Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo used her Friday show to try to reassure viewers that while every indicator in the economy looks bleak, things are not so bad—maybe?
First, she played a clip from her Thursday interview with President Donald Trump in which the two attempted to rehabilitate his incoherent tariff policy, where he has paused and unpaused tariffs seemingly at random.
“There's some nervousness over your tariffs. Markets have been selling off. People are not sure how to view it.” Bartiromo said, later adding, “I think CEOs want to see predictability. They say, ‘Look, I have to speak with shareholders. I've got to make plans for [capital expenditure] spending. I can't if it's 20% one day and then it's off for a month and it's 25%. So can you give us a sense of whether or not we are going to get clarity for the business community?”
Failing to clarify anything, Trump replied, “Well, I think so. But you know, the tariffs could go up as time goes by, and they may go up. And you know, I don’t know if it’s predictability.”
Bartiromo followed that up with a virtual roundtable of pundits. After blaming former President Joe Biden for not bringing back more manufacturing jobs and implying that this is why Trump is resorting to ill-advised tariffs, she expressed her support for the tariffs. (Note: The Biden administration created far more manufacturing jobs than the first Trump administration lost.)
Fox News’ Charles Payne, taking time away from saying commies are indoctrinating school kids to believe in “fairness,” to offer up this ahistorical nugget of wisdom:
By the way, historically, I mean tariffs have been associated with some of the biggest boom times we've ever had, including the roaring ’20s and the fourth party system that was ignited by [President William] McKinley.
How did that “boom” time end, you ask? It ended with the fourth party system—decades of Republican dominance over our government in the post-Reconstruction era—driving our country into the Great Depression.
Here’s a history lesson for Mr. Payne, care of the 1986 film “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,” where presidential-speechwriter-turned-actor Ben Stein explains the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930.
Anyone? Anyone?
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