Ben Meiselas: FOX News in PANIC Over Donald Trump FATAL MOVE

Posted on April 11, 2025 by kireschneider

“MeidasTouch host Ben Meiselas reports on Fox News suffering as Trump destroys the economy and the alliances of the United States.”

Source:Meidas Touch with a look at DJT News Inc.

From the Meidas Touch

I’m thinking Ben Meiselas already knows this… he’s certainly smart enough to know this, but there’s no research or preparation that Fox News and the rest of the Trump news organization does in trying to figure out how they’re going to try to spin the latest Trump scandals, or political problems. Trump news right now is basically 24 hours of Karlone Leavitt in The White House press room, or in the driveway. (When the press room is too hot because of all her hot air) And they get away with it generally, because look at their audience.

It’s not just Democrats who see MAGA as rubes, rednecks, hicks, neanderthals, dipshits, assholes, etc… Trump news and company, who are primarily Northeastern and East Coast elitist types, who all have college educations, making 7-8 figures, also sees their audience as rubes, rednecks, hicks, neanderthals, dipshits, assholes, etc.

It’s just that Democrats are honest about how they view MAGA members and their voters, while MAGA Inc. treats them as the “real Americans” who truly love America, who are not going to let “annoying American values” like the rule of law, due process, U.S. Constitution, stand in their way and prevent them from carrying out their mission, which is “to save America from the Un-Americans”.

Imagine someone taking an oral exam in school, but they don’t even know what the questions will be on the exam, let alone have studied for it… that’s what Fox News is like trying to defend Donald Trump and his people everyday: a Karoline Leavitt press briefing 24 hrs a day. They just say the first thing that comes to mind and go with it and try to figure out to explain what they said later on… unless there’s another MAGA scandal or story that has just broken, that they feel the need to speak to.

Source:The New Democrat

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Liz Wolfe: Don’t Trust the Experts: Make Them Up!

Posted on April 10, 2025 by Ederik Schneider

“Paging Ron Vara: If you were, say, a White House trade adviser who had been part of crafting the tariff plan that a) relied on a ChatGPT-based formula that makes no sense and levied tariffs on islands full of penguins, b) tanked the global economy, and c) was, so far, shockingly unpopular, wouldn’t you want to put it all on someone else and have experts reaffirm your credibility?

Conveniently, the aforementioned Peter Navarro has his China hawk alter ego, Ron Vara. (Vara’s writing, from 2011: “Only the Chinese can turn a leather sofa into an acid bath, a baby crib into a lethal weapon, and a cellphone battery into heart-piercing shrapnel.” Well, OK!) Vara hasn’t made an appearance just yet, but he’s part of Navarro’s rise to prominence.

Truly. I did not make this up. I’m not sure I even could.

Navarro’s books contain repeated references to a man named Ron Vara, and in 2019 he co-authored a memo—advocating for tariffs—using that alter ego.

“Vara is a military veteran and Harvard-trained economist who made seven figures in the stock market by investing in companies that do well during international crises,” in Navarro’s telling, reported Tom Bartlett at The Chronicle of Higher Education in 2019. This has, per Navarro’s books, earned him the nickname “Dark Prince of Disaster.”

Why would Vara be valuable to Navarro? Well, Navarro is a bit of a Johnny-come-lately to China hawkdom and expertise, having only first traveled there in 2018 and having no Mandarin knowledge or deep background; Vara’s expertise—though made up—is something Navarro can rest on to back up his arguments. Or, perhaps Navarro uses Vara as a sort of imaginary friend, someone to consult with during long nights in his office. I get it, I have a toddler, we do lots of imaginary friends. I just didn’t know they were being used to lend credibility to our nation’s economic policy.

Navarro told The Chronicle of Higher Education that Vara was a “whimsical device and pen name I’ve used throughout the years for opinions and purely entertainment value, not as a source of fact,” which is…not true (just as his there-will-be-no-recession talking point earlier this week is not likely to be true, either). He also apparently compared the invented character to “Alfred Hitchcock appearing briefly in cameo in his movies.” (Some of Navarro’s coauthors through the years, like Glenn Hubbard, former dean of Columbia University’s business school, were not aware that Vara was made up, for what it’s worth, and were not happy with this revelation…

Source:Reason Magazine with a look at White House Trade Advisor Peter Navarro. Mr. Navarro would be very smart to stay away from Senator Thom Tillis right now. Unless he hates breathing.

From Reason Magazine

The New Democrat talked about Peter Navarro, as well as Elon Musk on Tuesday:

“The question is when will and who will the voters blame for Trumpenomics. And to go back to Senator Tillis’s question: “Whose Throat Do I Get To Choke If Tariff Approach Fails?” I believe you are going to see long lines of people at political rallies, who would want to choke the hell out of Donald Trump for applying this braindead approach to economics. Except it won’t be a hilarious, Hollywood movie scene. It will be real life.”

From The New Democrat

“If you think about it, Elon Musk could’ve been harder on Peter Navarro than he was and I’ll give you a few examples:

“What does a convicted felon know about economic policy anyway:

What does he know about prices in this country, other than what food and clothing costs at his prison commissary?

If Peter Navarro is so smart, how come he got caught, convicted, and landed in prison? Good thing for him, the 2024 RNC started the day he got out of prison, otherwise he would’ve had to watch it in the prison day room and wonder if he would even survived the experience.

When has Peter Navarro ever had a job in his life where he wasn’t working for Donald Trump? The President probably only hired him because he feels sorry for the poor schmuck, who can’t get a good job anywhere else, because he’s a convicted felon. And he didn’t want to embarrass Navarro by having him take his next order for a Diet Coke, quarter pounder, with fries, at a local McDonald’s.”

(Mr. President, you want fries with that? Yes, Peter. And please keep your voice down so no one here figures out that we know each other.)

Just for the record: I’m not saying that Elon Musk said any of these things about Peter Navarro… publicly…

From The New Democrat

So I guess the answer to Senator Tom Tillis’s question: “Whose Throat Do I Get To Choke If Tariff Approach Fails?” would be: Peter Navarro. I guess you say Wall Street investor Ron Vara as well. But Peter Nevarro would be easier for Senator Tillis to find right now. Unless Mr. Navarro found some White House tunnel that not even the Secret Service knows about and is now hiding there. Sort of how he came up with his tariff policy that almost no one seems to believe in. The man seems to be able to find things that no one else can.

Donald Trump when he was running for President in 2016 said he: “would only hire the best and the brightest as President”

In January of this year, he said he would eliminate DEI “and only hire the best and the brightest”. But:

Pete Hegseth is now Secretary of Defense

Tulsi Gabbard is now Director of National Intelligence

Kash Patel, a man with an enemies list, is now Director of the FBI

Michael Waltz is National Security Advisor

Both Secretary Hegseth (drunk or sober) and NSA Waltz gave us Signal Gate

Peter Navarro is The White House Trade Advisor, the man who is largely responsible for the Wall Street almost crashing last week, because of President Trump’s tariffs.

So does this mean that President Trump only hires “the best and the brightest from what’s available and left to be hired”, but he just doesn’t share that with anyone publicly? Or, another possibly and I think it’s an excellent 1: “the best and the brightest” simply don’t want to work for Donald J. Trump?

Source:The New Democrat

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CBS News: Details On House Approval of Donald Trump Budget Plan After GOP Holdouts End Opposition

Posted on April 10, 2025 by Derik Schneider

“The House on Thursday passed a budget blueprint for President Trump’s agenda after most Republican holdouts received assurances that the Senate would pursue $1.5 trillion in savings. CBS News congressional reporter Taurean Small has more.”

Source:CBS News with a look at our taxpayer funded U.S. Congress.

From CBS News

“The House on Thursday passed a budget blueprint for President Trump’s agenda after most Republican holdouts received assurances that the Senate would pursue $1.5 trillion in savings. CBS News congressional reporter Taurean Small has more.”

From CBS News

Just to clear up a few things, first:

The Senate didn’t pass a budget last weekend and the House didn’t pass a budget plan this morning. Both chambers of Congress passed their own budget blueprints. The Senate passed a blueprint that has $4 billion in cuts or savings. But the House passed a plan that calls for $1.5 trillion in savings.

You don’t have to be math wizard to know that there’s a huge difference between 1.5 trillion dollars and 4 billion dollars. So the House and Senate are still about $1.5 trillion apart in finalizing a final budget bill and moving forward with their economic agenda.

Yahoo News reported that: “House Adopts Senate Budget Resolution As Conservatives Cave”, but the fact is its Senate Majority Leader John Thune who caved. His budget plan wouldn’t have passed the House. The House passed their own budget plan only because the Majority Leader told them that he would try to find the $1.5 trillion in cuts, instead of just $4 billion that Senate Republicans passed.

So now the real hard work begins: can the House and Senate find enough in budget cuts that could pass in the House and Senate, without going too far in cuts and prevent vulnerable House and Senate Republicans from voting no?

Source:The New Democrat

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President Donald Trump: The Master of The Surrender

Posted on April 9, 2025 by Rik Schneider

“Promised as a gritty path to American resurgence, the tariff crusade now resembles a half-finished workout — sweaty, confused, and already back on the couch.

President Donald Trump, in a classic display of strategic whiplash, announced that he’ll be hitting pause on his much-ballyhooed reciprocal tariffs — for 90 days. Which feels oddly specific, like the geopolitical equivalent of someone saying, “I’m taking a break from caffeine… but only until the end of this semester.”

Ninety days. Just long enough to sow confusion and get absolutely nothing done.

This, of course, raises the obvious question: how exactly are we supposed to “bring back American industry” if we keep yanking the plug every time the bathwater gets a little hot?

One of the few semi-coherent justifications for tariffs was to strong-arm corporations into plunking down factories in rustbelt towns — places like Youngstown and Toledo — where they might just hire someone who’s seen the inside of a high school gym that wasn’t turned into a Dollar General.

Sure, prices would go up, but that was the point. “No pain, no gain,” they told us, while winking at the donor class and hoping no one looked too closely at their stock portfolios…

Source:Matt Lewis with a humorous & yet accurate look at President Trump’s trade policy.

From Matt Lewis

“After selling the pain as patriotic, MAGA pundits are left justifying a policy their guy couldn’t finish — with takes so bad, they deserve a second life.

In the wake of reciprocal tariffs landing with all the finesse of a cannonball dive into a hot tub, President Trump has decided to pause them temporarily for most countries (while raising China’s tariffs to 125%).

The problem? This past week Trump’s army of talking heads and Twitter commandos has pushed his “no pain, no gain” theory like it was the Sermon on the Mount, all while insisting this was the economic tough love America needed. So while Trump struts around declaring victory, as if this whole thing was a masterclass in geopolitical brinkmanship and not a half-baked tantrum, his loyal foot soldiers are left twisting in the wind — on record, parroting laughable justifications for an industrial policy plan their guy now clearly doesn’t have the guts, or attention span, to complete.

I’ve got the receipts. And before these painfully awkward justifications get quietly shuffled off to the great memory hole where bad takes go to die, allow me to immortalize a few of the more inspired defenses that were trotted out to sell this mess…

From Matt Lewis

“Sam Stein, Andrew Egger, and Ben Parker react to Trump’s latest chaotic tariff announcement in a Truth Social bleat, including his stunning 125% tariffs on China and sudden U-turn on tariffs for dozens of other countries. Markets are surging, but confusion remains.”

Source:The Bulwark according to President Trump: tariffs are goodbad His word, not mine.

From The Bulwark

“FOX Business host Larry Kudlow discusses countries flocking to the U.S. to make a trade deal with President Donald Trump on ‘Kudlow.'”

Source:FOX Business Larry Kudlow trying to put his best spin on Donald Trump’s supermarket (pun intended) mess and attempted cleanup.

From FOX Business

“On Wednesday’s “Carl Higbie FRONTLINE,” Carl talked about President Donald Trump’s 90 pause on tariffs. ”

Source:Newsmax I will give Carl Higbie credit for 1 thing: the ability to say what he says without breaking out in laughter. Which makes him well-qualified to be the anchor of Weekend Update for Saturday Night Live.

From Newsmax

And from The New Democrat earlier today:

“Could you imagine Donald J. Trump as an Army general? Neither can I, simply because you actually have to have real, professional qualifications, just to get into the U.S. Army, let alone even become an officer, like a lieutenant, let alone not just an Army general, but a general whose in charge of a command. Unlike President of the United States, where you just have to be 35 years old, born into America, or to an American parent, who was born in America and win the Electoral College. But let’s take President Trump’s lead here and also play make believe.

So Donald J. Trump… I’m sorry, (natural mistake) U.S. Army Command General Donald J. Trump, decides to attack Canada (after his twin brother President Ronald J. Trump just gave the order to invade Canada) and he decides to send let’s say 10,000 soldiers over the Canadian border into British Columbia, 1 problem:

General Trump doesn’t have any air cover and the Royal Air Force just blows his tanks and soldiers away. Why? Because General Trump didn’t bother to check to see whether or not Canada even had an Air Force, let alone had fighter jets and bombers near their border with Washington State. So his troops get blown away, even though right before that he thought he had a brilliant plan and was celebrating with a Diet Coke and quarter pounder with fries.

This is what Donald J. Trump is like as a leader. He think he has a brilliant idea in his head, or it he thinks it sounds cool, or something… he always makes big decisions based on the last person that he talked too. To use a football analogy: every political and policy play that President Trump ever calls, is the hail mary: “Let’s just throw the ball up for grabs and see what happens”, with no thought whatsoever put in to see what would the consequences be if they decide to raise the cost of living in America by 10, 20, 30, 40, 50% and whether that would lead to a recession or not…

From The New Democrat

Just to let our readers know: a lot of what you see here is how the Right (center & far-right) are reacting to President Trump’s pause in his trade war.

I think Matt Lewis has the key point here:

“This, of course, raises the obvious question: how exactly are we supposed to “bring back American industry” if we keep yanking the plug every time the bathwater gets a little hot…

When people can’t make up their minds about what to do… like start a trade war, (just to use an example) a lot of times they’ll get caught in-between 2 competing ideas of what they should do and they get stuck:

They don’t understand the consequences of going either way

They don’t have enough information on what they should do

Haven’t bothered to think about what they should do

Or my personal favorite: they simply don’t know what the hell that they’re doing.

I mean a President of the United States, who is looking at a debt of 500-hundred-million-dollars in New York City, because of how they ran their business… who went bankrupt 7 times before becoming President of the United States, who is now in-charge of the economic policy of the United States of America. Think about that.

Just to respond to 1 point that Carl Higbie said: hearing a man talk about the need for “national sacrifice”, in talking about the President’s trade policy, from a millionaire, is like hearing a farmer talk about the need for better neuroscience, or a neurosurgeon talking about the need for agriculture policy. And of course there are exceptions to every rule. But Mr. Higbie simply doesn’t know what he’s talking about here. Which makes him well-qualified for Newsmax, or to serve in the Trump Administration… if he wants to make more money.

I mean sacrifice for a millionaire, is like maybe staying home 1 night a week, going out 1 night less every week… perhaps cooking their own meal 1 night a week. Sacrifice for middle class people who are worried about losing their 401K, or their job, means maybe taking out another mortgage, not buying a new car that they need, maybe taking another job to pay for your kid’s education, etc… that is real sacrifice.

The President of the United States seems to disagree with what both Larry Kudlow and Carl Higbie said:

“Trump says he decided on 90-day tariff pause because people were ‘yippy’ and ‘afraid’

“They were getting a little bit yippy, a little bit afraid,” he said Wednesday, referring to the market unrest that unfolded following his “Liberation Day” tariff announcement a week ago…

From Yahoo News

So Trump news right now, is like the ambitious prosecutor looking for a promotion and are so desperate to get 1 and maybe they just flip a coin to decide who they should indict. They apparently don’t even talk to each other and as a result, take their own bullshit (to be frank) to the air, or on social media, because they think what they have to say at that time, will get them though the moment. The problem is, they have all these commentators not just sharing their own spins on the Trump tariffs, but none of them are even plausible, let alone make sense.

Source:The New Democrat

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President Donald Trump: The Art of The Surrender

Posted on April 9, 2025 by Erik Schneider

“James Carville: Trump Was Always Going TO Blow It. Politics War Room (with James Carville & Al Hunt.”

Source:Politicon with James Carville.

From Politicon

“Donald Trump Just Caved On Tariffs. Here’s Why”

Source:Chris Cillizza with a look at President Trump’s political retreat.

From Chris Cillizza

“Report: Recession Fears Forcing More Americans To Hold Off On Retiring From Presidency”

Source:The Onion with a look at Donald J. Trump (MAGA, Florida) 47th President of the United States and 1st wannabe dictator.

From The Onion

Could you imagine Donald J. Trump as an Army general? Neither can I, simply because you actually have to have real, professional qualifications, just to get into the U.S. Army, let alone even become an officer, like a lieutenant, let alone not just an Army general, but a general whose in charge of a command. Unlike President of the United States, where you just have to be 35 years old, born into America, or to an American parent, who was born in America and win the Electoral College. But let’s take President Trump’s lead here and also play make believe.

So Donald J. Trump… I’m sorry, (natural mistake) U.S. Army Command General Donald J. Trump, decides to attack Canada (after his twin brother President Ronald J. Trump just gave the order to invade Canada) and he decides to send let’s say 10,000 soldiers over the Canadian border into British Columbia, 1 problem:

General Trump doesn’t have any air cover and the Royal Air Force just blows his tanks and soldiers away. Why? Because General Trump didn’t bother to check to see whether or not Canada even had an Air Force, let alone had fighter jets and bombers near their border with Washington State. So his troops get blown away, even though right before that he thought he had a brilliant plan and was celebrating with a Diet Coke and quarter pounder with fries.

This is what Donald J. Trump is like as a leader. He think he has a brilliant idea in his head, or it he thinks it sounds cool, or something… he always makes big decisions based on the last person that he talked too. To use a football analogy: every political and policy play that President Trump ever calls, is the hail mary: “Let’s just throw the ball up for grabs and see what happens”, with no thought whatsoever put in to see what would the consequences be if they decide to raise the cost of living in America by 10, 20, 30, 40, 50% and whether that would lead to a recession or not.

President Trump’s Chief of White House Propaganda (that some people call White House Press Secretary) Karoline Leavitt, said that President Trump’s retreat or reversal on the tariffs “is part of of the Art of The Deal”, and people who are criticizing the President Trump “obviously haven’t read that book”. A few problems with that statement:

1. Donald Trump never read read that book either. Perhaps someone read it to him. But we all know that is not the same thing. Most of us learn that when we are kids getting our bedtime stories.

2. Donald Trump didn’t write that book either. He had a ghostwriter who wrote that book for him, a guy named Tony Schwartz.

3. Going big without putting any thought into the consequences of a bold move like this, whatsoever, no thought even about how the markets would react, how consumers would react, how countries that you are imposing your economic nationalism on (also known as tariffs) would react, has nothing to do with “The Art of The Deal”. Certainly not the art of a good deal.

I wish someone would give Karoline Leavitt a dollar, so she could go buy some new material. She’s always reacts in the defensive and takes whatever big shot at the people who have the character to question her, without putting any thought into what she’s saying. It’s always a Trump power play with her: “When on the defensive, always go big in response to take out the other side”, without actually thinking about what you are saying.

I thought The Onion had the perfect line about President Trump yesterday: “Report: Recession Fears Forcing More Americans To Hold Off On Retiring From Presidency”

When the President’s economic nationalist strategy is over and so is his presidency, he might not afford to be able to retire and have nothing to go back to himself. Which is another reason why he’s looking into extending his presidency indefinitely.

Source:The New Democrat

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Inside Politics With Dana Bash: Musk-Navarro Feud Still Going As Tesla Founder Calls Trade Adviser a ‘Moron’

Posted on April 8, 2025 by FredSchneiderUS

“A dispute appears to have escalated between two of President Donald Trump’s top advisers over the wisdom of the new tariffs the president has applied to dozens of countries. Elon Musk, the billionaire who has become Trump’s most powerful adviser, has criticized the tariffs and lashed out against trade adviser Peter Navarro, after Navarro dismissed the Tesla founder as a “car assembler.”

Source:CNN with a look at the oligarch versus the convicted felon. This is a battle that Elon Musk can actually win.

From CNN

Elon Musk on his Trump Administration colleague Peter Navarro:

“Peter Navarro “is truly a moron” and that he’s “dumber than a sack of bricks”

From Shelly Talcott

If you think about it, Elon Musk could’ve been harder on Peter Navarro than he was and I’ll give you a few examples:

“What does a convicted felon know about economic policy anyway:

What does he know about prices in this country, other than what food and clothing costs at his prison commissary?

If Peter Navarro is so smart, how come he got caught, convicted, and landed in prison? Good thing for him, the 2024 RNC started the day he got out of prison, otherwise he would’ve had to watch it in the prison day room and wonder if he would even survived the experience.

When has Peter Navarro ever had a job in his life where he wasn’t working for Donald Trump? The President probably only hired him because he feels sorry for the poor schmuck, who can’t get a good job anywhere else, because he’s a convicted felon. And he didn’t want to embarrass Navarro by having him take his next order for a Diet Coke, quarter pounder, with fries, at a local McDonald’s.”

(Mr. President, you want fries with that? Yes, Peter. And please keep your voice down so no one here figures out that we know each other.)

Just for the record: I’m not saying that Elon Musk said any of these things about Peter Navarro… publicly.

As James Carville told CNN host Michael Smerconish 10 days ago on his CNN show:

“Well, what tense are we in? Is it collapsing or has it collapsed? That’s the only argument to have.

And I was wrong. I said, Memorial Day. It’s before April Fool’s day which the Trump administration should make a national holiday because it’s so accurately represents who they are. So, I’m not really — no one — do not argue with me.

Look at what’s happening in the markets. We look at what happened on Signal-gate. We look at what’s happening all the way, all around us. You know, treating measles with apricot pits or something like that. I think the thing is collapsed.

But I’ll — I’ll go to you. Let’s take the middle ground here and say, it’s collapsing. And I’ll meet you halfway. But that’s about all I can do…

From The New Democrat

So this little public spat between Donald Trump’s chief advisor on gutting the U.S. Government and his chief MAGA trade advisor Peter Navarro, is what happens when things are really bad in the administration.

The Trump Administration has 1 side that are so dedicated to the President (or in Peter Navarro’s case: worried about losing the only good job that they can get right now) versus people who sort of see the bigger picture, which is the economy and markets are collapsing because of what the administration is doing. And they want the President to change course before it will hurt their own pocketbooks and the pocketbooks and political books of their party.

And we’re in the new info age which is dominated by social media. And this is not the 1970s where if you had a bad story about your own team, you just leak it to a Washington reporter that you trust. This is the 21st Century where if you have something bad to say about a member of your own team, you can do that on social media.

Source:The New Democrat

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Senator Thom Tillis: Whose Throat Do I Get To Choke If Tariff Approach Fails?

Posted on April 8, 2025 by kireschneider

“Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., asked U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer on Tuesday “whose throat do I get to choke” if the Trump administration’s tariff plans are unsuccessful.

The comment from the Republican senator came during a Finance Committee hearing where Greer answered concerns about the dramatic trade policy set to take effect Wednesday at midnight.

Tillis described his phrase as a concept from management consulting that means someone has to be accountable.

“You can certainly always talk to me,” Greer said in response. “I am at the tip of the spear, certainly.”

“I wish you well,″ Tillis later told Greer. ”But I am skeptical.’’

Trump announced the tariffs plan last week in an event he called “Liberation Day,” saying they were aimed at resolving a longtime trade deficit with partners around the world. Some Republicans have defended the tariffs, levied across dozens of countries, as a way to create leverage. Democrats, economists and other countries have blasted the plan, emphasizing deep and negative effects for U.S. consumers, as well as wider geopolitical consequences. Several economists have said the formula the White House used to develop the tariffs, which were much higher than expected, is flawed and misunderstands some key trade metrics.”

Source:PBS NewsHour with a look at U.S. Senator Thom Tillis (Republican, North Carolina) U.S. Senator Ron Johnson in the background. But you couldn’t pay him anything to get him to criticize any of President Trump’s policies, if he thought that could hurt him with MAGA voters in Wisconsin.

From the PBS NewsHour

From Mediate:

“Republican Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC) questioned Ambassador Jamieson Greer, the United States Trade Representative, during a Senate hearing on Tuesday on President Donald Trump’s sweeping global tariffs and asked Greer if his is the “throat to choke” if the economy crashes.

“Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ambassador Greer, thank you for being here. Back in the 90s, I was in management consulting and there was a new platform that came out that promised to transform the business industry, ERP. Some of the early attempts at implementing the system proposed an alla prima approach. Let’s do it all at once. Let’s change the plumbing out. Let’s get it all in, get it done, rip the band-aid off,” Tillis began, adding:

It proved to be hugely unsuccessful. There are a lot of very visible projects and the industry decided there needed to be a methodical sort of prioritization of what parts of the business needed to perform better sooner and how do you layer onto that a comprehensive strategy.

It looks like we’ve got a novel approach here in terms of an alla prima approach. I’m not a trade expert and I’m going to question it at this point. I do have a question about at the end of the day– the other thing in management consulting we like to focus on is this concept of one throat to choke.

In other words, when you’re finally taking a look at a strategy, someone has to own it. And you can’t say that it’s the president or the vice president. So my first question to you, in this scenario, the decision maker who decided the alla prima approach, who has obviously had to have spent time anticipating what we saw in the markets and some of the pushback, I’m assuming this all got gamed out, because it’s a novel approach, it need to be thought out. Whose throat do I get to choke if this proves to be wrong?

“Well, Senator, you can certainly always talk to me, but I will-” answer Greer as Tillis interjected, “But are you at the tip of the spear…

From Mediate

If Senator Tillis just asked me the question: “Whose Throat Do I Get To Choke If Tariff Approach Fails?” Before I would answer that question, directly, I would tell him about a certain scene from Airplane! (1980). For anyone who isn’t familiar with that film:

“This spoof comedy takes shots at the slew of disaster movies that were released in the 70s. When the passengers and crew of a jet are incapacitated due to food poisoning, a rogue pilot with a drinking problem must cooperate with his ex-girlfriend turned stewardess to bring the plane to a safe landing.”

From IMDB.

There’s a specific scene where the passengers are aware that the plane is in a lot of trouble. I mean, there’s literally an escaped mental patient… and if that’s not bad enough, he’s 1 of the passengers whose brought in to try to fly and land the plane. And if you haven’t fainted yet from that, this might knock you out: the escaped mental patient, airline pilot, is also an alcoholic. Who has lost so many braincells, he sounds like Donald Trump at 1 of his press conferences. Actually, when he tries to take a drink of anything, he spills it on himself, instead.

But the specific scene that relates here to the question that Senator Tillis posed, was when the passengers know they’re in a lot of trouble and the chances of them surviving this flight aren’t very good. (But only because of some of the reasons I just mentioned) There’s 1 woman in particular, who goes hysterical and can’t get ahold of herself and there’s this long line of passengers on the plane who want their opportunity to calm her down.

Source:Tenor

From Tenor

President Trump’s tariff strategy is already failing. Perhaps the last leader in the world, certainly of a large country with a large economy, that the People’s Republic of China, or the European Union, Canada, Mexico, etc, would ever be afraid of, would be Donald J. Trump. If business becomes too expensive for them in America, they have a lot of other countries to go to instead.

The question is when will and who will the voters blame for Trumpenomics. And to go back to Senator Tillis’s question: “Whose Throat Do I Get To Choke If Tariff Approach Fails?” I believe you are going to see long lines of people at political rallies, who would want to choke the hell out of Donald Trump for applying this braindead approach to economics. Except it won’t be a hilarious, Hollywood movie scene. It will be real life.

Source:The New Democrat

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Meet The Press With Kristen Welker: Senator Adam Schiff On Kamala Harris’s 2024 Campaign

Posted on April 7, 2025 by Ederik Schneider

“Sen Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) tells Kristen Welker on Meet the Press that Democrats’ past failure to address “structural challenges” of the economy led to the party losing the White House in 2024.”

Source:NBC News Meet The Press With Kristen Welker. On this Sunday, U.S. Senator Adam Schiff (Democrat, California) sorry, I’ve always wanted to do a parody of Tim Russert.

From NBC News

KRISTEN WELKER:

I do want to ask you about the Democratic Party. There’s a new book out by Chris Whipple who reports that in the days before President Biden’s devastating debate performance with President Trump, his first chief of staff, Ron Klain, returned to help him prep. Klain reports that he was surprised by the fact that he thought that President Biden was struggling to focus. He said he seemed confused about President Trump’s policies, and even fell asleep by the pool after cutting one debate prep session short. Do you think that former President Biden’s advisors misled the American people about his capacities?

SEN. ADAM SCHIFF:

You know, it’s hard for me to gauge what the closest advisors to the president were seeing at the time. I can only speak to the interactions that I had with him, which were, you know, in the months leading up to his getting out of the race, largely ceremonial occasions. But, you know, I will say this. He made the decision to get out of the race. I think that was the right decision. The vice president, as the vice president, I think ran a great campaign but could not run away from being a representative of the status quo. And, the fact is that people are hurting and have been hurting for a long time. This is a frankly decades in the making problem where people are working harder than ever and still can’t get by. What Donald Trump is doing right now is making that so much worse. But we have to address it. Both parties are going to need to address this. Right now this budget that you’re talking about is going to give a massive tax cut for billionaires. And they’re going to take it out of middle class families. And they’re going to explode the deficit and debt. That’s just going to move us further in the wrong direction. So, we’re going to have to grapple with some of the central challenges, structural challenges in our economy. I think the failure of Democrats to do that in the past resulted in our losing the White House. The catastrophic, you know, damage they’re doing to the economy now is going to cause Trump and Republicans to lose Congress. But both parties are going to have to tackle this global challenge to our economy.

From NBC News

The New Democrat talking about whether or not President Biden should run for reelection again in 2023-24:

“So it’s either stick with Joe, or Joe drops out and we see a Democratic free for all, between left-wing Democrats who’ll promise the world to everybody and tell everyone it won’t cost anything. Versus center-right Democrats who will try to run a general election campaign during the Democratic primaries, but when they think they need more Democrats, while try to talk like they’re actually leftists, leaving everybody to believe who is this person and why do they actually believe. Versus The Devil in Donald Trump, with American voters probably choosing The Devil that they already know, over the Democrat.”

From The New Democrat

“I talked about this back in October, when Bill Maher was basically trying to make Joe Biden look like the presidential version of deceased U.S. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg, who stayed in too long and then ends up dying, when the Republican Party still had The White House and Senate back in 2020. And then the country goes to hell, etc, because Justice Ginsberg stayed in too long and was replaced by a Conservative Republican.

And now what those bedwetters are arguing is that if President Biden runs for reelection, he’ll lose to Donald Trump, even if Donald Trump is a two-time convicted felon by the time the presidential election comes around. So again we would have a MAGA White House and a MAGA Congress, with Republicans holding and adding to the House and winning back the Senate..

From The New Democrat

“If you are wondering why The New Democrat is going with the center-right, Republican, Never-Trumper reactions to this debate, I’ll tell you anyway. We”re not Republicans at The New Democrat. But we are New Democrats and we are center-right, JFK/Henry Jackson/even Joe Biden even Democrats. We know what MSNBC and company is saying. You either have far-left Democrats up there saying that Joe Biden has to step down. Or Democrats trying to argue that the debate doesn’t matter. I’m not interested in that. And to their credit, even left-wing, hippie, Rachel Maddow talking about what’s the best move going forward, knowing that Joe Biden will most likely still be the Democrat for President. So it’s not all MSNBC arguing that it’s not a disaster for the President, or he should simply drop out.

And I don’t think there’s much point in talking about President Biden stepping down, until he actually does that, because it would be like debating what would happen if Donald Trump suddenly plead guilty to all the felonies that he’s facing. There’s not much point in talking about what it would be like if this happened, if there’ very little, if any possibility of it happening…

From The New Democrat

“To put it simply: if President Biden announced let’s say by April, 2023, that he promised not to run for reelection in 3-1/2 years a go to assure voters that he would pass the torch (so to speak) and because it was time “for a new generation of leadership”, the Democratic Party would’ve had a full primary season and Vice President Kamala Harris probably wins the nomination anyway. And she would’ve been my preferred candidate right out of the gate. And all those townhalls, those debates, those TV interviews, that she didn’t want to do this summer and to a certain extent this fall, all those things would’ve been taken care of during late 2023 and early 2024.

And it’s not just that President Biden broke his promise not to run for reelection. It’s why he did that is even worst, his lack of reasoning for it. He made it about the economy and that he was the only person up to task of bringing down the high cost of living. When the fact is he knew damn well that his background as a public servant is not economics. He made his carer in Congress as a foreign policy and national security expert. As well as criminal justice and the Constitution. Not economic policy.

The reason why President Biden tried to run for reelection, is the same reason why any other President who ran for reelection did that, because he wanted to be a two-term President. It’s almost embarrassing for President’s to not get the 2nd term. And probably feels worst when you don’t bother to run. Worst than that when you own damn party doesn’t want you to run for reelection…

From The New Democrat

Just to be clear: The New Democrat doesn’t blame Joe Biden 100% for why Kamala Harris lost in 2024. She made her own mistakes:

Not doing any interviews at all for 2 months after it was clear she would be the Democratic nominee

Not doing any townhalls, even in the blue wall states that she had to have, until October of 24

Too dependent of celebrity endorsements to get her own voters out to vote for her, etc.

But as Erik Schneider said, had President Biden simply kept his promise to to a one-term President and announced like in April of 2023, that he wasn’t running for reelection, he might not have been an issue in 2024, at all. Because whoever the new Democratic nominee would be, that person would have had about a year or so to introduce themself to the country and lay out exactly what they want to do as President and not have to worry about what the President thinks of their agenda. And Vice President Harris might have won the nomination anyway.

We’ll never know this because the people around the President, who knew he was struggling mentally and had low energy, didn’t have the courage, the character, to either tell the President that he shouldn’t run for reelection and why, or at the least leak what they know about his physical and mental conditions, or resign and go public with what they know about him.

You think Democratic donors would’ve been backing the President the way they did, financially, up until his debate, if they knew he was struggling to remember names of people he knew very well, struggling just to get through his work schedule, physically, getting stuck in-between thoughts when trying to speak? Of course not. If they knew this 2 years ago, if the public knew as well, the Democratic leadership, even, would’ve called for the President not to run for reelection.

And to respond to something that Senator Schiff said:

“You know, it’s hard for me to gauge what the closest advisors to the president were seeing at the time. I can only speak to the interactions that I had with him, which were, you know, in the months leading up to his getting out of the race, largely ceremonial occasions. But, you know, I will say this. He made the decision to get out of the race. I think that was the right decision. The vice president, as the vice president, I think ran a great campaign but could not run away from being a representative of the status quo. And, the fact is that people are hurting and have been hurting for a long time. This is a frankly decades in the making problem where people are working harder than ever and still can’t get by. What Donald Trump is doing right now is making that so much worse…

You notice how he wanted to get the discussion off of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris and back to an area where he’s more comfortable talking about, which almost everyone’s political boogeyman, Donald J. Trump. Who is a subject that no Democrat (at least from a blue state like California) will ever had to ever worry about losing political support, when it comes to criticizing Donald J. Trump.

If Kristen Welker was a better interviewer, she could’ve asked a follow up, like:

“Senator, we’re you personally seeing from President Biden, or hearing anything about the President that would suggest to you, that maybe he’s not up to running for reelection again?”

A good interviewer can put their interviewee on the spot, when they think that person is trying to dodge a topic that comes with political risk to them and want to change the subject.

Source:The New Democrat

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Farron Cousins: Fox Host Stuns Audience By Praising Donald Trump For Destroying The Economy

Posted on April 7, 2025 by Derik Schneider

“Fox News host Jeanine Pirro left her own audience, and the rest of the country, stunned last week when she defended Donald Trump for tanking the economy. But it wasn’t just her praise of Trump’s idiotic moves that left people stunned – it was when she proudly proclaimed that she “doesn’t care” about her 401k. Nobody cares about Pirro’s 401k, but they care about their own and the people close to them. Working class people are losing everything while millionaires like Pirro say it doesn’t matter, as Ring of Fire’s Farron Cousins explains.”

Source:The Ring of Fire with a look at FOX News host Jeanine Pirro.

From The Ring of Fire

And from The Huffington Post:

“Fox News host Jeanine Pirro made the stunning declaration on Thursday that she wasn’t concerned about her retirement savings after President Donald Trump stoked market chaos with new tariffs.

It was all part of a long-winded endorsement of Trump’s trade-war baiting.

“This is what Donald Trump ran on and he’s delivering,” she said on “The Five.” “And you know what? I don’t really care about my 401(k) today. You know why? Not that I can afford it, not that it isn’t important, not that I’m not at a point in my life when I should be worried about my 401(k) because I am, but this is what I believe.”

“I believe in this man,” she continued. “… It’s about time we recognized we’ve got to have manufacturing in this country, and we need to bring them [countries] to the table, and Donald Trump is the only one who can do it because he’s got the biggest consumer base in the world. He’s not afraid of anybody. ”

“In the end, it’s going to help the working class,” she added. “And who’s complaining? My last point, who’s complaining? Wall Street. Too bad. He’s helping the middle class. And finally, I think it’s going to be over this summer…

From The Huffington Post

And from The New Democrat on Saturday: This witch (to be kind) doesn’t need her 401K. Most Americans aren’t millionaires.

From The New Democrat

So I think these are the 2 key points from Jeanine Pirro:

“This is what Donald Trump ran on and he’s delivering,” she said on “The Five.” “And you know what? I don’t really care about my 401(k) today. You know why? Not that I can afford it, not that it isn’t important, not that I’m not at a point in my life when I should be worried about my 401(k) because I am, but this is what I believe.”

“I believe in this man,” she continued. “… It’s about time we recognized we’ve got to have manufacturing in this country, and we need to bring them [countries] to the table, and Donald Trump is the only one who can do it because he’s got the biggest consumer base in the world. He’s not afraid of anybody.”

So if there’s any more doubt for why Democrats and even some Republicans call MAGA a cult: ““I believe in this man,”

Is the key point here, on top of her statements that she doesn’t care about her own 401K.

When you are a member of a cult, whatever title you have for your leader, you are 100% devoted to that person because you see that person as essentially the God who has all the answers, even if the reasoning for what they do doesn’t make sense. Or in Donald Trump’s case: it almost never makes sense, but only because reason with Donald Trump, would be like a hair cut for a bald man: they don’t go together. Except when he’s just looking out for himself.

I’m going to give you a little of Jeanine Pirro’s professional background and let you make the call about whether she’s qualified to be a national political or economics analyst for the most popular “news network” in America. Or, perhaps better qualified to being a New York area legal analyst instead, talking about New York City and State law, or perhaps just being an analyst when it comes to New York City reality TV… especially as it relates Donald J. Trump:

“Pirro was elected as a judge of the Westchester County (N.Y.) Court in 1990. In 1993, she was elected to the position of Westchester County district attorney. She is the first woman to be elected to either of those positions. As district attorney, Pirro gained visibility in cases of domestic abuse and crimes against the elderly. Pirro was re-elected district attorney in 1997 and 2001. Pirro briefly sought the Republican nomination for United States Senate to run against Hillary Clinton in 2006, but dropped out to accept the nomination for New York Attorney General; she lost the general election to Democrat Andrew Cuomo.

From 2008 to 2011, Pirro hosted a weekday television show entitled Judge Jeanine Pirro on The CW. From 2011 to 2022, she hosted Justice with Judge Jeanine on Fox News Channel. Pirro has authored six books, including Liars, Leakers, and Liberals: The Case Against the Anti-Trump Conspiracy (2018). Following the 2020 presidential election, Pirro made false claims of voting machine fraud. In 2022, Pirro became a co-host of The Five. She has been a frequent contributor to NBC News, including regular appearances on The Today Show…

From Wikipedia

As The New Democrat covered 2 weeks ago when it was talking about Secretary of Treasury Scott Bessent:

“I’m willing to cut Donald Trump’s government officials some slack, in this sense: most of them weren’t even politicians, or appointed officials before they got their current government jobs. Most of them are oligarchs or very hyper-partisan political activists and commentators from MAGA Land, with very little if any government experience before becoming secretary of this, that, or the other thing.

And because of the business and political backgrounds that these Trump officials have, that makes them very out-of-touch with even everyday MAGA voters who are paying President Trump’s higher prices today, because of his tariffs and the retaliatory tariffs that these countries like in Europe are placing director on Donald Trump’s own voters: people who live in small towns and rural communities, who can’t afford to pay higher prices on their basic necessities of life.

I mean this would explain how a man who is worth 500 billion-dollars would make the statement: “Access to cheap goods is not the essence of the American dream,”. Because higher prices on basic necessities doesn’t affect him…

From The New Democrat

That’s the main problem here. As much as Fox News or any other Trump news organization wants to advertise itself as the voice of the “real Americans”, the “common man”, etc… that’s not who they are. When you are talking about Trump defenders, you are talking about people who are very well-educated, even intelligent, who make a helluva lot of money, who if anything look down at common people in America as easy marks who can be duped and see these folks as losers… at least privately.

And every now and then when the political news for Donald Trump is bad, (like now as it relates to the economy) they run out of propaganda. All their cattle has died and there’s just no more bullshit (to be frank) left for them on their farms. And they get caught being honest on live, national TV. Which is what happened to Jeanine Pirro last week.

Source:The New Democrat

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Jonathan V. Last & Sarah Longwell: Welcome to The Donald Trump Consequences: We TOLD You So!

Posted on April 4, 2025 by Rik Schneider

“Sarah and JVL talk about the tariffs, the I-told-you-so’s, the rule of law, the American age, and the week it all came apart.”

Source:The Bulwark with Sarah Longwell & Jonathan V. Last.

From The Bulwark

I’m going to give you an idea of the film that Sarah Longwell was referencing here, first and then explain why it’s relevant to both the 2024 election campaign and Donald Trump’s 2nd term as POTUS.

So she’s talking about Diggstown (1992) and Gabriel Caine (played by James Woods) is a career hustler, who thinks he has his best scam ever:

“Someone named John Gillon owns almost all of Diggstown. He is the former manager of Diggstown’s once-famous boxer Charles Macom Diggs, the man for whom the town is named.

Upon hearing that Diggs once knocked out five fighters in one day, Fitz says he knows of a fighter who could knock out any ten in one day: Honey Roy Palmer. Gillon bets $100,000 that no one can best ten Diggstown boxers in one day. Caine volunteers to finance Fitz’s bet, and the con is on.

Caine seeks out Palmer, a 48-year-old YMCA supervisor. Palmer reluctantly agrees to participate and starts to train for the fight. Caine and Gillon agree to various conditions of the bet, with “one day” being 24 full hours and “Diggstown fighters” being able to come from any surrounding area of Olivair County. A loan shark backs Caine’s bet…

From Wikipedia

And I guess there’s a scene later in the film when these younger boxers are pissed off at Gabe Caine and he explains to them: “I told you I would take all your money before we made this bet. And you bet me anyway.” That’s a paraphrase.

So Donald Trump running in 2024 once again “On Making America Great Again”, bringing down the cost of living, bringing back manufacturing, etc. While at the same time telling his own voters that he would bring tariffs back and raise them on every foreign country (except for Russia) and they would bring back all this money to America. And the people who voted for him believed him anyway.

If you needed to pass some course in American economics 101 before you were even eligible to vote in this country, most American adults, most adult citizens who’ve never spent a day in jail their entire lives, wouldn’t be ineligible to vote in this country. The 1 thing that we know for sure about tariffs, is that they raise prices on the consumers from the country that just passed the tariffs.

And the Nationalists might say: “Well, they could just domestic products instead not pay any additional price for that”. That’s not how American consumers operate. They buy what’s best for them and their families, regardless of where it was made and which country that company is from, based on their own income levels.

So the “I told you so” part: voting against Donald Trump, or any other MAGA person, makes as much sense as not jumping off the Key Bridge in Washington, in January.

Let’s say you are the person trying to convince the jumper not to jump… to reference another great film: “Don’t do it man! You have the rest of your life ahead of you!” (Which is from Network (1976)

And the jumper says something like: “I can flap my arms and fly and walk on water.” Perhaps he’s Pete Hegseth, or 1 of his drinking buddies.

Well, for anyone who didn’t vote for Donald J. Trump, who simply voted for Kamala Harris because she a much better, more competent person than Donald Trump, (which is actually saying as little as possible) we told you about the negative consequences that would come from once again having Donald John Trump as President of the United States… and you politically jumped off the Washington Key Bridge… but in November, instead of January.

So maybe you didn’t freeze to death for voting for Donald Trump. Perhaps it’s your finances that are frozen right now, thanks to the Trump tariffs. But now the rest of the country is trying to figure out how to fish the country out of Donald J. Trump’s river and try to survive his 2nd presidency.

If I were at a voting booth last November, in Bethesda, Maryland, where maybe 10 voters in the entire town voted for DJT and someone just freakin told me that they were voting for him. And this person was front of me in line to vote… I might have said something like to this person: “Don’t do it man! You have the rest of the country to think about!” But I still believe in American democracy. And as of Friday, April 4th, we all still have the same right to vote in this country.

Source:The New Democrat

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