Trump to Americans after requesting $1.5 trillion military budget: “We can’t take care of daycare”

[0:01] Five weeks into the Iran war, and President Trump is already asking for even more military funding, [0:07] like a whole lot more. This week, the White House requested $1.5 trillion for defense in [0:13] the 2027 fiscal year. If approved, it would set military spending at the highest level [0:19] in modern history. And how does Trump sell this historic defense spending to the American public? [0:24] By telling Americans about all of the safety net services they will lose because of it. [0:30] We can't take care of daycare. We're a big country. We have 50 states. We have all these [0:37] other people. We're fighting wars. We can't take care of daycare. It's not possible for us to take [0:42] care of daycare. Medicaid, Medicare, all these individual things, they can do it on a state [0:49] basis. You can't do it on a federal. We have to take care of one thing, military protection. [0:56] Take that reasoning, coupled with surging prices, dismal polling, and repeated dismissals of [1:03] American concerns about the economy. [1:04] And you kind of have to wonder, is Trump trying to lose the midterms for Republicans? To be clear, [1:10] I'm not saying he is. But if he were, would he be doing anything differently from what he is [1:16] doing now? Joining us now to answer that question is Caleb Silver, chief business editor at People [1:22] Inc. and, excuse me, editor-in-chief at Investopedia. Caleb, thanks so much for [1:27] joining us. So help me understand the political wisdom of any of the choices that this [1:34] administration is making on tariffs, on the war, on lots of different measures that are increasing [1:40] the cost of living exactly at the time that we have an affordability election. [1:45] Yeah, well, if the economy is the most important issue on voters' minds, affordability is the [1:51] number one of those issues at the top of the list there. And affordability has gone the opposite [1:55] direction in the past 15 or so months. You start with tariffs, which brought up the prices of just [2:00] about everything. And then you add this war, which doesn't seem to have a resolution, [2:04] and you're seeing not just higher oil prices and higher gas prices. That gets people's attention, [2:08] and that makes people mad. But now you're seeing it bleeding through the supply chain to where you [2:12] have higher prices for everything from fertilizer to rice to medical goods that we get through that [2:18] supply chain. So everything is going to get a little bit more expensive. So if people really [2:22] care about the economy and about paying less for the everyday things, they're not seeing it right [2:27] now with this administration. They're probably not going to see it over the next six months. [2:30] And you mentioned the additional costs of things like, [2:34] like drugs. Meanwhile, the president just announced 100% tariff on brand name pharmaceuticals [2:42] that are coming into the United States in a bid to try to get more manufacturing of pharma to come [2:47] here. Again, I do not understand how anyone in the White House believes that this is playing to the [2:54] administration's strength when people are mad about prices. Well, because cutting drug prices, [3:00] that was supposed to be his only feather in the cap. [3:04] This election season, his Trump ink and the drugs. And now to your point, [3:09] it seems like this is just so self-defeating. Yeah. Trump RX was actually cutting some prices [3:14] and there were some moves that were made that would make things more potentially affordable, [3:17] or at least put some money in people's pockets. The big, beautiful tax bill for one, [3:21] the no taxes on tips, the no taxes on social security. It impacts a few people. That said, [3:26] those are moves in the right direction. Every other move has made prices even higher for just [3:31] about everything we pay for. And now you're looking at healthcare and those healthcare [3:34] premiums, which Congress didn't vote to extend, at least to help people with the Affordable Care [3:39] Act stuff. Now you're looking at higher health prices next year, in addition to higher everything [3:44] else prices. It's really interesting. New polling shows that 53% of voters believe the economy [3:49] was better under Biden versus 47% who think it's better under Trump. Yeah. I mean, well, [3:55] it's so interesting because like, I remember day in and day out during the Biden administration, [4:01] like it was like every morning on the news, it was like egg price, [4:04] egg prices, when will the egg prices go down? I, we talk about it, especially on this network. [4:12] We, we do our job on it. But I'm not seeing that same, like no press conference with groceries. [4:19] Remember Trump and the groceries? Yes. They tell me these are called groceries. [4:23] Who could forget? It's an old fashioned term. Yeah. Well, you've seen grocery prices rise and [4:28] you, but during the Biden administration, it, they may have liked it a little bit better, [4:31] but it was a lot more boring. This is very unpredictable and uncertain. [4:35] Well, this is self-inflicted. No, I mean, you could say that the difference between one and [4:38] the other is that one was as a result of either global policies or economic situations. And the [4:45] other was Donald Trump largely starting a tariff war that caused these goods to go up, [4:52] largely starting an Iran war that caused oil prices to go up and has a knockoff effect on [4:56] all these other things like pharmaceuticals and fertilizer and what have you now. Yeah. But it's [5:00] part of the broader plan here. If you looked at the foreign policy plan of this administration going in, [5:05] it's a very clear through line for what's happening in Venezuela, what's happening in Iran. And that is [5:09] to control oil around the world for national security purposes. It may cost us a lot as [5:14] Americans, whether it's costing us because we're paying higher goods or now we're starting to see [5:18] that impact through the stock market. But I think if you look around the world, it's a lot worse. [5:22] So maybe that's part of the plan to make it worse for everybody else. But the U.S. [5:26] Wait, so put U.S. consumers through this now. [5:28] I got to go back and go back and explain that to me, because you're saying he launched this [5:35] to control Iran's oil, but in doing so, driving up oil prices to some countries that are now [5:40] literally turning off businesses at eight o'clock in Egypt, for example, businesses go dark at 8 p.m. [5:45] to save electricity. And you're saying that was part of his plan. That's part of the strategy, [5:50] potentially because the U.S. can withstand it. We're less energy reliant than we used to be. [5:54] That said, higher prices and higher prices of the pump, those get on everybody's nerves. But if [5:58] you're going to get the sustained oil prices between 120 and 130 dollars a barrel, you're [6:05] going to get people. [6:06] I think it's too smart. I think it's too clever by more than half. [6:13] It really might be just that the policies are that stupid. Yeah. And they do not make sense. [6:19] And he is not reading the room in the way that he normally has messaging political judgment. [6:24] And he just doesn't seem to care, which I don't know. [6:28] No, the thing that explains the stupidest, the simplest answer. [6:35] I DON'T THINK IT'S GOING TO [6:36] HAPPEN. [6:37] I THINK IT'S GOING TO HAPPEN. [6:38] THE SIMPLEST ANSWERS OFTEN [6:40] EXPLAINS THE MOST COMPLEX [6:41] THINGS. [6:41] THIS IS DEFINITELY PART OF [6:43] THE PLAN. [6:43] THIS IS PART OF THE STRATEGY. [6:45] AND WHETHER OR NOT IT ACTUALLY [6:46] IS GOING TO BE HELPFUL AND [6:47] ACTUALLY PUT THE U.S. IN A [6:48] POSITION, WE WON'T KNOW. [6:49] I JUST WANT TO SAY IT'S VERY [6:51] RICH THAT A DAY AFTER TRUMP MADE [6:53] THOSE COMMENTS, MARCO RUBIO WAS [6:54] ALSO ON THE AIR TALKING ABOUT [6:55] IF THE IRANIANS WOULD HAVE [6:56] SPENT THEIR MONEY ON HEALTH [6:57] CARE, THEY WOULD BE IN A VERY [6:59] DIFFERENT POSITION THAN THEY ARE [7:00] NOW. [7:01] IMAGINE THAT. [7:02] LET'S PLAY SOME MAD [7:03] LIVES WITH THAT. [7:04] CALEB SILVER, ALWAYS GOOD TO [7:05] HAVE YOU. [7:06] THANK YOU. [7:07] THANK YOU.