Last Friday, the Trump administration announced a number of electronics now including but not limited to computers. Smartphones would be exempt for most of the steep tariffs imposed on China. But on Sunday, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick clarified that those exemptions [00:00:19] are only temporary and those products will be getting hit with a new tariff soon. Let's watch. Lutnick go back and forth with a baffled Jonathan Karl. Let's start with that news late Friday that this exemption on electronics, smart [00:00:37] phones, laptop computers and the like. What's the thinking? Why the exemption? Well, if you remember, over the past couple of months, President Trump has called out pharmaceuticals and semiconductors and autos. [00:00:52] He called them sector tariffs. And those are not available for negotiation. They are just going to be part of making sure we reassure the core national security items that need to be made in this country. [00:01:07] We need to make medicine in this country. Wait a minute. I'm asking you about the exemption. Not about I mean, the notice that went out Friday night saying that electronics a wide range of electronics, including smartphones, including components used to make, [00:01:23] microchips, that these are now exempt from the reciprocal tariffs. Why that move? Well, remember, those products are going to be part of the semiconductor sectoral tariffs which are coming. [00:01:41] So you're saying that the 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. [00:01:58] - Or what are you saying? - Correct. There's a lot more to this one, but I guess. Take us through that clip. Your your initial thoughts on, I guess, dissect it for us. Yeah. So first we had global tariffs and they were definitely going [00:02:15] to stick with those because that was going to rebuild manufacturing in America. Then okay. Yeah. Well the stock market and the bond market crashes. So that was really inconvenient. So we got nothing in return for concessions that they're not going to be global tariffs. It's just going to be yeah some 10% you know kind of bare [00:02:32] minimum stuff across the board. But overall mainly just on China 145% on China. Okay. So ladies and gentlemen, we got him. China. And those those are definitely going to stay because we rebuilding our manufacturing base here in America. Okay. We're going to do it against the Chinese. [00:02:48] Okay, fine. They're not going to stay. They're not. We're going to exempt electronics. So a lot of the things you buy from China, like your iPhones And things that are critical here in America. So we blinked. We know we're not going to do 145% tariff on those. [00:03:05] So oops. That's the second giant concession with absolutely nothing in return. But wait, we're not done yet. Confusing you because now Lutnick is saying, well, yeah. Now look those tariffs are exempt. [00:03:23] The, the iPhones etc. From China. But they're sectoral tariffs which we have not yet heard of. And they will be reapplied at a later date. What on God's green earth are you talking about? [00:03:39] This is such a giant mess. Meanwhile, contradicted by other administration staffers at the same time. Guys fish rots from the head down. How many times have we told you here Donald Trump has no earthly idea [00:03:55] what he's doing? There is no grand strategy. There is no art of the deal. He just throws stuff against the wall and see what sticks. So he's like global tariffs. I'm gonna stick 145% tariffs on China. That didn't stick. Exemptions. Well that's well sectoral tariffs. [00:04:12] Okay. What is this. So like every business person in the country is like Jesus Christ man what are you doing. So should I manufacture here or shouldn't I. Should I import or shouldn't I? Do I still have a business or don't I? [00:04:29] I don't know. Tune in tomorrow. He'll change his mind three more times. So, Sharon, as we, you know, give you the rest of the story here. And we talked this through. One of the important things is what are we trying to accomplish. What do how is it going to help the average American. [00:04:46] And this is super important. What's going to happen next? Because I have a pretty good idea of what's going to happen next. And it ain't pretty. Well, he said he's fine with recession, remember? Just not depression. So just buckle up. And if you thought that was confusing. There's more where that came from. [00:05:06] Let's listen to this exchange between Peter Navarro and Kristen Welker. There's three kinds. There's the high end chips, which is the AI future. Okay. We've got to get control of that. And then there's everything else that fuels our autos and on down. [00:05:21] Fair enough. I hear what you're saying on investigation, but there is currently an exclusion for some of those products. You want to call it exclusion. Potatoes. Potatoes. What? It is. Called it. Well, but let's say let's just here's I think another thing that's really [00:05:38] important when people talk about the chaos or lack of strategy or whatever, you just go back to day one. I was there when the president signed it. It was the second to last order he signed. I was in the Oval that night, and it was the American first trade policy, which [00:05:53] laid out every single thing we're doing. And it would be remiss for anybody in the media not to. Review that carefully and see that there's there's rhyme to a reason and rhythm to what we're doing. Why do they agree to go on these shows? [00:06:09] From US Customs and Border Protection. Listen to this. All products that are properly classified in these listed provisions will be excluded from the reciprocal tariffs imposed under Executive Order 14257. So you have that also, took up Navarro's challenge to check out [00:06:28] the America First trade policy. He directed us there. It is pretty long. But to sum it up, briefly. It calls on the Trump administration to investigate trade deficits with other countries, especially China, and create a new trade policy. [00:06:45] Okay, so they're all over this, and the devil's in the details. A new trade policy that promotes investment and productivity enhances our nation's industrial and technological advantages, defends our economic and national security and above all, benefits American workers, [00:07:01] manufacturers, farmers, ranchers, entrepreneurs and businesses all the people who are hurting. From the moment he pressed send on his new policy, tariff whiplash has gotten so out of control that even Kevin O'Leary. [00:07:18] I mean, he loves Donald Trump. He's fiercely defended Trump's tariffs, is now admitting Trump administration is not doing a good job of explaining their strategy. Watch this clip. I know you think these. Tell me why. [00:07:36] I think we have a negotiation going on has been detailed at nauseam. It's a little chaotic from the point of view that you don't get a consistent message out of the administration. I admit that's a problem. You know, Ludwig says one thing, and then Burgum says another. [00:07:53] That's got to get cleaned up and that's self-inflicted. They can fix that. Now, he doesn't exactly blame, you know, fish rots. Okay. He doesn't blame Trump, but he's saying that they've got to clean up their act. Mr. Wonderful there. This morning on CNN, Harry Enten broke down a new poll [00:08:09] that revealed Americans are feeling very worried about this economy. You think? I believe this is the worst poll that Donald Trump has received in his second term. And we can go through it, Jessica. Let's talk about the economy. Right. Think the economy is getting worse? Back in November, it was 42% of Americans. [00:08:26] You don't have to be a genius to follow this timeline. By February it was 49%. March 50th 1%. Look at where we are now, 53%. The clear majority of Americans think the economy is getting worse, and that number is rising more responsible for the state of the economy or the economic state. [00:08:41] In March, CBS news asked about inflation and 38% said it was Joe Biden who was more responsible compared to 34% who said Donald Trump. Let's jump forward to now, in the month of April. Look at this number 54% of Americans say that Donald Trump is more to blame for [00:08:57] the state of the economy than Joe Biden. New tariffs on imported goods oppose versus favor. You go back to January. Look at this. 48% said they favored these new tariffs, these Donald Trump tariffs, compared to 46% who opposed. Look at where we are now in the CBS news YouGov poll. [00:09:15] A switcheroo, Jessica a switcheroo. The clear majority 58% of Americans oppose these new tariffs, compared to just 42% who favor them. He hasn't been in office that long, and he's been talking about Joe Biden [00:09:30] day in and day out, and how he's blaming Joe Biden for everything. And still, these are the numbers. It's hard to feel great about the economy, of course, with all this happening in just the last week alone. It's we've like we said, whiplash, folks. It is that much. [00:09:45] Just look at it. One week and here we have it. Okay. Universal reciprocal tariffs. A removal back down to 10% 50%. Chinese tariffs 90%. Chinese tariffs 104%. Chinese tariffs 125%. Chinese tariffs 145 Chinese tariffs. [00:10:06] Electronics exempted electronics now potentially back on. So there you I again I ask you why do they even bother to go on the shows except it's, you know getting out there. They're fake messaging but perhaps just go on Truth Social for that. [00:10:24] It's just comical. If it didn't hurt so much, if it wasn't so painful. There is no rhyme or reason to this except perhaps bullying and then showing that you have all the chess moves you can make all this chaos happen. I mean, what is it? [00:10:40] Yeah. So there's two different things there. So one is, how much they do media and two is how they do the media. So in terms of how much media they do, I actually agree with them. Media is how you get your message out, and they should be doing it over and over and over again. [00:10:55] Democrats don't do it nearly enough. So sending out a bunch of cabinet officials to send your message out, I get it. Like, for example, Stephen Miller and Caroline Leavitt are all over TV pretending that the Supreme Court ruled nine to nothing in their favor when they actually ruled nine to nothing against them. [00:11:12] But they are saying it so much. The right wing media is picking it up, and now they've convinced at least half the right wing that the Supreme Court ruled with the Trump administration instead of against the Trump administration. So that's the power of propaganda. And you use media to do it. So to me, that's not the issue. [00:11:28] The issue is if you are a competent administration, and again, if you're in the right wing, you should be more mad at him than I am, because they're not doing this in any way that helps your cause. Like, what you would do is, hey, these cabinet officials [00:11:43] are going to go on or other advisers are going to go on TV this weekend. So before you all go on, let's get on a call and figure out what our message is and be sure that we're clear. Because especially because the president doesn't know what the hell he's doing and changes his mind every other day, every other day. [00:11:59] But really, as we said earlier, about twice a day, right? So if I was a Trump guy and I was going to go on TV, I would call Siouxsie Wiles the chief of staff and say, tell me exactly where we are right now. Right. And then I'd ask her, now, what's the percentage chance [00:12:15] that Trump's going to change in the next four hours, six hours, etc.. Right. But the bottom line is I'd have a battle plan for my side and to get my message out. And it's super obvious from the tape, you can see it with your own eyes. They don't have a battle plan. They're not coordinating and they're saying different things, [00:12:33] which, by the way, every thing that the Trump administration says affects the markets because then the markets are like, oh, it's trade's back on. No, the tariffs are back on oh this that the other thing. And it's moving the markets in so many different ways. And it's affecting people's ability to plan. [00:12:49] That's what I was referring to earlier. So a lot of the business in this country overhype their need for stability. Like if you ever tweak anything in the government, they're like, no, no, no, we must protect the status quo. We need stability. So that's 90% of the time that's just an excuse, right? [00:13:05] But they base it on a kernel of truth. It's true that businesses need some degree of stability to be able to plan. Are there huge imports? Small imports or I'm sorry, huge tariffs. No tariffs or some tariffs. So I can know do I build do I bring in products. How do I, you know, plan for the rest of my year and the rest of you know, [00:13:23] the next couple of years? This is very normal in the business world. Right. So now they can't do any planning because every time they make a plan, then Trump changes it and then changes it again and changes it again. So now everything's going haywire. Not only is Trump changing it, everyone from the Trump team is saying something different on TV. So everybody's, [00:13:41] including their supporters like Kevin O'Leary, are just throwing up their hands and their cameras. Apparently, that's why a quarter of his face was showing and saying, like, I don't know what's. Going on here. I mean, how could you possibly know? So yeah, this is super disorganized. [00:13:57] Why Trump never plans anything. If I was going to do tariffs, I'd have a plan A, a plan B, a plan C, plan B would be, hey, what if the markets go south? How long are we going to let them go south? What is there a number at which we say, hey, wait, this has gone too far. [00:14:15] How long do we plan to do X, Y or Z? But they haven't planned any of that. Any of it? It is, as usual, deep incompetence because the president is super lazy and he thinks and he thinks he's a genius, so he just flies off the handle. [00:14:31] Yeah. Attacks against China 104%. 125%. 145%. Come on, man. Jesus Christ. So you you don't have to be left wing to see that. [00:14:47] Looks like a clown move one after another after another. So finally, this is the most important part. What's going to happen in the future? So I'm going to read one of our members comments here. He's from Canada, but is this soon going to apply to America as well? He said yeah, the tariffs finally affected me. I live in a small community in Canada, and I have to look for new employment [00:15:04] because my employer lost some contracts due to delays attributed to tariffs. So okay, so that happens to be in Canada, but that's going to happen all over America because the same exact phenomenon the employers don't know. Do I hire do I fire you know, do I have enough money to hire people? [00:15:20] Do I have enough money to keep people? The the first immediate problem with the stock market turning down is not how it affects rich people or corporations. It's how it affects your 401 K. Okay, so we got that. But but depending on the situation we can get past that. Right. The second way that it affects people is if it goes dramatically down [00:15:37] then businesses start to tighten up and they stop hiring and they start firing. Right. So that's what's coming next. And then the third thing that happens is that because they now have these huge costs added on top, they're going to start increasing prices now because he [00:15:55] pulled a lot of the tariffs back. It won't be as universal as it was. But still these are some significant tariffs on plenty of places. So you're not going to see all of your prices going up. But now you're going to see prices pop one after another after another in places you don't expect. [00:16:11] Or you go to buy a car. Now the car costs 20% more. What the hell? What just happened? ET cetera. ET cetera. And you know what that's going to do? That's going to drive his poll numbers way down. Because those numbers that Anton showed are before people have actually started to get affected in their personal lives. [00:16:28] Once they start getting affected, they're going to be mad. What was the number one reason they elected Trump? Because of inflation? And what did he just do? He just poured an enormous amount of fuel on that fire. You know what Trump's like with the tariffs and inflation. [00:16:47] He's like that scene in Zoolander where they're spraying each other with gasoline. - Right. - Like woo hoo! And then somebody lights a match. And as Trump said about the markets, they're going to go boom. Just not boom in the direction that he was hoping for. [00:17:03] So next will be rage. And then Trump will backpedal because he hates having low numbers and he will have disastrously low numbers. And then we'll have another round of uncertainty in what's going to happen next. But here's what's not going to happen. [00:17:18] We're not going to rebuild manufacturing with clown ass tariffs like this. No. And back to the messaging. I mean, I get it. What you said makes perfect sense. But I will say this. How do you plan for anything? I'd love to declare everybody around him incompetent. [00:17:33] But how can you, even Susie, how can you plan for anything when the man at the top seems so emotional and reactionary and somewhat unhinged? It's sometimes it seems like some of these people are on the air, Navarro or whoever [00:17:49] else, and he's literally tweeted something that's making for breaking news that they can't even keep up with. It's asinine. Yeah, I think that's an apt description of it for sure. And just to be super clear, yeah, I actually blame Lutnick [00:18:06] and and Navarro etc. A lot less than I blame Trump because, you know, Navarro is pushing his agenda as and I hate his agenda. And he's one of these guys that's just so over the top on tariffs. And I think does the cause of tariffs actually more harm than good. [00:18:22] And so so I got no love for any of these guys. But like you mentioned Susie was chief of staff. She's perfectly competent. She's shown that she's competent and gotten Trump under control when she needed to on a number of occasions. And we've shared that on the show. [00:18:37] But even Siouxsie Wiles can't wrangle the most unmanageable guy on earth, because you're absolutely right. Trump won't ever listen to reason. And now that he's gotten elected again, he thinks he's a demigod. He thinks he doesn't need anyone else, and he thinks he's like some sort of supernova [00:18:53] genius because he passes dementia tests. And so that's why he just lashes out and no one can correct him because his skin is so thin, you know? He's so deeply insecure that no one can say, hey, Mr. President, it might not be a [00:19:09] great idea to change the tariffs on China. Literally six times in a row within a span of about three days. Like, maybe we need a little bit more stability. If any of them actually suggested that, he'd be like, what. Are you talking about? You're terrible. You're fired. [00:19:24] I'm very disappointed in my commerce secretary. And then he goes, sends them on air. And then when they make clowns of themselves because Trump told them to and he goes. - Yeah, I'm very disappointed. - Right. So there's no winning with this guy. Every time you ring the bell below, an angel gets his wings. [00:19:40] Totally not true. But it does keep you updated on our live shows.