Greg Sargent: This is The Daily Blast from The New Republic, produced and presented by the DSR network. I’m your host, Greg Sargent.
Andrew Bates: I appreciate you having me.
Bates: Yeah, I think that he betrays the fundamental promise that he made to the country. I remember in the Republican National Convention speech, he told people on day one—that’s a direct quote—prices will fall across the board. He also said that inflation would end immediately—immediately is also a direct quote. He was very explicit about this. And of course that was a false promise. Tariffs are a tax, and they are a tax that is disproportionately paid by people who are not wealthy, people that spend a greater percent of their income on daily necessities, food, clothing.
Sargent: It’s a funny thing, Andrew. Trump is explicit on this point because he keeps saying the tariffs are going to bring in gangbusters revenue. Well, what do they need the revenue for?
Sargent: Well, speaking of Republicans being on their back feet right now, NBC News reports that House Republicans are backing off some of their town hall meetings. And here we see that it’s because of Elon Musk, as you mentioned earlier, his DOGE cuts. Republicans have been getting absolutely hammered by constituents over the chaos and destruction that Musk has unleashed with all this. What do you make of the nature of this energy? Do you think it’s too early to be confident that this will translate into something meaningful? Or alternatively, are there signs already that we’re seeing something durable here, a level of dissatisfaction and backlash that could snowball and become something that matters in the midterms?
They were told their daily lives would improve. But if you look at some of the stuff they’re classifying as waste, they’re putting military families through hell. They also are getting rid of cancer research; I don’t know a single American who thinks that that is waste. They are desperately trying to find the people that keep our nuclear arsenal secure because they fired them, and I don’t know a single American who thinks that is a good idea. Everyone wants to get rid of waste, but I would argue it is exceedingly wasteful to put trillions of dollars on the country’s credit card so people like Elon Musk can have lower taxes, which, by the way, exacerbates inflation. If you increase the deficit, it makes inflation worse. They told us they were going to end it.
Bates: Yeah, you mentioned energy. I think that there’s a very real question about whether he has the energy to do the job. We all saw Elon Musk parading around in the cabinet meeting as though he was president. I saw this week [that] when Donald Trump was asked by a reporter about Musk’s demand that federal employees justify their continuing to be on payroll, he didn’t even seem to know about it. He said something like, Well, I guess they’ll be fired if they don’t do it right. You’re the president, and you don’t know? I think that he has been deferring to [Musk] so much. And he also has stopped talking about things like costs. As you’re getting it, he’s trying to talk about anything else, but it does seem like they’ve lost the narrative and they’re trying to get it back. And you just can’t explain away if people are paying more money and feeling that pain and it’s your fault.
Bates: I think that we need to remember that people’s bottom line is virtually always going to be their highest priority, and that there is a pervasive and very real sense in the country that the tax code is already very unfairly weighted in favor of people that are wealthy. For some context, I led our press around when we were passing the Inflation Reduction Act in the White House, and I had expected Medicare negotiating lower drug costs to be the most popular element of the Inflation Reduction Act, but I was wrong. That was the second most popular. The first was that we were raising taxes on the wealthy and big corporations.
Sargent: You worked in the White House. What are you seeing coming out of there right now? Can you read between the lines, read the tea leaves a little bit? What do you think’s going on internally? Are there debates inside about the stuff that we’re talking about here? There have got to be people in there who know that this stuff is becoming a major problem for them. What’s your reading?
But there’s probably another set at the White House that just feels like, They won and they get to do what they want. I’ve been talking to folks who’ve been trying to impress on some Republican members how hurtful Medicaid cuts would be in, say, my home state of North Carolina; and while there’s some people in competitive districts who seem like they get it, there are a lot of these folks who seem a little drunk on the wind, like they’re just going to do what they want. And that is a recipe for backlash. Again, the common thread of all these things is selling out the people they promised to fight for to the rich. You literally have the wealthiest man in the country, both in terms of literal money and in terms of incel energy, prancing around, looking like a moron, cutting the jobs of people that keep nukes safe, cutting the jobs of people that are fighting bird flu as egg prices go through the roof, putting military families through hell, and obviously the American people hate it.
Bates: I think that the way that Trump is abusing the rule of law and dividing Americans against each other is disgusting, and I think that what we have to do is remember that we need to make a case to folks who may not feel that way off the bat. What we need to do is try to reach them. And that means listening to them about what their top priorities are. Most Americans’ top priority is almost always going to be: How can I create a better financial future for my family? And there is a way that you can do that that also addresses a lot of these abuses for which there is a cost. But what we need to remember is there are a lot of parallels between now and 2017. I worked at the Democratic Super PAC American Bridge that cycle leading their House races arm; we took back the House, and it was because the American people hated the idea of costing millions their health care and driving up premiums so rich folks could get a tax cut. And of course, we were able to stop that, but we focused on it. We also focused on how his only legislative “accomplishment” was blowing up the deficit with tax welfare for rich people.
If you look at USAID, that helps China. That hurts our economy and it helps China because we are locked in a global competition with China to see who can get better access, better economic relationships with just about every other country out there. USAID is one of the main ways that we counter their Belt and Road Initiative. And there are ways when that comes up that we can make clear for people that that actually hurts your interests, but what we have to lead with is, I know that you’re feeling these costs, I am too. We were all promised that they would fall on day one, but what are they doing instead? They are using full control of Washington to raise your costs, to take your health care—all so Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and their rich friends can see a tax windfall. And that opens the door.
Bates: Yes, it was central to it. And what we have to remember is energy, if it’s channeled correctly, can be very powerful; but if energy is not informed by strategy, it is not going to bear fruit. So we have to make sure that we’re using our energy in a constructive way. That means talking to the folks who might be skeptical now, but who, as they feel this economic pain that’s being inflicted on them, as Republicans force onto the country this radical redistribution of wealth from hardworking people to billionaires, to big corporations, that is eye opening, can see you in a new light.
This is not a country that appreciates the values of Bernie Madoff, but that is exactly what you have in the White House right now. You have two billionaires who promised people that they were going to get relief from global inflation but they are raising the costs themselves, charging you so that they can cut their own taxes. And while they’re at it, they’re also taking your health care away and raising health care costs and shuttering rural hospitals and costing us manufacturing—all so they can profit off of you. They promise people new access to the American dream, but they’re really just taking money out of your bank account and putting it into their own. That’s the thing that disgusts people.
Bates: Thank you for having me.
Sargent: You’ve been listening to The Daily Blast with me, your host, Greg Sargent. The Daily Blast is a New Republic podcast and is produced by Riley Fessler and the DSR Network.
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