Tariffs, Tariffs, Tariffs

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Welcome back to Risky Business, a show about making better decisions.

I'm Maria Kanakova.

And I'm Nate Silver.

Today on the show, we're going to mostly talk about...

A sorry.

No, I'm laughing because you, Nate, Nate, you got this.

Today on the show, we're mostly talking about tariffs.

Uh-huh.

And i think you can call it now a crash that we've seen in the market since then although as we're recording this on tuesday the 8th um markets i believe are are up there or at least up in the pre-market trading um and we'll also razz maria about what happens when you support duke in your bracket

That's why I had started laughing at our introduction because I was going to say

yeah, I knew it was coming.

I knew it was coming.

Let's just get it out of the way, Nate.

Let's Let's start with that.

I lost.

I was going to say I graciously admit defeat, but no fucking way.

I'm not going to be gracious about it.

Monty and I challenge you to a rematch for next year.

Accepted.

I was completely, I mean, it was a route.

It was a route.

I was rooting for Duke.

Everyone I rooted for lost.

But

not only that, Nate, you chose Florida out of spite.

And who won?

What can you say?

I actually had money on Houston last night.

So

Florida was just the icy on the cake.

But like, look, did you watch the game?

It was spectacularly

Schadenfrude, if you're a Duke hater.

Yeah.

The Golden Boy Cooper flag.

um will live with this for the rest of his life yeah the duke game i was like what's going on i had to text monty i was like what is happening right now why why is this happening

i was down at the hard rock seminal casino I had just

ended the day of a poker tournament and got to watch it with a bunch of drunk

Fort Lauderdale area bros who also seem to be rooting for Houston.

Sometimes that's the best way to watch games, right?

Both both Duke and Florida and like big games.

There's an energy watching them during poker tournaments.

There really is, because basically, I think over half the room, I think it's fair to say, usually has money on the game.

So the energy is very high.

Yeah, by the way, the tournament didn't go great otherwise.

I mean, it's hard to like, it's hard to play poker when you're distracted by big things that are happening.

And so every moment I'm playing, I cashed a 1K and then the two main tournaments I came for, I didn't cash, which is normal, but still, it's like hard to play poker when you feel like the world, let me be careful about this, right?

This is not like of the magnitude of like the start of the pandemic, for example.

But what we're going to spend the bulk of the time talking about is a huge story.

It's like going to be remembered as one of the events, at least in line with like the 1987 stock market crash, I think.

I mean, this is like a fundamental change in the United States's relationship with the rest of the world, right?

People now think a recession is 50% or more likely.

And that's, and that's a big deal.

It's a big deal.

It's a huge shift.

Congratulations on cashing one tournament night.

You know, I did, I will give myself credit for this.

I literally mean cashed.

I was the first player in the money.

I literally played for 30 seconds after I made the money.

So that was that was ideal.

And then,

and then, and then, but meanwhile, the economy is falling apart.

So let's talk about, let's talk about terrorists Marie.

This might be a little bit stream of consciousness, but it's the big story, obviously, of the, of the week, if not the year.

Yeah, it's, it's a huge story.

Um, I mean, as of now, so I think we always try to be very careful to say when we're taping, but with this story, I think you have to be extra careful because there's so much volatility, so much movement.

So we are taping.

I'm on the west coast, Nate is on the East Coast.

So for me, it's 8 a.m.

on Tuesday.

And as of now, markets are down, I think, 18% from peak in February, right?

So that's huge.

And global markets are down.

Right now we have tariffs across the board, including on penguins.

And China is threatening retaliatory tariffs.

And we're saying, well, fuck you, China.

We're going to give even more tariffs to China.

And like, it's just evolving into this madness.

And people who were supporting Trump, like very vocally, even some of those voices have come out and said, hey, whoa, hold on a second.

Like the Bill Ackmans of the world, right?

Who have been just like, go, go, Trump, are all of a sudden like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

What's happening to the economy?

What are you doing?

Maybe it's time to take a step back, slow down, take a pause.

And those voices actually have been so loud that there was even a fake news yesterday where even Reuters ran a headline that markets started trading on that there was going to be a 90-day pause.

Well, a guy named whose last name is Bloomberg, like Walter Bloomberg, like tweet, tweets and all, like if your name was like Johnny Reuters or I don't know, apparently look this up.

The surname NYT,

like I don't know, Knight or how you pronounce it, is apparently a rare Cambodian surname, right?

So if you have last name NIT, right, you can be like, NIT, N-Y-T, tariffs to be rescinded tomorrow and then and then cause a major disruption in the stock market.

Yeah, look, there are parts of this that are

funny.

I always believe in kind of keeping your wits about you.

And I mean, let me contextualize first, like these market swings.

So as taping this, the SLB 500 is up 2.5% today.

So that reduces the gain from peak in early February or the loss to about 20% from 23 or whatever it was.

Coincidentally, 23% is the average tariff rate now that we're imposing on the rest of the world.

But still a really bad swing, especially considering that like investors assume that Trump would be good for the market and they assume that he probably would implement some tariffs, certainly on China, probably some 10%-ish tariffs across the board with lots of cronyism and loopholes, right?

But this is like on top, you know, markets have assumed for a long time that Republicans are good for,

well, actually, it's a little more complicated than that, right?

In 2016,

the market thought overnight that Trump winning would be bad for stocks.

They reversed course literally overnight.

So like

the market after Trump won in 2016 went from being way down to way up, in fact, the next day.

But now Wall Street has completely lost confidence in Trump.

And as you mentioned, I mean, Elon, who literally a few days ago was pictured in a hat saying Trump is right about everything

is now kind of publicly sub-tweeting.

Trump, critiquing Trump advisors like Peter Navarro, and reportedly, according to the Washington Post, is also working behind the scenes to try to get Trump to reverse his tariffs.

So

credit to Elon, right?

It takes a lot for him to see that shit's going wrong, but like,

but, you know, if he's reversing course and Bill Ackman is reversing course and like

very little

elite support and the few like Silicon Valley VC types who are defending Trump looked fucking ridiculous, right?

You know, I could name names if I wanted to, but you guys are fucking idiots.

That's the only way to put it.

Anyway, how do you feel, Maria?

Well, I mean,

you check your investments.

Do you have any investments?

Yeah, no, no, no, no.

I mean, this is one of those moments where,

you know, usually the right answers don't actively trade, right?

You're not.

You are not a day trader.

And that's, I think, true for most people, right?

If you're not a professional, just let it ride, right?

Like for the long term.

This is really,

I hate using the word unprecedented, right?

Because, you know, we've had major economic downturn moments like this, but I think it is unprecedented, at least a lot of the experts are saying it is, in the sense that it's completely self-caused, right?

There's no external

thing that is actually precipitating this market crash, which is what has happened every other time, you know, during COVID, 1987, like all of these times, the 70s, oil shocks, right?

All of these shocks were kind of huge global events

that ended up doing tremendous damage to the stock market in the short term.

This is something that doesn't, didn't need to happen, right?

Like this is something that is entirely self-caused.

It's just

Trump making this decision.

And apparently, according to some of his advisors who are speaking anonymously, he is in his I don't give a fuck stage where he's not listening to advisors.

He's golfing and he's saying, you know what?

this is what I want to do and this is what I'm going to do.

And I don't care if all of my closest advisors are telling me I'm tanking the economy, which is a huge, huge shift, right, from Trump part one, right?

Where he really cared about the market and was really sensitive to what the market was saying.

And it's also a shift from what we saw in the early days of his presidency in Trump part two,

where,

you know, he was actually threatening tariffs and then going back.

And we even had, you know, a risky business episode where we were talking about kind of what, what kind of game theory is this, right?

Where you, where you, where you threaten something and then people give fake concessions that aren't really concessions.

And you're like, okay, just kidding.

Like, I've asserted my dominance.

Let's continue on.

And now he's like, you know what?

No.

Like, I'm going to do this for real.

I'm going to do this big.

I don't care about the math.

Obviously, we know Trump never likes to say he's wrong.

So he's not going to say he's wrong this time around.

There are people who's like, oh, they just need to acknowledge the mistake.

No, he's never going to do that.

But it seems like there's been some sort of fundamental shift in the way he's thinking about this strategically, where he's just like, fine, I'll tank the economy.

No pain, no gain.

But we don't even know what the gain is.

No, look, I'm reading this book on Joe Biden called Fight by Jonathan Allen and Amy Parnes.

It's a new book that's out.

It's very, a very good book

about how people all around Joe Biden saw

how Biden was losing his fastball and his curveball and his breaking pitch and his changeup and everything else, right?

And he was really not performing very well at all.

But Democrats got stuck in a position where he was, you know, he was going to be the nominee anyway.

But the point is that, like,

when you get old

and Trump is the same age now, 78 as Biden was at the start of his first term, you get even more stubborn.

You know, can I be honest, Maria?

You can't miss it.

I kind of always

miss Jared Kushner.

I kind of miss.

that's not where I thought that sentence was gonna go, Nah.

I kind of miss having these more or less normal Republicans, right, who

were close to Trump and trying to steer him in the direction that, hey, you want to win re-election.

Hey, you don't want to like undermine.

Because I think now, like all the other stuff that Trump is trying to do, the cultural backlash and whatever else, right?

Where, you know, I might agree with parts of it and disagree with other parts of it, but like that's all going to be jeopardized.

If people are like, you won an election election on inflation and now you're tanking the economy, particularly through, by the way, people have this weird abstract discussion online about like, okay, well, who has investments in the stock market?

Actually, by the way, about 60% of people do have investments in the stock market.

So it's a pretty common thing.

But also like, you're about to make a bunch of shit much more expensive.

Children's toys are going to become much more expensive because they're made in countries like Vietnam and Southeast Asia that are heavily tariffed, right?

You want to furnish your home.

A lot of furniture is made abroad.

You want to, you know, buy some yarn.

I mean, all this stuff, you want to buy avocados for your fucking burrito, right?

Like all this stuff comes from like foreign countries.

I think actually Canada and Mexico now have some of the more exemptions than other countries, but like it's going to make stuff notably more expensive to have people love the idea of you'd love to have your nice American manufactured Nikes, right?

Well, they're going to cost hundred bucks instead of a hundred bucks, right?

I can afford that.

You know, I have a partner who is a fan of nice shoes, right?

But like, this is going to hit consumers hard.

And although Silicon Valley stocks are down more than the consensus, so are a lot of consumer staples.

It looks very recessionary.

Booze and tobacco stocks are up, though, which is also a sign of like despair.

McDonald's is up.

Taco Bell is up.

Right.

No, when you see that those are the stocks that are up, you start being nervous.

And then when when you see things like the price of copper is down, right?

Like that is a very good marker of recession as well, because it means that demand

is going to go down.

You know, we've also seen in the last week with the kind of the Fed conference and the Fed announcements that like, you know, the Fed is in a really tough spot as well, right?

Because like, what do you do, right?

When inflation's going to go up

and, you know, you, but you, but you've got this

person in the White House who's making these decisions about tariffs where like, what do you do?

It's like a rock in a hard place, right?

Like, keep rates the same, lower them, raise them.

Like, there's no good answer here.

And the Fed is supposed to kind of come in and try to.

stabilize things and try to calm the worries.

And there's, you know, if when we're talking about the game theory, when we're talking about like the long run and what is the strategic thinking here, I don't know, right?

Like this is one of those where like there's no good choice, right?

Like which box are we trying to get to?

Um, while the tariffs are at this height, like, I don't think we're just in a part of a game tree that, like, I don't know how to resolve it.

Well, maybe there's some brilliant economist out there who does, but all the brilliant economists I've been reading have no idea how to get out of this mess if Trump does not back down.

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Yeah, Maria, I

think

that we're in a real pickle, right?

You know, in part because, like, I mean, Trump claims this is for negotiating leverage.

And by the way, Zimbabwe

did rescind

its tariffs.

It's relatively minor tariffs in the United States.

So if we're starting at the back of the alphabet and moving upward, but like, but there are a few things here.

One is that, like,

this tariff policy may literally have been implemented by an intern using ChatGPT.

If you ask

ChatGPT or other large language models, hey, come up with a quick formula to determine tariff rates, right?

It'll sometimes just say, oh, let's just look at the trade deficit.

This is actually very stupid.

Like, we have a big trade deficit with Vietnam because they're a kind of lower middle-class economy relative to the rest of the world where

fairly productive about producing toys and electronic equipment and, you know, and certain types of foodstuffs and other things, which we then import.

But the GDP per capita is, I'm just guessing, like 4,000 bucks a year or something.

And so like not a big market for America-made consumer goods.

They're also near China, Thailand, Japan, Korea, et cetera, where it's cheaper to import, right?

And so like, so like, you know, that's a win-win.

And unless you're concerned about unfair labor practices, which is usually not the province of the right, right?

That's a win-win that they make stuff.

We pay for the stuff.

We give them jobs.

They don't buy that much of our stuff, but that's okay, right?

I mean, Trump literally doesn't realize that like a trade deficit's not inherently a bad thing.

So it's the clumsiness of it rather than like, if you had said,

we're going to have 15% tariffs across the board, right?

The market would have reacted to that, but not so negatively as these haphazard things.

And by the way, the fact that like this tariffs are, these tariffs are going to cause us so much pain gave us less leverage beyond a certain point, right?

Because then it kind of becomes a game of chicken where we have to like prove that we have removed the steering wheel and now can't unflinch.

By the way, notwithstanding that there are contradictory rationales, or you'll see the Peter Navarro fucking idiot types.

I'm sorry, Peter Navarro.

You know, you'll see idiots like Peter Navarro who are like, we actually need this for America's long-term growth or whatever else.

And others say, no, just a negotiating ploy, right?

Which are different.

One is kind of considering these are bad, but we want to actually lower tariffs.

And one's saying, no, tariffs are good.

We want reshoring of American enterprise.

Through some Kakamani scheme, we'll reduce deficits, even though if we go into recession, usually that entails more deficit spending and worsening the fiscal picture long term.

But it's contradictory.

And other countries can be like, you know what?

Fuck you.

Donald Trump, right?

We think that eventually you'll be forced to blink by the market or eventually by Congress, which does,

is supposed to have in the Constitution authority for tariff policy specifically and for funding the government generally.

Now, Congress, also being idiots, like not quite in the same way that Peter Navarro is, but like has delegated more and more authority to the executive.

It's occurred under both Democratic and Republican administrations, right?

And so there are lawsuits to stop Trump's tariffs.

I'm not a legal scholar.

I don't know whether most of it is legal and some of it violates principles, but Congress does have the power to pass a law saying stop this.

They will ultimately need two-thirds majorities because Trump has threatened, and I think, I believe would.

veto these threats.

They also need, by the way, to get on the floor in the House because the floor of the House is more partisan, right?

The House Speaker, Mike Johnson, doesn't want to put something on the floor.

You have to do what, file what's called a discharge petition, where it takes 30 days.

You get a bunch of signatures, and then you're required to do that, right?

And that usually happens when

the opposition party Democrats almost have a majority in the House, but not quite.

And then a small number of senators or representatives rather in the governing party sign on, then you're forced to like actually take a measure to the floor, right?

And so that would be at best like three days away.

But yeah, if the economy goes into a recession, then I don't know, right?

People would say, well, it's a high risk, high reward bet.

I'm not sure what the reward is.

Yeah,

that's kind of the other part of it.

Like, what is the reward?

But I was going to ask what you think the, because to me, it seems like a pipe dream, this whole congressional action thing.

Like, yes, technically Congress can do something, but do you, do you have any kind of thoughts on how likely that actually is?

Because to me, it seems like there's just no way they're going to get 67, right, in the Senate.

There's no way that the House is going to work.

Like, it seems to me, like, I don't know what has to happen for Congress to actually get its shit together and be like, no, this is not going to stand.

I think the Senate is not.

So you've already had some Republicans sign on to different resolutions in the Senate disapproving of Trump's tariffs, either generally or on Canada and Mexico specifically, right?

Like, I don't think 60 in the Senate, which would at least pass a filibuster, is so hard.

I'm not even sure 67 is that hard, right?

It's the House.

It's the House where,

you know, the first one-third of districts are really red because of gerrymandering and population self-sorting, right?

The House leader has not been on on board with this, although, you know, you did have some races last week, two special elections where Democrats outperformed Trump's numbers by about like 17 points, right?

They lost, but these are districts that are extremely red in rural parts of Florida.

And so if that's true, then like, you know, look, you'd be talking about like an epic route.

I don't want to put numbers on it and then get quoted or misquoted later on.

But like, if you're like a

business deciding whether, you you know your restoration hardware which I mentioned because it's a bougie stock but also the company was hit hardest the first day after the tariff announcement right there's a problem

said oh shit during the call

during the call he also um

you know it's also like i said it's kind of bougie you know you don't really you don't really need anything from restoration hardware let's be honest right it's not a store for necessities i have a couch from there

You do, good.

I do.

We can afford some RH furniture, but like if you're, if you're in a recession, those expensive couches, you know, aren't as important as your Marlborough Reds and Bud Lights and McDonald's.

And I'm somewhat joking, but like you do see downshifting in consumer preferences from the upper middle brow to the upper lower brow and kind of everything, everything in between and the luxury end for that matter, too.

Right.

So, sorry, I lost my train of thought.

What were we talking about?

We were talking about the house and how likely it is that we can actually

get something done there.

You were saying that one-third of the districts are incredibly conservative.

If you're talking, if you're a company planning for, okay, let's reshore our supply chain restoration hardware, let's find a bunch of artisanal furniture makers in Knoxville, Tennessee, in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and place like that.

And long term, we'll get some costs down and it'll be good, right?

The problem is that like these tariffs could be rescinded at any time.

If not now, then in 2026, after the midterms, if not then, then in 2028, when at this point, I think I'd consider Democrats a little bit over 50% to retake the White House, right?

So like, it's not like the sort of long-term stability that you would want.

And in fact, the public is against this policy, and it might lead to fewer tariffs in the very long run, but an abdication of reliable American leadership and responsibility.

So it's just, it's just kind of a mess.

It is a mess.

We were also talking about kind of what the long term is.

Now, there's one theory that that I've seen that seems at least worthy of consideration.

I don't want to say, you know, plausible, but worthy of discussion.

And that's that the long term here is just like

an autocratic power grab, right?

That the idea is like we tank everything and then we give concessions to the people who are nice to us.

I think you could play nice.

I don't buy this at all.

So I was wondering that's why I said I'm not going to say plausible.

That's why I phrased it the way I did.

I buy that Trump has strong autocratic tendencies.

I buy that some of the stuff he's doing on immigration and free speech is

autocratic, right?

And there was January 6th, of course, right?

I don't think this is a strategy that you'd implement if you wanted to gain power.

I mean, I think this jeopardizes the whole Trump agenda, right?

And this is at least going to have like Congress have its backup and the markets have its backup.

And, you know, I've rarely seen everyone from, maybe there are a few people on the left that have eccentric views about terrorists they can go discuss them on blue sky that's fine with me right but like you know i haven't seen the kind of what i call the obama base right which is like um everyone from the center right who is pissed off at bush to the left as united against something as they are against trump right now, right?

And like, those are elites.

Those aren't rank and file voters yet.

We've seen some decline in Trump's popularity ratings, but like it will take some time for that to cycle through.

And maybe that can be averted if we somehow avoid an economic downturn.

But like this weakens Trump's powers a lot, right?

People are willing to go along with lot when you're providing for them, right?

And

your checks are cashing and goods are cheap and things like that, right?

Even in autocracies, economic crises can topple dictators, right?

I think the people who are worried about democratic backsliding are correct to be worried about it, but I think the theory is kind of the opposite of what this is likely to do.

Yeah, no, I think that that is people trying to

impart

a goal and kind of

an intentionality here where there's none, right?

Where it's just like a kid being like, I want to do this.

I want to be the bully and I'm going to do this.

And you can't stop me.

You try to stop me right now.

So I tend to agree with you that that it seems a little bit too far-fetched that this is one of those levers.

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Hi, I'm Erica Cruz-Guevara, host of KQED's podcast, The Bay.

When something important is happening in the Bay Area, I want to know what it actually means for the people who live here.

In every episode of The Bay, we ask deeper questions, cut through the noise, and keep you connected to the community that you and I love.

Find new episodes of KQED's The Bay every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, wherever you get your podcasts.

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I'd love to shift the lens a little bit.

So, Trump, I think we've talked about the fact that this, it's very difficult to know what the long-term game theory of this is, and probably none, right?

That he's just tanking the economy, doing this, and kind of inflicting a lot of damage.

But what about kind of the other end of it?

Us as consumers or people who actually have power, talked about what Congress can do, but in this case, like, obviously, you never, you know, to take a poker analogy, you never want to make decisions when you're tilted, right?

When you're kind of, when you're really upset, when you're suffering big losses,

you know, if you're looking at your portfolio going down, down, down, you know, these are things that are like, you know, you've lost a big poker hand, your chips are dwindling.

And that's not usually the time to make big swings and to try to think logically.

But in this particular case, like,

this is one of those things where not panicking and just kind of also sitting back down and just letting it all play out might not be the right strategy either, right?

The kind of don't just, don't just do something stand there

types of things.

But how do we, you know, how do we kind of square that circle?

And how do we react without tilting, right?

Without overreacting, how do we try to navigate this environment where there's just extreme uncertainty?

And as I think you're making a really good point when you said, like, we don't know, right?

If we knew for with 100% certainty these tariffs are going to stay for the next two years at least, okay, then you can make decisions in that context.

But we don't know, right?

Like, as of now, we know that Trump says he's not backing down, but we don't actually know what's going to happen.

We don't know what the reactions are going to be.

We see certain signs.

We see Europe banding together.

You know, we see the rest of the world actually trying to figure out what do we do now.

But how do you, how do you think about it, right?

How do you think about it when you're trying to make your own decisions and try to be a good player as opposed to a a tilted player

practice your canadian accent so when you travel to vancouver or whatever oh sorry that they don't think you're an american i guess that's part of it i i could start my a's at the end of sentences no i think

you know look if you're a business that relies on a heavily domestic supply chain i guess you're somewhat okay you know good year tire because they're very domestic has seen their stock price do well, but also because people replace their tires at Goodyear when they're not replacing their cars, right?

And And so like, even like the bullish cases are bearish and like, um,

you know, it's very,

very broad-based.

Yeah, I don't know if there are good

protections.

I mean, you know, look, um,

sometimes in a recession, things become cheaper, at least.

I mean, it might not be a terrible time in

X months to look at housing if you don't own well because housing is something where people are, it's cyclical and like people are um

you know really reluctant to make like big ticket purchases and like a downturn and and

you know should not be substantially affected by foreign goods right i mean i'm sure you're importing some building materials from abroad but like you know most lumber we're cutting down right here in the united states maria um so like But apart from that, I mean, I think you're like

a little bit defenseless, apart from like having to reason with yourself about like, oh, am I a person who is annoyed because

this cuts into my retirement savings, but I basically can live my life as I want to, or if you're someone where like it kind of has causes a threat at short-term time horizons, right?

If you're a small business owner that relies on imported goods of different kinds and or middle-class customers who are seeing their pocketbooks pinched, then like, that's not, that's not great right now, right?

I mean, probably should shift you to having more of a long-term focus, I guess, but the long-term provides a lot of uncertainty too.

Yeah.

Well, even some, you know, I was actually looking at some supply chains because I was very curious about this.

And see, even some domestic seeming products actually have components that you wouldn't think about that are imported.

Like some domestic water have plastic manufacturers for their water bottles that are not in the United States.

So even things that are, you know, good old American water, like good old American this, the supply chains are incredibly complicated.

And, you know, the people saying that, oh, well, bring manufacturing to the US, I don't think they realize what that actually means, right?

Like there's a reason that manufacturing has shifted.

I don't think people want a factory in their backyard.

I don't think people want to be working a lot of those factory jobs.

I mean, I don't think that those supply chains.

And even if all of those things are like, yes, absolutely,

let's change the supply chains.

How long does that take?

Like in the immediate term, like that that is not that is not something that we can do right away.

So as individuals, like we're relatively powerless, not powerless, but we just, there is no good advice in the sense that we don't know what's going to happen.

Do you think that there are people who can do something, right?

Like who are the people who might be able to influence something other than Elon Musk, maybe?

Unless kind of this results in Elon Musk being thrust out of the inner circle because he's sub-tweeting Trump and talking about how he thinks that we should have free trade.

So who are people who might actually make a difference where their decision-making right now actually matters?

The 100 members of the United States Senate and the 435 members of the United States House.

I mean, or but look, I always am a little bit reluctant to like

have calls to activism.

But, you know, look, if you're a

person, whatever your political orientation,

sitting in a

Senate or House seat where there's a relatively safe Republican member, or for that matter, there's a Democrat who's being a little, you know, oh, terrorist, maybe it's good.

I don't know, I don't know.

You know, call your fucking congressperson, right?

And say, like, especially if you're somebody who's donated or if you're somebody who

runs a small business in that district, say, this is going to fuck me over.

This is not going to help the working class, right?

This is not going to help the middle-income consumer.

Yeah, I mean, let, you know, let Congress know, to be honest.

I think they probably do know that frankly but like because they are aware of what's going on in their district and this is not some abstract cultural war fight but congress is responsive to to don't call somebody not in your district right pick up the phone with a person who's who represents you and let them know how you feel Yeah, no, I think this is this is definitely a moment for a call to action.

There have been others, but this is one where it could actually be effective, right?

It's not particularly effective to

call your Republican Senate or representative,

like if you're a Democrat and it's a Democratic talking point.

But something like this, like I actually think that this could really be effective because

they worry,

they need to be supported within their districts as well.

And this is one moment where I think that across the board, we're seeing people, you know, people really.

not happy.

And this is, I think this is also actually an interesting opportunity to try to reach kind of the every man and say look you know trump isn't working for you because this is something where i think we you can actually reach a lot of people across the divide and say hey look no this is not this is not good for your average american this is not good for like bottom line of

joe from from where from where's joe from tennis

pennsylvania okay joe from pennsylvania um that this is not good for his uh for his pocket for his bottom line, for his retirement, for his ability to buy food, that this is just not good all around.

And so that might be one silver lining if people actually do finally mobilize and get Congress to get off their ass and do something and stand up to Trump and say, look, these tariffs are not good for the country and not good for the global economy.

And if we want America first,

you don't want to have to have America alone and everyone else against us.

Maria, I think we need to wrap this up because I literally have a train to catch.

I'm going to Philadelphia.

Are you going to Philadelphia for poker night?

Not for poker.

No,

for an event at the University of Pennsylvania.

Okay, well, have a wonderful event.

And if you want to join me in Philadelphia in two weeks, I'll be going there for poker for the poker stores open.

We'll see if the partner gives poker permission.

We'll see about that.

A real series is coming up, which I intend to spend a fair bit of time at.

So we'll see.

Maybe.

All right.

Well, that sounds good.

Have a very safe trip to Philadelphia.

And I hope that we'll have better news for our listeners next week when it comes to the markets.

But at this point, hope doesn't get us very far.

Let us know what you think of the show.

Reach out to us at riskybusiness at pushkin.fm.

And by the way, if you're a Pushkin Plus subscriber, we have some bonus content for you.

We'll be answering a listener question each week.

That's coming up right after the credits.

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Risky Business is hosted by me, Maria Konakova.

And by me, Nate Silver.

The show is a co-production of Pushkin Industries and iHeartMedia.

This episode was produced by Isabel Carter.

Our associate producer is Gabriel Hunter Chang.

Sally Helm is our editor, and our executive producer is Jacob Goldstein.

Mixing by Sarah Bruguer.

If you like this show, please rate and review

This is Justin Richmond, host of Broken Record.

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Hi, I'm Erica Cruz-Guevara, host of KQED's podcast, The Bay.

When something important is happening in the Bay Area, I want to know what it actually means for the people who live here.

In every episode of The Bay, we ask deeper questions, cut through the noise, and keep you connected to the community that you and I love.

Find new episodes of KQED's The Bay every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, wherever you get your podcasts.

You've probably heard me say this.

Connection is one of the biggest keys to happiness.

And one of my favorite ways to build that, scruffy hospitality, inviting people over even when things aren't perfect.

Because just being together, laughing, chatting, cooking, makes you feel good.

That's why I love Bosch.

Bosch fridges with VitaFresh technology keep ingredients fresher longer, so you're always ready to whip up a meal and share a special moment.

Fresh foods show you care, and it shows the people you love that they matter.

Learn more, visit BoschHomeUS.com.

This is an iHeart podcast.