Sunday Shows: Trump Administration Using 'Joker Logic' On Economy

We watch so you never have to!

This week's Sunday shows featured many Trump administration officials patting Donald Trump and themselves on the back for saving us from themselves.

How fucking noble.

‘Madness [or Trade! — Ed. ] Is Like Gravity: All It Takes Is a Little Push’ - The Joker

We begin with National Economic Council Director and strong contender for 2025’s “Most Punchable Face” award, Kevin Hassett. Appearing on CNN’s “State Of The Union,” Hassett pretended Trump’s manufactured seesawing economic uncertainty is all a careful plan.

But because the Trump administration can never admit they were wrong, you get moments like Jake Tapper pointing out the ridiculousness of that lie.

TAPPER: So, the White House says everything that happened over the last week-and-a-half went according to plan. Over the course of just a few days, the global market lost trillions in stock value, regained some of it, but not all of it. The strength of the dollar right now is plunging. Consumer sentiment is worse than at any time during the Great Recession. Is all of this part of the plan?

Hassett, through a weirdly awkward perma-smile, insisted this was the case.

Hassett then moved to the talking point that the tariffs are to bring manufacturing back to America. Tapper noted how the bullshit from different Trump stooges seems to contradict that.

TAPPER: [L]ast Sunday, the secretary of Commerce, Howard Lutnick, was on a different show. He […] was saying […] what these [tariffs] are going to do is, it's going to bring iPhone manufacturing to the United States. Five days ago, U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer told senators — quote — "The president has been clear with me and with others that he does not intend to have exclusions and exemptions" unquote — to these tariffs.

But now we know about these carve-outs for electronics imported to the U.S. that we talked about […] at the top, smartphones, computers, chips. It's a contradictory message.

HASSETT: No.

TAPPER: I mean, I understand that you're saying that this was the plan, but Lutnick — it seems like nobody told Lutnick and Greer.

HASSETT: No, I disagree with that. […]

TAPPER: But Greer was in Senate testimony.

HASSETT: There's a long list, which you could put a graphic up, of the things that are […] exempt until those 232s happen. […]

TAPPER: But you understand how some people might look at this and say, this doesn't really make sense in terms of the president's larger goal. If President Trump and you and your team are all trying to reshore manufacturing, so that American manufacturing for phones and computers is happening here in the United States, along with all these great middle-class jobs that would go with it, that you're exempting those items […] that seems to be completely the opposite of the goal, right?

HASSETT: That's just a perspective.

Hassett going all Lebowski on a simple answer about trade policy was not on our Bingo card.

90-Day Fiance Economy

Speaking of US Trade Representative Ambassador Jamieson Greer, he was on CBS’s “Face The Nation” with Margaret Brennan this week.

When asked about the 90-day pause on most tariffs and if we would stop seeing uncertainty after that, Greer’s answers didn’t inspire much confidence.

BRENNAN: But – but – but I say it's a big ask because it takes time to negotiate. It could take you longer than 90 days, right? So, does that mean this 90-day reprieve could continue to be renewed? […]

GREER: Well, I'm – I'm considering that we have 90 days. […]

BRENNAN: But 90 days could be a rolling deadline, is what I hear you saying?

GREER: Well, I – I would not say that. In the president's Cabinet meeting last week, he was asked about this. And he said, well, we'll see. I mean, my goal is to get meaningful deals before 90 days.

That is certainly not reassuring. Maybe he hopes the 90-day pause feels longer to average Americans, much the same way Trump has only been in office for a full 84 days and yet it feels like so much longer.

Emotionally, we are all here.

‘How Much Is A Banana, Michael? Ten Dollars?’ - Lucille Bluth

While Tapper and Brennan dealt with the idiocy of Hassett and Greer, respectively, Jonathan Karl was stuck with Howard Lutnick on ABC’s “This Week.”

While Greer wouldn’t allow that the tariffs would return in 90 days, economically aloof Lutnick certainly had no qualms about it.

KARL: So — so you're saying that the big tariffs on things like smartphones and laptops, iPhones — all those iPhones built in China — that those tariffs are temporarily off, but they're going to be coming right back on in another form in a month or so? Or what — what are you saying?

LUTNICK: Correct, that — that's right. That's right. Semiconductors and pharmaceuticals will have a tariff model in order to encourage them to reshore, to be built in America. We need our medicines, and we need semiconductors and our electronics to be built in America.

After trying to sell us all on Trump’s new “American Dream” of working at sweatshops and robot plants, Karl pointed out a small glitch in Lutnick’s plan.

KARL: The president also said there's going to be a transition cost, transition problems. I mean we are going to see higher prices in America. It's not like you can open a factory tomorrow to build iPhones or to — to make sneakers, shoes. I mean we — we — we buy a lot of shoes in this country, 99 percent of them are made elsewhere.

Maybe Lutnick has a “constructo meter” to pop factories up? We hear it works wonders in Jackson, Wyoming.

Puerto Rico can also tell you about how the American government will make pharmaceuticals “here” while saving money using exploitation and relaxed regulations.

The devil is always in the fine print with these folks.

Have a week.