Will Trump tariffs tear MAGA apart?

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There's been some public sparring between Elon Musk and the President's trade advisor, Peter Navarro, on some of these tariffs. Musk actually referred to Navarro today as being, quote, dumber than a sack of bricks. Are you at all or is the administration, the president at all concerned that this is maybe

maybe impacting the public's understanding of these tariffs. It might be messing with the message on it. No, look, these are obviously two individuals who have very different views on trade and on tariffs.

Um boys will be boys and we will let their public sparring continue. Um and you guys should all be very grateful that we have the most transparent administration in history. And uh I think it also speaks to the president's um willingness to hear from all sides that he has people at the highest Highest levels of this government in this White House who have very diverse op opinions on very diverse issues, but the President takes That was Caroline Levitt, Trump's press secretary.

She's not hiding the fact there are deep divisions in the administration right now over this cataclysmic new policy of Donald Trump's. But when she says boys will be boys, she's not talking about a spat over a football in a playground. She's talking about something that is destabilizing the entire world. And on one side of it you have Elon Musk. calling the architect of Donald Trump's signature policy tariffs a moron. Musk is close to saying this is moronic.

So how does the US administration carry on when there are such deep splits over such a fundamentally important subject? Welcome to the NewsAgence USA. It's John. It's Emily and we are not yet a week in to Liberation Day. We have just seen the implementation of the tariffs as of this morning. And that involves a China retaliation and a US retaliation on China, which puts tariffs at the sort of

Uncalculable 104% rate right now. At this point, the numbers almost start being meaningless. We cannot really imagine what this looks like in terms of the increase on prices for consumers. But I think it is starting to show us where the political cracks are appearing. And if we told you that Elon Musk is now calling Trump's trade secretary Pete Rotardo on Twitter. you get a sense of how as you heard, transparent the hatred between two of those key architects

Look, on previous episodes of the NewsAgence USA, we have talked about how Elon Musk is now almost the most powerful man in the world, the most powerful non elected man in the world. Because of his proximity to power and the license that Donald Trump has given him.

and he is taking on the man who Donald Trump wants to be the guide, the guru of the tariffs policy. This is not small potatoes. This is absolutely fundamental to the battle that is going on now within the White House over what should happen on this signature policy when the markets are tanking and everything is pointing in the wrong direction.

And of course, for the MAGA faithful This is a test of their faith. of the religion that is Donald Trump and you've kind of had all sorts of people coming out and saying, Look, if Donald Trump says that this is the best for America. I'm gonna take the hit. My four oh one K, my pension might be down in value, but I still believe, I still believe, but there are many who don't.

Yeah, I mean just to spell this out, the Rao essentially evolved because Pete Navarro, the guy who's planning and doing and enacting all these tariffs, went on the airwaves and said Elon Musk is not actually a car manufacturer, he's a car assembler. And by that what he meant was that Elon Musk gets the parts for his cars from loads of different places around the world.

In other words, he tried to say that Musk is part of the problem because he creates these imbalances, he brings things into the US to make his cars as opposed to having them made in the US. Elon Musk then responds by saying, What an absolute liar. But fundamentally here you have the clash between an ideologue

In the shape of Navarro and a realist, somebody who actually wants to make money and has done so very successfully, in the shape of Elon Musk. And that's why these two are locking horns now, because Musk just wants to be allowed To make his cars, you've seen a forty five percent drop in Tesla share numbers in recent weeks. Because the His image has hurt his own stock. You've seen countries around the world say, Not sure we want your Starlink anymore, Elon Musk.

Elon Musk realizes that the tariffs thing is gonna put him out of business if it carries on at this rate and Navarro simply doesn't care. Well Navarro is someone who believes I don't care if the world burns. At the end of it we will have a better America. There are an awful lot of Americans who are thinking, hang on

But I'm here now, living in this world. I don't want to burn. I don't want the house to burn down. I don't want my car to burn down. I don't want my work my factory to burn down. And yet potentially that is what is going to happen. And the state of the real economy in America More and more people are predicting

Recession, some are talking about a slump, some are talking about a depression. You know, back to the nineteen thirties, back to what happened the last time America tried widespread tariffs after the Smoot Hawley tariffs came in at the end of the nineteen twenties. And this is what America is dealing with. And so not surprisingly you are seeing cracks appearing.

in the solid once solid MAGA coalition with more and more people coming out and saying, I've got my faith, I love you, Donald, I believe in you. Are you quite sure about this? I mean I thought tell you what Ted Cruz, who has been the most loyal person about Donald Trump. Well, on and off. On and off. But in recent round But in this round, yes. Listened to him last night with Sean Hannity. President Trump has the opportunity

for the most extraordinary economic win for the American people right now by making a deal, by saying, let's cut a deal. But on the other hand, and I do want to give a a word of warning.

There are voices in the administration that rather than take a deal are saying we want to have tariffs as a long-term permanent feature of the economy. I think that'd be a mistake. If a year from now Our trading partners have all jacked up tariffs on America and we have high tariffs on everyone. I think that'll hurt this country. He can make this better, but he's not right now. He has to correct what's going on because it's not looking good now.

and he is aiming his fire at Navarro. And pretty much I mean, don't forget just how many billionaires there are in or around Trump. These guys are all facing losses to their books. as we speak, whether it's Zuckerberg, whether it's Bezos, whether it's Musk, whether it's all the ones that are actually inside the administration working with him and for him, they're all seeing this hit. And so, yes, Ted Cruz has come out and said, You need to correct the course. We also heard

from a Democrat who I think posed the question that maybe ninety eight percent of the world is asking at a select committee hearing yesterday. The US economy has gone from the envy of the world to a laughing stock in less time than it took to finish March Madness. Through it all, Donald Trump and his advisors have yet to provide a understandable explanation.

Any explanation for what his tax hike on the American people is supposed to accomplish. And so this morning I'd like to focus on one central question. The plan. In the last week, the White House has been all over the map. When it comes to this question. Yeah, what is the plan? The reference to March Madness. For our non American listeners and our non college basketball fans, it is the great college basketball tournament that takes place every March.

with these fantastic colleges battling it out for the NCAA tournament. and who is going to be crowned the prime basketball team and you do your brackets, you kinda work out who is gonna win each bracket and you try to work out who's gonna be the final and who is going to win. That is March Madness in twenty three seconds.

But the point is, he's saying that might be complicated, it's nothing to what's going on right now. Completely. And what is the potential to the US economy? What is the potential to the rest of the world? And where you have seen China

Willing to take America on. America being utterly dismissive of what weapons the Chinese have to hurt America. And it s turns out that China can hurt America and America can hurt China. America can hurt the world alike. You asked a really interesting question a moment ago, which is what do you do if you are a MAGA fundamentalist? If you have Grown up in this world of Trump. to the point where you think he's absolutely infallible.

Where you have bought into the fact that he won the election in 2020, which he didn't. You have bought into the fact That you should deport people that you can call criminals even if they have no criminal records or convictions, that you have bought into the world where the Jan 6 convicts are actually hostages.

When you're looking at this now, and this is, as you say, hitting people's savings, hitting people's spending, hitting people's prices for everyday goods, how are they rationalizing what's going on? And I think that is One of the most kind of Exciting? Scary? Questions at the moment. How long do you keep believing in this man who is damaging your daily life? I think that for so many people, uh you know, I I kind of I hate using the phrase cult like.

because I think it's sort of glib and I think it's patronizing and I think it says that people don't understand what they were voting for in November. But there is a devotion to Donald Trump I have never seen to anyone else in elected politics in the decades I've been doing elected politics. You know, th you like certain politicians, you think they're good, but Donald Trump, he is godlike. He's been put on earth

And they still don't call him a politician, they call him a businessman. And they call him a businessman who is the most one of the most successful businessmen in the country. He is not He went bankrupt a lot of times. A lot of the things that Donald Trump's been involved with have gone to pieces. And yet they think he has a Midas touch.

You know, a lot of people would argue actually he's got the reverse Midas touch. What is gold he turns to dust. And at the moment the golden legacy of the US economy is potentially being vaporized. by these measures, which are ill thought through and ill considered, And doing grave damage to America's own economy, its standing in the world.

allies are kind of holding their hands up in horror as if to say, What on earth are you doing? Where your friends Yeah. And one of those friends actually was a very rich, very successful financier Bill Ackman, who has now moved into the language of despair. I mean he's actually talked about was it a nuclear winter? Yeah. I mean we talk about the winter of discontent. In America that's, you know, a hundred times bigger.

And he's now said on Twitter, on X, I assumed economic rationality would be paramount. My bad. Isn't that interesting? If you look at Wall Street, if you look at what the markets were doing. before the announcement of the tariffs, just in the days before Liberation Day came in. I should be using that in quotation marks, but I'm not now because it's sort of generally accepted. The markets did not seem to register what was about to hit them. They were kind of floating along quite happily.

And now people are turning round and saying So didn't anyone actually believe he was gonna do this stuff? And if not, why why not? Because he spelt it out. I mean he's spelt it out for the last three decades, quite frankly. He's had a broigus. He has had a deeply vindictive conviction about China, about tariffs, about America unfairness and about how it's all been you know, the whole country's been ripped off.

And I think people heard him say it and heard him talk about Liberation Day, but the markets weren't responding to that. You know, on Monday and Tuesday they were kinda going along qu quite steadily. And then he says it and they're like, Oh God, you mean it. You're gonna do this And now he's done it which is why you've seen drops of, you know, twelve percent on the Hang Seng, why you've seen the stand and poor in America, why you've seen the drops all over the European market.

really showing us how unhappy and unstable the world now feels.

Well, at the same committee where we've just heard the Democratic Senator, we heard from Tom Tillis, who's a Republican from North Carolina, ex management consultant. And he kind of w used the management consultant's phrase essentially Where does the buck stop with this policy? And he's questioning the US trade representative who is there representing Sweating. Sweating. Who's representing the US administration's position. I'm not a trade

expert and I'm not going to question it at this point. I do have a question about at the end of the day, the other thing in management consulting we we um we like to focus on is this concept of one throat to choke. In other words, When you're finally taking a look at a strategy, someone has to own it. And you can't say that it's the president or the vice president. So my first question to you.

In this scenario, the decision maker who decided the a la prima approach, who has obviously had to have spent time anticipating what we saw in the markets and some of the pushback, I'm I'm assuming this all got gamed out. Uh because uh because it's a novel approach, it need to be thought out. Whose throat do I get to choke if this proves to be wrong?

Well Senator, you can certainly always talk to me. But I would certainly approach I mean there's somebody literally laying down his life for Donald Trump, right? Politically. But just exactly what you were saying a moment ago. If you went to any Trump rally, listened to any Trump speech. Trump has made this his signature policy. It is the one thing he has been consistent about over 40 years. He believes in tariffs.

You can blame it on Navarro, you can blame it on the guy there, you can blame it on anyone else you want to see, Robert Lightheiser or whoever. This is Donald Trump's signature policy. This is Donald Trump's own thing. I do not see how. If the US administration is forced into a climb down, a U-turn, whatever you want to call it, how the butt can stop with anyone. But Donald Trump. Yeah, he's sort of done a favour, hasn't he, to A level students all over the country.

By showing what happens if you make the unimaginable a policy. We are now living through Donald Trump's sort of head fuck, quite frankly. His imagination is playing out in real time. And markets are having to adjust to what one man thinks is a good idea, even when everyone around him is telling him to back off.

He is a kid with a box of matches in a petrol station where there's petrol on the forecourt and not surprisingly there's a fair chance this could all go up in flames. In a moment we're going to be talking to a Democratic congressman, Sean Caston. How should the Democrats deal with Trump's tariffs and is there a way they can stop them? Newsagents USA with Emily Maitless and John.

Well, we are joined now by Democratic Congressman Sean Caston from Illinois Sixth Congressional District. And Congressman, great to have you with us. Thank you so much for taking the time. I I see that you are trying to kind of spearhead moves to overturn Trump's tariffs. Can it be done? So thank you for having me on. It is very easy to get it done because our Congress and our government has checks and balances in it. All you have to do is have Congress do what

their oversight. Trump is imposing these tariffs because he says that we are in some sort of a national economic emergency. I'm not sure on what that's based, but when he asserted those emergency powers, he imposed the tariffs. Congress can declare that we are not in an emergency. If we find a half dozen Republicans who are committed to facts um and have the character to do it, we can end it. Now, what is hard, and I will

I was talking yesterday with some uh some money managers who said that when COVID came, it was a fairly easy analytical problem because they could look at every business and say, What's your revenue? How much revenue is it lost? How much cash do you have?

And if I divide the one by the other, does that give me an amount of time where there's likely to be a vaccine and they could reallocate their portfolios accordingly? And he said, in this scenario, we don't know how to do that math. And and I said, What you're basically saying is that you think that it is easier to invent an entirely new vaccine to an entirely unknown disease previously unknown disease than it is to find a half dozen Republicans of character. I'm not sure you're wrong.

But that is the working assumption in financial markets right now, which is frightening. Um but it is it is fixable. So do you have faith in Congress? Do you think you can find six Republicans on your side? Today's gonna be an interesting day.

There is a lot of internal conflict within the Republican caucus. Over the course of the prior term, they consistently fought with each other and so they were never able to get any funding bills passed. Today we're gonna have we're gonna have a rule vote on a budget measure. And the difference between now and them is that Donald Trump is trying to roll them. And so the question we're going to find is, are we going to have Republicans who have said that they are opposed to this?

Um, but are they going to vote that way on the floor if that means standing up to Donald Trump? And I I don't know. Um historically, that's been a much harder lift for them. On the other hand, you know, they're getting yelled at when they go home. They're getting yelled at at town halls. I've, you know, they're getting yelled at by people who have traditionally been their base.

military veterans, farmers, you know, people who are getting hurt by these tariffs, people who don't like that the VA is being cut, people who are nervous about cuts to our healthcare system that are particularly hurting rural America. Maybe there's a point where they come to fear that more than they fear Trump, but I don't know. Just explain something to me, because I've Donald Trump has said that even if Congress does say

The tariffs have got to stop. I'm gonna veto that. I'm not gonna sign any measure that says I can't do Um in and yes, we would have to have a veto pro veto proof majority to make that happen. So that means you need two thirds of congressmen and women to vote for it and two thirds of the Senate. Yes. Now having said that. I don't want to brain on your parade, but Donald Trump is not always a truth teller. Right.

So it's it's one thing that he's saying it, we'll see what happens. If you have significant Republican but non-veto proof Republican opposition, it does put him in a difficult position. We'll see what happens in that case. But again, like this shouldn't be controversial. Right. I mean, this is a completely fabricated problem with a completely fabricated solution. I mean, wh why are we why in God's name are we imposing tariffs on Madagascar?

Like there is no logic. There is no constituency that says we are losing business to those those uh you know currency manipulating Madagascarians. Reason why we put tariffs on Madagascar is because they did this really dumb formula.

that confuses a trade imbalance with a tariff. And so they looked at Madagascar on their formula, they said, Well, Madagascar imports a lot of chocolate and coffee to the United States. They don't buy very much from the United States. Therefore, in their logic We must impose tariffs to counter them.

All that that does is make coffee and chocolate more expensive. Well I hate to point this out, but you've got a ten percent tariff at the moment on an island with penguins. So that has now come in. And I guess none of this stuff makes sense. But the real question you're asking is Who's gonna stand up and be counted? We heard earlier from Ted Cruz, who was on Fox News, saying that Trump had an opportunity.

to kind of do something about this. I mean, is Ted Cruz one of the Republicans that you would be speaking to that you think would come on board? I mean, is Tom Tillis who's talked about who's gonna be the person that is choked If this all goes wrong, are those men who you think will have a backbone over this? I I would remind you that when Donald Trump told Ted Cruz that his wife was ugly and his father killed JFK, Ted Cruz rolled over and endorsed him.

Yeah. That's that's the amount of character that I expect from Ted Cruz, right? I I expect no more character from him than his wife has learned to expect from him. So I don't I don't know, right? Um And it and it is it is shocking to have to say that, but You know, when you you know, I'd I I was saying to one of my colleagues on the floor a while ago one of these votes, he said, you know, how you doing right now? You know, genuinely asking, not just how how you doing.

And I and I said, you know, we're in this point where you look around this chamber and wonder how many people would I trust in a foxhole? So you've got Donald Trump now, having pursued this policy, and it's not just the tariffs and it's not just the impact of the tariffs. You're now seeing kind of spooky things happening.

In the bond market where you know people are not buying US treasuries, they're selling them. Always at a time of crisis, US government bonds are the safest place to go and people are shunning them. Is this the thing that could stop him? Even if America's three coequal branches of government, if the judiciary can't stop him and the legislature can't stop him, maybe the markets can. W I we'll see.

I mean it's very hard to predict. I I think my working assumption is that Donald Trump is a very transactional person. And so you have to assume that there's something in it for him. I could be wrong about this. I don't have any great insight into his mind, but my working assumption is that His logic of the tariffs is if I hurt every country in the world and they all come back and ask

What it would take for me to stop hurting them, they will give me something in return. I just think he's a very transactional person. And my guess is that what motivates him. I hope. that we get through this before we get the kind of disruption the markets you're talking about. And it may already be too late for that. As, you know, as you noted, the foreign buyer foreigners were net buyers of US treasuries for 15 months that ended in November 2024.

They've been net sellers since November 2024 was of course when an election happened. And I think I think broadly speaking, the markets Markets would like some certainty. They'd like to be able to plan. And it's hard to plan on what the US government is doing when you have not just Donald Trump, but you know, people around Donald Trump who have been selected. either because they are incompetent

Or because they are competent like Marco Rubio, but will do whatever they're told. And so you don't have people, you know, you're I think you've got markets right now looking out there and saying,

One member of the cabinet says tariffs are to raise revenue, another one says they're a negotiating tactic. A third says that they're to bring manufacturing back to the US. All those things can't be true. And I think what markets are look doing looking at the United States right now, which I hate to say. is they're looking at us and saying there isn't really a strategy there and for

You know, for a hundred years we've counted on the US being that strategy. I mean, I think the the luckiest man in the world right now might be Mario Draghi, who is suddenly going to find himself with deeper European capital markets that he's been looking for in spite of any structural reforms in Europe that he's been asking for. Yeah. I mean British viewers um have seen this movie before, as you'll know. We went through this with Liz Truss with our former Prime Minister.

And looking back, she now seems I I hope that I hope that Liz Truss who who out did she outlast ahead of lettuce? Because she lettuce can outlast Donald Trump, I'll feel better about this. Yeah, I mean I guess that's the question because Liz Truss Try to do something with tax cuts and borrowing which hit her in the face. And it meant that she had to resign.

because we have a parliamentary system that kicks people out if the markets tank or if enough damage is being done to make people feel that they should lose their jobs. You don't have that system. So is there any mechanism, is there any world in which Trump is punished for this.

Well, l look, there's there's always the big eye, you know, we can't impeach. Um I would you know Donald Trump is the only twice impeached president. Half of the impeachments that have ever happened in our country have been to Donald Trump. We should also note that no president has ever been removed after being impeached. That's a very high bar. You know, so whether he's committed impeachable offenses or not, I think that's a no-brainer. Of course he has.

whether he would be removed, I think, you know, we don't we can't call snap elections here like you can in the UK. I think the most likely optimistic scenario, other than one driven by actuarial math, I suppose, for a seventy eight year old man, is that what he does drives his popularity down sufficiently far that he is effectively neutered and and can't get things done because Congress stands up to him and stops him.

We're a long way from that, but those sorts of things I think can happen very quickly. Is there any world in which he pulls this off? Is there a world in which whatever the plan is, he sees it through You know, manufacturing starts to come back, I don't know, you know, people give in, people drop their tariffs against America. Is there any world in which he comes out with a win? No.

I mean I I look the the practical reality, these tariffs are massive. Like two weeks ago, the average US tariff on imported goods was one and a half percent. We're now close to thirty. We have never had tariffs this high in our history. And that's of course before all the reciprocal tariffs start hitting. And so As a practical matter, the only thing that happens from that Is massive reductions in consumption, collapsing U.S. economy, spiking unemployment. Maybe, maybe.

Five, ten years in the future, we maintain this completely absurd eighteen nineties view of economic policy and We rebuild US manufacturing and make a bunch of stuff that we could have, you know, more cheaply gotten from somewhere else and we become isolated.

But that that doesn't happen. It it takes a long time to build those factories, right? And by the way, we're still not making guacamole in the United States. We're still not growing coffee beans, right? I mean, there's there's just massive disruptions in our quality of life if that happens. And, you know, I think what's scary to a lot of people who, you know, have more than a third grade education is that

what we're much more likely to see is stagflation. Um, because if you've got the inflationary effect of tariffs, And the Fed has no tools because we can't sell treasuries, right? The market isn't there for them. We can't you know, the the Fed's tools don't work in that world. So they are creating a situation where if if they don't pull back from this, we're looking at

at inflation and high interest rates, um, which isn't good and and high unemployment, which isn't good for anybody, and it's real hard to get out of that trap. So let me ask you the obvious political question that arises from what you've just described.

You're describing a set of events that for the Republicans are catastrophic, even cataclysmic. Why aren't the Democrats doing better as a party? Why does it feel like there isn't that much democratic leadership? You know, around being the opposition to Donald Trump, right?

Well, keep in mind we have a different circumstance than you do. Um, we depend a lot more on where the will of the public is. We can't call snap elections. We don't have shadow governments, right? You know, that you know, the Republicans control Everything. We don't have shadow ministers who can form a shadow government. We don't we don't have the budget. We don't have the people. What we do have is our, you know, our outside voice and our bully pulpit. And certainly the the April

elections that we came through the the municipal elections was across the board massive gains for the Democrats. You know, fifteen point swings in a couple congressional districts that were there. The Wisconsin race that Elon Musk dumped, I think a hundred million dollars to the Democratic Um nominee won by ten points in a state that went went for Donald Trump. Um this is in a in a judicial race that will set the redistricting.

So I think the the mood of the country is very much moving in the right direction. Our ability right now, I mean, I you know, I say this for like me personally. I've got a bill that we introduced to Block the ability of the Treasury Department to let Elon Musk access people's private data, which because they hacked in and they took a bunch of data. It is insane.

that we allowed someone with such conflicts of interest to get access to the taxpayer information of every company who competes with him, right? That we that we now have, you know, did these nineteen, twenty, twenty two year old kids who may in fact have information on foreign embedded embedded agents working in hostile foreign governments who have been providing intelligence to the United States in exchange for payments from the Treasury and we've hidden their identity.

That information is now potentially out there. Those are huge problems. I can't get anybody in Republican leadership to agree that we should subpoena those people and find out where they are to have a hearing or to bring that bill to the floor. And in the minority you can't do that. I can make noise about it. I can educate people. I think we're doing a good job of bringing that around.

Um, but when you're in the minority in our in our form of government, you you don't control as much. Um, and you know, we gotta w find a way to get get the grown ups back in control, but we are not there right now. John Caston, Congressman Kasten, thank you so much for joining us today. It's very pleasure. Thanks for having me.

With Emily Maitless and John Sopal. Before we go, a bit of a health update on the US and the measles outbreak. which has so far affected five hundred people, mainly in East Texas. Fifty have been hospitalized, two have died in what is seen as a growing crisis with Americans refusing to take up. the measles vaccination. Yeah. Is it any surprise that the anti vax movement is gaining steam?

when you have at the head of your government, at the head of the health department, a known anti vaxxer in the shape of RFK. I was speaking to somebody in the Heart of American government last week who said Cynically, I'm on Team Measle. And what he meant by that was until you actually start to see what this is doing.

you will not get how important it is. You know, right now, people who are sort of in the sane world of vaccination cannot believe that they are seeing people who find it incredibly hard to advocate. a vaccine that children should have to live their lives safely. Well what about RFK Jr., Robert F. Kennedy Junior, the Health and Human Services Secretary. What does he make? of this measles outbreak and what Americans should do now.

uh if that the government should not be mandating. Understand but the I've always said during my campaign and and every part uh every public statement I've made I'm not going to take people's vaccines away from'em. What I'm going to do is make sure that we have good science. So that people can make an informed choice. Okay, let's just rewind to check on all those public statements he's made in the past.

Now, would you give them the measles the mumps vaccine? No. Okay. So it's like changed. Yeah, long, long time ago. Long. Back in the seven histories of time. Exactly. Does anyone remember that? It is extraordinary. When you have the Secretary of Health who is making news by saying I encourage people to get a vaccine. I mean that is the new world we are living in, where the anchor, the interviewer, thinks that he has got a newsline.

Because RFK has said, yeah, might not be a bad idea to go and get the vaccine. More on the new world that we're living in next week. Bye bye. Bye for now.