CNN's Kate Bolduan dismissively brushed off Donald Trump's surrogate's filibuster on the economy.
Major retailers like Walmart and Lowe's have already warned that consumer prices would increase if the president-elect follows through on his campaign promise to impose tariffs on Chinese imports, but Trump ally Madison Gesiotto insisted that most economists were wrong about their potentially "catastrophic" impact.
"I don't think it's necessarily going to be those blanket tariffs that a lot of people are talking about or may be expecting," Gesiotto said. "I think you may see some instances when we deal with countries like China where you see tariffs implemented. This is also to protect the American worker and in the long term bring prices down as a whole, and so I think we'll wait to see what happens."
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"Of course, when it comes to the economy, this is something and, obviously, people voted for president Trump as a result of this," she added. "They saw the economy under the Biden administration, they weren't happy. They wanted their prices to go back to what they were paying in 2019, they wanted their wages to continue to go up. Obviously, wages weren't outpacing the rate of inflation and this was a problem for many American families, and they continue to deal with it today. They can't afford to live the way that it is, and people are making very difficult decisions. When I was running for Congress back in 2022, I talked to so many moms, so many families here in Ohio that said, 'We're going to the grocery store and having to choose between orange juice and other things because we just simply can't afford all the things we used to buy, and gas and our, you know, all of our bills, car insurance going up at the time as well,' and so it's very difficult to watch and hear from Americans who are struggling to live, and so we want to see those prices come down."
The segment included a brief interview with an Iowa voter who backed Trump on the economy but expressed concerns with some of his Cabinet nominees, but Gesiotto argued that the voters had given him a mandate to staff his administration with unconventional choices like television personalities and accused sex traffickers.
"But when you talk about that mandate for change, I think it goes past the economy obviously, the economy was top of mind for voters on Nov. 5, but I think there's this underlying sentiment among Americans that, you know what? We aren't treated the same as the elites in Washington you know, this is part of why Trump obviously won in 2016, and they want to feel like they have a larger voice in their government because for so long they were promised by both Republicans and Democrats to get the job done, and so many of the very conventional D.C. elites that continue to get put in these positions weren't getting the job done for them, and so I think while cautiously optimistic, a little bit nervous, in general."
"I think they're very excited for the change that's to come, and the real answer will be in one year from now, are their lives better and has this change happened?" she added. "Have we drained the swamp in Washington?"
Bolduan looked askance as Gesiotto wound down her two-minute monologue and pointed out that she hadn't really answered whether she thought Trump should carry through with his pledge on tariffs despite widespread concerns by economists and business leaders.
"Yeah, we're in a world where there's no unanimity," Bolduan said, "[but] there seems to be almost unanimity on the question of what I was asking about, which is tariffs, which is they're going to raise prices on the goods that America needs, especially the Americans, who, I mean, we all shop at Walmart, and that's exactly where you do not and cannot – a lot of people see prices go up right now when they are struggling to buy the things that you're just talking about."
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