Trump 'is the Titanic and every Republican has to go down with him': Fmr. GOP Rep.

[0:00] A bleak report card. Joining us now, MSNOW political analyst and host of the Fast Politics [0:04] podcast, Molly Jung Fast, Yale Law School professor and president of the Budget Lab at Yale, [0:10] Natasha Sarin, and former congressman and host of the social contract with Joe Walsh. [0:14] Joe Walsh. Natasha, the president has been touting and trying to remind voters of the [0:20] no tax on tips, of the Trump accounts, and some of the other accomplishments that he's at least [0:26] trying to get out ahead of. But is any of that going to cut through when you have people paying [0:31] what they're paying at the pump, when you have the looming Iran war that could drive inflation even [0:35] higher? Yeah. You know, what's interesting is my colleagues at the Budget Lab at Yale, [0:39] we actually calculated the impact of the app for the average American family of the combination of [0:46] the president's tax cuts, which did result in greater refunds of around $350 for the average [0:53] family. But then when you add tariffs to that, that's an increase in about $1,100 in household [0:59] prices. So it doesn't offset. It doesn't offset. And then you add the cost of the Iran war and what's [1:04] that's doing to energy prices, which is another $400 for households. And so in aggregate, what the [1:11] reality is, is what you're hearing from those commentators, which is that things are getting [1:17] more expensive for them. And we're actually in a situation in this economy, which is called [1:20] negative wage growth. The reality is inflation is outpacing wage gains that are happening for [1:27] the average worker. So, Molly, you know, we heard from Americans out there who are hurting, [1:32] who are frustrated. The president clearly doesn't want to believe it, or at least if he understands [1:38] these polls are out there, he's not wanting to let them sink in. He says it's the greatest economy [1:42] ever. But Americans say the economy is either poor or at least not so good. And Americans are blaming [1:48] him. They are laying this at his feet. Overwhelming majority disapprove of his handling on things like [1:54] inflation, the economy overall, gas prices. His overall approval ratings, as we've been discussing [2:00] ad nauseum, are in the toilet, so to speak. Trump might dismiss all of this, but how can they ignore [2:07] this, especially as you have the midterms approaching? Right. I mean, we're less than 100 [2:11] days from the midterms. So we are basically in the beginning of the midterm cycle now, right? [2:17] Primaries are almost over. Look, the president is always blamed for the economy. That is a totally [2:22] nonpartisan fact. Left, right, doesn't matter. Always the president is blamed. It happens to be in this [2:28] case that Donald Trump did a couple of things he campaigned that he wasn't going to do, like foreign [2:33] wars, that have made things and tariffs that have made things more expensive. So you actually have a [2:40] direct line. And I think for him, the most problematic thing might be the war in Iran, [2:46] because you can put a direct line between the moment that Donald Trump went into Iran and gas [2:53] prices going up. And you've even seen him say, like, we're making peace with Iran and then gas prices go [2:58] down a little bit. And then there's more, there's more firing in the straits and then gas prices go up. [3:06] So you really can see how much his military action has affected the price line A to B. [3:13] Yeah. Filling up your car with gas. Yeah. And the discussion around tariffs can be a little bit more [3:18] obscure and nuanced. And this one is a really easy line to draw. Joe, if Trump is just going to ignore [3:24] the blaring alarm bells on all of this polling on the economy, is he a liability for Republicans in [3:31] November? Yeah, but they have to go down with him. He's the Titanic and every single Republican has [3:37] to go down with him. Look, can we just lay out the broad context here? Donald Trump lies as he [3:43] breathes. I mean, every president spins the economy. Trump out and out lies. He lies about everything. [3:51] And see, when he lies about the 2020 election stolen, was stolen. A lot of people believe in that lie [3:58] will work. When he lies and says, Haitian migrants were eating cats and dogs. That lie will work because [4:05] a lot of people will believe him. But when Donald Trump lies about the economy, those lies won't work [4:13] because, as your two guests just said, we all live the economy. We all know how much we're paying at the [4:20] pump. We all know how much groceries cost. So Trump's lies about the economy simply will not work with most [4:28] voters. And I got to be honest, I talk to MAGA voters every day. His lies about the economy aren't [4:35] really working with them either. So to the core question here, though, what can Republicans do as [4:41] they're out there on the campaign trail? You have these crucial races like, for instance, Mike Rogers [4:46] in Michigan. Are they going to be able to gently distance themselves from the president when it comes [4:51] to the economy without taking him off? No, they're going to echo his lies. What makes me so sad about [5:00] my former political party is not for 10 years now, they've watched Trump lie about everything, [5:06] and he's never paid a price for that. So Republicans have learned to imitate him. So they're all going to [5:13] double down and say things are great. They're all going to double down and say the economy's just fine. [5:18] They'll try to avoid talking about it as much as Trump does, but they won't refute Trump's lies. [5:25] Natasha, members of the administration seem to be also trying to ignore the polling. You have [5:30] Treasury Secretary Scott Besson on CNBC saying that the gap between rich and poor is dead. Let's listen. [5:39] I got sick of hearing about this K-shaped economy. I can say here definitively, [5:44] the K-shaped economy is over. And we're seeing more of a C economy where the lower end of wage [5:51] earners are finally calling it back, just like they did in President Trump's first term. [5:56] He may be sick of it, but Moody's analytics analysis shows that we are still very much in [6:01] a K-shaped economy. The top 20 percent of earners are accounting for nearly 60 percent of spending. [6:07] So in your assessment from your expertise, are we C or K? Well, I too understand why he is sick [6:14] of hearing about the K-shaped economy, because it is kind of emblematic of the nature of this [6:20] administration's economic problems. You're in a situation, like I said, where for the average [6:25] American worker, they are their wage gains, what gains they are making with respect to what they earn [6:31] are getting eaten up by inflation and then some. And you're in a situation where you have [6:37] literal policy mistakes that this administration have made, like as Molly's talking about the war [6:43] in Iran, that you can directly tie to the increase in prices that they're feeling. And by the way, [6:49] the signature tax bill that the administration keeps touting, some 80 percent of those gains go to [6:55] people at the very top of the distribution. Those are also the people, 88 percent of the gains of the [7:00] stock market go to the top 10 percent. So people are looking at this administration and looking at [7:06] this economy and saying it feels like we're in a two-tiered type of system where there is one set [7:11] of rules and one set of gains for those who already have so much, and they're seeing themselves fall [7:17] behind. And we keep having to highlight that the stock market performance is not reflective [7:21] necessarily of how people feel or what they're experiencing at home. Is this, is the fact that [7:27] Besant is at the top of the K, so to speak, just emblematic of the detachment of this administration [7:33] with what everyday people out there, I actually hate that term, what all Americans are feeling [7:38] out there? Yeah. I mean, look, it's a cabinet filled with billionaires. It's like the richest cabinet [7:43] ever. Okay. There are billionaires throughout this administration and Besant, well, maybe not a [7:49] billionaire, has many hundreds of millions of dollars and is quite rich. And so to have him say that [7:55] they've ended financial inequality when that's very clearly not the case. And even when you had [8:02] him up there, you're seeing Brent crude, the price of oil next to him. That's something that if you're [8:08] in, if you have less money, then gas takes up more of your budget. And I think there's a fundamental [8:14] feeling in this administration that if you talk happy talk, people will go along with it because [8:19] it works for Trump. But I do think like the split screen of Donald Trump totally focused on the [8:25] reflecting pool and building a new hello pad and all of the, and, you know, ripping down the East wing [8:33] and fixing up the, putting his name on the Kennedy center. These are like Marie Antoinette style things [8:40] to be doing when the American people are clearly hurting. And it seems like, you know, many in MAGA [8:45] looked at the cabinet that he was assembling and said, these are business leaders. Trump is a [8:49] businessman. He's going to take care of us. He's going to take care of the economy, but they're [8:52] experiencing something different. You know, Joe Besant also said that polling is bad just because [8:59] there's so much misinformation out there about the economy. Inflation though, was reignited as we've [9:06] been talking about by the war in Iran, jumping from 2.4% in January and February to 4.2% at its peak [9:14] in May. Also, there are higher gas prices that we've been talking about. There they are on your [9:19] screen. Thanks to the war now hovering around $4 per gallon before the start of the war, it was [9:24] actually below $3 a gallon and grocery prices are remaining high. And as we also talked about, [9:30] people are using their credit cards to pay for them. We're seeing several items, you know, [9:35] get a shock to the system. Tariffs are hitting people hard. How can Besant tell people that they're [9:40] not experiencing what they are in fact experiencing and what the data bears out as we put up on the [9:46] screen? Again, I hate to be a broken record. They're going to imitate and echo what Trump does. [9:56] And Trump is just going to look the American people in the eyes and lie about the economy. [10:02] And that's what Besant did earlier talking about income inequality. That's what they're going to do. [10:08] They're going to try to fool voters into thinking the economy's doing great. And to what Molly said, [10:15] she's spot on. I mean, my God, this president has used his presidency to enrich himself personally by [10:23] billions and contrast that with what the average American is paying for groceries right now. [10:29] I mean, that says it all.