Latest / NO FILTER / _Trump Always Chickens Out__ Wall Street coins new term _TACO trade__ mocking Trump_s tariff policy(MP3_160K)

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_Trump Always Chickens Out__ Wall Street coins new term _TACO trade__ mocking Trump_s tariff policy(MP3_160K) · NO FILTER

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: After nine years of covering Donald Trump, it's difficult to
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: say which bothers Donald Trump more being made to look
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: like a fool, the butt of a joke, or being
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: told no, especially when it results in a diminished version
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: of his own sense of his power. Unfortunately for him,
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: today's news cycle offers both experiences. For him, that no
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: was loud and clear. It came from the US Court
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: of International Trade. That court struck down some of Trump's tariffs,
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: like the ten percent blanket rate and a twenty percent
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: fentanyl tariff on China. Specifically, it was a case that
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: came down to a violation of the separation of powers
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: and an overreach on constitutional authority. From NBC's reporting on
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: this quote, the ruling has the effect of lowering the
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: US's average effective teriff rate from fifteen percent to six
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: point five percent. That's according to Capital Economics consultancy. The
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: ruling did not affect import duties on Auto's auto park
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: and steal an aluminum. Then today, in a second, far
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: more narrow decision, a federal judge in DC ruled against
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump, again, insisting that he does not have the
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: power to impose tariffs on an educational toy company at
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: the moment. Right now, both court orders are currently on
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: pause to allow the Trump administration time to appeal. Trump's
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: advisor Stephen Miller used the phrase quote judicial coup to
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: describe their current situation. The stock market, which has again
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: and again and again recoiled at Donald Trump's tariffs, appeared
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: to react somewhat positively this morning to the news, although
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: there's no doubt it introduces more uncertainty into the broader
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: economic picture and equation. So it's a rejection by the courts,
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: a rejection by the markets. But we wonder if any
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: of that stings Trump as much as the other development
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: today that we alluded to a parent mocker. Yesterday, Donald
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: Trump was asked about a phrase it's actually been used
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: on this program to describe him. Watch how he reacted,
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: mister President Walster.
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: Analysts have coined a new termacle the taco trade. They're
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: saying Trump always chickens out on the tar preps, and
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: that's why markets are hired this week. What's your response
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: to that, I kick out chicken out.
• 2:20
  Speaker 3: Oh, then I check it out. I've never heard that.
• 2:23
  Speaker 3: You mean, because I reduced China from one hundred and
• 2:26
  Speaker 3: forty five percent that I set down to one hundred
• 2:29
  Speaker 3: and then down to another number, and I said, you
• 2:31
  Speaker 3: have to open up your whole country. And because I
• 2:36
  Speaker 3: gave the European Union a fifty percent tax tariff, we
• 2:41
  Speaker 3: had a dead country. We had a country people didn't
• 2:43
  Speaker 3: think it was going to survive. And you asked a
• 2:45
  Speaker 3: nasty question like that. It's called negotiation.
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: Ooh, chick up, a nasty, nasty button pressed chicken out.
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: Defined there by Donald Trump for the first time. Trump
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: blocked by the courts, shocked by the markets, and mocked
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: by Wall Street analysts. Is where we start today, with
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: some of our favorite reporters and friends with me at
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: the table as executive editor in New York. Bureau chief
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: for The Economist, Charlotte Howard is back. Also joining US,
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: US financial commentator for The Financial Times, writer of the
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: Unhedged newsletter, Robert Armstrong is back. Former Acting Assistant Attorney
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: General for National Security the Justice Department, now an MSNBC
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: legal analyst. Mary McCord is here an MSNBC columnist, author
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: of the newsletter to the Contrary. Charlie Sykes joins us
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: as well. Robert, I think you are the first person
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: who use that term on this program to describe or
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: to help me understand how the markets were starting to
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: view the Trump tariff announcements. Up, down, up again on pause, unpaused,
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: up again while on pause, and then down again for
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: when the pause is lifted. It's surprise me that it
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: took until yesterday for him to be confronted with the
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: question about it.
• 4:04
  Speaker 4: Well, no one was actually more surprised than me to
• 4:07
  Speaker 4: see this little joke I made in my Wall Street
• 4:09
  Speaker 4: newsletter make its way to the White House. And to
• 4:13
  Speaker 4: tell you the truth, Nicole, I'm a little horrified by
• 4:18
  Speaker 4: it because you have to remember, Trump chickening out is
• 4:22
  Speaker 4: a good thing. These tariff policies are terribly ill advised
• 4:27
  Speaker 4: and will be terribly destructive to the country if they
• 4:30
  Speaker 4: are enacted. So I worry now that Trump knows that
• 4:36
  Speaker 4: everyone knows he chickens out, he's less likely to do so.
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: Well, I would tell you, and I'll ask Charlie Sykes
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: to jump in a second. You have recovering him for
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: nine years. It's like planning your picnic around where the
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: bees are gonna you know, buzz I mean, I mean
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: Trump's gonna do what Trump's going to do. And I
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: actually think that some of what you enlightened. My understanding
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: of is that because the markets felt largely as though
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: Trump was responsive to them, they weren't as alarmed as
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: people that maybe viewed Trump's language through the democracy versus
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: autocracy lens. And so I think in that vein whether
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: you heard about it or whether it's a good thing
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: that he chickens out or not, this is a person
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: we're dealing with, someone for whom vanity Trump's sound policy,
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: and I wonder now that he knows about it, where
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: is your sort of analysis of what will happen next
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: on the tariff policy front.
• 5:40
  Speaker 4: The serious idea that underlies the taco trade joke is
• 5:46
  Speaker 4: the idea that for Trump there actually is a very
• 5:52
  Speaker 4: low pain threshold with these policies. There is actually not
• 5:56
  Speaker 4: very much that he is willing to actually sacrifice economically
• 6:01
  Speaker 4: or politically to get these tariffs through. That's why he
• 6:05
  Speaker 4: chickens out. These policies are kind of good on TV,
• 6:10
  Speaker 4: but they actually have painful trade offs associated with them
• 6:13
  Speaker 4: when they become policy, and Trump just doesn't seem willing
• 6:17
  Speaker 4: to make those trade offs. And again, while it whipsaws
• 6:22
  Speaker 4: the market, this is kind of a good thing. If
• 6:26
  Speaker 4: you think the tariffs are a bad idea, as I do.
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: And Robert, just to sort of button this part of
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: the story, I mean, I think the tariffs are a
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: bad idea as well. And if you look back to history,
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: even if you don't know, you've forgotten more about the
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: economy than I'll ever understand. But it is not associated.
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: It's not associated with political or economic stability or abundance
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: for a country's citizenry, particularly the middle and working class.
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: I wonder what it leaves you thinking though about the
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: promise of more instability. I mean, this is clearly I
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: think what he revealed in calling the person asking the
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: question in a term, I think what you're saying is
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: coined by you. You hadn't seen it before you wrote
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: it in your newsletter first. Is that what you're that's
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: kind and I think you mentioned it on this show
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: at least three four weeks ago. Do you think that
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: his vanity or his insecurity around the tariffs will change
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: the actual policy moving forward?
• 7:31
  Speaker 4: I think that he wants to be able to claim victory,
• 7:36
  Speaker 4: and in a way, the other issue you talked about
• 7:39
  Speaker 4: at the top of the show, with the courts throwing
• 7:43
  Speaker 4: constitutional sand into the gear of these policies might be
• 7:47
  Speaker 4: almost a political gift from him. It's a good outcome
• 7:51
  Speaker 4: if he doesn't have to actually make terrible policy that's
• 7:54
  Speaker 4: going to hurt people. But can I just say instead,
• 7:58
  Speaker 4: I tried to give you a wonder full policy that
• 8:00
  Speaker 4: was going to save you from everything that was wrong
• 8:02
  Speaker 4: with your life, but the woke courts got in my way.
• 8:06
  Speaker 4: So I expect the rhetoric to continue and the actual policy.
• 8:12
  Speaker 4: I think it's going to be a tough slog for
• 8:15
  Speaker 4: him getting this stuff through.
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: The point that Robert's making about Trump's slow threshold for pain,
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: this is what national security folks always thought was so
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: thought less or uninformed about the tariffs that in terms
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: of threshold for pain, I mean that is the Chinese brand.
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: I mean threshold for pain. Hold my beer, right. I mean,
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: there was never a scenario where the United States of
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: America and our consumer driven economy is going to prevail
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: on a trade war against China. To Robert's point about
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: the courts and Trump, this phenomenon of Trump always chickening
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: out perhaps saving him politically, it may also save the economy.
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: The economy I don't know, because there's so much uncertainty
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: in how the terrorists will be rolled out. I mean,
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: even as I was coming up the elevator to this studio,
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: the news broke that the court's decision last night had
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: been halted today and the terraffs would remain in effect.
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: So I don't really or that he did. You know,
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: as the case moved forward, the lower course position would
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: not stand. So I think that there's an enormous amount
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: of uncertainty in the economy, and the two choices that
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: Robert laid out. I think it's worth fast, it's worth
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: looking at what qualifies as a victory these days. So
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: you know, let's say that the Trumps that Trump's orders
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: are halted, that he's not able to enact the terrifts
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: as he would like. That would be because courts had
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: stopped him. And then you have the likes of Stephen
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: Miller saying this is a judicial coup. I mean, the
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: idea that that would be a victory is pretty striking.
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: That you don't accept the balance of powers as written
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: in the Constitution, but you branded as a coup. And
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: then what further action does that kind of rhetoric enable.
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: So I think we're dealing with enormous amounts of uncertainty
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: still in the economy, real questions about how this policy
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: might play out in practice. But then we have come
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: to learn over the course of Trump's two terms now
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: that rhetoric matters, you know, So I don't really see
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: this as, you know, a real victory here. They're too
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: bad options.
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: Well, and everything I've learned from you and Robert and
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: everyone that comes on the show every day is that
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: the greatest nemesis of a stable and growing economy is uncertainty.
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: And this problem right now, right now, the American employer,
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: or the small business owner, or the importer or exporter
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: is trapped between a decision and a White House that,
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: as you just pointed out, will either defy the decision
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: or attack the legitimacy of it. But also in that decision,
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: is this inherent abdication or overstep of a role of Congress.
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I mean Congress. Part of the ruling that
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: we heard from the lower court yesterday had to do
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: with Trump dramatically overreading his executive powers to impose these
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: terroriffs not just on some goods, but really across every
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: single good right across of countries that are importing to
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: the United States. So I think that you see both
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: Trump really testing the limits of executive power and Congress
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: continuing to lie down. And I think one of the
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: things that Robert pointed out, which is worth returning to,
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: is what are the political and economic costs of Trump's policies.
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: So far, you have seen the economic costs, and you've
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: seen his approval reading decline, but that hasn't resulted in
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: the Republican Party moving away from him, the Republican Party
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: really moving to restrain him in any way. So I
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: think the politics again is lagging the policy.
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: A