Trump's big, beautiful economy shrunk this quarter. The GDP contracted by 0.3% the first time it shrank in three years. But immediately, Trump began to shift the blame, writing on Truth Social. [00:00:15] This is Biden's stock market, not Trump's. I didn't take over until January 20th. Tariffs will soon start kicking in and companies are starting to move into the USA in record numbers. Our country will boom, but we have to get rid of the Biden quote overhang. [00:00:32] This will take a while. Has nothing to do with tariffs. Only that he left us with bad numbers. But when the boom begins, it will be like no other. Be patient. But as we all know, it has a lot to do with tariffs. [00:00:48] Growth was dragged down in part by a surge of imports as businesses and consumers raced to stock up before Trump's sweeping tariffs took effect in early April. Imports are a net negative for GDP. Government spending was also down. [00:01:04] Now, to most rational economists, tariffs and the trade war and the economic uncertainty those created are a direct contributor to the GDP contraction. And as a result of the tariffs prices will increase. But to Trump that's good because people are buying things that they don't need. [00:01:22] Take a look. They made $1 trillion with Biden, $1 trillion, even a trillion won with Biden. Selling us stuff, much of it we don't need. You know, somebody said, oh, the shelves are going to be open. Well, maybe the children will have two dolls instead of 30 dolls. [00:01:40] You know, and maybe the two dolls will cost a couple of bucks more than they would normally. But we're not talking about something that we have to go out of our way. They have ships that are loaded up with stuff, much of which not all of it, but much of which we don't need. [00:01:57] Sure, we can just follow Trump's lead. We need to embrace a minimalistic and anti-materiel lifestyle. I think that's good advice for all of us. And who better to lead on that front? But Trump's trade adviser, Peter Navarro, went a step further, saying that this is actually good news. [00:02:13] Take a look. I got to say just one thing about today's news. That's the best negative print I have ever seen in my life. And the markets need to, like, look beneath the surface of that. [00:02:29] We had a 22% increase in domestic investment that is off the charts when you strip out inventories and the negative effects of the surge in imports because of the tariffs. You have 3% growth. So we really like where we're at now. [00:02:50] Now as a consequence of Trump's economic policies, the dollar has also plummeted. The dollar has fallen nearly 10% in President Trump's first 100 days, the steepest drop for a new administration this century. The US dollar index in Trump's first 100 days fell 9.5%, compared to a 2.1% drop [00:03:10] in the first 100 days of his first term. The value of the greenback increased 4.5% in George W Bush's first 100 days, when the country was headed into a recession. It also rose slightly for both Barack Obama and Joe Biden. [00:03:26] But is this spin working? Overall, how do people feel about Trump's handling of the economy? Well, let's look to the polling. President Trump's approval rating on the economy is now at its lowest point of either of his white House terms, according to a survey published Wednesday. [00:03:43] The Reuters Ipsos poll found Trump's approval on the economy dropped by one point to 36%, the lowest figure on the issue in either Trump administration. His disapproval went up by five points to 56%. [00:03:59] So, Bret, what do you make of this contracting, shrinking economy. Do you think this is a big deal? And do you think that this spin that Trump, Peter Navarro and others in their circle are trying to convince people that it's actually good? [00:04:15] Is this working? Well, see, we have too many dolls. Jordan. I don't think you you just glossed right over that and moved on. We have too many dolls. The kids. You know how kids have too many dolls and they're too cheap. The dolls. Anyone who shops at Christmas time for dolls, which we all do, I'm sure, [00:04:34] Donald Trump went, you know, jingle all the way style into KB toys for Ivanka and didn't have just some person who's raising his kids instead of him buy them a bunch of of of of toys. It's the dolls, Jordan. It's so ridiculous. [00:04:50] Like, asked to sum up the first 100 days, I would just say, like, it didn't have to happen this way is the answer. Donald Trump is a bad businessman. He's not really a businessman at all. Every time he tried to start a business that, [00:05:05] that was not based on just real estate. Like it failed. Tangibly failed. He can't do this. Importing, exporting Trump steaks. It's not good. And he doesn't understand tariffs. So that's why he's utterly wrong about that first graphic that you sent. [00:05:20] Like, dude, you have a better chance of arguing that you're not affecting the stock market. If it wasn't the case that the day you put all these tariffs on the stock market ate a fatty like it is your stock market, because as soon as you started [00:05:40] doing stuff, it started tanking. And when he's like he's been obsessed with tariffs for a very long time since he was like talking to Oprah about them in the 90s. But in all of the time he had before becoming president the second time, [00:05:57] he never took the time to learn what they are useful for and like. I watched much of a rally that he had, like his 100 day rally. And I would love to live in that Trump America that he's talking about, because in it, eggs are free and the stock market is just a temporary pain. [00:06:15] But the fact is, all the crazy chaos that he himself started, that he then rolled back didn't have to happen. None of the first moves that he made [00:06:30] triggered a response in any other country that could tangibly motivate some big win moving forward. It was him messing up so spectacularly, then realizing he messed up, then backpedaling on pretty much all of it. [00:06:48] And now we're in a position where maybe we can make some kinds of, deals with other countries on importing. But his fundamental lack of understanding on all of this, and if you find if you do some reading and find out what everyone around Donald Trump and Peter Navarro. [00:07:06] Think of the guys. It's not that the plan is bad. It's that these guys aren't smart enough to come up with an actual plan. They just yell tariffs and hope that it rains cash. Yeah, I don't know. What do you think of all of it? [00:07:23] Well, I mean, yeah, the biggest takeaway here is that he primarily does not know what he's doing. And you can see him get exposed in this trade war. The comments from Trump about his alleged, we'll say alleged [00:07:39] because it doesn't seem like there was any communication with XI in China. And then Scott Bassett going out saying, well it's on it's on China to deescalate this trade war. You started it. You all started this. And China can recognize that the US does not have [00:07:55] a sufficiently robust manufacturing sector that they don't need to do anything. Go ahead. Make your prices higher in your country and then deal with the ramifications. What incentive does China have to negotiate with Trump or Besent or anyone in this administration knowing they need China more than China needs us? [00:08:12] And also, there isn't a overnight magical solution that Trump seems to think there is on manufacturing. All of his tariff language has been about, oh, all these companies are coming back to the United States. It's going to happen really quick watch. Then we're going to be fine. Then these tariffs will be okay. [00:08:30] That's not you can't just magically and instantly create a a robust manufacturing sector here. It's going to take time. They're going to build facilities or move facilities back to the United States. That could be a several year process for some companies. [00:08:45] So it's just it's naive. It's shortsighted and ultimately misguided. We're all paying the price for all of this. Yeah. And I feel bad for all the people that, like, are work in sectors that would benefit from targeted tariffs and protectionist trade policy that, you know, [00:09:02] if handled correctly, could potentially save their industries and bring manufacturing blue collar actual like shower after work jobs back to America. It's just that, like Donald Trump is the guy in charge who's, you know, in the [00:09:20] words of little John in the animated Robin Hood feature from the whatever it was 40s who's driving this flying umbrella, that is that's what the economy, that's what the nation has felt like since he got into office. And it's like other other people have been protectionist [00:09:39] in their trade policy in the past. But when done so ham handedly, it does two things like it creates utter chaos now and because of how much chaos it causes now, and Trump is never going to change. [00:09:55] He's exactly who he was. You know, when he first started getting famous in the 80s and got crazy and stayed crazy that whole time. But like, China is the rising superpower, and China literally has a hundred year plan, [00:10:13] like their initiative is a hundred year vision for steadily growing, creating infrastructure, ways to do business together. And you know, as much as people are, this is my other favorite little fact is like, oh, these lefties are such godless communists, and if we [00:10:31] follow them, we'll lose to China. Like China is the godless communists. And they're cleaning your clock right now because you just don't know how to play this game. And everyone else really is looking at all the destabilization [00:10:46] done by Donald Trump and saying, like, I feel like possibly I'd have a better chance with the people who have sketched out what they're going to do for the next hundred years. - That's just my take. - Yeah. So one one other thing. [00:11:01] We saw the spin attempts by Peter Navarro and by Trump, and you'll see A large cohort of right wing influencers and media figures try to spin this. They'll just do the same thing Navarro was doing. Oh, actually, this is really good. [00:11:17] And you saw that after what Brett alluded to earlier. The stock market plummeting after Trump started to announce these tariffs. They did the same thing. What really is down in the market. Like there's some sort of meta question about it. [00:11:32] But you can look to the Wall Street Journal editorial board today. And they're drawing a straight through line, crystal clear. The economy shrank because of tariffs and a pretty scathing editorial today talking about these numbers, [00:11:48] talking about this data and linking it directly to Trump's trade policies, because for them, they don't really care about Partizan loyalty. While it is a conservative news outlet and that is certainly a conservative editorial board, they care about the wealthy and for the wealthy, for Wall Street, [00:12:04] for corporations, for investors. This isn't a robust and healthy market, and it's not a safe place for them to invest. So they're concerned about the wealthy. They don't need to they don't need to defend Trump's trade policies. And I think that's the best indication of how bad this actually is [00:12:22] and how worrying this all actually is. Brett, any final thoughts before we get on to our next story? I don't know. I just, I hope he just, like, figures it out, but he's not going to. That's the problem. And it sucks. [00:12:37] Like he just keeps lying to people. I we should be better at the game. We should be better at at economy just to use like his framing. We should be good at economy. We should be good at jobs. We should be good at making. [00:12:53] We should be good at leading. But he's not doing really any of that, nor has he ever in his life. He's just a game show host. 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.