Congressman Garcia on Trump’s Harmful Tariffs

You sure you wanted this job, Maga Mike Johnson? Not sure you can handle this job, Maga Mike Johnson. Not as easy as you thought it was going to be, or is this exactly what you wanted? Just to be Donald Trump's lapdog, making a fool of yourself each and every day, watching as the world sees how weak and pathetic you are, watching as you cause disaster and havoc on this country.
So Maga Mike held a press conference earlier in the day, and he was asked about Trump's Liberation Day and Trump's tariffs, which are going to cause further destruction on our economy, which he has already wrecked. And here's what Maga Mike Johnson had to say.
Let's play it. The president should move forward tomorrow with tariffs.
He's made very clear that he's doing this in the in the executive branch under his executive authority, and it doesn't involve Congress in that way. Look, you have to trust the president's instincts on the economy.
OK, why? You don't. This isn't blind faith.
Remember what he accomplished in the first administration. Before COVID, we had the greatest economy in the history of the world, not the U.S., all the whole world.
Every demographic was doing better because we cut taxes, we cut regulations, and we made a better economic environment for everybody to succeed. And he is going about that same plan to bring that about, And tariffs is a component of that.
And we'll see how it all develops. I mean, look, this isn't us.
We're not Congress. It's the executive branch.
Trust. Trust the guy.
I'm just going to make up things that actually didn't happen during his first term. And I'm going to say that it was the greatest when it was literally the worst.
And other than Herbert Hoover, Donald Trump being pervert, Hoover, the only president to actually lose jobs. But I was going to say it was great.
Then let's forget about all the bankruptcies. Let's forget about everything that Donald Trump's ever bankrupted.
And then let's forget about inject yourself. Just let's pretend it's not.
By the way, I don't even know if these are called press conferences anymore. They're more like humiliation rituals.
Like every other day he goes up like, what was it, last week or two weeks ago, he had to explain why Donald Trump was just speaking like directly with Putin and spreading all of this propaganda from Putin. Like, like, here's what he said a few weeks ago.
Let's play it. Everybody in the world wants an end to this war.
We need to restore peace there. President Trump is fiercely committed to that.

Now, he operates in a certain way.

He is a great dealmaker, as everyone will have to acknowledge, whether they like it or not. He wrote the book, The Art of the Deal, right? And I think of this, I liken this to my former law practice, where we would be engaged sometimes in arbitration or mediation between two parties that were at war, metaphorically.
And when you begin an arbitration proceeding, you don't bring both parties into the meeting for that first table set because they're at odds, right? That wouldn't be productive. It's just like my arbitration, like when you Putin and you do mediations and arbitration.
I think he also previously described the tariffs like a game of billiards. You need to break the ball so they go all over the place and that's tariffs for you.
Oh, and then here, as Donald Trump continues to do these unlawful executive orders, you've got MAGA Mike Johnson saying, we'll just get rid of the judges. We can eliminate district courts.
Here, play this clip. We do have authority over the federal courts, as you know.
We can eliminate an entire district court. We have power funding over the courts and all these other things.
But Desperate Times call for desperate measures, and Congress is going to act. So stay tuned for that.
Thank you. The Desperate Times that we created, causing people to be desperate, requires one man, one person.
The deal may. This is the most ridiculous stuff in the world.
Let's bring in, let's get back to reality let's bring democratic congress member robert garcia who you all know uh congress member we've seen you also at town halls both in your district and town halls across uh the california and in red districts young kim's california's 40th red district but before getting into that tell us what do you make of what I just shared? There's no question that Maga Mike Johnson right now is very nervous about what's happening with the tariffs. He can't even put a couple sentences together to oppose it's going to be a destructive economic move by Donald Trump.
Anyone that you talk to, any economists, any House Republican in a quiet moment when they're just to themselves will tell you that they are dreading this tariff policy that's gonna be put in place. And let's be clear about what's gonna happen.
It's essentially a additional tax on goods. Prices are going to go up on everyday goods even more than they are right now.
And the amount of chaos, the amount of shock this is going to actually have into the supply chain system is going to be incredibly devastating to an industry that just started recovering from the COVID pandemic and is actually back now on track. Let's think about this.
You have ports across this country, especially on the West Coast and the East Coast, of which trade drives the economy. Trade drives, we know drives our economic growth for so much of the country.
And now you're causing chaos, confusion. Major retailers don't know how much they should order as far as goods.
What are people actually going to pay for? And you have businesses not able to actually anticipate what the needs are of the consumer. So it's going to be an incredibly chaotic day.
The markets are going to react, I mean, horrifically as they already are. And Donald Trump is essentially saying that he doesn't care if he drives us into a recession.
That's actually verbatim what he said, right? He said, I could not care less. I want to ask you, you've been doing these town halls in your congressional district, but also you've been doing town halls in red districts and young Kim MAGA Republican.
She's too scared to do town halls in her district. I think it's a plus 2.5% our district around that.
What are you

hearing from the people first? Let's talk about that. I mean, people are fired up.
In the case

of young Kim, everyone's asking the same question. Where is young Kim? Why won't she meet her

constituents? Why would she refuse to answer questions? And these are not just Democrats

and independents. These are also Republican constituents of hers.
She's choosing to cowardly hide behind any sort of accountability. She's choosing to hide, not answer questions, and people are demanding answers.
They're wondering why Medicaid's being attacked and cut. They're wondering why the Department of Education, which impacts your neighborhood school, is being cut.
And Kim is nowhere to be found. And on tariffs, they have no idea why the president is doing this.
They're complaining, as they should. The prices of eggs, of groceries, of housing, construction of housing, by the way, is going to go up because the materials that we need are going to have tariffs on them.
So housing construction and the prices of homes will skyrocket. And so people are angry.
I think there's a growing consensus, even amongst Republicans, that Donald Trump has no idea what he's doing on the economy. And all he cares about is giving Elon Musk a big tax break.
Seems that Democrats, though, are starting to answer the call about what it means to fight. You and I were talking about a month ago or so.
What does it mean to fight? You told us what you were going to do. You said, I'm going to go into red district.
I'm going to speak to the people. I saw you're getting standing ovations in red districts of people just saying, thank you for hearing me out.
Thank you for just even listening. And thank you for fighting.
I think it begins with listening, understanding that people are suffering right now. And then going out, what do you make of the Democrats who are fighting? How do you describe kind of what we're seeing now in the evolution of, I think, a real resistance, a strong opposition, a defined opposition to Trump? No, I think that's absolutely right.
Look, I've been saying from day one that we've got to match the energy on the ground. We've got to fight like hell.
We cannot continue to allow Republicans to just steamroll over us. And we've always been this party of respectability and doing the right thing and making sure that we're bipartisan.
That's over. And people on the ground have no interest in us holding hands with Republicans as they steamroll over our priorities and our rights.
They want us to fight. And I think you're seeing a lot of Democrats now taking that fight directly to Republicans, directly to Elon Musk.
I mean, as you know, I'm being criminally investigated for calling Elon Musk a dick for crying out loud. this is insanity what they are trying to do to weaponize the Justice Department, going after folks like AOC and Jasmine Crockett and others for just speaking truth and for taking on Elon Musk.
And so I'm really happy to see Hakeem Jeffries, our leader, Democrats out there just pounding the pavement. And you're

going to see a lot more of us in these Republican districts. Like I've told others out in the Palm Springs area, in the desert area, in Riverside County, Ken Calvert is next.
And I look forward to going to his district here in the next couple of weeks. I love it.
Anything else, any other messages you want to let the American people know right now? Of course, we're in uncertain times. We're heading into more uncertain times.

Every day with Trump, It's chaos and destruction. Any last things you want to say before we go? Just to continue to stay engaged, stay loud, demand more of us, demand more of these Republicans.
We only need three of these Republicans to stop the massive tax giveaway that Donald Trump is trying to put in place with Elon Musk. And so just stay engaged.
I know it's frustrating. I'm frustrated, too.
I get mad and pissed as well, but we've got to keep fighting like hell. And so thanks for everything that you guys are doing and let's stay engaged.
Congressman Robert Garcia, thanks for joining us. Thank you.
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