Trump uses tariffs to keep food on the table for millions of pregnant women and new moms during the government shutdown. Will this be a good or bad thing for the economy and the economy as a whole? The answer may surprise you!
00:00:32.260Yeah, when you're looking at this, Trump, the tariff will use to keep afloat a federal food system program for nearly 7 million pregnant women, new moms and young children during the government shutdown.
00:00:43.680The program known as WIC was expected to run out of money soon because Congress has yet to approve a federal spending package, the fiscal 2026, which started on October 1st.
00:00:53.880The National WIC Association has predicted that the program funding would last only a week or two into the shutdown.
00:01:00.040White House Press Secretary Caroline Levitt announced the tariff idea in a post on X.
00:01:05.000Democrats are so cruel in their continual votes to shut down a government that they forced WIC program for their most vulnerable women and children to run out this week.
00:01:15.100She wrote, thankfully, President Trump and the White House have identified a creative solution to transfer resources from Section 232 tariff revenue to this critical program.
00:02:03.940But I know why he's doing it because Trump likes the – he likes the power of having that tariff over foreign leaders.
00:02:11.280Like he's using it for just about everything to negotiate peace with wars, to negotiate deals, to negotiate almost anything he wants.
00:02:18.980Now he's going to use this tariff revenue, which $200 billion is not a lot of money given what he's actually doing.
00:02:25.120It's too much interruption into the markets.
00:02:29.040We'll talk about why gold prices are exceeding $4,000.
00:02:32.400I believe it has a lot to do with tariffs.
00:02:33.960I think he's using it to say, hey, look at this beautiful opportunity to take care of women and underprivileged people and children with the money that the Democrats are holding back because of the shutdown.
00:02:47.900He's using it as a political, I guess, a gun to the Democrats' head.
00:02:54.660Like, you want to mess with women and children and minorities?
00:03:20.960It's great politics, a horrible policy.
00:03:23.200I'm also free market, but the tariff situation, I agree with it from the standpoint of let's lever and correct unfair counter tariffs that are around the world.
00:03:34.340I agree with that as a political threat.
00:04:07.180You shut down the government and then pick victim group here in this part of the sentence, and in this part of the sentence put don't get something.
00:04:14.520There are two blanks, victim and what don't you get, and then say it's Trump fault, Trump bad, Trump bad, Trump bad.
00:04:20.020He's preempting that and saying, you know what?
00:04:23.100Thank goodness I'm such a genius with tariffs because I've got all this money now to keep the WIC money going to these people, and that's one of your programs, but I'm making sure these kids don't lose out.
00:04:33.240Tom, he didn't have to use the tariff money to have the same policy, though, right?
00:04:43.060And he's got the – he could have signed an executive order or just pushed the money out to the WIC people without saying, oh, this tariff program I have is so good, we're going to help.
00:05:17.500Remember when he was kind of toying with everybody?
00:05:19.220So, of course, he has to do this and use it this way because this is a way of doing – taking the weight off and saying the Democrats – because, okay, Rob, can you do me a favor?
00:05:30.880And do you have that clip of Trump calling out the Democrats in the House for, you know, this is a Democrat shutdown, this is a Democrat shutdown, this is a Democrat shutdown?
00:05:39.360He is playing politics because the other guys are playing politics.
00:05:42.620So what is he going to do, just sit there and take it?
00:06:22.960But, I mean, I would ask you guys, is it important to have a strong industrial base and is it important to have a strong middle class?
00:06:27.760Because the goal of tariffs is to strengthen both of those things.
00:06:31.340And I think without a strong middle class and without a strong industrial base, we're vulnerable in an economic sense and in a national security sense.
00:06:38.420How do tariffs strengthen the middle class?
00:06:42.000Because it creates better middle class jobs.
00:06:44.280Like, do you think it's a good thing that we have hollowed out factories in the middle of America?
00:07:02.680Do you believe all these people who are pledging $500 billion or Apple, you know, a trillion dollars in various companies,
00:07:10.600do you believe they're actually going to break ground on these plants that they're promising?
00:07:13.420Yeah, I think NVIDIA is going to – I think Microsoft pulled out of what they said they were going to do.
00:07:19.300But I think that at the very least, it's going to encourage some of them to do it.
00:07:21.840So you're big corporate guys, CEOs, right?
00:07:24.560Patrick, you guys talk to them all the time.
00:07:27.440Their outlook isn't the next year, year and a half.
00:07:31.320Their outlook is generally, yeah, what are we doing this year, but we want to do 10 years down the road, right?
00:07:35.680Is any – would a great CEO pick any – Tim Cook, fine, Apple.
00:07:41.480Well, isn't it in his best interest to tell Trump, yes, we're going to earmark a trillion dollars over the next five, 10 years to build plants here and build iPhones here?
00:08:12.020Why don't you just say, yeah, yes, we're going to do that.
00:08:14.300Yes, yes, yeah, we're going to do that and wait and see if there's a MAGA president after that.
00:08:19.780Otherwise, you're making major, major investments based on something that could go – if Trump wakes up and says, you know what, tariffs are off.
00:08:27.180Now you've made all this investment here when it could be done cheaper and your competitor goes right to Taiwan and builds the stuff that they're going to be forced to build here at higher cost.
00:08:38.520Yeah, it's a valid point that they could put that up, but it's never going to be a good thing for America that you're hiring other countries to build your products because that's taking away middle class jobs in America and taking away leverage and power from us from having our own supply line here.
00:08:52.500Look at all the things that we were short on during COVID, like pharmaceuticals and critical things for defense.
00:08:57.400So I don't ever see a good situation where we're building offshore, and that's going to help the middle class.
00:09:01.980That's a big reason why the wealth gap has expanded so much because companies saved like 90% of manufacturing costs, and that costs a lot.
00:09:09.480Look at all the old factories that have been hollowed out that are thriving in the 80s.
00:10:29.460The cost to buy a house, it took an average of two and a half years of an average salary to buy an average-priced house in the 70s.
00:10:34.700Today it takes nine years of an average salary to buy an average-priced house.
00:10:38.060So, no, the middle class is getting decimated, and that's not good.
00:10:40.580Like, the biggest barrier against socialism is a strong middle class.
00:10:43.920And the worse off our middle class is the closer we get towards socialist tendencies.
00:10:47.920That's why these college kids are freaking out about socialism today because they're—
00:10:51.360Brandon, you've got people on EBT cards walking around with iPhones.
00:10:54.360I think the standard of living in America is highest in the world.
00:10:58.320But the lower class has actually been benefiting and going up in standard of living more than the middle class because of all the subsidies and all the welfare.
00:11:04.980So that's a bad thing, too, is that the middle class works harder than the lower class and gets less.
00:11:09.540I hear what you're saying, and these are all economic terms.
00:11:12.260When you're going to school, you hear about what's your economic wealth versus the median versus the mean, right?