00:00Well, Dana, first, let's have a look at the Yale Budget Lab, because I was looking at their findings, and this week I actually went on their website. They're all ex-Biden officials, so I think we can discount everything they say. I'd encourage all your viewers to look at the composition, both the board and the staff, and it's just not right that what we have here is a middle class and working class bill that we, we are
00:29going to see wages accelerate, and we are going to see, just as we saw with President Trump's first tax bill, we are making permanent these tax cuts, and what happened in 2017, 2018 was the highest wage earners went from paying 37% of all taxes to 45%, so that's going to be permanent now.
00:56So permanently, the highest 10% will pay a higher percent of the taxes.
01:03I should say that, taking the Yale Budget Lab aside, there are Republican senators who are worried about affordability and who this all is going to affect.
01:12Look, I think affordability, safety, and growth are the three things this bill is going to generate.
01:18One of the tax cuts that are in here are for, and the president talks about them a lot, are on tips and overtime.
01:29Those are temporary.
01:31Why not make those permanent?
01:33They're only 2025 to 2028.
01:35This is a big part of President Trump's agenda, so we have what I call parallel prosperity here, that Wall Street has done great.
01:45Now it's time for working Americans to do great, and this is President Trump's agenda, so we've got it in for the duration of his term, and we will see if the next administration wants to do that.
01:57And just talking about the affordability, how is making cuts on Medicaid programs, how does that, and how it affects the people who are at the lowest ranking when it comes to income, how does that help with the affordability crisis in America?
02:16Well, first of all, the affordability and saving Medicaid, let's separate those.
02:24And only in D.C., only in D.C. is a 20% hike over 10 years, a cut.
02:31So Medicaid funding will go up 20% over the next 10 years.
02:35The people who Medicaid were designed for, the pregnant women, the disabled, and families with children under 14, will be refocused.
02:48The able-bodied Americans are not vulnerable Americans, so a work requirement or a community service requirement, that's very popular with the public, and many state programs have that now.
03:02It might be popular, but it's not what the president promised.
03:04The president promised that there would not be changes to Medicaid benefits, and putting a work requirement is, by definition, a change to benefits.
03:14No, there are no change in benefits.
03:16There is a change in requirements to get the benefits, and what we are doing, we are bringing back manufacturing jobs.
03:23We are bringing back working-class jobs.
03:25By securing the border, we have seen, already seen, working-class wages move up.
03:30So we are creating jobs.
03:32People can get off Medicaid and get a job that has good health care benefits, Dana.
03:37In theory, that works, but I'm sure you've seen and heard a lot of the concern, including and especially from Republicans, who are the most vocal in Congress,
03:48about the fact that those work requirements are going to be very cumbersome to actually prove, and it will inevitably force the people who need that Medicaid coverage off the rolls.
04:01Well, first of all, it's the Republicans are not the most vocal on this.
04:05It is a group of Democrats who, unfortunately, seem to think that poor people are stupid.
04:11I don't think poor people are stupid.
04:13I think they have agency, and I think to have them register twice a year for these benefits that is not a burden.
04:22But these people who want to infantilize the poor and those who need these Medicaid benefits are alarmist.
04:32Yeah, but my impression of the Republican Party is that historically you've wanted to cut through the red tape and not create more red tape.
04:39But I do want to move on.
04:41Well, no, no, no.
04:41But we've also wanted to put in work requirements, which somehow that was very popular under Bill Clinton, was popular under President Obama,
04:52and this Democratic Party blew out the deficit in 2020, and, you know, they never want to bring it back.
04:59But work requirements even pull well with the median Democratic voter, maybe not the fringe.
05:05Let's talk about tariffs.
05:07President Trump gave countries a 90-day pause on the sweeping tariffs.
05:11You put in place back in April.
05:13That pause ends in three days.
05:15What happens on Wednesday?
05:17We'll see.
05:19I'm not going to give away the playbook because we're going to be very busy over the next 72 hours.
05:24We are going to—President Trump's going to be sending letters to some of our trading partners saying that if you don't move things along,
05:33then on August 1st, you will boomerang back to your April 2nd tariff level.
05:39So I think we're going to see a lot of deals very quickly.
05:42And, you know, Dana, we're going to send out probably 100 letters to small countries where we don't have very much trade.
05:48And most of those are already at the baseline 10%.
05:52When you said August 1st, you mean—do you mean what's going to happen in August?
05:57So countries will get a letter saying that if we have not reached an agreement,
06:04then you will go back to the April 2nd level.
06:08Starting when?
06:10On August 1st?
06:11On August 1st.
06:11Okay. So there's basically a new deadline.
06:15It's not a new deadline.
06:16We are saying this is when it's happening.
06:19If you want to speed things up, have at it.
06:21If you want to go back to the old rate, that's your choice.
06:25When you say that there's going to be a lot happening over the next few days
06:28and you don't want to give me the playbook, is there a playbook?
06:32Sure.
06:33The playbook is to apply maximum pressure.
06:36We saw that the EU was very slow in coming to the table.
06:41Three weeks ago on a Friday morning, President Trump threatened 50% tariffs.
06:45And within a few hours, five of the European national leaders had called him.
06:50And Ursula von der Leyen, the head of the EU, was on the phone.
06:54And the EU is making very good progress.
06:57They were off to a slow start.
06:58The president said some countries could end up with tariffs as high as 70%.
07:05Which countries is he talking about?
07:07I think you'd go back and look at the April 2nd levels.
07:10But again, none of those are major trading partners.
07:14There are 18 important trading relationships that account for 95% of our deficit.
07:20And those are the ones we're concentrating on.
07:24Are you close to any deals before Wednesday?
07:27I know you're talking now about August 1st.
07:30But where are you on any of these deals?
07:31We are close to several deals.
07:34As always, there's a lot of foot dragging on the other side.
07:39And so I would expect to see several big announcements over the next couple of days.
07:45Can you name names?
07:46I'm not going to name names because I don't want to let them off the hook.
07:49I don't want to let them off the hook.
07:49Okay.
07:52When you talk about these letters and you talk about kind of the 90 deals in 90 days,
07:58or at least the president did back in April, so far we've seen three.
08:02And they're not concrete deals the way that we're used to seeing trade deals.
08:06They're frameworks.
08:08The president has a reputation, self-described dealmaker.
08:13So why haven't we seen the kind of deals that he promised in the last 90 days?
08:19Again, he didn't promise this.
08:21And when we send out the 100 letters to these countries, that will set their tariff rate.
08:26So we're going to have 100 done in the next few days.
08:32But that's not a deal.
08:33That's a threat.
08:34No, that's the level.
08:36That's the deal.
08:36If you want to trade with the United States, this is...
08:40But that's not a negotiation.
08:41That's just a declaration.
08:42Well, many of these countries never even contacted us.
08:47So that's the thing about being the deficit country, Dana, is when you are the deficit country,
08:52you have the leverage.
08:54These are surplus countries that they have exported more to us than we export to them.
09:03So we have the leverage in this situation.
09:05You know, when I talk to small business owners, both doing interviews with them
09:09and just in and around, in my life, interacting with them,
09:14I have not met one who has not said it's the uncertainty with the tariffs
09:19that is making it so hard for them to do business
09:23because they're kind of frozen in place.
09:26What do you say to those business owners?
09:28Well, I'd say two things.
09:30The other thing they would probably have been telling you is it was the uncertainty around taxes.
09:35So with the one big, beautiful bill, they now have great certainty on taxes.
09:39No, they've said tariffs.
09:41No, no, but let me finish.
09:43When I'm out talking to businesses, they want trade and taxes.
09:47So we have certainty on taxes now.
09:49All businesses know that they'll be getting 100% expensing for new plant and equipment.
09:56On tariffs, again, it is the 18 important trading relationships,
10:02and we're moving through those.
10:04I want to ask you about the Fed and the Fed chair.
10:08Your name has been floated as a potential choice to replace Jay Powell.
10:14You aren't ruling that out.
10:17If President Trump told you to cut interest rates as Fed chair, would you do it?
10:21I think that the Fed chair does not cut interest rates.
10:28It is a committee.
10:30So it's up to the open market committee and the voting members to cut rates.
10:34That's not how the president sees it.
10:36Again, the president is probably the most economically sophisticated president we've had in 100 years,
10:43maybe ever.
10:44He has a view on rates, and he makes them known, just like Senator Warren makes hers known.
10:50Before I let you go, it's not a big secret that you had your differences with Elon Musk
10:55when he was working in the administration.
10:57He announced this weekend that he is starting a new political party.
11:01Does that worry the Trump administration?
11:03Look, the principles of Doge were very popular.
11:07I think if you looked at the polling, Elon was not.
11:10So I believe that the boards of directors at his various companies wanted him to come back
11:16and run those companies, which he is better at than anyone.
11:20So I imagine that those board of directors did not like this announcement yesterday
11:24and will be encouraging him to focus on his business activities, not his political activities.
