Tariffs: Two Weeks to Flatten the Curve

How long is this uncertainty going to last, how much will it cost, how much patience do we have to deal with it, and what does Sen. Deb Fischer think?  We attempt to answer all of these questions today.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Scott Vorhees, just to let you know how things are
starting off today. I spent the last few seconds wondering
why my headphone sounded weird, particularly in my right ear,
which I have had some issues with over the last
few years. I don't know if it's excess water or
water vapor. I've been told that Mike get caught in there.
I use the drops occasionally. Sometimes I just deal with it.

(00:21):
And I thought, Ah, something sounds weird in my right ear.
Is there a button pressed here on the audio control board?
Am I losing my hearing? And then I just adjusted
my ear because my headphone wasn't on correctly, And it
turns out it's perfect now, so let me I'm.

Speaker 2 (00:36):
Just sitting askew yeah, on your head.

Speaker 1 (00:39):
Well, I was doing a few things there. I was
doing that. I was doing some other work during the
time when Anne uh said here's Scott Vorhees, and then
Matchbox twenty was playing that song there Let's see how
far We've come, which is along with Stevie Wonders uptied
Everything's all right, a good theme for our lives and

(01:03):
this program. But I look at this, this thing with
the ear and the headphone in a better way. I'm
just I'm just looking like, Okay, here's a problem, let's
fix it. And I did see, so let's just carry
that over with everything we do from here on out.

(01:23):
How hard can that possibly be? All right? Now? Where
was I? What's going to cost more? Thanks to the
market reaction to the President's tariffs, and then China said, oh, yeah,
you're gonna tariff us. We're a tariff you. We just
tear off each other all day. So that's now also happening.
The jobs report came out an hour and a half

(01:46):
ago and was incredibly strong, so much stronger than what
they'd expected. It added like two hundred and thirty thousand
jobs or something like that.

Speaker 2 (01:56):
Where should I send my resume?

Speaker 1 (01:58):
I know, yeah, these are for the jobs from the
last month. If you didn't get a job last month,
there's no telling what's going on right now. We have
no idea what's happening. I think a lot of companies, though,
are and we we partner with so many local and
national partners here on this radio station, and the feedback

(02:18):
we're getting is it's it's a little less optimistic than
when Trump was elected in November. Now it's it's it's
cautious optimism, but also there's a lot of timing that
people are wondering about, Like, all right, we the President said,
there might be some bumps in the road, but everything's

(02:39):
going to be great. We keep hearing about this timeline
three months, like is do they have any basis for
knowing why? Three months? Is that? Does that mean a year?
Two weeks? Is it like two weeks from the Tom
Hanks movie The Money Pit? How long until this project's done?
Two weeks? Which was all always the dismissive answer, given

(03:01):
that could mean anything from two weeks to the next
year of your life. Great movie eighties movie reference to uh.
On this segment of the program, there we go, We'll
ding that one. Let's try Brad Brad, Brad brobad. Sorry,
I could quote money Pit all day. But what I'm
wondering about is not so much what's going to cost more?

(03:22):
And I've got a whole list. I'm not asking this rhetorically,
like what's going to cost more? I have a list
compiled here by Forbes, not the magazine, a guy named
Scott Forbes.

Speaker 2 (03:34):
I went to school with, Oh yeah, I know that guy,
Yeah no.

Speaker 1 (03:37):
And a guy named Dale Forbes that I used to
work for I used to work with in Kansas City. Well,
he thought his name was Forbes for a long time.
Then we realized it was Forbes.

Speaker 2 (03:45):
Is that kind of like Jerry and Larry and Terry
from Parks.

Speaker 1 (03:49):
And rec Yes, And we talked to him. He yes,
something like that. Yes, I know it's not on what stock?

Speaker 2 (04:05):
Hm, that's not going to cost more?

Speaker 1 (04:08):
Some Well there, you know, there are the people who
look at the stock market fallowing and think, ooh, we're
just hours or maybe a few days away from some
tremendous opportunities. Most of us out here are like, ooh
my four oh one k's that hurts. But but see,

(04:29):
but that is part of it. It's not so much
to me. What's going to cost more? I'll do the
end of this question first it will the question is
what will our reaction to all of this be? The
President says, these countries have been ripping us off. Anything

(04:51):
that we produce here in America and send to them,
they put a big tear, They slap a big tariff
on it, which makes it more expensive by the time
it gets to their marketplace in their country, meaning that
our products, our grain, our beef, our tech, you know,
whatever it is that we're sending over there costs more
by the time it gets to their store shelves, and

(05:13):
their shoppers are more inclined to buy stuff produced domestically
or with tighter trade partners than America, who they can
just rip off, and therefore it's hard for us to compete. Now, meanwhile,
they're like, all right, we're going to send all of
our stuff over there, whether it's coffee, avocados, cars, meat,

(05:36):
or whatever cheap garbage you get on TIMU, We're going
to send all that stuff to you. Well, we should tariff. No no, no,
no no. If if you put a tariff on our stuff,
we'll just stop importing your stuff altogether. It'll just go away.
What do you think of that? Oh, okay, we're sorry.
And that's how America has been taking advantage of for
this entire time. President Trump is calling it out. He's right.

(06:01):
But in the meantime, now we've got stuff costing more.
You know, there's a thirty five percent tariff on something,
you know, some chocolate or olive oil or jewelry or
something like that. Car there's going to be a cost
for that by the time it comes back to us.
Some of this stuff is stuff that you buy some

(06:24):
of it. You've got options. You don't have to buy
this particular tomato. There are tomatoes that are cultivated here
in America and they'll be on the store shelves next
to the tomatoes you get from wherever. And now you
look and go, okay, well this costs a little bit more.
But you know, there's a difference between tomatoes or I
don't know how many people have brand loyalty for tomatoes

(06:47):
versus clothing or whiskey or wine, or eye pods, tablets, pads, phones,
and the rest of this stuff. And there are people
that say, well, all this stuff is a lot of
this it's going to cost more. I think what President
Trump wants is for American consumers to be savvy enough

(07:09):
that when we go buy something, we look at the
stuff that is imported from other countries, made in wherever,
not the USA. And a lot of people they don't
really check to see what was made where. They just
look at the price tag and if the price tag

(07:30):
is cheaper. A big example of this was what was
happening what used to happen in DeWitt, Nebraska near Lincoln,
which was the home of where we made vice gripts.
And then they said, well, it's a lot it could
be a lot cheaper if we make our vice gripts
someplace else, And so a lot of these jobs were
sent elsewhere, and then the vice gripts were made and

(07:52):
sent back to us, and they were a little bit cheaper.
But there are most Americans that were like, I don't know,
de Witt, Nebraska from Bangkok, and I just look at
the price of this stuff and I just buy whatever's cheapest.
But there's another dynamic that's been to play the last
few years, and that is the stuff that we used
to buy costs a lot more than it did four

(08:13):
years ago, in some cases twenty to thirty percent more.
You look at stuff like building materials, you're looking at
even a bigger cost and a longer timeframe to get
that stuff than five years ago. During this time, Americans
have just become conditioned to spending more. We don't, I mean,

(08:38):
we might complain about it. There might be a strongly
worded social media post. There might be someone on the
news going, I'm on a fixed income, I can't afford all.
You know, all these things are legitimate, but at the
end of all of that, what happens, We just buy it,
We just pay it. Whether it's what's happened with the

(09:01):
rising costs and then dropping costs and the rising cost
what's happened with gas prices. Gas prices is a great example,
not subject to the tariffs for whatever reason. But we've
paid as much as four dollars or more per gallon
of just regular eighty seven great unleaded gasoline. Now that

(09:22):
price is back down somewhere around you know, two eighty
three dollars, depending on where you go, where you live.
But when when it was up around four dollars, what
did we do? We said, I can't believe this, and
then we put the nozzle in our car and we
pumped our full tank, and we paid it, and we
drove off muttering, I can't believe that we just paid it.

(09:44):
We just pay for all this stuff. The last few years,
inflation is jacking up costs. What do we do? We
paid it. People maybe decided not to buy some things
that they decided they didn't need, but overall, whether it's
the heating of or cooling of our holmes, the filling
up of our gas tanks, the buying of our stuff.

(10:04):
We've just taken it in the shorts time and time again.
We've just paid it. So now if the President wants
to say this stuff that you used to get cheaper
than the American made stuff's gonna cost more money, it's
still probably gonna be a little cheaper. It's gonna cost
a bit more. And people are like, hey, I used
to get this for this, Now it costs that. Oh, well,

(10:25):
everything goes up and they're just gonna buy it. They're
still just gonna buy it. I don't know how much
of an impact long term any of this is going
to have unless American consumers look at the maid in
the USA label and buy that. But in some instances

(10:47):
it costs a little bit more. Lucy has been waiting
for me to take a breath so she could chime in.

Speaker 2 (10:56):
I don't see where you say. We just took it.
We just bought it, We just paid for it. I
completely disagree on a couple of things. We had to
and there wasn't much we could do about it in
the in the short term, like mud OPBD, there's not
a lot we can do about them raising their prices.

Speaker 1 (11:17):
Oh, you can adjust your thermostat.

Speaker 2 (11:19):
That doesn't do any good. You've had a whole show
about this.

Speaker 1 (11:23):
Oh they well, they'll still come back and say, yeah,
we're gonna cost you. We're gonna charge you more because
you're using you're using less less energy.

Speaker 2 (11:31):
But I disagree that you say we did nothing about it.
Look at the last election, I'd say that it's doing
something about it.

Speaker 1 (11:38):
True, But I mean, I'll answer I'll argue with myself
on this one. I'm the only one who can capably argue.

Speaker 2 (11:47):
With me that's probably true.

Speaker 1 (11:49):
What when inflation was jacking up everything and the Biden
policies of just spending and all this stuff was happening,
and we were paying twenty to thirty percent more for
a lot of stuff during that administration, And you know what,
what did I expect us to do? You either pay it,
you wait for the next election and hope that the
next team of politicians does something about it. Or what

(12:11):
you'd march on the White House with torches and pitchforks
and say we're not going to take it anymore. And
this ends now, Like what did I expect us to do?
You either don't buy something, or you just take it,
or it's torches and pitchforks, and some some people couldn't
afford torches and pitchforks.

Speaker 2 (12:31):
But yeah, a lot of this stuff, some people just
didn't buy it anymore. And the companies you saw so
many companies, especially food companies, I'd say mostly food companies
that did the short packaging I'm forgetting in the word
for it, shrink flation, shrink flation, thank you. They would
either make the packaging bigger or they would just take

(12:54):
some of the product out. And I would say the
majority of companies probably did that. But what happened was
we may not have even have noticed that as much
because many of us we had to switch to a
store brand, or we had to just stop buying whatever
that when I'm talking about groceries, we would just stop
buying some of the more luxury items. I haven't had

(13:16):
lobster in.

Speaker 1 (13:17):
A week, a whole week. Oh no, wonder, you've been
so crappy this week. You didn't get your regular lobster in.
Take someone, get Lucy some lobster.

Speaker 2 (13:27):
I haven't had lobster in over two years or more.
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (13:32):
Oh my gosh, I know. Well it's crazy. It's Friday,
It's lobster Day. That's right.

Speaker 2 (13:38):
It could be, and I'm doing it.

Speaker 1 (13:40):
And I'm tell you what. I'll set a couple aside there.
On Fridays, I like to go down to Carter Lake
and get my haull of lobster. Yes, I think they're lobster.

Speaker 2 (13:50):
They're so good.

Speaker 1 (13:51):
They're the little one. Oh those are crawdads. I thought
they were lobster.

Speaker 2 (13:56):
Lobster two fay two fay.

Speaker 1 (13:58):
Right, Okay, So what what costs more? What can you
potentially pay more for? I'll give you this list next.
Scott Goyes News Radio eleven ten Kfab scottikfab dot com.
Tim says, totally random, but I miss the Stevie Wonder
music to start each hour of the show. Hi, Lucy,
that's from Tim. Yeah, Stevie Wonder.

Speaker 3 (14:20):
Hi.

Speaker 1 (14:20):
Tim comes and goes to start each hour of the program.
He has been with me, unbeknownst to him since nineteen
ninety six. So I'm in no mood to completely end
uptid Everything's all right by Stevie Wonder as an intro
to the show. But I do set it down for

(14:41):
a little bit and then it comes back. So when's
it gonna come back? I don't know this year sometime
Forbes magazine, there's a lot of may in this. No,
there's not. It's April. No, I mean like costs on
this may go up. No one really. Even the announcement

(15:02):
here yesterday from Volkswagen v dub said, well, fine, Trump's
gonna put a tariff on some of the German automobiles. Volkswagen,
then we're going to have to increase our cost. And
then of course people said how much how much you're
gonna increase the cost, and they're gonna say, well, we're

(15:23):
gonna talk about that and let you know here later
this month. So we'll see in that intim whether it's Germany,
I don't know what's going on with China, Mexico, Canada, Ghana,
whatever there is negotiation underway. Think about how different things

(15:44):
were a week ago, a month ago. What are things
gonna look like next week, later today, six months from
I don't I don't know. All this stuff could be
incredibly short term. It might not even happen at all.
For example, well, the first thing that Forbes talks about says,
well this might cost more. They start talking about Apple stuff. Well,

(16:05):
Apple just a few weeks ago said hey, we love
America I tell you what. I know that we've we've
made a lot of this stuff in other countries and
then we just bombard America with it, and now it's
going to be subject to the tariffs, and our stuff's
gonna cost more. I'll tell you what, how about an
investment in America? How about one hundred billion dollars in investment.

(16:29):
Trump's like, that's a good start, Okay, all right, so
we're just joking. Two hundred and fifty billion dollars in investment.
That's a lot of money. Yep, double it. Oh right,
we were just kidding with those first five hundred billion dollars.
And so that's what Apple just recently put on the table,

(16:50):
five hundred billion dollars an investment in America. That's manufacturing,
that's jobs, that stuff made here that wouldn't be subject
at the tear so when it starts off saying well,
analysts from this group said that Apple might need to
increase prices for several products to offset the estimated thirty

(17:11):
nine billion dollars in costs from tariffs this year because
they rely very heavily on China. You want to know
why China suddenly like all right, you're gonna tariff us.
We're gonna tear a few because we are coming after
their tech manufacturing. China manufactures all this stuff. It's in
our phones, it's in our our grids and any brains,

(17:35):
and it's in our brains. We've got chips that have
been put under our skin. Don't go to an X ray.
They're gonna find all the spy chips in there.

Speaker 2 (17:43):
And they'll have all your data.

Speaker 1 (17:45):
See, and then they're gonna they're gonna know all that stuff.
Sounds like Lucy has a conspiracy theory. I admit I
started that one. So we're coming after their tech anytime.
Our I mean, this is Russia's nothing to try with,
and I like to trifle and Russia has nothing to
trifle with. But China, if they decide all right, it's

(18:06):
go time, one of the first things they do is
they can shut down our tech. They can shut down
our grid, they can shut down our computers, they can
shut down our ability to communicate and mobilize because all
the stuff is made there. Trump is coming after China
with this. Apple is immediately saying we need to do
more business in America. Yeah, some of this stuff is

(18:31):
going to be more expensive. And hurt in the short term.
What's the long term solvency of our nation? Look like,
what's that worth to you?

Speaker 2 (18:40):
Well, who's to say that China doesn't just say we're
not paying the tariffs and we're going to start quietly
shutting down parts of the electrical grid in the US.
It's not us. Yeah, it's not us. But it could
be us.

Speaker 1 (18:53):
But it might be.

Speaker 2 (18:53):
But it's not us.

Speaker 1 (18:54):
Right, they could do that, but then they stop getting fed.
They have a few people to feed over there. We
largely feed them, and.

Speaker 2 (19:02):
They'll just lock them into apartment complexity buildings and bar
the doors.

Speaker 1 (19:07):
But if a bazillion hungry Chinese people decide to storm
the bast steel that's in France, yeah, I mean figuratively, that's.

Speaker 2 (19:15):
A long one.

Speaker 1 (19:16):
Yeah, let's go. China's like, oh, they seem to be
heading towards France. Okay, they didn't realize it was a
figurative thing. Meanwhile, people the bas Steel are like, uh, sir,
you might want to take a look at this. A
bazillion hungry Chinese, angry people coming out here, like, hey,
we're in France. We had nothing to do with this.
So Versailla is like all right, everyone's stand guard. Anyway,

(19:41):
if Apple, they say, well, the iPhone sixteen Promax could
go from its current price tag of one five hundred
and ninety nine dollars and it could jump to two
three hundred dollars. Okay, first of all, people who want
that phone will probably just pay more. They're like, this
is the best phone? Why because it costs the most.

(20:03):
But I don't know when the last time you bought
a phone was? Did you pay full price for that? Phones? Cars?
College costs they put a price tag on there. No
one actually pays that. This is just a we're trying
to get to a point where you're going to feel
comfortable in paying it. We're certainly going to feel comfortable
in taking your money, and we both feel good about it.

(20:26):
We made money. You felt like I really got one
over on them. You know. It's it's like, all right,
so this phone costs two three hundred dollars. Tell you what,
how would you like to have it for free? Wow? Free? Yeah?
All you got to do is sign this eighty seven
year contract you can't get out of. Okay, Hey, here's

(20:47):
college costs. College? This college costs forty two thousand dollars. Wow,
it's a lot of money. I'll tell you what, what
if it costs twenty one thousand, Like, how do we
get here? Hey, you're just a shrewd negotiator. I didn't
even say anything. No one really pays full price for
a lot of this stuff. So that's great. That's what
the price tag was. Big deal. No one pays that stuff.

(21:09):
I mean, we all end up paying for it in
some way, whether it's the subsidization of our tax dollars
for things like college, or our long term phone contracts
month to month. When it comes to phones and all
the rest of this stuff, what about some of these
other things? What about avocados, olive oil, coco butter? What
about the coco butter. We'll talk about that next. Scott

(21:29):
Bodies where You're Going? News Radio eleven kfab Val Kilmer,
who played Jim Morrison in the Doors movie, passed this week,
so therefore the Doors have gotten a bit more attention.
They actually released a statement the surviving members of that
group thanking ville val Kilmer for doing a wonderful job
playing Jim Morrison and said he will always be part
of our legacy. Tom Cruise had a moment of silence

(21:53):
for Val Kilmer as top gun co star at an
event last night.

Speaker 2 (21:57):
That's really odd.

Speaker 1 (21:58):
That's sweet. Yeah, that's cool.

Speaker 2 (22:00):
I wanted to interrupt you because I just found out
that fiftieth and Ames is closed Eastbountain. That is due
to a crash. And that's all I have. So Aimes
eastbound closed at fiftieth.

Speaker 1 (22:12):
Thank you very much. That's Lucy Chapman right there. Scott
atkfab dot com. Dan emails and says China will outlast us.
Their culture is way more patient, and the communist dictator
doesn't care about us in America or probably his own people. Dan,

(22:34):
you might be right. You talk about the Chinese people
are more patient when it comes to this. You know
why they're more patient because they don't have the opportunity
to speak out. Meanwhile, I mean, if a member of
the Chinese Party, not the Communist Party, like someone has said,

(22:55):
you know what, maybe we can have a different way
of doing things here in China. And in fact, I'm
going to do a twenty five hour filibuster like Corey
Booker did in America speaking out against my government. And
here's how I'm gonna start. He wouldn't last twenty five seconds.
So the Chinese people are more patient. You know why,

(23:16):
because they've been beaten into submission and they're not allowed
to speak. Here in America, we're like, oh, Corey Booker,
what a great patriot. He just talked for twenty five
minutes against their twenty five hours straight against Trump. Yep,
you know what happened. Here's the timeline. Trump was president
doing whatever he wanted. Corey Booker talked for twenty five
hours and then said all right, I'm done, and then

(23:38):
Trump during that entire time and since still president doing
Trump stuff. But you know, good speech, Corey, nice job.
So what else potentially costs more? I say potentially because
this is all from Forbes magazine, their assessment, and it
says it's not immediately clear which prices would be directly

(24:02):
impacted or how each company would respond to tariffs. But
there are some people wondering, like, all right, so does
everything just cost twice as much? Now? What how does
this work? I told you about Apple? But Apple just
invested five hundred billion dollars in America in the months
to come. They're looking to get around this tariff, and

(24:23):
they're also America is looking to get Apple out of China.
That already seems to be happening. What else coffee? Oh no,
don't come for our coffee about.

Speaker 2 (24:37):
Are you shut up in there? You don't even drink it?

Speaker 1 (24:40):
Yeah, but I yeah, I understand the appeal of a
daily shot, a caffeine shot.

Speaker 2 (24:46):
Up and tell me about the coffee.

Speaker 1 (24:47):
About eighty percent? Did you have your coffee yet? Today?
About eighty percent of the coffee beans imported into the
US come from Latin America. What really, I thought they
came from Canada. But and most coffee imports come from
Brazil and Colombia, and one Beldez, they come directly from
a little satchel, from a man and a donkey. His

(25:10):
name is one. And both of these countries, Brazil and Columbia,
face tariff rates of ten percent. So if you but see,
here's without going into the whole detail about how all
of this works. When we're talking about a ten percent

(25:32):
tariff on coffee beans, that's not the production of the
coffee beans. It's it's the transport of the beans. But
then they have to come here and then all these
American probably I don't know what labor unions are in
charge of all the coffee stuff. All this you know,
the restaurant, confectionery, and tobacco that's all like lumped in

(25:53):
there in there, so they're taking all that and then
you know that adds a huge cut to it. By
the time you drink your overpriced coffee here in America,
it's probably not going to be ten percent of the
whether it's the thirty cent cup of coffee you get
at a convenience store or the eight dollars cup of

(26:14):
coffee you get at a fancy coffee shop, the hazelnut
decaf latte mocha Chino with a twists, it's not going
to be like, well, that costs ten percent more of
the eight dollars you spent on it. The tariff on
the coffee bean that the bean is a relatively small

(26:40):
cost related to the full distribution, the manufacturer, the production,
the pain of the employees, and the keeping of the
lights on to the coffee shop where you go buy
the thing. Now, if these places say, hey, this just
gave us an opportunity to raise our costs by ten
percent and blame Trump, they're buying, it's not ten percent

(27:01):
on the entire creation of your coffee drink. It's they
didn't do ten percent on the espresso machine, ten percent
on the employees making it. They had ten percent on
the trucks bringing it to you. It's ten percent on
the bean. You know what, the cheapest part of your
cup of coffee is the bean. So what would be

(27:24):
Let's say you buy a three dollars cup of coffee
based on Trump's tariffs here on the bean. You know
what that cup of coffee would now cost you if
they factor in this additional cost, like three dollars and
two cents. Oh my gosh. Trump's the worst. What's this
guy doing? He's a monster. Where's Corey Booker when you
need him? So that take that thought and pour it

(27:51):
through with the entire list of other things they say
could cost a little bit more coffee. Cocoa beans. These
are largely reported by the Ivory Coast. Ecuador and Ghana.
They faced tariff race between ten and twenty one percent
cocoa butter from Indonesia and Malaysia. They got thirty two
and twenty four percent, respectively. Olive oil from the European Union.

(28:15):
That's Greece as well as Spain and Italy, though the
US is also sourced olive oil from Turkey and Argentina
they got ten percent tariffs, so that olive oil could
cost a little bit more. You know, one of the
bigger costs could be gems and jewelry diamonds. India handles

(28:36):
nine out of every ten diamonds process globally. I didn't
know that, did you know that.

Speaker 2 (28:44):
Nine out of ten or one out of ten, nine,
nine out of.

Speaker 1 (28:47):
Ten, nine out of every ten diamonds processed globally. India
has a hand in that, and the US accounts for
roughly thirty percent of India's annual gym and jewelry export.
So diamonds might cost a little bit more. Diamonds already
cost a whole bunch. I mean, there's some of this
stuff like if you have to ask what it costs,
you can't afford it.

Speaker 2 (29:07):
But well, I'm just gonna have to break up that friendship.
It really wasn't a lasting of a lifetime. Wasn't my
best friend?

Speaker 1 (29:15):
Well I wouldn't. They're not going to come and the diamond,
the giant diamond you already have on your finger.

Speaker 2 (29:22):
Oh no, I had to trade that for lobster. That's
already gone right.

Speaker 1 (29:24):
They're not going to charge you additionally for it. That's
what wout purchase. Well, you're on some level, everyone in
a relationship still paying for it. But Lucy's got a
huge diamond on her finger. Helicopters try and land on it.
That thing isn't enormous.

Speaker 2 (29:42):
Spot it from outer space.

Speaker 1 (29:43):
Right. Sugar largely imported into the US from the Dominican Republic, Brazil,
and the Philippines. They all got between ten and seventeen
percent tariffs. Does that mean the cost of everything that
you eat with sugar goes up between ten and seventeen percent. No,
because sugar is also mixed with this and that is

(30:03):
transported from this truck from that union to this place
that then has to pay for the equipment and the
electricity to make the thing and then send it someplace
else for someone else serves it to you. And that's
not ten percent on all that stuff. It's a small
part of the bigger thing that you eat with sugar.
So if they try and say it's a trump tax

(30:24):
of an additional ten percent, again they're lying. Rice. More
than sixty percent of our rice imported into America comes
from Thailand, India, and Pakistan.

Speaker 2 (30:36):
But it doesn't have to.

Speaker 1 (30:38):
But it doesn't have to we can make our own rice.
I guess I don't know.

Speaker 2 (30:42):
Well, I think that there's a lot of rice that
comes out of the Southern States where you've got a
lot of marshy areas. Doesn't rice have to grow in
marshy areas with crocodiles.

Speaker 1 (30:55):
I know that the box of rice I get, when
I add water to it to make it marshy, it
does create better rice.

Speaker 2 (31:03):
There you go. If that's the San Francisco treat.

Speaker 1 (31:05):
If I eat it dry, it's not as good. Yeah,
MARSI rice, marshy rice. A lot of the stuff. We
do produce some of this stuff in America.

Speaker 2 (31:19):
Yeah, you know, and sugar too. We may not grow
sugarcane or we can make sugar out of beets.

Speaker 1 (31:25):
Right. Well, you know, Trump, after he's done invading Greenland,
will just find the stuff that we really need. Coffee
and sugar, yeah, chocolate. It will just invade those countries,
take it over and make them part of America. Flag
maker's got a job. Cartographers have to do a little thing,
and uh, you know, we'll be fine. We'll be fine.
What about feet? Thirty seven percent of all footwear imports.

(31:48):
This is not all the shoes that we get it's
thirty seven percent of footwear imports come from China. Man,
talk to my son about the basketball shoes, Dad, Dad,
Some website no one's ever heard of is offering Kobe
Bryant Nike basketball shoes for a dollar. Can we like,
that's a scam? Son, No, it's totally logitis from China. Well,

(32:12):
they send it over here in a weather balloon. It's fine. Yeah.
A lot of this stuff from websites like Timu or
is it Sheen or shine sh Ei n That website
may or may not cost a lot more than your
custom to We'll get there. But those shoes might be

(32:32):
more expensive. Barbie and hot wheel products Mattel, let's see here.
Mattel sources about forty percent of its stuff from China,
and the Toy Association says eighty percent of toys imported
to the US come from China. Well, here's the good
news on that. Kids don't play with toys anymore. It's

(32:55):
just all video games and phones. So uh, hotwheel that
comes from China? To right, hot wheels and barbies, I'll
speak on behalf of our nation's kids. What are those?
But what about wine? Scotch whiskey, and tequila. These things
might all cost a little bit more because we get

(33:15):
all of our want We'll get a lot of our wine.
We get a lot of it here from California and
places like vineyards around the area here in Nebraska and Iowa.
Scotch whiskey that should really just come from America. But tequila.
Tequila's ten percent of agriculture imports from Mexico. That is not.

(33:39):
We get ten percent of our tequila from Mexico. Out
of everything Mexico sends us, ten percent of it is tequila. Yeah,
I'm responsible for one percent of that. So we've got
potentially more costs. When it comes to tequila. Furniture, we
got about twenty nine percent of furniture imported into the

(34:01):
US that comes from China. New cars, now, that's interesting.
Depends on what you buy. Ford Nissan lowering their costs.
Other auto manufacturers say we might raise costs, we might not.
Avocados is the last one. About eighty eight percent of
all avocado imports of the US come from Mexico, along

(34:22):
with strawberries, raspberries, and tomato. All this stuff might cost
a little bit more, but it might not. In the meantime,
there's a lot of negotiation going on right now between
the Trump administration and these nations. So don't panic yet.
I will tell you when it's time to panic. Today

(34:43):
is not the time to panic. Emails Scott at kfab
dot com is the email here Scott at kfab dot
com and the Zonkers custom woods inbox. We talked about
the tariffs quite a bit in the last hour. What
may or may not it cost more? Dave emails and says,

(35:04):
my wife loves to support local businesses, as do I. However,
she is totally against the tariff concept and everything Trump.
For example, instead of buying from Amazon because she kind
of hates Jeff Bezos and wants to stick it to
the man, So she's going to buy something local to
support local businesses, even though buying local might cost fifteen

(35:25):
to thirty percent more. Parentheses sarcastic. Great from the husband here,
but enter the irony when I point out that that's
exactly what Trump is doing, trying to get people to
make and buy local. It might cost more, but do
you want to support US America or do you want

(35:47):
to support interests like China that do not have our
best interests at heart?

Speaker 2 (35:52):
That's a guy sleeping on the couch tonight.

Speaker 1 (35:53):
Yeah, and he said, I brought this up to my
wife and her head exploded. He's exactly right. This is
what the President is trying to do. Will the American people,
not the half or so of the American people that
didn't vote for Trump and never would because they hate him,

(36:16):
the half or so slight anymore popular vote of the
American people who voted for Trump? How much will they
have patience with this new Trump edition of two weeks
to flatten the curve? Oh? Man, where have I heard
this before? Now? The President didn't say that here about
the tariffs, but he did say this is some short
term pain, don't worry. Yeah, we've heard something like that before.

(36:43):
Rob Emails says tariffs are to change behavior of the
other countries. It's no different than the sanctions imposed on
South Africa in the nineteen eighties to influence them to
change their policy of apartheid. So yeah, we're trying to
we're basically cold warring China and other nations. Ian emails

(37:07):
scottikfab dot com and says, I think if people just
stop buying random crap they don't need, we'd kill two
birds with one cheap electronics device. Do you need that
little handheld electronic whisk to stir your coffee for you? No?
Do you need that electronic toothbrush that records your brushing
sessions and sends it to the cloud? No? What do

(37:31):
you need that fancy washer and dryer that plays the
little ditty when the cycle is done and alerts you
via text to come swap your clothes out? Well you
scroll through social media? No, people basically waste a majority
of their money on things they don't need, and they've
lost the ability to be happy with what they have.
Just my own little rant of how hard it is

(37:52):
to satisfy the average person these days. That's from Ian
Fantastic rant Ian, thank you very much for that. Do
you have one of those toothbrushes that is hooked up
to Wi Fi?

Speaker 2 (38:06):
No? I have an electric toothbrush. I just want to
make sure that it's not one of those.

Speaker 1 (38:11):
Why don't you use it once in a while?

Speaker 2 (38:13):
Oh, you're so good.

Speaker 1 (38:17):
Lucy won't let me get close enough to determine whether
or not she has bad breath. I'm guessing it's great.
You keep fogging up the window in front of you,
which is weird, but I'm sure your breath is fine.

Speaker 2 (38:27):
I'm sure my breath that's my dragonfire.

Speaker 1 (38:34):
Didn't see that one coming. Where was I? Luke says,
you're absolutely right, Scott, thank you. That's the end of
that email. No, he continues, says, businesses will take the
opportunity to jack rates through the roof. During COVID, the
cost of having livestock trucked when up fifty percent, went
from like four and a quarter of a mile to
six fifty and it's never come down. These guys are like, oh,

(38:58):
the cost just went up. It didn't go up fifty percent, dude,
you're just gougeing. Yeah, when I went through, and I
won't do the whole thing again. But when Trump says,
all right, the import into this country of your coffee
bean is now subject to a ten percent tariff, does
not mean that your coffee drink just went up ten percent.

(39:22):
Most of the cost of that drink is for the transportation,
the manufacture, the employees, the cost of everything from gas
to electricity to all the rest of this stuff. The
bean itself very small part of the cost the overall
cost of that coffee. It's not the equipment and the
people in the gas in the electricity and all the

(39:42):
rest of that stuff. It's just the bean. It's always
just the bean. So if they try and say, well,
we raised the cost of our drinks ten percent because
it's the Trump tax, these people are trying to make
a political point. I don't know if it's gonna work
out for him. Ryan says, Elton John released new album today.
You should hear it. I know I'll get to it later.

(40:04):
Thank you. Oh let's see here, let's see I got
to get to this email from Don the first. Dave says, Hey, Scott.
By the way, new Elton John album out today. Elton
John and Brandy Carlyle on an album called Who Believes
in Angels and that's out today. And then nice, there's
a new iHeartRadio channel devoted to Elton John. Just ask

(40:26):
your iHeart device play Elton John on iHeartRadio.

Speaker 2 (40:30):
Sir Elton to you, bae, Sir.

Speaker 1 (40:32):
Elton John, not to me. I'm not English or British.
Dave says, Hey, Scott, I know nothing about politics except
that we would look into the polysci room while we
were running a fly pattern in football practice and see
the dweebs practicing The debates on their three by five cards.
But during Corey Booker's long filibuster, the twenty five hour

(40:55):
plus long filibuster, were people required to sit through that. No,
In fact, most of pretty much anytime you turn on
s SPAN and I know, Dave, you're doing it a lot,
flipping around to try and find some NFL films game
like nineteen eighty eight Philadelphia Eagles versus Minnesota Vikings. Hey

(41:16):
Randall Cunningham's in this one. If you see some windbag
politician on se SPAN, droning on and on in front
of a camera, they don't show you the rest of
the room. No one's there. Same thing with Corey Booker,
And I'll weave that comment into this email from Don.
He asks whether I'm feeling liberated. Don says, are you

(41:40):
feeling liberated Scott? Or are you just feeling exhausted defending
Trump's every dumb move every day. I don't do that.
I don't have a cheerleading outfit on nor am I
wearing a MAGA hat. We talk about stuff that happens
in the new and kind of like everything in my

(42:06):
life kind of comes back to golf at some point.
Golf is life. Life is golf. So you're lining up
a T shot. I'm gonna try, and I mean, I
really do want to hit that T shot down the middle.
But on this particular whole we'll call it America. It's
Part five. There's a lot of trouble left, So I'm

(42:29):
gonna try and hit it down the middle. But if
i'm gonna miss, I'm gonna tend to miss right because
there's a lot of trouble on the left. Right now,
we now welcome onto the program Nebraska Senator deb Fisher
back to the show here, Senator, good to have you
back in Nebraska, at least on the phone.

Speaker 3 (42:49):
Yeah, great to visit with you.

Speaker 1 (42:50):
Scott.

Speaker 3 (42:51):
I'm still in Washington in the Senate where we're voting
again today. We're gonna begin one of those voteramas later
this evening and go through an all miner and then
we're right now planning to stay the weekend and vote
on Sunday and start early Monday morning. That's a Republican
plan right now. So yeah, we're trying to put in

(43:14):
our time and get some important things done for the
people this country.

Speaker 1 (43:18):
I'm not suggesting you're doing this, but I might want
to actually be there in the capital and not have
to face potential angry constituents here. Over the last couple
of days, four to one k's are taking a big hit.
Dow is down about seven percent in the last couple
of days, and people are blaming the president. People are

(43:39):
blaming his policies. So what would you say to your
constituents who are Trump supporters. They've voted for him and
now they're looking at this going wow, does he know
what he's doing? What do you think?

Speaker 3 (43:51):
Yeah, I mean, you know, I'm back in the statemost
every weekend, and of course meet with Nebraskans here in Washington.
So I think there's a lot of ways to have
your fingers on the pulse of what's going on Nebraska
and what I'm hearing from folks, especially our egg producers
manufacturers who rely on strong trade partnerships so that they

(44:14):
can sell their products. They realize there's been a lot
of unfair practices in the past. They are nervous. I
get nervous when I hear the word tariff. But also
they and myself as well, we're willing to give President
Trump some time to see how this is all going

(44:37):
to shake out, because there are so many unfair trade practices.
We saw the past administration had no interest in trade,
no interest in trade at all, so we had a
forty nine billion dollar trade deficit under President Biden. That

(44:58):
has to change. We've got to be able to export
our ethanol to Brazil, for example, without that eighteen percent tariff,
because they turn around they can export ethanol to the
United States duty free. Things like that. People are well
aware of the unfairness of that, and so I think

(45:21):
I think they're willing to give President Trump some time
get this figured out and be able to provide a
good market, fair trade with our trading partners, and be
able to move ahead so we can develop a stronger
economy than we had the last four years. For sure.

Speaker 1 (45:40):
What do you think that timeline looks like and what
do you think will happen between now and when you
believe things will get better.

Speaker 3 (45:48):
Well, I think we're going to continue to see a
stock market that's nervous, even though we had a pretty
good jobs report yesterday. But I think I think people
are going to be nervous. As I said, you hear
tariffs and you wonder what's going to be the retaliation
on that. And agriculture is important to the state of Nebraska.

(46:10):
It's the economic engine, it's the driver of our economy.
So we want to make sure that we watch this carefully,
that we are open in our discussions about it. But
I think, you know, I don't. I don't know what
the timeline is going to be that I can that
I can tell you right now that what I hear

(46:32):
is is people in agriculture, people in manufacturing are willing
to give the president time on this.

Speaker 1 (46:41):
Senator deb Fisher of Nebraska with us. She comes from
God's Country out near Valentine. So you're definitely plugged into
the Nebraska ag producer, as is Governor Pillen is a
hog producer. He says, Nebraska is in this for the
long haul. He says it's been very unfair trade practices,
what's been happening to ag and America for years. Another person, though,

(47:02):
who you could say is pretty plugged into Midwest agg
producers and certainly trade deficits, is longtime Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley.
And Senator Grassley is co sponsor of a bill that
would rein in the president's ability to impose tariffs. What
do you think about what Senator Grassley is doing? Is
that part of the marathon voting that will come up

(47:24):
here in the next matter of hours on Capitol Hill.

Speaker 3 (47:29):
I don't believe that we'll be offered as an amendment
to the budget bill that we moved forward on last night.
So I haven't heard that Senator Grassley is going to
be offering that as an amendment. As you know, I
believe in three branch as a government. I think we
have the best system in the world here in the

(47:49):
United States. You're always going to see tension between the
executive branch and the legislative branch. Obviously, I'm in Article one.
I'm in the legislative branch, which I h I want
us to be able to use our powers, our responsibilities,
to be able to deliver for people. Sometimes you have

(48:12):
conflict between those branches. So I, you know, I understand
where Senator Grassley's coming from. I think I haven't to
be honest with you, I haven't looked at the bill
that he and Democrat Senator Maria Cantwell introduced. I think
I think it was yesterday when they introduced it. So

(48:32):
I'd want to be able to look at those details
and talk to him about it. But on things like
trade and tariffs, you can have you can have a
stronger a stronger outcome, I think when you have the
executive branch and the legislative branch working together being able

(48:53):
to talk about it. As you know, President Trump campaigned
on tariffs, campaigned on strengthening making it fair. He obviously
won that election. He's in the White House, he's making
those decisions. But being you know, being senators, we get
a little testing on it too. We want to know

(49:13):
what's going on so we can answer questions that our
constituents have. But you know, like I said, I'm given
the president time on this. It is obvious we have
got to change trade policy that we have with just
about every nation around the world. You know, we after
World War two went into Europe with the Marshall Plan

(49:36):
to be able to help rebuild that continent after World
War Two. There are still trade policies in place where
where they have big tariffs on our products. For example, beef.
You know, you can't hardly get any beef into Europe
because of their trade excuse me, trade policies. So yeah,

(50:00):
I'm sitting back watching this getting questions answered and give
them the president time to make this work.

Speaker 1 (50:08):
You're on the Armed Services Committee. The President just dismissed
the head of National Security Agency, the NSA and US
Cyber Command, well as a couple of other individuals in
that office. Last week we were talking about the leak
of the signal, well not the leak, but the odd
insertion of a journalist into a signal conversation related to

(50:30):
troop movements. How's everything going here with our Armed Services?
It's been a rough couple of weeks according to some.

Speaker 3 (50:39):
You know, the main duty we have is to make
sure our military men and women are safe, that they
have the resources they need so they can complete their missions.
And I do not believe that that was a wise
choice by the Secretary Defense and other members in the

(51:00):
temagon to be to be on a signal chat discussing
some items that could have given away where our military
members were located and put them in harm's way and
talking about plans that shouldn't happen again. I hope they

(51:22):
learned from their mistake and take their conversations into secure
and classified locations. You know, I have classified briefings every week,
sometimes two or three a day, and what we talk
about in these very secure areas we don't discuss outside

(51:45):
those areas, and we have to we have to make
sure that we follow follow those rules regulations that are
put on members of Congress and members of the military
and members of the administration, because we want to make
sure that our war fighters are going to be safe

(52:05):
so that they can conduct the missions that they are assigned.

Speaker 1 (52:10):
Well, they didn't give away any specific locations, and some
people say it speaks to that they don't trust some
people in the intelligence community on Capitol Hill why they
would go to a chat like this. This is all
part of efforts moving forward to make sure that everything
is lined up the way that these high ranking officials

(52:31):
want them to be. Perhaps the firing of these individuals
gets us a little closer to that. Before we leave you,
Senator Fisher, I wanted to ask you if you're allowed
to actually debate and vote on things this weekend, unless
Corey Booker decides to put a diaper on and talk
for twenty five hours. What is it you'd like to
see happen for the people of Nebraska between now and

(52:53):
the end of this marathon Senate voting session before you.

Speaker 3 (52:58):
Well, I want to make sure that that we produce
what we promise to the people of this country and
to Nebraskan. I want to make sure our economy is
going to be booming again. I want to make sure
our border is secure. I want to make sure that
the world's a safer place. And that's what we're trying

(53:20):
to do here. You know, we're looking in the Senate.
We believe we need to make President Trump's twenty seventeen
tax cuts permanent. That would prevent a seventeen hundred dollars
tax increase for the average family of four. We need
to make that permanent. We need to go after some

(53:40):
of the regulations, for example, the DPA put in place
under President Biden, the Clean Power Plan, we need to
go after that. We need to go after waters of
the US. We've got to be able to restore America's
energy dominance again by increasing America's energy production. So there's

(54:02):
a lot that is tied in this week, this weekend,
and as we move forward into that reconciliation process. So
we've got to keep Republicans together in the House and
in the Senate so that we are able to get
a good, strong bill passed here in the next weeks

(54:23):
and months that the President will sign and and fulfill
those promises that we made.

Speaker 1 (54:30):
I know you've been doing a lot of work on
paid family medical leave making that tax credit permanent. Is
that part of what's coming up here in the next
couple of days or is that later the session.

Speaker 3 (54:39):
That'll be later when we get to the reconciliation process.
It was part of that twenty seventeen tax cut that
we passed back then that was very, very helpful. It's
the only paid family medical leave law or bill that's

(55:01):
been passed and put in the law. It is not
a mandate, it is not another entitlement, but it's adding
a tax credit for small business owners so that they
can offer that paid leave to lower income workers. You know,
people who work for corporations, big company, they get that
leave now as a bonus, as an incentive in the business.

(55:26):
But you know, to be able to offer that to
a mom and pop business so they can give it
to their or offer it to their employees hourly workers.
That is huge in helping families, and I was really
proud that was my bill back in twenty seventeen. I'm
working hard now to make it permanent so that the

(55:50):
Republicans it's a Republican party that has stepped forward in
order to expand that flexibility through paid family medical to
the people of this country.

Speaker 1 (56:03):
Senator deb Fisher, always a pleasure, Thank you so much
for the time today.

Speaker 3 (56:07):
You bet. Thanks, Scott.

Speaker 1 (56:08):
Well, here we are ahead of a weekend and we
get this directive from the US State Department. The US
government has banned American government personnel in China, as well
as their family members and contractors with security clearances. They
have banned them from any romantic or sexual relationships with
Chinese citizens.

Speaker 2 (56:32):
Is this a vax thing?

Speaker 1 (56:33):
What what am I supposed to do this weekend? Scott
Boys Mornings nine to eleven, Our News Radio eleven ten
KFAB