Last Updated on 07/09/2024 by Arun jain
A CNBC anchor who testified Donald TrumpA recent rant on tariffs confused itself with its “crazy” economic analysis.
Trump used a speech at the New York Economic Forum on Thursday to lay out his fiscal plans, claiming he would pay for childcare by raising tariffs on imports—but many were confused and unable to explain it.
Among them was the co-anchor of CNBC Squawk Box Anchor Becky Quick, who was watching on stage as Trump spoke for half an hour.
On Friday morning, she said she couldn’t make sense of their plans for tariffs.
“The idea that you’re going to raise a lot of money through tariffs and it shouldn’t be inflation doesn’t make a lot of sense to me,” Quick said on the squawk box Friday morning.
Quick also added, “You’re either changing behavior or raising money. If you’re collecting money from it, it’s inherently inflationary. Your customers don’t get lower prices.”
Quik’s co-host, Joe Kernan—named in court papers as one of Trump’s contact lists when he was in the White House—was equally confused as to how Trump planned to raise tariffs on foreign goods without sending inflation into overdrive. He called Trump’s plan a “bad, populist idea.”
Trump’s incoherent rant Thursday over the tariffs came after — of all things — he was asked what kind of legislation he would support to make child care affordable.
“If you win in November,” asked one nonprofit founder, “could you commit to prioritizing legislation to make child care affordable, and if so, what specific piece of legislation would you advance?”
Trump suggested that he would lower prices for parents to subsidize them with money made from higher tariffs on countries like China, but offered no specifics on how that would actually work. His reply lasted two minutes and totaled 360 words, but was derided by critics as “a complete word salad”.
“Well, I’ll do that, and we’re sitting — you know, I was, somebody, we had Senator Marco Rubio, and my daughter Ivanka was very influential on that issue,” Trump said.
“It is a very important issue. But I think when you talk about the kind of numbers that I’m talking about, it’s – because look, childcare is childcare, it’s not – you know, it’s something, you have it. Should, in this country you should have it.”
Things became a bit more relevant as Trump began to speak specifically on tariffs, which he has touted as the answer to most economic issues in the past. He pledged Thursday to deliver “trillions of dollars” through new tariffs, which he apparently plans to use to lower child care costs.
Those plans appeared to confound economic observers, including Quick, who said she could not push back on them because the questions to Trump were “restrictive.”
“There were four questions that were asked beforehand by other people who were allowed to ask questions and were not allowed to follow-up,” she said. “It’s a controlled format.”
The host also slammed Trump for wanting to increase the child tax credit using funds earned through tariffs.
“The child tax credit is crazy,” she said. “You know, you’re going to raise enough money in this tariff, not only to balance the budget, then to cover all kinds of expenses, and to raise the child tax — basically to pay for the cost of child care for everybody. So. Makes no sense to me.”
Quick also criticized Trump’s plan — which has since been mirrored by Kamala Harris’ campaign — to not tax tips, which she suggested was ridiculous when the federal government continues to run deficits. She said she was once a waitress, not for the $2.05 an hour she made, but because of the tips on top.
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