MAGA world's claim that President Donald Trump's tariffs have been good for the American economy is not based in reality, according to two conservative analysts.
During a cabinet meeting on Tuesday, Trump said the U.S. has "a lot of money coming in" from tariffs, and it's coming in "in tremendous numbers." Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent credited the tariffs for the increase in government revenue and cited projections from the Congressional Budget Office that suggest the tariffs could reduce the federal deficit by $4 trillion over a decade.
"And I would expect that that number could go up from here," Bessent said.
The Bulwark's Tim Miller and Jonathan V. Last discussed the remarks on a new episode of the "Bulwark Takes" podcast.
"Now this is crazy for all sorts of reasons," Last said. "One of which is that Trump changes the tariffs like every nine days. In all seriousness, you can't even really project it out two weeks because he's doing deals."
Last added that the MAGA world has put a lot of effort into defending Trump's tariffs since the CBO report was released. However, those claims seem to rely on an impossible assumption that Trump's tariffs won't fluctuate over the course of his administration.
"The report is premised on this idea that is impossible," Last said, referring to Trump