How much revenue have you brought in so far? Just from tower from tariffs, Secretary. So last month it averaged just over $30 billion. And as of last night midnight the tariffs went up. I think we're going to be heading towards $50 billion a month [00:00:16] in tariff revenue that no one has talked about except for the president. So think about $50 billion a month. And that's where we are now. And then you're going to get the semiconductors. You're going to get pharmaceuticals. You're going to get all sorts of additional tariff money coming in. And as the president says, this could continue to head towards [00:00:32] and ultimately reach $1 trillion. Well, those are some big numbers being thrown around there. And we're certainly going to return to that dollar figure. But bear in mind that today, Trump once again jacked up the tariff rates on more than 90 countries. And that produces an outcome where the average U.S. [00:00:50] Tariff rate is now at its highest point in nearly a century. So those numbers are high right there. You saw Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick talking about how he expects that soon tariffs will bring in $50 billion in monthly revenue even before the semiconductor stuff. [00:01:06] And that's a really high number. And also you don't generally see this on the news very often. Very rarely do politicians come out and brag about how much they're going to tax their voters. It's a bold strategy, but he's going with it. We'll return to his claim about the dollar figure there. [00:01:22] But first, here is a map of where tariffs have been, jacked up even more. And you can see in the orange there's a new higher rate. In the yellow there are upcoming deadlines, like in Mexico, [00:01:37] where the deadline was not going to be delayed until it was delayed the day after Trump said that China as well. And in the blue, you have the deals that Trump made the 90 deals in 90 days, which worked out to something like five or so deals across more than 100 days. And so some of these, increased tariffs are very significant. [00:01:56] So Brazil got an extra 50% because Donald Trump doesn't like that. His buddy, Bolsonaro is being prosecuted. And so he's using, American trade policy as a tool to meddle in the judicial system of a foreign country. You have like, you have some rates where it's not that much higher than [00:02:16] what's considered the baseline of 10%. So, for instance, in Japan and South Korea, the EU, that's at 15%. Places like Taiwan and Vietnam are at 20%. But the important thing to know is that there is nowhere on the entirety of the Earth's surface where there is not a tariff that is higher [00:02:34] than it was before Donald Trump. And so no matter where Americans buy things from, we will be paying more 10% in some places, 5,100% higher in other places. And right now, on average, it's at 18.6%. [00:02:50] That is the highest it's been since 1933. Generally, it's somewhere around 2 to 3%. And so Donald Trump has times now find that on average. And, you saw Howard Lutnick sit there trying to pitch this as a good thing. Money is going to be flowing into the US government's coffers [00:03:07] from all these tariffs. And Donald Trump is trying to make the same case. He's very excited about this, saying reciprocal tariffs take effect at midnight tonight. Of course they're not reciprocal tariffs. They're just new tariffs he's putting on. They're not in response to other tariffs. That's not what that word means. And he says they've been taking advantage of us. [00:03:25] And by that he means that we have a negative trade balance with many of these countries. And he doesn't understand that we, being a far wealthier country, will naturally have a negative trade balance with poorer countries. He thinks this is a personal insult. It's just a sign of high American spending power. [00:03:41] But anyway, he goes on to say 15 minutes later, it's midnight. Billions of dollars in tariffs are now flowing into the United States of America, and the money is flowing. They did collect last month about $30 billion in tariffs. [00:03:56] But importantly, the money isn't flowing into the US. Those checks are written by importers in the US, they are going to have to pay the United. The United States government for what they import. And, you know, generally they might get some from the corporations [00:04:13] in exchange for that. But the corporations are almost certainly going to jack up the prices to make up for that. And if they and if they do, then the prices are the price increases are going to be passed on to the American taxpayer. And so in the end, what you effectively have is they have this ever increasing number 30 billion, 50 billion. [00:04:28] But we're we're paying for that. And it is not just a new tax on the American taxpayer, but it's a it's a regressive tax. The more of your income that you spend which poor people do richer people don't. They save most of their money. You're going to be paying even more of this. [00:04:44] And so at the same time, Jake, that they cut the taxes on the wealthiest, they're now bragging to their poor voters about how much extra they're taxing them. And I really feel like the Democrats need to figure out a better way to get that across, because this seems like a massive missed opportunity. [00:05:01] - But what do you make of it? - Yeah. So I'm going to shock the world And you by saying that there's I'm going to fess up to something that I think I was a little bit wrong about. Okay. So that's coming up in a little bit. And then I'm going to nevertheless, make a new prediction, be fun for everybody. [00:05:20] First. All right. So, look, these tariffs are totally unsustainable. So they they won't last. There's no chance. So I had said that in the past, and I was right about that. He put up 145% tariff on China or threatened to. [00:05:36] And then it lasted about 13 seconds because that's mental. And then he's like taking it back because I'm getting very strong concessions. China's like we didn't concede anything. India says now they're going to fight him to the end of time. [00:05:52] Obviously Brazil is like 50%. What the hell is this? Okay. And why? Because you have a bromance with the corrupt politician that robbed this country blind. I don't care. You know how much you love corruption in America and Brazil. [00:06:10] But a 50% tariff is, like totally random. Kills all trade is insane, right? But if you thought 145% was bad. On August 12th, he's promising a 245% tariff on China. [00:06:27] What's the point? Right. Like, once it passes 200, I'm not going to buy as much Chinese stuff. At 199 I'll do it. But okay, I'm going to give you guys a sense, right. So let's say you had a 15% tariff on something that costs $1,000. [00:06:43] It would go up to 1000. Like if all of it is passed on to you and the great majority is right. So it would go up to $1,150. Well, now you're really uncomfortable about buying that thing. You had about $1,000 in your budget. Now they're adding 150. [00:06:59] That hurts. And you're paying it, right? Okay. Now, if you had a 245% tariff on that same $1,000 product, it will be $2,450 and absolutely no one will buy it. Of course not. [00:07:14] It's insane. Nobody's going to buy it, right? And so whether it's like I in fact, I might have done the math wrong on that, it might be even more. Anyway, whether it's 2450 or 3450, it's totally irrelevant because once you get past a certain barrier, right? [00:07:31] I mean, what Max, 20%, etc., people stop buying it altogether, right? So we have not fully hit the impact of these tariffs at all because the major tariffs just started today. Right. And what and but on top of that the all the companies had been [00:07:49] hoarding products imports because they knew the tariffs were coming. So they're also have some stock ready to go. And they're hoping that they won't run out before Trump changes his mind again. You know, or before it's Taco Tuesday again. [00:08:04] And and he's like, You know, - I mean, I'm at 2.45%, right? - So it's not totally unsustainable. Been right about that from day one. Absurd, right? Oh, one more thing about how much you guys have to pay on average. [00:08:21] This is insane. And goes to John's point. The average according to Yale budget lab average American is going to have to pay 2400 more dollars because of these tariffs per year. $2,400. That is an enormous tax on the average American. [00:08:39] And a regressive tax like the billionaire doesn't care about the 2400 at all when he's buying bubble gum and t shirts and sneakers. Right. But 2400 to the average guy is back breaking. Remember 40% of the country can't afford an extra $400 hit. What are they going to do with that extra $2,400 hit? [00:08:57] Okay, so John, did you pay attention to any of that or were you just looking forward to the part where I admit I got something wrong? Oh, I thought that I thought you were going to surprise me. I didn't know you were going to surprise me with something wrong. I was already you already had my interest. [00:09:13] But I forget the rest of that quote. It's been a while since I watched it. What? What were you wrong about? Yeah. So I thought the tariffs were largely not exclusively because Trump's believed in them for a long, long time. And we showed on tape. He's been talking about them for decades because he's an idiot and thinks that since there was no income tax in the 1890s, because of the tariffs, [00:09:33] you could just get rid of the income tax. I know all that, but nevertheless, I thought it was largely a trick to say, oh, we're going to get a lot of new revenue. So, so don't worry about that $4 trillion in extra debt we're going to pile on because of the giant tax cuts. [00:09:51] And hence the once the tax cuts had passed, he didn't need that excuse anymore. And he largely dropped the tariff talk. But he didn't. So okay, you got to own up to things you got wrong. We facts matter. Okay. [00:10:07] So that was my educated guess. And I told you guys. Not a fact, but a guess, but a prediction or. Speculation or guess. And that guess was wrong. Okay, it turns out that Trump is really mental about tariffs, like it or not. It wasn't largely about the taxes. It was largely about how mental he is. [00:10:25] And and guys seriously, he thinks he can get rid of the entire income tax, his own income tax if he doesn't have tariffs. It's not the 1890s. You're crazy dog. Yeah okay. Now yeah. - Go ahead. - Oh, sorry. No go ahead. If you if you're admitting you're wrong, I, I could listen all day I got. [00:10:43] No no I got another prediction coming up in a second. Okay. Well I will I will quickly say I hadn't known that you linked those two things as explicitly, I think. I think it's fine for him to be corrupt on the taxes thing and dumb on the trade thing. I think he can be. He contains multitudes. [00:10:59] But even if, let's say it was designed to do that, and all of the money that we raised did go to paying off the extra debt that he generated, which it definitely wouldn't like to give you an idea of how much he just handed the wealthy. So they're saying $50 billion a month. I mean, that's a lot of money, right? [00:11:17] A lot of money. That's $600 billion a year. It would still take like eight years to pay off just the new debt that he decided to give to the. Well, that's a crazy amount that they gave to them. And we would still be paying for that because we're the ones paying the tariffs. [00:11:35] And so even if he used it for that purpose, it would be utterly unacceptable. Now we're of course expecting, increasing prices. As you said, there's been some strategies that corporations have used to try to ward it off. And to some extent they haven't even necessarily had to, [00:11:52] because very often the tariffs were announced and then they didn't happen or they were going to happen. And then it was delayed. Like I defy anyone to say what the actual tariff rate has been in any given country two months ago, but the price increases are happening. And so, the latest monthly measure of inflation showed that appliances, clothing [00:12:10] and furnishings have become more expensive in just the past couple of weeks. Walmart, Procter and Gamble, Nike and Hasbro have already said that they plan to raise retail prices to compensate for their rising tariff bill. And as we know, when companies have an excuse, a big worldwide thing, [00:12:29] an excuse to raise prices, they never raise prices as much as they need to. They raise prices as much as they can. And so I fully expect them to pass on as much of this as they can and probably a little bit more, especially if people are forced over the next year or two [00:12:47] to get used to ever increasing prices. Well, then who's to say they're not going to do an extra 2%? An extra 4%. It's going to be like the supply chains. People are just used to that sort of thing. And all of this one would have to imagine politically is going to be terrible for the Republicans or whoever is the incumbent party when this is going on, Jake. [00:13:03] Yeah. And at least my prediction. So Trump's going to crash really hard. I don't want to say soon, but soon ish, right? Two months. Four months? Definitely by six months. So now you have to understand the context. [00:13:23] There's other shows that go around saying, that's it. Trump is done. It's over. Okay. He said some word wrong or he did some buffoonish thing. That's it. He's melting down now. And we've told you a million times. No, it's not true. I mean, it's a wishful thinking. It's fantasy land. [00:13:41] It's just to appeal to people who want him to melt down. So why is this one, from my point of view, my prediction? Why is this one correct? Okay. And why am I saying it now when I haven't said it before? So, number one, he's going to pull off a little bit of a miracle here of stagflation. [00:13:58] So normally what happens is when you have a low unemployment, that means the economy is doing well. Everybody's employed. But then that'll heat up the economy, and you might get high inflation. Right. If you can keep employment and inflation down, that's beautiful. And actually we did that for a couple of decades here in America. [00:14:14] Since you got like a lot of folks don't have the perspective of the rest of the world, you don't know how miraculous that is. That's amazing that we could do that, right? But usually those things. Yo, yo. Okay. And so but in this case, the reason why you'll have higher unemployment and higher inflation is because the tariffs are pushing up prices. [00:14:31] So that pushes up inflation. But because, corporations now also have less money, they hire less. Right. So now you've got less hiring. And sometimes firing to make up for the fact that you can't sell, [00:14:46] you can't move your products, right? If you have 245% tariff on a product, you obviously can't move it. That hurts your bottom line. You fire people and you certainly don't hire anyone new. So unemployment goes up. But because of the tariffs, inflation also goes up. And that's stagflation. And that's an epic economic disaster. [00:15:04] So now that the tariffs have actually started unless he tacos immediately. Right. This is going to start to do some heavy damage. That's why he's saying two, four, six months, right? Because they got to run out of the stock that they have. The prices have to go up. [00:15:20] And then you're going to see both of those effects. And then the American people are going to start to panic. So but not just on that, but also now mixing the fact that Donald Trump has given up tweaking Israel at all and is just fully in bitch mode now. [00:15:35] And so Netanyahu says jump he like he says, how high? How many Palestinians would you like me to murder? Whatever. So he's 100% Israel first now and doing and over the top in a way that is infuriating MAGA. So he's eating into his base, let alone the independents. [00:15:52] Right. And then on top of that, you got the Epstein files. And so all of these lead to the to similar conclusions. A he's not really for us. I mean, to Jon's point. So they put $1.1 trillion tax cut into that bill for just people [00:16:08] making over $500,000. 1.1 trillion. So even if all these tariffs quote unquote worked. They you know, they raised 600 billion while creating stagflation and all the other disasters, but they raised 600 billion. That's coming from the average American who's spending $2,400 extra every year. [00:16:25] So you have to have two years of you guys paying about $2,500 a year in extra regressive taxes. And all of that will then go to the rich people making above $500,000. Look, you could do marketing and you could do propaganda [00:16:41] for a little while, like, oh yeah, no, Israel's not killing anyone in Gaza. It's oh, it's all lies until we all see the starving children, right? And, you know, you could say, oh yeah, the tariffs, they're not going to create unemployment or inflation and they're going to create Nirvana and Xanadu. [00:16:57] Right. And that'll go for a while until reality hits. And when they go to Walmart and prices are much higher. And then they and their cousin lost his job. It doesn't matter what you B.S. Them with. It doesn't matter what kind of marketing you do. [00:17:12] And by the way, if Trump's unsure about that, he should go ask Democratic leadership. Oh, we're going to pass this and we're gonna pass that. We're not gonna pass anything. We're just messing around with them. The donors told us not to pass anything. And how'd that work out for the Democrats? Reality has a way of catching up with you after a while. [00:17:29] Yeah. And I'll just quickly say it's it's pretty amazing that like that they're choosing to do this when they just won largely on these issues. Like it's not even like we criticize Biden for not doing enough coming out of the pandemic to fix the problems, to fix the inflation and all of that. [00:17:46] But but we know that at least there were there were exogenous shocks. Trump is totally just choosing to do this. He didn't have to. Nobody was demanding this trade. I mean, maybe some of his voters, I guess, because they understood it as little as him, but like, he just is choosing to double down on high prices, [00:18:04] inflation, the same stuff his base was so angry about and that enough independents were angry about that they put him back in power. It seems like the strangest political own goal maybe of our lives. - I don't know if I'll ever understand it. - No, I understand it. Just real quick on that, John. [00:18:20] Look, it's the donors, period. Right. So he says, oh, we're gonna release the Epstein files, and then he gets in there like, no, you're not. He's like, oh no, I'm not. They suck. They don't even exist. Right? I'm gonna stand up for America first and then gets in office. The donors are like, no, you're not Israel. First. He's like, yeah, sorry, I don't know what I was thinking about. [00:18:36] Israel first, America third or fourth. Right. And on and on and on. Right. So the reason why he's doing the exact opposite of what he promised is the same reason why Democrats do the exact opposite of what they promised the donors. [00:18:52] They lie to you to get your vote. And then once they're in office, they're like, I'm not doing any of that. Where's the corporate subsidies? Let's increase those happens every time. It's almost enough to make you think we should try actual economic populism rather than just right wing populism. [00:19:08] - It's almost enough. - Rebellion. Every time you ring the bell below, an angel gets his wings. Totally not true. But it does keep you updated on our live shows.