Greg Sargent: This is The Daily Blast from The New Republic, produced and presented by the DSR network. I’m your host, Greg Sargent.
Norm Ornstein: Always a pleasure, Greg.
Ornstein: They’re inexplicably high and a disaster. I agree. And obviously not only do the markets agree, but so do many people in the business world. I saw that the CEO of Restoration Hardware, as he watched his stock plummet today, responded with a simple two-word phrase, “Oh, shit.” And my guess is that that’s been replicated, probably in even more colorful language, by business leaders, economists, and investors all across America and probably around the world.
Donald Trump (audio voiceover): I think it’s going very well. It was an operation, like when a patient gets operated on. And it’s a big thing. I said this would exactly be the way it is. We have $6 trillion or $7 trillion coming into our country, and we’ve never seen anything like it. The markets are going to boom, the stock is going to boom, the country is going to boom.
Ornstein: It’s almost like the old joke, “The operation was a success, but the patient died.” Also, Greg, I have to tell you: When he said that and then went on to say the markets are going to boom, we’ve never seen anything like the economic boom we’re going to have, it reminded me of his reaction to Covid, which was this will be nothing, we may get a handful of deaths, but everything is going to be just great. We know what happened. His presidential term the first time around led to probably 400,000 unnecessary deaths and many that followed afterward because of what he did or did not do. We could be facing the equivalent in economic terms with all of this. And he is not going to move away from that rosy scenario, as it were, until and unless he is blocked from doing it or enough Republicans basically just stand up and scream at him, saying, You cannot do this anymore.
Ornstein: This defies logic entirely. And the reality is that we’ve had a very robust economy for a lot of years now, defying a lot of predictions about it. In the aftermath of Covid, it came back very, very strongly. To say that we are in the middle of an economic emergency is ridiculous, except that he’s now going to trigger an economic emergency with this. And a few things flow from it. (1) is how far off base can he be in simply declaring something that is blatantly false and still get away with it? And (2) is what are the means to be able to block this from causing the damage we know will follow if we don’t do something about it?
Ornstein: Let me note as well the election results on Tuesday of two House seats in overwhelmingly Republican districts in Florida that Trump and the predecessors had won by 30 points or more. While Republicans won, the margin was cut in half in both instances to 15 percent or less. I mention that because that had to leave every House Republican who won by 15 percent or less quite nervous last night. They see the direction that things are going. So you’ve got pressure points with some of these Republicans.
If Democrats are going to have any savvy at all in this case, they should not only bring up the resolution that passed the Senate to block the 25 percent tariffs on Canada. They should also introduce a broader one to block all of these outrageous tariffs and save the economy—and get Republicans on the record about whether they’re for it or against it.
Ornstein: It’s not impossible. I’m frankly skeptical that we can get that happening in the next few days, or even the next week or two. Senate Republicans are weak when it comes to defying Donald Trump. And for something that’s just taken place, they may say, Let’s wait, we’ll see if he’s right, maybe it will be just a short period with pain. When we see the pain ratcheted up, there is no reason why Democrats can’t keep bringing this up for a vote and get an outcome that would be more favorable a little bit further down the road.
Ornstein: That’s correct. And we can add that if this were able to be done by secret ballot vote—which it is not—the votes, I believe, would be overwhelming to block this. Most Republicans in Congress know that this is not just folly; it’s dangerous, destructive, and horrifying folly that could lead to a global depression. They know that. But it’s a cult, and they’re not going to go against it at this point without maximum pressure from Democrats in the House and the Senate to get them on record repeatedly endorsing this strategy until they can’t do it anymore.
Ornstein: Correct. And that’s not likely to happen, except that if Trump is rejected in this fashion by a Republican House and Senate, even if it’s only a relative handful of each of them doing it, it is a powerful message. It is a message that would have an impact on him and other things that he tried to do unilaterally, including economic warfare.
Ornstein: And I would go beyond that, Greg. I think we need to see even more town halls in Republican districts, with Democrats doing their own hearings in some of these areas, and field hearings outside plants that are being closed. We had the parent company of Dodge and Chrysler announced today they were laying off 900 workers and shuttering one of their plants. We’re going to see more of that. We’re going to see a lot of prices go up as a consequence of these tariffs, including domestic prices.
Sargent: I agree. Again, I want to stress, I think Democrats need to act as if Republicans can be won over, and just beat the absolute hell out of them day in and day out with Trump did this to you, Republicans are cheering it, etc.
Sargent: There’s also a way to do this through the courts as well, by the way. Ilya Somin, a law professor, is looking for potential plaintiffs, such as businesses who are forced to pay the new tariffs on imports. Then they would sue, arguing that Trump’s tariffs, particularly the invocation of the fake national emergency to justify them, are an abuse of power. What do you think the prospects for that working are, Norm?
But I’m a little skeptical that the courts will intervene here. One reason, Greg, is that for better or worse, and mostly for worse, Congress has given more leeway to a president to do trade deals than they should have—with the expectation that presidents would actually be more mindful of avoiding protectionist traps than many in Congress would and avoiding just what he is now doing. Courts may in this instance give him a little more deference than they are giving him to his utterly lawless acts, along with DOGE and Elon Musk, of trying to shut down departments, firing people, sending innocent people to hellhole prisons and the like.
Ornstein: Yeah, it’s a sham excuse for a bizarre economic theory that a trade deficit means we’re being robbed and bilked that Trump has held since he was a student at Wharton, which surely should have taken away his degree before now. But it’s also part of Trump’s persona of shaking down anybody he can to get something of value. So I have little doubt that in return for what might be money or other benefits going to his family or his companies or opportunities to gain more leverage for the other things that he’s trying to do at home, he will use these as a bludgeon to get people to go along. But along the way, it’s the average American and the average person in countries of our allies and others who will suffer for what is a gangland shakedown scheme.
Ornstein: Anytime. Let’s hope the next time we have something more positive to say. Not likely, but let’s hope.
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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