July 28, 2025 • 47 mins
The Lincoln Project’s Rick Wilson examines Trump’s Justice Department engaging with Ghislaine Maxwell.Brendan Duke from the Center on Budget details how tariffs are affecting our economy.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics,
where we discussed the top political headlines with some of
today's best minds, and Republican Congressman Thomas Matsy says the
Epstein conspiracy is going to hurt Republicans in the midterms.
We have such a great show for you today. The
Lincoln Projects owner Rick Wilson joins us to discuss Trump's
(00:22):
Justice Department, talking to Gallaine Maxwell. Then we'll talk to
Center on Budget Brendan Duke about how tariffs are affecting
our economy. But first the news.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Somali Howard Lutnick and mister Trump.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
They say that the tariffs start on August first, no extensions,
and they have a deal with Europe for fifteen percent.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
Do you believe them?
Speaker 1 (00:46):
There's a really good article in The New Yorker this
week from Antonia Hitchins where she interviews Howard Lutnik and
he sends like a very sort of TMU Trump. He
lacks the sort of intelligence and cohesive narrative that a
Trump does. So if that doesn't fill you with good feeling,
(01:08):
I don't know what it is. So again, the tension
here about the tariffs is two things. One, they're terrible
and they're gonna mess up our economy. Though in this
interview with Brendan Duke, which you should listen to because
it's really interesting, he actually says that they are actually
providing a lot of money for the United States right now.
(01:29):
They won't always because they will depress the spending that
people do, the domestic spending, which will end up putting
us into a sort of recessionary posture at the very least.
So financial markets have basically sort of decided that Trump
is going to taco at all points chicken out, and
(01:49):
so they are not freaking out the way that they
might if they really thought it was going to happen.
So Letnick is out there saying no extensions, no more
grace periods. August first, the aras are set. They will
go into place. Now, remember they were going to be
in June first, they were going to be mid July.
They were ninety deals in ninety days. They were paused.
(02:10):
There was that week where he kept saying We're going
to do tariffs, and then the market kept going down, down, down,
and he wouldn't do anything. But then when the bond
market started freaking out. It was then that he decided
to do it. But what's really important about this tariff
story is this line here at the Yale Budget Lab
estimates the blended tariff rate on all imports, factoring in
(02:32):
those letters and subsequent deals, and again who even knows,
will be just over twenty percent. That's the highest since
nineteen eleven. You'll remember nineteen eleven as a year when
global trade was humongous. So again, in nineteen eleven, a
lot more things were made in America. So now it
is more than one hundred years later, we live in
(02:53):
this global economy and everything you're going to buy that
is not made in America, which is most things, will
go up twenty percent. So either the consumers will pay
the tariffs right and everything will get twenty percent more expensive,
or the companies will pay the tariffs and companies will
make twenty percent less money, which I think they'll have
(03:13):
to eat twenty percent of the cost of the things
they're selling, which seems like a lot. Or the countries
that manufacture will make their things twenty percent cheaper. The
most likely scenario seems like consumer. It will be the
cost will be passed on to the consumer to some extent,
so it's worth remembering that like the consumer, it will
(03:33):
basically be instead of a corporate tax, that my tax
of corporation, you're taxing the consumer. So you are taxing
the people who have the least, and it will be
like a sort of blanket sales tax the way that
you'll remember like Forbes had there's this very rich guy
who ran for president and the idea that they would
be like this sales tax and they wouldn't be an
income tax and sales tax. But the sales tax punishes
(03:57):
the people have the least. So between this and the
regressive taxation in the BBB, you are really seeing an
administration target the least wealthy.
Speaker 3 (04:06):
Yeah, Hilariously, while you were saying that I got a
nice newsort China US to extend tariff pause by another
ninety days.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
We shouldn't. We shouldn't laugh, because we should be happy,
because that is it's better for consumers and for people
who have lass to have that punted. So, but yes,
this is a complete disaster. Talk to us about what
else Trump is hiding.
Speaker 3 (04:34):
Ess So apparently the retrofitting for the Due Air Force
wood is going to cost nearly a billion dollars.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
What I'm shocked I am just shocked because I was
told this was going to save money.
Speaker 3 (04:48):
I was told Elon and Trump, We're going to get
into office and find all this waste and abuse and
get rid of it.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
Yeah. I was told there was fraud, waste and abuse.
But it sounds like much of the fraud and much
of the abuse is coming from inside the White House
and also the wist.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
Yeah. I really like here though.
Speaker 3 (05:06):
The best line is we believe the actual retrofit of
the aircraft could probably cost a round four hundred million dollars.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
That barely makes this any better, urge.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
I know. Well. And the reason that Katar was stuck
with this plane. They've had this plane for a while
and they were trying to sell it and they couldn't
get anyone interested in it. What's interesting about this this
story actually, and I was reading about it, is that
they originally was meant to stay in the Air Force.
They're negotiating a final agreement for this plane and according
(05:39):
to communications, all right, it will be a donation to
the Department of Defense that which will be responsible for
the maintenance. Okay, so basically it hasn't been approved yet,
but the final agreement is the US Air Force will
begin renovating the plane for Air Force one. And my
favorite part of this is that it says nothing in
(06:01):
this shall be interpreted as an offer, a promise, or
acceptance of any form of bribery under influencer coro practices.
So it's not going to be accepted as that, which
means that it won't be obviously. So Jack Reid, who's
a Democrat from Rhode Island who sits on this committee
on the Senate Appropriations, asked him in June how long
(06:24):
it would take to renovate the jet, and Heggsas said
such information was not for public consumption. So then Haiggs
has said he couldn't say how much refurbishing the play
would cost, angering the normally restraight read. Okay, why can't
it be revealed in this setting? Reid said, this is
the Appropriation's Committee of the United States Senate. We appropriate
(06:44):
the money. You will be spent after it's authorized by
my committee. Hegsas said there were several reasons for spending
the money on the product, to ensure the safety and
security of the President of the United States. I think
it's pretty amazing. I mean, heigs seth is really is
pretty incompetent. It's just an incredible story all around, very stupid.
Speaker 3 (07:02):
Speaking of stupid, as we know, Elon Musk is threatening
to put third party candidates on the ballot, and the
way these Democratic strategists are weighing it, this can be
really good news for Democrats.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
Yeah. I'm old enough to remember when Elon must said
he was going to build a hyper loop that was
going to get us to Washington, DC in seven minutes.
By the way, it turns out he just kept saying
that to keep people from investing money in the trains.
Speaker 3 (07:26):
Right. Well, you know, he had the Boring company and
all that, so it was a good net net of
his ecosystem, which is one of the things that he
seemed to have good business documen for us having an
ecosystem of similar technologies.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
But he mostly just built tunnels for the cars to
drive through.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
Yeah, that's the Boring company, right.
Speaker 1 (07:45):
So they weren't ever going to build hyper loops. They
were just going to build holes. Ahle Right, okay, just checking.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
Don't forget sell flame throwers.
Speaker 1 (07:56):
Yes, everybody loves the flame thrower. So anyway, good luck
on you have. All he could just do is just
give money to all the things he's fucked up since
he started doge. But I don't think that's going to happen.
Speaker 3 (08:08):
Okay, So this is some depressing reporting from the Bulwark.
The worst ice agents we're probably going to get her
probably coming in now. They're about to hire ten thousand
new agents and they're going to be woefully unqualified.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
It looks like, yeah, I'm shocked. I am shocked to
hear this, by the way, Like it's all money they
could go to like mental heals and food for hungry
children and schools, any number of other things. But at
least it's not windmills.
Speaker 3 (08:41):
Well, speaking of that, did you watch Trump's crazy press
conference today?
Speaker 1 (08:46):
Now? Did you watch it?
Speaker 3 (08:47):
I watched a highlight cut of it, which was pretty disturbing.
One of the more telling parts of it was when
a reporter said, can I ask why you're in a
bad mood?
Speaker 2 (08:56):
Was it a bad morning of golf?
Speaker 1 (08:57):
And he replied, no, the golf was beautiful. I don't
know what was beautiful about the golf. Playing golf was beautiful.
I mean, I don't want to be a stickler here,
but none of these sentences are English. While playing his
round of golf at Turnberry his private course, which he
is using the presidency to highlight, and supposedly there's some
(09:20):
theory that maybe he was cheating. Some of the videos
showed that there might have been some cheating. He is
known for his cheating. Trump caught sight of windmills that
he has long hated, having fought a long battle against
their installation, because you'll remember that Trump is very anti
any kind of clean energy, and then he went on
a long anti windmill rand. Trump two point zero makes
(09:42):
Trump one point zero look like Lincoln, That is all.
Rick Wilson is the founder of Lincoln Project. In the
host of The Enemy's List, Welcome to you, ass Politics,
Ely John Fast Rick Wilson.
Speaker 4 (10:05):
What's going on?
Speaker 5 (10:07):
Max?
Speaker 1 (10:08):
I did three hours of live television on MSNBC, and
I'm back next weekend on the weekend primetime. If any
show still has table, if you still have cable, you
should watch me on it. Hello, friend, nothing's happened this week.
Speaker 5 (10:27):
No, it's been a very boring, quiet weekend. And you
know nothing, nothing at all is going on with the
President of the United States telling his deputy Attorney general
to pardon a woman who ran the largest child trafficking
sex pedophile rapering in modern history. Other than that, it's
pretty couiet.
Speaker 1 (10:46):
So let's talk about Tom Planche meeting with Gillay and Maxwell,
because I think here's what I want to talk about.
So I actually talked to when I was doing this
MSNBC show last night, the weekend primetime that you can
watch this weekend. When I was doing it, we were
talking to this woman who has been a DA and
she was saying, I said, is Todd Blanche alone with Glaine?
(11:11):
And she said, absolutely not. She said, there's somebody there
taking notes, There's somebody else. So the question is, so
he's not alone, So even if he's with his people,
he still cannot say things like the boss knows you
didn't see anything, right, So we hope.
Speaker 5 (11:30):
Now what we don't know. And I think it would
leak if Blanche said everybody else, I need the room
just me.
Speaker 1 (11:36):
And right right for sure?
Speaker 5 (11:38):
For sure, I think I think that would leak. I
do think though, we've got to keep on our eye
on the fact that Jelaane's attorney and Todd Blanche are friends.
They have a friendship, a relationship, however you want to
call it. They've been on podcasts together all this other stuff.
There is a link between these two guys. So I
think we need to keep you know that. That is
(11:59):
how the I think the communication would happen. Todd would
say to him, Hey, buddy.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
You know right, so that but the but here's the
thing about this. You've opened a conspiracy theory, right, You've
opened the door to a huge conspiracy theory. The people
all his people want is information. So you're going to
do what You're gonna have Glaine testify it was.
Speaker 5 (12:25):
Well, she's gonna I think that the fix that they're
working up is she's gonna say, oh, of course it
was George Soros and Bill Clinton and Bill Gates and
and Hillary Clinton and John Podessa. She's gonna she will.
This is a woman who is not raised to live
in prison.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
Right, no question you who would be in prison?
Speaker 5 (12:45):
I think she's right up here.
Speaker 1 (12:47):
Jesse has turned on his camera give us a look
which is like a look of horror.
Speaker 5 (12:57):
That's the that's the Jesse, what the hell look?
Speaker 1 (13:00):
Listen to me. I'm happy to if I if it's
my time to go to prison, I will. I will
go to prison and not like it.
Speaker 5 (13:07):
But but will you shenk a bitch?
Speaker 1 (13:10):
I cannot, I can't, I cannot comment. But so here's so,
here's a question. So as someone who occupies the Earth's
one still is one of the very few people who
still live on the actual Earth where things make some
sense assemblance of sense. Her coming out and being like
I've gotten a pardon everyone, that strikes me as not.
(13:34):
I just don't understand how that will get rid of
conspiracy theories.
Speaker 5 (13:37):
Won't that it actually will, it actually will make it worse.
And I have a theory of the case mine. I'm
curious what you think about this. I think there's a
part of Trump he says, okay, if Juleanne comes out
and says, oh it was Bill Clinton. Oh is this
democrat that democrat, this Democrat that democrat. I think Trump
thinks that will be enough for his people. I don't
(13:59):
think that's the case anymore. I don't think I don't
think they're going to buy it and say, oh, well
it's all better now. Good thing we released a woman
who ran a pedophile ring for prison. I don't think
he has that much latitude with them anymore.
Speaker 1 (14:13):
So that's the question. And also Trump doesn't want this
to keep going, so doing more like I think the
grand jury testimony idea was that what would happen is
he would say, let's release the grand jury testimony, and
(14:33):
everyone knew it wouldn't be released, so they'd be like, oh,
we tried to get the grand jury testimony released, but
we couldn't get a release. But I'm not convinced that that.
Even that just extended the news cycle.
Speaker 5 (14:45):
He has made every wrong move on this Molly whatever
mojo Trump has had for ten years. That left all
of us going, ah shit, he changed the news cycle again.
It's not working now. And even though he's had to
run away to Scotland for the weekend to try to
avoid it, he's still getting hit in Scotland on it.
He's still taking damage. He can't stop the the he
(15:08):
can't stop the drip, drip drip, even if he puts
Julane in front of the camera and she said, oh no, Donald.
Donald barely knew Jeffrey. He went to one party and
left early.
Speaker 1 (15:18):
Right, the people will believe flight logs, you have the
does that if you have the flight logs, how does
that work? So Jeffrey never knew him except for these
flight logs, right.
Speaker 5 (15:30):
And they were they barely they ran into each other
in New York occasionally. But here's the thing. First off,
I think even our terrified media, right once this breaks,
will chase her down like a wild animal. The answer
to this story will not just be I have no
further comment, right, you will never have a day of
peace no matter what. I also think, and I heard
(15:53):
over the weekend that one major outlet is looking at
going back and doing stuff on the victims finally, which
I think.
Speaker 1 (16:02):
There are more than two hundred victims.
Speaker 5 (16:04):
Yeah, which I think that right. I think the numbers
around two hundred. And I think if they do that,
that also extends the story because you know what Donald
Trump will do. Oh, I barely knew her. She was
a crazy slut or whatever is going to be. It's
gonna be eging Carol only worse.
Speaker 1 (16:20):
But even you know, just when Lawrence read the testimony
of these girls who were groomed at fourteen and dismissed
at eighteen because they were too old, it was pretty
jarring to hear that. I mean, I think of myself
as pretty cynical, and I was like, whoa, you know.
Speaker 5 (16:40):
That that was a That was a hell of a
piece too, by the way, Yeah, yeah, but it is it,
I mean, and that is really all the sort of haha,
we got you Maga flipping c aside. They really are
having to ask themselves a question right now, and it
is am I okay as a MAGA supporter, As a
Trump supporter, Am I okay with Donald Trump to protect
(17:02):
his political position freeing a woman who sexually abused and
who groomed and provided underage girls for rape because that's
what it was to Jeffrey Epstein and whoever else is
on the list with the I mean, I think a
lot of them are having a I mean, I don't
(17:23):
know if it's their first moral quandary, but it is
a moral quandary for a lot of them where they are,
and the more prominent ones I think are also processing
this like there's going to be a post Trump era.
Am I going to die on the hill of defending
Donald Trump's friend Gawaine Maxwell? Right, it's a real he is, apparently,
But well.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
Greg Kelly has a complicated relationship with being accused of things.
As you and I both know, it does not stop
me that Greg Kelly might in fact have some problems,
you know.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
Yeah, to put it.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
Understanding why sexual abuse is bad to yes, to put
it very mildly. I wonder if we could talk about
kind of what the calculus here is for Trump world.
We have scandals coming from different parts. It feels like
a leaky boat. So we have HEGXET scandals, right, we
(18:26):
have more stuff leaking about the signal chat. We have
some We definitely.
Speaker 5 (18:32):
See the polygraph scandal.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
Right, So there's a polygraph scandal where he's polygraphing people
for leaking to the press. There's this other scandal where
he is sending classified information on signal. There's so he's
he's moving people around. He hired someone from DOGE, he
fired them. He you know, there's a lot of like really.
Speaker 5 (18:54):
I think if the Epstein story had not broken, Hexas
would be gone.
Speaker 1 (18:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (19:00):
I know. I know that that Trump still has a
warm spot in his heart for Pete Hexith because he's
good on TV. But I I think the handful of
semi quasi dimmy Himmy responsible adults in the White House
recognize this guy is a disaster. And I was told
by a foreign diplomatic person about a month ago that
(19:25):
he is not welcome. They don't want to talk to him. Yeah,
I mean, he's unprofessional, he's dangerous, and he's weird. Now
I think the d O Jays scandal is is I
think we are days, not weeks from Bongo leaving, either
being thrown off or fired or leaving on his own
(19:45):
two feet.
Speaker 1 (19:46):
And the reason that you say that, I think is
because of the post last night where Bo said I
have seen things.
Speaker 5 (19:53):
This is.
Speaker 1 (19:55):
Something right, and so that means if he's seen things
that scarred his that means that he is saying that
the admin is not showing the Maga crowd everything they
want to see that's right, and that means that eventually
somebody is going to have to go, because either Trump
gets rid of Bongino or Bongino gets rid of Bondy.
Speaker 5 (20:21):
I have heard that Pam Bondi has cashed all her
chips in with all of her various patrons. Brian Boward,
very influential lobbyist in Trump universe, has been apparently like,
I will die on this hill, sir. She must not
be thrown out. It would be the worst thing for us. YadA, YadA, YadA.
But I think she's in trouble though I think I
think she's in trouble. But the basic the base is
(20:43):
never going to give up on her. They're never gonna
stop dating her.
Speaker 1 (20:46):
But if you have a choice between Bongino Bondi, is
it just does anything Trump wants? Bongino does not. He's
a wild barn, right, So if you have a choice
between Bongino and Bondio, he's really tight with the guitar.
Is Bonnie would be the play in my mind?
Speaker 5 (21:05):
Yeah? Yeah, yep. But the problem I think that they're
having about firing Bongino is they understand that Dan Bongino
has a notoriously poor impulse control over his temper and
his tongue right, right, and while he's trying to play
the role of I am now a federal official at
(21:26):
a senior level in the FBI, Yeah, they also remember
he's a lunatic, batshit crazy short fuse podcast bro. Yeah,
And so he's going to be out there I think
as something that worries them. They're probably worried that if
they fire him, and it's not like Dan has to
(21:46):
spend more time with his family, it'll be that he
could pop and say some crazy shit. And again, going
back to what we talked about last week, this whole
pedophile thing in their heads, this belief that it's the
Rosetta Stone breaking the Democrats there, the Democrats are all
eating children, blah blah blah, all that crap. Yeah, I
(22:06):
think Bongino believes that shit.
Speaker 1 (22:08):
You still think he does.
Speaker 5 (22:09):
I still think he does. I think he believes it still,
and he knows there's a critical mass of Maga types
out there who either if they don't fully believe it,
they believe it enough that it's causing them great anxiety
now because of the cognitive dissonance of Trump's defense of
Maxwell and the Trump's cover up of this, of this story.
Speaker 1 (22:33):
And that's the ten percent. That's ten percent of Trump's
base that from Brizio says is qan on adjacent.
Speaker 5 (22:41):
Yes, and they those people have a there's a big
disadvantage for the Republican Party broadly with those people. They
were low propensity voters before Trump, right, They've been high
for pensity voters since Trump. And if they if their
relationship with Trump is broken somehow, I think they've become
(23:04):
low propensity voters again, and they just throw their hands
up and say, screw it, I'm not going to do this.
They all lie to me. The elites even got to Trump.
But you know, Elon Musk has got a new party
for him, and they could they could absolutely help the
pedophiles in the America Party with Elon Musk.
Speaker 1 (23:19):
Yeah, I'm sure the America Party is going to do
great because Elon is really just killed it with everything
he's done since Tesla.
Speaker 5 (23:26):
It's going to be fantastic.
Speaker 1 (23:27):
He go when he Veer's non rocket The stuff he
does is just beyond like you stick to the rockets.
Speaker 5 (23:35):
Build the fucking rockets. Just build the Falcon rockets. They
do great. Don't try anything complicated or with too many
moving parts.
Speaker 1 (23:42):
Right exactly. So Commers is out the Senate, it's still in.
I think they're going out soon for the August recess.
We'll come back and we will have elections in New
Jersey and the state you are in right now? What
state are you in right now?
Speaker 5 (23:58):
Great state of Virginia.
Speaker 1 (24:00):
Can tell us tell us what's happening in the Commonwealth.
Speaker 5 (24:03):
Well, look there, the governor's race statewides and the and
the legislative races in Virginia and New Jersey happened in
the off year, the off cycle. So this year we
have potential to get into Virginia and start to roll
some real numbers up in the legislative side. We also
have a really consequential governor governor's race because Abigail span
(24:23):
Murder is right now blowing the doors off this race,
raising money, running a perfect campaign against the woman Republican.
Speaker 1 (24:32):
Oh yeah, because she's one of my favorites.
Speaker 5 (24:35):
There's an African American woman named Winsome Seers, right, and
Winsome Seers is one of these people.
Speaker 1 (24:41):
For whom guns loves Jesus, for.
Speaker 5 (24:44):
Whom, yes, for whom the Lord speaks to her very
directly and has told her that Donald Trump is the way,
the hope, the light, and the faith. And that is
really burned her campaign. She tried to get a little
less Trump adjacent, and her own people devoured her for
the Vaga movement just tore her apart. And right now
(25:04):
they're kind of stuck with her because she's Chris los
Avita's client, and los Avita is apparently in a raging
fury all day every day. They can't find anything to
get a hold of it. Spamberger on in terms of
oppo or policy stuff, Spamberger is not taking the bait there.
(25:26):
I mean, they're the Republican parties thing now is oh,
what about trans athletes? And Spamberger is like, what about
cost of living?
Speaker 1 (25:34):
Can I ask you a question? Because I want to
talk about this. So Megan Calay, in her infinite wisdom,
had on, it's very angry, she's very angry. She had on, Uh,
this guy Ram Emmanuel, perhaps you've heard of him, And
she said Rom. She said, Rom, can can can a
man become a woman? And Rom said no. No. If
(26:01):
I had been asked that, you know what, I would
have said, what It's none of my fucking business.
Speaker 5 (26:06):
Right, I don't. I don't care. And by the way,
how's your homeowners insurance? How's your how's your health?
Speaker 1 (26:13):
But it's also like, why do you care what other.
Speaker 5 (26:15):
People do with them? So actually, I've come up with
a new, a new line on this. I was with
a group of Democrats yesterday and give them a little
bit of communications advice. And a candidate said to me,
our person said to me, an advisor, not a candidate
said to me, Okay, so what happens when they hit
my my my client with trans bathrooms all that shit?
(26:38):
I said, listen, you just looked them straight in the eye,
and you say, you seem really interested in trans people.
I don't want to see your browser history. I don't
care what you're interested in that. You're obsessed with that,
that's weird to me. But I'm obsessed with with lowering
the cost of living, making sure people can afford housing
and healthcare and get jobs. But if you want to
(26:58):
keep talking about that stuff, I'm sure there are websites
about trans people that would that you can spend a
lot of time on.
Speaker 1 (27:04):
I mean, it just seems like, why, it's other people's bodies.
It's other people's if you're gay, if you're straight, if
you're this, or you're that, I don't care. It has
nothing to do with me what other people do in
their bedrooms.
Speaker 5 (27:15):
The idea of the trans thing as the culture war
issue of our time. The Republicans one in part using
that issue to motivate African American, Hispanic and young white
men away from the Democrats, because that is an issue
they care about in some weird, sort of visceral level.
But the problem with the issue for the Republicans is
(27:36):
they are now playing what I call the one note flute.
After a while, nobody's like, everybody's like, Okay, yeah, I
get you're obsessed with trans people. Whatever your problem is,
that's your problem. I'm obsessed with you know, You've got
to bridge out of this because they really would like
to do. You know, the Democrats are all trans Antifa
or whatever the crazy shit of the day is.
Speaker 1 (28:00):
Rick Wilson, Mollie John Fast Will you come home?
Speaker 5 (28:03):
You know I will.
Speaker 1 (28:06):
Brendan Duke is a senior director for Federal Budget Policy
at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Welcome too,
Fast Politics.
Speaker 4 (28:18):
Brendan, thanks for having me on Mollett.
Speaker 1 (28:20):
You've worked in budget, you work at a think tank
on budget. Right now, I want you first. We just
before we started talking, we were talking about this idea
what Trump two point zero would the BBB looks like?
So talk us through what this bill is going to
actually look like for the deficit, for the sort of
financial health of the country at this moment.
Speaker 4 (28:43):
Right. So, the talking points from the White House is
this is great for working class families and it reduces
the deficit. But the Congressional Budget Office, the official scorekeeper
that people non partisan, nonpartisan, it's run by a former
Bush appointee to the ANNAW and they say the bill
ads three point four trillion dollars to the deficit over
(29:04):
the next ten years. And that doesn't even account for
all the accounting games they've done to hide the cost,
which I could talk about. The second thing here is
that it is a massive tax cut for the highest
income Americans. For millionaires, it's something like an eighty thousand
dollars tax kite for them on average, whereas low and
middle income people barely get anything. And then on top
(29:26):
of that, they're paying for these tasks that's partially by
cutting healthcare and by cutting programs that help people buy groceries.
And we know that doesn't go to millionaires. We know
that goes to you know, working class folks trying to
get by.
Speaker 1 (29:39):
So if you're a trumper, you're going to say, but
that's not true because there's no tax on tips, there's
no tax on overtime. Explain to us how that is
actually not true.
Speaker 4 (29:49):
Right, Well, so, like the key thing is is they
love talking about that stuff, but like new attacks on
tips costs like seventy billion dollars, the tax that's for
people making over half million dollars are one point three
trillion dollars, which I can't even do the math on
the number of zeros of how much larger that is.
So like in all their talking points, that's all they're
(30:12):
talking about, right, is no tax on tips, no tax
on overtime, et cetera. But it is a minuscule fraction
of the bill where you can basically just forget about it.
So I think that's like kind of a shield by
which they're using to defend these large task cuts. And
then on top of that, I just think that you know, fundamentally,
at the end of the day, something like no tax
on tips, less than five percent of low wage workers
(30:33):
work into professions at least out janitors, least out security guards,
lease out all of those guys. They don't get a
dollar from that. And then many of these low you know,
low wage workers you get it, don't even pay income taxes.
So their tax bill goes from zero dollars to zero dollars.
So you know, again, you know, it's just like trying
to distract us from the fact that like basically a
(30:54):
centerpiece of this bill is increasing the amount somebody can
inherit tax free from fifteen million dollars to thirty million dollars.
Like that's kind of more at the heart of the
bill and is actually much larger than things like no
tax on tips.
Speaker 1 (31:08):
For okay, so no tax on tips is also small,
but it also isn't it like a lot of people
who pay a lot of people don't actually pay taxes
on tips, right.
Speaker 4 (31:17):
Well, so first of all, there's likely a compliance issue
where you know, a lot of that money doesn't get
reports virus. Now a lot of a lot that's more
compliant now that people pay everything with credit cards, right,
So that does go to the irs, So that's a
big part of it. But one third of tipped workers
just don't make enough money to pay income taxes, right.
(31:38):
So again it's moving from paying zero dollars in taxes
to paying zero dollars in taxes right, right, So they're
not paying anything on that.
Speaker 1 (31:46):
Okay, So talk us through why the deficit is actually
weirdly not growing at this moment, despite the fact that
they're about to grow the deficit by a lot.
Speaker 4 (31:56):
Right when you look at this bill, it costs three
point four trillion dollars over time years, but they're actually
holding back a lot of that explosion in the deficit
by charging more for imported shoes and coffee, right, So
they've done these massive increases in tariffs that are actually
going up supposedly, you know, starting next week, and they've
(32:17):
done these massive increases that are going into the treasury,
and the Trump administration is now citing that as a
reason why the bill is physically responsible. And it's just
a reshuffling of the tax burden right where we're cutting
the estate tax, making it easier for really wealthy business
owners to not pay taxes, right on the one hand,
But on the other hand, people you know, buying shoes,
(32:39):
buying coffee, you know, all those sorts of things, they're
going to pay more at the cash register as or
results of that. So it just makes our you know,
tax system just much more aggressive.
Speaker 5 (32:50):
Right.
Speaker 1 (32:50):
So part of why young people are having buyers remorse,
and I'm talking about people eighteen to thirty five, is
because they are used to a progressive Obama style tax
system and all of a sudden they're back in like
nineteen eighty one Reagan, right.
Speaker 4 (33:09):
Right, I mean, I think Trump has done this kind
of trick where he talks about things like, oh, maybe
we'll tax carried interest. Right, So for privacuity executives, first,
that didn't happen.
Speaker 1 (33:19):
It wouldn't happen. You kidding me, carrying you interest, you
just go on.
Speaker 4 (33:25):
But he just talked, and it's just amazing how those
tweets get all the attention, right that he floats these
ideas and then they never actually happen. But then what
does happen are the giant tax cuts for those people,
and then on top of that again making it so
people buying imported bengos and strawberries and tomatoes pay more.
Speaker 1 (33:47):
So the third quarter had negative.
Speaker 4 (33:49):
Growth, so the first quarter of the year. So for
physical stuff we have a different quarter, but for like GDP,
we use the normal quarters where January is the first quarter. Yeah,
that had negative growth.
Speaker 1 (33:59):
Okay, that was the last most recent quarter had negative growth,
like point five.
Speaker 4 (34:04):
I think it's about negative one is where it currently stands.
And then we're i think next week getting the GDP
report for the second quarter, you know, which you know
concluded you know, about a month ago, so we're gonna
get that and I think, you know, people think it'll
be positive, but a lot of that is just making
up for the negativity of the first quarter, right right,
(34:24):
and so net you know, will have something like one
percent GDP growth, which is you know, not that great.
It's supposed to be about two percent. It's just like
supposed to be kind of the normal amount. And Trump
is talking about three percent, while one percent is lower
than three percent.
Speaker 1 (34:40):
If for some reason that comes out as negative growth
will be in reception by.
Speaker 4 (34:44):
A lot of technical definitions.
Speaker 1 (34:46):
Yeah, but you think it will still be positive.
Speaker 4 (34:48):
Yeah, I think most people think, you know, most people
think it'll be something like two percent, which sounds good
and normal, except for the fact that we already went
down in the first so it needs to be higher
to make up for that, you know, for being bad
in the first quarter.
Speaker 1 (35:02):
Right, all right, so we have this regressive taxation, we
have these tariffs, which I guess are going to hit soon.
It just would love you to explain, like he's so
back and forth. We don't know what's the deal, what's
not a deal. If he puts them in place, they
are going to radically reshape the way we buy things.
Speaker 4 (35:21):
Right, Yeah, So, I mean it's kind of crazy because
a lot of people are saying, oh, he's backed off
of the tariffs, but you know, his backing off of
the tariffs was about like a ten percent tariff for
everywhere but China and thirty percent for China. But now
we're talking about like fifteen to twenty percent for all
of these major trading partners like Japan, right, So we
(35:44):
have ratcheted it up. You know, there's a rumor that
you may land at something like fifteen percent, So they
have just ratcheted that up. And you know, right now,
you know, there's three groups that could pay the terriffs, right,
which is foreigners they can lower their prices, the company
that actually you know, pay the US government for it,
could you know, just take lower profits. And third they
(36:05):
can pass it on to consumers. So step one we've
seen has not been happening. Import prices have not been following,
which means some form of Americans are paying the terriffs, right.
And then as of right now, most of it has
been companies you know that have just been reporting lower profits.
So GM said, you know, reported lower profits because they're
(36:27):
just paying it out. You know, Nike is reporting lower profits.
They said they're going to do quote unquote surgical price
increases later in the year. But I think a lot
of these companies have been holding off on passing it
on to consumers because there's a lot of uncertainly about
what the terrorists are if they are legal, and you know,
those sorts of things. But for example, a lot of
people expect on cars that when they roll out the
(36:50):
twenty twenty six models, all of a sudden, they'll be,
you know, several thousand dollars more expensive. They're not going
to say it's the tariffs, but yeah, that'll be why.
Speaker 1 (36:58):
And I think it's important to realize, like with Amazon,
Bezos had wanted to do a tariff calculator and Trump
was like, no way. And a lot of these places
have wanted to, like have said they were going to
make things more expensive because of tariffs, and Trump was
mad at them and then promised retribution. So the idea
(37:18):
here is that somehow companies will keep having less profits
so that Trump doesn't get mad at them. Right, I mean,
that's really what's happening here.
Speaker 4 (37:28):
I think that's like temporary, and they're going to figure
out a way to do that because the laws of
gravity when it comes to you know, shareholder profits are
going to hold eventually. Right, So again they're gonna like
with car companies, I think what they'll say is, oh,
we have a new stands system, and somehow that drives
up the price of the car by seven thousand dollars.
It's probably not the sound system that caused that. It's
probably the terrorifs. But you know they're going to say that.
(37:50):
So I think there's going to be a lot of
marketing in terms of, you know, trying to avoid that subject.
Shareholders are not going to be cool with getting less profits, right.
Speaker 1 (37:58):
Yeah, And I think it's interesting in this moment because
eventually people will put it together that tariffs are making
things more expensive. And one of the sort of legacies
of trade wars when we've seen them historically, is that
it's very hard to get people to bring prices down, right,
(38:19):
Like that really good example of the dryer tariffs where
they teariff dryers, washing machines became more expensive. It's like,
I just I wonder, so you tear if you tear
off all these things, Like, I feel like there's a
likely scenario where Trump tariffs a bunch of stuff. Everyone
freaks out, right, people stop buying things, fruit starts rotting
in the stores. He goes, okay, you know taco, right.
(38:43):
Trump always chickens out, and then he can't get the
prices down because that's not how any of this works.
Speaker 4 (38:51):
Yeah, I mean totally, and he'll get frustrated about it, right,
And I mean I think that's why he's you know, pressure,
and I think, you know, all this frustration. Now he's
blaming the Federal Reserve or not cutting rates because they're
scared of the inflation from these terrorists. And now he's
talking about you know, he's been talking about firing the
FED chair and basically pulling like an Argentina where the
(39:15):
you know, the interest rate is what he decides it
to be, which you know history tells us causes inflation.
Speaker 1 (39:20):
Yeah, it's not going to be good. I want you
to talk about the bond markets because like there's a
lot of anxiety that Trump is going to do stuff
to the country this time that you can't be undone
with the democratic administration. And I think that is why
there's so much skittishness in our debt, in the owning
(39:40):
of our debt, which is the bond markets. So I
wonder if you could talk to us about sort of
what's happening there and its anxieties and what you see
going on there.
Speaker 4 (39:51):
Yeah. So I mean, just first of all, without with
some of the trumpy stuff, without the trumpiest stuff, it's
just you know, we passed the three point four trillion
dollar paid. You know, are making very little effort to
bring down our deficits right where the tariffs are mostly
kind of keeping you know, high deficits in place. But
you know, we're still we still have a lot of debt, right,
(40:11):
and that's just because you know, again he's refusing to
raise taxes on rich people.
Speaker 5 (40:15):
Right.
Speaker 4 (40:16):
So that's like the first baseline is that there's just
a ton of debt and it's not clear. You know,
it's like supply and demand. The supply of treasuries on
the market is just a ton, right, which produces you know,
people's interest in buy our debt. So that's the first part.
And then the second part is he's looking at this
and interest rates are high, and he's like, oh, my
interest costs are high. And you know, you could imagine
(40:37):
if you have credit card debt and you're paying a lot,
you know, each month to the credit card company, while
you know, he's thinking, well, maybe I could just set
the rate lower and that'll be great, Which would be
nice if you could do that with your credit card company,
And in some sense maybe kind of try to do that,
I guess with the federal reserve. Except the problem is
these are markets, right, and so markets are going to
(40:58):
expect are going to expect high inflation, which drives up
interest rates on its own right, and then on top
of that, undermining central bank independence. We know that's how
you get higher inflation. That countries that have an independent
central bank just have lower inflation but better growth and
lower interest rates, because it's credible when you turn the
(41:19):
central bank into Argentina, that's not the case. Setting. Now,
there are some challenges here where it's not clear as
the legal authority to fire the FED chair. And then
on top of that, even when he appoints one, it's
a committee that sets the interest rate. So that's going
to lead to a whole other thing where he's going
to you know, he may appoint somebody who you know
is kind of his his lackey, right, kind of basically
(41:41):
tries to act like a Benia Republic central bank chair,
but the rest of the FED, ah, right, and then
you can imagine the tweets that will flow from there, and.
Speaker 1 (41:51):
He may not be able to get that person congressional approval.
It's hard for me to imagine that everyone's going to
sign up for this.
Speaker 4 (41:57):
Yeah, I mean, it's a choice facing him. Now, there
are some you know, credible people that have been floated
who would like lower interest rates, like Chris Waller at
the FED, who's a very well respected person. If he
named that person, he would probably get Democratic votes. But
if he appointed somebody like Kevin Hassett, who is just
a lackey for him, and that looks really bad. And
(42:18):
you know, I think it becomes a key question of
where is Trump's political capital essentially ten months from now,
And you know, I mean, we will see he's doing
a great job of spending it. So you know, it
just depends on where you know, Senate Republicans look both
the pick and what's going on with Senate Republicans at
that point.
Speaker 1 (42:36):
I want you to explain, just for two seconds, it
seems as if and again I don't want to be hopeful,
because I think it keeps backfiring on me to have
any kind of hope. But it does strike me that
the fact that both Republican and Democratic senators seem like
(42:56):
they cannot trust russ Font when it comes to recisions,
when it comes to spending, when it comes to empowerment.
The only people you can ever get to vote against
this administration no matter what they pretend they believe. Are
Mitch Susan, Lisa Murkowski, and Tom Tillis. So that's it.
(43:20):
And they never vote all together because then they could
stop legislation and since they don't want to ever do that.
But I mean, it does seem like those people are
the ones if you could have anyone possibly vote against
any of those.
Speaker 4 (43:35):
Yeah, it's a really interesting thing. I like to joke
that there's you know, three parties in the Senate of
their Democrats, Republicans and members of the Appropriations Committee. And
you know, three of those you mentioned, McConnell, Murkowski, and
Collins are all senior members of the Appropriations Committee, right,
And normally the way we found the government is a
bipartisan deal sixty votes in the Senate, which means you need,
(43:59):
you know, bipartisan support to do it right, and all
three of these members are veterans of that process, right,
And just I think generally, you know, the appropriations committees
as a whole, you know, know, that's how it works,
and they value that. And what you know Vought has
been doing is being basically undermining those bipartison deals and
frankly undermining the authority of those Republican appropriations members, right,
(44:23):
So when they impound funds legally don't spend money that
Congress hold them to spend. That's directly undermining the Appropriation's committee.
And when they do this recisions thing, that first undermines
the Proparation's committee again because those did not come from
the committee. And then second completely undermines the bipartisan process.
And they know that that is going to cause, you know,
(44:44):
the future of the way we do appropriations to break
down because there will be no trust because essentially what
they plan on doing here is take sixty votes to
pass an appropriation spill, but fifty votes to do a recision.
And you can obviously see those incentives where you have
a bi partisan deal and then directly undermine it via
partisan vote, which is what happened with that recisions package.
(45:05):
I think the one thing that gives me hope is
they barely passed that recisions package, and that was like
the most like Republican friendly we're going to defund USAID
and PBS version, right, and like they barely got that
to the finish line. When it comes to like core
domestic programs, I think that is going to make that
a you know, like a tougher road.
Speaker 1 (45:27):
But Russavot doesn't give a shit, like he'll just not
give the money.
Speaker 4 (45:31):
Right, it's blatantly illegal. And yeah, I mean, I mean
a big problem is Congress's tools are the law, and
it's very hard to pass laws even with Republican support
that prevents somebody from breaking the law. Right, that's just
a core challenge there. But I mean, I think that
you know, we will see. I mean, I think that
you know, there can be pressure, right, I mean, Russbott
(45:53):
is not Donald Trump, and he can convince Donald Trump
to do stupid stuff. And Donald Trump has no problem
blame other people for that, right, So you know, maybe
that you know, Chris pressure there.
Speaker 1 (46:04):
That this was thank you, thank you, thank you, thank
you for joining.
Speaker 4 (46:08):
Us, thanks for having us.
Speaker 2 (46:11):
No moment.
Speaker 1 (46:14):
Rick Wilson, Well, John Fast.
Speaker 5 (46:17):
The fucker Reaward of the Week the month the year
has to go to Todd Blanche for flying on a
DOJ private jet to Tallahassee, Florida.
Speaker 1 (46:24):
US. One does as one does.
Speaker 5 (46:27):
Obviously I'll be flying back on my private jet, which
is of course Delta Airlines. But the visit to Tallahassee
was the most obvious and corrupt bribe attempt I've ever seen,
and the idea that he would go down there suddenly
at this at this late date, the case.
Speaker 1 (46:43):
Is four years.
Speaker 5 (46:45):
Four years, she's been in prison and brings a fucking
gift basket. Okay, she came back to the to the
goddamn prison with some kind of basket. And I think
this matter will go down in DOJ's history. Is one
of the most shameful days in the history of DJ
because it is absolute overt corruption in an attempt by
Donald Trump's personal lawyer who now just happens to get
(47:06):
a paycheck from the government to suborn her perjury and
her lies so he can protect himself from the Epstein files.
It is really disappointing.
Speaker 1 (47:14):
It ain't over yet, baby, No.
Speaker 5 (47:16):
It is not more to come, folks.
Speaker 1 (47:19):
That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in
every Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday to hear the best
minds and politics make sense of all this chaos. If
you enjoy this podcast, please send it to a friend
and keep the conversation going. Thanks for listening.
Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics,
where we discussed the top political headlines with some of
today's best minds, and Republican Congressman Thomas Matsy says the
Epstein conspiracy is going to hurt Republicans in the midterms.
We have such a great show for you today. The
Lincoln Projects owner Rick Wilson joins us to discuss Trump's
(00:22):
Justice Department, talking to Gallaine Maxwell. Then we'll talk to
Center on Budget Brendan Duke about how tariffs are affecting
our economy. But first the news.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Somali Howard Lutnick and mister Trump.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
They say that the tariffs start on August first, no extensions,
and they have a deal with Europe for fifteen percent.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
Do you believe them?
Speaker 1 (00:46):
There's a really good article in The New Yorker this
week from Antonia Hitchins where she interviews Howard Lutnik and
he sends like a very sort of TMU Trump. He
lacks the sort of intelligence and cohesive narrative that a
Trump does. So if that doesn't fill you with good feeling,
(01:08):
I don't know what it is. So again, the tension
here about the tariffs is two things. One, they're terrible
and they're gonna mess up our economy. Though in this
interview with Brendan Duke, which you should listen to because
it's really interesting, he actually says that they are actually
providing a lot of money for the United States right now.
(01:29):
They won't always because they will depress the spending that
people do, the domestic spending, which will end up putting
us into a sort of recessionary posture at the very least.
So financial markets have basically sort of decided that Trump
is going to taco at all points chicken out, and
(01:49):
so they are not freaking out the way that they
might if they really thought it was going to happen.
So Letnick is out there saying no extensions, no more
grace periods. August first, the aras are set. They will
go into place. Now, remember they were going to be
in June first, they were going to be mid July.
They were ninety deals in ninety days. They were paused.
(02:10):
There was that week where he kept saying We're going
to do tariffs, and then the market kept going down, down, down,
and he wouldn't do anything. But then when the bond
market started freaking out. It was then that he decided
to do it. But what's really important about this tariff
story is this line here at the Yale Budget Lab
estimates the blended tariff rate on all imports, factoring in
(02:32):
those letters and subsequent deals, and again who even knows,
will be just over twenty percent. That's the highest since
nineteen eleven. You'll remember nineteen eleven as a year when
global trade was humongous. So again, in nineteen eleven, a
lot more things were made in America. So now it
is more than one hundred years later, we live in
(02:53):
this global economy and everything you're going to buy that
is not made in America, which is most things, will
go up twenty percent. So either the consumers will pay
the tariffs right and everything will get twenty percent more expensive,
or the companies will pay the tariffs and companies will
make twenty percent less money, which I think they'll have
(03:13):
to eat twenty percent of the cost of the things
they're selling, which seems like a lot. Or the countries
that manufacture will make their things twenty percent cheaper. The
most likely scenario seems like consumer. It will be the
cost will be passed on to the consumer to some extent,
so it's worth remembering that like the consumer, it will
(03:33):
basically be instead of a corporate tax, that my tax
of corporation, you're taxing the consumer. So you are taxing
the people who have the least, and it will be
like a sort of blanket sales tax the way that
you'll remember like Forbes had there's this very rich guy
who ran for president and the idea that they would
be like this sales tax and they wouldn't be an
income tax and sales tax. But the sales tax punishes
(03:57):
the people have the least. So between this and the
regressive taxation in the BBB, you are really seeing an
administration target the least wealthy.
Speaker 3 (04:06):
Yeah, Hilariously, while you were saying that I got a
nice newsort China US to extend tariff pause by another
ninety days.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
We shouldn't. We shouldn't laugh, because we should be happy,
because that is it's better for consumers and for people
who have lass to have that punted. So, but yes,
this is a complete disaster. Talk to us about what
else Trump is hiding.
Speaker 3 (04:34):
Ess So apparently the retrofitting for the Due Air Force
wood is going to cost nearly a billion dollars.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
What I'm shocked I am just shocked because I was
told this was going to save money.
Speaker 3 (04:48):
I was told Elon and Trump, We're going to get
into office and find all this waste and abuse and
get rid of it.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
Yeah. I was told there was fraud, waste and abuse.
But it sounds like much of the fraud and much
of the abuse is coming from inside the White House
and also the wist.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
Yeah. I really like here though.
Speaker 3 (05:06):
The best line is we believe the actual retrofit of
the aircraft could probably cost a round four hundred million dollars.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
That barely makes this any better, urge.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
I know. Well. And the reason that Katar was stuck
with this plane. They've had this plane for a while
and they were trying to sell it and they couldn't
get anyone interested in it. What's interesting about this this
story actually, and I was reading about it, is that
they originally was meant to stay in the Air Force.
They're negotiating a final agreement for this plane and according
(05:39):
to communications, all right, it will be a donation to
the Department of Defense that which will be responsible for
the maintenance. Okay, so basically it hasn't been approved yet,
but the final agreement is the US Air Force will
begin renovating the plane for Air Force one. And my
favorite part of this is that it says nothing in
(06:01):
this shall be interpreted as an offer, a promise, or
acceptance of any form of bribery under influencer coro practices.
So it's not going to be accepted as that, which
means that it won't be obviously. So Jack Reid, who's
a Democrat from Rhode Island who sits on this committee
on the Senate Appropriations, asked him in June how long
(06:24):
it would take to renovate the jet, and Heggsas said
such information was not for public consumption. So then Haiggs
has said he couldn't say how much refurbishing the play
would cost, angering the normally restraight read. Okay, why can't
it be revealed in this setting? Reid said, this is
the Appropriation's Committee of the United States Senate. We appropriate
(06:44):
the money. You will be spent after it's authorized by
my committee. Hegsas said there were several reasons for spending
the money on the product, to ensure the safety and
security of the President of the United States. I think
it's pretty amazing. I mean, heigs seth is really is
pretty incompetent. It's just an incredible story all around, very stupid.
Speaker 3 (07:02):
Speaking of stupid, as we know, Elon Musk is threatening
to put third party candidates on the ballot, and the
way these Democratic strategists are weighing it, this can be
really good news for Democrats.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
Yeah. I'm old enough to remember when Elon must said
he was going to build a hyper loop that was
going to get us to Washington, DC in seven minutes.
By the way, it turns out he just kept saying
that to keep people from investing money in the trains.
Speaker 3 (07:26):
Right. Well, you know, he had the Boring company and
all that, so it was a good net net of
his ecosystem, which is one of the things that he
seemed to have good business documen for us having an
ecosystem of similar technologies.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
But he mostly just built tunnels for the cars to
drive through.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
Yeah, that's the Boring company, right.
Speaker 1 (07:45):
So they weren't ever going to build hyper loops. They
were just going to build holes. Ahle Right, okay, just checking.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
Don't forget sell flame throwers.
Speaker 1 (07:56):
Yes, everybody loves the flame thrower. So anyway, good luck
on you have. All he could just do is just
give money to all the things he's fucked up since
he started doge. But I don't think that's going to happen.
Speaker 3 (08:08):
Okay, So this is some depressing reporting from the Bulwark.
The worst ice agents we're probably going to get her
probably coming in now. They're about to hire ten thousand
new agents and they're going to be woefully unqualified.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
It looks like, yeah, I'm shocked. I am shocked to
hear this, by the way, Like it's all money they
could go to like mental heals and food for hungry
children and schools, any number of other things. But at
least it's not windmills.
Speaker 3 (08:41):
Well, speaking of that, did you watch Trump's crazy press
conference today?
Speaker 1 (08:46):
Now? Did you watch it?
Speaker 3 (08:47):
I watched a highlight cut of it, which was pretty disturbing.
One of the more telling parts of it was when
a reporter said, can I ask why you're in a
bad mood?
Speaker 2 (08:56):
Was it a bad morning of golf?
Speaker 1 (08:57):
And he replied, no, the golf was beautiful. I don't
know what was beautiful about the golf. Playing golf was beautiful.
I mean, I don't want to be a stickler here,
but none of these sentences are English. While playing his
round of golf at Turnberry his private course, which he
is using the presidency to highlight, and supposedly there's some
(09:20):
theory that maybe he was cheating. Some of the videos
showed that there might have been some cheating. He is
known for his cheating. Trump caught sight of windmills that
he has long hated, having fought a long battle against
their installation, because you'll remember that Trump is very anti
any kind of clean energy, and then he went on
a long anti windmill rand. Trump two point zero makes
(09:42):
Trump one point zero look like Lincoln, That is all.
Rick Wilson is the founder of Lincoln Project. In the
host of The Enemy's List, Welcome to you, ass Politics,
Ely John Fast Rick Wilson.
Speaker 4 (10:05):
What's going on?
Speaker 5 (10:07):
Max?
Speaker 1 (10:08):
I did three hours of live television on MSNBC, and
I'm back next weekend on the weekend primetime. If any
show still has table, if you still have cable, you
should watch me on it. Hello, friend, nothing's happened this week.
Speaker 5 (10:27):
No, it's been a very boring, quiet weekend. And you
know nothing, nothing at all is going on with the
President of the United States telling his deputy Attorney general
to pardon a woman who ran the largest child trafficking
sex pedophile rapering in modern history. Other than that, it's
pretty couiet.
Speaker 1 (10:46):
So let's talk about Tom Planche meeting with Gillay and Maxwell,
because I think here's what I want to talk about.
So I actually talked to when I was doing this
MSNBC show last night, the weekend primetime that you can
watch this weekend. When I was doing it, we were
talking to this woman who has been a DA and
she was saying, I said, is Todd Blanche alone with Glaine?
(11:11):
And she said, absolutely not. She said, there's somebody there
taking notes, There's somebody else. So the question is, so
he's not alone, So even if he's with his people,
he still cannot say things like the boss knows you
didn't see anything, right, So we hope.
Speaker 5 (11:30):
Now what we don't know. And I think it would
leak if Blanche said everybody else, I need the room
just me.
Speaker 1 (11:36):
And right right for sure?
Speaker 5 (11:38):
For sure, I think I think that would leak. I
do think though, we've got to keep on our eye
on the fact that Jelaane's attorney and Todd Blanche are friends.
They have a friendship, a relationship, however you want to
call it. They've been on podcasts together all this other stuff.
There is a link between these two guys. So I
think we need to keep you know that. That is
(11:59):
how the I think the communication would happen. Todd would
say to him, Hey, buddy.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
You know right, so that but the but here's the
thing about this. You've opened a conspiracy theory, right, You've
opened the door to a huge conspiracy theory. The people
all his people want is information. So you're going to
do what You're gonna have Glaine testify it was.
Speaker 5 (12:25):
Well, she's gonna I think that the fix that they're
working up is she's gonna say, oh, of course it
was George Soros and Bill Clinton and Bill Gates and
and Hillary Clinton and John Podessa. She's gonna she will.
This is a woman who is not raised to live
in prison.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
Right, no question you who would be in prison?
Speaker 5 (12:45):
I think she's right up here.
Speaker 1 (12:47):
Jesse has turned on his camera give us a look
which is like a look of horror.
Speaker 5 (12:57):
That's the that's the Jesse, what the hell look?
Speaker 1 (13:00):
Listen to me. I'm happy to if I if it's
my time to go to prison, I will. I will
go to prison and not like it.
Speaker 5 (13:07):
But but will you shenk a bitch?
Speaker 1 (13:10):
I cannot, I can't, I cannot comment. But so here's so,
here's a question. So as someone who occupies the Earth's
one still is one of the very few people who
still live on the actual Earth where things make some
sense assemblance of sense. Her coming out and being like
I've gotten a pardon everyone, that strikes me as not.
(13:34):
I just don't understand how that will get rid of
conspiracy theories.
Speaker 5 (13:37):
Won't that it actually will, it actually will make it worse.
And I have a theory of the case mine. I'm
curious what you think about this. I think there's a
part of Trump he says, okay, if Juleanne comes out
and says, oh it was Bill Clinton. Oh is this
democrat that democrat, this Democrat that democrat. I think Trump
thinks that will be enough for his people. I don't
(13:59):
think that's the case anymore. I don't think I don't
think they're going to buy it and say, oh, well
it's all better now. Good thing we released a woman
who ran a pedophile ring for prison. I don't think
he has that much latitude with them anymore.
Speaker 1 (14:13):
So that's the question. And also Trump doesn't want this
to keep going, so doing more like I think the
grand jury testimony idea was that what would happen is
he would say, let's release the grand jury testimony, and
(14:33):
everyone knew it wouldn't be released, so they'd be like, oh,
we tried to get the grand jury testimony released, but
we couldn't get a release. But I'm not convinced that that.
Even that just extended the news cycle.
Speaker 5 (14:45):
He has made every wrong move on this Molly whatever
mojo Trump has had for ten years. That left all
of us going, ah shit, he changed the news cycle again.
It's not working now. And even though he's had to
run away to Scotland for the weekend to try to
avoid it, he's still getting hit in Scotland on it.
He's still taking damage. He can't stop the the he
(15:08):
can't stop the drip, drip drip, even if he puts
Julane in front of the camera and she said, oh no, Donald.
Donald barely knew Jeffrey. He went to one party and
left early.
Speaker 1 (15:18):
Right, the people will believe flight logs, you have the
does that if you have the flight logs, how does
that work? So Jeffrey never knew him except for these
flight logs, right.
Speaker 5 (15:30):
And they were they barely they ran into each other
in New York occasionally. But here's the thing. First off,
I think even our terrified media, right once this breaks,
will chase her down like a wild animal. The answer
to this story will not just be I have no
further comment, right, you will never have a day of
peace no matter what. I also think, and I heard
(15:53):
over the weekend that one major outlet is looking at
going back and doing stuff on the victims finally, which
I think.
Speaker 1 (16:02):
There are more than two hundred victims.
Speaker 5 (16:04):
Yeah, which I think that right. I think the numbers
around two hundred. And I think if they do that,
that also extends the story because you know what Donald
Trump will do. Oh, I barely knew her. She was
a crazy slut or whatever is going to be. It's
gonna be eging Carol only worse.
Speaker 1 (16:20):
But even you know, just when Lawrence read the testimony
of these girls who were groomed at fourteen and dismissed
at eighteen because they were too old, it was pretty
jarring to hear that. I mean, I think of myself
as pretty cynical, and I was like, whoa, you know.
Speaker 5 (16:40):
That that was a That was a hell of a
piece too, by the way, Yeah, yeah, but it is it,
I mean, and that is really all the sort of haha,
we got you Maga flipping c aside. They really are
having to ask themselves a question right now, and it
is am I okay as a MAGA supporter, As a
Trump supporter, Am I okay with Donald Trump to protect
(17:02):
his political position freeing a woman who sexually abused and
who groomed and provided underage girls for rape because that's
what it was to Jeffrey Epstein and whoever else is
on the list with the I mean, I think a
lot of them are having a I mean, I don't
(17:23):
know if it's their first moral quandary, but it is
a moral quandary for a lot of them where they are,
and the more prominent ones I think are also processing
this like there's going to be a post Trump era.
Am I going to die on the hill of defending
Donald Trump's friend Gawaine Maxwell? Right, it's a real he is, apparently,
But well.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
Greg Kelly has a complicated relationship with being accused of things.
As you and I both know, it does not stop
me that Greg Kelly might in fact have some problems,
you know.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
Yeah, to put it.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
Understanding why sexual abuse is bad to yes, to put
it very mildly. I wonder if we could talk about
kind of what the calculus here is for Trump world.
We have scandals coming from different parts. It feels like
a leaky boat. So we have HEGXET scandals, right, we
(18:26):
have more stuff leaking about the signal chat. We have
some We definitely.
Speaker 5 (18:32):
See the polygraph scandal.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
Right, So there's a polygraph scandal where he's polygraphing people
for leaking to the press. There's this other scandal where
he is sending classified information on signal. There's so he's
he's moving people around. He hired someone from DOGE, he
fired them. He you know, there's a lot of like really.
Speaker 5 (18:54):
I think if the Epstein story had not broken, Hexas
would be gone.
Speaker 1 (18:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (19:00):
I know. I know that that Trump still has a
warm spot in his heart for Pete Hexith because he's
good on TV. But I I think the handful of
semi quasi dimmy Himmy responsible adults in the White House
recognize this guy is a disaster. And I was told
by a foreign diplomatic person about a month ago that
(19:25):
he is not welcome. They don't want to talk to him. Yeah,
I mean, he's unprofessional, he's dangerous, and he's weird. Now
I think the d O Jays scandal is is I
think we are days, not weeks from Bongo leaving, either
being thrown off or fired or leaving on his own
(19:45):
two feet.
Speaker 1 (19:46):
And the reason that you say that, I think is
because of the post last night where Bo said I
have seen things.
Speaker 5 (19:53):
This is.
Speaker 1 (19:55):
Something right, and so that means if he's seen things
that scarred his that means that he is saying that
the admin is not showing the Maga crowd everything they
want to see that's right, and that means that eventually
somebody is going to have to go, because either Trump
gets rid of Bongino or Bongino gets rid of Bondy.
Speaker 5 (20:21):
I have heard that Pam Bondi has cashed all her
chips in with all of her various patrons. Brian Boward,
very influential lobbyist in Trump universe, has been apparently like,
I will die on this hill, sir. She must not
be thrown out. It would be the worst thing for us. YadA, YadA, YadA.
But I think she's in trouble though I think I
think she's in trouble. But the basic the base is
(20:43):
never going to give up on her. They're never gonna
stop dating her.
Speaker 1 (20:46):
But if you have a choice between Bongino Bondi, is
it just does anything Trump wants? Bongino does not. He's
a wild barn, right, So if you have a choice
between Bongino and Bondio, he's really tight with the guitar.
Is Bonnie would be the play in my mind?
Speaker 5 (21:05):
Yeah? Yeah, yep. But the problem I think that they're
having about firing Bongino is they understand that Dan Bongino
has a notoriously poor impulse control over his temper and
his tongue right, right, and while he's trying to play
the role of I am now a federal official at
(21:26):
a senior level in the FBI, Yeah, they also remember
he's a lunatic, batshit crazy short fuse podcast bro. Yeah,
And so he's going to be out there I think
as something that worries them. They're probably worried that if
they fire him, and it's not like Dan has to
(21:46):
spend more time with his family, it'll be that he
could pop and say some crazy shit. And again, going
back to what we talked about last week, this whole
pedophile thing in their heads, this belief that it's the
Rosetta Stone breaking the Democrats there, the Democrats are all
eating children, blah blah blah, all that crap. Yeah, I
(22:06):
think Bongino believes that shit.
Speaker 1 (22:08):
You still think he does.
Speaker 5 (22:09):
I still think he does. I think he believes it still,
and he knows there's a critical mass of Maga types
out there who either if they don't fully believe it,
they believe it enough that it's causing them great anxiety
now because of the cognitive dissonance of Trump's defense of
Maxwell and the Trump's cover up of this, of this story.
Speaker 1 (22:33):
And that's the ten percent. That's ten percent of Trump's
base that from Brizio says is qan on adjacent.
Speaker 5 (22:41):
Yes, and they those people have a there's a big
disadvantage for the Republican Party broadly with those people. They
were low propensity voters before Trump, right, They've been high
for pensity voters since Trump. And if they if their
relationship with Trump is broken somehow, I think they've become
(23:04):
low propensity voters again, and they just throw their hands
up and say, screw it, I'm not going to do this.
They all lie to me. The elites even got to Trump.
But you know, Elon Musk has got a new party
for him, and they could they could absolutely help the
pedophiles in the America Party with Elon Musk.
Speaker 1 (23:19):
Yeah, I'm sure the America Party is going to do
great because Elon is really just killed it with everything
he's done since Tesla.
Speaker 5 (23:26):
It's going to be fantastic.
Speaker 1 (23:27):
He go when he Veer's non rocket The stuff he
does is just beyond like you stick to the rockets.
Speaker 5 (23:35):
Build the fucking rockets. Just build the Falcon rockets. They
do great. Don't try anything complicated or with too many
moving parts.
Speaker 1 (23:42):
Right exactly. So Commers is out the Senate, it's still in.
I think they're going out soon for the August recess.
We'll come back and we will have elections in New
Jersey and the state you are in right now? What
state are you in right now?
Speaker 5 (23:58):
Great state of Virginia.
Speaker 1 (24:00):
Can tell us tell us what's happening in the Commonwealth.
Speaker 5 (24:03):
Well, look there, the governor's race statewides and the and
the legislative races in Virginia and New Jersey happened in
the off year, the off cycle. So this year we
have potential to get into Virginia and start to roll
some real numbers up in the legislative side. We also
have a really consequential governor governor's race because Abigail span
(24:23):
Murder is right now blowing the doors off this race,
raising money, running a perfect campaign against the woman Republican.
Speaker 1 (24:32):
Oh yeah, because she's one of my favorites.
Speaker 5 (24:35):
There's an African American woman named Winsome Seers, right, and
Winsome Seers is one of these people.
Speaker 1 (24:41):
For whom guns loves Jesus, for.
Speaker 5 (24:44):
Whom, yes, for whom the Lord speaks to her very
directly and has told her that Donald Trump is the way,
the hope, the light, and the faith. And that is
really burned her campaign. She tried to get a little
less Trump adjacent, and her own people devoured her for
the Vaga movement just tore her apart. And right now
(25:04):
they're kind of stuck with her because she's Chris los
Avita's client, and los Avita is apparently in a raging
fury all day every day. They can't find anything to
get a hold of it. Spamberger on in terms of
oppo or policy stuff, Spamberger is not taking the bait there.
(25:26):
I mean, they're the Republican parties thing now is oh,
what about trans athletes? And Spamberger is like, what about
cost of living?
Speaker 1 (25:34):
Can I ask you a question? Because I want to
talk about this. So Megan Calay, in her infinite wisdom,
had on, it's very angry, she's very angry. She had on, Uh,
this guy Ram Emmanuel, perhaps you've heard of him, And
she said Rom. She said, Rom, can can can a
man become a woman? And Rom said no. No. If
(26:01):
I had been asked that, you know what, I would
have said, what It's none of my fucking business.
Speaker 5 (26:06):
Right, I don't. I don't care. And by the way,
how's your homeowners insurance? How's your how's your health?
Speaker 1 (26:13):
But it's also like, why do you care what other.
Speaker 5 (26:15):
People do with them? So actually, I've come up with
a new, a new line on this. I was with
a group of Democrats yesterday and give them a little
bit of communications advice. And a candidate said to me,
our person said to me, an advisor, not a candidate
said to me, Okay, so what happens when they hit
my my my client with trans bathrooms all that shit?
(26:38):
I said, listen, you just looked them straight in the eye,
and you say, you seem really interested in trans people.
I don't want to see your browser history. I don't
care what you're interested in that. You're obsessed with that,
that's weird to me. But I'm obsessed with with lowering
the cost of living, making sure people can afford housing
and healthcare and get jobs. But if you want to
(26:58):
keep talking about that stuff, I'm sure there are websites
about trans people that would that you can spend a
lot of time on.
Speaker 1 (27:04):
I mean, it just seems like, why, it's other people's bodies.
It's other people's if you're gay, if you're straight, if
you're this, or you're that, I don't care. It has
nothing to do with me what other people do in
their bedrooms.
Speaker 5 (27:15):
The idea of the trans thing as the culture war
issue of our time. The Republicans one in part using
that issue to motivate African American, Hispanic and young white
men away from the Democrats, because that is an issue
they care about in some weird, sort of visceral level.
But the problem with the issue for the Republicans is
(27:36):
they are now playing what I call the one note flute.
After a while, nobody's like, everybody's like, Okay, yeah, I
get you're obsessed with trans people. Whatever your problem is,
that's your problem. I'm obsessed with you know, You've got
to bridge out of this because they really would like
to do. You know, the Democrats are all trans Antifa
or whatever the crazy shit of the day is.
Speaker 1 (28:00):
Rick Wilson, Mollie John Fast Will you come home?
Speaker 5 (28:03):
You know I will.
Speaker 1 (28:06):
Brendan Duke is a senior director for Federal Budget Policy
at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Welcome too,
Fast Politics.
Speaker 4 (28:18):
Brendan, thanks for having me on Mollett.
Speaker 1 (28:20):
You've worked in budget, you work at a think tank
on budget. Right now, I want you first. We just
before we started talking, we were talking about this idea
what Trump two point zero would the BBB looks like?
So talk us through what this bill is going to
actually look like for the deficit, for the sort of
financial health of the country at this moment.
Speaker 4 (28:43):
Right. So, the talking points from the White House is
this is great for working class families and it reduces
the deficit. But the Congressional Budget Office, the official scorekeeper
that people non partisan, nonpartisan, it's run by a former
Bush appointee to the ANNAW and they say the bill
ads three point four trillion dollars to the deficit over
(29:04):
the next ten years. And that doesn't even account for
all the accounting games they've done to hide the cost,
which I could talk about. The second thing here is
that it is a massive tax cut for the highest
income Americans. For millionaires, it's something like an eighty thousand
dollars tax kite for them on average, whereas low and
middle income people barely get anything. And then on top
(29:26):
of that, they're paying for these tasks that's partially by
cutting healthcare and by cutting programs that help people buy groceries.
And we know that doesn't go to millionaires. We know
that goes to you know, working class folks trying to
get by.
Speaker 1 (29:39):
So if you're a trumper, you're going to say, but
that's not true because there's no tax on tips, there's
no tax on overtime. Explain to us how that is
actually not true.
Speaker 4 (29:49):
Right, Well, so, like the key thing is is they
love talking about that stuff, but like new attacks on
tips costs like seventy billion dollars, the tax that's for
people making over half million dollars are one point three
trillion dollars, which I can't even do the math on
the number of zeros of how much larger that is.
So like in all their talking points, that's all they're
(30:12):
talking about, right, is no tax on tips, no tax
on overtime, et cetera. But it is a minuscule fraction
of the bill where you can basically just forget about it.
So I think that's like kind of a shield by
which they're using to defend these large task cuts. And
then on top of that, I just think that you know, fundamentally,
at the end of the day, something like no tax
on tips, less than five percent of low wage workers
(30:33):
work into professions at least out janitors, least out security guards,
lease out all of those guys. They don't get a
dollar from that. And then many of these low you know,
low wage workers you get it, don't even pay income taxes.
So their tax bill goes from zero dollars to zero dollars.
So you know, again, you know, it's just like trying
to distract us from the fact that like basically a
(30:54):
centerpiece of this bill is increasing the amount somebody can
inherit tax free from fifteen million dollars to thirty million dollars.
Like that's kind of more at the heart of the
bill and is actually much larger than things like no
tax on tips.
Speaker 1 (31:08):
For okay, so no tax on tips is also small,
but it also isn't it like a lot of people
who pay a lot of people don't actually pay taxes
on tips, right.
Speaker 4 (31:17):
Well, so first of all, there's likely a compliance issue
where you know, a lot of that money doesn't get
reports virus. Now a lot of a lot that's more
compliant now that people pay everything with credit cards, right,
So that does go to the irs, So that's a
big part of it. But one third of tipped workers
just don't make enough money to pay income taxes, right.
(31:38):
So again it's moving from paying zero dollars in taxes
to paying zero dollars in taxes right, right, So they're
not paying anything on that.
Speaker 1 (31:46):
Okay, So talk us through why the deficit is actually
weirdly not growing at this moment, despite the fact that
they're about to grow the deficit by a lot.
Speaker 4 (31:56):
Right when you look at this bill, it costs three
point four trillion dollars over time years, but they're actually
holding back a lot of that explosion in the deficit
by charging more for imported shoes and coffee, right, So
they've done these massive increases in tariffs that are actually
going up supposedly, you know, starting next week, and they've
(32:17):
done these massive increases that are going into the treasury,
and the Trump administration is now citing that as a
reason why the bill is physically responsible. And it's just
a reshuffling of the tax burden right where we're cutting
the estate tax, making it easier for really wealthy business
owners to not pay taxes, right on the one hand,
But on the other hand, people you know, buying shoes,
(32:39):
buying coffee, you know, all those sorts of things, they're
going to pay more at the cash register as or
results of that. So it just makes our you know,
tax system just much more aggressive.
Speaker 5 (32:50):
Right.
Speaker 1 (32:50):
So part of why young people are having buyers remorse,
and I'm talking about people eighteen to thirty five, is
because they are used to a progressive Obama style tax
system and all of a sudden they're back in like
nineteen eighty one Reagan, right.
Speaker 4 (33:09):
Right, I mean, I think Trump has done this kind
of trick where he talks about things like, oh, maybe
we'll tax carried interest. Right, So for privacuity executives, first,
that didn't happen.
Speaker 1 (33:19):
It wouldn't happen. You kidding me, carrying you interest, you
just go on.
Speaker 4 (33:25):
But he just talked, and it's just amazing how those
tweets get all the attention, right that he floats these
ideas and then they never actually happen. But then what
does happen are the giant tax cuts for those people,
and then on top of that again making it so
people buying imported bengos and strawberries and tomatoes pay more.
Speaker 1 (33:47):
So the third quarter had negative.
Speaker 4 (33:49):
Growth, so the first quarter of the year. So for
physical stuff we have a different quarter, but for like GDP,
we use the normal quarters where January is the first quarter. Yeah,
that had negative growth.
Speaker 1 (33:59):
Okay, that was the last most recent quarter had negative growth,
like point five.
Speaker 4 (34:04):
I think it's about negative one is where it currently stands.
And then we're i think next week getting the GDP
report for the second quarter, you know, which you know
concluded you know, about a month ago, so we're gonna
get that and I think, you know, people think it'll
be positive, but a lot of that is just making
up for the negativity of the first quarter, right right,
(34:24):
and so net you know, will have something like one
percent GDP growth, which is you know, not that great.
It's supposed to be about two percent. It's just like
supposed to be kind of the normal amount. And Trump
is talking about three percent, while one percent is lower
than three percent.
Speaker 1 (34:40):
If for some reason that comes out as negative growth
will be in reception by.
Speaker 4 (34:44):
A lot of technical definitions.
Speaker 1 (34:46):
Yeah, but you think it will still be positive.
Speaker 4 (34:48):
Yeah, I think most people think, you know, most people
think it'll be something like two percent, which sounds good
and normal, except for the fact that we already went
down in the first so it needs to be higher
to make up for that, you know, for being bad
in the first quarter.
Speaker 1 (35:02):
Right, all right, so we have this regressive taxation, we
have these tariffs, which I guess are going to hit soon.
It just would love you to explain, like he's so
back and forth. We don't know what's the deal, what's
not a deal. If he puts them in place, they
are going to radically reshape the way we buy things.
Speaker 4 (35:21):
Right, Yeah, So, I mean it's kind of crazy because
a lot of people are saying, oh, he's backed off
of the tariffs, but you know, his backing off of
the tariffs was about like a ten percent tariff for
everywhere but China and thirty percent for China. But now
we're talking about like fifteen to twenty percent for all
of these major trading partners like Japan, right, So we
(35:44):
have ratcheted it up. You know, there's a rumor that
you may land at something like fifteen percent, So they
have just ratcheted that up. And you know, right now,
you know, there's three groups that could pay the terriffs, right,
which is foreigners they can lower their prices, the company
that actually you know, pay the US government for it,
could you know, just take lower profits. And third they
(36:05):
can pass it on to consumers. So step one we've
seen has not been happening. Import prices have not been following,
which means some form of Americans are paying the terriffs, right.
And then as of right now, most of it has
been companies you know that have just been reporting lower profits.
So GM said, you know, reported lower profits because they're
(36:27):
just paying it out. You know, Nike is reporting lower profits.
They said they're going to do quote unquote surgical price
increases later in the year. But I think a lot
of these companies have been holding off on passing it
on to consumers because there's a lot of uncertainly about
what the terrorists are if they are legal, and you know,
those sorts of things. But for example, a lot of
people expect on cars that when they roll out the
(36:50):
twenty twenty six models, all of a sudden, they'll be,
you know, several thousand dollars more expensive. They're not going
to say it's the tariffs, but yeah, that'll be why.
Speaker 1 (36:58):
And I think it's important to realize, like with Amazon,
Bezos had wanted to do a tariff calculator and Trump
was like, no way. And a lot of these places
have wanted to, like have said they were going to
make things more expensive because of tariffs, and Trump was
mad at them and then promised retribution. So the idea
(37:18):
here is that somehow companies will keep having less profits
so that Trump doesn't get mad at them. Right, I mean,
that's really what's happening here.
Speaker 4 (37:28):
I think that's like temporary, and they're going to figure
out a way to do that because the laws of
gravity when it comes to you know, shareholder profits are
going to hold eventually. Right, So again they're gonna like
with car companies, I think what they'll say is, oh,
we have a new stands system, and somehow that drives
up the price of the car by seven thousand dollars.
It's probably not the sound system that caused that. It's
probably the terrorifs. But you know they're going to say that.
(37:50):
So I think there's going to be a lot of
marketing in terms of, you know, trying to avoid that subject.
Shareholders are not going to be cool with getting less profits, right.
Speaker 1 (37:58):
Yeah, And I think it's interesting in this moment because
eventually people will put it together that tariffs are making
things more expensive. And one of the sort of legacies
of trade wars when we've seen them historically, is that
it's very hard to get people to bring prices down, right,
(38:19):
Like that really good example of the dryer tariffs where
they teariff dryers, washing machines became more expensive. It's like,
I just I wonder, so you tear if you tear
off all these things, Like, I feel like there's a
likely scenario where Trump tariffs a bunch of stuff. Everyone
freaks out, right, people stop buying things, fruit starts rotting
in the stores. He goes, okay, you know taco, right.
(38:43):
Trump always chickens out, and then he can't get the
prices down because that's not how any of this works.
Speaker 4 (38:51):
Yeah, I mean totally, and he'll get frustrated about it, right,
And I mean I think that's why he's you know, pressure,
and I think, you know, all this frustration. Now he's
blaming the Federal Reserve or not cutting rates because they're
scared of the inflation from these terrorists. And now he's
talking about you know, he's been talking about firing the
FED chair and basically pulling like an Argentina where the
(39:15):
you know, the interest rate is what he decides it
to be, which you know history tells us causes inflation.
Speaker 1 (39:20):
Yeah, it's not going to be good. I want you
to talk about the bond markets because like there's a
lot of anxiety that Trump is going to do stuff
to the country this time that you can't be undone
with the democratic administration. And I think that is why
there's so much skittishness in our debt, in the owning
(39:40):
of our debt, which is the bond markets. So I
wonder if you could talk to us about sort of
what's happening there and its anxieties and what you see
going on there.
Speaker 4 (39:51):
Yeah. So I mean, just first of all, without with
some of the trumpy stuff, without the trumpiest stuff, it's
just you know, we passed the three point four trillion
dollar paid. You know, are making very little effort to
bring down our deficits right where the tariffs are mostly
kind of keeping you know, high deficits in place. But
you know, we're still we still have a lot of debt, right,
(40:11):
and that's just because you know, again he's refusing to
raise taxes on rich people.
Speaker 5 (40:15):
Right.
Speaker 4 (40:16):
So that's like the first baseline is that there's just
a ton of debt and it's not clear. You know,
it's like supply and demand. The supply of treasuries on
the market is just a ton, right, which produces you know,
people's interest in buy our debt. So that's the first part.
And then the second part is he's looking at this
and interest rates are high, and he's like, oh, my
interest costs are high. And you know, you could imagine
(40:37):
if you have credit card debt and you're paying a lot,
you know, each month to the credit card company, while
you know, he's thinking, well, maybe I could just set
the rate lower and that'll be great, Which would be
nice if you could do that with your credit card company,
And in some sense maybe kind of try to do that,
I guess with the federal reserve. Except the problem is
these are markets, right, and so markets are going to
(40:58):
expect are going to expect high inflation, which drives up
interest rates on its own right, and then on top
of that, undermining central bank independence. We know that's how
you get higher inflation. That countries that have an independent
central bank just have lower inflation but better growth and
lower interest rates, because it's credible when you turn the
(41:19):
central bank into Argentina, that's not the case. Setting. Now,
there are some challenges here where it's not clear as
the legal authority to fire the FED chair. And then
on top of that, even when he appoints one, it's
a committee that sets the interest rate. So that's going
to lead to a whole other thing where he's going
to you know, he may appoint somebody who you know
is kind of his his lackey, right, kind of basically
(41:41):
tries to act like a Benia Republic central bank chair,
but the rest of the FED, ah, right, and then
you can imagine the tweets that will flow from there, and.
Speaker 1 (41:51):
He may not be able to get that person congressional approval.
It's hard for me to imagine that everyone's going to
sign up for this.
Speaker 4 (41:57):
Yeah, I mean, it's a choice facing him. Now, there
are some you know, credible people that have been floated
who would like lower interest rates, like Chris Waller at
the FED, who's a very well respected person. If he
named that person, he would probably get Democratic votes. But
if he appointed somebody like Kevin Hassett, who is just
a lackey for him, and that looks really bad. And
(42:18):
you know, I think it becomes a key question of
where is Trump's political capital essentially ten months from now,
And you know, I mean, we will see he's doing
a great job of spending it. So you know, it
just depends on where you know, Senate Republicans look both
the pick and what's going on with Senate Republicans at
that point.
Speaker 1 (42:36):
I want you to explain, just for two seconds, it
seems as if and again I don't want to be hopeful,
because I think it keeps backfiring on me to have
any kind of hope. But it does strike me that
the fact that both Republican and Democratic senators seem like
(42:56):
they cannot trust russ Font when it comes to recisions,
when it comes to spending, when it comes to empowerment.
The only people you can ever get to vote against
this administration no matter what they pretend they believe. Are
Mitch Susan, Lisa Murkowski, and Tom Tillis. So that's it.
(43:20):
And they never vote all together because then they could
stop legislation and since they don't want to ever do that.
But I mean, it does seem like those people are
the ones if you could have anyone possibly vote against
any of those.
Speaker 4 (43:35):
Yeah, it's a really interesting thing. I like to joke
that there's you know, three parties in the Senate of
their Democrats, Republicans and members of the Appropriations Committee. And
you know, three of those you mentioned, McConnell, Murkowski, and
Collins are all senior members of the Appropriations Committee, right,
And normally the way we found the government is a
bipartisan deal sixty votes in the Senate, which means you need,
(43:59):
you know, bipartisan support to do it right, and all
three of these members are veterans of that process, right,
And just I think generally, you know, the appropriations committees
as a whole, you know, know, that's how it works,
and they value that. And what you know Vought has
been doing is being basically undermining those bipartison deals and
frankly undermining the authority of those Republican appropriations members, right,
(44:23):
So when they impound funds legally don't spend money that
Congress hold them to spend. That's directly undermining the Appropriation's committee.
And when they do this recisions thing, that first undermines
the Proparation's committee again because those did not come from
the committee. And then second completely undermines the bipartisan process.
And they know that that is going to cause, you know,
(44:44):
the future of the way we do appropriations to break
down because there will be no trust because essentially what
they plan on doing here is take sixty votes to
pass an appropriation spill, but fifty votes to do a recision.
And you can obviously see those incentives where you have
a bi partisan deal and then directly undermine it via
partisan vote, which is what happened with that recisions package.
(45:05):
I think the one thing that gives me hope is
they barely passed that recisions package, and that was like
the most like Republican friendly we're going to defund USAID
and PBS version, right, and like they barely got that
to the finish line. When it comes to like core
domestic programs, I think that is going to make that
a you know, like a tougher road.
Speaker 1 (45:27):
But Russavot doesn't give a shit, like he'll just not
give the money.
Speaker 4 (45:31):
Right, it's blatantly illegal. And yeah, I mean, I mean
a big problem is Congress's tools are the law, and
it's very hard to pass laws even with Republican support
that prevents somebody from breaking the law. Right, that's just
a core challenge there. But I mean, I think that
you know, we will see. I mean, I think that
you know, there can be pressure, right, I mean, Russbott
(45:53):
is not Donald Trump, and he can convince Donald Trump
to do stupid stuff. And Donald Trump has no problem
blame other people for that, right, So you know, maybe
that you know, Chris pressure there.
Speaker 1 (46:04):
That this was thank you, thank you, thank you, thank
you for joining.
Speaker 4 (46:08):
Us, thanks for having us.
Speaker 2 (46:11):
No moment.
Speaker 1 (46:14):
Rick Wilson, Well, John Fast.
Speaker 5 (46:17):
The fucker Reaward of the Week the month the year
has to go to Todd Blanche for flying on a
DOJ private jet to Tallahassee, Florida.
Speaker 1 (46:24):
US. One does as one does.
Speaker 5 (46:27):
Obviously I'll be flying back on my private jet, which
is of course Delta Airlines. But the visit to Tallahassee
was the most obvious and corrupt bribe attempt I've ever seen,
and the idea that he would go down there suddenly
at this at this late date, the case.
Speaker 1 (46:43):
Is four years.
Speaker 5 (46:45):
Four years, she's been in prison and brings a fucking
gift basket. Okay, she came back to the to the
goddamn prison with some kind of basket. And I think
this matter will go down in DOJ's history. Is one
of the most shameful days in the history of DJ
because it is absolute overt corruption in an attempt by
Donald Trump's personal lawyer who now just happens to get
(47:06):
a paycheck from the government to suborn her perjury and
her lies so he can protect himself from the Epstein files.
It is really disappointing.
Speaker 1 (47:14):
It ain't over yet, baby, No.
Speaker 5 (47:16):
It is not more to come, folks.
Speaker 1 (47:19):
That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in
every Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday to hear the best
minds and politics make sense of all this chaos. If
you enjoy this podcast, please send it to a friend
and keep the conversation going. Thanks for listening.
Host
Molly Jong-Fast
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