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- [00:00]
A
This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. You chose to hit play on this podcast today. Smart choice. Make another smart choice with Auto Quote Explorer to compare rates from multiple car insurance companies all at once. Try it@progressive.com Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Not available in all states or situations. Prices vary based on how you buy. Welcome to the Tara Palmieri show. Thank you to everyone who sent questions in advance. This was supposed to be alive, but of course, technical difficulties when you move into a new place. Still trying to figure out the Internet, but luckily I've got a great guest today. Her name is Batya Ungar Sargon, and you've probably seen her on News Nation, where she has her own show at 4pm on Saturdays. She's the author of two books on class consciousness, and she's worked as the deputy editor of Newsweek. She's also been one of the most vocal defenders of President Trump's claims that he speaks for the working class. She's built an entire framework around working class populism and even defended his tariffs as smart economic policy. So I wanted to bring her on because this is a moment when Americans are telling pollsters they can't afford food. So I just want to understand, you know, how does this argument hold up now? So, Batya, thanks so much for coming. And I know we're just getting straight into the elephant in the room, but if anyone, you know, can make an argument and defend it, it's you. So I thought this would be an interesting conversation. But I do want to start with this political public first poll that shows half of Americans say they can't afford food and 55% blame President Trump for food prices. What's going on here?
- [01:48]
B
So, so first of all, thank you so much for having me. It's such a pleasure to be here with you. I love your show. I will never forget when you had your mom on during the election.
- [01:57]
A
Thank you.
- [01:57]
B
It was so delightful. And also just I think for people struggling to understand, like your typical swing voter person with like a really good heart who's thinking about all of the issues in the way that so many Americans do. Like, it was such a wonderful conversation. I think about it so often, Tara, so thank you so much for having me. I also love how you were like, she has even defended the tariffs because you're right, like, so few people are willing to defend the tariffs. But I defend them. I love them. I think they're great. They're really revolutionary for the working class. I think sort of my brought my big picture analysis is that A lot of what the President is doing is long term restructuring of an economy that had created a massive class divide in America to where the top 10% controlled over 60% of the GDP. Having a degree was correlated with having access to the American dream, whereas being working class meant you were sort of downwardly mobile. And this was a shift in America, a country that liked to think of itself as classless for much of its history. It started in the 70s and just kind of went downhill from then. And what the President is trying to do is sort of take this upward funnel from the working class into the pocke of the elites and turn it back down. And that doesn't happen overnight. It takes a long time to do that because it's a massive ship and it was just pointed in the wrong direction. And I think the real question is, does his political Runway run out before some of the fruits of this policy are born in a way that average Americans experience it now? The polling that shows that people are struggling, obviously that is a real feeling people have. There is immense economic anxiety right now. At the same time, the data just does not show that we're in a recession. So if you Compare, for example, 2008, when we were in a significant recession, people were really like becoming homeless. Right, right.
- [03:58]
A
Well, yeah, they lost their homes because of a housing crisis.
- [04:02]
B
Exactly. Literally losing their homes. The consumer sentiment of the American people was much, much higher than it is right now. A time when wage increases is outpacing inflation by 2.6%. So.
- [04:20]
A
I know, but, but like, you can just see it when you. Sorry, I don't mean to cut you off, but when you go into the stores, like, you just see that prices are more expensive. Like, even my father, who is a supporter of Trump, will say, like, yeah, everything costs $70 now. You know, like, this is just money is like, he's like, what is money anymore? And I was actually surprised to hear him say that because President Trump did argue like, I will lower the cost of good. I mean, good. That's why he was elected, because Biden nomics did not work. So, you know, I think that's part of it. And.
- [04:55]
You are expected as the President to fulfill that promise.
- [04:59]
B
Right. The thing I'm pointing out is that it's true that inflation is up 2.7%. I don't want to deny that, and I don't think anybody should deny that. But wages are up 5.3%, meaning that people, oh, year over year, so that people should have more money in their pockets at the end of the Month. And I think the reason they don't is not necessarily because of the price of groceries. It's because of bigger ticket items like the price of housing, health insurance, home insurance, electricity. There are a lot of really big ticket items where the costs are just skyrocketing 100%. I want the President to get in there and do stuff about that. But something that happens always when you have wage increases is inflation. Right? Because you have more money chasing fewer goods. That's kind of the name of it.
- [05:50]
A
Bill dumped a lot of money into the economy during COVID.
- [05:55]
Through multiple bills. Both Trump's, you know, Covid act and then the BBB Biden's Build back better and then the inflation Reduction Act. So that also overheated the economy, which some economists, ironically, Larry Summers, predicted. But I do think it's interesting because, like, what I see is like a tale of two cities, you could say, or tale of two types of people. Like, if you are highly invested in the stock market, you're not really bothered by the situation right now. If you are a high earner and you have a degree, you're probably doing okay. Like a 5.3% raise is okay. Sure, everything is more expensive, but, like, your life isn't substantially changing. But like, for people who aren't invested in the stock market, which is most people, and people who aren't in these sort of corporate jobs, like, this is hard. This is really hard for them.
- [06:49]
B
I totally, totally agree with you. I think a lot of what Trump has done, for example, in traveling to the Middle east and securing trillions of dollars in investment to build factories and AI centers here, or for example, the tariffs, which are designed to decouple us from China, which has resulted in reshoring of manufacturing. The tariffs also forced Pfizer's hand in committing to giving the American people most favored nation prices on drugs. This is all stuff that is going to have an enormous impact on working class life. The question is just how long does it take to build that factory, to get those drug prices down, to get those people into those jobs? Another thing he's really committed to is re Americanizing the American workforce. So the mass deportations. There's this kind of myth in the liberal media that Trump promised he was only going to deport the worst of the worst. He actually didn't say that. I mean, he said it a few times, but he also said we're going to have the biggest deportation campaign in American history. The idea was to get illegals out of these jobs and to get American workers into those jobs, a process that has started happening. You're seeing this in meatpacking, you're seeing this in agriculture, you're seeing this in the service industry. Now part of why that's important is because we want those Americans to have those jobs. But of course, an American is going to be able to ask for more money in a service industry job than an illegal. That's the point, right? We want working class Americans to have a middle class wage and that's why the cost of services is going up. But that's actually a good thing. We were paying too little because we were paying illegals who couldn't ask for a living wage. So I think a lot of this is a kind of redistribution of wealth to where the people who hire a cleaning lady are now going to have to pay an American an American wage to do that. And that's kind of something that you actually want because the problem was that working class people were not making enough money.
- [08:49]
A
The price of food is so outrageous. I mean, if you go to Europe, it's a totally different story. And you could argue that these people in working class jobs are Europeans. There is something really going wrong here. And they have the same inflation concerns. Like there is a real pressure cooker. The other thing I want to talk about is the fact that this trade war technically started back in 2016, 2017. You know, during his first term, he got into a trade war with China. The result was a bailout for farmers. Right.
- [09:20]
What did he. Shouldn't we be feeling the effects of his trade policy from that first term now? Like the positive effects? It doesn't seem like any of that has moved the dial at all. In fact, it just seemed like he had to shore up farmers for the first time during this period of time when they were dealing with, with the trade war with China.
- [09:41]
B
I mean, a lot of the, Well, a lot of the benefits of that are in industries like steel and aluminum. He's. That's sort of where that trade war started where he slapped a 25% tariff on steel and aluminum from China. Those are really good working class jobs. And that includes both in like, sorry, in states that have, like that are high union, but also states that are right to work. States in the south where a lot of the still industry move because they didn't want to deal with unions. Those are still working class jobs that pay a middle class wage. And a lot of that is because of the protectionism that started under Trump. By the way, Biden didn't get rid of any of those tariffs Right. He kind of understood that this was really important for working class Americans. And so he kept those and those industries. You can really see that these are kind of the kinds of working class jobs that people were very typical in the 70s. They pay really well, they have really good benefits, workers have a lot of safety, right?
- [10:39]
A
But then, like, cars cost more. So those people with those great working class jobs are now paying like 15, 20% more for.
- [10:46]
B
Well, see, this was, this was like Fordism, right? Ford had this concept that because most Americans are not wealthy, your best consumer is a working class person. And to him, that didn't mean, well, then let's hire a bunch of illegals and pay them very little so that the cars are cheap. It meant let's pay our workers a lot of money so they can buy the product of their labor. That is the thing that we lost. That got broken to where, you know, there's two ways to make something affordable to a working class person. You can either hire a bunch of illegals, pay them $3 an hour and it will be really cheap, or you can pay your working class worker a living middle class wage so they can compete in the marketplace. And I think that is what Trump is trying to bring back is really Fordism. And I think that's great because there's dignity in that. There's dignity in work and dignity in labor, and is what working class people really want. They don't want universal basic income or handouts. They want for their immense efforts to give them a living wage and benefits and dignity, the dignity of a good job. And you cannot do that when you have a limitless supply of illegal labor.
- [11:58]
A
Okay, so just anecdotally, in the past two weeks, okay, I had to ship my car and I was quoted at a much lower price and I was told it would come within two or three days to where I needed to go. I ended up doubling the price. More than doubling it, tripling it, saying it would take longer. And I asked the dispatcher why, and they said, well, a lot of the people that were, you know, shipping the car have been deported or won't show up to work, and therefore you have to pay three times what we, we can't find drivers fast enough to fill those jobs. So, like, in the interim, like, we're all paying for it until this happens, in which somehow we're going to find all these Americans that are qualified shippers, drivers to do these jobs. And do we even have the market for it? Because a lot of economists say that actually a thriving economy is when you have a lot of immigrants. Now, is legal immigration ever going to be possible? I don't know, because it doesn't seem like that's something that Republicans want. But, you know, why not, you know, give these illegal, legal immigrants a pathway to citizenship so that they.
- [13:09]
B
First of all, if these illegal immigrants were legal immigrants, it would still cost you a lot of money, Right? Because they would be able to ask for much more money than the illegals. The reason the illegals make things cheap is because they're paid under the table. They're paid less. Right. So that's for starters. It simply, in my view, I mean, I know this is very much the Democrats view right now. I think it is utterly uncivilized and immoral to have an entire economy that's built on the idea that, that we need a servant caste that cannot ask for the same wages as an American, cannot get health insurance, cannot have workplace protections. And by the way, this is why trucking is so dangerous right now, is because people who don't even speak English have been given truckers licenses. We want truck drivers to be making.
- [13:55]
A
I was actually once hit by a truck by some on i95 by someone who did not have a license and speaking English. I was like 20 years old. Yeah, it was pretty scary. It was like a true tractor trailer. Not. I have not, like, carried on any sort of animus towards people who don't speak English. I, you know, come from a family of immigrants. But I do, you know, I get what you're saying. I'm not like, I've heard your arguments before, but I don't, I just, I don't see it playing out the way that you say it will. And I also just think, like, President Trump is on this affordability tour while also admitting that he's not really that into it. He's said that his staff is making him go on it. Essentially. He said it literally. Name checked his chief of staff, Susie Wild, and said, she's making me do this affordability tour. He was on it on Tuesday and called it a hoax. I'm just going to play a clip just for a second so you can actually hear it. Emoji moment from Mark, who writes, I just want to thank you for making GLP1 affordable. What would have been over $1,000 a.
- [15:04]
B
Month is just $99 a month with mochi.
- [15:07]
A
Money shouldn't be a barrier to healthy weight. Three months in and I have smaller jeans and a bigger wallet. You're the best. Thanks, Mark. I'm Mayra Amit, founder of Mochi health. To find your mochi moment, visit joinmochi.com Mark is a Mochi member, compensated for his story. I'm not making this up.
- [15:26]
C
You know, there's this fake narrative that the Democrats talk about affordability. They just say the word. It doesn't mean anything to anybody. Let me just say it. Affordability. I inherited the worst inflation in history. There was no affordability. Nobody could afford anything. The prices were massively high. Do you remember when we took over eggs? You did a great job on that. Madam Secretary. Agriculture. Brooke. Eggs were four or five times higher than they had ever been. They said, don't order eggs for Easter at the White House. And we ended up doing it. And we got the egg prices way down lower than what they were before. But the word affordability is a con job by the Democrats. They say affordable. I watched the other day where some very low IQ congresswoman talked about affordability, affordability, affordability. She had no idea their prices were much higher.
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A
Yeah, it's fine.
- [16:23]
B
I watched the whole speech.
- [16:25]
A
Yeah, you know it. So. So what do you make of this? Like, why should we trust that President Trump really understands what the American people are going through? And if he thinks it's a hoax.
- [16:38]
B
You know, when he's. He shouldn't say that. Right? Like, he should say, I feel your pain. Here's what we're doing to make things better. But he's Trump. Like, he, he's not really like, empathy, I would say, is not really his strong suit. I do think he is making things better for working class people, and I do think they feel that too. I'll just give you one example. I was talking to a trucker in April, like soon after a liberation day, and we're talking about tariffs and I mean, we were talking about a lot of things. He was explaining to me how this idea that there's a shortage of truck drivers is such a myth. It's just they don't want to work for $40,000 a year, which they shouldn't because that's how you get accidents. But anyway, he said to me, so let me understand what you're saying. You're saying that in the short run, things are going to cost more because of the tariffs, but as a result of that, they're going to build factories here and then my kid will have a better shot at the American dream. And you think I'm going to turn that deal down? My whole life is sacrificing for my kid. Of course I'm going to take that deal.
- [17:37]
A
You want Your kid to work in a factory, though.
- [17:40]
B
What do you mean? Those are really good jobs.
- [17:42]
A
I'm just wondering, I mean, like, you're like, is that, is that what you want? I mean, I'm just curious because I wonder if a lot of Americans want factory jobs.
- [17:52]
B
You know, there was, it's funny, this Cato poll came out and it was supposed to, like, own people like me, right? And they were like, you know, we asked Americans, you know, should there be more factory jobs in America? And 80% said yes. And then we asked Americans, would you want to work in a factory? And only 25% said yes. Factories for thee, but not for me. Like, they thought this was a big onage. Tara, in the 70s, which was like the high water mark for middle class life for working class Americans, only 10% of Americans were employed in factories. If 25% of people wish they were working in a factory, we would be the manufacturing hub of the world. Like the glory days would be back if we could get half those.
- [18:34]
A
We really compete with China, though, already. I mean, they already have their factories. Like the money that we're getting from Saudi Arabia or from the Middle East, Qatar. Excuse me. Or wherever. It's not going to those factories. You don't snap your fingers and all of a sudden we'll see them. I mean, we don't even know if we'll see them in 10 years from now.
- [18:52]
B
Well, you know, in speaking to Secretary Lutnick, they are very serious about getting these things built. So part of what's holding up some of the trade talks was, you know, South Korea would commit, I don't know how much. It was like, you know, $500 billion to build factories in the United States. And they would say, okay, when? We want a timeline, we want to make sure that this happens. Now, of course, you're right, it may never happen. Who knows? Stay on top of this. It's extremely important. And like, I don't want to be like, you know, credible where journalists are, but I plan to stay on top of that. But the plan is good. The idea is good. And of course, the most important thing, the thing that gives us a leg up on China is that we're a democracy. This is like the center of the free world. And when you have a factory, you have innovation. We were operating under this assumption that you could split innovation from production, and you really can't because it is the people on the floor of the factory who come up with the best ideas about how to make things better. So we're really going to Be unleashing the idea, the plan is to unleash American creativity and get working class people into great, good paying, safe jobs with great benefits in which they can achieve a middle class standard of living.
- [20:01]
A
Yeah, I mean, like, listen, in my family I have a, you know, an uncle who works as a trucker. You know, my great grandfather, not my great grandfather, my, my grandfather was a machinist, you know, in a factory. My dad is an electrician. I understand this, but like at the end of the day, my dad was like, I want you to go to college and I want you. Actually hilariously, even though he against the teachers union, he was like, you would be, you should do, you should be a teacher. You know, like ultimately like the things that these conservatives are against, they ultimately see the value in for their, for their kids. So that's what's so confusing about.
- [20:41]
B
I know a lot. I mean I spent a year traveling the country interviewing working class people. A lot of them want that they, what they want is for their kids to have a safe job, a good job with good benefits. And your dad was right, reading the tea leaves at the time that the only way to really get that at the time was to get a college degree. The problem is, is that we are already overproducing college educated Americans by 100%, meaning that 50% of people with a college degree are working in a job that doesn't require that degree. Our economy simply cannot sustain any more college grads. So there has to be a way for electricians and welders and truckers.
- [21:18]
A
Yeah, I think that that's the safest job right now in the AI economy is like to do actually be a doer, not just a thinker. I 100% agree with you. But President Trump has lost 58,000 manufacturing jobs during his second term. What's going on here?
- [21:33]
B
Yeah, I mean we have to build factories, right? It's.
- [21:36]
A
But the factories are there. It's just like they're, the jobs are, you know, like there's actual infrastructure.
- [21:42]
B
The data that I have seen, and this comes from the Treasury Department, so I understand maybe Bureau of Labor Statistics.
- [21:49]
A
That I'm referencing by the way, but.
- [21:50]
B
If you drill down further, We've lost about 1.5 million jobs total of foreign born workers. And we have put 1.8 million Americans citizens into jobs, native born Americans into jobs over the last year. So what the President is actually doing is re Americanizing the workforce. And I think that's great. I'm on the side of Americans. I want Americans to flourish. That's my priority. And so a lot of the data suggests that a lot of the people losing their jobs are illegal migrants who are being deported. And that's very good for wages and that's very good for America.
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A
Okay. So I do, I don't need to, like, quibble with the numbers, but we'll discuss, like, more trends. I do want to talk about this. Another announcement this week. So many announcements on the economy. The farmers bill, it is $2012 billion farmer bailout. I mean, there's no other way to use except the word bailout. Obviously, farmers get subsidies regularly. This is not that. It is a unique liquidity bridge, as the Treasury Secretary Bessant put it. And it's directly because of President Trump's tariffs, because of the trade war. And I look at all of this and I think this is government redistribution of wealth to a specific group because the president's tariffs hurt them. So I just have to ask you plainly, is if you're anything like me, then you hate running around from store to store to store for holiday gifting, but you still want to get people that you love something beautiful, something timeless, something that they will wear for years. And that's why this year I'm going to quince. From Mongolian cashmere sweaters that only cost $50 to Italian wool coats, everything is premium quality at a price that actually makes sense. I personally wear a lot of their silk tops on this show because they're so reasonably priced and they're made with premium materials from ethical, trusted factories priced so far below luxury brands. I don't know how they do it. Their craftsmanship is shown in every single detail. The stitching, the fit, the drape. It's elevated. It's timeless. It's, it's clothing you'll wear forever. So if you want to find gifts that you'll want to keep for yourself, Then head to quint.comtara for free shipping on your order and 365 days of returns. They're now available in Canada, too. That's Quince Q U I n c e.com/tara t a r a to get free shipping and 365 days of returns. Quince.com/tara. That's socialism.
- [24:37]
B
Well, I mean, I'm a leftist, so that's not a bad word to me. Like, I, I think Trump is kind of like an FDR figure.
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A
Yeah.
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B
He believes in protectionism and big government. The thing that would make it socialism would be kind of, you know, like the Nvidia this the United states taking a 10 stake in Nvidia. Like, but I think that's great.
- [24:59]
A
Like admitting that while he calls people socialists and communists, he's doing a lot of that himself.
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B
Like, I mean, I don't know that it's like 100% socialism because it's sort of like it's, it's marinated through like that. He's obviously a capitalist, but like is, it's, I would say protectionism is a more accurate definition of it.
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A
I don't know. You're literally taking money from one group and then giving it to another.
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B
Well, but that, would you consider like food stamps to be socialism?
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A
A lot of people would, yeah.
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B
Would you?
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A
Yeah, it's a social program.
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B
So I would say this is a social program. Yeah. To the same. This is like, yeah, I, but I don't think that's bad because he's trying to get leverage over China. So like if we, you know, he brought in, it's at this point, I think $220 billion in tariffs. The majority of that, the vast majority of that was paid either by China on its end or by American corporations that just hasn't significantly been passed on to consumers according to all of the data that we have. So he took some of that money and said to the farmers, I'm using you as leverage to get China to bend the knee. Here's a little money to stave you off until we get to this deal. I think that's great.
- [26:09]
A
Okay. Is, you have to admit this is an admission that the tariffs are not working right now.
- [26:15]
B
Oh no, I totally disagree. I think they're doing great.
- [26:17]
A
But like what are your indicators? What are your present day indicators?
- [26:22]
B
Okay, first of all, I love money. So we $220 billion that paid probably was recycled.
- [26:29]
A
I mean 12, take 12 billion of that, give it to the farmers.
- [26:33]
B
Yeah. So then we're still left with 200 billion which came from greedy American corporations. And China is now being redistributed.
- [26:41]
A
Is going to be, is really being paid for, for by the consumers.
- [26:44]
B
It actually isn't being paid by the consumer. We know that because inflation is only up by like 0.8%. So it's not actually being paid by the American people.
- [26:52]
A
But inflation isn't necessarily the cost of products. Like that's not the same thing. Inflation is different than the cost of actual goods.
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B
Similar. But also we just know from the, I mean from treasury from that most of this has been paid by the corporations. And the reason they had the extra money and the reason they didn't raise prices. Well, a It's because Trump's a bit of a mob boss and he calls and yells at them when they threaten to do it. But also because.
- [27:15]
A
Fair.
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B
But also it's because of greedflation. And, and again, as a leftist, like, I was very upset over the pandemic when you saw corporations. So there was a supply chain crisis.
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A
I just want to know how that money, like actually that tariff generated money, which is a lot like you said, how am I getting impacted by it?
- [27:32]
B
Because, like, well, for example, my Obamacare.
- [27:34]
A
Premiums are going to go up in a few months, in a few weeks, and I don't see Republicans having any great ideas.
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B
Okay, but that's not related to the tariff. You, I mean, but. No, no, no.
- [27:42]
A
But like, you have, you just got, you have a 200 billion dollar windfall in the economy. So, like, I mean, where is that going?
- [27:49]
B
So that benefits. So first of all, they used it to pay for people's food stamps in October during the shutdown. Like, that's a really big deal.
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A
But they would have paid for that anyway.
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B
They couldn't pay for it. There was a shutdown. People would have literally not gotten their food stamps. Like, this is, this is an amazing.
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A
They found the money in the past to do it though, huh? They found the money in the past to do it.
- [28:12]
B
This time they used the tariffs, meaning that American corporations and China paid for it, which I think is great. Again, I'm very happy with like American corporations, like you know, paying for food stamps. I think that's phenomenal. So we have, that we have the price of drugs. Pfizer never would have agreed to give us most favored nation prices without the tariffs because that is forcing them.
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A
I think the tariffs are great negotiating.
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B
Oh, great. Okay, good.
- [28:38]
A
Yeah, no, I do think the threat of tariffs, but like, then again, if President Trump then reverses them, which he seems to slowly be doing, you know, then how this bully pulpit, like the stick, how strong is it? Like, is it just a noodle at the end of the day?
- [28:54]
B
Look at all he's accomplished with it. Most favored nation drug prices, which every single one of us is going to be enjoying the fruits of anyone who's taking any prescription medication. This is going to be hundreds and hundreds, if not thousands of dollars for seniors and for people on fixed incomes and people who are broke and people who are freelancers. This is amazing. Tariffs closing the southern border. He could never have done that without threatening Mexico with the tariffs. He used them very strategically there. He's trying to use them on India in order to End the war in Ukraine. Now, that hasn't worked yet, but it's just, he's very nimble in how he's thinking about it. Somebody on cnn, I was on a CNN panel and somebody once said in a, like, in a kind of disparaging way, he thinks it's a corkscrew. He thinks it's a Swiss army knife. Like, here, use it as a corkscrew. Here, use it as a scissors. Here use it as a knife. And it's like, exactly. He thinks he can use it. And he has used it very effectively. He used it to end this, the, the war that seemed to be brewing between India and Pakistan. He was like, if you guys don't get this together, I'm slapping tariffs on you. I mean, it's just a tool that he's been able to use in so many ways to get actual benefits to the American people. And of course, the reshoring of manufacturing, which has started again, it's not complete yet. But we wouldn't even be having that conversation if he hadn't put 50% tariffs on China. We were being built, Tara. It was so unfair. Why were we paying tariffs to Japan and they were not paying tariffs to us and not even letting our cars in. And now they're allowing our cars into their market for the first time. There are going to be working class Americans who are living off of that in five generations. Like, these are really significant things which he for some reason never talks about because he'd rather like insult Ilhan Omar. But like there have been massive, massive changes and shifts to how our economy works because of the way he has used tariffs.
- [30:52]
A
Yeah. So basically what you're saying is the threat of a tariff might actually be at this point the benefit of the tariff.
- [31:04]
B
What do you mean?
- [31:04]
A
Because we haven't felt the actual benefits yet personally of the tariffs. Like the threat.
- [31:11]
B
I just like listed like a whole bunch of uses.
- [31:14]
A
The threat. He uses the threat of a tariff to get what he wants.
- [31:18]
B
Okay, okay, let's start with the drugs. Most favored nations bringing down the cost of prescription drugs.
- [31:24]
A
Yeah, I think that was important. I absolutely agree. I don't understand. I still don't understand why in Europe we, you can get generics and you can't in America, like in the same way. I mean, I've lived in, I've lived in Brussels. I live in a socialist country. I know the difference. I know you have to pay more in taxes, but you ultimately get social services that you don't get here. But I still, like, I'm we're just, I, I just.
- [31:51]
I think the walk backs are just showing that it's not really working and it's just a negotiation tactic. And I know you keep talking about manufacturing jobs. They're coming, they're coming, they're coming. But like they're dropping right now.
- [32:03]
B
So that's, you're saying, you're saying like he's gotten more with the threat of tariffs than he has with, than the one, the one goal of reshoring. Yeah, I agree with that. But I think reshoring is only one of the many goals. So they are working because he showed on Liberation Day that he was serious and willing to do it and willing to give Wall street the middle finger. Basically, like the entire global elite went crazy and he was like, I don't work for you. And I think that was a very, like, people are not going to forget that that happened. Working class Americans, I think. Yeah, so, but, but yeah, if you're saying like, if the only way to prove that the tariffs worked is to see a factory built, that hasn't happened yet. But it has worked and done so many other things because he has been willing to use them, an actual, actually levy them and raise all this money, which they should use to pay down the deficit. They probably won't because Trump is not a deficit hawk. But that would be a really smart thing to do with it.
- [32:58]
A
Right. Okay, so Republicans want to blame Biden nomics, and yet somehow Democrats are winning on affordability messaging right now. I mean, Spanberger, Abigail Spanberger is now the Democratic governor of Virginia. They want in New Jersey, the governorship, Mikey Sherrill. There's a new Democratic mayor in Miami, the first time in 30 years. In a Ruby Red special in Georgia. They did well. Like, I mean, it's just like Democrats are crushing on affordability. Trump is calling it a hoax. At the same time he mocks it. He minimizes inflation. He says he has an A plus plus economy. Is he just helping Democrats win the argument?
- [33:46]
B
I don't think he should say those things. Not because they're not true, but because this is not a winning message. Obviously you think that, you know, in six months from now, people are really going to start to feel it. But his, his political Runway may have run out by then and that's like a serious consideration. He's not one to stay on message. He's, that's sort of part of his charm to the people who really like him. I do think that part of what we're seeing in this blue wave and not to Minimize it. It is a blue wave. Is that because of the political realignment to where it used to be, that Republicans represented the wealthy and Democrats represented labor. But in the last election, we really saw the culmination of a shift to where Trump won the majority of Americans who make under $100,000 a year, and Kamala Harris won the majority of Americans who make over $100,000 a year. You know, for every billionaire who donated to Trump, Kamala Harris had two. You know, the majority of Wall street donations went to Kamala Harris, not to Donald Trump. Nine of the ten richest counties, Democrat. 70% of Americans who make over $500,000 a year now are Democrats. What that means is, is that Republicans.
- [34:49]
A
They just don't like President Trump. I mean, partially. A lot of them are former Republicans. They're like a crowd.
- [34:57]
B
But the significance of this is that the Republicans now represent the low propensity voters who happen to really love Trump but are not, like, totally keyed in, whereas Democrats represent wealthy and educated people who are much more likely to turn out, especially when the President is someone they really don't like. And that is a serious handicap for the Republicans, especially because Trump will never run again and never be on the ticket again. So that is a huge advantage that Democrats now have. And the Republicans have not, to my view, been able to find a way around that.
- [35:25]
A
Okay, at what point, though, does he take responsibility for the economy instead of just pretending it's perfect or blaming it on Biden?
- [35:35]
B
Yes. When you should or when he will? He never. Will. Never.
- [35:39]
A
Well, it's interesting because his commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, said Q4. We're in Q4. I believe Q4 started in October and not so it's sort of his. It's his economy at this point.
- [35:52]
B
Of course it's his economy. He's the President.
- [35:54]
A
Yeah, but if you were advising him, what would you say?
- [36:00]
B
I mean, I don't think you can advise him to not be his authentic self. I think he's right about a lot of things, that things are much better than he's being given credit for. And he's not the type to be able to sort of swallow that and then just behave in a certain type of way. This is probably why I would never be a politician. I cannot say something I don't think is true. But I think, you know, I think pointing to specific policies, explaining, you know, the exact plan, the timing, the timeline, and the. The problem is, Tara, the thing that is the most true about this, he cannot say which is the reason prices are not coming down is because you're making more money and, and you can't say that and win an election at the same time.
- [36:38]
A
He understands that there are certain constituencies that require giant bailouts outs to make it through this economic hardship, which they've even used the word that tariffs will call cause pain, like they've said that out front. And he understands that there are communities, entire communities, but he picks the ones that are his voters to bail out. And in this case it is the farmers. So what about the people he doesn't care about? I mean, they're still Americans. Should they live in this reality of, of, of short term pain while the others can just slide through it and drift through it?
- [37:09]
B
I don't think he would see it that way. I think he feels very much that he's trying to make things better for all Americans, which is why he keeps sending ICE into blue cities that aren't asking for it, because he feels responsible to the Americans who live there as well, who may have voted for him. But yeah, people just think this ICE.
- [37:28]
A
Stuff is too aggressive, though. Even people who were for it, they didn't, they didn't expect it to be.
- [37:33]
B
You know, I've seen about 15 polls over the last eight months and every single one of them, they ask people.
- [37:42]
You know, should he be deporting every single illegal migrant? And between 51 and 57% of every poll I've seen, they've said yes, every single one. And my, it seems to me that people are much less likely to be honest about that. Like, nobody who thinks he should not be deporting illegals would have a problem telling a pollster that. But I think probably there are some people who are happy he's deporting all of the illegals who would be embarrassed to admit that. So I think that's probably an undercount. You know, just my analysis of human nature and Americans. Americans are very, very generous people, but they feel like they've been taken advantage of. And I think there's a bit of relief that, that pressure that illegal migrants put on wages, on the housing market, on a lot of things, on, on public schools. I think there's probably a lot of relief that that is being eased up.
- [38:30]
A
Well, we'll see if there is a shortage in.
- [38:34]
You know, in actual employment resources and people to hire, because that's another thing. We're getting rid of a huge part of our economy right now.
- [38:41]
B
That's a good thing. I mean, a tight labor market is good for wages. So we want that, we want A shortage of workers. That's how, how working class people can ask for more money.
- [38:50]
A
I have one last question. Why did Trump get 40 billion dollar bailout to Argentina if he prioritizes Americans?
- [38:56]
B
Oh, I have no idea. I, I would not have done that. I don't know why he, why he pardoned this Honduran guy when he's like.
- [39:05]
A
Screams politics and flattery.
- [39:07]
B
I don't know why. I wouldn't. Yeah, he does a lot of stuff that I don't defend because I, I can't because I don't like it. But I, I have no idea why he did that.
- [39:14]
A
I respect, I respect that about you, B. Yeah, that's why I have you on the show talking about something that I'm like, you know what your honesty is? I don't listen, I'm, I'm pressing your buttons because I think most people would and I appreciate you coming on and I'd love to hear from the listeners about what they think thought made sense, what doesn't. And obviously you can check Batya out. She is on News Nation 4:00pm and her work is everywhere. You can just google her. She's usually writing for a lot of different places or just on X. So thank you so much for your time.
- [39:48]
B
Oh my gosh, this was such an absolute delight. Delicious conversation. It's very rare that you get to actually have like this level of conversation and back and forth and just getting to the bottom of the issues and hearing how other people think. So thank you so, so much for having me. It was a real pleasure.
- [40:04]
A
Thank you. That was another episode of the Tara Palmieri Show. Thanks so much for tuning in. As you can see, I am in a new location. I am starting to set up my set. So for all of you who watch this show on YouTube, you will start to see it evolve as I figure out where and how I will be recording. But if you like this show, please watch, rate, subscribe and follow. Share it with all your friends. If you like my reporting, please go to tarapalm.com that's T A R A P A L m e r I.com and sign up for my newsletter, the Red Letter. If you become a paid subscriber, you will get my exclusive reporting straight to your inbox. And it's a way to support my independent journalism. No corporate overlords here. I want to thank my producer, Eric Abenate. I want to thank Abby Baker who does my social media and research, Daniel Rosen, my manager and Adam Stewart on the graphics. I'll be back again this week.