Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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Participants
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mimi geerges
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paul tonko
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rich mccormick
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Appearances
brian lamb
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donald j trump
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hakeem jeffries
rep/d01:20
jamieson greer
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jim marrs
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mike johnson
rep/r01:28
peter navarro
admin00:56
scott bessent
admin00:47
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Speaker
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Pauses And Market Reactions00:05:09
unidentified
Support C-SPAN as a public service, along with these other television providers, giving you a front-row seat to democracy.
Coming up on Washington Journal this morning, we'll take your calls and comments on tariffs and the GOP budget live.
And then New York Democratic Congressman Paul Tonko, a member of the Budget and Energy and Commerce Committees, discusses tariffs and Democrat strategies to counter the Trump administration.
And Georgia Republican Congressman Rich McCormick, a member of the Armed Services Committee, on the budget and Republican efforts to advance the Trump administration's agenda.
President Trump announced a 90-day pause on reciprocal tariffs for all countries except China, which he increased to 125%.
News of the pause sent the market soaring.
The S ⁇ P 500 rose 9.5%, its sharpest single-day gain since October of 2008.
And on Capitol Hill, Speaker Johnson postponed the vote on the budget bill, acknowledging that there were too many Republican holdouts to pass the measure.
This first hour, we'll get your thoughts on either or both of those topics.
Here are the numbers.
Republicans, 202748, 8001.
Democrats, 202-748-8000.
And Independents, 202-748-8002.
You can send us a text to 202-748-8003.
Include your first name in your city-state.
And you can post your comments on social media, facebook.com slash C-SPAN and X at C-SPANWJ.
Welcome to today's Washington Journal.
It's a two-hour show.
The House is set to gavel in at 9 a.m.
We'll start with a tariff pause.
Here are the headlines of the major national papers, the New York Times.
Trump pauses many tariffs for 90 days, but not on China.
The Washington Times has this, U-Turn on Tariffs rallies markets.
And USA Today says Trump puts brakes on reciprocal tariffs.
He keeps 10% across the board, boosts tax on China to 125%.
The Wall Street Journal says Trump backtracks, pauses many tariffs.
And the Washington Post tariffs paused amid warnings and worries.
This has the three major indices, the NASDAQ in pink, the S ⁇ P 500 in green, and the Dow in blue.
Here is April 2nd, declaring Liberation Day.
President Trump announced the tariffs, and then you could see what happened to the market.
And here is where it closed yesterday on April 9th at the very end here.
Let's take a look at what President Trump told reporters at an event outside the White House yesterday on why he's pausing the tariffs.
Well, I thought that people were jumping a little bit out of line.
They were getting yippy, you know, they were getting a little bit yippy, a little bit afraid, unlike these champions, because we have a big job to do.
No other president would have done what I did.
No other president.
I know the presidents.
They wouldn't have done it.
And it had to be done.
What was happening to us on trade, not only with, you know, if you look at it, not only with China, but China was by far the biggest abuser in history.
And others also, but somebody had to do it.
They had to stop because it was not sustainable.
Last year, China made $1 trillion off trade with the United States.
That's not right.
And now I've reversed it.
It's for a short period of time, but we made $2 billion.
We're making now $2 billion a day.
And somebody had to do it.
Roger actually said it.
Charles Schwab was here a little while ago, one of the great financial people, and he said, he's been waiting for 40 years for somebody to do what I did over the last month.
And if you didn't do it, you wouldn't have a country.
And here is what the Washington Post says about this.
It says, the 18 hours that changed Trump's mind on trade.
From Tuesday evening to Wednesday afternoon, Trump and his trade advisors spoke to several Republican lawmakers and top foreign leaders who raised concerns about the faltering global markets.
It says that Washington woke up Wednesday to the highest tariffs on foreign goods in a century and to a bond market flashing warning signs that President Donald Trump's bid to remake global trade could spark a far bigger crisis.
Trump's advisors were still projecting confidence that his effort to restructure the world's economy and sweep away generations of globalization was foolproof.
Despite the S ⁇ P 500 wiping away 12% of its value in a week, one senior White House official said that Wall Street didn't understand Main Street and that Main Street was still backing the president.
It says hours later, Trump partially backed down, escalating his trade war with China, but lowering many of the tariffs he had just imposed on the rest of the world.
Stock markets soared.
And we will also hear from Speaker Johnson.
He spoke to reporters right outside, right after postponing the vote on the budget bill yesterday.
Just most recently in the last several hours, you should know, Leader Thune and some of his committee chairs met with some of our members and had a thoughtful dialogue.
This is all part of it.
So everything is moving along just fine.
We have a little bit of room here to work, and we're going to use that.
unidentified
That's right.
Can you commit that you guys are going to have a vote on this budget before you go on recession?
Well, that's certainly my intention because I think it's really important for us to do that before we leave, that we have a resolution to this or a plan to get to that resolution before everybody leaves for the district work period.
And, you know, Passover is Saturday.
I don't have any intention to have us here working this weekend, but if we have to come back next week, then we'll do that.
unidentified
We are going to get the job done.
Are the senators, are the Senate leadership on the Republican side, are they receptive to these ideas?
I mean, Leader Thune and I talked multiple times today, talked to some of the key leaders over there who are most attuned to this process and have been leading it thus far.
They know exactly what we're doing and why and what the conversations are, and they've been very helpful in that regard.
So I'm very encouraged.
This is not an us versus them prospect.
There's no animosity between the chambers, and there's no animosity between anybody in this room.
This is a productive part of the legislative process.
We work in the greatest deliberative body in the world, and this is how it happens, especially in a time when you have a small majority, small margins.
unidentified
I know you said that you spoke to the president.
I did.
But did the president speak to the other folks in the room?
So I just wanted to touch on the two things that seem to be intertwined.
So I don't know which came first, the chicken or the egg, but Trump had to put a pause on that.
Obviously, the economy was going crazy.
Obviously, he's trying to sell it as though he did something great.
Just keep in mind, people, the economy hasn't recovered from when he first made these tariff announcements.
You know, Dave Portnoy, one of the Trump's supporters, lost $20 million.
He's back up maybe like $12 million, but he still has a ways to go.
And I think Mike Johnson, you know, putting this bill to the side is probably what drove Trump to make these changes because if you read his tweets or follow his quote-unquote truth, he said that now was the perfect time to get the bill done.
Well, he doesn't have the votes.
We knew he didn't have the votes.
We know that already.
So he's telling people to buy, which I think actually was him manipulating the markets.
But they're letting him get away with anyway.
Nobody's going to check him.
We gave up the House, the Senate, and the White House.
So yeah, we just got to go along for the ride.
But Donald Trump is out there manipulating the markets, selling losses, his wins.
And he's the same president as last time.
We just got to get through these four years and be done with it.
He says, based on the lack of respect that China has shown to the world's markets, I am hereby raising the tariff charged to China by the U.S. to 125%, effective immediately.
At some point, hopefully in the near future, China will realize that the days of ripping off the USA and other countries is no longer sustainable or acceptable.
Conversely, and based on the fact that more than 75 countries have called representatives of the U.S., including departments of commerce, treasury, and the USTR, to negotiate a solution to the subjects being discussed relative to trade, trade barriers, tariffs, currency manipulation, and non-monetary tariffs, and that these countries have not, at my strong suggestion, retaliated in any way, shape, or form against the U.S.,
I've authorized a 90-day pause and a substantially lowered reciprocal tariff during this period of 10%, also effective immediately.
Thank you for your attention to this matter.
Here's Donald, South Bend, Indiana, Democrat.
unidentified
Yeah, hi.
Hi.
I'm just laughing right now because, look, I'm like two, three years before I retire.
And all I just want to do is just retire and live, you know, reasonably well, you know.
And I'm going to just give him the win on this, whatever, you know, so he doesn't wreck the economy.
And I'm going to just say one more thing.
You know, he's putting the tariffs on Mexico.
So, you know, he's trying to keep people from coming in from Mexico into the United States.
So he's putting tariffs on Mexico, which, so that's going to devastate their economy and put people out of work.
And so what are those people going?
What are those people going to do?
You know, it's just crazy.
But, you know, I'll just, yeah, like the previous caller said, I'll just try to make it through these next four years and hopefully we come out okay.
Here is Samuel, a Republican in South Pasadena, California.
Good morning.
unidentified
Oh, good morning.
Thank you for taking my call.
Well, I want to talk about the 90-day pause and everything.
I think it's a great idea because it'll make these countries think about how they're going to work this out and everything.
And man, that stock market.
Boy, what a that was a great thing that happened there.
Anyways, I think Trump is very intelligent, and I was happy to see Trump be president because, well, he's a businessman, and we didn't want no Democrat in there or somebody in there doing all these politics, you know.
And I don't even think Biden was even running this country.
And I'm just glad that Trump's doing the right thing.
And here is Ray in Arlington, Vermont, Independent Line.
unidentified
Hello.
Hi.
How are you doing?
I think that the president and what he's trying to do for the country, and like he did in this last term, he served his presidency without charging the country for the money to pay him for working the office.
And did we receive that in the past?
No, we didn't receive that in the past.
We had Biden who took more than he was supposed to take from other countries and accepting illegal money and stuff like that.
But these people call in and they act like Trump's doing everything wrong when he's doing everything in front of everybody.
And that may be a problem to them because they don't understand that change is needed and To stop taking and stop the government from taking money and funds from places that are hidden in the dark and that are illegal.
This is a House hearing from yesterday with the U.S. Trade Representative, Mr. Greer, and Nevada Democrat Stephen Horsford brought up the 90-day pause.
And this happened yesterday.
Take a look.
unidentified
Mr. Trade Representative, are you aware that the tariffs have been paused?
And this was a tweet on X that Representative Stephen Horsford put out.
He says, what it looks like when you're the country's trade representative testifying before Congress and you find out Trump changed his mind on tariffs.
This is reckless governing.
There is no strategy.
And it's obvious this is amateur hour.
Wonder what you think about that.
Here's Steve, an independent in Ormond Beach, Florida.
Hi, Steve.
unidentified
Hi.
I'd just like to say that the past four years, everything, there was no transparency at all, zero.
Biden was hidden somewhere.
The media is now all coming out.
All the truth is coming out now.
The media is continuing to do the lie that they have.
And even your media, I don't see the Republicans getting long term on here.
Well, I'm an independent, actually.
I was Republican, but I went independent many years ago.
What I'm saying is Biden never signed anything.
There was another penny signing everything, Biden.
We have never had transparency for any president like we have had with Donald Trump.
Donald Trump lives in a glass house.
Donald Trump is the most honest president that has ever been out there.
And yes, Donald Trump is going to make mistakes.
He's a human being.
Everybody does.
Bidenomics has hurt the whole world, has the whole world in wars right now.
My name's Albert Rowley, and I think Donald Trump just planned all of this so that the market would go down and he'd buy everything and wind up making himself a pot full of money.
It should have been done 35, 40 years ago, what he's doing now.
Nancy Pelosi, 27 years ago, she got up on the House floor and said that China was ripping us off, you know, but now that a Republican is coming out and saying, oh, it's all bad.
And here is Marcus in Kalispell, Montana, Republican.
unidentified
Hey, thank you for taking my call.
And in regards to, well, first, Trump moved at a faster pace than most presidents that we've seen, it seems like.
And when he's moving this fast, decisions are going to be made quicker.
And so in regards to Stephen Horsford of Nevada talking about how the U.S. trade representative doesn't even know what Trump's doing, I believe he definitely does know.
And I like to think of all the countries as just a group of friends.
And when you're the successful one and all your friends are mooching off you, I think it's okay to ask if you can mooch off them.
And once Trump did that, A lot of them wanted to talk about, hey, we'll stop mooching.
And everyone's done that except China, obviously.
But now China apparently does want to negotiate.
And I think it's funny how the panic was going on for weeks about his tariffs.
And Trump didn't pause the tariffs.
But as soon as he got a group of people that want to negotiate with him, he stops the tariffs or he pauses the tariffs.
But Marcus, the market went back up not when people said that they wanted to negotiate.
It's when he paused the tariffs, the reciprocal tariffs.
unidentified
Well, why did he pause the tariffs?
I don't think it was because of the panic that was happening for weeks.
He paused the tariffs as soon, like I said, as he got a group of people that wanted to negotiate with him about these tariffs, a group of nations that wanted to talk about these tariffs.
And once he said, or once he got that, he's like, all right, I'll pause the tariffs until we get something figured out.
Here are the index performances since April 2nd, which is when the reciprocal tariffs were announced.
So this, and this is today.
So here we have the market, again, this is NASDAQ, S ⁇ P 500, and the Dow tracking pretty closely together.
This is April 3rd, and this is April 9th.
So that's where we are on the market.
Here is Brenda, St. Louis, Missouri, Democrat.
Good morning.
unidentified
Good morning.
I think Donald Trump changed his mind because the market was down.
And when it gets into the bonds and different things like that, touching that, it's just that why would we believe Donald Trump is making all these negotiations and all of that when he walked around, he lied for four and a half years that he won an election that he knew he didn't.
So all of a sudden, we're supposed to gravitate around this man that doesn't even know how to tell the truth about anything.
And as far as him not taking money for working for the United States, he didn't have to take a payroll check.
It says, after a tumultuous week in global business and politics, President Trump made a sudden reversal, announcing Wednesday that he would pause his reciprocal tariffs immediately for 90 days.
The 10% across the board levy would remain.
He was raising the already sky-high tax on Chinese goods to 125%.
Quote, based on the lack of respect that China has shown to the world's markets, U.S. stocks immediately shot up in response.
China and the European Union had already unveiled stiff retaliatory levies Wednesday.
The Asian trade giant vowed to impose its own 84% tariff on U.S. goods starting Thursday, up from the 34% previously announced.
And here's the Ministry of Commerce from China saying, quote, if the U.S. insists on further escalating its economic and trade restrictions, China has the firm will and abundant means to take necessary countermeasures and fight to the end.
That's from Wednesday.
And here is Jerry, Richmond, Indiana, Republican.
Good morning, Jerry.
unidentified
Good morning.
I totally do not think Trump paused the tariffs just because of the stock market.
You know, it was only down for, what, a week or not maybe not even that long.
I think it's because all these countries stepped up and wanted to negotiate with him.
So, you know, he dropped them down or paused them because, you know, people are willing to talk and negotiate.
He more or less isolated China because of the way they're acting.
And, you know, I can't believe people on the Democrat line can call in and say, you know, who's running the country?
Or like the senator or congressman say, well, who's running this country?
You know, that's what we all wondered the four years during Biden's administration.
You know, and according to the new book that came out about the Biden administration, evidently no one knew who was running the country.
And, you know, and yes, so a Democrat saying he needs a, you know, whatever mental evaluation or whatever Trump does.
I can't believe that they would ask that about him after praising Biden for four years.
This is one of the greatest days in American economic history we have had.
I think we're going to call it the art of the reciprocal trade deal.
And I'll tell you, all the nervous Nellies on Wall Street who try to undermine us consistently underestimate the power of the president to negotiate.
What have we got here?
We are at a place now where we have a broad-based 10% global tariff on.
Well, we negotiate over the next 90 days with all of these countries who have come to us.
And the mission, Charles, in these negotiations is to dramatically reduce our trade deficit, level the plane for it, get rid of all the tariff differentials, get rid of all the non-tariff barriers.
And we are taking your calls and also your Facebook and your ex-posts.
Here are some posts from lawmakers.
Here's Senator James Langford, Republican, who says President Trump is the dealmaker-in-chief.
It's past time to get global trade barriers down and lower tariffs against American goods.
Countries all over the world are coming to the table.
It's time for China to do the same.
Randy Weber of Texas says, after years of watching other countries take advantage of America, they're finally coming to the negotiating table because they know the game has changed.
President Trump puts America first every single time.
You can trust that he's fighting for the American people.
Here's Congressman Greg Landsman who says, pure chaos, horrible results, trillions of wealth lost, jobs gone, prices skyrocketing.
And Congressional Republicans are about to officially endorse this chaos with language preventing any attempt by Congress to revoke the emergency powers Trump has used to impose these tariffs.
Representative Claudia Tenney says President Trump's Liberation Day was a masterclass in negotiation.
The world finally recognized that they have been taking advantage of American businesses and they must level the playing field for American businesses.
China chose to retaliate and they will pay the price.
And this is Senator Tina Smith.
Businesses don't want to deal with a country that turns tariffs on and off like a light switch.
Here is Yvonne in Pompano Beach, Florida, Republican.
So listen to what, this is the Wall Street Journal saying this.
It says, wrote an article saying President watched TV heard dire warnings, then gave in.
So this contradicts what you were just saying.
It says that President Trump finally blinked.
It took a week for the plunge in the stock and bond markets, along with a sustained campaign by executives, lawmakers, lobbyists, and foreign leaders to prompt Trump to roll back the 90 days.
It says his instincts had changed course as he watched the bond market tank and listened to business leaders, including JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, express fears of a recession.
I mean, surely he cares about the American economy.
unidentified
Oh, I'm sure he does.
And I think that what he's doing is a part of that plan.
He was not going to allow it to get butted so far.
Struggling With Tariffs00:15:42
unidentified
He wanted to get the attention of the people.
As I have heard, his friends and people close to him that actually know him have flat out said that they know that this was part of what he had planned to do.
That's one of my first points.
And the second point is that, oh my God, I had it on the tip of my tongue.
Are you in favor, though, Steve, of the hard line that President Trump is taking on China?
unidentified
It's a bit harsh.
I mean, you don't want to kill China.
You want to trade with them.
You don't want to put people out of business.
You know, they do some stuff, but you want to do that with the EU, with Japan, other places, you know, and just have some sort of a plan to do this stuff, not 140, you know, whatever it was initially.
But what about the people that can't do those kinds of jobs?
What about them?
I mean, they've lost out on this, in this new globalized economy.
unidentified
They have, and maybe they should be more open to being retrained, and we should do a better job of reaching out and, you know, with vocational schools and retraining and stuff.
I mean, this happens every, you know, with every decade, with every, you know, things advance, and you need new skills.
Chris in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Independent Line.
You're next.
unidentified
Yes, good morning.
So I'm struggling with this whole tariff issue, mostly because, you know, you don't hear what they're going to do with all this extra money.
Are they going to put it back into Social Security?
Are they going to build a new system for what they say is sinking?
Are they going to put it in the infrastructure?
There's no talk of any of this.
And I just want to remind all these people that think that he walks on water.
This is a man that posted on Truth Social that COVID was under control.
It wasn't a big deal.
Meanwhile, millions and thousands of people were dying.
It was so bad that he was handing out money.
So, you know, now you want us to believe that this tariff game that you're playing, this war with China that you're creating for no reason, we should stand behind you.
I question that, just like I question if I should drink bleach to get rid of COVID.
I mean, this is the same man.
Wait, let me just finish with one other thing.
What I believe happened is he didn't have the cards, as he likes to say.
He didn't have the cards.
So he had to back down and do what Musk wanted.
Because I watched the stock, Musk stock, go all the way down.
I mean, it was hysterical.
You know, this is a typical dog and pony show.
And like the other caller said, millions of us are going to college.
I have kids that are going to college.
For what?
To put a screw in a factory?
I don't think so.
I mean, this is the issues.
They're so out of touch.
The Republicans are all they care about is transgenders playing sports and the price of eggs.
And the truth of the matter is, you all been sold on a bunch of bull crap.
Because look at the numbers.
Ask them, what's he going to do with all this extra money?
Give it to Musk to go to Mars?
It's very frustrating because, you know, you're trying to raise children in this society and make sure that education is important.
And they think that everybody should be working in a factory.
And why is that?
They're 78 years old.
They're lucky if they make it another 15 years.
Okay?
So, like, we need younger people.
We need, you know, we need people that are in the 40 to 50 range, 40 to 60.
This 78-year-old diner mentality that they think they know everything.
I mean, it's just, it's just, it's not benefiting the country.
Dale in Riverdale, Maryland, Democrat, good morning.
unidentified
Hi, how are you?
Good.
Okay.
Very interesting conversation today.
I didn't get in till 7.15, so I might have missed something.
But Steve really stole my thunder.
He was talking about T-bills.
The scuttle on the reason Mr. Trump turned around the tariffs is he had a late night meeting or early morning with some power people, and they told him the bond market is going the wrong direction.
Now, I'm not a Wall Street guy, and I can't really discuss bonds in detail.
But apparently, when the market goes down, the bonds become very attractive to investors, and they sell like hotcakes.
But that wasn't happening.
They were having a massive sell-off of these T-bills or bonds, as you call them.
And that scared Trump, realizing that that would put us in a recession almost in a day.
And regarding the bonds, here's the article from Fortune about that.
It says that President Trump didn't seem especially bothered by the epic fall in stock prices following his unveiling of extremely high and far, far loftier than anticipated tariffs in early April.
Instead, his main focus is and has long been a different measure.
He is obsessed with rates on 10-year treasury bonds.
To him, this is the measure that matters because so many things are tied to that benchmark.
It's a big factor in setting car loans, mortgage rates, credit card rates, and also determines the base rate that companies pay on their crucial long-term borrowings.
And a founder of a chairman of Research Affiliates, a firm that overseas investment strategies puts it bluntly: quote, Trump cares more about the 10-year Treasury than about the stock market, he says.
You can read that in Fortune if you'd like to see the rest of that article.
You know, the way I look at this, look, I'm not pro-Trump, anti-Trump.
I don't really care about the person.
I care about the country.
And everyone that's called in recently that said that, oh, those manufacturing jobs are never coming back here because people don't want to do that type of work.
And particularly the gentleman who said that we're sending our kids to college for four years.
They're not doing that so they can put cell phones together.
Yeah, well, we have a major debt problem in this country, huge debt problem in this country.
We also have our priorities out of whack where we're sending kids to school for degrees that are valueless, completely valueless.
It's the largest transfer of wealth that nobody talks about.
I can't say nobody talks about it, but it's just not emphasized enough.
I think what needs to happen is action, some type of action.
There was no action from the Biden administration as the country falls deeper and deeper into its intoxication with foreign debt, as the country falls deeper and deeper with its inability to produce or manufacture anything to maintain our ability to be self-sustaining, as the country becomes more and more intoxicated with foreign debt and now can't build anything, that is a huge, huge threat to our national security.
These jobs have to come back to American allies or come back to the North American hemisphere, this part of the world, because I do not believe that China is going to stay out of Taiwan in the next two years.
I think they're going to take them.
We've got to bring those jobs back.
Those jobs are coming back.
For someone who says that people aren't looking for those types of jobs, I cannot tell you how many people I know who have college degrees.
Let me ask you this, if you don't mind when you say bringing it back to North America.
Are you in favor of tariffs against Mexico and Canada?
unidentified
Well, I definitely think Mexico needs to be a better ally of the United States.
The fact that they allowed the border to be open as it was is 50% on our fault and 50% on theirs.
And so I definitely think that when Trump announced the initial set of tariffs against Mexico, it was guided towards trying to get them to address their border crisis.
There does have to be a correction with Mexico to set some stronger standards on immigration, stronger standards on border control to keep drugs out, and potentially to set up more of a partnership, a them versus us scenario when it comes to the Americas versus China and Russia to a degree.
As far as Canada goes, I don't really understand all of the rhetoric on Canada, but I think it has to do with kind of a geopolitical battle with Canada that Trump has always had and how it could affect national security issues and things like that.
So I think he's trying to drive them to the table.
They have vast resources, and he can't just go after one without going after the other.
And regarding that budget bill, Rocky sent us this on Facebook.
Some Republicans grew a spine and weren't voting in favor of it.
So Mike, the speaker, canceled it to try and save face.
Meanwhile, Trump gave a speech to them basically mocking them for not doing whatever he wanted.
This administration is a mess and an embarrassment.
And here is James, New Kent, Virginia, Democrat.
Good morning, James.
unidentified
Good morning.
I'm calling because I just want to say that I feel that that 90-day tariff, it's a distraction.
I feel that the American people are getting shifted around again.
Donald Trump ran on lowering prices for groceries, gasoline, and he's done nothing.
He's done nothing at all but putting us in a circle.
We don't want to know which way to go.
Every day we get up.
The American people are stressing.
I see all these independent people, Republicans calling in saying how great this man is.
Great how?
We are suffering right now in the United States of America right now with all the jobs being lost and everything.
And he goes down that golfing every weekend.
All the states right now out in the West is getting hit by hurricanes.
He didn't go out there with a photo op this time.
And I feel that American people are suffering because behind this man, you don't know what day he's going to get up and say something dumb and stupid and try to sell us tennis shoes, Bibles.
He's trying to sell us $25 million credit card.
This man is off the chain, and American people should realize that this man needs help.
I feel as a United States Army veteran, this man is not a good president of the United States.
And everybody wants to holler about Joe Biden, Joe Biden this, Joe Biden that.
Joe Biden did all he could do at the time he was in office.
And I feel that he done more for this country than just about Ronald Reagan did.
Ronald Reagan was sick his last two years in office, but everybody, all the Republicans, forget about that.
They said Nancy Reagan was running the White House.
We need to get back on track here and let the House and the Senate help run the country.
Yeah, as far as the terrorists are concerned, Since the tariffs have started, trillions of dollars have left from the savings of people, and they're being used to go right into the pockets of the ultra-wealthy.
That's why he was put here in the first place.
There will not be, if we keep on this path we're on, there will not be a middle class.
There will be the ultra-wealthy and there will be the poor.
That's what MAGA means to me.
That's what his goal is.
He was put here to destroy this country.
And I'm just being honest with you.
He was put here to destroy this country.
And if people continue to listen to Fox News, if people continue to listen to Fox News, this country is going to crumble.
And the reason that he phoned it was because the CEO of Chase Bank got in his ear.
But later this morning, we'll be joined by two members of Congress.
Up next, we'll talk with Representative Paul Tonko, a Democrat of New York, a member of the Budget and Energy and Commerce Committees, about tariffs and Democrats' strategies to counter the Trump administration agenda.
And later, Representative Rich McCormick, a Republican of Georgia, member of the Armed Services Committee, discusses the budget and Republican efforts to advance the Trump administration agenda.
We'll be right back.
unidentified
Next, we watch a prime time encore presentation of our 10-part series, First 100 Days.
Every Sunday Book Discussion00:03:13
unidentified
We explore the early months of U.S. presidencies from George Washington in 1789 to Donald Trump in 2017.
We'll learn about the decisions made and how they shaped the White House, the nation, and history.
I am prepared, under my constitutional duty, to recommend the measures that a stricken nation in the midst of a stricken world may require.
All I have, I would have given gladly not to be standing here today.
My fellow Americans, our long national nightmare is over.
This American carnage stops right here and stops right now.
Each program includes historians, authors, and archival footage from the C-SPAN Video Library, providing rich context and analysis of presidential leadership during the critical opening stretch of new administrations.
Watch First 100 Days, starting Monday, April 14th at 8 p.m. Eastern on C-SPAN 2 or online at C-SPAN.org.
Book TV.
Every Sunday on C-SPAN 2 features leading authors discussing their latest nonfiction books.
Here's a look at what's coming up this weekend.
At 7 p.m. Eastern, journalist Michael Wolf provides his behind-the-scenes look at President Trump's 2024 reelection with his book, All or Nothing, How Trump Recaptured America.
And then at 8 p.m. Eastern, Bard College History Professor Sean McMeekin talks about his book, To Overthrow the World, The Rise and Fall and Rise of Communism, which was selected as the Intercollegiate Studies Institute's 2025 Conservative Book of the Year.
And at 9 p.m. Eastern, the New York Times' Annie Carney and Luke Broadwater, authors of Madhouse, chronicle the key events of the 118th Congress and the 2024 presidential election.
Then at 10 p.m. Eastern on Afterwards, Oklahoma Republican Senator James Langford speaks about his faith, the challenges the country faces, and what he believes needs to happen to improve the country in his book, Turnaround: America's Revival.
He's interviewed by Wall Street Journal congressional reporter Siobhan Hughes.
Watch Book TV every Sunday on C-SPAN 2 and find a full schedule in your program guide or watch online anytime at booktv.org.
It's one that really takes us down the road of hurt and harm for many of the people out there, the great many that I represent.
And so, you know, this effort to provide for a huge tax cut for the very few, in this case, billionaires, and to get a bonanza tax cut at the expense of programs and financial impact on the great many of us is unacceptable and I think a disastrous outcome for our economy.
I certainly think that this administration inherited a very sound budget, a best budget comeback of any industrialized nation post-COVID.
And giving it a chance to work through would have made us a very secure economic status for this country.
But instead, he's chosen to do all sorts of harmful measures that will really provide an inconsistent and unpredictable economy out there for many.
Well, I think that basically the best way to cut the deficit is to put people to work.
And I think that the successes of the 117th session of Congress under the tutelage of the Biden administration provided for sound investments in manufacturing, in an innovation economy, a clean energy economy.
We saw it working.
We saw hundreds of thousands of people employed to implement these programs and providing for sound union jobs that paid well and that offered opportunity for regional and state economies to start to really grow back.
And I think that that formula was very scientifically based, very evidence-based, and provided a strategy that doesn't seem to accompany anything being done here.
There's no plan, there's no strategy, there's no concept of where you're taking us.
Well, there are things that we can work on if they would allow for Congress to have input.
The Republicans don't even have input with this administration.
They may take them to the White House and review the plans, but it seems like it's thumbs down on the congressional representatives that do interact with him.
It's my way or the highway.
And it's not the way the founding fathers and founding parents of this organization, of this institution, the United States government, it's not what they envisioned.
They envisioned three distinctive branches of government with identified powers given to each.
The power of the purse given to the Congress, to the House of Representatives, confirmed by the United States Senate.
That doesn't take any kind of impact here.
There's no reach to that sort of formula that was recommended by our framers.
And so we can work in a bipartisan way on strategies, but let's have that dialogue.
And it's, you know, it's one-way thinking with the White House imposed onto the majority Republican Party in the House of Representatives.
They take it to the floor and then wonder why they don't have the votes.
Regarding the tariffs that President Trump announced last week and then paused yesterday as far as the reciprocal tariffs being paused on all the countries except for China, what was your reaction to that news and what do you think is the best way to go forward on tariffs?
I thought it was very dangerous and offered a great bit of uncertainty in the market and it proved to be the case.
I think what we really need to do if you're going to use tariffs as a tool to make certain that there are accompanying efforts for investing in manufacturing, investing in energy costs, investing in supply chains, making certain that that strategy to accompany these programmatic investments along with the tariff adjustment.
But then again, his bilateral tariff approach, where you're dealing nation by nation, is certainly not in keeping with sound strategies for application of tariffs.
So I'm hoping they abandon that effort of a unilateral approach and go forward with a more sensible plan.
But no denying here that it rocked the economy worldwide and it's devalued stocks tremendously.
I heard from so many constituents that were concerned about their retirement accounts, their retirement situations, that they had planned so well and then they were put at risk and we're still in a devalued situation of where we were just weeks ago.
No, I think it's investing, it's retrofitting in technology.
It's making certain that you hone the skills that are required in an innovation economy, you know, very specific skills that need to be accompanied not only through the matriculation at our universities and colleges, but through apprenticeships and mentorships that allow us to do those specific skill sets.
I have many semiconductor investments going on in the 20th Congressional District in New York.
We make certain that there are the corresponding workforce development programs along with incentives, tax incentives that enable them to retrofit the systems, to make certain that you invest in the technology.
The semiconductor business is an expensive one, and we need to be competitive with nations out there that are likewise investing in semiconductors.
Again, I think it was the envisioning that was offered by in our very humble beginnings that Congress has a say there, a strong say, that the directive should come from Congress, specifically the House, making certain that the power of the purse and tariff application are initiated by Congress and then implemented by the President.
This concentrating all the powers, three branches of government, in the force of one being in this name, in this case, the name of Donald Trump, is a dangerous thing.
It's an assumption of power and investing in one person.
That is exactly what was worked against.
It was part of the thinking, I believe, in the beginnings of the structure of this government.
As we work as a Democratic caucus, there's a real effort to make certain that there's fairness there, that they bring it back to an appropriate level.
And those negotiations continue.
I don't know where the White House is on that right now because they don't always state their case very clearly.
In regard to the 401k that you talked about, it's what I heard about so overwhelmingly in the last several days of this tariff war that was going on.
And again, I think that the uncertainty that continues to exist here because of the record of this president in his short months in office here in the second term speak to a pause perhaps for the moment.
But then the general public and I think the market is concerned that we could see applications coming back in the near future just in a whimsical way.
And that Wild West environment that he's created with our economy has to be given a lot more certainty, predictability, and academic efforts made here.
Well, I think, again, negotiating through that and making certain that the tariff can be used as a tool, but in a way that is smart and not just, you know, just offering an across-the-board tariff on all these nations or on China in a way that isn't done with the appropriate level of negotiations.
Here's Jim in Winter Park, Florida, Republican line.
Good morning, Jim.
unidentified
Good morning.
Mr. Tanko, I'm sitting here and I'm just appalled.
I think everybody that works in Washington, in the House, and in the Senate should be ashamed of themselves, Republican, Democrat, and Independents.
You opened this conversation with two things that were completely opposite of one another that I want to attack.
You talked about getting good jobs back in the United States with union work and union employees, and then you talked about making chips and being competitive with the world market.
They cannot be aligned.
When you have a union shop, the union shop is a middleman between the business and the employee that makes money.
And they drive the price of everything through the roof.
That is what got us into this trouble in this country for the past 50 years.
And you people just keep playing the game, talking your sides.
And when we're building chips and we're paying people $30 and $40 an hour to be in a factory building these chips, and then you turn around and say we're going to be competitive with countries that can do them for $4 or $5 an hour, it's not going to work.
We'll never get from behind this gun.
So the only way to fix this problem is to drive the price of everything that comes into this country up to where we can pay union rates.
And the people are going to have to suffer for it.
I just wanted to say that I think that When Camilla Harris was there, that if Biden would have stepped down a year earlier and she would have stepped in, you know, I think we would have had a better shot of having her, maybe giving her a year to prove herself as a standing president.
Maybe she would have got voted for.
And then the other question I had was that, you know, I'm retired and I have extremely, I have a lot of, and cold pace are insane.
I mean, you're gambling with you need something or you don't need it, and the cold pace, and that's terrible.
And the third thing that I have is that since I still love to work and I can't, well, I got to was disabled, but I work anyway because I'm allowed to work.
Voting Challenges Ahead00:04:56
unidentified
And I work, I'm only allowed to work 20 hours a week.
I mean, I work, my season starts for six months.
And, you know, I was working on the public work program.
I was able to work 40 hours last year.
I mean, people that are in Social Security, all these jobs are coming available.
Why can't we work 30 or 40 hours for a short period of time, even though we're retired and we're collecting?
I agree that more time for her would have been a benefit, but she did talk about plans that she had to lower costs, costs for groceries, costs for housing and utilities.
She did identify that in a plan.
And candidate Trump in that effort was talking about lowering costs on day one and making many pledges about the economy, all of which have been broken as promises.
Costs have not gone down, they've gone up.
You know, confidence of the consumers out there has gone down, not up.
I think that the tariffs that they're looking at, albeit 10% at the moment, but all that war on tariffs will cause steel and timber prices to go up, making housing more unaffordable.
So, you know, I think it's his walking away from a plan and she having a great plan, but did not have enough time to develop that, I think, with the American public.
And, you know, again, I think had the integrity that she would live up to those promises if she had been elected.
In regard to the co-payments, look, we have made a great effort with the Affordable Care Act, which is at risk right now with these cuts that they're asking to apply to health care through Medicaid cuts of $880 billion,
provide for less affordability, less accessibility, again, in direct contrast to what was pledged by this Trump campaign that is now breaking promises with the American public.
So I think that these efforts need to continue for us to battle against the draconian cuts that are part of this budget offer that's coming from the Trump White House.
The Trump tariffs are a huge concern, even though they've had this pause.
So we've got work ahead of us that is very important to the affordability of households to do their thing to achieve their American dream and make life affordable.
I think it's making it more difficult for people to vote.
Look, the system, the last few elections have been under great scrutiny.
They were some of the most clean as a whistle efforts for elections that we've had in the history of our nation.
There is a lot of sentiment, I think, or underlying statements made with this bill that there are people voting illegally.
It is currently illegal to vote if you're not a citizen.
There have been those checks out there.
This is just making it more difficult for people to vote.
For instance, with women, if they've changed their name, as many people do, women do when they marry, they would have to produce additional information, passports, birth certificates, what have you, in order to be able to qualify to vote.
I think this is going to be adding more burden to vote.
We need to encourage voting across the country to strengthen our republic and to advance the efforts of democracy.
I appreciate the Biden administration and what they did.
They put a great focus on a tax cut for the great many of us in the working families category, the middle-income community and those looking to ascend the middle class.
That was their focus.
And as they did tax cuts, they did them with a pay-for.
So there wasn't an added impact on the deficit.
The trouble with the 2016 tax cut was that it was not paid for and that 83% of that package went to the top 1%.
And so you're not helping well enough the great many of us in the categories that I just described.
It was a bonanza outcome for billionaires.
And unfortunately, they did not pay for that tax cut.
So it required borrowing of some $2.4 trillion, which then was one of the most impactful growths of the deficit of this nation in our country's history.
There's a lot of gimmickry and certainly not a person of his word.
As we've seen here, without the efforts made to reduce costs, I think that it is important for us when we make these investments to provide as great a guarantee that they're implemented in a way that helps the American worker and keeps the investments here at home.
We added language like that to the Chips and Science Act, which was an incredible investment in a growing sector of our economy that is worldwide.
And I think the efforts to provide more guarantees that those investments be made in the American worker and American plants will prove very successful.
But a lot of the undoing, you know, the Chips and Science Act was a tremendous effort that was done in the 117th session of Congress.
And now you see great efforts to dismantle that.
I'm very concerned because if we're not competitive, if we're not making certain these dollars invested are maintained here in the U.S., then we're going to fall behind in what is a critical race globally.
Well, I think that, you know, when you speak of the border situation, this country still needs sound immigration reform that has a guaranteed pathway to citizenship.
And I think we need to make that a priority.
In my opinion, I think that the opposing party has used this as an issue and they don't want to give it up.
There have been opportunities to, like we saw in the last campaign, do sound immigration reform.
I had a hair salon, and all the company products that I had were made in America.
And with his last administration, he put me out of business because the color tubes were made in Canada, and then the color was made in China, and then they were assembled in the U.S.
So back then, all the prices rose and then it started the initial inflation with hair, and I'm sure all the women customers out there can show.
So I had gone up to $90, but then that put me out of business.
And now the hair color is up to $300 for women.
And it's putting my first hair fallen out of business that there were nine women working there.
And that business is going to close in the end of this month.
So all these products that we sold out back in the 80s are now coming home to roost because, yes, Americans wanted to pay the cheaper prices.
And now, you know, we were running to China.
And now we're trying to get him back here.
And you're not going to get a white kid out in the fields to pick greens or do anything.
And those days are gone.
Anyway, I'll be quiet, but just to let you know that all these products that we use are now made in these companies and assembled in the U.S.
Richard Ovary is a British historian who has spent most of his professional life writing books about war, primarily World War II.
Professor Overy's current work is called Reign of Ruin, Tokyo, Hiroshima, and the Surrender of Japan.
Liner notes on the cover of the book say, quote, with the development of the B-29 Super Fortress in the summer of 1944, strategic bombing, a central component of the Allied war effort against Germany, arrived in the Pacific Theater.
1945, Japan experienced the three most deadly bombing attacks of the war.
Professor Richard Overy is 77 and lives in Great Britain and Italy.
unidentified
He has written close to 30 books.
Author Richard Overy with his book, Reign of Ruin, Tokyo, Hiroshima, and the Surrender of Japan on this episode of BookNotes Plus with our host, Brian Lamb.
Book Notes Plus is available wherever you get your podcasts and on the C-SPAN Now app.
American History TV, Saturdays on C-SPAN 2, exploring the people and events that tell the American story.
This weekend, beginning at 9.30 a.m. Eastern, all-day coverage of the 2024 Lincoln Forum held in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.
Authors and historians discuss Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War with presentations on Canada's role in the war, African-American reactions to Lincoln's death, and soldiers' motivations to fight.
At 7 p.m. Eastern, watch our American history TV series First 100 Days as we look at the start of presidential terms.
This week, we focus on the early months of President Donald Trump's first term in 2017, including the withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership Trade Agreement and construction of a border wall between the United States and Mexico.
And at 8 p.m. Eastern on Lectures in History, Santa Clara University history professor Sonia Gomez on the intimate relationships between people of different racial and ethnic backgrounds that occurred in Hawaii and Japan during and immediately after World War II.
Exploring the American story, watch American History TV Saturdays on C-SPAN 2 and find a full schedule on your program guide or watch online anytime at c-span.org slash history.
This Saturday, watch the final segment in our 10-part American History TV series, First 100 Days.
We've been exploring the early months of presidential administrations with historians and authors and through the C-SPAN archives.
And we've learned about accomplishments and setbacks and how events impacted presidential terms and the nation up to present day.
This Saturday, the first 100 days of Donald Trump's first term.
As a businessman, he won elective office for the first time in 2016 by defeating Democrat Hillary Clinton.
President Trump pushed for construction of a wall at the southern border, a travel ban against people from certain countries, repeal of the Affordable Care Act, and a tax cut plan.
He also nominated Neil Gorsuch for Supreme Court, the first of three justices confirmed to the high court during his presidency.
Watch the final program in our American History TV series, First 100 Days, Saturday at 7 p.m. Eastern on American History TV on C-SPAN 2.
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Well, the way it was in the political climate, I would have voted no.
We didn't have the votes for it, and we needed more reassurances on the cuts that we need to sustain our budget and our deficit reduction.
I think we have a long ways to go yet, but I think today we're going to have some reassurances publicly from the Senate and from the presidency, and I hope that helps it move it forward.
I know that when the Senate came out with their budget, they had $4 billion in cuts.
That's just not satisfactory.
I know they said we can fix that in the reconciliation and rescue process, but I think we wanted more reassurances to make sure that we didn't get out of line from what we had originally intended.
Actually, I'm really pleased with the way the tariffs turned out so far.
I had many, many concerns.
I have constituents who basically have car dealerships that were going to have a really hard time with the tariffs from Germany.
I had some that had built batteries in Vietnam and were bringing it over.
They specifically avoided China because they knew that was a problem and that 46% tariff there would have really crippled their business.
Several other people with several other businesses and several other places, those didn't come to fruition for several reasons.
First of all, to have 50 countries come to President Trump and say, let's go zero-zero, to have the EU come and say zero-zero, to have Japan, Israel, India, Vietnam, Cambodia, all kinds of nations coming and saying, let's make a deal.
That's very beneficial to all of us.
Because when you get rid of tariffs, you have better free trade, more competition, that forces the price points down.
Actually, it would be deflationary and help our economy simultaneously.
So it was a bit of a game of chicken, but Trump definitely won that.
As far as pausing all tariffs right now, I think that's a separate issue, but I think it had to do with the bond market, but also the fact that we have so many countries actually willing to make a deal right now.
Do you think that that would have happened had there not been that announcement that many economists were calling drastic as far as those initial tariffs being put in place?
No, I think really, if you think about, I saw the market, the market's always going to react to all kinds of things.
But the fact that it was already a done deal.
A European Union had already come and said, let's do zero-zero tariffs.
I mean, that's phenomenal to see the major players, all the major economies in the world other than China, had already come to the table and say, yeah, let's make a deal.
I think the hard work had already been done and we're on the right path.
So I think it was a reaction basically to something else.
And I think maybe just realizing that we have them in a very good place to make a deal with us and benefit the entire nation.
Audrey Fahlberg of the Conservative National Review said this about the conflicting messaging on tariffs.
Quote, for several days, the White House has projected conflicting messages about the strategic end game of the President's trade policy.
Is it making tariffs permanent to fundamentally restructure the American economy or using them as a negotiating tactic to bring tariffs down towards zero?
The president has offered little clarity on the matter.
Pressed on Monday whether the tariffs are permanent or negotiable, he said, quote, they can both be true.
What do you think of that, Congressman?
Do you think those tariffs should be permanent to restructure the economy fundamentally, the American economy, or should, is this a negotiating tactic?
Well, I'm one of those free market trade guys, so I hope they are permanent.
I hope they are zero-zero.
I think that's what creates the greatest competition.
I think the United States, when it's unhampered by unfair trade regulations, does quite well.
And we've proven that over the amount of time that we've been in a major economy.
If you think about it, we have the largest economy by far.
We're approaching $30 trillion in GDP.
The next nearest is under 20.
That's China.
And then everybody else starts at about $5 trillion, which is Japan and Germany.
It goes down from there.
So whatever we've been doing historically has worked, but I think we can even do better without the reciprocal tariffs that people, sorry, not even the reciprocal tariffs, the unfair tariffs that we've had placed on us historically.
I think it's about time that we got to a fair trade point, and that's only going to benefit the United States.
So I hope it does become permanent.
I hope it is zero-zero.
I'm not real big on protectionist tariffs.
I don't care if it's on steel or anything else like that because I think it harms the climate.
I want to ask you, since you're a practicing medical doctor, you're also from Georgia, which is where the CDC is located, about cuts to the HHS and health care, sorry, the staffing at HHS and also research funding.
So federal research dollars going towards medical breakthroughs and biotech innovation.
When you're talking about cuts done by bureaucracies, obviously we don't have purview over that.
I'd like to see what the president's going to ultimately do because sometimes they pause things and then they re-up it when they see the fallout on that.
In other words, I saw with the CDC, the CDC was pressuring us to hire over 200 new employees just for their viral area of research, and that was over COVID.
I didn't think that was necessary.
I told them it wasn't necessary.
And I'm an ER doc and actually my former attending is one of the senior members of the CDC.
So we can have those debates all day long.
If you're talking about cancer research and stuff like that, I think it's very important we continue to invest in things that will benefit all Americans.
But we have to make sure the right people are in the right place at the right time, especially given our budgetary concerns.
Joseph, Point Pleasant Beach, New Jersey, Republican.
Good morning, Joseph.
unidentified
Good morning.
How are you?
How are you doing, sir?
Thank you for your service.
I just got a couple things I just want to say.
I'm ultra, ultra MAGA, and I kind of get upset when I hear guys like Rand Paul talking about, oh, no tariffs, no tariffs.
And you just said the same thing, you know, free trade.
We're never going to have free trade.
For the last 80 years, we've been supporting countries militarily.
Canada, Europe, now Ukraine.
It's never going to be free trade.
If all the money that we're spending, the tariffs won't make up for that.
And another thing, too, do you think I'm a New York City kid, so I didn't know this was going on.
My wife is from Detroit.
So every time I go out there, I see how decimated that city is.
I had no idea that American companies were closing up shop in our country and then going to Mexico and Canada and then bringing those cars back into our country.
You don't think Trump has a right to tariff those companies?
Anyway, let's move on to Sharon in Bemidji, Minnesota, a Democrat.
unidentified
Good grief, huh?
All right.
Mimi, I have a question for C-SPAN real quick.
And I've asked it, I think, every single time I call, is whatever happened to the roundtables where we can bring in two representatives from both sides and we can ask questions to both of them.
But I can tell you, I've watched this show for 30 years, and it changed back in 2016.
That's when we quit doing it.
And I just don't understand.
I really wish we could.
I mean, we had the Democrat on half an hour ago, and now we got this guy on.
That's been noticed by the actually CEO of C-SPAN has approached me on that, and I'm okay with it.
And I think most Democrats would be okay with it.
There's several people that I have very friendly banter with all the time about bipartisan solutions.
We're going to need something for Social Security, something for Medicare when it comes to these massive spending programs that we have to solve without, which we would have an automatic 21% cut to Social Security within the next 10 years.
I think she had something else to say, but hopefully she'll call us back.
Here's David, Dennison, Texas, Republican.
Good morning.
unidentified
I definitely agree with the idea of having two opposing views at the same time.
I hate this format since it's changed.
I hardly watch like I used to, also as far as the, look, one thing that this has helped raise is awareness that as people are talking about tariffs or taxes, tariffs are an expense and somebody passes it on.
You've had people call in to say that the tariff raises a price to the importer in the United States that's paying it.
Now, the exporter into our country is paying the tariff.
Now, whether they pass it along or not, that's a different issue.
The importer may or may not pay more as a result of that.
And whether they pass their margin, reduce their margins, that's a different issue.
But it's helped get it in the minds of people that tariffs are an expense and it might or might not be passed along.
Taxes to businesses are expenses.
No business pays any taxes.
The consumer pays the tax in the context of the price that the business charges for its services.
1817, David Ricardo, one of the preeminent economists of the day, writing in his book on political economy, made that point clear then.
It hasn't changed yet.
And right now, where some of the Republicans are talking about raising taxes on the wealthiest over 40% or 40%, you get beyond the laugh recover 25%, you get less of what you wanted.
Trump is doing a great job, and I do disagree with our congressman here on one point.
There is no such thing as free trade.
Everybody's screwed things around forever.
The WTO is responsible for the biggest part of it because we lost control of what we could do with tariffs and controlling our markets with the WTO.
We gave up our power on that to the global market, to the globalists.
And before that, with GATT, we used tariffs all the time.
You've had people call and say, oh, we never used tariffs before.
Tariffs were used all the time before the WTO.
And we were able to control what was going on with it.
We don't have that control now.
We have to get manufacturing here.
If we had a regular war with China, we would lose.
We have no manufacturing.
It's the exact opposite between what we were before World War II.
I'm calling to say that all these trade deals and the stuff that's going on here, what they're talking about, all they had to do is watch the golf course.
All this stuff is a distraction.
It's distracting with all this stuff coming up, what he's doing while he's over here doing that.
You know, about the golf course and the Saudis coming in there to get money.
That's what he's doing, distracting everybody.
All of a sudden, after the golf course, then what do you mean, Willie?
All right, Mike in Bessemer City, North Carolina, Republican.
Good morning.
unidentified
Good morning.
Yes.
How are you doing, Mr. McCormick?
I'm just about these tariffs.
We need to do something because, like the previous caller said, you know, China has got, we've lost 90,000 manufacturers in this country, and we got to stand up.
But one of the main things I want to address is I want the Republicans to be like the Democrats and grow some kahunas like that.
Jamie Raskin always talking crap about Trump and Elon Musk and Jasmine Crockett the way he's talking.
We had fierce debate last night, but we tend to, I always say we shouldn't admonish each other in public.
I think it's very important that we do our fighting behind closed doors.
It's a biblical principle, but it's also, it keeps people from working against each other.
We have a lot of fights, but we keep them amongst ourselves most of the time.
The people, matter of fact, who go out there and display their fights publicly are usually the people who are not getting things done.
When it comes to fighting the Democrats, I think you'll see plenty of fighting out there.
But once again, the question is, what are we getting done?
What are we bringing to the table?
How are we actually solving problems?
We were up pretty darn late last night trying to come up with some solutions, real solutions, to have the first significant cut in deficit spending since I've been around.
I mean, this is something that's been, we haven't had a balanced budget since basically back in the 90s.
And that was a long time ago.
And we're really on a course for a collision with history.
And I hope we get something significant done this time.
And I think that that would be the first time in modern history.
I would like to comment that after World War II, they developed the Marshall Plan to rebuild countries that were devastated by the world, or by the war.
And we rebuilt most of the world.
And we rebuilt their industries and their infrastructure and their economies to where these countries, a lot of them, are equal to or above our own now.
What we need to do is develop a Marshall Plan II to develop our own industries and economies and infrastructure and not only develop it, but maintain it.