'Totally brain dead’: Reporter warns Trump's war on Elsa will backfire with suburban moms
May 06, 2025
As Raw Story reported Monday, the toy company Mattel announced it scrapped its financial forecast for the year, explaining that President Donald Trump's tariffs "make it hard to predict consumer spending," The Wall Street Journal reported.
It prompted a reporter to comment that this is the worst possible outcome for President Donald Trump's trade war. Among the tariffs he issued is a 145% tariff on China. While Mattel has been shifting manufacturing out of China, it still makes about 40% of its toys there.
Speaking to MSNBC's Nicolle Wallace on Tuesday, The Atlantic's Derek Thompson said that he can't think of a worse thing for Trump to do.
"What are we talking about here? We're talking about Elsa dolls," Thompson said, talking about the famous Disney character from the hit film Frozen. "We're talking about the supply chain of Elsa dolls. Why are we even — why is this even on the table? Like, let's say that I was a MAGA conservative, and deep down, what I wanted was to reshore as much American industry as possible in areas critical to our national security. Why on earth would I ever tariff toys?"
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He explained, "The fastest way to destroy any plan to bring back manufacturing is to tax something that will p--- off American suburban moms. And right now, the president's plan seems to be to destroy Hanukkah and Christmas ... to make it as easy as possible for the mom lobby to absolutely destroy this manufacturing, this reshoring of manufacturing."
He called the idea "totally brain dead" and noted that "even if you try to evaluate the policy on the stated terms of the Trump administration, you would just never want to tariff Elsa dolls for the purpose of reshoring semiconductors. There's no part of the computer chip manufacturing process that begins with putting the white hair inside of the Elsa doll. I don't even understand why tariffs are on for toys that are on the table."
The reality, he said, is that Americans should be able to get whatever cheap toys they want.
"We should design them here. We should build them in China, Vietnam, and Bangladesh. Those jobs are there. Those factories are there. Those processes, those tacit understandings of how to make toys, are all over there. Why are we even talking about this in the first place is really my big question."
The doll question came as a result of Trump's gaffe, Wallace noted.
“Maybe the children will have two dolls instead of 30 dolls, you know, and maybe the two dolls will cost a couple of bucks more than they would normally,” the president said during a Cabinet meeting last week.
See the clip below or at the link here.
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