Economic disaster looms under Trump: Ex-Bush adviser

Former George W. Bush adviser Mark McKinnon has a dire warning for President Donald Trump on MS NOW Friday: your tariffs are just getting started doing damage to the economy.

This came amid a conversation with anchor Katy Tur and economic podcaster Ed Elson, discussing Trump's new grab bag of policies to try to lower the cost of living, including new regulations on credit card interest, efforts to restrict investors buying single-family homes, and a proposed emergency power sale by grid operators.

"I have a quick and easy fix to this problem and it's to get rid of the tariffs. It's just get rid of them," said Elson. "It was fun while it lasted, but it didn't work. That's why prices are going back up. Manufacturing jobs disappearing faster than ever. Labor market isn't improving. You know, everything they said the tariffs would do, the tariffs didn't do. So I think the pitch for me is undo it. We can get into some of these proposals, happy to do it. But it's very hard for me to take it seriously when the tariffs are in place."

"But is that what the American public are seeing is seeing as well, Mark?" asked Tur. "I mean, is the feeling from the American public not yeah, I'm going to get a $2,000 check and more. I'm tired of these tariffs. If you roll back these tariffs everything is going to be more affordable."

"Well first of all, Katy, I think it's clear that with given all this activity from the Trump administration on this front, that it's not a hoax. This is very real," said McKinnon. "And let me just tack on what Ed was saying. I mean, Donald Trump is replicating an economic experiment that was last used in the late 1800s."

"I think what's also clear, that we're hearing from large manufacturers and large businesses in America, is that I don't think we've even seen the full extent of the tariff impact on consumers, because largely they tried to absorb as much as they could, but they can't absorb much more," McKinnon continued. "And so I think we're going to see a huge increase in all of those. Now the proposals — I'm not an economist, and I can't speak very knowledgeably about each of those, except to say I think it's really picking around the edges."

"And listen, you know, I'll mention the health care plan," McKinnon added. "The Republicans have said they're going to have a health care plan now since Obama was president, and we don't even have a draft of one yet. So I don't think that anybody's going to take this very seriously."

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