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From a true social post that President Trump has specifically addressed to quote the great farmers of the United States, it reads as follows, get ready to start making a lot of agricultural product to be sold inside of the United States. Tariffs will go on external product on April second,
ending this true social post. Have fun. And when we consider what the impact of this could be, Joe, US agricultural imports buy and large from other countries include horticultural products, fruits, vegetables, that sort of thing. We do actually import.
A lot of that.
In fact, the annual growth rate was nearly six percent from fiscal years to twenty thirteen to twenty twenty three. And the fact that this is April second that he's talking about means we tack this on, presumably to reciprocal tariffs that he suggested, we'll go into effect that date. Autostos, what else am I missing, there's a laundry.
List, steal an aluminum? Is that the second?
I might have to check my home game for that one, because the timeline is getting a little confused here. External products, he refers to, Yeah, James Copper, that's another one that we're looking at as well. The question is will any of these be implemented? And, by the way, how long it might take our great farmers, as he refers to them, to ramp up production to replace what could be a
lot of missing imports and prevent prices from rising. This is part of our conversation with Liz Pancotti, who's joining us right now to talk it out. Managing director of Public Policy and Advocacy at the Groundwork Collaborative. Liz was an economic advisor to Senator Bernie Sanders, and it's great to have you with us here, Liz, I'm not even sure where to begin, but big picture, you see the confusion in the markets here. What do you do with
the lack of information when it comes to tariffs? And do you think any of them will in fact be put into effect tomorrow?
You know, I think everyone's quite confused. This morning's ism manufacturing report hammered business uncertainty about tariffs, which is affecting both consumer spending and capital spending. Folks are just not willing to make decisions about what to spend and if to spend, and as a result, you're seeing quite a bit of economic softening. Consumer sentiment is down, consumer inflation expectations are up, small business optimism is down, and uncertainty
is up. Consumer spending is down, and we just heard the market's report. It's not looking good.
Well, and there is a certain degree of overlap here. I want to ask about, Liz, because the two largest suppliers of US agricultural imports Canada and the European Union, followed by Mexico, and we're already talking about tariffs going into place potentially on Canadian and New Mexican goods tomorrow of twenty five percent. What happens to all of these are compounded, then they all layer on top of each other, and the rates ultimately end up much higher than what we're thinking about right now.
I think this is the issue is, you know, the Trump administration is not being clear about exactly what's happening. This morning, you had Commerce Secretary Lutnik saying tariffs may go into effect tomorrow, but at lower levels. Treasury Secretary Bescent said tariffs might be paused if Canada and Mexico increase their tariffs on China. In fact, Secretary Lutnik a couple hours ago said, we'll have an announcement tomorrow. Except the problem is these tariffs supposedly go into effect at
midnight tonight. I think the uncertainty is extremely hard for both consumers and businesses to operate in this environment. The other issue have for farmers that you know President Trump is boasting about the returns that they'll get from this on truth social is that this could increase their fertilizer prices, the prices they pay for agricultural equipment, much of which
is imported. And so even though you may have you know, increases in demand for domestically produced agriculture, much of our agriculture products right now are imported, especially things like food and groceries. The input costs for how much it costs to produce those is likely to rise, sort of limiting what farmers are able to do in terms of increasing supply.
Well, so, which one of these keeps you up at night? Which one has the biggest impact on the US economy? Is it Mexico Canada tariffs that could be implemented tomorrow. Is it reciprocals that come in April Autos steal an aluminum cop for some of the stuff that we've already talked about. Liz, you've got a big menu to pick from.
It all keeps me up at night, and I think more importantly, it keeps American families and consumers up. You know, they voted for President Trump in hopes that he would bring down their prices, especially those they're facing on essentials at the grocery store. And instead of bringing their prices down, he is focused on, you know, indiscriminate tariffs that do
nothing to protect American jobs or strengthen US manufacturing. And instead of imposing tariffs on allies on Canada that will hurt workers and raised prices, he really should be focusing on holding countries like China accountable for undercutting American workers and businesses. Sort Of lost in this whole conversation is that Trump walk back closing the Deminimus loophole that allows China to flood the US with cheap goods without being expected or paying tariffs. So it keeps me up at
night that we're not doing any of this strategically. There are certainly strategic cases for tariffs. The President doesn't seem to be making them and certainly doesn't seem to be implementing them in a strategic way, which really does ultimately hurt both consumers, workers, families, and agriculture, you know, farmers, the whole nine yards.
Well, so, Liz, when we consider the impact on consumers and the actual prices, they will see what we frequently hear from officials in the Trump administration are those aligned with his way of thinking on tariffs? Is what we're talking about here is a one time price increase, not necessarily sustained inflation as we experienced during the Biden administration.
Is there a world in which though a one time price increase can actually precipitate an inflationary spiral if consumers expect that prices are going to keep going up even if they wouldn't have necessarily on their own.
Yeah, I don't think this. There's any world where this is a one time increase. If these are all implemented in such a haphazard way, you know, as Joe said before, maybe these are leveled on top of each other, Maybe something comes tomorrow, and maybe something comes in April. And what about in six months when the president gets mad in another country that he wouldn't let them land a
plane full of undocumented immigrants he's trying to deport. This really is just a needless trade war that he is lever that he is, you know, really picking with the entire world. I don't if you expected a one time increase in prices, or if that was your goal, you might implement all the tariffs all at once, in a very clear fashion, on a very clear set of goods. Instead, we're getting you know, delays on this, layers on this, changing in decisions at the last mint.
It.
I don't see how this is a one time price increase, especially with where consumer and business sentiment is. I think this is likely to spiral and more likely to see downstream effects for months to come as the Trump administration continues to play games with the implementation of these policies.
Well, you know, we hear past is prologue a lot around here.
We ask members of the administration about the potential inflationary impact of tariff's Liz Scott Besson was presented over the weekend with this Peterson Institute report showing the tariff policy could cost the typically US household an additional twelve hundred dollars a year. He called the report alarmist and referred to the first Trump administration.
That showed tariffs did not affect prices.
He said, how do you argue with that when you do have the example of the first administration.
For this president, I think tariffs are likely to affect prices. It's unlikely to be a full one to one pass through. I think the bigger question is what are corporations going to do with the announcement of these tariffs? As we saw over the last four years, corporations really look for opportunities to pass increased prices and then some onto consumers. That pricing environment and those conditions really weren't present in the seventeen to nineteen period that Secretary of Descent is
talking about. And so I think the bigger question is what are corporations going to do with this increased cost for them? How will they pass them on to consumers? If it looks anything like the priest you know the last four years that we've seen, they're likely to pass actually more than a dollar through to consumers because they can, because they know that they have favorable pricing conditions.
Well, so when we consider them that pricing power that companies may have, their ability to pass costs on to the consumer is dependent on the consumer actually tolerating that and still being willing to purchase those items. Is there a world, though, list where we just see a precipitous drop in demand of consumers with say no, we are not going to swallow those increased costs.
I think that's exactly right. And in fact, retail sales fell almost a percentage point in January from the prior month according to Commerce Department data we got last week, which is the first monthly declined since August of twenty twenty four. Consumers are already starting to withhold what they're spending, either out of uncertainty or because of increased prices. I think you can absolutely expect that to continue.
Well, you had layoffs and things start to get interesting here, Liz. I don't know what kind of numbers we're going to see on Friday, and if, in fact a lot of these announcements following the reference date might in fact make us wait another month or two, but at some point we're going to start seeing the impact of federal government layoffs in economic data. We've got a jobs report coming out on Friday. We know that the Education Department has
put up a midnight deadline for its staffers. Those who quit get a twenty five thousand dollars payout. There's a DoD purge coming. We've already talked about USAID and so many other agencies. What will that look like in the jobs report this week and over the next couple of months.
The federal government is, though the largest individual employer in the country, it accounts for about two percent of total employment. Obviously, we're not laying off the entire federal government yet so far. I don't expect that we will see especially given where the reference period was. I don't expect we'll see a massive blip. But I think in the months to come,
you can expect to start to see those jobs. Both of those first order effects of actual federal jobs being cut, the second order effects that either federal funding freezes or contracts being pulled people who are funded people whose jobs
are funded by federal spending. And then the third order effects are of course, you know, if you have a bunch of laid off federal employees or federally funded employees stop spending money at the grocery store or at the lunch counter, or in their neighborhoods, or not sending their kids to degare because they're home. And you have that drop in consumer demand, you are ultimately going to see, really, you are going to see effects really kind of reverbiate
through the economy. You have to think about the economy that Trump inherited. On paper, he inherited almost a perfect economy, high consumer sentiment, low unemployment, inflation almost at target, and he has really, within a matter of weeks almost almost ruined it. You are starting to see that honeymoon period really come to a close. Does not so much look like his first term, and certainly does not look like the economy that President Biden was able to turn around
within a couple of months of taking office. So the prospects don't look good. And I'm worried about this softening that's already happening this close into the administration. And I do suspect that if we don't see it in NICH Jobs report, the next two won't be so rosy. And then we've got CPI next week that might not look great either.
Well, In the meantime, tomorrow, Liz, we are expecting President Trump to Trump to address a joint session of Congress, in which I'm sure he's going to talk about his ambitions for tax cuts and extending the twenty seventeen tax cuts. Specifically, is you talk about a softening in the consumer what would happen if those actually do expire at the end of the year.
Those tax cuts have very little effect on the vast majority of America pocketbooks. For the bottom fifty percent, you're looking at a couple hundred dollars, whereas the top point one percent you're looking at about three hundred thousand dollars each.
And so I think, really, if you combine what they are proposing, which is massive cuts to things like Medicaid, food stamps, vital programs that support middle class families balance sheets, and you combine that with large tax cuts for the wealthy, who are much less likely to consume and spend in the economy, it's both a picture that doesn't look good for middle class families but also doesn't look good on the broader macro scale in terms of consumer demand.
Boy, we've got a lots to figure out here, obviously, Liz if these I know you're not a market analyst, but these terriffs don't take effect.
Do we have a big rally on our hands?
I don't think so. We didn't see one when Trump pulled down the announcement last time, and I think you know, to some extent, they're all priced in, right. I think the markets are expecting some amount of chaos here, but I don't foresee a big rally given the other things going on in the economy, federal job layoffs, consumer sentiment. The uncertainty also causes quite a bit of calamity, and so I'm certainly not looking at my portfolio expecting a rally if that gets pulled down.
Well.
Right now, stocks are just around the lows of the session, down about a percent on the S and P five hundred in Nasdaq one hundred. Liz Pancotti, Managing director of Policy and Advocacy at the Groundwork Collective, thank you so much for joining us collaborative, I should say, as we deal with this breaking news.
You're listening to the Bloomberg Balance of Power podcast. Catch us live weekdays at noon and five pm. E's durn on Apple, cock Lay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg business app. You can also listen live on Amazon Alexa from our flagship New York station. Just say Alexa play Bloomberg eleven thirty.
The reports of that investment one hundred billion dollars TSMC is slated to make in the United States, that expected to be announced at the White House by President Trump later around this hour. It's scheduled for thirty pm Eastern time. We'll see if that holds. Things have been running late as of late at the White House, and certainly that was true on Friday as well, although things also ended
earlier than expected. When President Trump was meeting with Ukrainian President vladimir's Lynsky, keeping in mind, they were supposed to sign a deal on minerals in which the wealth that Ukraine derives from minerals was going to be shared with the United States, the President seeing that as a step toward peace ultimately with Russia, in a way to provide
security guarantee to Ukraine through economic means. But as we've all learned and I'm sure have seen replayed over the last several days, things went south quickly in that Oval Office meeting.
Mister President with respect, I think it's disrespectful.
For you to come into the Oval Office to try to litigate this in front of the American media. You should be thanking the president for to bring it into this conflicts.
Into Ukraine that you say, what problems we have.
I have been to Kamban. I were not in a good position. I was. You don't have the cards right now with us. You start having coins car right.
Now play.
You're gambling with World War three and what you're doing is very disrespectful to the country.
Have you said thank you once that lawyer meeting.
Now, as we just mentioned earlier, we advance over the weekend to a meeting in the UK with Prime Minister Keir Starmer and commentary from President Zelenski that an end of the war with Russia is quote very very far away. Donald Trump did not like that line, putting to truth social a short time ago. Today, this is the worst statement that could have been made by Zelenski, and America will not put up for it for much longer. He goes on to write, meeting they had with Zelensky stated
flatly they cannot do the job without the US. Referring to the Europeans, and he says, this guy referring to Vladimir Zelenski does not want there to be peace as long as he has.
America is backing.
Zelensky, taking to social media himself out with a statement a short time ago to take issue with this, thank the American people for what they have given so far, and a lot of questions about what this is going to lead to with a minerals deal that remains unsigned, and what we might hear from the President tomorrow night and his address to a joint session of Congress. With us to get into all this right now is Michael Allen.
He's back with us here at the table. Managing director Beacon Global Strategy, is former special assistant to President George W.
Bush in the national security space. Michael, welcome back, Thank you to see you. Thank you.
It's a precarious moment, being right before a major event like this that Donald Trump is also professing to tell it like it is.
What's he going to say about Ukraine tomorrow? Might it actually be a deal?
Well?
I hope that the President will say that he wants to get back on side with the Ukrainians and sign the minerals deal as soon as possible. But I'm really worried right now and I say, this is somebody that supports Ukraine. I feel like Zelensky is almost practicing malpractice when it comes to politics here. We all know the way it should work when you come to visit the United States. You have to get this relationship right if you're in Ukraine and you depend on the economic and
military superpower as much as you do. President Trump thinks of himself as the honest broker here. We may wish he were more on side with the Western Powers, but he wants to broker a piece, so he sees himself as trying to condition the two parties to get in here. And I really feel like Zelenski keeps getting him his own way. He should just say I look forward to peace. I want it to be a durable piece. He should look for security assurances later. Trump wasn't going to issue
those in the meeting last week. He's not going to do it on truth social It would be at the end of the day anyway. So I hope he can clean his messaging up. He's a politician, He's got to be able to read the room. And let's shift the focus over to Vladimir Putin. If you want to talk about obstinate that's where you'll start seeing it. And let's let Putin occupy the space for a little while.
Well, you speak to an important point here, which is that the crux of the issue, it seems, is that Ukraine wants more commitment from the US on keeping a piece secure than the President right now at least seems willing to provide. Dlensky's suggestion in that meeting was a mineral's deal alone is not enough that Ukraine needs more than that. If that is still the fundamental issue, do you see them being able to sort that out? Otherwise, why would you crane agree to whatever Trump to goes.
Well, I see them getting farther away from an eventual deal where the United States plays some role in a European peacekeeping force. That's why I want Zelensky to keep trying to advance the ball forward the minerals deal. It could have been a huge win for last week, especially considering where they had been the week prior to that.
And so I'm the dictator of misinformation bubble, Yes, the misinformation bubble. You can't. Actually it's not just Trump.
I don't think any president wants to be messaged negatively by another world leader through the media, and you especially don't want that in the person's presence in the Oval office. So I think to get to where Zolensky needs to go, he needs to say.
The right thing. Step back.
Let the Europeans advance the ball a little bit on security assurances. They had a big meeting yesterday and they decided something along the lines of well, why don't we do a one month cease fire in terms of in the air and in the sea and on energy attacks.
Let's let them run with the ball for a little while.
What we heard from the Prime Minister of the UK he hosted twenty allies in London on Sunday, kir Starmer and talking about joining with France to step up to support Ukraine here and forge a peace plan they could offer to Donald Trump. I don't know how receptive he's going to be to a peace plan that's coming from Europe. But here's Kirre Starmer following the meeting with Zelenski and others.
We are at a crossroads in history today. This is not a moment for more talk. It's time to act. The UK is prepared to back this with boots on the ground and planes in the air, together with others. Europe must do the heavy listing.
A coalition of the willing, as he describes it, I feel like we've seen this movie before.
How much can they actually do on their own without the US.
Well, at least they could do a great deal in terms of just putting troops on the ground. And this is actually what the Trump White House wants. He wants these types of commitments to step forward.
But I think everybody.
Knows that at the end of the day, you would still need what the Europeans are calling a US backstop, and that basically means that we would help with command to control, intelligence, maybe overflight, so it would be a more limited role. Trump's definitely not going to put US troops on the ground in Ukraine. But if they can help with the mission from Afar, maybe that's something that Trump could sign up to if it's to get a deal in the final analysis. But it's not on brand
for Trump to agree to this. At this point in the negotiations. He's trying to be the mediator, rightly or wrongly, and so he's not going to just absolutely tramp on what he believes to be a putin redline.
Well, and when he was asked in the Oval Office meeting last week. Whose side he's on or if he was in the middle. He says he's for both Ukraine and Russia. Truly just sees himself as a middleman here. Didn't suggest he's advocating for one side or the other, but on the Russian side. How has all of this changed the calculation for Vladimir Putin with he's considering what concessions he does or does not need to make in any deal.
Well, so I agree.
I don't think this was done as a calculated way to give a gift to the Russians, but that's the outcome. In reality, the Russians are loving this. They're able to see Ukraine lose ground with the United States, not just substantively, but substantively and publicly.
And so this is.
Not a great place for Zelensky to be. I feel like he needs to say, listen, I am for peace. I just want it to be durable, and I regret that I've aired all of our differences in the public sphere. And let's try to get the minerals deal signed and get back on track, and let's put the emphasis on Putin.
He's the one that's truly recalcitrant. If he gets into this and starts to deny Trump elements of what Trump wants to be able to advance as part of peace talks, then let's see Trump go after Putin for a while instead of Zelenski.
It's your point. The line from the Kremlin is remarkable. Quote this is from Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskoff. The new administration is rapidly changing all foreign policy configurations. This largely aligns with our vision.
Unquote. Is Ronald Reagan spinning in his grave?
I think so.
But more importantly, I think a lot of people in the Republican Senate are probably very uncomfortable with the way
this is going down. I think they want to be able to argue that, hey, Russia is our obstinate sort of opponent, but they don't have any sort of room to do that yet because of the way that this is going down at the present moment, Which is another reason why we need to get past this Zelensky disaster from last week and get back to the merits of the deal, because I think that the Europeans and Republican senators and others need to start saying back to the
White House I'm glad you're trying to mediate here. We want peace also, but let's not give away too much to Russia.
So what's the role a former senator and Secretary of State Marco Rubio or the National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, for example, in all of this? Can they provide that check to what Trump's impulses might be right now?
Around your well?
I think they can somewhat.
But what I've been sort of arguing to people of late is that Donald Trump is making all the decisions in his administration. It may not always be this way the way that the presidency may catch up. There may be other events that'll have to focus on. But Trump is deciding personnel matters, He's deep into the doge. He's very much deciding, if not all of the tariff decisions, the vast majority of them. So Trump is totally invested
in his presidency, making every decision. So I haven't seen a lot of room for cabinet government in areas where Trump is plugged in, and in foreign affairs and on this war, he is basically very plugged in.
What will be his tone is posture on Ukraine tomorrow night, when he speaks to a joint Session of Congress, remembering the Ukrainian flags that lined Pennsylvania Avenue going to the Capital of the Knight, that Zelensky also addressed a joint session of Congress, or when he joined the First Lady in the gallery as a guest of honor of the President. It's going to be a very, I presume, different feel.
It is going to be a different feel. I think he's going to fault Zelensky for not being ready to enter into piece to a piece equation. I think that's going to be the overriding message when Trump at his core, for all we say about Trump, really just wants to end the killing. He doesn't subscribe to some international relations theory the different folks in Washington have subscribed to. He
wants to stop the killing as soon as possible. He sees a path in that direction, and right now Zelensky looks like he's in the way and Putin's hidden, And so I think Zelensky's going to continue to be faulted until he cleans everything up.
So with things as they stand now, how soon do you think, realistically is possible.
For I don't think it's I would have hoped that Zelensky would have said something over the weekend and had done something more quickly.
But if we can.
Start reacting maybe to the ideas that the Europeans are putting on the table, the cease fire in the air and in the sea, and begin to talk through some different details, maybe that eventually changes the dynamics, because the one we're in right now is not a good.
One, all right, Michael Allen, Great to see you, as always here in our Washington, d C. Studio. He's Managing director of Beacon Global Strategies, also former Special Assistant to President George W. Bush in the national security sector. Here with us on Balance of Power.
You're listening to the Bloomberg Balance of Power podcasts. Catch us live weekdays at noon and five pm. He's durn on Apple, Cockley and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business app, and also listen live on Amazon Alexa from our flagship New York station Just Say Alexa played Bloomberg eleven thirty.
We're talking politics here on a big week in Washington. Great to have you with us on Bloomberg Radio on the satellite radio channel one twenty one and.
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You can get to hang out with our signature panel and just a moment, Rick and Jeanie will be in as we set things up for the super Bowl of politics tomorrow night, the big speech to a joint Session of Congress, what would in any other year be called a State of the Union. And as we find the headline at Bloomberg Government, a speech and deadline set up March powder keg. Yeah, welcome to March. I hope you enjoyed the weekend.
I got some rest because Beegov is right.
March offers two new windows into how Democrats and Republicans are dealing with the new Trump administration and what Jonathan Tomory calls Trump's bulldozer style presidency one of the national spotlight one behind closed doors. I already mentioned tomorrow night, the big spectacle, Trump's speech joint Session of Congress. We will all be together here for special coverage starting at eight pm Eastern time.
I hope you're with us.
Then it's onto government funding. Yes, the key dividing line centering on the sharp cuts that Donald Trump and Elon Musk have imposed. This is why Democrats are not feeling like playing along at the moment with a continuing resolution that would go through the end of the fiscal year straight through September. Pentagon hawks on a Love that Freedom caucus at all of it too.
And we've got a new.
Poll rolled out Sunday Morning CBS News You Go of eighty percent of adults think Donald Trump should be focused on the economy and inflation. Only twenty nine and thirty six percent believe he is prioritizing these issues respectively. So
what's the point tomorrow night? It's going to be a big, long speech, a big performance, But what are the messages that Donald Trump actually needs to land Having spent a lot of time talking about tariffs and geopolitics the last couple of weeks, our messaging experts are with us, and by that I mean our signature political panel. Genie Schanzeno was here, Bloomberg Politics contributor, Democratic analyst, and political science
professor at Iona University. And there's Rick Davis, a Republican strategist, Bloomberg Politics contributor and partner at Stone Court Capital.
Rick, what is the job for Donald Trump tomorrow night?
He's going to have to get a message that you can fit on a bumper sticker somewhere.
What should it be?
Well, his messages don't come bumper sticker already. In fact, his speeches tend to go well over an hour, tough to fit on a bumper sticker, And I anticipate he's going to use all the time that he needs to.
Make this speech.
The reality is in the past, when he was president, we have a lot to learn from. He was spending a lot of time on these kinds of speeches, trying to get Congress to do what he wants him to do. Right, And for the first two years it was his agenda, I want, you know my text cuts passed, and then he had a victory lap over his tax cuts getting passed in his speech. And then in the second two years he had Democrat control and it was you know, a bunch of socialists, and you need to do what.
I tell you to do.
I don't think he thinks he needs Congress anymore. I think this speech is going to be all about what he's doing as president. I don't think he really thinks Congress is a player. And I'm I'm leveling tariffs, I'm creating all kinds of economic activity. Look at all these commitments I'm getting from Apple and others to you know, build off our technical infrastructure. I think it's going to be more what he's doing for the country than what he needs Congress to do for him.
Amazing, Genie, what's your thought on tomorrow night here? Does he need to make an announcement that coincides with the numbers we're talking about here? Does he need to get more focused on the issue of inflation or is it going to sound like the most recent speech we heard from Donald Trump.
Yeah, it's always hard to predict with Donald Trump, which is what is going to make it fascinating. But I do think that to your discussion of that CBSU Gov poll, we saw similar results from a CNN and an NPR poll that also came out in the last twenty four to forty eight hours, and just the signs of the economy and consumer confidence, there are signs of sort of
blinking yellow going into red. Whether you're looking at public opinion on the Trump presidency arguably only six weeks in, so it's still early, and also the economy itself, and I think Donald Trump and his team are going to have to take those things very seriously. There is a danger not just with the Trump administration but all presidents. They overread mandates. And the reality is he did win the popular vote and he won the electoral college, but
he didn't run away with it. He lost Senate seats in some key states that Republicans should have won. And so what did the American public elected to do? They elected him to make them feel better about the economy. We all remember Joe Biden's economy. The numbers weren't bad, but people weren't feeling it. We elected Donald Trump he
was gonna make us feel better. You look at those polls most taken before the debacle in the White House on Friday, and people aren't feeling better, and by large numbers are saying he's not focused on what we elected him to do. And so that's what I think he should talk about. He's not going to listen to me, though, Joe, so who knows what he talks about. But that's what I think he needs to talk about.
Well, I'll be curious to hear from both of you on the way Democrats are handling this. I guess Senator Chris Murphy is suggesting that he might actually skip the speech, and there could be some boycotting, but there's been more of an effort in the party to bring guests who have been affected by Trump policies. So get ready to see a lot of laid off federal workers showing up with lawmakers and doing interviews. Here Elizabeth Warren just right
in front of me. I just popped into my email by announced to she's going to be bringing Doug Kowaluski of Wellesley will be there, a former National Science Foundation employee. Rick, Is this a good strategy? Does anybody care?
You know, it's hard to tell whether or not the public is really feeling the pinch on these job losses. You know, the pulling is a little bit all around. I think nine times out of ten when you hear stories about individuals who are particularly affected by this, I think it has the potential for the public to get aroused. But I think if it's just thousands of people fired today through DOGE, I think there's an attitude that the government's too big. It's part of what fueled Trump's victory
and that he's finally doing something about it. And unless it's specific to an individual, it's kind of hard to get your head around thousands of people being fired at any given time. So I do think the democratic strategy of sort of identifying stories and trying to get those stories out may be worthwhile, but at the end of
the day, the momentum is all on Trump side. I mean, what's creating of activity is going to be hard to fit into one night's speech, right, I mean, we've never had a president in my time get this much done in this short period of time, and now.
He's going to talk all about it.
Well, we're going to be in for a long night.
There's a New York Times story that you probably saw today, Genie. By the way, the White House did react to the Washington Post story on Democrats bringing guests in the form of laid off federal workers. Quote Democrats exploiting the American people for political points, is what the White House said. And you can weigh in on that if you want, Genie. The fact the matter is you start talking about what the Doge has accomplished, and I'm sure a lot of
the speech will be aimed at that. The group claiming credit for canceling procurement agreements that had been completed years earlier. Another in a string of public errors on its receipts website, they start kind of promoting big cuts, only to find out in this case that there was a Coastguard contract track signed in the Bush George W. Bush administration, and it was completed by two thousand and five, twenty years past,
and we're still talking about this. Does Donald Trump have enough to actually take credit for?
You know, I think the reality is is the cutting the federal government cleaning it up is popular. But what is happening now is a really ill conceived execution of a very popular mandate, and that will catch up with them. I mean, that's what the New York Times story was about, you know, Elon Musk. And big question for tomorrow night, Joe, does Elon Musk come They're demanding that four time president wear a suit. I'd like to see a demand that Elon Musk wear one. If that's the case. Does he
get that pushback? Is he sitting with the first Lady? All kinds of questions about Elon Musk? And he did rightly. So we're going to make a lot of mistakes during that cabinet meeting, and boy have they. No, there aren't tens of millions of people dead. You know, you're not going to be able to save eight billion dollars on some of these contracts. We didn't send fifty million dollars
worth of condoms. You know, all of this they have had to walk back, and that just speaks to the fact, as does the New York Times piece that execution matters. And I think what Democrats need to do, beyond bringing people personally impacted by these cuts to the speech, is they need to talk about the reality of the numbers.
What even if Elon Musk is wildly popular, none of this matters with a seven trillion dollar spend and sixty percent of that going to mandatory programs like Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, which they've taken off the cuts list. So the reality is their numbers don't add up. They never have and until they do, they can talk about this all they want, but at some point the American people
are going to say, wait a minute. Causing people a lot of pain for very little gain, and that is a problem, and that's what the Democrats really need to focus on.
Rick.
What does Donald Trump do with Elon Musk tomorrow? I do they give him a special seat like up near the Supreme Court? I do maybe you get a couple of the doge bros. They get their own bench set up there. Does he go as a guest of a lawmaker.
What do you expect?
Yeah, normally, you know, the stories that the President talk about are sitting up with the first Lady in the balcony. I can't see Elon Musk in the balcony.
No, but he's not.
An official, he's an advisor. I mean, they make pains to try and twist themselves into pretzels to figure out what Elon Musk is. Uh, And so yeah, it'll be interesting to see physically what happens to Elon Musk. I mean, for if we really, you know, transpose his power, he'd have a third seat sitting behind you know, Donald Trump, with the speaker and the majority of leader of the Senate. I mean, it's it's going to be kind of an
interesting side show. But the reality is, I'm sure he'll talk a lot about it because that is where the action is right now in the Trump administration. Things are happening, Elon's making moves. Very hard for Democrats to sort of figure out how to juxtapose it. I think that what
Genie was just talking about is ultimately the problem. I don't think anybody's going to really get excited about it from a popular point of view until they start calling the VA and don't get their calls back, or they can't get an appointment for an MRI at a hospital.
I mean, like there are going to be net effects of this.
Maybe we do have a bloated government and maybe none of these firings make that bit of difference, but if they do, that's when people will start to react.
Genie, Producer James's just designated survivor Elon Musk.
Maybe we don't see.
Him at all tomorrow night because he's holed up in an undisclosed location. I've only got a minute left, Genie. Senator Slotkin's got a tough job. It's like the worst job in the world doing the response, no matter which party you're in.
Does she make it work.
Tomorrow night and not end up being something we're talking about as a fail the next day?
Yeah? Please, James, can we have Keefer Sutherland be the designated survivor? That's what we'd all like to see. You know, certainly we don't see her in a kitchen. We know that we don't see her reaching for a lot of water. It is a very tough speech. She is really really well well situated to give it. This is somebody with a national security background. She is from a swing state. She is you know, popular among moderates. You know, I think she is a very good shot. But it is
a tough gig either way around. But yeah, bring Keifer Sutherland back please, all right, I.
Think we've got a lot done here in this conversation.
Jeanie Shanzano and Rick Davis ready to play on a Monday.
This is Kingbery. Thanks for listening to the Balance of Power podcast.
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