On Monday night’s Fox News Special Report, the GOP in-house propaganda channel aired more footage of Bret Baier’s pre-Super Bowl LIX interview with Trump. Baier, showing some rare spine in a sea of invertebrates, pressed the orange blancmange about the potential effects of his policies on consumer prices.
I’m sure Trump expected kid gloves and soft-shoe. But Baier committed apostasy. In one relatively fractious exchange, Baier discombobulated Trump by pointing out that Trump's expensive wishlist had a price tag.
“I mean, the tough part is, is that if you don’t want to cut entitlements and you do want to add to defense spending, and you want to eliminate taxes on tips, and you want to make the 2017 tax cuts permanent. That’s a lot of money.”
Trump played his “tariffs will pay for everything” card and wielded his government cost-cutting sledgehammer.
“Yeah, But we’re going to take in tremendous amounts of money on tariffs. We’re going to have tariffs. We’re going to take in tremendous amounts of money. And you think some fair make up, some did not do. Well. DOGE is going to make up a lot, but that’s unrelated to tariffs.”
Once Trump had found a comforting foothold — tariffs — the motor mouth was off to the races.
It’s not fair that other countries have really taken advantage of us. And it’s our leaders’ fault. But I’m a different leader. It’s not fair that other countries have taken advantage of us for so many years. And now all of a sudden, we’re not allowed to have tariffs, but they’ve had tariffs for years.
You know, they’ve done this to us for years and we haven’t. And I think reciprocal tariffs I’ll be talking about it I think probably on Monday or Tuesday I have a whole big thing.
We have a very sophisticated plan. I want to have tariffs separately from that on steel, on autos on semiconductors and, and chips and probably pharmaceuticals.
“Monday or Tuesday”? Is anyone keeping count of the promised future reveals that have withered on the vine? “A very sophisticated plan”? Is it? We’ll never know (see before).
Baier pointed out that this cash inflow to the government had to come from somewhere.
“And you’re not worried that any of that’s going to go back to the consumer.”
Faced with a question he did not want to answer, Trump started gibbering. The MAGAs will call his rhetoric the greatest political speech since the Gettysburg Address. Everyone else will wonder if he was born brain-damaged. Or if the injury came later.
“It might, but it’s ultimately going to be much less expensive.
I’ll give you an example.
The so-called fat drug or fat, shot or whatever it’s called Ozempic or Mounjaro in London.
You get it for $88. In New York you get it for $1,200. You can’t even buy it. It’s very unfair. The identical package made in the same factory, shipped to different places, but made literally in the same factory in London.
It’s $88, and in New York it’s $1,200. And you can’t get it.”
You don’t have to be an economist to know that tariffs are paid on imports. Ozempic sold in the US is made in Clayton NC and West Lebanon, NH. Goods traveling from those facilities to NY do not cross an international border. I will grant you the manufacturer of Ozempic, Novo Nordisk, is a Danish pharmaceutical business. The company has production facilities in Denmark. But if the NY supply came from there, tariffs would make it more expensive, not less.
The real point, however, is that the high US price of Big Pharma drugs is due in large part to the Republican refusal to allow Medicare to negotiate drug prices and has nothing to do with conniving foreigners — not that Trump will admit that, even on the off chance he knows it.
That was his high point. Trump managed to go downhill from there. He continued:
“And the reason is because everything’s added on to the United States, because the United States has been too nice. You know, I had, I had transparency done and Biden canceled that transparency would have solved that problem.”
“I had transparency done”? Even when Trump talks about transparency, his meaning is opaque. He moved on to tenant law in NYC.
“But I’m going to solve it one way or the other, including, you know, they have a certain thing like rent control in New York, and I don’t like that. But at some point, nobody’s going to.”
He returned to drug prices:
“It’s not fair that other countries, you go to Canada all of the drugs are much less expensive. I suggested that some of the governors should go buy their drugs in Canada and send them back to here. It’s very simple. So I think we’re going to do some amazing things.”
The reader will have questions. One: How will Trump’s suggestion that US Governors ask other countries to export more stuff to the US improve America’s trade balance? Another: If American drug companies can sell drugs so cheaply in Canada, why are they charging so much in the US?
Baier did not ask. There was a limit to his courage.
Everyone, besides the deluded, knows that Trump is a stupid man. Diaries like this break no new ground. By themselves, they are at best a brief diversion — unless, or until, Democratic leadership gets its thumb out and uses this overwhelming evidence that Trump is a dangerous, wannabe fascist buffoon to start winning.
Democrats need to start peeling away his support from independents and ex-Democrats who believe the Party no longer speaks for them. The majority of Americans already reject Trump’s policies. Why can’t the Democrats turn that into electoral gold? Please don’t whine about the unfair and biased mainstream media. It’s true. But it can’t be an excuse for failure. Any fool (see Trump) can win when the odds are in their favor. The true fighter wins when the odds are against them.
Would those Democrats willing to throw elbows please shove their way past the obstacles and make some noise? I cannot listen to Schumer and the rest of the prissy schoolmarms anymore.
