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The Jim Acosta Show
BREAKING: Trump tariffs cause market nosedive. Elise Labott and Pres. Historian Julian Zelizer discuss.
00:34:42
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- [00:00]
Jim Acosta
Welcome everybody, to the Jim Acosta Show. It is Thursday, apparently. I guess it's one day after Liberation Day and a lot of people are feeling liberated from the money that was in their bank accounts 24 hours ago, 48 hours ago. We're going to call this Trump's market meltdown today. You can see Elise Labett, foreign policy correspondent, is with me and we're going to talk to Elise in just a moment. I'm going to run through some of these headlines here because it's extraordinary what's happening right now. I just checked the CNBC website a few moments ago and as of 4:00 Eastern Time, the close of the markets, the Dow is down almost 4 percentage points, down nearly 1700 points. Just extraordinary. The Drudge Report main page has George Washington with a black eye on the dollar bill. The headline is Tariff Fine. If you guys are following along there, at least I'm sure you get that. And indeed it is. The Associated Press reports US Companies had billions of dollars in value wiped out after President Donald Trump slapped sweeping tariffs on foreign imports. CNBC reports stocks took a nosedive today, sending the S&P 500 back into correction territory. Shares of multinational companies tumbled. Elise, I was looking at this earlier this afternoon. Big names, Nike and Apple dropping 13%, 9% respectively. Big sellers of imported goods were among the hardest hits. Companies five below lost 26%. These are names people recognize, folks in Main Street, America, MAGA, America, Dollar Tree tumbled 11%. The gap plunged 20%. Nvidia, a lot of guys out there are invested in Nvidia. That was off 7%. Citibank, bank of America down 11% and 10%, respectively. And this was the one, Elise, you and I might relate to this one. I mean, anybody who likes to go shopping for furniture restoration hardware is a name that a lot of yuppie types recognize. That was down 40% today.
- [02:07]
Elise Labott
Jesus. Wow.
- [02:08]
Jim Acosta
40%. That stock price cratered today. Elise, this is extraordinary. What's happening right now?
- [02:15]
Elise Labott
Well, and Jim, two things. Firstly, nearly 2 trillion in market value erased from the S&P 500 today. So these are big chip stocks that are generally stable unless something's really, really wrong. And then also the Nasdaq, where a lot of these tech stocks, Trump is very close to all these tech grows. Now, the Nasdaq plunged about 5%. That's very significant for a small, small stock exchange like the nasdaq. So it's felt worldwide, certainly nationwide, multinational companies. And if you remember in President Trump's first term, he had his eye on the Stock market, He really kind of gauged whether his policies were working according to the stock market. Now he's saying, I don't care about the stock market. It's all about this kind of larger economic nationalism program. And he's not looking at the stock market day to day. He said, I think today he said something like, oh, yeah, stocks are gonna boom. They're gonna boom. So today he's not really worried about it.
- [03:20]
Jim Acosta
He's gonna do this come hell or high water. And attention Crypto Bros. Bitcoin down 5% today. It's down at around 81,990 bucks. For Bitcoin, it was like 110,000 when Trump came into office. For the Crypto Bros. Out there who bet big on Donald Trump, how's your account looking right now? This is the other stuff that I thought was really interesting. President Trump's role, this CNBC reporting this. President Trump's rollout of steep duties on imports, when taken in aggregate implies an overall tariff rate of 25% according to an estimate from Fitch Ratings. It's a respected firm that is really respected on Wall Street. That represents the highest effective tariff rate in more than 115 years. I mean, that's extraordinary. The other thing I want to ask you about, Elise, is how this is affecting global diplomacy. Because Aaron Blake over at the Washington Post reports that chart that Trump was showing yesterday in the Rose Garden, slapping some, increasingly, some surprisingly high tariffs on all sorts of economic allies while sparing nations like Russia, Cuba and North Korea altogether. The Guardian reports a group of barren, uninhabited volcanic islands near Antarctica, covered in glaciers and home to penguins, have been swept up in Trump's trade war. Trump hit those islands with a 10% tariff on goods.
- [04:48]
Elise Labott
Well, you know, penguins, penguins are some of the biggest exports, Jim.
- [04:53]
Jim Acosta
You know, they wear those tuxedos, you know, they can get kind of expensive, I guess.
- [04:58]
Elise Labott
Right.
- [04:58]
Jim Acosta
Look, men's warehouse or whatever, I suppose.
- [05:01]
Elise Labott
You know, I was listening to some of the economists today, okay. And so, you know, based on this controversial former. China, 54%, European Union 20%, Japan, 24%. But then there are smaller countries like Vietnam 46%, Indonesia, 32%. You know, listening to the economists, those, it's, it's really a little bit apples and oranges to ask a country like Vietnam or a smaller country to do the kind of trade or buy the kind of amount of goods that the US Would buy, which is a big country with a lot of disposable income and a lot of consumers that are spending their disposable income. So it's really kind of apples and oranges to ask every country this kind of transactional, I'm going to do to you what you did to me kind of thing is, you know, what you should have done. And look, you know, even some of the greatest economists, they talk about, okay, you want a bigger trade imbalance. It's just like the whole thing with some of the other things that President Trump did with the, you know, with the federal government and all the workers that they fired. Listen, the ideas make strategic, as they say, sense. They're not complete. They're not completely divorced from reality. But take some time, study it, and do it the right way. And this is like the biggest problem we keep talking about with President Trump. Even if some of the ideas aren't completely ridiculous and may, in fact help America, the execution is just ass backwards.
- [06:34]
Jim Acosta
Well, and I Talked to Mallory McMorrow yesterday. She's running for the U.S. senate in Michigan. And from a strategic precision standpoint, tariffs can work. Presidents have used tariffs from both parties over the years. It's happened. But you know, when it, when you're talking about whether or not Trump is tethered to reality. The chart that Trump was showing in the Rose Garden yesterday was not tethered to reality. Economist Paul Krugman took to Substack to take a look at Trump's numbers and found, quote, he's gone full on crazy. This is according to Paul Krugman, respected economist. He said focus on the European Union in his Substack post. The the eu, like the United States, has generally low tariffs. The average tariff it charges on goods is less than 3%. Trump had a crazy number up on his chart Yesterday that said 39% is what the EU charges in terms of tariffs. Paul Krugman goes, where does this 39% number come from? He says, I have no idea. Many people have speculated that Trump would count value added taxes as tariffs, even though they aren't. European producers selling to the EU market pay the same VAT as US producers, so it doesn't discriminate and therefore isn't protectionist. But even if you get that wrong, EU VAT rates are in the vicinity of 20%, so you still can't get anywhere close to 39%. So Krugman's pointing out that a lot of the numbers that Trump had up on that chart yesterday were just gobbledygook. They were just, they weren't accurate. And so this is the problem with Trump is that he is often making these kinds of decisions based on just stuff. He's pulling out of thin air. And he's been hell bent on this tariff policy for the better part of three decades. He's been talking about this since the late 90s. Elise?
- [08:19]
Elise Labott
Yeah, two things here. First of all, he has this theory of the case and you know that if you don't, if you have these tariffs, Americans are not going to buy foreign goods anymore. They're going to come to the US and they're going to buy American goods, but we don't have the capacity and the industrial base to, for them to do that yet. So we can't blame Americans. If they want to spend more money on foreign goods, maybe they will spend more money on foreign goods. There's no, there's not that much evidence to suggest that, you know, more expensively things made here actually will return jobs. And, and it's just like the case of it is wrong. And then the other thing is, and we could talk about this a little bit, this tariffs are, you know, the headlines today. There's a shiny object. But this is just the beginning. A lot of economists are following very closely something Trump wants to do. And one of his advisors wrote something called the Mar a Lago Accord. And it's all about lowering the value of the dollar, currency manipulation to lower the value of the dollar. They think that that is going to try to bring the surplus down and that's going to have more of a global effect worldwide. And when Trump says we're done with this economic surrender, basically what he's saying is America, US Economic leadership has carried the world. We're not going to do it anymore. We're going to come back to us. And the truth of the matter is this is just the economical equivalent of what he's doing with blowing up the global world order, blowing up everything, this nationalist agenda. And he's doing it again on the Americans. So it's, it's a piece of the whole pie. But the tariffs, I'm sorry to say, are just the beginning here.
- [10:04]
Jim Acosta
Yeah, and I think you can psychoanalyze this to some extent. I mean, Trump likes to play these games. He likes to have world leaders coming to him on their hands and knees, begging for carve outs, begging for leniency in certain places when it comes to various policies. And I think this tariff issue is no different when it comes to that. I'm going to talk about some of this with presidential historian from Princeton, Julian Zelizer. He's gonna come on the program in just a moment. But Elise, I mean, there are a Couple other things you and I need to talk about because, I mean, there's a lot of fast moving news on the national security front, which is why it's great that we're talking this afternoon. The New York Times reporting that Trump has fired six National Security Council officials after an extraordinary meeting in the Oval Office with the far right activist Laura Loomer. I mean, in far right activists, that's. That is being diplomatic.
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Elise Labott
That is, that's being generous.
- [10:59]
Jim Acosta
That's being generous. I mean, you could just do a Google.
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Elise Labott
It's a little looney. That's offensive to far right activists.
- [11:08]
Jim Acosta
But the. Okay, this. And the reason why I bring this up, I mean, this is all very important. Apparently, she laid out a list of people she believed were disloyal to the president after this meeting with Trump. This is according to US Officials talking to the New York Times. The firings were described by one of the US Officials who had direct knowledge of the matter. The decision came after Ms. Loomer vilified the staff members by name during the meeting. According to the New York Times, Michael Waltz, the National Security adviser who was caught up in Signal Gate not too long ago, joined later on in the meeting. So I guess Trump is already having this meeting with Laura Loomer. Michael Waltz comes waltzing in. He briefly defended some of his staff, according to the New York Times, though it was clear if he had. This is the way the New York Times puts it, though, it was clear he had little, if any power to protect their jobs. So the National Security Advisor, Michael Waltz, had less power in this scene, apparently, than Laura Loomer.
- [12:09]
Elise Labott
Let's talk about who Laura Loomer is, okay? She ran for Congress in Florida and 22 lost. You know, again, to call her a far right activist, you know, that's kind of being generous here. She's known for her anti Muslim rhetoric, spreading conspiracy theories. This is a woman who says the 911 attacks were an inside job. She's a pro white nationalist. You know, even when Breitbart and Newsmax and One America and all of those don't even want a real user, Fox News won't use her. You know, you know, you got a problem when your president is taking national security advice from her. And, you know, some of these places that she's on Rumble, this is a conservative YouTube. She's been banned from Facebook, Instagram, Twitter because of her hate speech. You know, later expanded to Uber, Lyft, PayPal, Venmo. Okay? She's, you know, she.
- [13:04]
Jim Acosta
I don't like to talk about her. I'll be honest, I don't like to talk about her because, Elise, you know, she just represents a segment of the fringe that it's almost not even worth. But she has this access to Trump.
- [13:16]
Elise Labott
No, but listen, she is a tool and a vessel, in my opinion, for some of these other people. Tucker Carlson, you know, other. Maybe Don Jr. Some people think that, you know, any question this is about Mike Waltz, about wanting to get rid of Mike Waltz, who is considered a neocon or a conservative, and anybody that had any question that once he got in office, President Trump might kind of push aside the MAGA crowd and maybe be a little bit more conservative, be a little bit more mainstream. He put Waltz in. He put Rubio in. These people have absolutely no power. And there's an effort to get rid of Waltz and all of his staff. And this is what's concerning is, you know, they say, you know, Waltz is a globalist, Marco is a globalist. And, you know, anybody that has, like a conservative or so called neocon view of national security, which is a strong America overseas, you know, what we've seen so far is gonna be nothing if you get the Mike Waltzes and the Rubio's out. And I hear there are more firings today, more coming, and it's very concerning.
- [14:30]
Jim Acosta
And whatever happened to Susie Wiles, I mean, what I read was that Susie Wiles, the White House chief of staff, was going to keep the drama down to a minimum, that she was no drama. Susie Wiles and people like Laura Loomer were not supposed to have access to Trump. Something has clearly changed. This is reminding me of those bad days after the 2020 election when you saw the MyPillow guy and all these other characters cycling through the West Wing. And this is worse than that, and she's way worse than that. But this is why you hear from Trump. People over the years saying one of the worst things that can happen to Donald Trump is when those types of individuals get access to him, because that is when bad decisions, and we're already seeing bad decisions, but really bad decisions could get made. And Elise, I did want to ask you about Signalgate, because it sounds like this is what the Washington Post is reporting. The Defense Department Inspector General's office said it will scrutinize top Trump administration officials use of signal to coordinate that military operation last month in Yemen that's complying with the request from Republicans and Democrats in Congress. So as much as Trump wants to try to make that go away, distract us with the bright, shiny objects, Signal Gate not going away.
- [15:44]
Elise Labott
Signal gate is not going away. But what's going to happen to the inspector general, Pentagon, Jim?
- [15:49]
Jim Acosta
Well, I guess we'll have to wait and see.
- [15:53]
Elise Labott
Listen, I think that, you know, you've heard from President Trump. He doesn't really care. They're all playing, and we talked about this last week, they're all playing fast and loose with communications. Trump's doing himself there. You know, there was a report about Mike Waltz using Gmail. How did people know he was using Gmail? Because other people were using Gmail. I mean, there's zero. You know, I was reading this article the other day about how someone. What someone on substack. I'll put it on my substack. Cosmopolitics was reading, was a journalist during the Reagan era and he called up a Reagan deputy chief of staff to ask him, you know, while he was on vacation, something, and the guy barked at him. And it was like about a little color about Reagan's vacation. And it was like, this is not a classified phone. This is not a secure phone. Yeah, even. Even back then. And now there's just like, you know, I'll text this, I'll tweet this, I'll put this on Gmail. Way too much fast and loose, this cavalier attitude not just towards secure communications, but really towards everything. As you see if someone like Laura Loomer can get in the White House.
- [17:02]
Jim Acosta
You're absolutely right, Elise. Let's try to bring in Julian Zelizer. He's a Princeton presidential historian. And Elise, if you've got a bounce, you just let me know. But always appreciate having your insights on the program.
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Elise Labott
But good to be with you.
- [17:16]
Jim Acosta
It's. Let's see if we can get Julian in here. I like when we can try to do the three way conversation.
- [17:21]
Elise Labott
We'll try. And if it doesn't work, I'm out.
- [17:24]
Jim Acosta
I'm traveling. I wasn't even going to do a show today, but because of what's taking place on Wall. There's Julian right there.
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Elise Labott
Julian, welcome to Substack. Welcome to Substack.
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Julian Zelizer
It's nice to be on the platform with you.
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Jim Acosta
Is this your maiden voyage? Doing a live.
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Julian Zelizer
It is. First time.
- [17:40]
Jim Acosta
Fantastic. Excellent. Well, it's great to see you.
- [17:43]
Julian Zelizer
Yeah, it is great to see you.
- [17:45]
Jim Acosta
I mean, your thoughts on. This is a. I reached out to you, Julian, because I thought this is a big day. I wasn't even planning on doing something today. I'm in a hotel room and I can't tell you where, but I will say it at Some point. But this is such a big day because it's just so consequential what Trump has done. Julian, you know this all too well. For years and years, people have said, oh, presidents, they don't have that big of an impact on the economy. They can't do that much to affect the economy. Guess what? Yes, they can.
- [18:14]
Julian Zelizer
Wrong. I mean, look, this is an example of presidential power, and Congress has given away power on tariffs for decades, really, going back to the 1930s. And the assumption's always that you'll have a president who'll have restraint and a president will be guided by markets and the economy. And right now, we're seeing if someone is not working that way, Congress can't just take it back. And so it's a part of a bigger story. But the costs are just enormous right now.
- [18:45]
Jim Acosta
They're enormous. And I guess. What was your impression of Trump doing that event in the Rose Garden yesterday? Because Paul Krugman's pointed out this. Glenn Kessler over at the Washington Post, the fact checker there, has pointed this out. I mean, a lot of the stuff, and surprise, surprise, a lot of the stuff that Trump was saying was not true. And, you know, we can try to be diplomatic and tiptoe around this stuff, but he just, he's told the same falsehoods over and over again about tariffs that you kind of have to call them lies at this point. But your impression, because he's just not dealing with the facts and reality when it comes to tariffs and the global economy is at stake.
- [19:23]
Julian Zelizer
Right. So we've seen this before and we've talked about this certainly in the first term and in the first few weeks of the second term. But this, you know, what makes this different is the cost is just very immediate. It's very intense. And people are seeing that this is consequential. It's not as if everything he does and the way he uses truth and falsehoods doesn't matter. It's not as if we're watching it. It wasn't a TV show yesterday. That was a performance that preceded a big policy shift. And a lot of people are going to lose money and lose potentially jobs as a result of what's going on. And that's that match. And the question, again, look, there is a group that does have authority. Congress has given away power, but Republicans are still there on Capitol Hill. They control the majority. And this is as much a test about them, frankly, at this point as it is about the president.
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Elise Labott
Yeah, well, they're going to, Jim. They're going Congress is now gonna have a choice to make. They're gonna get. Their donors are gonna come after them and say, you need to press Trump. And Trump's gonna say, shut up or I'll primary you. And so now Trump's donors are gonna go after him. Congress is going to get a lot of pressure, and it'll be interesting to see who wins out on that corporate America that's going to be hurting. Obviously, Americans are hurting, but no one seems to care about that. But who's going to win out on this corporate America and Congress or the president?
- [21:00]
Jim Acosta
Yeah.
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Julian Zelizer
And the interesting thing, the one guardrail that kind of always existed with him was, was the economy and the market. Not totally the market. During COVID we saw it didn't always work accordingly, but it was something. It was a parameter to how he'd use his authority. And what we've seen in the last few weeks, I think is shaking even some of his supporters, because that's just not true. And today, proof in the pudding was there. And all I could think of was Colin Powell's Pottery Barn rule.
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Elise Labott
Pottery Barn rule.
- [21:32]
Julian Zelizer
You own it. And so now they own it.
- [21:34]
Jim Acosta
Well, speaking of, I just said earlier, restoration hardware down 40%. Not maybe one of Pottery Barn's successors or competitors, but certainly in the same ballpark from a retail standpoint. Julian. The other thing is, you can't say people were not warned. Here's what Kamala Harris said about Trump's tariffs plans back in September 2024 in an interview with Stephanie Rule at NBC. She said, you don't just throw around the idea of just tariffs across the board. And that's part of the problem with Donald Trump. I say this in all sincerity. He's just not very serious about how he thinks about some of these issues. And one must be serious and have a plan and a real plan that's not just about some talking point ending in an exclamation at a political rally. I mean, she kind of nailed it.
- [22:18]
Julian Zelizer
She nailed it. And look, there's a history behind this. In 1930, Congress passed sweeping tariffs, and it was part of what most agree accelerated the Great Depression. It threw us into a trade war. And this was discussed. Everything was discussed. He was transparent about what he was going to do. So we can't argue this is a surprise. The bigger point is just that he's actually willing to do it. And how little response you're seeing at this point still from the gop.
- [22:49]
Jim Acosta
And I guess, I mean, you brought up the example that exacerbated the Great Depression. I mean, have we seen in modern times, though, a president having this kind of an impact in a negative way on the economy? I mean, it just seems to me this is extraordinary, historic stuff that we're all witnessing in real time.
- [23:10]
Julian Zelizer
I like this. I mean, the argument was that in the 1990s and early 2000s, the deregulation of financial markets, which involved presidents and Congress, culminates in 2008. That's a little different. It's part of deregulation. It's a slow burn, involves both administrations. This is a singular action, really, by a president, despite the advice of almost everyone. And so I think that's probably why it's different. And obviously, in 2008, President Bush at that time did respond to the collapse and actually worked around House Republicans to get legislation. This time, it's a very different story.
- [23:50]
Jim Acosta
Yeah. And I guess the question is, will we see bailouts as a result of this? We saw bailouts of farmers during the first Trump administration. I mean, he was claiming. And this was something else that Glenn Kessler brought up in the Washington Post in his fact check, that, you know, Trump was making these claims that he brought in hundreds of billions of dollars during his first. Not the case, had to bail out farmers, I think, to the tune of $28 billion. And so these kinds of actions can come with the price tag. The other thing I wanted to ask you about is, because it's been in the news, Julian, and maybe it's a more prescient question now because of everything that's going on, this stuff that Trump's been banding about about a third term. Do you buy that? Do you take that seriously? I'm of the mindset that he could push this issue and push us into kind of a constitutional crisis on this, into an electoral crisis on this. And I'm worried that that's what he's gonna try to do. And, I mean, maybe folks will say, well, he's in no shape. He may not be in any shape to do that by the time 28 rolls around, but, I mean, who the hell knows?
- [24:59]
Julian Zelizer
I think you have.
- [25:00]
Elise Labott
All right, take it away, Julian. I gotta run.
- [25:02]
Jim Acosta
All right, see you, Liz.
- [25:03]
Elise Labott
I'll be with you guys.
- [25:04]
Jim Acosta
Great to see you. Good job.
- [25:05]
Julian Zelizer
Good to see you. I mean, look, the assumption has to be he will try. Every time he says he's gonna do something, he does it or tries to do it. January 6th was a metric by which we could see how far he's willing to go. And we know, A, he likes power. B, he doesn't believe in the rules, including the constitutional rules. And third, when he says something, he tries it. And, you know, I think the amendment's clear and the purpose is clear. But I would, if you're watching this, I think you should be assuming that that's the direction he's going to take this.
- [25:41]
Jim Acosta
Yeah, I mean, that's my sense of it. I was talking about this the other day with Adam Kinzinger, and you could see a scenario where he just says, I'm running and I'm going to start putting my name on ballots and dare these Republican Party chairmen in different places, chairpersons in different places to stop him. They probably won't stop him. You'll get into court battles and then it'll wind its way to the Supreme Court. And he's accustomed to playing that game. I mean, that's, that's the scenario that I worry about, that he'll just plunge us all into this and not stop. Yeah.
- [26:14]
Julian Zelizer
I mean, look, the question is where he stands. Obviously, something like today, even if initially, I don't know how much has been said by Republicans or business leaders, they're not happy with this. No one's happy with this.
- [26:26]
Jim Acosta
Nobody's happy.
- [26:26]
Julian Zelizer
We saw in Wisconsin, in a different area, there is a response to some of this. And so we should also not assume that he's always triumphant. He wasn't in 2020, he wasn't in the midterms of 2018. And now he's kind of plunging the country into pretty dangerous economic territory. And business and finance doesn't like, they want profit. And to have a situation like this won't make everyone happy. So it might be by the time we hit that potential crisis, he's standing alone, and then it won't really matter. He won't have the kind of votes that he needs. But, but that's a far way off. I think we're like right now in this other space where it's true, where that has to be the key issue.
- [27:14]
Jim Acosta
And to get into the here and now, what is your assessment of where we are right now with Trump 2.0? Is he taking the country in a nationalist? I mean, some would say fascist. I mean, I would say in some cases, fascist direction. Are you concerned about that as a presidential historian? When you look at this, and I know people, they kind of tense up when they hear certain terms and whatnot. But I mean, I do think it is scary when they're picking people up off the streets. You know, ICE officers picking people up off the streets. They're not Getting due process, they're defying judges orders, they're sending them off to countries not of their origin. In some cases like this, El Salvador in prison. This is some of this is scary stuff. And I wonder, as a presidential historian who studied this for a long time, do you see it that way? Do you see some real warning signs?
- [28:08]
Julian Zelizer
Well, I mean, at a minimum, this is really unbound presidential power, and that is a danger in itself. And obviously, when you have a president who is not listening to the courts, it's not clear he will follow court rules. It's not clear that due process is really that important at this point to the administration. That is inherently dangerous. We saw this with Richard Nixon in the late 1960s and early 70s. There a lot of the other institutions seem to be much stronger though, in responding to him from, you know, from Congress to the press. And Nixon for everything he tried to do, still kind of worked in a world where he a, was scared of consequence and be assumed certain limits to what he could do. That's why he did a lot of it in secret. We only learn about an investigation. Trump is very different. So when you combine really expansive presidential power, whether you want to call it autocracy or use any term, that's for people to decide, but just in itself as an exercise of presidential power, without the limits of the late early 70s and late 60s with Nixon, that's dangerous territory. And we really don't know where this goes now.
- [29:27]
Jim Acosta
We don't know where it goes. And Nixon, Nixon resigned. I mean, he, you know, they came to him and said, listen, you're done. And he basically resigned and left. And Trump did not do that when he lost back in 2020. And we saw what took place there. And I mean, one of the things that I remind people of is, you know, I was on Air Force One with him when he left office the first time around. I was in the pool that day when we he flew down to Mar a Lago and Joe Biden was inaugurated. And I just remember thinking at that time, thank goodness he got on that plane and left. I just don't know what if he just doesn't want to do that this time around. Again, this is going back to what you were saying earlier about worrying about things that are a little bit far off, but I do worry about that.
- [30:12]
Julian Zelizer
Yeah. I mean, look, politically, the most important thing, the two things I think are that the courts continue to push back. And I think we've seen many heroic federal judges, frankly, who are risking themselves to do that. And that ongoing push does matter. It's still a voice of legitimacy for a lot of the country, even though some of his supporters don't think so. And B, I know it's only April of 2025, but those midterms are going to be enormously important. And again, I think the elections we just had are a taste of how elections can change the temperature of the country. And obviously, very practically, if Democrats gained control of the House, they would have institutional power, and that would change the dynamics.
- [31:02]
Jim Acosta
And that does change things. If they can call hearings, if they can begin impeachment proceedings, they can do all sorts of things that can make life difficult. And the budget, of course, there's that as well. Julian, tell us about being on substack. What is the name of the substack again? I have it on here, and I'm just sleep deprived because I'm in a different, a way different time zone.
- [31:23]
Julian Zelizer
It's called the Long View, and I started it and I'm having a great time. I'm publishing a newsletter. I'm going to interview people as well and just try to give people historical perspective every week on the news of the hour, of the day. And I'm really, I'm just enjoying the platform very much and have conversations with people like you. It's, it's great. And it's been fun to start it up. The long.
- [31:47]
Jim Acosta
Yeah, it's, it is fun. And, and check out Julian Subset. It's great not having folks in our ear saying it's time to go, we got to go to a commercial. We only have three minutes or four minutes. We just talked for about 15 minutes there. So that was great. Julian, let's do it again soon. Thanks so much.
- [32:02]
Julian Zelizer
For sure. Thank you. All right.
- [32:04]
Jim Acosta
Great to talk to you. Really appreciate it. Julian Zelizer over at Princeton, presidential historian. It's great to have these kinds of experts, this kind of, you know, intellectual firepower joining substack, joining independent media because, you know, it, it helps all of us, helps me as a host. Someone just asked Jim, are you meeting with Putin? No, I am not meeting with Putin. Are you kidding me? Why would I do that? My goodness, I would be in big trouble. But no, I'm traveling and I thought, I'm looking at the stock market and what it's doing today. And there's so many concerns out there. People say happy libation day. Yes. There's so many people who are concerned about what is taking place right now because there's huge ramifications, huge consequences at stake here when the stock market tumbles the way it does, what Trump has done, he's plunged us all into this kind of like twilight zone of uncertainty. We don't know how the end of this week is going to pan out because there are just the unintended consequences. When you do this sort of thing, we're in unchartered waters. As Julian was saying just a few moments ago, this kind of stuff, these kinds of tariffs haven't been applied in decades. And so we just don't know what's going to take place. And when you see stocks like Restoration hardware going down 40%, when you see Nike and Apple, big American name companies, taking huge hits today, it's very worrisome for all of us. We're all looking at our 401ks, we're all looking at places like CNBC and so on, wondering, you know, how is all of this going to play out? You know, what's going to happen to my bottom line? What's going to happen to my retirement? It's all very concerning. And it's worrisome that when Trump is laying this kind of stuff out, and I talked about with Elise and Julian a little bit there, he's not. Read Paul Krugman's Substack, folks. Read Paul Krugman on Substack. Glenn Kessler in the Washington Post. When Trump is not even dealing with the facts, when he's not dealing with realities, when he's not dealing with the real world and he's implementing these kinds of changes, that's when we all need to worry. No question about it. But in the meantime, I've been traveling today. I wanted to jump on and do this. This actually went a little longer than I thought it was going to. But thanks everybody for watching. Really appreciate it. I'll talk to you next time. Once again, still reporting, I'm Jim Acosta, not in Washington. I'm still reporting. I'll give you an update on where I've been traveling to, when it's a good time to do that. But thanks, everybody for watching. Take care. Bye.