April 23, 2025 • 12 mins
In this missing piece from the Rod and Greg Show on Tuesday, April 23, Guy Ciarrocchi, Political Commentator and a contributor to American Greatness, joins Rod and Greg for a conversation about his piece on how tariffs are both an economic tool and a reality check.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Okay, then nice right.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Five born.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
The Rod and Greg Show here on Utah's Talk Radio
one oh five nine can or rest life everywhere of
course on the iheartradiop Make sure you put us number
one on your presets. If you haven't downloaded the new app,
shame on you because it is really great, very easy.
It's like having a cart radio in your hand.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Well that's what you used to do with it.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
Great to be with you on this Tuesday.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
I'm Rod Arkeet, I'm citizen.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
All right, think about this, Greg, go back, go back,
like our next guest suggested in an article, and we'll
talk to him about this here in a minute. Go
back sixty days. Just go back about a couple of months.
That would take us to what the first of or
the end of April. That the end of February, that'd
be about right, yeap, was anybody talking about in tariffs
(01:04):
at that time?
Speaker 3 (01:05):
No, it had been a topic that that Trump has
talked about for years and when he talked about on
the campaign trail. But yeah, it was not one that
was on It was front of I would argue, was
not front of mine with the American people or Washington.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
But because of his actions and I think his courage.
Look at the narrative today, Greg, everybody is talking about
tariffs or in fact, I ran into somebody today, What
do you think on these tariffs? Rod, I mean, everybody
is talking about.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
Him, and yeah, and I am. I am very excited
for this interview because I think that we need to.
I think the discussion we're about to have is the
right discussion about realigning our trade relationships with our allies,
with nations around this world, weaning ourselves off the dependency
of China, which has grown to an unsustainable rate. And
(01:49):
I don't know what everybody thought how that would roll out,
but we're going to hear. I think we're going to
hear the right case made by the right guy. You
know why it's right because he's from Southwest Pennsylvania. He
came from the same school of politics I came from Roden,
Ladies and gentlemen. This man guy is Shrocky. He comes
from the Elz Hilm and the Tom Corbett. He comes
from this whole place that I came from, where we
saw the working we were the working class. We were
(02:11):
also Republicans. We saw it all and Trump is delivering.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
So this is why Guy in his article and we'll
talk to guy here in justin second had a quote
from Donald Trump once saying he was elected to represent
the citizens of Pittsburgh, not Harris. You remember that guy, Guy,
How are you welcome to the Rod and Greg Show.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
Greetings from the East Coast. Thanks for having me back,
and yeah, I look forward to it. Right And as
much as you know, I know Greg's proud, proud of Pittsburgh.
But that told us in so many words, in so
many ways, those few words told us who he was.
He was not interested. He did not run for president
so he could attend world meetings in Switzerland or Paris.
(02:54):
He did not run for president to make everybody the
New York Times happy. He ran for president because he
thought towns like Pittsburgh, that cities across the country, that
there were people who had been forgotten and he wanted
to open up their businesses and return a state of
normalcy and pride in America. And I know about time
we had a president who thought their primary that thought
(03:15):
his primary job was to revive the United States. We
hadn't had this thadal Reagan, and it was far too
long of a gap. But I'm glad he's making the case.
Speaker 3 (03:23):
Guy, you bring up a really good point in your
article about that everyone crying about this so called chaos
that the president has caused, while at the same time
really ignoring the chaotic conditions in our towns and our
factories and our families that have really seen industry disappear
in this in our country, we don't make things anymore.
We see a supply chain. We learned during COVID that
(03:45):
a global supply chain that is very, very fragile. This
real time inventory was a farce if things go unplanned.
So I think it's I think it's important for people
to know that we were not on a sustainable path.
That if you think it's chaotic now, wouldn't you agree
that if we'd have stayed the status quo, we had
some pretty chaotic times coming at us pretty fast.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
We sure did know you're exactly right. And there's a
few things to keep in mind. I mean, first is, look,
we can divide the world into you know, friends everybody
else in China, uh and lit's sen of our friends, right, friends,
We can try and work it out. Look, we should
work it out with Canada. But if Canada wants to
(04:27):
start protecting some of its industries. If it wants to
protect Canadian timber or Canadian produce, that starts a spiral effect.
So we should sit down with Canada and of course
try to get as close to zero and taris and
have free trade with Canada, and then you have you know,
other nations that maybe we're not as close with that
(04:48):
we don't trade as much with. Let's try and get
down to as low we can. But then China, China,
it's not just a trade issue. It's just not an
economic issue. It's a quality of life and a national
security issue. We learned during COVID, not only to your point,
Greg about the supply chain, but we learned that so
much of our medicine, our medical supply and as we
(05:09):
all know, you know, our electronics are microchips. I mean
everything that you know for all of your listeners, everything
today in their lives that helped make it either safer
or improve the quality. China had a hand and too
much of hid for medicine. You might have taken for
perhaps people with artificial heart valves or other things up
(05:33):
to the computers, or they're listening on the phones, they're
listening on the radios, they're listening on the cars they
have Chinese supplies in them, And we were putting ourselves,
as you said, Greg, in a collision course where China
could have had us by the throat and at any
moment chosen to say that they weren't going to give
us the medicine, or they weren't going to give us
(05:54):
the medical products, or they weren't going to give us
the computer technology. And they roll much of the world's
minerals right which we're sitting on in Utah and Nevada
and Alaska that we need to get. So this is
not just about the fact that we want to have
the ability to trade you know, you know, Pennsylvania mushrooms
(06:15):
with the rest of the world, which is important. But
the second issue is we couldn't have let China do it.
So you're right, we were on an economic collision course,
but we're also on a national security and quality of
life collision course. And Trump has sort of, you know,
like you see in the movies. He sort of grabbed
everybody by the jacket collars and shook him and said,
you've got to listen to this, And is only Donald
(06:35):
Trump can Washington and everybody around the world is now
listening and say, Okay, this is a discussion we have
to have because the United States wants us to and
it's about time I got.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
Let me ask you this. You made an interesting point here.
Do you think that Donald Trump is doing a good
job right now in selling what he's trying to do
to the American people, helping them understand that our drugs
come from China, our aluminum or steel, you name it,
come from China. Is he doing a good job right
now in selling this message to the American people?
Speaker 2 (07:10):
So I think he's trying. I think he could do better.
I think he's trying, And I think part of the
problem is not just affect that so much of the
legacy media is hurting him. It's that he came in,
you know, he came in with so many fires burning. Yeah,
And it's the immigration issue and courts trying to stop
(07:32):
him from doing things they never stopped any other president
from doing. It's the spending issue and doge and we're
finding out how much money's waited. So look, I think
I give him an a for effort, but I do
recognize the other reality that he is fighting so many
battles that I'm not sure that even well intended citizens
can follow the debate on immigration, can follow the debate
(07:55):
on spending, can follow the debate on budget, and follow this.
And that's not a criticism of my neighbors or your listeners.
It's just that challenge. I think if there's a sort
of an overarching message, it's that he's saying things are broken.
I'm trying to fix them, and I'm willing to take
the political heat to do it. And I think that's
the overarching message, is that things were broken. I'm trying
(08:18):
to fix them, and a lot of people are getting
in in the way. But I'm going to keep fighting
no matter what. And that's sealing the border, getting rid
of terrorists in our country, dealing with our trading partners. Look,
it's a challenge, and I understand, you know, I understand.
You know that folks, you know, follow the stock market
every day like they do, you know, baseball standings. You
(08:41):
see these momentary blips up and down. But the reality
is we were having products that were too expensive. We
were having too many small towns and too many industries
closing down, and that was not sustainable. And we're having
China held us by a stranglehold. That's not sustainable. We
have enough minerals in this nation. We have enough precious metals,
(09:03):
we have enough natural gas. I'm sitting in a state
as great news, but I'm sitting in state that is
sitting on more energy, almost twice the energy of Saudi Arabia,
almost twice the energy of Saudi Arabia. Sitting underground in
Pennsylvania and with our friends in Ohio and West Virginia,
the United States of America can be energy independent for
(09:23):
two hundred years to lower our costs and we can
build things again. And the President is trying to do
this step by step. And yeah, sometimes he fights so
many battles, I'm not sure we can follow them all,
but they're all important battles to be fought.
Speaker 3 (09:37):
Quick question, real quickly. The time horizon twenty four, our
seven news cycles. I've actually been surprised at our allies.
The rest of the world seems to say, okay, let's
get together, let's make a deal. It seems to be
very hospitable, like they want to get this right. China
is kind of an outlier, which we're glad to see.
How much time does he have? I think he's moved
a lot in a short amount of time. But we're
(09:58):
a very impatient people. We think that all the sh
should have happened by end of business yesterday. The stock
market has a time horizon of like twenty minutes. Is
he going to have enough time to do what he
needs to do to get this right?
Speaker 2 (10:10):
Yeah? I do. I think if by summer we start
to see some deals. And again, this is just a
piece of the puzzle. The others is spending at some point.
At some point, I hope and pray that our friends
in Congress start getting him a budget. It will show
more responsible spending that will lock in the tax breaks.
The market will react to locking the tax cuts in place,
(10:32):
The market will respond positively. I think he has to
the summer to start showing some deals. And I think
I think places like Canada, Italy, some of the other nations, Vietnam,
South Korea. I think there are places where we get
things that will start to show improvement here. I think
if Congress gets it back together, we get a budget.
I think if by this summer we start to see progress, yes,
(10:54):
And I think again he'll have a moment to come
back and say, hey, my fellow Americans, the border was
in crisis. We had millions of people here, We had
terrorists walking around our country. The budget we were spending
billions of dollars on stuff sending. I mean, as you
see these stories, every time a Democratic Congress member or
some interest group yells at money being caught off, I
(11:14):
yell when I find out. You know, Australia had to
have an emergency meeting of its cabinet because they didn't
know how they were going to sustain their universities if
we didn't help them to which my response was, why
in Heaven's name are we helping the Australia keep their
university from This is in.
Speaker 3 (11:30):
A third world country.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
This is not about sending medicine to Bangladesh. I mean,
why are we helping? You know, I have friends in Australia,
but they don't you know, we're friends. They don't need
our help. So I think by summer, if we start
to see things turn around, he'll be picked up. But
the reality is most people that have voted for him
are standing by him. And that's the other side of
the story we have to tell most people that voted
(11:52):
for him are standing by him. Most of the noise
or people who didn't want him to succeed in the
first place.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
That's right, Guy has always great conversation. Thanks guys, know
we'll be talking to you again. Enjoy the rest of
the evening. Thank you, guys, Thanks very much, Take care Guy,
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
All right.
Speaker 1 (12:05):
That's guys, Hiraki, great insight. And I think I think
it's by summer we're going to need to start seeing
some things good done. And I agree with Guy, I
think we will.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
I'm on domestic.
Speaker 3 (12:15):
I'm just I was happy to hear the perspective. It's
it really is the main street and everyday worker. We
have just got to have things we make in this
country for a lot of reasons, economic security, but also
national security.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
All Right, Moore coming up on The Rodden Great show
and Talk Radio one oh five nine kN rs.
Okay, then nice right.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Five born.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
The Rod and Greg Show here on Utah's Talk Radio
one oh five nine can or rest life everywhere of
course on the iheartradiop Make sure you put us number
one on your presets. If you haven't downloaded the new app,
shame on you because it is really great, very easy.
It's like having a cart radio in your hand.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Well that's what you used to do with it.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
Great to be with you on this Tuesday.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
I'm Rod Arkeet, I'm citizen.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
All right, think about this, Greg, go back, go back,
like our next guest suggested in an article, and we'll
talk to him about this here in a minute. Go
back sixty days. Just go back about a couple of months.
That would take us to what the first of or
the end of April. That the end of February, that'd
be about right, yeap, was anybody talking about in tariffs
(01:04):
at that time?
Speaker 3 (01:05):
No, it had been a topic that that Trump has
talked about for years and when he talked about on
the campaign trail. But yeah, it was not one that
was on It was front of I would argue, was
not front of mine with the American people or Washington.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
But because of his actions and I think his courage.
Look at the narrative today, Greg, everybody is talking about
tariffs or in fact, I ran into somebody today, What
do you think on these tariffs? Rod, I mean, everybody
is talking about.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
Him, and yeah, and I am. I am very excited
for this interview because I think that we need to.
I think the discussion we're about to have is the
right discussion about realigning our trade relationships with our allies,
with nations around this world, weaning ourselves off the dependency
of China, which has grown to an unsustainable rate. And
(01:49):
I don't know what everybody thought how that would roll out,
but we're going to hear. I think we're going to
hear the right case made by the right guy. You
know why it's right because he's from Southwest Pennsylvania. He
came from the same school of politics I came from Roden,
Ladies and gentlemen. This man guy is Shrocky. He comes
from the Elz Hilm and the Tom Corbett. He comes
from this whole place that I came from, where we
saw the working we were the working class. We were
(02:11):
also Republicans. We saw it all and Trump is delivering.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
So this is why Guy in his article and we'll
talk to guy here in justin second had a quote
from Donald Trump once saying he was elected to represent
the citizens of Pittsburgh, not Harris. You remember that guy, Guy,
How are you welcome to the Rod and Greg Show.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
Greetings from the East Coast. Thanks for having me back,
and yeah, I look forward to it. Right And as
much as you know, I know Greg's proud, proud of Pittsburgh.
But that told us in so many words, in so
many ways, those few words told us who he was.
He was not interested. He did not run for president
so he could attend world meetings in Switzerland or Paris.
(02:54):
He did not run for president to make everybody the
New York Times happy. He ran for president because he
thought towns like Pittsburgh, that cities across the country, that
there were people who had been forgotten and he wanted
to open up their businesses and return a state of
normalcy and pride in America. And I know about time
we had a president who thought their primary that thought
(03:15):
his primary job was to revive the United States. We
hadn't had this thadal Reagan, and it was far too
long of a gap. But I'm glad he's making the case.
Speaker 3 (03:23):
Guy, you bring up a really good point in your
article about that everyone crying about this so called chaos
that the president has caused, while at the same time
really ignoring the chaotic conditions in our towns and our
factories and our families that have really seen industry disappear
in this in our country, we don't make things anymore.
We see a supply chain. We learned during COVID that
(03:45):
a global supply chain that is very, very fragile. This
real time inventory was a farce if things go unplanned.
So I think it's I think it's important for people
to know that we were not on a sustainable path.
That if you think it's chaotic now, wouldn't you agree
that if we'd have stayed the status quo, we had
some pretty chaotic times coming at us pretty fast.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
We sure did know you're exactly right. And there's a
few things to keep in mind. I mean, first is, look,
we can divide the world into you know, friends everybody
else in China, uh and lit's sen of our friends, right, friends,
We can try and work it out. Look, we should
work it out with Canada. But if Canada wants to
(04:27):
start protecting some of its industries. If it wants to
protect Canadian timber or Canadian produce, that starts a spiral effect.
So we should sit down with Canada and of course
try to get as close to zero and taris and
have free trade with Canada, and then you have you know,
other nations that maybe we're not as close with that
(04:48):
we don't trade as much with. Let's try and get
down to as low we can. But then China, China,
it's not just a trade issue. It's just not an
economic issue. It's a quality of life and a national
security issue. We learned during COVID, not only to your point,
Greg about the supply chain, but we learned that so
much of our medicine, our medical supply and as we
(05:09):
all know, you know, our electronics are microchips. I mean
everything that you know for all of your listeners, everything
today in their lives that helped make it either safer
or improve the quality. China had a hand and too
much of hid for medicine. You might have taken for
perhaps people with artificial heart valves or other things up
(05:33):
to the computers, or they're listening on the phones, they're
listening on the radios, they're listening on the cars they
have Chinese supplies in them, And we were putting ourselves,
as you said, Greg, in a collision course where China
could have had us by the throat and at any
moment chosen to say that they weren't going to give
us the medicine, or they weren't going to give us
(05:54):
the medical products, or they weren't going to give us
the computer technology. And they roll much of the world's
minerals right which we're sitting on in Utah and Nevada
and Alaska that we need to get. So this is
not just about the fact that we want to have
the ability to trade you know, you know, Pennsylvania mushrooms
(06:15):
with the rest of the world, which is important. But
the second issue is we couldn't have let China do it.
So you're right, we were on an economic collision course,
but we're also on a national security and quality of
life collision course. And Trump has sort of, you know,
like you see in the movies. He sort of grabbed
everybody by the jacket collars and shook him and said,
you've got to listen to this, And is only Donald
(06:35):
Trump can Washington and everybody around the world is now
listening and say, Okay, this is a discussion we have
to have because the United States wants us to and
it's about time I got.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
Let me ask you this. You made an interesting point here.
Do you think that Donald Trump is doing a good
job right now in selling what he's trying to do
to the American people, helping them understand that our drugs
come from China, our aluminum or steel, you name it,
come from China. Is he doing a good job right
now in selling this message to the American people?
Speaker 2 (07:10):
So I think he's trying. I think he could do better.
I think he's trying, And I think part of the
problem is not just affect that so much of the
legacy media is hurting him. It's that he came in,
you know, he came in with so many fires burning. Yeah,
And it's the immigration issue and courts trying to stop
(07:32):
him from doing things they never stopped any other president
from doing. It's the spending issue and doge and we're
finding out how much money's waited. So look, I think
I give him an a for effort, but I do
recognize the other reality that he is fighting so many
battles that I'm not sure that even well intended citizens
can follow the debate on immigration, can follow the debate
(07:55):
on spending, can follow the debate on budget, and follow this.
And that's not a criticism of my neighbors or your listeners.
It's just that challenge. I think if there's a sort
of an overarching message, it's that he's saying things are broken.
I'm trying to fix them, and I'm willing to take
the political heat to do it. And I think that's
the overarching message, is that things were broken. I'm trying
(08:18):
to fix them, and a lot of people are getting
in in the way. But I'm going to keep fighting
no matter what. And that's sealing the border, getting rid
of terrorists in our country, dealing with our trading partners. Look,
it's a challenge, and I understand, you know, I understand.
You know that folks, you know, follow the stock market
every day like they do, you know, baseball standings. You
(08:41):
see these momentary blips up and down. But the reality
is we were having products that were too expensive. We
were having too many small towns and too many industries
closing down, and that was not sustainable. And we're having
China held us by a stranglehold. That's not sustainable. We
have enough minerals in this nation. We have enough precious metals,
(09:03):
we have enough natural gas. I'm sitting in a state
as great news, but I'm sitting in state that is
sitting on more energy, almost twice the energy of Saudi Arabia,
almost twice the energy of Saudi Arabia. Sitting underground in
Pennsylvania and with our friends in Ohio and West Virginia,
the United States of America can be energy independent for
(09:23):
two hundred years to lower our costs and we can
build things again. And the President is trying to do
this step by step. And yeah, sometimes he fights so
many battles, I'm not sure we can follow them all,
but they're all important battles to be fought.
Speaker 3 (09:37):
Quick question, real quickly. The time horizon twenty four, our
seven news cycles. I've actually been surprised at our allies.
The rest of the world seems to say, okay, let's
get together, let's make a deal. It seems to be
very hospitable, like they want to get this right. China
is kind of an outlier, which we're glad to see.
How much time does he have? I think he's moved
a lot in a short amount of time. But we're
(09:58):
a very impatient people. We think that all the sh
should have happened by end of business yesterday. The stock
market has a time horizon of like twenty minutes. Is
he going to have enough time to do what he
needs to do to get this right?
Speaker 2 (10:10):
Yeah? I do. I think if by summer we start
to see some deals. And again, this is just a
piece of the puzzle. The others is spending at some point.
At some point, I hope and pray that our friends
in Congress start getting him a budget. It will show
more responsible spending that will lock in the tax breaks.
The market will react to locking the tax cuts in place,
(10:32):
The market will respond positively. I think he has to
the summer to start showing some deals. And I think
I think places like Canada, Italy, some of the other nations, Vietnam,
South Korea. I think there are places where we get
things that will start to show improvement here. I think
if Congress gets it back together, we get a budget.
I think if by this summer we start to see progress, yes,
(10:54):
And I think again he'll have a moment to come
back and say, hey, my fellow Americans, the border was
in crisis. We had millions of people here, We had
terrorists walking around our country. The budget we were spending
billions of dollars on stuff sending. I mean, as you
see these stories, every time a Democratic Congress member or
some interest group yells at money being caught off, I
(11:14):
yell when I find out. You know, Australia had to
have an emergency meeting of its cabinet because they didn't
know how they were going to sustain their universities if
we didn't help them to which my response was, why
in Heaven's name are we helping the Australia keep their
university from This is in.
Speaker 3 (11:30):
A third world country.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
This is not about sending medicine to Bangladesh. I mean,
why are we helping? You know, I have friends in Australia,
but they don't you know, we're friends. They don't need
our help. So I think by summer, if we start
to see things turn around, he'll be picked up. But
the reality is most people that have voted for him
are standing by him. And that's the other side of
the story we have to tell most people that voted
(11:52):
for him are standing by him. Most of the noise
or people who didn't want him to succeed in the
first place.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
That's right, Guy has always great conversation. Thanks guys, know
we'll be talking to you again. Enjoy the rest of
the evening. Thank you, guys, Thanks very much, Take care Guy,
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
All right.
Speaker 1 (12:05):
That's guys, Hiraki, great insight. And I think I think
it's by summer we're going to need to start seeing
some things good done. And I agree with Guy, I
think we will.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
I'm on domestic.
Speaker 3 (12:15):
I'm just I was happy to hear the perspective. It's
it really is the main street and everyday worker. We
have just got to have things we make in this
country for a lot of reasons, economic security, but also
national security.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
All Right, Moore coming up on The Rodden Great show
and Talk Radio one oh five nine kN rs.
The Rod & Greg Show News
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