Mike Levin: This Is What Republicans Are Privately Saying About President Trump's Tariffs

Rep. Mike Levin (D-CA) joined "Forbes Newsroom" to discuss how Republicans feel about President Trump's tariffs.

Transcript

00:00What are rank-and-file Republicans in Congress saying about President Trump's broad-sweeping

00:05tariffs? Because I had Senator Mark Kelly on the program just a couple of weeks ago,

00:11and he told me even Republicans touting these tariffs publicly, privately, it's a different

00:16story. Privately, no one he's talked to, Republican or Democrat, is pro-tariff, pro-President Trump

00:22imposing these using his emergency powers. What do you say to that, and what are you hearing from

00:28Republican colleagues? My friend Mark Kelly is spot on about this. You cannot find a Republican

00:35behind closed doors that agrees with the chaos and the destructive nature of the president's trade

00:43policies in these first hundred days. They will tell you that they know the president is not doing

00:49things in a coherent manner that's consistent with good public policy, and that it's harming the

00:56economy. You had one of the GOP megadonors the other day, Ken Griffin, say that 20 percent of our

01:04worth as a country has been destroyed by these, you know, very capricious, arbitrary, and extreme

01:14tariff policies. I think there also is an acknowledgement that the way the president

01:18initially calculated the tariffs on other countries made no sense. It wasn't anything

01:25more than taking the trade deficit divided by exports, coming up with that number, and then

01:31cutting it in half. It wasn't actually a reflection of the tariffs being imposed by any other nation on

01:38the United States. Rather, it was this, you know, made-up number that somehow was the basis for our

01:45tariffs on others. And the president now has said there are 200 deals in place or that he's working

01:51on 200 deals. I don't know whether that's true or false, but I can tell you that when he first got

01:58to be president before, the Trump administration and those of us in Congress at the time negotiated

02:03the U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade agreement, which at the time was said by the Trump administration to be,

02:11you know, the greatest trade deal ever. That's what they said. And part of that incentivized companies

02:17like General Motors and Ford and others to make investments not only in the United States, but also

02:23to our, with our friends to the north in Canada or to the south in Mexico. And now those very companies

02:29like GM are being punished for the decisions they made, which they were encouraged to make by the first

02:35Trump administration. In fact, GM under these tariff policies are paying more than foreign auto

02:42manufacturers like Toyota, Honda or Kia. It makes absolutely no sense to punish American companies

02:50like GM to punish American workers. And I have entrepreneurs in my district, Republicans and

02:56Democrats alike, Brittany, who own businesses who are furious. They have shipments at the port and they have

03:04huge bills, tariff bills. One company told me $920,000 was the first bill that they have to pay

03:11to Homeland Security. In many cases, these purchase orders were made before a full understanding of

03:17what the tariffs, what the tariffs on China and other countries would be. And what we're already

03:24seeing is an impact on toys, games, you know, other household goods. And Americans will either be paying

03:30more for these goods, workers will be let go or there just won't be any goods at all. And the last thing

03:37I'll say, the president yesterday, when asked about toys, he said, well, you know, if somebody is, you know,

03:44some kid only has two dolls instead of 30 and those two dolls cost a little bit more, no big deal. Well, this

03:50president having enough, you know, domestic goods at reasonable prices for American families, whether it be

03:58toys, games, electronics, you name it. That's the least that we we can expect. We all want to see

04:06American manufacturing thrive, but we also want to see American families be able to afford the goods that

04:11are here.