President Donald Trump told Walmart executives that they must be the ones responsible for the tariffs on foreign goods coming into the United States, reports revealed Monday. Now, Trump is being compared to the former Queen of France, Marie Antoinette, who was accused of ignoring the suffering of her people.
Lucy Caldwell, the campaign manager for former Republican Rep. Joe Walsh's (IL) presidential campaign, joined with "The Weeknight" hosts as Alecia Menendez walked through the report.
"Let them eat tariffs," Menendez quipped, a take off of the rumored quote from the queen, "let them eat cake."
"Let them eat tariffs," echoed Caldwell. "Like his own Marie Antoinette moment, isn't it?"
But it was Symone Sanders Townsend who questioned where Republicans were landing on the fact that Trump was twisting the arms of corporations to do what he demanded.
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"Are Republicans not concerned that you have the president of the United States trying to tell companies what to do? The CEOs — like it feels a little communist-esque to me," she said.
Caldwell agreed.
"It's a little — kind of — it's a bit kind of command and control. It's not so free enterprise," she said. "It's, yeah, it is a bit of socialism. It's interesting. I was thinking about his attitude toward the Walmart CEO and his attitude towards CEOs in general and industry, and I was thinking today about how we've had such a shift in our economy."
She noted that, unlike in the early 1900s, industry titans in the U.S. don't manufacture items anymore. The big CEOs in the U.S. today are owners of digital companies and social media.
"We don't eat cans of Instagram soup, right? We don't lay our head down on Facebook pillows, or we don't drive OpenAI cars, right?" said Caldwell. "And ultimately, we all still have to feed our families. We have to supply the things that make our home run, make our businesses run. And so really, I think Trump is putting himself where he's up against the wall in just ignoring the very fact that, look, there is supply and demand, right? Demand for food — for affordable groceries at Walmart is not going down. And the let them eat tariffs — that is not going to work. And it's going to show up electorally a lot sooner than he thinks."
Trump campaigned on raising tariffs, promising his voters that the costs would be passed onto countries like China. He imposed a 10% tariff on Canada and Mexico and ultimately imposed 145% tariff on China. Trump caved on the tariffs for China, however, and agreed to drop them to 80%, which "seems right." Ultimately, the tariffs on China dropped to 30%, as CBS News reported last week.
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