President Trump’s tariffs have terrified stock markets, business owners and anyone with a 401(k). Does that mean that his approach to trade is becoming a major political liability?Astead W. Herndon, a national politics reporter, asked voters in Michigan what they thought. He found that the answer to that question was not so simple.Guest: Astead W. Herndon, a national politics reporter and host of the politics podcast “The Run-Up.”Background reading: Video: Mr. Trump loves tariffs. Do all Americans?Here’s what six voters think of the administration’s latest actions.For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. Photo: Haiyun Jiang for The New York Times Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
Chapter 1: What are Trump's tariffs and why are they controversial?
From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. President Trump's tariffs have terrified stock markets, business owners, and anyone with a 401k, and raised the question of whether his approach to trade is becoming a major political liability. For voters in Michigan, the answer to that question is not so simple.
Today, my colleague Astead Herndon explains what he found on the ground in Michigan and what it reveals about the dilemma that tariffs now pose for Democrats. It's Friday, April 18th. Sted, welcome back. Thank you. I love being here. You know, the last time you were on the show was election night itself. Yes. The live Nate Cohn call of the election, we'll never forget.
Mm-hmm.
You were very memorable yourself. And what made you, I think, such a tremendous asset and colleague to have in the campaign was the fact that you were traveling the United States talking to voters, a lot of them Trump voters, and seeing things in a very clear way. And ever since, you have been waiting for the right moment to return to a lot of those voters.
and follow up with them, basically figure out what they make of his presidency so far.
So, why this moment? Well, I think that I wanted there to be some time for things to set in, and I have had the experience before of the year after an election, a lot of the electorate, particularly the folks I spend a lot of time with, people who are not hyper-politics obsessed, they're news consumers in a huge way, they often step back from politics in that year after. They disconnect.
Disconnect, you know? They got lives. unlike us, you know? And it felt like this moment was the time to check back in, specifically around tariffs. And just explain why. Yeah, I mean, obviously, this has become his signature economic policy.
And it's his signature economic policy after an election where he was largely successful because people attributed his competency on the economy to being preferable to Democrats. I mean, we heard more about groceries and eggs and all that stuff last year than any other issue.
And so considering, I think, the shock of the Liberation Day announcement, the sweeping nature of it, and the prospect of increased inflation in the future, it just crystallized, I think, a moment that feels like we're finally in the Trump presidency. Right. Like we've turned the page from the kind of Biden moment to him kind of reshaping policy and government itself.
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Chapter 2: What did Astead Herndon discover in Michigan?
So it reminded me that although the branding of Donald Trump can feel tiresome and I think can feel like political spin. It's potent. It's potent. And it really is the number one way a lot of lay people have come to him is a sense that he is a kind of assumed level of competence when it comes to business and the economy.
Everything's a negotiation or a poker game, especially with Trump.
It sounds like that branding brings to a person like Monica a measure of patience.
It earns Trump a level of trust with her, and it gives him some sort of runway to see how this policy plays out. Now, I think we should also say that some of that runway is built on her individual kind of preference for Trump, but it's also about her lack of trust in Democrats. When we ask her, has this kind of chaos made you feel regretful about voting for Trump or things like that, she says no.
One, she feels as if she's happy with her choice, she made the choice, and she feels fine about it. But she really mentioned something I think is really important, that she felt that Trump had at least diagnosed a real problem in her life, which is that she feels as if these free trade agreements have, in the macro, pulled these jobs away from her community.
And she doesn't feel as if Democrats named that problem or have provided a solution for it.
What was your experience of the Democratic Party's message around this issue in the campaign, and I guess even up to this point?
Right. She has a really specific interaction with this because, as you remember, President Biden actually came to Michigan to walk the picket line as UAW workers were striking.
I remember very well. became the first president, I think, in history to walk the picket line.
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