Monday, April 7, 2025

From Mayberry to Mayhem


I grew up in the '80s in what many today might call a “Mayberry” kind of world. It was the last breath of something simple, safe, and rooted in values that now feel more like folklore than fact. We lived in neighborhoods where you knew every family on the block -- and they knew you. I went to the last true neighborhood school in our city. It wasn’t a magnet program or an overcrowded complex across town. It was a short walk away, and most days, that’s exactly what we did -- walked.

We’d stroll in each morning, no buses, no metal detectors, no pick-up lines wrapping around the block. We walked home for lunch, too -- every single day. The town fire whistle would blow at noon sharp, like clockwork, and that was our cue: we had ten to fifteen minutes to finish our sandwich, maybe a cookie, hug Mom or Dad, and get back to class. That same whistle would ring again at 9 p.m. every night -- a gentle, familiar reminder that it was time to head home, wrap up the games, and call it a day.

We don’t hear those whistles anymore. Just like we don’t hear church bells ringing on Sunday mornings -- silenced by noise ordinances and a culture sprinting toward convenience.

Each morning started with the Pledge of Allegiance. At the end of the day, we’d sing “God Bless the USA” by Lee Greenwood. And every Friday, we closed out the week with the whole school joining in to sing “Rainbow Connection” by the Muppets -- even the students making announcements from the front office couldn’t help but join in over the loudspeaker. The innocence of it all still makes me smile.

We didn’t have active shooter drills -- we had “disaster drills.” The fifth and sixth graders would crouch together in one hallway, first through fourth in another. It was routine, not rooted in fear.

At 3:06 p.m., the bell rang -- and that’s when the real joy began. Kids would race out the door, some sliding down the metal banisters for fun, faces lit up with freedom. We’d burst into the fresh air with one thing on our minds: play. Kickball in the street. Tag in the yard. Riding bikes until the sky turned gold, porch lights flickered on, and the fire whistle blew.

On my block alone, we had about 30 kids, give or take, all in the same age bracket. And mostly we were friends. We had arguments, sure. But we also had sleepovers, backyard games, scraped knees, and belly laughs. Our lives were rich with imagination and face-to-face connection.

Today? Things look -- and feel -- different.

Unless you live by a school, you're lucky to see a single child outside playing in a yard. Between society’s fear, technology’s grip, and the horrifying reality of real-world dangers, parents are scared, kids are indoors, and neighborhoods feel more like ghost towns than playgrounds.

Today’s kids practice active shooter drills. They’re told where to hide and how to stay silent if the unthinkable happens. Schools feel more like fortresses, with locked doors and buzzers replacing open entryways and trust.

Bullying, back then, happened face to face -- and often ended with a lesson learned and a handshake. Now, bullies hide behind screens, spreading cruelty from the safety of a username. It’s not just the bullies who have changed -- it’s the accountability. Parents deny. Schools deflect. And kids suffer.

Social media promised connection but delivered comparison. Technology promised innovation but ushered in isolation. We’ve raised a generation that’s never known a world without curated selfies, constant surveillance, and digital pressure -- and somehow, they’re lonelier than we ever were.

Social skills have tanked. Mental health crises are soaring. And yet, we’re more "connected" than ever. We’ve replaced real community with comment sections. We’ve substituted conversation with emojis. Kids are growing up feeling more alone in a crowd than ever before.

So, where did we go wrong?

We traded community for convenience. Boundaries for broadband. Purpose for performance. In our well-intentioned sprint toward modernity, we abandoned the very things that made childhood rich -- freedom, responsibility, friendship, consequence, and above all, trust.

Let’s be clear: progress isn’t the enemy. Technology has brought remarkable advancements and access. But not all advancement is good -- not if it leaves our children afraid, disconnected, and adrift.

We stopped holding people accountable -- for their actions, their parenting, their behavior. We stopped building communities and started building apps.

Somewhere in our rush to modernize, we traded safety for surveillance, values for virality, and community for convenience.

Maybe it’s time we bring a little Mayberry back. Maybe it’s time to recenter around what really matters -- faith, family, friendship, and a little common sense. Maybe we start by putting down our phones, walking next door to meet the neighbors, and teaching our kids the beauty of a shared front yard game.

Maybe we teach them to look someone in the eye and have a conversation -- not just craft a text and learn the power of a firm handshake. Maybe we remind them that joy doesn’t come with a charge port. And maybe -- just maybe -- we gather together, like we used to, and remember what it feels like to truly connect.

Because progress isn’t the enemy -- but forgetting who we are might be.



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X22, And we Know, and more- April 7

 



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Tyler Cowen: A Contagion of Uncertainty

 

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The Best Day To Get Ready For 2026 Was Yesterday; The Second Best Is Today


The special elections of April 1st have gotten lost in the sound and fury of Donald Trump’s reciprocal tariffs and the stock market dump, but we need to learn their lessons because we’re going to be dealing with the question of how to win elections with a new Trump coalition long after our 401(k)s have quit nosediving. Remember that November 2026 is everything – if the House of Representatives gets taken by the Democrats, or we lose seats in the Senate such that the Murkowski wing becomes decisive, the Trump administration, and America, are screwed.

The fact is that we are the in-party, and the out-party has some significant advantages in midterm elections. The most obvious is enthusiasm. In this cycle, that’s more important than ever. These people are crazy, insane in their hysterical hatred of Donald Trump. But there’s another factor at play – the elite is under assault by Donald Trump in a way it’s never experienced before. Oh, we’ve had Republicans talk a good game about cutting budgets and changing things in the past, but Trump‘s actually doing it, and his attack on the status quo was always going to draw a backlash. Our failed elite isn’t just going to give up its elite status because Trump has asked politely.

If you’re as old as I am, and I watched “Miami Vice” in its first run, you’ve been hearing about the trade deficit for 40+ years. Nobody’s ever done anything about it. Trump intends to, wisely early enough in the election cycle so that the massive disruptions to my and other people’s net worth can settle down long before the voting begins. He’s also unleashed Elon on the NGO/funding scam to starve the activist class of access to our money and, therefore, foil its ability to make our lives miserable. Donald Trump is an existential threat to the ruling class as it currently exists, and you know by how seriously they take him. They’ve tried to bankrupt him. They’ve tried to put him in jail. They’ve tried to kill him. You can be sure that every one of them and their minions is going to come out to vote against Trump and anybody associated with him. Oh, and their coterie of pet billionaires is going to devote as much money as they need to get it done. They’ve got about a dozen of them, and we’ve only got one.

So, the problem is motivating the new Trump coalition into going out there and casting ballots for Republicans who aren’t Trump when Trump isn’t on the ballot. By building a coalition of a lot of working-class people who don’t always vote, we’ve given up a lot of our high-propensity voters; the Democrats have inherited the formally nominally-Republican SSRI-gobbling, Chardonnay-swilling wine women who have nothing better to do but to go vote for anybody willing to kill babies and castrate little boys so their Munchhausen mommies can feel special.

So, how do we get our voters who love Trump and hate the rest of the Republicans out there to vote for the rest of the Republicans? First, Trump has got to motivate them. He’s got to do what he only does to get them excited again. Now, of course, deploying Donald Trump comes with a problem. While the sight of Donald Trump may excite normal patriots, it also drives scumbag progressives into a fury. Still, he’s got to make it clear that a vote for whatever Republican is on the ballot is a vote for Donald Trump. Unless it’s Thomas Massie, we’re all tired of that guy.

The second thing that needs to happen to correct the perception that other Republicans suck is for other Republicans to stop sucking. It doesn’t help our case when one of our politicians acts like a complete tool. Sadly, we’ve got a whole toolbox of tools. Now, they’ve done a little better lately on getting together and rowing in the same direction, but there’s always some Republican backbencher who has got this or that pet peeve that he, she, or they chose to prioritize above getting it done for the Party. We need to have a party. And we need to invite the normal people to the Party so they feel invested in it. That means sometimes taking one for the team. That means resisting the urge to run down the administration in return for a one-shot positive write-up in the Washington Post.

Obviously, we need results if we want to win. If the economy is terrible in November 2026, forget it. If the tariff gamble flops, we are toast. We’ll lose the House, and we may well lose the Senate. The economy is the big play. It’s everything. Unless we get into a giant continuing meat-grinder war, this is going to be a pocketbook election. Fortunately, Donald Trump understands that and is focused on making the economy great again. Will his tariffs and other actions make it happen? I don’t know for sure, but I do know two things. The first is that Donald Trump is convinced his policies will be successful, and success for him is literally life and death. The second is that a bunch of people who have been wrong about literally everything pertaining to the economy, foreign policy, and our society for the last 30 years are convinced his policies will fail. Based purely on track records, I’m optimistic

But there’s still work to be done. It starts with the reconciliation process. The Senate must stop its senatorial onanism and pass the budget resolution the House managed to squeeze through by one or so votes. Get the tax cuts done, get the immigration money allocated, get the military rebuilt. Get it done. Stop dithering. Do it now. This is an easy win – only someone as dumb as a senator could screw it up.

Then, there is the actual vote-getting part.  Trump’s election executive orders may help, but the real work will involve the Party and outside organizations. The Republican Party did very well in 2024 by chasing ballots. They started well in advance, thought through the plan, and utilized the facts on the ground and the laws that applied – like mail-in voting and ballot harvesting – to win the fight on the battlefield as the battlefield existed. We need to do that again.

But we’ve got to start right now. Scott Pressler is great, but vectoring him in a month before the election will not get it done, folks. We are 19 months from E-Day, and yesterday was the best day to start going out and getting absentee ballot requests filled out for our low-propensity voters. Today is the second-best day. 

Once again, we need to ask – what’s the plan? Who’s in charge? Where’s the money coming from? Those questions need to be asked right now, and they need answers. Maybe there are answers. We just need to hear them. This is not an attack on the RNC, which did great work after Ronna McDaniel was finally booted into well-deserved oblivion. Explaining what’s happening to the voters and the donors is critical because a solid plan demonstrates competence and inspires confidence. This inspires volunteers and the people writing checks.

Now, it’s going to be hard. No one has yet cracked the code on how to get our new coalition to turn out for Donald Trump when Donald Trump isn’t on the ballot. We need to figure that out. We need to figure it out pretty damn quick. April 1st was not a total disaster – in fact, it was the most likely result of all the possible results. That Wisconsin Supreme Court defeat was by the same margin as the Wisconsin Supreme Court defeat in 2023. We’re not facing an unprecedented mass rejection of Donald Trump, as the regime media would have you believe, though that’s what will happen if the economy goes south. We are facing the normal problems of an in-party in a midterm election with the added variables that are the advantages and disadvantages associated with Donald Trump.

We America First patriots can get this done. We’ve just got to do it. And we’ve got to start today since we couldn't start yesterday.



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We Didn’t Start the Trade War—We’ve Just Finally Joined It


When President Donald Trump slapped a fresh round of tariffs on European and Asian imports, the professional hand-wringers and legacy press clodpolls sprang into choreographed action.

Headlines and television anchors blared warnings of trade wars, economic isolation, and diplomatic fallout. The bureaucratic priesthood that worships at the altar of “free trade” without reciprocity—from Brussels to Brookings—launched into familiar homilies: tariffs are regressive, Trump is reckless, and globalism is gospel.

But let’s pause the hysteria momentarily and apply something vanishingly rare in today’s media-industrial complex: perspective.

The prevailing orthodoxy treats tariffs as anathema to prosperity—an outdated relic of 19th-century mercantilism. But this overlooks a simple truth: for trade to be free, it must also be fair. For decades, American policymakers—both Democrats and Republicans—have tolerated a grotesquely asymmetrical global trade regime that has hollowed out the American industrial base and made us dangerously dependent on foreign powers, friend and foe alike.

Trump’s critics are wrong. These tariffs aren’t a calamity. They’re a much-needed course correction

Reciprocity or Ruin

Let’s begin with the fundamental imbalance: the United States has long maintained one of the lowest average tariff rates among developed countries. Meanwhile, our “allies” in Europe and Asia—who rely on U.S. military protection for security—shield their markets with stubbornly high tariffs on American goods. 

Germany taxes U.S. automobiles at four times the rate we impose on theirs. France blocks U.S. agricultural products through protectionist quotas and Byzantine regulations. And South Korea—despite a ‘free trade’ agreement—maintains tariff and non-tariff barriers on U.S. beef, pork, and automotive parts.

These aren’t historical artifacts of little significance. They are systemic disadvantages designed to extract concessions from America while giving little or nothing in return.

Trump’s tariffs expose the lie at the heart of globalist dogma: that trade liberalization is a rising tide that lifts all boats. It does not. This is particularly true when so-called free trade is, in fact, one-sided. The bitter truth is that our national trade structure has lifted luxury yachts in Shanghai and luxury sedans in Bavaria while hollowing out the steel mills, machine shops, and Ohio and Missouri factory towns.

Reindustrialization or Strategic Decline

The larger context is even more damning. The United States no longer makes what it needs. We’ve offshored our factories, outsourced our supply chains, and surrendered our economy's core sectors to competitors and adversaries.

China controls 80% of rare earth mineral processing—vital for semiconductors, missile systems, and EV batteries. India, Mexico, and Israel dominate the production of generic pharmaceuticals. Europe plays gatekeeper for critical aerospace components. And all the while, we’re told by The Economist and The Atlantic to be grateful—for cheap TVs and a “service economy.”

But what happens when the services are automated, the data centers are in Ireland, the code is written in Bangalore, and the medicine is manufactured in Wuhan?

We don’t need more seminars on Ricardian comparative advantage. We need a policy that recognizes that national power depends on national production. A nation that can’t produce steel, energy, antibiotics, and semiconductors is not prepared for a 21st-century conflict—whether that conflict is economic, cyber, or kinetic.

Trump’s strategy isn’t to make tariffs permanent. It’s to use them as leverage—spikes to extract long-overdue reductions in foreign tariffs on American exports and restore industrial equilibrium. This is not protectionism for protectionism’s sake. It is conditional retaliation, calibrated to coerce—not collapse—the system. It is realpolitik in economic form: painful, yes, but potentially transformative.

As explained here, many of the loudest critics of Trump’s tariffs operate on a shallow and one-sided understanding of trade. In practice, what they call “free trade” has become a rigged system that rewards strategic economies and penalizes open ones.

(For a deeper look at how foreign nations exploit loopholes in U.S. trade policy—deliberately through third-party proxies—see my March op-ed, “How Mexico Became China’s Trojan Horse in U.S. Trade.”)

The Consumption Trap

Too many in the commentariat confuse GDP growth with national strength. But growth driven by consumption, financed by debt, and fueled by foreign production is a Ponzi scheme disguised as prosperity. America’s so-called “consumer-driven” economy is now a treadmill of imports: we buy goods made elsewhere, pay with borrowed dollars, and watch foreign shareholders and governments reap the profits.

Even our technology sector hailed as the last bastion of innovation, relies on overseas fabrication and cloud infrastructure that escapes U.S. taxation and labor costs.

In essence, we’ve become the world’s most efficient economic colony—consuming goods we no longer make, patrolling seas we no longer dominate, and outsourcing our jobs and judgment to multinational boards, supranational bureaucrats, and foreign—often adversarial—governments.

This is not sustainable. It is not sovereign. And it is not conservative.

The False Idolatry of Globalism

The shrillest critics of Trump’s tariffs are not defenders of the American worker or champions of industrial renewal. They are the high priests of a globalist order that has enriched multinational corporations, empowered foreign rivals, and decimated communities from Youngstown to Yuma. 

Their objection isn’t that tariffs won’t work—it’s that tariffs threaten a status quo they have spent decades engineering.

They invoke ‘rules-based order’ as if it were the Magna Carta. However, they remain silent as China floods markets with subsidized steel or as the EU weaponizes environmental standards to block American liquefied natural gas—only to turn around and buy more gas from Russia, the putative pariah state they expect the United States to protect them from.

This is no reckless escalation—it’s a long-overdue response to decades of economic surrender.

A New Trade Doctrine Focused on Putting Americans First

Sound economic doctrine must do more than chant “free trade” like early medieval plainsong. It must distinguish between open markets and open veins. It must recognize national sovereignty, security, and self-sufficiency as the flying buttresses of national survival. And it must be willing to act—not merely theorize—when the global trade regime becomes a conduit for exploitation and decline.

Trump’s tariffs are not a rejection of trade. They are a declaration that America will no longer trade away its future or redistribute its wealth to friends and foes alike. For too long, our leaders treated foreign tariffs as facts of life, and American decline as the inevitable cost of doing business. No more.

In the end, tariffs are neither a cure-all nor a calamity. They are a tool—a sharp one—to defend American interests in a world that has long taken our naivetΓ© for granted.

It’s long past time we used them.




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Trump's Tariffs Shake the World: 50 Countries Already Fold as 'America First' Strategy Takes Hold

Sarah Arnold reporting for Townhall 

Nearly just a week, after President Donald Trump’s bold new tariffs took effect, over 50 countries, are already at the negotiating table, signaling that the global economic landscape is shifting in favor of American interests. The ten percent universal tariff on imports and reciprocal tariffs targeting roughly 90 nations are proving to be a wake-up call for the world. Countries that once took advantage of unfair trade practices are now scrambling to strike better deals, understanding that America is no longer willing to play the role of the passive consumer. Trump's "America First" approach is pushing nations to reconsider their trade practices, and it's clear that the President's strategy of economic toughness is beginning to pay off.

During an appearance on CNN’s “State of the Union,” Agricultural Secretary Brooke Rollins acknowledged that Trump’s tariffs have already forced other nations to bend to America’s will. She emphasized that the core purpose of these tariffs is to strengthen the U.S. economy by prioritizing American-made goods and industries. Rollins acknowledged that while the immediate impact of the tariffs may be harsh to digest, the long-term benefits for the country will be significant. She clarified that Trump’s bold policies are laying the groundwork for a more resilient and self-sufficient economy.

“We do already live under a tariff regime in this country, but it’s the tariff regime of China, of Mexico, of Brazil, of Australia, of countries that Mexico won’t take our corn, Australia won’t take our beef,” Rollins said. “The country of Honduras takes more pork than the entire European Union does, American pork, I should say. So, from our farming and ranching perspective, which is what I’m focused on, but happy to talk about anything that it has to, it is time for a change. That’s what this president evoked last Wednesday.”

“We already have 50 countries that have come to the table over the last few days, over the last weeks, that are willing and desperate to talk to us. We are the economic engine of the world, and it’s finally time that someone, President Trump, stood up for America,” she continued. 

Trump has implemented a 34 percent tariff on Chinese imports, which is set to take effect next week. In response, Beijing revealed that it would impose a matching 34 percent tariff on American goods starting April 10. In addition, the president will impose two significant tariffs to boost U.S. manufacturing, create jobs, and increase government revenue. On April 9, a ten percent blanket tariff will be imposed on all imports, alongside reciprocal tariffs on goods from approximately 90 countries. The new measures are part of the administration’s strategy to revive American industry and ensure fair trade practices. Among the nations facing steep tariff hikes are Lesotho (50 percent), Cambodia (49 percent), and Madagascar (47 percent). Trump said the goal is to protect American workers and strengthen the country’s economy.



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Market Crash Fearmongering BACKFIRES When These Financial Legends Speak Out

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WH Senior Advisor for Trade and Manufacturing Peter Navarro


White House Senior Advisor for Trade and Manufacturing Peter Navarro discusses the trade reset and tariff impact as it works through the process.

As visible and stated by the Trump team, the broad-based tariff approach was designed to save time and create the environment where foreign countries, including those with bilateral Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) would come to President Trump in an effort to retain their interests.  From there, new trade agreements would be structured.

Navarro rightly notes that both tariff and non-tariff barriers are designed to create a structural trade imbalance in their favor. The trade reset strategy is designed to confront these issues.  Navarro also notes how Vietnam operates as case-study in the use of non-tariff barriers and simultaneously operates as a transnational shipping point for Chinese products. WATCH:



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Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent -vs- NBC Kirsten Welker


Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent appears on NBC to discuss the current MAGAnomic tariff program and global trade reset. Bessent outlines how the history of President Trump’s tariff approach toward China (’17-’19) did not result in higher consumer prices for goods from China.

Bessent, like the rest of the MAGAnomic team, cuts through the talking points with direct evidence and analysis that destroys the preferred media narrative.  Video and Transcript Below:



[Transcript] – KRISTEN WELKER: And joining me now is Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. Secretary Bessent, welcome back to Meet the Press.

SEC. SCOTT BESSENT: Kristen, good to see you.

KRISTEN WELKER: It’s great to have you back after a very big week. Let’s start with the market reaction to President Trump’s announcement of his tariffs. As I just laid out at the top of the program, the markets lost more than $6 trillion in value. Was this disruption always part of the plan, Mr. Secretary?

SEC. SCOTT BESSENT: Look, the – Kristen, markets are organic. They’re animals. I mean, you never know what the reaction is going to be. One thing that I can tell you, as the Treasury secretary, what I’ve been very impressed with is the market infrastructure, that we had record volume on Friday and everything is working very smoothly. So, the American people – they can be very – take great comfort in that. And in terms of the market reaction, look, we get these short-term market reactions from time to time. The market consistently, the – underestimates Donald Trump. I remember that in 2016 the night President Trump won, the market crashed. The market crashed, and it turned out he was going to be the most pro-business president – the – in over a century, maybe in the history of the country, and we went on to very high after inflation returns for the next four years.

KRISTEN WELKER: Well, but this was the biggest two-day crash since the pandemic. And the president on Saturday urging people, quote, “to hang tough,” saying, “It won’t be easy.” And I guess the big question on people’s minds, Mr. Secretary, how difficult is it going to be? And how long are Americans going to have to “hang tough?”

SEC. SCOTT BESSENT: Well, again, I – I reject that – the assumption – there doesn’t have to be a recession, the – who knows how the market is going to react in a day, in a week. What we are looking at is building the long-term economic fundamentals for prosperity that I think the previous administration had put us on the course toward financial calamity.

KRISTEN WELKER: But just in terms of the uncertainty, I think, that people are feeling and seeing, and President Trump saying he wants people to hang tough acknowledging there’s going to be what he has described as a short period of pain. Can you help provide some clarity for folks? How long will this period of uncertainty be here? Are we talking about weeks? Are we talking about months? Are we talking about years?

SEC. SCOTT BESSENT: Again. This is an adjustment process. What we saw with President Reagan, when he brought down the – the great inflation and we got past the Carter malaise that there – there was some choppiness at – at that time, but he held the course, and, you know, we’re going to hold the course. And this has been years in the building, years in the making, you know, this unsustainable system – our trading partners have taken advantage of us. We can see that through the large surpluses. We can see this through the large budget deficits. And also, Kristen, this is a national security problem, which we saw during Covid. We saw during Covid that optimal supply chains are not resilient. And what I could say is the only good outcome from Covid is it was a beta test for what would happen if our supply chains got broken, and President Trump has given – has decided that we cannot be at risk like that, for our crucial medicines, for semiconductors — the — for shipping, and we are going to move forward so the American people can know that they are going to have a more secure future.

KRISTEN WELKER: And yet, President Trump promised that he was going to improve the economy starting on day one. He said prices are going to come down. More than 160 million Americans, Mr. Secretary, as you know, are invested in the market. Many of them have spent their lives saving for their retirement. What is your message to Americans who want to retire right now and who’ve just seen their lifetime savings drop significantly?

SEC. SCOTT BESSENT: Kristen, I think that’s a false narrative. Americans who want to retire right now, Americans who have put away for years in their savings accounts, I – I think they don’t look at the day-to-day fluctuations of what’s happening. And you know, in fact, most Americans don’t have everything in the market. Most Americans in a 401K have what’s called a 60/40 account. 60/40 accounts are down 5 or 6% on the year. People have a long-term view. They have a program that the reason the stock market is considered a good investment is because it’s a long-term investment. If you look day-to-day, week-to-week, it’s very risky. Over the long term, it’s a good investment.

KRISTEN WELKER: President Trump’s tariffs are being described as the biggest tax hike on Americans in decades. They could cost the average household thousands of dollars. Republican Senator Ted Cruz had this to say. I’m going to play it, get your reaction on the other side.

[START TAPE]

SEN. TED CRUZ: Tariffs are attacks on consumers. And I’m not a fan of jacking up taxes on American consumers.

[END TAPE]

KRISTEN WELKER: Do you acknowledge that President Trump’s tariffs will cause prices to go up on a range of goods?

SEC. SCOTT BESSENT: Well, Kristen, what I like is data. And if we look at the data from President Trump’s first term, and there’s a big study that just came out from a group of economists, mostly at MIT, that showed that a 20% – 20% tariff on China led to a .7% tax or price level increase over four years. I think that’s pretty good if we can take in 20% in tariffs and it’s a .7% increase. And Kristen, the – the little publicized story this week, everyone wants to look at the stock market going down. You know what else went down? Oil prices went down almost 15% in two days which impacts working Americans much more than the stock market does. Interest rates hit their low for the year. So I’m expecting the mortgage applications to pick up.

KRISTEN WELKER: Well, just to be very clear though, I mean, during President Trump’s first term, the cost to Americans was nearly $80 billion in new taxes due to his tariffs. Prices did go up on everything from washing machines to tires.

SEC. SCOTT BESSENT: Well, no, no, no. But let’s go back. The aggregate number was. 7. So we can discern the individual things. Also households saw real net wages go up. So if wages go up faster than prices, which is not what happened over the past four years, that’s why the bottom 50% got eviscerated.

KRISTEN WELKER: Let – let me ask you about your view. Because last January you wrote that, quote, “Tariffs are inflationary.” The Fed chair said the same thing on Friday that tariffs announced this week caused higher inflation. Have you expressed any concerns to President Trump directly that his tariff policy could be inflationary?

SEC. SCOTT BESSENT: No. What – what I’ve said is, “Tariffs are a one-time price adjustment.” So there- there’s a big difference between insipid, endemic inflation within the system and consistent price level increases and a one-time adjustment. But the other thing that we’re doing is we are raising wages for working Americans. We’re bringing down regulation. So, you know, there are estimates that regulations have caused the average household about $8,000. That when we get this tax bill through, then we will make the tax levels permanent. And – and again, the drop in the energy prices, the drop in interest costs, now, I – I think real after-tax wages are going to go up for Americans. And that’s what’s important.

KRISTEN WELKER: One of the big questions and points of confusion I think is are these tariffs permanent? Or are they a negotiating tactic? Some administration officials have said they’re permanent. President Trump himself has said he’s open to negotiating. So let me just ask you. Is President Trump willing to negotiate? Or are these tariffs permanent?

SEC. SCOTT BESSENT: Well, I think that’s gonna be a decision for President Trump, but I can tell you that, as only he can do at this moment, he’s created maximum leverage for himself, and more than 50 countries have approached – they have approached the administration about lowering their non-territory barriers, lowering their tariffs, stopping currency manipulation, and Kristen, you know, they’ve been bad actors for a long time, and it’s – it’s not the kind of thing you can negotiate away in days or weeks.

KRISTEN WELKER: You yourself have said that he’s using these for negotiating. He has told me directly he’s open to negotiating. So just very clearly for the American people: Can you say definitively, is he planning to negotiate? Has he already started negotiations with countries?

SEC. SCOTT BESSENT: Well, I – I – I think we’re going to have to see what the – what the countries offer, and whether it’s believable, because again –

KRISTEN WELKER: So, he’s open to it, is what I hear you say.

SEC. SCOTT BESSENT: The – no, no, no, it is – I think that we are going to have to see the path forward, because after 20, 30, 40, 50, years of bad behavior, you can’t just wipe the slate clean.

KRISTEN WELKER: All right. Let me ask you about one of the big questions. Recession, as you know, analysts say the chances of a recession are rising in the wake of the tariffs announced this week. Do you believe that President Trump’s tariffs are risking the chances of a recession?

SEC. SCOTT BESSENT: I – I don’t. And I think we could see from the jobs number on Friday that it was well above expectations that, you know, we are moving forward. So I – I see no reason that we have to price in a recession.

KRISTEN WELKER: Okay. Before I let you go, I know you’ve been one of the officials spearheading the efforts to get President Trump’s budget bill passed on Capitol Hill. It includes the president’s plans for tax cuts, extending the 2017 tax cuts, for example. Are you confident that the president’s budget bill will pass before the August recess?

SEC. SCOTT BESSENT: We are shooting for even a much earlier date. And Kristen, I – I can tell you the under-reported story in D.C. is, you know, it’s fun from our side of the aisle to watch the Democratic chaos. But the under-reported story is the Republican unity. And Speaker Johnson has done an incredible job with a small minority. He got reconciliation instructions out on the first try. He got a clean continuing resolution. Speaker Thune, the – the Senate issued the reconciliation instructions. So things are moving very quickly.

KRISTEN WELKER: Very quickly, President Trump called on the Fed chair to lower interest rates. Do you think that Fed chair Jerome Powell should lower interest rates?

SEC. SCOTT BESSENT: I – I – I think that when we see inflation dropping, that the Fed will do what it always does and lower rates. But in the meantime, what we can control is the longer-term rate, the ten-year rate which hit – hit a new low on Friday. That’s where mortgages are priced. That’s where long-term capital formation is priced. And, you know, back to the tax deal, when we can pass that, we will have economic certainty.

KRISTEN WELKER: Okay, we’ll be watching for that timeline you just laid out very closely. Secretary Scott Bessent, thank you so much for being here. We appreciate it.

SEC. SCOTT BESSENT: Thank you.

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