Republicans go into full propaganda mode to sell Trump's reversal on tariffs as the culmination of a brilliant master strategy—until Trump himself admits it was just a reaction to the markets freaking out. Meanwhile, in one of his scariest, most authoritarian moves yet, Trump orders investigations into two former aides for the sin of criticizing him and telling the truth about the 2020 election. House Republicans manage to pass the Senate budget resolution, which calls for massive cuts to Medicaid to pay for Trump's billionaire tax cut. And the second act of the Resistance notches some meaningful wins on immigration and Social Security. Jon and Dan discuss why the market turmoil from Trump's tariffs will continue, the next steps for the GOP's budget plan, and how Democrats should be talking about all of it. Then, Dan is joined by physician, best-selling author, and public health expert Atul Gawande to talk about RFK Jr.'s mission to destroy the agency he now runs, and why he forced out the FDA's top vaccine regulator. For a closed-captioned version of this episode, click here. For a transcript of this episode, please email [email protected] and include the name of the podcast.
Chapter 1: What is Trump's strategy on tariffs?
Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. On today's show, we'll talk about Trump ordering investigations into two former Trump officials for the crime of telling the truth about him and the 2020 election. We'll cover the vote in the House on Trump's big, beautiful bill and why passing it may be a bit of an uphill climb from here.
We've got just a little bit of good news on the fight against Doge and deportations. Then Dan talks to legendary physician and writer Atul Gawande about RFK Jr. 's mission to destroy the agency he now runs, which has already led to him forcing out the FDA's top vaccine regulator. But let's start with the latest on Trump's trade war.
So I just want to quickly walk through the facts of what happened this week. No spin on the ball here, so you can all make your own judgments about the strategic genius of our president. First, Trump announced the biggest tax increase in history on everything we buy from the rest of the world. Then the markets tanked and lost more than $6 trillion in value over the course of a few days.
Most economists and CEOs said that a recession was much more likely. And Trump World responded by saying that they weren't backing down, that rumors of a 90-day pause on the tariffs were false, and that all the economic pain would only be temporary. Then there was a big sell-off in the bond market, which happens when people believe that U.S.
Chapter 2: How did the markets react to Trump's tariff announcement?
Chapter 3: Why did Trump order investigations into former aides?
We've got just a little bit of good news on the fight against Doge and deportations. Then Dan talks to legendary physician and writer Atul Gawande about RFK Jr. 's mission to destroy the agency he now runs, which has already led to him forcing out the FDA's top vaccine regulator. But let's start with the latest on Trump's trade war.
Chapter 4: What are the implications of the GOP's budget plan?
So I just want to quickly walk through the facts of what happened this week. No spin on the ball here, so you can all make your own judgments about the strategic genius of our president. First, Trump announced the biggest tax increase in history on everything we buy from the rest of the world. Then the markets tanked and lost more than $6 trillion in value over the course of a few days.
Most economists and CEOs said that a recession was much more likely. And Trump World responded by saying that they weren't backing down, that rumors of a 90-day pause on the tariffs were false, and that all the economic pain would only be temporary. Then there was a big sell-off in the bond market, which happens when people believe that U.S.
Treasury bonds, usually one of the safest investments in the world, are too risky, which drives up interest rates on mortgages and other loans, which could cause a global financial crisis.
Then on Wednesday, Trump suddenly announced that actually there would be a 90-day pause on some of the tariffs, but China would get hit with even higher tariffs, and there would still be a universal 10% tariff on just about every other country, though apparently he's going to spend the next 90 days negotiating trade deals with each of these countries.
The markets recovered their losses, and this was the reaction from Trump World.
We begin with the art of the deal. Told you this was gonna happen. Great courage, great courage for him to stay the course until this moment.
Trump created maximum leverage for himself, and now his team's sitting pretty, taking meetings and doing deals that put America first.
Yeah, I know we had a massive market rebound after Trump's 3D chess move. Tonight you can definitively say this was not a walk back. This was not something that the bond markets were cratering and you were worried about it. No. That this is part of your plan.
Many of you in the media clearly missed the art of the deal. You clearly failed to see what President Trump is doing here.
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Chapter 5: How should Democrats respond to Trump's economic policies?
I will subscribe to New York times fucking twice, right? Oh, you're going to attack institutions? I am going to read the Declaration of Independence to my children online every day, right? And so you'd see this world where there is a nuanced position between every single thing that Donald Trump has said about trade is wrong and that global trade is great.
And I think there are people trying to find, maybe inartfully, trying to find the right place in the middle there.
And I'm just saying we should have an alternative vision, even if the easier political argument is just Donald Trump's take the economy. But I think that trying to message the nuance of tariffs as a tool, right? And actually Whitmer had a couple of lines like this in her speech, which I thought was good. It's like, Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you.
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Chapter 6: Are tariffs an effective tool for economic growth?
But I do feel like we're at a moment where Democrats who take that risk will be rewarded, certainly by the voters. At least by Democratic voters.
You see that in the crowds, right? The crowds that were showing up for Bernie and AOC, for instance. Yes. You've seen that in the crowds that showed up for Chris Murphy and Maxwell Frost when they did their town halls recently. Or the event you guys did with Ro Khanna, right? There is a value in speaking out.
I don't know enough of the circumstances to know what was actually possible for Gretchen Whitmer. But your point about... A tendency to respond to an extraordinary moment with ordinary politics, which is which is my main criticism of Schumer and what he did on the budget bill stands for the party for much of the party right now.
Yes, I agree. Stipulating that most everything is awful right now, as we've made clear throughout the show and most shows, there are a few rays of hope. out there that we want to mention from this week. One example, after a huge public outcry, the Social Security Administration has decided not to move forward with Elon Musk and Doge's plan to cut its phone hotline service.
This is a quote from the Washington Post story about this. Beneficiaries began lining up at field offices across the country, clutching driver's licenses and asking if they must prove who they were in person. Phone wait times ballooned and the agency's website started crashing almost daily under a crush of panicked callers and visitors.
Besieged by angry constituents, lawmakers demanded that the acting commissioner end the chaos. Now, after nearly a month of chaos and backlash, the Doge plans are dead. How about that? That's exciting. Yeah. What do you think? Do you think this was a result of real pressure or was just a catastrophically bad idea destined to fall under the weight of its own stupidity?
Well, there have been a lot of catastrophically bad ideas that have not yet fallen under the weight of their own stupidity in this administration. Good point. Look, people showed up. They made their voices heard. That is the only tool in our toolbox right now to push back. right? The Congress is not going to do it. Republicans in Congress certainly aren't going to do it.
Democrats don't have the power to do it. The courts, and we'll get to this in a minute, can do it, but there are limits to what they will do here. The business community is not going to step up. The tech companies are not going to step up. Universities are cutting deals with Trump. Law firms are cutting deals with Trump.
The only way to actually push back on what Trump is doing to stop him from doing the worst things is for people to take to the streets and make their voices heard in ways big and small. And that's what happened last weekend. And we have to keep doing that. Like, is that the exact reason why these changes were made? Maybe, maybe not. We don't know.
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