Who will tell Trump he’s naked?
The
president’s advisers are falling over themselves trying to excuse
tariffmageddon.
April 8, 2025 at 7:00
a.m. EDTToday at 7:00 a.m. EDT
Who will tell the emperor he’s buck naked? Not his Cabinet.
Not his donors or corporate executives. And certainly not Congress.
After President Donald Trump launched his multifront trade
war — leading to one of the worst market massacres since World
War II — his closest confidants and aides have been unwilling to call him out
or rein him in.
Worse, some have egged him on.
During media appearances, every Trump underling agreed that
his “Liberation Day” rollout was brilliant — even
as they offered contradictory stories about the supposed purpose of the tariffs
or the administration’s plan.
On Sunday, economic adviser Kevin Hassett said the tariffs
were a temporary negotiating ploy, to be lifted as soon as countries acceded to
Trump’s (unspecified) demands. “More than 50 countries have reached out to the
president to begin a negotiation,” he said. On another network, at virtually the same time,
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick suggested the tariffs would be permanent,
because Trump needs them to revive U.S. manufacturing.
Elsewhere, trade adviser Peter Navarro endorsed the
permanency part, adding that Trump wants the revenue from perpetual tariffs to
pay for his plutocratic income-tax cuts. Navarro told
Fox News the tariffs would generate “$6 trillion to $7 trillion
over the 10-year period,” citing widely debunked figures that he appears to
have pulled from thin air.
When asked to reconcile these conflicting explanations,
Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins declared that the real rationale
is that Alexander Hamilton once endorsed tariffs … in 1791. She conveniently
omitted that back then, 90 percent of Americans were farmers, and everyone was much, much poorer
than they are today.
The most damning performance arguably came from Treasury
Secretary Scott Bessent, the supposed adult in the room who was hired because
he “understands” markets. He declared that tariffs were already successful because stock
market infrastructure didn’t disintegrate despite the “record volume” (i.e.,
huge turmoil and volatility) of trading on Friday. He cheered that fired
federal civil servants are now available to work in U.S. factories. Best of all, he
declared, interest rates and oil prices have fallen!
His first two points are somewhere between wrong and
irrelevant. (Cancer researchers’ skills are probably not best deployed by
sewing sneakers.) His second two observations are actually huge warning signs.
Interest rates initially fell because investors were
dumping stocks and plowing their money into bonds (which pushes those bonds’
interest rates down). But by Monday, those rates had climbed
back up again. This is highly unusual during a stock market rout. It
might signify investors are worried about tariff-driven inflation — which in
turn could lead the Federal Reserve to raise rates — or that capital is rapidly
fleeing the United States.
Meanwhile, oil prices are falling because of worries about
a downturn. The last time oil was this cheap was during the covid-19 pandemic,
for good reason: There’s less demand for fuel when factories shut down and
people don’t have jobs to drive to.
In other words, recession fears tanking oil prices is not
exactly the victory Bessent claims it to be.
Bessent surely knows all this. Yet he said it on TV,
encouraging Trump to repeat these incoherent talking points on
Truth Social. That was just before Trump doubled down on the stupid and
threatened even higher tariffs on Chinese goods.
Emboldened by the sycophants and cowards who refuse to
speak the truth, Trump insists Americans should “hang tough,” swallow his “medicine” and stoically endure the pain he is
inflicting. But calls for collective sacrifice ring hollow when voiced by a
guy who went golfing as the economy melted
down.
Meanwhile, corporate executives and Trump donors are
too terrified to criticize him publicly. “I am not willing to
go public yet but I will say this: I don’t know if I would be this worried
about what will happen to the economy if Bernie f---ing Sanders were
president,” one major donor told Rolling Stone. “That’s how bad this is.”
Indeed, this anonymous critic is correct: Trump has
effectively achieved a decade’s worth of the socialist Vermont senator’s wealth
tax — but without collecting any revenue, and all executed within the span of
mere days.
Over in Congress, which the Constitution granted “the power
to regulate commerce with foreign nations” (read: trade), GOP lawmakers have
been falling all over themselves to excuse tariffmageddon. A few have signed on
to a bill that would very mildly curb Trump’s tariff power, but it looks
unlikely to even get a vote in the House.
“Let’s hold tight and have patience,” Speaker Mike Johnson
(R-Louisiana) said. “The president is engaging in a strategy right now.”
Patience might be a virtue. Cowardice is not.
