I thought it was the Republicans that wanted lower taxes and the Democrats that wanted higher taxes. Although I guess that's not always true. I thought the Republicans wanted to reward success, not punishing it. This loose talk about a high atop another new bracket for millionaires. [00:00:18] I don't think it's a crime to be a millionaire, by the way. Small businesses would pay this top bracket. I do not understand this. I can't believe Mr. Trump is going to go along with this. I don't understand, and I can't. I can't believe what I'm hearing. It's giving me a headache. All right. [00:00:34] Tax day should be tax cut day. We'll get you some Advil. That was yesterday with Larry Kudlow almost dying. He was so shocked to find out that Republicans might raise taxes on the highest earners, the wealthiest Americans. [00:00:50] But is that a real possibility? No, but we're going to go through the various Republicans that are pretending briefly that it will be so that people don't know that the entire point of electing a Republican president is to hand 5 to $10 trillion to the wealthiest people in America. [00:01:06] If you only learn one lesson about American politics, please let it be that one. But no, they're going to pretend that they might raise taxes. So last week, Semafor reported that Trump told Republican senators he's open to raising taxes on highest earners. [00:01:22] And look, I don't even doubt that he said that because you know why? He says lots of things that aren't true but might be popular. Semafor could you catch up on the last 50 years of Donald Trump and what he does? [00:01:38] He's not honest. Okay. Anyway, according to the report, Senator Lindsey Graham asked Trump if he would be okay with letting taxes increase on the rich, rather than including them in the massive tax cuts that Republicans want to pass. Because obviously, Lindsey Graham has also always been a crusader for a more equitable and fair tax system. [00:01:56] The president replied that he'd be fine with the idea, according to three people. They told Semafor that, okay, so Lindsey Graham is on board and Trump is on board. But what about congressional Republicans? Will they actually do this? Well, last week, House speaker Mike Johnson stated that Republicans are [00:02:11] generally trying to cut taxes, which. Yeah. And, Andy Harris of the House Freedom Caucus, he's the chair of it, told Semafor that he would support higher taxes for the wealthy. And we'll see about that. He said, if we slightly increase the rate on the highest earners or create $1 [00:02:29] million earner bracket, that's a little bit higher than the current highest level, which caps out far below $1 million. I'd be okay with that. Okay. That's interesting. And he's on the record. It's a specific quote to a specific outlet. Still don't believe it, but at least he's being specific. Senator Josh Hawley, who has occasionally split with Trump [00:02:48] or the other Republicans on a few things. Admittedly, he stated that higher taxes on the rich could be in play, though for the time being, he's primarily working on a child tax credit, he said. My colleagues and I go around on this, their usual line on tax cuts is we don't need to offset tax cuts. But anytime I bring up the child tax credit, they're like, [00:03:05] well, we need to offset that. If the white House wants to offset that with a surcharge on billionaires, that's fine with me. But I might be in the minority of my party. Yeah, you might be. And I like the strategy. They work on the tax cuts. He works on the child tax credit. [00:03:20] That way they can pass the tax cuts and then kill the tax credit. And that's basically what's probably going to happen. And some in leadership are more clear. Steve Scalise, House majority leader, told Fox business I don't support that initiative. So why are we playing this game? Look, here's the thing. [00:03:36] Republicans have had about two solid months of absolutely horrid economic news that is not some act of God. It is specifically tied to their ideology and the choices that their God emperor is making. All of this is really hurting the perception of Republicans on the economy amongst the electorate. [00:03:51] And you see that in polls that I'm sure have been covered here on the Young Turks, that's hurting their chances in the midterms and maybe damaging their reputation long term. So they need good press and saying without even promising and certainly not doing an actual tax increase on the wealthiest Americans is an easy way [00:04:09] to try to offset a little bit of that. Again, Brett, I would love to be shocked and surprised and they actually raise the taxes. I have a hard time believing that's going to happen. Right? It feels so arbitrary, but also not arbitrary and mostly partizan or there were people like have a double standard. [00:04:27] So like if you are tired of the Democrats or the Republicans for never like passing legislation and always just talking about passing the legislation that you that you want. [00:04:42] Why are you giving for having faith in Trump on a a semafor headline? Like, I'll be principled. I'll say, do it, do it, I dare you, I dare you do it. Tax the millionaires. Like, what's interesting to me is that this is going to be a tax [00:05:00] on millionaires and not billionaires. Kudlow alluding to the fact that it would hurt small businesses and not enormous businesses, enormous businesses that get all the benefits, the super rich millionaires who get all the benefits, [00:05:17] of the system that Trump creates and the uncertainty that he creates and the backdoor deals that he puts in place and the times he's like, I'm going to do this thing. And right before I turn back on the faucet of some of the tariffs, I'm going to tell a bunch of people, here's how you can make money. And then talking to everyone in like, these secret meetings in the Oval Office [00:05:34] that we get leaked videos of, like, look at how much money this guy made and that guy made. Do you think that was $1 million a year that that guy made? No, that's 100. He said it was. That guy made $100 million in that moment. - Yeah. - So do it. I would say to people like, do you want to play hardball? [00:05:52] Like Donald Trump is clearly trying to just get more votes and more support from people, but he has to get more support. Like you can give him your support if he gives you what you need. Yeah, but is he raising back up the corporate tax rate [00:06:07] or the capital gains tax. No, he's cutting it. And that's the thing is like this guy Galloway talks about all this stuff, you know, in some of the videos that I can't get off my feed and you know, but like it's it's an interesting point that like there's people who make [00:06:23] money off of wages and then there's people that make money off of investments. And all this income tax talk is people who make money off of wages. And I'm all for getting back to the marginal tax rates that we had when America was so great. [00:06:39] But get back to those marginal tax rates like I'll help you. But in the meantime, everything else that Trump has done has made it easier for the rich to get richer. Yeah, that's the problem. And then everything else he's done is like a fever dream of half a remembrance [00:06:58] of something someone didn't actually tell him while he was hopped up on Big Macs when they said the word tariff. I think he, like, watched the first half of that part of Ferris Bueller's Day Off. When he was explaining the Hawley-smoot Tariff Act before he said that it did [00:07:14] not work and the United States sunk deeper into the Great Depression. Yeah. So he still thinks the tariffs are a great idea, and he still thinks that you can just drive the Ferrari in reverse to take off the miles. Yeah. He's going to be surprised by the outcome of both of those things. [00:07:30] Yeah. And and Kudlow just so I don't think he's actually shocked that they're saying they're going to raise the taxes. I think he's shocked that they have to say that, because even more Republican voters think they should raise those taxes because he just expects, [00:07:47] wait, this is Fox News. Fox business, like, you guys are supposed to beat these people into submission, into believing that, as he puts it, a tax on wealthy people is a is like treating them like a criminal rather than just their expected contribution to America's shared success. [00:08:02] And he says, we're not supposed to be punishing success. We're supposed to be rewarding it. First of all, why you already succeeded. Why do you also need a reward on top of that? Like you by definition, in your own thing already succeeded. But that's the sort of just cheap basic framing that he expects [00:08:19] all of these people to accept. And some cracks are starting to form in it. He's seeing even like, you know, as we previously talked about, like more and more Republicans that find like the messaging of like an AOC or Bernie Sanders to be appealing. He doesn't like that. Fox, at least in some areas, might be losing a little bit of their grip on the narrative. [00:08:35] Every time you ring the bell below, an angel gets its wings. Totally not true, but it does keep you updated on our live shows.