← The Jim Acosta Show
The Jim Acosta Show
Paul Krugman on Trump's "Affordability" Crisis and the Bulwark's Adrian Carrasquillo reports Kristi Noem on "Thin Ice"
00:43:01
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Adrian Carrascuillo
Foreign.
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Jim Acosta
Welcome to the Jim Acosta show. And it's another day that ends in Y and Donald Trump's affordability crisis. Trump now wants to hand out $12 billion in the bailout to American farmers who are becoming casualties yet again in Trump's trade wars. Trump's tariffs are not just hurting farmers, they are driving at prices for Americans. And here to discuss is the great economist Paul Krugman, who is on substack. And, and, Paul, you and I were just talking a few moments ago about how we're a lot busier than we thought we would be.
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Paul Krugman
Yeah, I, I'm supposed to be a. Saying I'm supposed to be a retired professor smoking my pipe in my tweed jacket, and here I am writing seven days a week. But it's, you know, it's, it's interesting and hopefully we're getting some information out to people.
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Jim Acosta
Absolutely. And I think independent media people are clamoring for it. And, and they've been reading your substack. And I want to talk about your latest piece on America and the world under MAGA and Donald Trump. It's, it's a fascinating PE piece, and I think it's worth reading for everybody. But I guess I, I do want to hit the news just because, you know, Trump announced this $12 billion aid package bailout basically, to the farmers because they've become casualties in this, in this tariff gambit that he's launched into since the beginning of this year. I guess none of this is surprising. The question is how bad does it get for farmers and how bad does it get from an inflationary standpoint for American consumers? I guess that's part of it, too.
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Adrian Carrascuillo
Yeah.
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Paul Krugman
I mean, this, my reaction I was expecting, I mean, I was. It was almost a guarantee that something like this was going to happen. I mean, if there's one segment of the US Economy that is really globalized that really depends on export markets, it's farming. We are a huge, you know, agriculture exports a large share of what it produces. So they depend upon global markets. And, you know, it's a fundamental principle when we teach all of our economic students when they take international trade, that tariffs are actually taxes on exports, too indirectly. It always ends up hitting exporters. And so the farmers are suffering. Plus a lot of the stuff that the farmers depend upon to, you know, the fertilizers, farm equipment is itself affected by the terrorists. So when I, we knew this was coming. And my reaction, actually, when I saw the headlines, was only $12 billion.
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Jim Acosta
Yeah.
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Paul Krugman
Back in 2019.
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Trump did the same you know, he did the same thing actually three years running, but he, in 2019, he did 16 billion for farmers. And first of all, 16 billion. And you know, as is, you know, prices are up and this is a much bigger, much more destructive trade war than the one he waged during his first term. So farmers surely are hurting considerably worse than they were in 2019. So this is actually. Are we allowed to say this by farmers? But this is kind of chicken feed. I mean, this is not going to be enough to, to insulate even the farmers. And then, you know, supposed to have this, you know, free market economy. And then it turns out, well, actually the government takes here and then gives back money there. And that's not.
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That'S not the vision that we were sold.
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Jim Acosta
Right. That's not what you teach in economics about American capitalism. And the other thing too is he keeps saying that there's all this money coming in from the tariffs and he's gonna use the tariff money to pay for the bailout. Is that how it works?
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Paul Krugman
Well, no, I mean, it's first of all, just plain, just take the actual Trump policies. This, you know, this coming fiscal year, whatever.
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Yeah, there's the tariffs, which are a tax, which are going to raise a non trivial amount of money, but there are also big tax cuts, part of the one big beautiful bill, which are actually bigger than the tariffs. So overall, Trump's policies so far have increased the budget deficit. And also it's America, big economy, huge economy, also a huge budget deficit. Rough estimate of how much the kind of net revenue from the tariffs is going to be, might be 200 billion a year.
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That's.
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Less than a tenth of what we raised from income taxes. It's only a small fraction of the budget deficit. The idea that this tariff revenue, which is, by the way, coming in below most people's expectations, there's a story there that this is somehow gives us money. I think Trump has basically promised to hand out that money about six different ways.
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Six times over. It just, just isn't. There just isn't a tariff dividend that that's anything like what he talks about.
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Jim Acosta
Yeah. And as a matter of fact, he has promised Americans, according to The Washington Post, $2,000 refund checks from the revenue raised by the tariffs. And he has suggested that in the, quote, not too distant future that no one will have to pay an income tax.
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Paul Krugman
Yeah, it's complete fantasy numbers. And yeah. And yeah, it's turning out actually. I mean, in some ways the tariffs are not.
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It's kind of good since the tariffs are stupid, but it's turning out that there's a lot of ways to not pay the tariffs. So far, it's legal. I don't think we're talking about smuggling or, or false invoicing on, at least on a large scale. But there were a lot of ways, legal ways, to not pay tariffs that weren't worth doing, you know, stuff to get your stuff classified as eligible for zero tariffs under the U.S. mexico, Canada, the agreement formerly known as NAFTA, the paperwork was pretty involved. And when we had 2% tariffs, it wasn't worth it. For a lot of companies, when you have 17% tariffs, all of a sudden it is worth it. And so a lot of the effective tariffs are coming in a lot lower than the headline tariffs.
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Jim Acosta
Yeah. And one final quick thing before we move into your piece is, I mean, what happens if we have to pay back the tariffs? Right? I mean, isn't that, isn't that, is that a possibility or.
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Paul Krugman
I mean, I'm not a lawyer. I'm finding it really hard, though, to see if.
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Jim Acosta
I don't see how that works.
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Paul Krugman
Well, if the Supreme Court says that this was an illegitimate policy, then how do you say it's an illegitimate policy, but we're going to keep the money we took, so how do you not pay it back? And even if, I mean, Trump, people are talking about how they can use other stuff, other legal provisions to reimpose the tariffs, which I think is going to be a little bit harder than they think. But even so, even so, if you say, well, okay, what I did was illegal, but here's a, here's an alternative legal thing. We think, therefore, we get to keep the money we illegally stole from you. I mean, I, I just don't see. And it's, it's a huge mess. I mean, and Costco has, has filed suit saying we want our money back.
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Jim Acosta
Yeah, that's right. And, and it could be a massive hit, I, I suppose, to the budget, to the economy. I mean, there's just no telling where this could go. And I do want to get into your piece, Paul, that you just put up on Substack. We can show a little bit up on, on screen here because I think it, it just ties in so well to what we're going through right now. And it says, is this the end of the free world? And, and you write this. There was a time not so long ago, when America was the leader of the free world. It was the first among equals with an alliance of nations bound together by shared values. Above All a commitment to democracy and civil liberties. From London to Berlin to Tokyo, in the aftermath of genocide and ever utter devastation of World War II, America, as Ronald Reagan put it, was the shining city on the hill. We should never forget that Americans played pivotal roles in the Nuremberg trials, upholding the rule of law in an impartial and transparent manner. In the trials of those who had committed unspeakable atrocities and acts of war. In ich bin ein Berliner, declared John F. Kennedy in Berlin. You and I were talking before the show got started. He may have mixed that up a little bit, but you go on to say maga, however, doesn't want to be part of that world. What did you. What do you try to get at?
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Paul Krugman
Let me just quickly, for viewers might enjoy. The iron didn't belong there. He shouldn't. The article was wrong. He should have just said ich bin Berliner. And arguably what he actually said was, I am a jelly donut. But nobody, Nobody actually thought that.
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Jim Acosta
But no, with Kennedy, he always got style points. So he was.
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Paul Krugman
Style was what mattered. And.
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Yeah, I mean, this is, you know, America is not. Has never been a saint. Right. You know, we, you know, talk to Latin American countries where we overthrew democratically elected governments on behalf of united fruit, talk to Iran where we overthrew a legitimate democratic government on behalf of the oil companies. We did a lot of bad things, but, you know, in the history of world empires, the Pax Americana was the most benign ever. And certainly for Europe, for Japan, we were.
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Much more enlightened. Not in our own interest. We built allies. We built a world of countries bound together by shared values. Democracy, civil liberties, rule of law. A world in which, you know, no one questioned that the United States was top dog. But we never abused that position, which was really good, you know, and now all of a sudden, we have these people in charge. Not all of a sudden, because it's been building for years, but now the people in charge don't value any of that. The, that national security document was funny. I mean, it barely mentioned geopolitical rivalry with China. It didn't even bother to. Well, not surprising, I guess, to condemn Russia for invading Ukraine, but it was dripping with contempt and hatred for Europe. And why? Because Europe. Europe still believes in the values that we're abandoning.
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Jim Acosta
And, and what, what is going on with that Russia part of it? And what is going on with that China piece of it?
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Paul Krugman
Well, the China piece, I think is. Who knows? But my, My guess, maybe at some level.
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Trump people realize that actually seriously competing with China is hard. I mean, China is a, China's economy is bigger than ours in real terms. The Chinese, they're not omnipotent, but they are competent and determined. And above all, if we want to seriously contest the future with China, we need our allies.
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Jim Acosta
Yeah.
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Paul Krugman
I mean, America, America plus Europe plus some of the smaller countries, that's a, Collectively, we're still the dominant. You know, the, the, the, the former free world is still can, can rule the world, economy can contest the future.
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Jim Acosta
This is why we had all these free trade agreements and so on.
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Paul Krugman
Yeah, yeah, yeah. America alone, we just don't, we don't have the cards, as Trump might say. And so maybe someone in drafting, maybe they were just too busy being racist, but, but maybe somebody said, you know, actually, if we want to talk seriously about taking on China, we don't have the cards unless we're willing to actually rebuild our alliances. And we're not going to do that.
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Jim Acosta
Yeah, no. And it's, and it's totally in the Russia thing, I think, is pretty transparent as to what's going on there. I mean, I, you know, the, the fact that, you know, they just are selling out the Ukrainians at every turn, it's astonishing.
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Paul Krugman
Yeah, it's. Well, you know, this admiration for Putin has been a thing. It's not just Trump that's been a thing on the Republican right for quite a while. But you might have thought, you know, think about where we are right now. Here was Russia trying to invade a country a quarter its size with a, you know, everyone talked about how strong the Russian army was, and they have essentially been fought to a standstill by this little country. And, you know, which is deeply revealing that the Russians are actually, you know, they, they, they're very, lots of macho posturing, but they're actually not very good. You know, the, the Hexathic envision of war, that it's all about being tough and, and masculine and, and lethal. The Russians have offered, you know, clear proof that that ain't so. And you would think that they would kind of back off and say maybe we've been backing the wrong horse here, but not. That's Putin is their kind of guy.
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Jim Acosta
Yeah, there's no, and there's no question about it. And Paul, I guess, you know, just to get into one other issue that I thought would be important to get into, and that is the Supreme Court. I don't know if you saw, I'm sure you saw some of this. They, they seem to be siding with Donald Trump in terms of his ability to Fire independent government officials. I mean, it's just another. The case dealt with his attempt to fire a member of the Federal Trade Commission. There are larger implications here, and I think that's another one of the reasons why Europe and, and much of the free world is sort of looking at the United States as a real problem child these days. I mean, our instit. Our institutions are not holding and, And a key one. The Supreme Court just seems to be ready to just throw in league with Donald Trump.
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Paul Krugman
Yeah, yeah. I mean, the, you know, rule of law means.
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It'S a more expansive concept than just plain, you know, you don't. Don't get to smash shop windows and take stuff. And part of what makes a modern country can't function if every government official holds their position at the pleasure of the strong man in charge. You get a government that's all about sycophancy and doesn't actually without professionalism. And we've been blessed. And this is something people rarely say, but the federal government, the actual federal workforce is especially the sort of managerial level, is way better than we deserve. I mean, I know a lot of these people. I know a lot of people who could be earning two or three times as much in the private sector, but do their jobs, work at treasury, work at the Federal Reserve, because they want their jobs to have meaning. And now you're saying no, actually, your job depends upon pleasing, on flattering the guy in charge. You know, we're going to end up. This is how you become a third world country.
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Jim Acosta
Yeah. No, and I'm wondering, Paul, what you think. I mean, just to sort of close things out. Are we. I mean, the concern has been almost the entire year that we're sort of backsliding into a kind of authoritarianism. Are you still seeing signs of that? I mean, I see what's taking place today in the media world where, you know, Paramount wants to mount this hostile takeover bid for Warner Brothers Discovery, and apparently Jared Kushner's, you know, his, his team may be a part of this and, you know, that's just one institution, the media at large. But it just seems to me that we're in just in every category that you can look at these days. Oh, they're sliding in that direction.
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Adrian Carrascuillo
Yeah.
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Paul Krugman
They're definitely still the authoritarian playbook. This is, you know, it, it's. You would, you might say, you know, they looked at how Viktor Orban destroyed democracy in Hungary and they took inspiration. Well, they quite literally did. I mean, they.
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Literally have Viktor Orban come to CPAC conferences and and give sort of give them advice on how you do this. Now, the optimism, such as there is, is that the project is clearly running behind schedule. It's not going the way they thought it would. And, you know, people like Orban or Putin, when they subverted democracy, were able to do it during a window of a couple of years when they were actually popular, when the economy was actually doing well and people were like what they were seeing. And Trump has managed to dispel all the goodwill that he might have had, all the people who voted from him for him because they thought he would bring down the price of groceries. All of that has completely evaporated, you know, less than a year in. So now the question is, can you still consolidate power? Can you still undermine a democracy when you have a. A minus 15% approval rating? And there are no historical examples. But we don't know that.
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Jim Acosta
We don't know. That's right. And apparently on Tuesday, he's going to go, I think, to Pennsylvania to talk about affordability, which he. Which is an issue he calls a scam.
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Paul Krugman
Yeah. I mean, he's going to tour the country telling people that, that you're wrong to feel that prices are up and stuff is actually cheaper. And, you know, if I were a Democratic strategist, I'd be saying, yeah, more, we'll. We'll pay his airfare.
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Jim Acosta
Exactly. And they might just do that. They might just do that. Paul, great to see you. Thanks so much. Glad we could catch up. Check out Paul's column in. In Substack. It's almost every day you're writing now, is that right?
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Paul Krugman
Every day, except occasionally when I apologize.
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Jim Acosta
Very good. Well, and I do that sometimes as well. But we all need a break. Thanks. Thanks a lot, Paul. Really appreciate. Good luck on getting that tweed jacket in the pipe, but.
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Paul Krugman
Okay, thanks.
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Jim Acosta
Thanks a lot. Take care. That's a great Paul Krugman. And it's. And it's so true. I mean, you know, Donald Trump, he calls it a scam. He calls the affordability issue a scam. And yet the White House builds these events for him to go tour the country to talk about an issue. Affordability sounds like a scam to him because he doesn't have to worry about it. He doesn't understand what regular people are going through right now. And one of the ways that the economic pressures in this country are being exacerbated in a very negative way is his efforts to go after migrants in this country, which is having a significant impact and will have a significant impact on the American economy. And so on that note, I want to bring in Adrian Carrascuillo, who is an immigration reporter for the Bulwark. Adrian, good to see you, man. As always, great reporting. I do want to talk about the immigration issue, but you had a scoop that was, I think it was atop a drudge all weekend. So, you know, nice work there reporting that, that Donald Trump has maybe has had enough of Kristi Gnome in the saddle. And I say that literally because she likes to ride horseback and her skin tight jeans cosplaying. I don't know what she's doing, America's immigration sheriff, but apparently Trump has had enough or may be close to having enough and might replace her. Is that what you're. Which would be. That would be his first cabinet official?
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Adrian Carrascuillo
It would be. And you know, there's, there's been sort of this persistent rumor over the last month that maybe there's going to be this cabinet shakeup. And, and so I started checking in because I was hearing about Gnome and the way it was described to me by former DHS officials. And you know, there's really serious, they try to really keep the leaks down with DHS and ice. But you know, obviously these people speak to their former colleagues and what they're saying is that Trump is doing sort of an end of year review, you know, and, and that GNOME is one of those people that has been, that he's been, that he's been looking at to replace. We know that there's just different power centers when it comes to dhs. And we know that Stephen Miller is ultimately sort of one of these voices that is in charge. I mean, look, between her and $172 million for jets, for Gulfstream jets, and just the way that she's handled it, she's going to F1. I think it's clear that when they brought her in, they wanted her to be sort of this face for these different, you know, $200 million ad campaigns that are even on UNO and different things like that. And she goes on media to defend this administration when it comes to their deportation policy. But yeah, it looks like her time is short, that she's going to be out really soon, is what I heard. I also heard, you know, CNN had talked about sort of a year into Trump's presidency, which would be the end of January. And I had heard from folks as early as January 1st. So it just feels like it was picking up even as I was reporting it. And I think that's why you've seen that get a lot of attention this weekend.
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Jim Acosta
But you know, Adrian, she, she does just about everything that they want her to do. I mean, she went down to the El Salvador and Gulag and posed in front of all of these shirtless detainees, which was just an appalling scene. You know, she's, she does the thing where she rides on the horseback and so on. But the other thing that they've been doing lately over at dhs, I mean their, their social media account is a, an atrocity. It's, it's a monstrosity. They seem to be delighting and gleeful in what they're doing. Tearing apart families and ripping kids out of parents arms and so on. They put out a tweet just a few days ago with a bunch of ICE agents wearing Santa hats. There's this. And there they put out a video about a week ago. And it looks like an 80s, 1980s, you know, style game show. You know, we'll send you on. Are you an illegal alien in the United States? Are you looking for the perfect holiday gift for your family? Then DHS has the best holiday deal of your life. This is the CBP home app. It's free, it's fast. This is real. I mean, and all the people that they show in this, the spoof video, which is supposed to be a spoof, brown skinned people and obviously Latino people and, and the way that they just make light of what they're doing. To me, it's not America. It's not, not the country I grew up in. I know you're younger than me, Adrian, but it's just not the country I grew up in. And so it seems to me she's doing, she did all the Chicago stuff where it looked like Apocalypse now and the video of the guys going, storming the apartment building and so on. Seems like she's doing everything they, they want her to do.
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Adrian Carrascuillo
Yeah, I believe we probably chat about this last time, which is that the, you know, Biden was. People felt. Voters felt you needed to. He was too weak on the board, need to be stronger. But when you, when you go to here, which we've heard the constant line of the cruelty is the point. And you're just pushing the envelope and doing things that we have seen in focus groups and in polling from the beginning of the administration that people were uncomfortable with, even Trump supporters were saying, you know, we had one focus group where we had a Latina from Texas and right after she said immigrants are taking our jobs. So she was clearly a Trump supporter. One of her next lines was Trump needs to stop that stuff that he's doing in Guantanamo Bay and El Salvador that makes him seem like a Nazi. Like, you know, these administrative errors that are ruining someone's life forever. So this administration. Right. I mean, who is going to replace her? Someone else along those lines. But I think what is happening here is not just her fealty to Trump being enough, but that people like Stephen Miller want. They have these billions of dollars now access to, to build these attention centers.
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Jim Acosta
Right.
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Adrian Carrascuillo
They want to get this money out the door. And that can be an issue for them if Democrats take over next year, in 2026. So they want to like start building these facilities.
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Jim Acosta
So they want to supercharge it now so they can get stuff done next year before the Democrats potentially take over and slam on the brakes in 2027, I guess. Yeah. Is that. And Stephen Miller and who, who's.
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Paul Krugman
Who.
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Jim Acosta
Who's going to be maga Enough, you know, fascist enough basically for Stephen Miller.
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Adrian Carrascuillo
Yeah.
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Jim Acosta
To satisfy him as the head of dhs. I saw you were reporting something about Glenn Youngkin, the governor of Virginia. The Republicans got their clock cleaned in, in Virginia and so he's on his way out. I mean, he was term limited, one term, but he didn't seem like that he had a whole lot of options. Maybe he wants to be a cabinet secretary, but I can't imagine he's going to be the guy that does what they want.
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Adrian Carrascuillo
I mean, it's so interesting because I think it depends on the, the view you're looking at. You have folks at DHS who are like praying for an adult in the room because there are people at DHS who are, you know, some hold over some career folks and who just wish that this agency could do like a decent job on some of the stuff that they still have been doing for years. And then. So. But then you look at someone like a young kid. I mean, anyone who comes in, are they just going to be a rubber stamp for what Miller wants to do anyway? And if you're replacing Gnome, and if people are upset that you're not supercharging this sort of insane deportation policy to Stephen Miller's liking, then what is that going to look like? And how quickly are you going to basically wear out your welcome as the replacement who comes in for Gnome, you know, so that's also interesting.
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Jim Acosta
It's already a shit show now when you show. I mean, you and I both see all the viral videos I've shown them on the show so many times of like the little kids getting pepper sprayed and the people Getting their windows smashed in by ice. You've got Greg Bevino going around. I mean, you know, I could see a scenario where they think he would be the guy to put in charge of dhs, but then can he get confirmed in the Senate? I mean, that, that is a, that would be a whole other question. But I don't know how you satisfy the likes of Stephen Miller other than make Stephen Miller the DHS secretary, which would never happen.
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Adrian Carrascuillo
Yeah, absolutely. And then the other, you just brought up Bovino's sort of roadshow when people talk about the different, like power centers and the different people.
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Jim Acosta
Yeah, you know, it's just sort of.
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Adrian Carrascuillo
Planning that stuff out. Gnome doesn't really have a role in that. You know, one of the sources about.
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Does Trump keep her on for a couple months? Because they're already planning where they're, the cities they're going to go to in January and February. And so do you just sort of keep her on or is it just fresh, fresh face, fresh blood, like get someone new in. And, and I think that that's the problem with this administration anyway. You have Bavino showing up and puffing out his chest, going a little village in Chicago where I was pepper spraying people. The agents who lower the window and, and you know, yeah, that one drive away just the, the most insane causing traffic accidents, by the way, in these residential areas, in these retail centers of these cities, hurting local economy. So again, I, I have no idea sort of where that goes. But you see this with Trump a lot also and with, with women, you know, sort of, he will, he will, they will wear out their welcome in his eyes and he will move on to someone else.
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Jim Acosta
Right.
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Now that isn't, that is, you may have touched upon the thing that, that may determine this and that. I mean, given the way Trump reacts to women, behaves around women, it says to me that, okay, that might have something to do with why he might be ready to see Christine go. I, I don't see how Glenn Youngkin comes in and becomes any more Stephen Miller like in all of this. And, and you mentioned that they already kind of know where they're going to go next year. So is it your sense, Adrian, that this is going to get expanded, that this, that what we're going to see next year is going to go way beyond what we've seen so far, which is sort of hard to comprehend.
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Adrian Carrascuillo
Yeah, yeah. And I'm, I'm looking more into that for those stories in the new year because I think that there are areas, for example, people wondered Charlotte North Carolina. There's been a growing Latino population there. You know, why did they wait until the time they waited. I heard that Bovino lives there, and so then maybe that's why he wanted to be around his family Thanksgiving. And, you know, now they're in New Orleans. And so in the new year, they're definitely going to expand to new cities. And it's going to be, I think, with. Along with that money that they have and along with the idea that there's certain places that are really difficult in the summer to do these things and to stand up new facilities. But. But in. Now that we're in the winter, I think we're going to see just them going to hit the ground running when we get into January and February.
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Jim Acosta
And. And I mean, for the folks at home who may not be up to speed on every figure that's out there, this Greg Bovino guy.
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Adrian Carrascuillo
Yeah.
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Jim Acosta
Can you talk about him?
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Adrian Carrascuillo
Yeah. I mean, head of cbp. A lot of people say he has sort of, you know, Tim Miller today with the bulwarks, that he has sort of the Napoleonic thing going on where he's.
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Act so tough. And I mean, we've seen. It's been a joke in so many places in LA, I believe in MacArthur park, where they march through, they do these weird. And people have talked about it, the. The social media accounts that you talked about, and just what are they doing? No one wants this. This is not helping. They're not getting. And then the people they do end up arresting do not have criminal records. So it's just sort of like sideshow. And this Bovino road show that he's been doing of trying to act tough and bringing in a bunch of border patrol agents who in the past were around the borders and now they're just coming into inner cities with guns, with uniforms, you know, with military vehicles and with masks on, chasing people until they get to their home safely.
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Jim Acosta
Right.
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Adrian Carrascuillo
Have signs in front of your business in places like Chicago and in Charlotte so that they don't go into your private property. It's. It's been outlandish and it's been out of control. Central.
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Jim Acosta
Yeah. And we saw images the other day of them showing up at this house trying to grab the roofers. They were trying to grab a roofing crew and. And interrogate them and see if they're supposed to be in the country and so on. And I think the roofers just refused to get off the roof. They just stayed on the roof, refused.
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Adrian Carrascuillo
To get off the roof. And some of them also had work visas which are, you know, I wrote on my Instagram. These guys were icons. They were just like, we're not coming down.
- [28:34]
Jim Acosta
Which, yeah, I mean, what a, what a moment there to say, hey, you want, you want to come and get us? Feel free to hop up on this roof. I don't think it's going to work out too well. I mean, I used to have problems cleaning out my gutters and that was getting up on a ladder that was like 10ft high. I, you know, I'm definitely not gonna. Even if I'm an ice agent with an eighty thousand dollar bonus, I'm not getting up on that roof and breaking my neck for that kind of nonsense.
- [28:59]
Well, Adrian, always appreciate the report. And so, so this could happen soon, this thing with Kristi Noem, I mean, even.
- [29:05]
Adrian Carrascuillo
And we didn't get into this. I text Corey Lewandowski and he says that this is, none of this is true, but this is Thursday evening, then Friday. I check back with my sources and they say actually Gnome is now not signing memos we're being told and that she could go really soon. So I, I almost wonder if like people starting to find out and it just feels natural.
- [29:25]
Paul Krugman
Right?
- [29:26]
Adrian Carrascuillo
Like sort of as we get to the end of the year. Better to ask her now before we get into everything that's coming. And then today, you know, Ms. Now had the follow up and saying that this is what they're hearing as well that, that Gnome. I saw that they cited someone saying a White House official, that she's on thin ice. So I think this is going to happen and it's going to be probably in the next month or so.
- [29:45]
Jim Acosta
Yeah, she's, she's on thin ice or getting a little saddle sore, it seems up there. She might get bucked right out of that saddle. All right, Adrian, great to see you as always, man. Great reporting. Keep it up. You hit me over the weekend and I was like, okay, this, I think we got something here.
- [30:01]
Adrian Carrascuillo
I appreciate it. Thank you.
- [30:02]
Jim Acosta
Interesting stuff. Good to see you, man. Thanks so much. You know, it would be quite something, wouldn't it, if the very first cabinet member who is thrown out of the Trump administration is the person who has presided over Donald Trump's monstrosity of the mass deportation policy. I mean, that to me would say something in part because it has been such a colossal failure. I mean, it is, it has been an affront to American values. It has revealed a lie from the 2024 campaign. I mean, Donald Trump campaigned on the notion that they were going to go and get the gang bangers and the criminals and so on. And there's a story that just came out just in the past week that most of the people who have been apprehended, no criminal records. No criminal records. And so, you know, this, this is just going to keep going on. And so we'll see how this plays out. And perhaps, you know, Stephen Miller, who is often pulling the strings there, will get his way and we'll see Kristi Noem go by the wayside. I do want to. I can't let everybody go without running through a couple of political headlines. And one being that Donald Trump is very upset. He is, he is just so mad at Marjorie Taylor Greene. He is just so angry with her. Can we show this truth Social post? No, not Kristi Noem. The other, the other person he's mad at right now, Marjorie Taylor. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who went on 60 Minutes and talked about how she's, she's not MAGA, she's America first, as if anybody at home understands what the hell she's talking about. But Marjorie Taylor Greene, who, you know, was one of the election deniers of 2020, like to chase mass shooting victims around Capitol Hill before she was even elected to Congress. She of the Jewish space lasers, she of the gazpacho police. I mean, she of many things.
- [32:01]
She got really pissed off at Leslie Stahl, who asked Marjorie Taylor Greene about her role in toxic politics in this country. And then Marjorie Greene said to lazy stall, what about your role in toxic politics? Leslie Stahl's a correspondent. Give me a break. Anyway, all of this was too much for Donald Trump to handle. So he fired off a truth social post that says the only reason Marjorie Trader Brown Greene turns brown under stress, went bad, is that she was jilted by the President of the United States. Certainly not the first time she has been jilted. Exclamation point. Too much work, not enough time, and her ideas are now really bad. She sort of reminds me of a rotten apple. Marjorie is not America forced or maga because nobody could have changed her views so fast. And her new views are those of a very dumb person. He goes on and on and on like this, talking about Marjorie Taylor Greene. I mean, first of all, I, and this goes back to what I've been saying in recent days. His nickname for Marjorie Taylor Greene is now Marjorie Trader Brown. I mean, this really takes the Trump decoder ring to figure out what the hell he's talking about when he talks about Marjorie Taylor Greene and calls her Marjorie Trader Brown. He's he's just lost something on his fastball, hasn't he? He's, he's just not, he's just not nailing his. He's not sticking the landing as he once did in his insults. And it, and it takes me to what I saw in, in one of his meetings earlier today. He was being asked about, I don't know if you guys saw this. He was being asked about the boat strike video. And last week he said, he said, oh, you know, he was asked, will you guys release the boat strike video? Oh, yeah, sure. Yeah, we'll release the boat strike video. I think he said, no problem. Well, today he was asked about that video. And here's, here's what happened. We should show this.
- [33:49]
Mr. President, you said you would have.
- [33:51]
Paul Krugman
No problem with releasing the full video.
- [33:53]
Jim Acosta
Of that strike on September 2nd off the coast of Venezuela. Secretary Hegstaff now says. You said that. I didn't say that. This is ABC fake news. You said that you would have no problem releasing the full bit. Okay, well, Secretary Hegseth, whatever Hickseyth wants to do is okay with. He now says it's under review. Are you ordering the secretary to release that full video? Whatever he decides is okay with me. Whatever he decides is okay with water. Every boat we saved 25,000American lives. That was a boat loaded up with drugs. I saw the video. They were trying to turn the boat back to where it could float. And we didn't want to see that because that boat was loaded up with drugs just like everything else. But every boat we should down. And I don't know if, you know, we're 92 or 94% down in drugs coming in by the sea, and we're trying to find who. Sure, that's percent 100%. I don't know. People aren't liking to drive boats right now loaded up with drugs, but every single thing of that. So it goes on and on and on like that. On average, we save 25,000American lives. Do you feel okay about that? The key part of that, though, I mean, first of all, he, he attacks Rachel Scott of abc, yet another female reporter, female correspondent, where he, he attacks her. And, you know, I mean, again, this is, you know, totally consistent with his character, totally consistent with his behavior. But he says in that video, no, I did not. I didn't say that. I didn't say that.
- [35:23]
You know, he, he said last week that it was not a problem. He said last week it was not a problem if they release that video. And now he's saying it's up to Pete Hexeth. Which one is it? Donald Trump, which one is it? And this goes back to what I said last week, what I've been saying for the last several weeks, which is, he's losing it. He's slipping. The cognitive decline is real. There is something going on with the President of the United States. I mean, I don't know if our friends in the corporate media really want to talk about this. I don't believe really anybody has asked the question, what's going on with the hands? I mean, how many times are we going to see the bruises on the hands? He's falling asleep at Cabinet meetings today. He's either lying or he can't remember. He's either lying or he can't remember that he said just one week ago that they would release the video of the boat strike. He said that a week ago, no problem. Today he's saying there's a problem. He's saying, now it's up to Pete Hegseth. And, you know, is somebody going to take the keys from Grandpa? Is somebody going to, I mean, is anybody in the Republican Party gonna, gonna help us out here? Because it seems to me what we're seeing from the President of the United States day in and day out is that Donald Trump is losing it. He, he does not seem to be in full control of his thoughts from one day to the next. He is flying off the handle, mostly on women on a regular basis.
- [37:03]
He's either yelling at female reporters or he's lashing out at Marjorie Taylor Greene. You saw the Truth Social post. It's, you know, this is like the War and Peace of Truth Social post from Donald Trump. There it is right there. It goes on and on. He, he yells and screams about Leslie Stahl later on, another woman that he doesn't like. This is a, this is a pattern for Donald Trump. And, you know, I guess I, you know, there's a part, now, I will say there's a part of me when I see him going after Marjorie Taylor Greene and Marjorie Taylor Greene going after Donald Trump. There's a part of me that says, yes, fight, fight, fight, keep going, just fight with one another.
- [37:42]
But the, the larger issue in all of this.
- [37:48]
And I, I, and I'm just going to ask the question here, and I'm just going to throw this out there. And, and, and for the folks who like to leave comments on the podcasts, feel free to leave a comment on this. I think there's a real question to be asked here. Does Donald Trump make it all the way to 2028.
- [38:07]
As president of the United States. Because it seems to me, week to week, almost every day, we have another example of cognitive decline.
- [38:20]
Real cognitive decline. He cannot remember, or he's just lying because he's just not with it, that he said it was okay to release the boat strike video. Now he's saying he's not going to do that.
- [38:32]
And so maybe he said it last week because.
- [38:36]
You know, he didn't think anything of it. And then they had to tell him after that, oh, no, no, we can't release the video because it's, it's too disturbing.
- [38:44]
Either way, he doesn't know at what point what he should say to the American people. And it just seems to me that that is really dangerous for the President of the United States.
- [38:57]
He says affordability is a scam. He's now going to go to Pennsylvania, apparently, and talk about affordability.
- [39:04]
You know, he, he just can't put it together anymore, it seems to me. And I think it's a real question to ask, is he going to make it to the end of, of this term? And what do we do at that point? One of the things that we have to be worried about is that the Royal Court of Donald Trump takes over. And we're seeing in the headlines today Jared Kushner may be part of the investment team that Paramount is going to put together to try to take over Warner Brothers Discovery.
- [39:38]
In what world is it okay in the United States of America to have a member of the first family in charge of major media companies in that fashion? I suppose JD Vance, if he becomes President of the United States, the Tech Bros. It'll be like, you know, the super bowl of all Super Bowls for the Tech Bros. Because JD Vance will be in the Oval Office. I mean, what we. I don't think anybody thought this through. Did anybody? I guess there were some people who thought this through, but we had Kamala Harris fully with it. Totally, totally competent. No evidence of any cognitive decline whatsoever.
- [40:19]
I, you know, I, I think she would have been just fine, would have been able to answer questions from one week to the next, not fall asleep at cabinet meetings. And here we have Donald Trump. We, we didn't even have this conversation during the 2024 campaign. Should have. He's now 79 years old, falling asleep in cabinet meetings, and he can't remember what he said one week ago about releasing a piece of video.
- [40:49]
Question has to be asked, is he going to make it all four years? When they say four more years.
- [40:56]
Maybe not for Donald Trump, who knows? Doesn't seem like it feels like maybe two, two and a half, maybe after the midterms the Republicans get wiped out. He just, he says I'm out of here. It don't rule it out, folks. Could be a possibility. I could, I could see it if you, if it happens. You heard it here first, right? You heard it here first. My thanks to the great Paul Krugman. Hope everybody enjoyed that conversation because to me, like I need folks to explain this whole tariff situation and I think that was just great having Paul here. And always my thanks to Adrian Carasquillo of Bulwark. Great reporting on whether Kristi Noem might be out the door. Watch this space and watch his space as well as we follow that in the days ahead. Really appreciate everybody tuning in on this Monday. Still reporting from Washington, I'm Jim Acosta. Have a good evening. I'll see you next time.