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The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show
The Truth with Lisa Boothe: Trump's Economic Strategy with Charles Gasparino
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- [00:00]
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Charles Gasparino
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- [02:36]
Host
Today we've got Charles Gasparino on the show. He's a Fox Business veteran and we're going to ask him to unpack this wild ride we've been on since Liberation Day. You know, from the market volatility that we've seen and the media's role in fueling it, to the Trump administration's claim that they are now in trade talks with 130 countries. We're going to cover it all. And what could these deals mean for global trade? What could it mean for U.S. revenue? What could it mean for the reshoring of manufacturing jobs to here in the United States? Plus, we'll also tackle this intensifying US Trade war with China. China's now slamming the brakes on Boeing jet orders amid these tariffs. So can the US Come out on top? Can we win that trade war against China? And finally, we're going to dive into Charles new book, Go woke, Go Broke, the Inside Story of the Radicalization of Corporate America, exploring why companies bet big on WOKE policies to begin with. What kind of fallout did they experience? And and why are they now changing their tune? Stay tuned for FOX Businesses. Charles Gasparino. Well, Charles, it's great to have you on the show. I really appreciate you making time. Looking forward to getting your insight into everything that's been going on. So appreciate it anytime. We've seen a lot of volatility after Liberation Day. Things have calmed down a little bit. But, you know, where do things stand today? You know, how do you see it?
- [04:12]
Charles Gasparino
Well, it depends on, you know, who you speak to. If you talk to people in the White House, it's a, it's a work in progress that needs to be done. You know, I, and I, and I see, I see a lot of merit in what they say. I mean, there, there isn't, I mean, I don't think our trading relationships with other countries were, was the even playing field that it was portrayed to be. And you know, this occurred over many years. It solidified it ossified, I guess is the best way you could put it into, like the current sort of regime that we have now where it looks like, and I'm not, you know, take out some of the sort of, you know, the dubious math that the Trump people threw out there to try to figure out, you know, how many tariffs we should, we should, how much in tariffs we should charge every country because it makes Israel look like a really bad player when they're not. That doesn't mean they don't screw us every now and then. But you see what I'm saying. But I talk to a lot of people who are just follow the street and they say, yeah, you know, we're at a disadvantage in these relationships. We give the world a lot. We, we, we defend half the world. We defend Canada and Mexico. They come under our nuclear umbrella. This is what we do for them, you know, and they still charge tariffs. They still put our industries at a disadvantage. And there Needs to be like, I could, you could see logic in doing a reset. The question is how do you do it? And do you blow up this ossified regime all at once? Do you do it piecemeal? Was now the right time? And I think all those questions, there's real questioning on timing and approach. You know, taking a left turn, you know, like a sharp left turn here is going to cause tremendous amounts of confusion because it is what it is. The globe, our economy is a global economy. You know, to de. Globalize it overnight is not. Is you're going to get more than a little. What did Trump say? It might get a little crazy here and there. It's going to be more than a little crazy.
- [06:26]
Host
But he also said to be cool, Charles. So he said to be cool.
- [06:30]
Charles Gasparino
No, don't be panicking. Right. That's a great. I was trying to figure out what he, I thought maybe he said pelican when he said panican, but I wasn't sure. So what? I had to read it twice. So you're going to have massive amounts of upheaval. Remember, the foreigners own our debt. They could sell it. They started selling it last Tuesday. Interest rates started to spike. They were heading towards 5% on the 10 year bond which if you know anything about the bond market, that's trouble. Right. When that happens, consumer rates go up dramatically. That shows you that people don't want to hold their debt. It's just really question. And by the way, if the bond market seizes up and people are selling well, you don't get your paycheck. Right. Because all everybody's paycheck is based on your company's ability to access the commercial paper market because no one has the money. Like right there in the, in the vault, right. You get Fox makes its money over time. You know, suppliers and you know, distributor agreements pay over time. You just don't have it all there. So you roll over commercial paper.
- [07:37]
Host
Is that why do you think that's why the Trump campaign kind of pumped the brakes a little bit because of what they were saying with the bond market, particularly with Treasury Secretary Treasury Benson.
- [07:48]
Charles Gasparino
Yes. And they won't admit it and you'll get pushback. But yeah, I mean they'll say, you know, I heard like I heard from someone in, not the campaign but in the, in the White House called me and said, no, it was the stock markets, Charlie, it wasn't the problem. I said, well, it's literally the same thing. And they go, well, how can you say that? I said here's why if bond yields go to 5% on the 10 year, you're going to get a 20% decline in the NASDAQ. So just so you know, it's literally the same thing. If the economy falls into recession, the stock market's going to go down dramatically. I mean, it's just, this is all interrelated. The bond market actually is more, is more pressing because if you, I mean, we were coming off highs, right? We had massive highs in, in stock. Some of it was pumped up by Biden administration spending to get Kamala Harris elected. You know, he pushed out like $300 billion of needless spending towards the, towards the end there. I mean, this has been documented that pumped up the economy in the markets. That was what it was attempt to do. That was, it's modus operandi. And you know, Trump is the, Scott Benson, the Treasury Secretary has now, you know, sort of ratcheted that spending down dramatically. So some of this, this market was overvalued. There's no doubt. So you can make the case that stocks should fall on a change in the mindset, in the herd. But when bonds start trading off, it's a different story. That's about confidence. And when you lack confidence in the US Dollar, in the US Economy, in US to pay its bills, it'd be one thing if we were running $2 trillion surpluses, we were running $2 trillion budget deficits, which is lack of, is.
- [09:32]
Host
That lack of confidence unnecessary, though? Because, you know, you look at the jobs numbers, you know, they're better than expected. Inflation is ticking down. You know, a lot of these earnings reports have been solid. So was that volatility that we saw unnecessary? Like, was it media driven, Was it fear driven? Was it panic and driven?
- [09:51]
Charles Gasparino
Well, it's always, it's, it's, remember stocks, these sort of, these markets always try to project rather than say, okay, the past. Right. Yes. You could say before all this started, jobs were great. Right. Consumer confidence was great. You know, inflation was coming down. You could say that, all that. But that's before this started. You're trying to like, you're trying to push out your estimates for corporate earnings. If these tariffs go in effect and there's no doubt they're going to all these companies. I mean, if you really hit now, we don't know whether really Apple has an exemption or not. Right. Is it, do they or don't they? I think they have a temporary exemption because the White House has been kind of talking out of both sides. Right. First, there's something that leaks out on a Friday at 10:00 about all these exemptions that would have created a massive rally in tech stocks, particularly for Apple. And the reason why is because if Apple got hit, if all those tariffs came in the way Trump and the White House initially proposed it, Apple stock is probably overvalued by like 15 to 20%. Okay? There's no doubt just given like its operations, how it produces an iPhone, how if it had to bring everything home, how it would be triple the price, at least initially, you know, things settle out. But you know, you want to pay $3,4000 for an iPhone, okay, that's probably what would have happened if you really push them to do what was stated by giving them an exemption that ratcheted it back right then people were like, oh, thank God. The Nasdaq was set yesterday for a massive rally. And then as you know, on Sunday, the President said, now these are temporary exemptions. And then guess what happens? The rally is kind of muted. I looked at the stock trade, actually. NASDAQ turned red yesterday for a bit and today everything looks like it's going to open down red. And Apple even Yesterday was up 2%. It should have been up 10%. So what I'm saying is no one wants to take losses, all right? What they're projecting is the policy and how the policy impacts the balance sheet of Apple of corporate earnings. And now long term, this might be great for the country. Long term, it may be great for Apple for all I know. Short term, at the very least, you know, it's going to be a problematic for their bottom line in the markets. And then there's the question whether this could have been done differently, like not with a sledgehammer, but with a scalpel. And I think that's kind of what Scott Besant is suggesting will happen. But who knows? We don't know. There's obviously a disagreement in the White House as to what approach you should take.
- [12:43]
Host
But I guess with the Trump administrator, you know, with President Trump, we know with the art of the Deal, he likes to pick sort of like the extreme and then sort of maneuver his opponent into a better position. You know, I wanted to ask you. So let's talk about what could happen. Right?
- [12:58]
Charles Gasparino
Like, let me just back up.
- [12:59]
Host
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [13:01]
Charles Gasparino
Now, I was one of the few people when he was looking like a trade hawk who said, no, he's going to deal. And I've written columns on it. I was on literally a podcast the day before he did his 90 day pause. I said, this is art of the deal writ large. In my view, he's going to back off. And then he did back off, but then he didn't back off. And I think if you're going to do this, expect a lot more craziness and you know, market's going to sell off. We're going to have, you know, businesses will retract. Listen, businesses have to prepare for tomorrow, not for yesterday. You know, you got to give them a roadmap. If you don't get, if you want to do art of the deal, you know, you might have a recession because of it. I mean that's, now maybe it's worth it. Just telling you, I don't, I don't know. I, I'm, I, I could see the rationale for these, for Trump re rejiggering trade. Just telling you be prepared for a recession because businesses in this, in the face of uncertainty are going to cut back. Now you, if you interviewed someone at the Wall Street Journal editorial page, they would say it's much worse. All right, I'm just telling you I'm trying to be fair here. I mean there's no doubt we're going to get an economic slowdown here. There's just no doubt were probably already in a recession. No doubt because even left in the run up to this thing with the sort of talk about it, don't ask me why they were surprised. I don't know. The one thing if you know about Donald Trump is all he's been talking about is tariffs the last two years is that businesses were starting to cut back when the more he spoke about it post inaugural. And so we were already probably getting a slowdown. And then when he announced the plan, it was a stoppage of spending and advance and expansion and you know, whatever, you know, stuff that makes the economy hum that has stopped now. Okay, how do you get it going is I guess how long this, all this takes, what shape it takes, you know, what type of, I guess messaging comes out of the White House. It's, this is complicated stuff.
- [15:12]
Host
Well, let's say, let's say they start, you know, they say that there's been 130 countries that have reached out. Let's say they start rolling out some of these, you know, renegotiations and you've got better trade deals with countries. You've got more revenue coming into the country. You start to get some reshoring of, you know, manufacturers coming back to the United States and like beefing that up. What could that look like for the economy?
- [15:40]
Charles Gasparino
That would be great. And, but you're making it sound like, I don't think you're doing it on purpose, that you could just snap your finger and that's what's going to happen.
- [15:49]
Host
No, I mean, I know even trade deals, you know, I think the average for the bilateral deals is like 1.5, but these might be less complicated than that.
- [15:56]
Charles Gasparino
And then, you know, I mean, all these deals are complicated and the economy is like a big ship. You know, turning it around from when it's going one way to another is not easy. It's going to take some time. So remember, this is, I mean, if you just purely myopically focused on the midterms, you hope it turns around in a year. Right. But, you know, because there's a lot on the line here. But I'm just telling you, this is, this, this is difficult stuff. I'm not saying it's the President. I'm not going to give you the Wall Street Journal editorial page interpretation of it, but I can't tell you that if you, if you just, just to say this is the art of the deal and he's going to win and blah, blah, blah, there's going to be pain, a lot of pain here at some point, you know, until we get this straight, I mean, it's gonna be a lot of nuttiness. Markets are going to go crazy. You know, we're gonna, you know, we're gonna have some issues. And we, we haven't even seen it, like, how it. Really, all we've seen is, like, consumer sentiment numbers, you know, post tariffs, which haven't been good. We haven't seen how the, how the economy is kind of reacting to it. So I would just say buckle up. It's going to be a little bit of a. And you know, there's good stuff coming for the Trump with the Trump economy. He's got tax cuts. Hopefully we can get that passed. Deregulation, Doge, all that's great stuff. Elon wouldn't have went so public, crazy public if this wasn't like, what the way I'm explaining. Takes a lot for a guy that's in the White House to kind of say what he said, even though it's. Elon is known for shooting from the hip. He's smart to know he's in the room with the President and all these guys. And he literally called Peter Navarro the architect, the art word, this.
- [17:48]
Host
Although it seems like Besson is driving this. Like, it seems like Trump is really leaning on him. And I've heard, Remy, you would know better than me But I've. I've heard nothing, but, you know, he's one of the best, probably the best treasury secretary we've ever had and the most qualified.
- [18:04]
Charles Gasparino
Well, I wouldn't say he's the best. I mean, there's been a lot of good ones. You know, Bob Rubin did a great job in the 1990s. He's a really smart guy. He's been in that job not, not too long. Listen, this is a career moment for him. He could literally save the US Economy. He could smooth the waters, or this thing could blow up. One of the problems, I think, is that if you look at the approach, this should have been a tertiary or secondary concern and policy change that they made. I mean, I still don't understand why they went for trade when they didn't get the tax cuts, when the economy wasn't even growing at 2%. And who knows, we were going to get a slowdown anyway, right? Because they were cutting back on spending. Doge was just part of that. But they were not doing the massive spending that the Biden did. We were going to get some slowdown. If you're going to go and turn the world upside down, kind of best to do it when you're. I wouldn't do it anyway. I do much more piecemeal. But best to do it when you're growing at 3% and then, you know, best and, you know, have them do deals. And that would have been the sort of, I guess, the more logical way of doing it, but they just didn't do that. And, you know, you get the impression that, you know, listen, this is the way Trump operates. But, you know, you play with people's lives here. It's one thing to turn the world upside down on dei, right? Most people hate dei, okay? It's just like, you know, it's one thing to build a wall and say we're going to change our immigration policy 1000%. Most people hate the fact that people can jump across a pond, a stream, and become an American citizen, right? And get all our welfare benefits. You know, most people kind of like tax cuts. Most people want certain things. So these are not controversial issues. You start screwing with the economy, you better be sure on how you're doing it, okay? And I'm. That. I'm just a simple country reporter. I've been doing this a long time, 35 years. I covered economics. Someone called me an economic, an economist. I said, I'm not. I just cover it, you know, so what do I know? But. But I just think the approach here was kind of just not smart. And I worry about, you know, can be put, put, put it back in and put the genie back in the bottle. I mean, which is kind of what he's trying and particularly when you have like, like multiple spokesman. You have Howard Lutnick one day, Bessant the next. It's, you know, quick break.
- [20:52]
Host
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- [24:54]
Charles Gasparino
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Clorox Representative
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Charles Gasparino
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- [25:22]
Host
The big wars with China, I guess, you know, how do you win a trade war with China? And then, and then I want to get it into your book because you did mention dei and that's a good segue. But.
- [25:32]
Charles Gasparino
Well, with China, what's interesting to me is that one way, if you, if you, if, if you, if you surmise that, you know, the worst economic actor out there in trade is China, what you want to do is build a coalition against China, which is why that 90 day pause was created. But it was after the fact where you kind of piss off everybody to, you know what I'm saying? So, and you didn't really take the tariffs off the table. So that's, so that's what I mean by approach. You know, you could have said, listen, they're bad. We want to, we want to start here and let's get a Coalition of the willing and let's do some trade agreements with the Europeans where, you know, I mean, there was a way of doing this that, that isolated China. Now does China, will China be isolated? Listen, the Chinese economy is horrible right now. If depending on who you talk to, it's, you know, I talk to people that study it. It's either, you know, recession or deep, deep depression or borderline depression. The Chinese manipulate their currency to keep their, their trade deficit, you know, you know, they did not have a trade deficit. They have a massive, that's how they fund their, their entire countries largess. They have, they have like, I don't know, a million people at least in, in poverty. They have huge poverty rates still, you know, that's kind of a screwed up place. You know, besides being a repressive, sometimes evil regime, they, you know, they need access to our markets, there's no doubt about that. We would like some things from them and we do sell stuff to them. We sell a lot of wheat and stuff. You know, that's why you keep reading that Trump might bail, bail out the, the farmers. Right? You read that all the time. There's also a lot of manufacturers have, have plants in China and you know, Apple does as well. And if you wanna, if you wanna destroy Apple or throw it a wicked curveball to it or you know, a fast pitch to that skull and not knock it out, forcing it overnight to put all its plants in the US is kind of how you do that. And now you could say, does Apple matter? They do employ people here. Apple, it is a big company that pays taxes. So just remember this is all interrelated. There are things that Trump wants out of China. He wants TikTok, which they have to approve, which as of now that deals off the table. He wants the ports in the Panama Canal ports to be sold to Blackstone blackrock, which is an American company that needs Chinese approval Xi to approve it. He wants access to their market. So there's negotiating here. But think about that negotiation on top of everything else. That's a lot of work, man.
- [28:43]
Host
Although I will say people criticize Trump for his approach with NATO and he got them to pay more.
- [28:51]
Charles Gasparino
So that's an easy negotiation. You pay more because we've been paying everything.
- [28:59]
Host
But isn't that what he's saying with some of these trade deals, that it hasn't been reciprocal? Yeah, in a similar vein, he is.
- [29:06]
Charles Gasparino
But that doesn't send, when you say that to NATO over, over, you know, over their, their ability, inability to pay for their own defense it doesn't, it doesn't like take the stock market down by a gazillion points. People don't retrench in their business. I guarantee when he said that not one business cut workers, cut expansion. And that's the difference here. This is much more existential. Americans care about the economy. There's one thing I know about covering business for the last 35 years, it's the economy, stupid. That was the best line ever that Carville came up with. And it's so true. And so when you start screwing with the economy, and I know you could say, well, the stock market's not the economy, but it kind of is, you know, when you, when stocks go down, that's reacting to, you know, where the real economy might go, particularly if it keeps going down. Like, initially I thought this was all B.S. this was like, you know, things would, you know, Trump would negotiate. This is just, he's just threatening. This is before he announced the hard and fast trade rules and, you know, he would negotiate and businesses would, you know, stop retrenching. And then when he went full on, it was like the shot across the bow. It showed that he was serious. And then you really do have a retrenchment if you go full on, on NATO not paying its fair share and you, you and, and you don't fund NATO for a quarter. I tell you, no, not, no business is going to react to that.
- [30:37]
Host
But I'm just saying in the, the similar nature where he was criticized for his approach in his way of handling Naito and he did get them to pay more.
- [30:46]
Charles Gasparino
I'm sure we're going to get deals out of this. Yeah, we will. The question is how long will it take and was it worth a recession.
- [30:55]
Host
But when you, to calm some of the jitters wouldn't if he just announced like a, like one or two of here's the negotiation, like when that kind of settle. Because isn't, I mean, a lot of this is reactionary. Right. It's, you know, and so if you were able to outline, here are a couple of things that we've already been able to do in negotiation when that calm some of these jitters, that would help.
- [31:18]
Charles Gasparino
Yeah, I just wonder if some of this is baked in now, by the way, if you have just, I mean, first off, you have to see the deals that are cut. You know, we don't know in this interim period you're going to have businesses scaling back and it just is what it is. You will have a recession now because we're going whole hog With China, does that mean, you know, what else happens there? I mean, they are a big player here. We're gonna. I guess my biggest, my bigger point is once you open this door, you know, you know, when you break it, you kind of own it. You know what I'm saying? And so this is not going to settle out that fast. That doesn't mean long term.
- [32:05]
Host
I guess my only question would be, is it broken?
- [32:09]
Charles Gasparino
It is breaking.
- [32:10]
Host
Yeah.
- [32:11]
Charles Gasparino
And, you know, here's the thing. It's impossible to break our economy totally. Right? We are a, you know, you know, we're $30 trillion economy. It's. It's very multilayered. It's not just trade is what, 20% of it? That's big, but it's not the biggest part, obviously. But, you know, you take a 20 hit on something, you, you want to take a 20 hit on your, your paycheck. Think about it.
- [32:40]
Host
I mean, the answer is obviously no, but I, I don't want. I, I mean, I mean, you've written. I, I mean, let you know, we could talk, get into your latest book. But, you know, you've also wrote the sellout about the 2008 financial crisis, which, you know, obviously was way worse than where we are now. You know, you wrote that your latest book is Go Woke, Go Broke, the Inside Story of the Radicalization of Corporate America. I guess. Why do you think these companies went rogue and what were the consequences of those companies going woke?
- [33:16]
Charles Gasparino
Yeah. And by the way, that's why you can't. When they, when you trot out Jamie Dimon and this one and that one, it's hard to take them serious on this thing because they engaged in some really bad behavior. Right. They literally became a arm of the radical Democratic left, and they help propagate a lie. I think it's a lie that this country is uniquely evil. It had a unique history of racism. It had a unique history of slavery. It's uniquely, you know, its foundation is uniquely malicious on all things involving race and sex and sexual preferences. You name it. You know, that these evil white guys created this thing that needs to be ripped down. That's what the left has been propagating at universities for many years. And then all of a sudden, bingo, guess what? Corporations started adopting that. And my book kind of tries to, Tries to explain. It's an explanation of how it got there and what's, and what's causing them to back off. It now is obviously you got a guy, again, doing something that most Americans support, and that's de. Radicalizing not just universities, but corporations that mimicked what the universities were doing. And I, you know, like, how they got there is hard to really explain. You know, there were, there's. There was a shift in, in attitude in the boardroom. They were much, you know, you went from Jack Welch types who had a heavy. Who were more conservative and had a heavy hand in believing in profits over, over. Over social issues, to a CEO class that, that was more liberal, more progressive. You also had, you know, various investment techniques that, that caused this to happen. You had HR departments that became radicalized to the left. I never knew anybody really went into hr, but somehow HR became this sort of breeding ground of various theories involving how to tell white guys that you're not qualified and how to push everybody else up the ladder based on a sort of determination of points on your sexuality, your race and your sex. You know, it's, it was just, you know, it was white men, white women. You know, I mean, there was this weird, this weird sort of, I got to put it, you know, hierarchy. That, it, that, that, that came to be what the HR departments of every major corporation started to consider in hiring and promotion. And that some of that was through these investment techniques like esg, you know, remember environment and social Governments involves the environment. People hated it because it forced oil companies to cut back on oil when we needed oil. Right. Remember how oil prices spiked during, during the Ukraine being invaded by, by Russia? We had, we had massive inflation. Well, one of the reasons why it spiked massively is because you had ESG telling oil companies they should invest in windmills, not oil drilling. Okay, the S and the G part of that was interesting because that involves some of these, some of this DEI stuff that you read about. And that became sort a corporate. It was almost like a sort of cult following in corporate America. America. And it reached its high point during the George Floyd thing. I mean, literally, I uncovered in an article in Bloomberg that said like 95% of all hiring following the George Floyd riots did not involve a white guy at an S&P 500 companies. It was some astronomical number. And it was obviously ranked discrimination. And, and then it permeated through other ways. I mean, there was a cultural issue here too. I mean, like, how did you get Dylan Mulvaney, you know, a trans woman sipping a Bud Budweiser half naked in a bubble bath as a commercial? Well, that only happened because of this whole DEI and how it permeated advertising and, and you know how that, how all that happened? Everyone, how did you get, you know, Disney doing business With China going out of its way to do business with one of the most repressive regimes in the world. But here at home implementing hiring quotas that are, that go down from, from, from actors to producers to even pages have to fit this intersectionality matrix. How does they do, how do they, how do you get Disney for God knows why, just throwing in a children's movie a same sex kissing scene. That made no sense. Right? Why would you do that? Well, it's all part of this matrix. And you know, why would Target spend a month on, you know, celebrating Pride Month? Why would it in its stores when its stores are generally targeted to, to use the word target to a middle American family, Some woman that's, you know, that comes in there with two kids because they can't afford a nanny and they have to walk by us rows and rows of rainbow colored onesies and books about transient teenagers. I mean, that's what happened. There's no doubt. I document.
- [38:50]
Host
We've got to take a quick break. More with Charles on the other side.
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Charles Gasparino
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Charles Gasparino
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- [42:12]
Charles Gasparino
Use as directed.
- [42:14]
Host
So you mentioned Jamie Dimon. I can't imagine, I mean, I've never met the guy, so you know him better than me, but like, I can't imagine he subscribes to this stuff that you just laid out. So it's like, was he, he does, he did. So I like, was it because it was held captive or cap. You know, was he. Well or does he believe it? You know what I mean? Like, like how many of these CEOs felt like they were being held hostage by this. Versus where you know, you know, realize levers.
- [42:44]
Charles Gasparino
You have to realize the sort of milieu that we live in versus what they live in. They live in, you know, the, the upper class of Manhattan society, they all go to Ivy league schools. It's all kind of, you know, there's a, there's a, there's a feedback loop that promotes this stuff, this notion of diversity. And it has to be rigid and almost quota. Like after George Floyd, they all felt that, that, that their, their beliefs were confirmed because some ex con in Minneapolis, you know, unfortunately died while he was being, while he was resisting arrest. That's kind of what happened. No matter which way you put it, whether you think the, the, the cop used extra force or didn't. He was resisting arrest. He had tons of fentanyl in his system. He had, he was not very healthy. Probably had covet at the time and he died. And that unleashed this sort of massive hysteria that they were too weak to fight back on. I remember when it was going down, I, I, this is before I was even writing the book. I was like, why aren't they saying that this is bs? Why are they allowing, why are they like on CNBC saying that, you know, America is systemically racist? I mean, why are they doing that? They must really believe it. You know, why are they, you know, and the first Trump administration at the end, you know, you know, it was very uneven. You know, it was, we had Covid. It was, it was a strange time that touched off the wokeness in corporate America that reached new highs, or I would say new lows, if you ask me. But it did happen and it was. And to think it happened overnight, you'd be wrong.
- [44:32]
Host
It was, was it good for the bottom line? Like, what was the impact to, you know, to, for companies, for the bottom line with this? I can't imagine this was good for business. Especially when you pointed out, you know, Budweiser and Bud Light.
- [44:47]
Charles Gasparino
Well, yes, it turned out to be bad at a point, but for years it didn't matter, you know, either, either. Consumers didn't care. I mean, it wasn't good for Target either. By the way. People went nuts when they, when they started seeing that one year in 2021 when they went nuts on the, the whole, the pride celebrations. I mean, we're not talking about you know, just sort of casual celebrations of the LBGDQ plus movement. We're talking about, like, sort of overt. I mean, the market celebrated pride more than it celebrated the fourth of July. I mean, like, in magnitudes, it's a celebrated sexuality. And it's celebrated not just a sort of passing way. It's celebrated in terms of, you know, children and, you know, bringing them into the fold. I mean, it was really quite remarkable. You know, if you, if you, and I did a lot of research on this. So I, I mean, like, you got to ask yourself. So that caused the backlash. So before that, I think they believe that it didn't matter. Apple could be. Disney was a big company. It could, it made a lot of money. People kept going to its theme parks. Even if they were, you know, greeted by a transgender, you know, guy, a guy with a wig and a beard telling their kids hello. I mean, it didn't matter that it was, you know, trans or drag queen, bedtime stories, you know, you know, being around the country would get, we get coverage. It didn't matter that Apple was among the most, you know, woke companies in the world because everybody wanted an iPhone. So for a time, it really didn't matter. And then all of a sudden it did. And I think the country, the consumer, the average American, which all these companies have to appeal to, even Jamie Dimon, you know, it's a, it's, you know, they revolted. And it was interesting. I had a, you know, I interviewed Jamie Dimon's people. I interviewed Jamie about this too. You know, they were, they were arguing like, okay, we are. This is before they did. They started tweaking their DEI policy. They, they were whole hog into dei, you know, that it was all over their website. And I would say, this is illegal. I would tell the PR people and, you know, why would you say this is good? Oh, Charlie, we make so much money, you know, it must be good because we make. Okay, so you're saying you make a lot of money. That's good. Do you realize that you're a too big to fail bank whose borrowing rates are subsidized by the American taxpayer? And that's how you make money. You're a bank that. What Jamie Dimon runs, and he runs it well, but literally is it just needs to be managed. Every now and then, there's a trader who goes off the deep end and loses $300 million or whatever. 300 billion maybe. But when it really comes down to their business is pretty simple. You take in money, you pay someone 1%, you lend out at 3, and that's it. And by the way, when you need. Because your, your, Your company is, is too big to fail, which all the big banks are, the federal government is, Is your implicit backstop. You can borrow at very favorable rates. That's a license. No business gets really gets that in America. Apple doesn't get that. Just so you know. And so I, I would say, and I would tell them it's not brilliance. It's. It's like, it's luck. And, you know, and at some point, people are going to stop banking with you if you, if you're just gonna, if you're just gonna, you know, virtue signal at every tune. And if you notice they stopped doing that. You don't see taking a knee anymore at a bad bank branch, which he did during 2020.
- [48:36]
Host
So what saved us from it?
- [48:39]
Charles Gasparino
The American consumer, the average American, and some really good people that kept reporting it and saying this was outrageous and it's got to stop. And I remember during 2020, American Express, Chris Rufo kept writing these stories about How American Express was happening. He's at the Manhattan Institute, who did a really good job in this, kept reporting about how American Express having crt, kept teaching their people critical race theory. And he got into the nitty gritty, just how absurd it was, right? I mean, it was really saying, like, if you're a white guy, you're bad. You know, it was just. It was just. It was superficially. It was. It was superficial analysis and inherently racist and divisive. I mean, it was disgusting. And I remember calling up American Express. I was like, I was trying to get someone on the phone. They wouldn't answer my calls about this. So I just kept writing about it. Finally, someone called me back and I said, with all due respect, you do have the word American in your name. How is this American? And I think by pointing that out, by pointing out that wokeism and DEI is just everything this country stands against. That doesn't mean we don't want diversity. We shouldn't be mandated. No one wants a mandate. And by the way, we need a functioning meritocracy. Okay? If we're going to keep up. That's something that Elon keeps bringing up. I think that's what turned it. And speaking about Elon, I think freeing Twitter from the clutches of the left literally changed the zeitgeist in this country on this matter. The fact that you can argue this on Twitter without being shadow banned or thrown off or attacked by a liberal mob when you had no defense, you know, it was. It was. That was. That was key. I mean, I'll give you a personal example. During the campaign, I did a column for the Post that said, you know, joe Biden drops out. Kamala Harris could be the first DEI candidate for president, and maybe the first president who's a dei, who's there for dei. And I said, you know, Joe Biden said it himself. DEI starts at the top of his administration. Everybody knows she's not qualified. Everybody knows why she was picked for the thing. And this is a horrible thing. And I used it to tap my book. I got, like, wickedly attacked. I mean, Gavin Newsom said my column was racist. This guy, msnbc. I was attacked by Joy Reid. And then I noticed something else. I get wickedly supported. Ben Shapiro came out and supported me. You name it, they came out and they pointed how stupid Gavin Newsom is, how stupid Rick Grenell came out, supported me. He's now in the Trump administration. It was down the line. And how obviously I was telling the truth back in 2020, that could never have happened. Okay, so Elon has allowed Twitter for us, allowed us to tell the truth on Twitter, and that's. And that changed the culture in a major way. I think Trump's help, everybody should be grateful to him for that.
- [52:08]
Host
I think Trump's help to just sort of resetting Trump has helped, but I.
- [52:13]
Charles Gasparino
Think he's also a symptom. He also benefited from what Elon did.
- [52:18]
Host
Oh, yeah, totally. But I'm saying in terms of being so outspoken again, like, giving people like, you know, sort of someone to turn to who's not subscribing to all this nonsense on such a big stage.
- [52:31]
Charles Gasparino
I agree with that, but I don't think it's the same thing. I think Trump was allowed to flourish because Twitter became an opinion free zone. Like a free opinion zone, I should say. Not opinion free. It's got plenty of opinion. Depending where you put that qualifier, it'll change the sentence. Meaning, you know, we. Here's a perfect example. When, remember when he had the debate with Kamala Harris and he said, they're eating the cats, they're eating the dogs.
- [53:02]
Host
Yes.
- [53:03]
Charles Gasparino
They were having that discussion about what's going on in Springfield, whether the mass immigration and, you know, the people.
- [53:09]
Host
Although I do think there was some eating of the animals that did actually take place, though.
- [53:14]
Charles Gasparino
Yes, well, that's my point.
- [53:15]
Host
Yeah, there was some eating of the animals.
- [53:18]
Charles Gasparino
How would you know that? Right. You only knew that because you saw, you know, someone bacon, a cat, you know, somewhere near Springfield, and then you read about how they were pulling ducks out of the lakes over there. And then you started to. And then you started to. Because of Twitter, because Elon kept it free.
- [53:36]
Pro-Life Advocate
You.
- [53:36]
Charles Gasparino
You kind of understood that. We're talking. It's much more than just eating the cats and the dogs. We're talking about a massive cultural social transformation forced on a working class town because of unfettered immigration. And then people started seeing that what Trump was saying was kind of right. Then on top of it, because of Twitter and social media, kids were doing dance videos and it mocked the racist trope that people like Rachel Maddow try to paint it as. You see what I'm saying?
- [54:12]
Host
Yeah, that's.
- [54:13]
Charles Gasparino
Oh, because there was a. There was a free. There was a free space to do it at. Because the newspapers weren't going to do it. Fox is only one. One station, you know, Newsmax, a smaller station. Most of the mainstream media is still skews, wickedly left. But because of Twitter, you know, that it was counterbalanced. And I think that that accounted for Trump's victory in a major way.
- [54:39]
Host
No, I agree. It also just kind of made things fun again because people were like, you know, putting up funny memes and being able to laugh and like, talk about things, you know, like, it's like, have.
- [54:51]
Charles Gasparino
You seen the rap videos with Cats? So good.
- [54:56]
Host
There's also like a song, you know, people made songs.
- [54:59]
Charles Gasparino
Yeah, we were listening to him the other day laughing. It was a, there was a rapper that, that did you know, they had Trump dancing in the background with Cats. And it's just, I, I'm not going to do it justice. You can look it up. It was really funny.
- [55:15]
Host
Well, yeah, the dynamics have changed and the book's out now, so everyone should go check it out. Charles Gasparino. Good stuff. Really interesting conversation and the book sounds super interesting, so people should go out and get it. Go Woke, Go Broke the inside story of the radicalization of corporate America. We appreciate your time, Charles. Thank you so much.
- [55:33]
Charles Gasparino
Thanks, Lisa.
- [55:35]
Host
That was Charles Gasparino with Fox Business, also the author of Go Woke, Go Broke. We appreciate him for taking the time to come on the show. Appreciate you guys at home for listening every Tuesday and Thursday, but you can listen throughout the week. Until next time.
- [55:49]
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- [57:27]
Charles Gasparino
Grapefruit.
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Charles Gasparino
Okay, we could be here all day. Try Clorox Scentiva for a trusted clean with long lasting freshness.
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Charles Gasparino
Com.
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