gang members, they should be rounded up, taken off our street, and sent back to where they came from. The point is, in The United States of America. Our Constitution weights more heavily the protection of the innocent. Right. Our system is designed to protect the innocent, and we do that through due process. You have to go through that. And that is my beef with the way the administration is doing it. Right, fine. If you can prove someone's a gang member or has committed a crime or is violent, round them up, put them on a plane, get them out. But you have to prove that right? Because it's going to happen. It is happening. You're grabbing people that are hanging out, you know, outside of a quick trip somewhere or outside of a grocery store because they might look the part or they're in the wrong place at the wrong time and they, you know, happen to be someone's father, they happen to be a union member. In the case of the Maryland man, someone working. She's a Sheet metal workers. A member of the Sheet Metal Workers Union, actually, and a father and a husband. So this is crazy stuff. It's unacceptable. And frankly, every American should be appalled by this very un American approach to usurping due process. And I'll continue to speak up about it.
- [75:18]
Tim Miller
Thank you. I will share that. I must have missed it. I was scrolling. I was looking for El Salvador. You're tweeting a lot. You're posting. I like that you're posting and you're going on Fox, so, you know, it snuck by me. I will share it, though.
- [75:28]
Jason Crow
Can I put it a different way, too, Tim?
- [75:29]
Tim Miller
Yeah.
- [75:29]
Jason Crow
Please ask yourself this. I always encourage people to say, okay, you want to round up criminals and send them out, I do, too, in the name of efficiency. How many innocent people are okay getting wrapped up in that? Right. Are you okay with five, with 10, with 20? How many innocent people are you okay with getting rid of due process and just inadvertently ending up on a plane or a bus to some foreign mega prison? Like, I'm not okay with any innocent people being rounded up. But, you know, there are people out there. Literally, there are people out there that will say, yeah, I'm okay with 10, I'm okay with 20. That's. That's nuts, right? And frankly, that's just not who we are.
- [76:14]
Tim Miller
I appreciate all that. Do you not think, though, that some of your colleagues have been not as. Not as loud on this? And we're just talking about this. This is insane. Like, this is Stalin stuff. Maybe I'm just missing it.
- [76:26]
Jason Crow
Yeah. I think there are some people who are still reluctant to wade into the immigration debate. You know, generally they're just. You're just sensitive or Afraid of wading into it. I'm certainly not right. Like, I represent a district of immigrants and refugees. You're 20% of my constituents are born outside of the United States. So I'm in favor of smart, lawful immigration. I'm in favor of a pathway to citizenship for people who are here lawfully and who want to normalize their status. These are business owners. These are the people that I represent. These are families. They go to school with my children. I can attest to their positive impact on our country. But I also believe that we haven't had a secure border. We need to have a secure border, too. That is true. And I also believe that we need to get rid of violent offenders and enforce the law. So we can and must do both. And nobody's ever going to tell me in the United States of America that we can't accomplish something like this, like the things we have done historically. It is small thinking to think that we can't do these things and do them effectively.
- [77:34]
Tim Miller
All right, we're overtime. So we're doing 20 second answers each. Bro talk. You know, final segment number one, do you have any advice for Secretary Noem on how to hold a firearm?
- [77:45]
Jason Crow
Yeah, listen, if you don't know how to do it, don't do commando cosplay and just don't do it. Right. Like I see this all the time, people holding firearms and they're not holding them right. They're pointing the muzzle at somebody. It just looks stupid. Stop it with the commando cosplay. Trying to pretend you're tough.
- [78:04]
Tim Miller
Yeah, close to an Alec Baldwin situation with Kristi Noem for the youtubers. We'll put up a picture. Okay, number two, your guns are looking good. What's your workout routine? We've got an HHS secretary doing shirtless, you know, shirtless bench presses. Do you have any shirtless bench presses in your future?
- [78:19]
Jason Crow
I don't know about shirtless. Maybe. I mean, maybe I need to go there. I don't know. I, I am training right now for the Army Physical fitness test. I'm the brand new test that was just rolled out a couple of years ago. I'm taking it in July. So I'm in, I'm in a big train up period for that. And I'm also of the age now where I have to do variation. So I'll, I mix it up. I'll run, I'll do calisthenics, I'll do P90X. I'll do weightlifting. So just as much variation as possible to kind of avoid injury and Keep it. Keep it real.
- [78:47]
Tim Miller
We'll keep an eye on it. I'll send you some of those old Paul Ryan workout routines. All right. Last thing we did. Michael Malone brought Denver its first NBA championship. We did him dirty. They fired him with three games left. Do you have any hot takes on this?
- [79:00]
Jason Crow
I can't believe it. I don't know, man. It's weird going into the playoffs, firing Malone, the winningest coach in Nuggets history. I understand they've been in a losing streak. Lost the last four. They wanted to shake it up. I will say this, though, that the owners of the Nuggets are engaged. They're involved. They want a winning team. Right. Which I appreciate. It's kind of like in the best tradition of Pat Boland, who was a very involved owner and pushed the Broncos. And I contrast that with the owner.
- [79:29]
Tim Miller
Of the Rockies, who we need Jared Polis to buy. The Rockies. I was telling them.
- [79:34]
Jason Crow
Exactly. I will always take an owner, an ownership group who's engaged and want a winning team and want to win over something like the Rockies, where they just don't care because of revenue sharing. They can make money whether they're winning or not. I mean, that's just crazy.
- [79:50]
Tim Miller
Thanks to Congressman Jason Crow. I had a monologue about the beauty of Nikola Jokic prepared for this podcast, but we ran out of time. Too much crazy shit happening in the world. So we'll do it another time. Come back soon.
- [79:59]
Jason Crow
All right, thanks.
- [80:01]
Tim Miller
All right, everybody. Thanks to Katherine Rampel for educating us on the economy, to Congressman Jason Crow for the Nuggets chatter and everything else. Hopefully all the demons are expelled from you and yours this evening. I'm praying for you. And if not, or even if so, I'll be back tomorrow for another edition of the Bulwark Podcast, and we'll see you all then. Peace.
- [80:33]
Katherine Rampel
Now that my pockets choke. How my demons look now that you shook.
- [80:47]
Tim Miller
Out of my pockets things.
- [81:01]
Katherine Rampel
I just bought a limousine.
- [81:02]
Jason Crow
A limousine.
- [81:04]
Katherine Rampel
You live like me in your dreams. Yes, you do.
- [81:07]
Jason Crow
I just quit the nicotine.
- [81:09]
Katherine Rampel
I did. If you throwing dick at me, do it. That should be big, at least. Do it. I'mma bring the heat. I'mma bring the cold. You should bring your skis.
- [81:25]
Jason Crow
I'm a queen. Queen.
- [81:28]
Katherine Rampel
I am expeditiously see?
- [81:32]
Tim Miller
Are you off a key?
- [81:33]
Katherine Rampel
You off a key? I would never let you in my vip.
- [81:37]
Jason Crow
We are enemies. We are foes.
- [81:40]
Katherine Rampel
Who are you and what are those?
- [81:46]
Jason Crow
You are gross. Percocet got you playing with your nose.
- [81:52]
Tim Miller
Yeah.
- [81:53]
Katherine Rampel
How my demons look.
- [82:05]
Tim Miller
The bulwark podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.
- [82:11]
Ryan Seacrest
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