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TRANSCRIPT

Jane Coaston: It’s Thursday, April 10th, I’m Jane Coaston, and this is What a Day, the show that is contemplating learning a new skill that might prove useful over the next few weeks, like, say, bond trading. [music break] On today’s show, the current head of immigration and customs enforcement likens deportations to Amazon deliveries and Michigan governor, Gretchen Whitmer makes a guest appearance in the Oval Office for an executive order signing she definitely didn’t want to be there for, but let’s start with what else, tariffs. When you went to bed on Tuesday night, president Donald Trump was still very excited about tariffs, pumped. In fact, at the national Republican congressional committee president’s dinner Tuesday night. He even claimed that his tariff scheme was going to be a boon to the GOP in the midterms. 

[clip of President Donald Trump] And I really think we’re helped a lot by the tariff situation that’s going on, which is a good situation, not a bad. It’s great. It’s going to be legendary. You watch? Legendary in a positive way, I have to say. It’s gonna be legendary 

Jane Coaston: But on Wednesday, very high tariffs on dozens of countries, including one that’s only occupied by a US military base and another that’s an island almost entirely inhabited by penguins, stopped being such a good idea, I guess. Because the White House backed down. And that’s not just me saying that. Here’s Fox News contributor, Charlie Gasparino. 

[clip of Fox News Host Charlie Gasparino] I mean let’s be clear what happened um you know who capitulated here and why and uh you know I don’t want to say this because I am a patriot I’m an american but it is the White House who capitulated based on everything I hear and all my sources. 

Jane Coaston: In a Truth Social post, because of course, Trump said that he would pause most tariffs for roughly 75 countries for 90 days, except for China. Trump raised tariffs on Chinese exports to 125% after the Chinese government announced new tariffs on American goods. So now we still have universal 10% tariffs and a bunch of big tariffs on Mexican and Canadian goods and a lot of uncertainty about what the hell is going on. But, slightly less uncertainty than we did on Tuesday, sort of. And contrary to what White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, and Treasury Secretary Scott Besant said Wednesday, that this was part of the art of the deal or the quote, “strategy all along,” Trump himself said the pause was because people were getting jumpy. And when he mentions the champions in this clip, it’s because he was having a race car photo shoot outside of the White House. Priorities. 

[clip of President Donald Trump] Well, I thought that people were jumping a little bit out of line. They were getting yippy, you know, they were getting a little bit yippy a little bit afraid, unlike these champions, because we have a big job to do. No other president would have done what I did. No other President. I know the presidents, they wouldn’t have done it. 

Jane Coaston: No, they wouldn’t have. Once again, to Trump, the tariffs were both awesome and great, but also he needed to call them off because people were getting yippy. Whatever that means. I don’t get it but I do get folding like a cheap suit. Here’s Charlie Gasparino again, explaining to a Fox News anchor that actually Trump caved. 

[clip of unnamed Fox News Host] Maybe you could say that he goaded China into a bad position for themselves. 

[clip of Fox News Host Charlie Gasparino] Well. 

[clip of unnamed Fox News Host] Don’t retaliate, things will work out well he said. 

[clip of Fox News Host Charlie Gasparino] I mean, I want to tell you right now that Donald Trump outsmarted the world. Trust me. I’m an American. I support my president. But that’s not really what happened here, from what I understand. And I know I’ll get push back. 

Jane Coaston: Now I’ll be honest with you. I have absolutely no idea what is going on, like at a basic level. Why were there six different explanations for the tariff scheme in the first place? Are we bringing back manufacturing or are we art of the dealing our way to no tariffs at all? And what was the tariffs are working supposed to look like? So I needed to ask someone who might know. I called up Alex Jacquez, Chief of Policy and Advocacy at Groundwork Collaborative, a progressive think tank and also a member of the White House National Economic Council during the Biden administration, where he advised the president on economic development and industrial strategy. We spoke a few hours after Trump announced his decision to pause most of the tariffs. Alex, welcome to What a Day. 

Alex Jacquez: And what a day it is. 

Jane Coaston: So I said I wasn’t going to ask you what the fuck is happening. But I do think we can start with, can you quantify just how bonkers the president’s actions have been over the last few days after unveiling these wild tariffs, tariffs he loved and said were permanent and would be around forever because we were going to bring back manufacturing and make men men again or something? He abruptly paused most of the tariffs. Is this what being good at the economy looks like? 

Alex Jacquez: You know, President Trump has said the trade wars are good and easy to win. And what I think he has shown over the last week or so is that they are actually very difficult and confusing and have enormous effects on both the market and the everyday economy. Um. To your point on quantification, I think it’s instructive to look at the stock market and what it has done over the last month. And you’re looking at comparisons in terms of both the drops and now the gains and the volatility. That we haven’t seen since some pretty headline days, 9/11, the dot.com bubble, the COVID recession, these are the kinds of events that the last week or so in the market have been compared to. And so that’s, I think, why you saw after telling us to stay strong and be cool and not join a new party called the Panicans, Trump put a pause on some of the largest quote, “reciprocal tariffs,” on many of our other trading partners while keeping in place again a very large ten percent tariff on everybody in the world basically as well as exorbitant tariffs on China of a hundred and twenty five percent. 

Jane Coaston: Yeah, let’s talk about those Chinese tariffs because–

Alex Jacquez: Yeah. 

Jane Coaston: He expanded those tariffs because they dared slap retaliatory tariffs on U.S. goods, which is a thing I feel like everyone knew it was going to happen except for Trump for some reason. Practically. What could a trade war with China mean for the U. S.? 

Alex Jacquez: It’s a great question, and we continue to see escalation. I would say immediately, this is gonna cause pain across the economy, especially for small businesses, for small manufacturers, and of course for consumers that you know get things imported from China. They make more than 70% of smartphones, 70% percent of electronics. If you’re buying a new laptop, those are gonna double in price right now. Now of course, this a negotiation you know through escalation right now, China is going to take measures to retaliate, including slapping tariffs on our producers. 

Jane Coaston: Alex can I jump in just for a second because you just used a word–

Alex Jacquez: Yeah of course. 

Jane Coaston: That again I you know, we’ve been talking about this in the office. Is it a negotiation or are these forever tariffs because it seems like we keep hearing from if you listen to Scott Bessent who is Treasury Secretary, these are negotiations. If you listen to Peter Navarro who is an advisor who loves tariffs more than anything in the world, this is forever. We’re gonna have this forever and everything’s going to be amazing. So is it a negotiation or is this just how we’re doing things forever? 

Alex Jacquez: You have to take the last word that has come out of Trump’s mouth. 

Jane Coaston: Oh boy. 

Alex Jacquez: In which case we are cutting a lot of deals, right? And that wasn’t the case a week ago, of course, when he when he announced them, and that’s why you’ve seen the different and contradictory and mutually exclusive goals that Trump’s advisors have set out. Jamieson Greer, the United States trade representative, was testifying in Congress when Trump announced the pause on Truth Social. It appeared that he had no idea it was coming. So you’re seeing an administration in chaos and trade with the rest of the world, trillions of dollars of trade, really dictated by the whims of a mad king. 

Jane Coaston: Fun. Yeah, to your point, the 90-day pause would suggest that the White House is leaning more toward the deals justification for these tariffs. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said as much on Wednesday. He said, dozens of countries have come to the U.S. to negotiate with the U S and that the White House will make bespoke arrangements with all of them. We obviously don’t know what these deals will look like yet, or if these deals exist. But on the face of that, would that build on the existing status quo when it comes to globalized trade, which I heard over the last couple of days was bad, but now is good. I’m confused. 

Alex Jacquez: That’s right. Not only are you confused by it, the people out there cheering on what Trump is doing and telling us that there’s a master plan and we just need to wait and see, they seem confused too. Because again, yesterday we were seeing it through, we were taking our medicine so that we could come out stronger on the other side. And today, it’s great that we’ve taken all these tariffs off the table and so it is very unclear what the end goal of Trump’s trade policy is, and I think as a result, the goals that have been stated by some of his administration, like reshoring American manufacturing, like lowering trade barriers from other countries or ending currency manipulation, if you can’t figure out what you are supposed to deliver in on your side of the negotiation, it becomes very hard to enter into something that is going to be beneficial to you. And so if Trump is cutting deals out here one by one on new trade agreements to lower tariff barriers, that really goes against everything that he’s said needs to happen for the last 40 years. 

Jane Coaston: Yeah, and again, if this really is about making new trade deals, about reducing trade barriers, then what the hell was all the talk about manufacturing? And where does that leave the workers who voted for Trump on this issue because they thought he would bring back jobs and we would be reshoring manufacturing, but maybe we’re not doing that. We’re just having trade deals? 

Alex Jacquez: That’s right. And I think again, you know, we saw Secretary Lutnick on TV the other day saying that Americans were going to be and sorry, let me see if I can follow this, we’re going to be manning the machines that we’re gonna turn the tiny screws in iPhones that are currently made in China and India. First of all, I don’t think that’s what Trump’s voters signed up for. It’s not a realistic proposition in the near term here. And what we wanna do is move up the value chain, is make advanced manufacturing, clean energy technology, semiconductors here in the United States, things by the way that we were on the road to doing in the Biden administration, thanks to the Inflation Reduction Act and the Chips and Science Act, both laws that Donald Trump wants to repeal. And so what we are doing here with regards to our manufacturing policy, it’s just incoherent. 

Jane Coaston: I want to talk a little bit about that, because you advised former President Joe Biden on trade and the economy. You were part of the team that helped craft the tariffs on China, on solar panels and on steel. So safe to say you clearly believe that there is a role for tariffs to play. What would a coherent tariff policy look like? Because I keep thinking about and it’s the point’s been made online that, like, if you like tariffs, this has been like the worst week of your life, because right now tariffs look terrible. Everybody’s going to turn into a neoliberal. And so what would it look like if it were a good policy? 

Alex Jacquez: That’s right. I there’s no defense for Donald Trump’s trade policy right here. But in the past administration, when we were looking at particularly strategic sectors, so either sectors that were critical to national security, or sectors where we thought that we could compete for the future of the global marketplace, like clean energy products, like batteries and semiconductors. There is a place to ensure that we are keeping some of that domestic production here in the United States that we were gaining from the innovation and the agglomeration effects here in the U.S. and to move up you know the value chain in some of these sectors, and in particular, you know, for national defense purposes, it is not ideal that we have offshored so much of our industrial base, especially to China. And so we took targeted and strategic action in addition to other policies like the Inflation Reduction Act, the Chips and Science Act, subsidies and tax credits for production, as well as in conjunction with our partners and allies, friend shoring things that could not be you know fully insourced to the United States, um working with countries like Canada who then ended up taking some of the same actions like on electric vehicles against China. There is room in this world, I think for a break from the globalization and the, the undermining of the US productive capacity that has taken place over the last 30 years, that does not involve a shock and awe campaign that can be withdrawn at any moment and, and we were pursuing it and what Trump is doing is nothing like it. 

Jane Coaston: So where do Trump’s actions over the last few days leave the US now? Because if I’m a business person who was thinking like, oh, you know, should I build a factory in the United States? I’m like, no, absolutely not. Because you don’t know, are we going to turn the tariff switch back on? We already have these 10% tariffs kind of universally. Like it seems like we are in a much weaker negotiating position. After all of this, because our entire trade policy appears to be based on nonsense. 

Alex Jacquez: That’s right, and it’s not just businesses. I mean, first of all, you’re absolutely correct. If you’re a CEO trying to pitch your board on a big factory investment, there is not a chance that you are going to make that pitch certainly for the next 90 days, but how could you do it ever if you know that this is how our trade policy is gonna be conducted? But I think also importantly, we shouldn’t miss this as the stock market recovers. And we like to say here at Groundwork Collaborative, the stock market is not the economy, people are. And this is going to have effects on people who are already fed up with Trump on the economy. We see consumer sentiment diving. we see consumer spending pulling back. And I think a large part of that is the massive amount of uncertainty that there is in the everyday economy. People like safety and security. And if businesses aren’t investing, if consumers aren’t spending, if rates are staying high, this is the perfect recipe for stagflation. And that is what, you know, if you looked at what the Federal Reserve put out a couple weeks ago, it’s revisions to some of their economic assumptions, that’s what they’re pointing toward is slower growth, higher unemployment, and higher interest rates and higher inflation. 

Jane Coaston: Fun. Alex, thank you so much for being here. 

Alex Jacquez: Thank you so much, Jane. I appreciate it. 

Jane Coaston: That was my conversation with Alex Jacquez, Chief of Policy and Advocacy at Groundwork Collaborative, a progressive think tank. We’ll get to more of the news in a moment, but if you like the show, make sure to subscribe, leave a five-star review on Apple Podcasts, watch us on YouTube, and share with your friends. More to come after some ads. [music break]

[AD BREAK]

Jane Coaston: Here’s what else we’re following today. 

[sung] Headlines.

[clip of President Donald Trump] And they’re very powerful fish. I mean, I see them, they jump out of the water, they jump at the fishermen. I’ve never seen anything like it and has this gotten into any of the other lakes yet? Because you would think it would be pretty easy because they’re all sort of connected. 

Jane Coaston: Sure, the economy has been shaken to its core by a talk of tariffs, but Trump was able to change the topic to fish. The fish? The Asian carp. 

[clip of President Donald Trump] But we have to save Lake Michigan, because these fish, they eat everything in the way, including the other fish. They eat everything. Are people endangered by the fish at all? 

[clip of unnamed person] I think it’s a I mean they’re going to eat all the fish there. We won’t be able to fish anymore. And that’s a big deal in Lake Michigan. 

Jane Coaston: Technically, the Asian carp is an invasive species that could outcompete other fish in Lake Michigan. So it would not eat all the other fish, just outbreed them. Science. Anyway, Trump brought in the very uncomfortable looking governor from Michigan to talk about it. Gretchen Whitmer mostly kept her eyes down during the visit, which covered the fish, sure, but also covered keeping a Michigan airbase open. And she was also on hand, very unpleasantly, to watch Trump sign an executive order to revoke security privileges for Miles Taylor and Chris Krebs. Taylor is the former Homeland Security employee who wrote the infamous 2018 New York Times op-ed entitled, I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration. As for Krebs, he used to work at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. He called the 2020 election the most secure in American history, and Trump fired him by tweet. Trump might also have the DOJ investigate both Taylor and Krebs for thought crimes? A Whitmer spokesperson said afterward, quote, “The governor was surprised that she was brought into the Oval Office without any notice of the subject matter. Her presence is not an endorsement of the actions taken or statements made at that event.” The Trump administration seems to be considering giving out more government contracts, at least when it comes to deportations. Todd Lyons is the acting head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. This week, he appeared at the 2025 Border Security Expo in Phoenix, Arizona, along with pals Tom Homan, aka the Border Czar, and Kristi Noem, aka Homeland Security Secretary. Anyway, the Arizona Mirror reports Lyons said the administration needs to start treating the deportation process, like Amazon’s subscription service, saying, quote, “Like Prime, but with human beings.” And that means more private sector work. Homan told the crowd of potential contractors, quote, “We need to buy more beds, we need more airplane flights, and I know a lot of you are here for that reason.” What a great group of people. 

[clip of Lindsay Toczylowski] I think part of this is that the Trump administration finds, you know, fundamental fairness and due process in our courts to be really inconvenient for their plans for mass deportation. 

Jane Coaston: On Tuesday, the Supreme Court allowed the Trump administration to continue to use the Alien Enemies Act, at least for now. Not familiar? We’ve talked about it before, but the act is centuries old and it lets the government deport people faster and with fewer guardrails. Crooked’s Tommy Vietor asked immigration lawyer Lindsay Toczylowski about this. Toczylowski did say there’s one caveat in the ruling, though, and it’s pretty critical. 

[clip of Lindsay Toczylowski] It said that anyone who will be removed under this act has the right to notice and they have a right to meaningfully seek a habeas petition in federal court. 

Jane Coaston: Which basically means not so fast, Trump. There has to be a hearing. But, and this is important, detainees have to make their case in federal district courts, not just in D.C. And that might mean a detainee are used before a conservative judge in a state like Texas or Florida. Or maybe a not so conservative judge after all. On Wednesday, at least two federal judges, one from New York and another from Texas, pushed back on the use of the Alien Enemies Act. Both said restrictions would buy lawyers in those states time to challenge its use. The Trump administration is back at it with its attacks on higher education for reasons. The White House said it’s freezing around $1 billion in federal funding for Cornell University. And it’s doing the same at Northwestern University at nearly $800 million. As for those reasons? On Tuesday, the White House said it is investigating alleged civil rights violations at the schools. Cornell says it did not have information confirming the one billion dollar figure, but it had received more than 75 stop-work orders from the Department of Defense. Northwestern says it learned about the funding freeze from the media, but hasn’t gotten an official word, as of our recording time. You know what though? These pauses shouldn’t come as a surprise. You might remember just last month, the administration threatened 60 universities over pending investigations of alleged anti-Semitism on campus. Schools like Columbia, Brown, and Harvard have already had their funding threatened. Surprise! Cornell and Northwestern were also on that list. Cornell says the freeze includes, among other things, research into quote, “space and satellite communications, as well as cancer research, work of significance for our national defense, the competitiveness of our economy, and the health of our citizens.” At Northwestern, a spokesperson said the freeze threatens life-saving studies. He said Alzheimer’s research is, quote, “now at jeopardy.” And that’s the news. One more thing. It’s been a long, what day is it? Thursday? Okay, yes. The tariff news has been overwhelming. And for me, and for you, maybe, it has also felt really confusing and destabilizing in a way I found unpleasantly familiar. I was a senior in college in 2008 when the global economy went belly up in what seemed like a matter of weeks. Lehman Brothers went bankrupt, Bear Stearns collapsed. Millions of people lost their jobs and their homes, and a recession began that changed how I and a bunch of people my age see the economy, our jobs, health, our lives. What happened this week wasn’t that, at least not yet. And thank goodness, we narrowly, narrowly dodged a complete economic meltdown caused not by a complex series of events or by a terrorist attack or by a pandemic, but by one guy who just absolutely fucking loves tariffs. But let’s be clear here. We are not out of the woods, not by a long shot. So I want to hear from you. How are Trump’s weirdo tariffs that are either about making America more masculine through autarchy, eliminating all tariffs from every other country, or some other third thing that also doesn’t make sense impacting you? Are you changing your financial habits? Are you worried about your business, your savings? How have the past few weeks been on your side? Email us and tell us your story at whataday@crooked.com. Tell us what you’re thinking about and what you are going through. We want to hear from you. [music break]. 

[AD BREAK]

Jane Coaston: That’s all for today. If you like the show, make sure you subscribe, leave a review, celebrate the state of Montana. Yes, Montana, standing up for trans kids and their families and tell your friends to listen. And if you’re into reading and not just about how Montana Republicans joined Democrats to defeat legislation that would have made it a felony for an adult to help a trans kid access gender affirming care, like me, What a Day is also a nightly newsletter. Check it out and subscribe at Crooked.com/subscribe. I’m Jane Coaston and good things can, on occasion, happen. [music break] What a Day is a production of Crooked Media. It’s recorded and mixed by Desmond Taylor. Our associate producers are Raven Yamamoto and Emily Fohr. Our producer is Michell Eloy. We had production help today from Tyler Hill, Johanna Case, Joseph Dutra, Greg Walters, and Julia Claire. Our senior producer is Erica Morrison, and our executive producer is Adriene Hill. Our theme music is by Colin Gilliard and Kashaka. Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East. [music break]