Trump's Royal Court and Aimless Trade War

Political violence, the Oval Office, and tariffs

Apr 15, 2025

We were told that President Donald Trump was going to wrap up the war in Ukraine before he was inaugurated. On Palm Sunday, Russia killed and wounded many Ukrainian civilians in a deadly missile strike.

We were told Trump would end inflation on day 1. Here on day 85, consumers fear the highest levels of inflation since the early 1980s.

Last week, Trump told us the price of eggs was down. But according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, egg prices broke a new record for the third month in a row.

Trump neither says what he means nor means what he says. He neither does what he promises nor promises what he does.

Today, we talk about what has unfolded since “Liberation Day” and what might come next. And we recognize the truest thing the President has told us lately: he’s just going with his gut. - Beth

Topics Discussed

Violence at Pennsylvania Governor Shapiro's Residence
The Trump Administration Doubles Down on Deportation
President Trump's Chaotic Tariff Policy
Outside of Politics: Sarah's Trip to DC

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Episode Resources

Pantsuit Politics Resources

Pantsuit Politics 10th Anniversary Celebration

Political Violence and the Oval Office

Tariffs, Reversals, and Trade

Show Credits

Pantsuit Politics is hosted by Sarah Stewart Holland and Beth Silvers. The show is produced by Studio D Podcast Production. Alise Napp is our Managing Director and Maggie Penton is our Director of Community Engagement.

Our theme music was composed by Xander Singh with inspiration from original work by Dante Lima.

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Episode Transcript

Sarah [00:00:07] This is Sarah Stewart Holland.

Beth [00:00:09] This is Beth Silvers. You're listening to Pantsuit Politics. And today we're going to start off by talking about how the news is just a lot right now. We're just learning to cope with the administration and its policies around deporting people and the trade war. We're talking a little bit about the violence at Governor Shapiro's home in Pennsylvania this weekend. So we're just going to sort of level set on where we are. And then we'll dig into the trade war, what's happening to the dollar, to businesses, to our relationship with China, to global politics because of the tariffs. And Outside of Politics, Sarah will tell us about her week in Washington, D.C. over spring break.

Sarah [00:00:47] We are absolutely blown away by the response to our 10th birthday live show sponsored by Substack. It is completely sold out. It sold out very quickly. I told our team it feels like when you put something on Facebook marketplace and it goes too fast, you're like, man, I should have sold that for more. I feel like we should have gotten an arena, clearly, Beth. This is just so exciting that so many people want come to Cinci. But don't worry, if you didn't get a chance to get a ticket, you can join us in Cincinnati. We have a wait list for real tickets and there are virtual tickets available for just $25. So the live stream will let you experience the full celebration from wherever you are. You can watch the replay at your convenience. The link is in the show notes.

Beth [00:01:32] Okay, next up, the whirlwind of news from the weekend. I think, Sarah, sometimes it's helpful to just start by saying it's a lot right now. I've been trying to follow the headlines. I pull up my newsletters. I noticed that the list of just links, like the list of stories, keeps getting longer and longer. There's a lot to follow. Most of it is pretty complicated. And I continue my practice of telling myself, I am unlikely to enjoy this when I sit down to read the news. I am probably not going to be happy at the end of this exercise. And it does keep helping me.

Sarah [00:02:25] Yes, it was contributing to the sense of overwhelm to wake up to the really horrific story out of Pennsylvania that Governor Shapiro's home where he and his family were sleeping was basically firebombed. It was like a Molotov cocktail. The guy climbed the fence, ran away from security, and did an enormous amount of damage to the house. They all got out safely. But I just keep thinking like Felix has type one diabetes; we have this device called a sugar pixel that wakes us up if his blood sugar is low with this like atonal, very high pitch, very loud alarm. And just that wake up that like [gasps] is the worst, most terrible feeling. And then to realize that you've woken up, you're in danger because someone was trying to harm you and your family, it's scary. And I think when a scary, scary story like that hits the headlines when we're all already feeling scared and frustrated and angry and overwhelmed, it's really hard.

Beth [00:03:49] And it's like they don't get relief just because they got out. The house is burned. They have to hear that this man told investigators that if he had seen the governor, he would have beaten him with a hammer. It's awful. And the police haven't released a motive, but you almost think, well, what difference does it make? He did this to a sitting governor who was a Jewish man during Passover right after he had posted a photo of his family's Seder dinner. It's another moment when you think, what is happening? This is all getting away from us. I think that's the sense that I keep coming back to. It feels like so much is getting away from us.

Sarah [00:04:38] I was in DC Last week for spring break. So I'm absorbing the stories of my friends who still live there about this neighbor lost their job, and then this neighbor loss their job. But at the same time, people are going about their business in the city and a lot of things feel pretty normal. And also at the time, I'm walking through the Smithsonian and looking at all these pieces of American history. I take Amos and Griffin to the Holocaust Museum. I'm absorbing this sense that we're always at the whims of history, especially right now reading all these books and long reads about what was going down in the Biden White House at the end of his term, and realizing how much our lives are affected right now in the midst of all these tariffs and trade war because of some decisions a couple people made- bad ones, really bad ones. And you feel that as you walk through so many pieces of American history and world history. We're all buffeted by people's bad calls or vengeance tours, or not doing the hard thing.

[00:06:11] The most affecting part of the Holocaust Museum to me is this wall of people who stood up and saved lives and said, no. This one guy at the Swiss border let like 3000 people across the border. And he was like, what was I going to do? Use bureaucracy to turn them away? It's just this ever-growing sense, because I think-- and I don't know if it's my age, I don't know if was the time in history I lived through as a young adult, but there was this sense that we were getting somewhere. We're getting somewhere, we're making some breakthroughs, we're going to hit the finish line. And then, especially with all this tariffs, it feels like being pulled, truly sucked through a time warp back to the early 1900s. You're like, oh no, we don't hit a finish line. You don't ever get to the promised land. We're making some progress. We're going to take three steps forward and two steps back, or maybe two steps forward, three steps back. Which is a little bit what it feels like now. And holding all that while you're also enjoying your kids and hanging out with your neighbors and celebrating birthdays, it feels profound, philosophical, but in ways I'm not even sure how to name.

Beth [00:07:37] I think I feel most pulled backward and strangely forward at the same time by the deportations and really just the disappearances of people. Right before we sat down to record, we saw some clips of the president with the president of El Salvador at the Oval Office in what was (even for Donald Trump's standards) a stunning set of remarks about the power of the executive branch, about his disrespect for the media, his disrespect of courts, his disrespect for the humanity of people who he has decided to call a criminal without ever charging them with crimes or proving those cases. When you read about the Secretary of Homeland Security saying, let's put the social security numbers of people who came into the country legally and got social security number so they could work and pay taxes and pay into social security on the dead list at social security. Let's try to keep them from accessing their bank accounts, let's get their employers to fire them, let's try to make their lives so miserable that they leave the country. That is a fusion of what felt like the past in terms of our views about individual dignity and the future in terms of what technology and databases can do to people that is really hard to sit with.

Sarah [00:09:07] Well, and absorbing so much of our country's history it's like when you try to look the other way to protect your own safety and security, you are only delaying hits to your own safety and security. As we're watching all this play out, particularly with the tariffs, I keep thinking about how this is going to come in combination with artificial intelligence and the Trump administration's war on basically the professional class and it's really tough out there. And it's just going to get tougher. And so I think there's a lot of people who are thinking like-- well, again, this is not new in the human experience. Like, well, this immigrant situation isn't me. Yeah, but it's going to be soon. I'm not saying you're going to get disappeared. But the idea of like you're just not the enemy today. But the ability to turn anyone into an enemy-- and not just an enemy, a person undeserving of dignity. Barely a person, a monster, an animal. Like the dehumanization is so obvious and horrifying and disgusting. And also people reacting with fear is not new either. That's why the dehumanizing happens. Everything they do is to make everyone afraid and it's working. Everything they do from the law firms, to the colleges, to the immigrants, to the tariffs, it's all to make people afraid.

Beth [00:10:58] Yeah, because scared people can be shaken down. That's the law firms. A billion dollars in pro bono services committed from major law firms to the president's agenda. Is that what people voted for? Is that anybody wanted from this president? There were protests in my community, which was very unusual over the weekend. We are just not by nature protesters here in the part of the world that I live in. But there were a pretty significant number of people out over the weekend holding signs. And there wasn't a specific demand or ask. It almost felt to me like people were saying, can we just say out loud that this is bananas? A friend sent a picture to me of a man holding a sign that had MAGA on it, and it spelled out morons are governing America. And I actually don't believe they're morons. That's not the word that I would use. I thought it was clever, but that's not word I would use. But I was glad to see people here in a very, very red congressional district and very, red county. People just saying out loud, this is bad. This is objectively bad. I don't know whose interest is being served because you're right, when the goal is to make everybody afraid on some level and everybody feel like, well, I need to be in the end group or I am going to suffer, then who is being lifted up because that end group will always be a moving target.

Sarah [00:12:27] Well, because it's the process of in-grouping or out-groups that they want control of, like you said. And I think what feels even more disorienting is that there's not really an ask anywhere. There's not an ask from the protesters. There's not really an ask from the Trump administration. What are we doing? What is the goal here? I can't really put my finger on it. And I think that's what's so disorienting and scary is, okay, we're upending the economy, we're upending our labor market, we have no plans for artificial intelligence. The growth of just total and completely transparent corruption is off the charts. And it does feel like that. I keep thinking back to the storm before the calm. It feels like a tearing away and I still don't see what comes next. And I don't know if we're going too soon, but that tearing away and that breaking down so many people are getting hurt. So many people that thought they understood what their careers or what their lives or what they're homes are going to look like. I was talking with one of our beloved listeners, Liz Kay, about Wolf Hall, talking about Cardinal Wolsey, who's a big, big deal in Wolf Hall and in history, just for the record. Not like a real person, it's historical fiction that really centralized England and brought around a lot of the changes. And we were talking about this through the lens of what we're seeing now with the Trump administration. And Liz was like I just realized I'm not owed stability. This is what it is to be a human. It's to be tossed around and not see clearly what's happening. It's like, every time I get a glimpse, I like feel like I've come up above the water and I'm, like, okay, this, is what they're doing. And then it's just like another wave crashes over and you're, like, I don't know. Maybe I thought I knew, but I don't.

Beth [00:14:29] Well, this is a moment though where we are going to have to get to some basics about what we are owed as American citizens. We are owed due process. I think we decided that and we have enforced it for a very long time. Now, do we do it perfectly? No. Do a lot of unjust things happen in a system, even one where due process is available? Of course. But they are tearing away at some real fundamentals. It's not just a sense of like the world is chaotic and natural disasters will happen and people will be cruel. All of that's true, but the instability that we're experiencing right now is 100% chosen. Artificial intelligence is a chaos that we are going to have to confront, but it's chosen. We made it, we did it. This economy, this is chosen. This approach to deporting people- chosen. I want to find a balance between accepting that I'm not owed any particular kind of life and being pissed off when we are unnecessarily making our existence and lots of other people's harder.

Sarah [00:15:40] I guess what I'm just coming to accept is that is also human history; it's completely unnecessary suffering. That you are more likely to stumble into a by turns, lazy, stupid, cruel leader than you are to stumble into a great leader that is found at the right moment, right? You're just more likely to stumble into people's bad decisions at the top than your other good decisions because the good decisions are so hard. And again, not to harp on this Biden thing which I know you're in deep with the reporting from the 2024 election and the decision to run again, but it's so hard to look back at history. And there's so many pivot points where you're like, oh, it could have been different. It could have so different. But again, there is not this perfect timeline that we're just not on. This is the timeline. This is it. This is where we have to decide what is important to us and how do we survive this horrific decision-making. Because it's just horrific decision making, one after the other, completely unnecessary. And I think the more I really-- and I know we're going to pivot in a minute to really talking about the terrorists, but it's just he is a little unleashed in a way that I don't think any of us fully. anticipated, even though we talked about it. We talked about it so much. We know who he is and we know what he's going to be, but I think the absence of money problems and legal problems and feeling like he was chosen by God and has this big mandate has just created truly a monster. He's not listening to anyone.

Beth [00:17:32] This is the problem. It was anticipated but not planned for. And so, right now you have this sense from so many of us that things are getting away from us and you have no one with a focused opposition to that. No one's saying, well, here is the path forward. Even the messaging around the tariffs and the trade war is muddled. It's like, well, we're not totally opposed to tariffs but this way of doing it was really bad. We're lacking a sense of what we are against and why. Because I think most of us, me included, don't want to do a repeat of I'm just against everything. That is silly. I hated those pictures floating around of Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer over the weekend hiding her face in the Oval Office. She's a governor. She should be in the Oval Office. It was rude of them to put her in a PR stunt that she wasn't prepared for, but she can absolutely defend going to talk to the president on behalf of needs in her state. Do it. But it adds to this sense of like we're lost. We don't know what the way to oppose is. It's not the 2017 playbook, but we don't have a 2025 one.

Sarah [00:18:41] Yeah, because that fear and the scarcity keeps everybody on their heels. The fear of what I could do next. How many people, how many editorials, how many different places do people have to go? Stop bending the knee and band together. Colleges, law firms, other countries, massive corporations, there's strength in numbers to go, uh-uh.

Beth [00:19:11] Congress.

Sarah [00:19:12] Congress. Right. So many options here for people to just band together and go here and no further. But I just think the fear, just the overarching fear, the sense that he is a little unleashed and nobody knows what he's going to do. Even though I still, in the midst of all this tariff stuff, got such flashes of the first administration. It was sloppy. It was slapdash and thrown them together. They don't know what they're trying to do. They're not communicating. I don't see Susie Wiles imprint anywhere on this. Miss I'm going to be organized; we're going to speak with one voice. And it hasn't gotten any better. Maybe we want to talk about that.

Beth [00:19:55] Well, I'm learning a lot about Susie Wiles as I revisit the 2024 election through extensive reporting. And one thing that I'm leaning is that she has been so successful in both longevity and results with Donald Trump because she has a real clear sense of when to push on him and when to let him have his way. And it is very clear from the reporting that's out there right now that the president has for many years had a clear view on tariffs and has wanted to do what he wants to do. And I imagine that she has pretty well left this alone because he wants to do what he wants to do. He's telling the media, “I'm following my gut.” So next up, let's talk about what the president's gut is creating in the world. That was a gross sentence- what the president's gut is creating in the world. I didn't mean to be that disgusting about the transition.

Sarah [00:20:59] I don't know. I think it's appropriate.

Beth [00:21:04] So the dollar, we just start with the dollar. The US dollar. The world's currency has had a rough week. Last week, the dollar saw a three-year low. Looks a little better this Monday morning as we're sitting down to record, but it's been harsh- the reaction to these tariffs.

Sarah [00:21:25] Yeah, I was reading that there was a moment in Japan where they had this confluence of terrible things that we are now experiencing, which is a drop in the stock market, a drop in the dollar, and an increase in the yield on bonds. Usually, if you get an increase in the yields on bonds, it's a good thing because people are putting money there and they feel good about the safety of treasury bonds coming from the United States government. But that coupled with a weakened dollar, not the same message. Different messages, you cannot depend on America, which Donald Trump has broadcast every way he possibly can. We are a villain; we are no longer a dependable partner to our allies, to the global economy, to people who have immigrated within our borders. You cannot trust us. We care only about ourselves and that's it. That's who we are in the world. End of story.

Beth [00:22:22] I think Donald Trump in his foreign policy clearly broadcasts the message that he thinks of our enemies as friends and our friends as enemies. With the trade war, he's made everyone an enemy. Our friends are our enemies, our enemies are our enemy. And so all of this is going to bleed together in ways that I think he considers to be distinct. I think he thinks of domestic policy and foreign policy as two separate spheres, and trade as something separate from like the war in Ukraine, Israel, Gaza. This morning I read this article in Reuters that the EU, companies in the EU, are talking about starting to resume buying gas from Gazprom in Russia. A huge part of dealing with the war in Ukraine has been saying we will no longer buy liquefied natural gas from Russia, cutting off a major source of revenue for the Russian government and for major companies in Russia. But now using the United States as your main source of energy seems scary to these companies or even a big piece of your energy portfolio. So they're talking about how they need to diversify again and get to some kind of resolution in Ukraine that makes it acceptable to resume purchasing natural gas from Russia.

Sarah [00:23:47] This is just a reflection of authoritarianism. It's brittle. It's undependable. It's based on strength and transaction. The reason we've built the world's strongest economy is that it wasn't based on authoritarianism, right? That it was built on a more stable, flexible, understandable-- I'm not saying it was perfect. You read a lot of reporting around diplomacy, around trade that America was always looking out for itself. And that's true, that we would use our strength and the power of the dollar in particular as the global reserve currency to get what we wanted. I think there's so much room here to think deeply with a lot of curiosity about the systems that Donald Trump is tearing down. And I want to do that, but everyone is so afraid and so threatened that it makes any sort of analysis impossible.

[00:24:47] They've just made any-- even to the goals that they want to achieve, the way they have acted has basically preempted any thought process analysis. There's this big economic paper going around where they want to talk about maybe it's not so great to be the global reserve currency. It makes the dollar very strong. It makes doing anything in America, building businesses, manufacturing very expensive. And I'm like, okay, well, that's interesting. I'm interested in that perspective. But this paper is also like any kind of work we want to do about this has to be done slowly and very carefully so you don't spook the global economy and plunge the American economy into the garbage can. Have they done that? No. Same for DOGE.

[00:25:32] Anything they do is just spooking people, scaring people, radicalizing people. The human race, not just Americans, just doesn't function well from a space of fear and scarcity. Like our animal brain's go into overdrive and everybody makes bad calls. I mean, not everybody. I think that there is some radicalization that we will see from this that could be beneficial to people. And I'm interested in thinking about global aid not achieving what we were trying to achieve and the role of the dollar in the global economy. Or even just the global economy itself, this idea that scale and growth is the engine that drives everything. I don't hear people articulating, like, if this is not what we're going to do anymore, what comes next? But I do think there could be an answer to that. But it's like nobody can get there. They're too afraid.

Beth [00:26:32] Well, and even the messaging coming from the administration and its allies is internally contradictory.

Sarah [00:26:39] They're so clunky, real Clunky.

Beth [00:26:41] I think Brian Schatz, the Senator from Hawaii has done a good job making fun of this, but also making the point. So he posted on X four days ago. "Our plan is working perfectly and is just a negotiating tactic, but it is also going to be permanent. And we will be the world leader in textiles. And now there is a pause and everyone needs to chill, but also we will never back down." And that's right. That's what the messaging was. That's a fair summary.

Sarah [00:27:08] Everyone needs to chill and we will never back down. That's it.

Beth [00:27:10] And then yesterday he said we have made an exception for China, but they are still included. All tariffs are permanent and also temporary. Our plan is to reshore iPhones and also to exempt them. Everything is going great. Please just chill. And there's nothing incorrect about that. That's what the messaging has been.

Sarah [00:27:28] No. And I do think that there is this aspect of a deep-seated war on the professional class that's still happening here. Because I keep thinking like, okay, they did pass their budget resolution. Okay, maybe we'll talk about cuts for Medicaid that will get people's attention. But if you want to talk about the predominant group in Donald Trump's voting coalition, these people from a lower socioeconomic class, they don't give a shit about the stock market. They don't have a lot of money in their 401ks, right? So anything around that, I think, doesn't hit. Now, high prices at the store absolutely will. But I just think so much of this, of what he's doing-- I hate to be a conspiracy theorist, but there's so much talk about the education gap in our voting populace. It's higher income, higher education people are leaving their Republican party. They don't want to be MAGA. They're going to the Democratic party. Also, I think this administration is filled with people who feel excluded by the professional class and have always felt excluded by the elites in the professional class.

Beth [00:28:51] Even though they are entitled to join them. They have the credentials to be part of it.

Sarah [00:28:55] Right. And so I'm like is this just one long war on people he's mad didn't vote for him and who've been mean to him his whole life and mean to Stephen Miller and mean to JD Vance? Because this is what it feels like. I think everyone will suffer. And as with everything, it is actually people lower down the socioeconomic ladder that will suffer the most. But this beginning and the language and the way they talk about it just kind of feels like, "I don't care if you don't have any retirement; what do I give a shit about that?"

Beth [00:29:29] Well, at best, that war on the professional class compromises their economic vision. So I was watching this clip that's making the rounds of Theo Von talking about these tariffs. And he was saying I think we just have to do this or it's game over. And he talked about being on this comedy tour and seeing places like Amarillo, Texas and Shreveport, Louisiana and how there are so many places where there is no downtown anymore. It just feels like these communities have been hollowed out. And so he was saying, bite the bullet, stay with the tariffs, make the long-term bet that you bring manufacturing back to the country. That's how I understood it. And I was thinking about that and thinking about how even within that, there are a lot of compromises. Because I understand being upset that we had many communities built around one major manufacturer. That's what created the middle class in the community and that middle class enabled retail businesses and restaurants and hospitality to thrive.

[00:30:39] You can't have cute little downtown shops if importing everything is unreasonably expensive. We don't have as many restaurants. I mean even the sort of apostrophe S restaurant chains are struggling right now. And I think that's a fight with technology and culture more than with economic policy and trade. So there are all these pieces embedded in what he's saying. And if you really wanted to solve it, if your vision was that somehow, even with technology and culture being what they are, we could go back to those factory towns, you would be building up government and government spending to create those again, right? But doing these tariffs at the same time that you are trying to decimate the professional class and with it government contracts and government spending and government research and resources, you're blowing everything out. You're not building in one place and tearing down another. You're just tearing down everywhere.

Sarah [00:31:47] Yeah, I keep thinking about the pieces of this that will connect with the most people-- that connect with me. I'm trying to be honest about the pieces of this that I think sound promising. I'm trying to be as generous as humanly possible. I don't think it's manufacturing to me. I get why that's what they love. I think it's silly. I mean, you don't go back in time. You don't go back in time to the 1950s with AI coming on the scene. It's a ludicrous proposal. But I do think that there is an appeal in having a local economy. Doesn't have to be manufacturing, but it does have to a local economy that is not so dependent on the global economy. What would that look like? Would it look like local economies really built around services? But you and I have experienced that in building our own business. Every model is just growth and scale. That's it. There's not a vision for the American economy, and he is certainly not providing it. Because going back to these factory towns is cuckoo. Nobody will do that right now.

[00:33:19] Let's just say like My Pillow CEO, the dude that's fullest embedded with your vision of the world, and nobody but a fool would try to build something right now. It's too unstable. You don't know if you can get the supplies you need. And if you could continue to get the supplies you need, also building anything is going to be exorbitantly expensive. Like you got a real chicken and the egg here, buddy. How are you going to build anything when what we build with is from overseas, but we're tearing them because we want to build here but we want to build here but we can't build here because we build with things from overseas. Do you see what I’m saying here? It's a little cyclical. And so there is a part of me that's like, okay, but what is it going to look like? He doesn't have a vision. We know that. If he's going to tear it down, there is opportunity in chaos.

[00:34:09] So what do we think comes next? What would a local economy not built on some starry-eyed nostalgic vision of factory towns-- because I don't disagree with what Theo Von is saying necessarily about towns that have been so hollowed out. And I do think that everybody can live in urban areas. I don' think that's a sustainable civic vision in particular. And so what would it look like through the lens of AI or through the lense of, I don't know, more locally made products? The products are going to have to be different and they're going to be more expensive. But could we build sustainable local economies that it's not just all about getting on Shark Tank and selling your stuff to China? That's how you get rich and famous. We're going to have a different vision for what success looks like if we're trying to anchor the American economy in towns and cities across America.

Beth [00:35:17] Which is tough because I think we all really desire a sense of place, even as what we want from our work leads us more away from a sense place. Our small business that we try to have a vision for that's not just growth and scale depends on remote work from every single person involved. There is no door that you walk through to get into Pantsuit Politics. And that affords all of us a lot in our lives that is aligned with who we want to be in the world and how we want to show up for our families. It also lets each of us have more of a sense of place because we have some free time to be involved in our communities. We're not spending that time at an office or on a commute to an office, but that's a hard mix. And we see a backlash to that mix in a major way from companies and from our government right now. You hit a wall too with like what kind of work do people want to do? There's this survey making the rounds from the Cato Institute where 80% of Americans said that we'd be better off with more manufacturing.

[00:36:26] But when asked, would you be better off if you worked in a factory? 25% of people said yes. This isn't the kind of work we want to do. The Chinese government is making all of these memes like laughing at the idea of, in their view, just lazy, worthless Americans trying to do factory work. And they're cruel and propaganda, and they work, I think, and get shared because there's a hint of truth underlying. That's not what Americans want to do. Part of that place-based economy of the future that would be more ecologically sustainable, probably healthier in many ways, would involve more agriculture. I don't know that that's what Americans want to do with our lives. So we have some tough questions here that we can't get to because we're trapped in all of these policies that aren't taking us anywhere.

Sarah [00:37:20] I don't know. I do think that there is more room in Americans' lives for I don't want to say physical work, but more-- I don't know the word I'm looking for. I think about my husband who's an attorney and he talks about how he likes to come home and cook dinner because it has a beginning and an end.

Beth [00:37:46] You can see what you did.

Sarah [00:37:49] You can see what you did. And even with our work, as you were talking about that, I was like, well, yeah, we all work remotely on technology that is manufactured across the globe. There's no vision for Paducah's economy that can sustain and build every semiconductor I use to do remote work. It's never going to happen, ever. Even though Paducah does have a fair amount of crypto mining places around here. But it's just I don't know the industrial scale on which we have built so much of the technology that runs our lives. Because this is to me the technology aspect. This is why this is the most inconsistent and harmful aspect of this tariff policy is because they don't have an answer. We don't the minerals. We don't have the resources. China has built global economic dominance on industrial scale manufacturing. Things that will blow your mind. Like just machines, the sizes of them, the things they're building, the complexity of what they're building.

[00:38:54] I think all the time about that water book we read where they talk about pure water they use to clean the routes of semiconductors that would leach the calcium out of your bones if you drank it. That's how pure it is because they have removed nanoparticles from these semiconductors. And I barely understand what that means or how that works. I'm pretty smart. And so it's like the complexity, you can't put Pandora back in the box. It's going to have to look new and they don't have a vision for that. And it's going to get really hard before it gets better. And again, it's new, it's complex, and we've been here before. The globalism that they were experiencing in the early 1900s that was confusing to people with the telephone and the telegram and electricity, and then we put all these tariffs on and had the Great Depression and tanked everything. It's hard to feel like we're not just reliving that up until including World War II all over again.

Beth [00:39:54] The New York Times pointed out in its piece this morning when we were talking about China, just the China piece of the tariffs, what is the goal here? Do we want to trade more with China? Are we upset about the trade imbalance and we want trade more with China? Or do we want to trade less because the national security risks of doing business with China when we can't trust some of their products when they cheat, when they manipulate currency, when they steal intellectual property? What is goal? Do we want to trade more or less? And that's entirely unclear here. The only goal that I have heard articulated by this administration with respect to China is that the president would like Xi Jinping to ask him for a call. That's the only thing I've heard that's definitive.

Sarah [00:40:37] That's all they're talking about. All these countries are calling us to making deals. Again, it's very helpful to be reading Wolf Hall right now and parts of War and Peace because it's a royal court. That's what he wants. He wants tribute. The vision is more power for him. That's the vision. The vision is I am the smartest. I do what I want. No one stops me. Everyone bends the knee and pays tribute and makes me more powerful and more stronger and more impressive. And that's it. The vision isn't even the tariffs. Even placing the tariffs isn't the vision. That's why the rollout was so sloppy. It was they probably spent more time on how it would look in the press conference than they did on the actual policy.

Beth [00:41:31] I think that's true. If you think about what my vision is, it is not a royal court, and it is to turn the United States into China. I don't want the primary jobs available for successive generations of my family to be factory work. I like doing things tactile too as a contrast to that intellectual work that I do all day. I agree with Nicholas I like to cook dinner sometimes and see that I made a thing when it's hard to see that in our work. But I would much rather spend the bulk of my day thinking through problems and writing and reading and learning. And that's where I hope more and more of our time can be spent collectively. I do think that's the culture that we want to have here. And so that culture means importing more stuff or approaching the importing of more stuff differently in some ways.

[00:42:22] There are real problems to solve here. China is a bad actor. It's not only prolifically making things in ways that are bad for the planet, probably bad for our spirits, but also bad for business. They are a bad act in the trade stage and I understand wanting to punish them. And if this were a focused decision to go to trade war with China, to stop those practices and there were real demands and ask on the other side, I'd probably be supportive of it. I think there was a bipartisan consensus in Washington DC that we had a number of issues where a confrontation with China is probably due. But that's not what any of this is. It's just a blanket smattering of ad hoc policy until his gut tells him different and we'll see in 90 days or maybe not. And it's depressing.

Sarah [00:43:14] If China's such a bad actor then why is TikTok still flowing freely through all our phones? That's what I want to know. That's what I want to understand. Why are you shutting down the department that was investigating their infiltration and continued occupation of our telecommunication system? Again, I don't think it's about anything except tribute. I don' think it is about anything but him. Maybe for Stephen Miller because I think he really is a white supremacist and wants to remove every immigrant from America. I'm not even sure where that ends with him, honestly. I don't think I even want to know, but it's such a weird thing. Again, it just one more place where I feel like I was so wrong. I said it a million times, I even felt it. I'm like, he just wants to make him and his buddies rich. As long as the Stock market keeps in check, we'll be okay. And here he is acting like completely unleashed from the stock market or maybe the bond market. The bond markets seem to have gotten his attention a little bit. But they're still not doing anything that's going to quell the queasiness in the bond market. Like not really, no one believes you anymore. Literally. You can't negotiate. The Art of the Deal. Is the art of a deal making sure everyone knows exactly what your pain point is and that they can't trust a thing you say? I haven't read The Art of the Deal. Beth, I don't know about you, but maybe I should because I really don't understand this approach to negotiation.

Beth [00:44:46] I don't either. I do know with TikTok that that court aspect is as naked as it could possibly be because the president reversed his stance on TikTok when he found that he was popular on it and he found that it earns him votes. There's reporting that the Chinese government was actually ready to make a deal and let ByteDance divest from TikTok so that the app could continue in the United States. And then that went right off the table with these tariffs. So, again, what's the goal? What are we trying to do anywhere?

Sarah [00:45:16] And I think the goal is only to-- it's the whims of his gut, the whims of his ego, the whims of his psyche. And it's just so hard because I think everyone just feels so stuck here. We got a long time left, Beth. We're not even at 100 days yet. It's so brutal. It's just so brutal to think about that. I think that's what's so hard and scary. He's just getting started. Nothing seems to feed back. Protest. The stock market. I don't know how bad it will get. And what I'm worried about is some of these effects are going to be so detached from the news cycle. Like they're going to be really diverse and diffuse in a way that makes people confused or distracted. I don't know. I say that, but then I also think like, man, Americans had their eye on the prize with the Biden presidency in a way I didn't. So maybe they'll see this.

Beth [00:46:22] Well, I think what will happen is that other events will intervene and he'll have some scapegoats.

Sarah [00:46:27] Yeah, he loves a scapegoat. That's for sure. But I wonder as the price of his policies increase, will people's ability to be distracted by his usual antics and this approach to deflecting responsibility, will that also decrease? I think so. I think at this point we're so far in with the Trump era and his approach to things. And because media is changing and the way people interact with media and television and social media, I think it's hard to say, but I can envision a scenario in which he just runs out of road. Like his regular approach. When you break things, you break also the things that got you here. You know what I'm saying? When you tear down everything, you also tear down the structure upon which you climbed to the top rungs of power.

Beth [00:47:34] I hope that's right. I think one trick that will run out for him is blaming the media for everything because so much of what he's doing that is so damaging, you can do nothing but just listen to him and get it. You can get the contradictions; you can get that there's no goal. You can get that he's changing his mind constantly. When he's posting on social media 'be cool' in all caps, I think just about anybody can see that we have a problem. We will certainly continue to talk about the trade war and about the effect of the administration's policies, but we are going to end our episode with something much more pleasant. We always conclude with what's on our minds Outside of Politics. And this week it is Sarah's spring break. Sarah, do you want to talk about your trip to Washington, DC?

Sarah [00:48:39] Yeah, as I said, we just got back from a week in DC. I lived in DC before I had kids with Nicholas. And so it was fun to go back and show the kids our apartment. It was very like sliding door. Like, what would it be like if we still lived here? What would it be like if we'd pursue these careers? That was sort of a scary vision. Nicholas most likely would have been working in government at this point, working for the FCC maybe. Even hard to think about as far as what my career would have looked like. Most everybody, all the staff I worked with in DC are lobbyists now. Kind of a traditional path. And so thinking about what would have changed if we'd stayed here and showing the kids our lives there and seeing really, really old friends that were just so generous and wonderful was really great. And DC is a beautiful city with lots and lots of wonderful things to offer. I got to go to the White House Spring Garden Tour, which was very, very fun. And the military band was playing on the portico. Griffin was like, "This is like Disneyland politics edition."

[00:49:51] And the boys got to the floor of the house with Representative Haley Stevens, which was an incredible once in a lifetime experience. They met Nancy Pelosi, who came up to them and said, like, you're seeing all these historical figures on the walls, but you are the future of our country. They got to meet AOC, which I'm super freaking jealous about. Their eyes came out and they were like as big as saucers. It was so fun. And we went to all the Smithsonian museums and saw these incredible pieces of American history. And it was hard being there knowing the suffering and the, just again, harassment that's going on with federal employees. And also the most powerful part to me, I was trying to explain this to Griffin, of standing in the Lincoln Memorial or standing in the Jefferson Memorial is remembering that these people that we idolize, that we hold up as heroes, they didn't know how it was going to end.

[00:50:59] When Thomas Jefferson and our founding fathers signed their names to the Declaration of Independence, it could have just as easily been a death warrant for treason. And Lincoln, of course, didn't know, never found out really, what would become of America post-Civil War. At certain points, I imagined he wondered if we would make it out. Just looking at sculptures to Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony and Lucretia Mott, women who dedicated their lives to a cause they never saw succeed in their lifetimes, it's just so humbling and inspiring and encouraging to remember I'm not the only one who stood in thought, "How's this going to end?" I don't know how this is going to end, because there is no end. Like you said, there's no last day. And that's it's what remains one of my most favorite places on earth, and so it was really fun to take the boys and show them all that. And we got to see some pandas before China takes them all back. So that was really great, too.

Beth [00:52:11] How is reentry? Were your kids excited to go back to school today?

Sarah [00:52:15] Yeah, they love going. There are definitely ready to go back. Nicholas and I were talking about sometimes domestic trips are like harder and more tiring than international trips. And I don't have any idea why that is. But we walked. Listen, DC is such an easy place to walk your booty off. I think the first day we walked 22,000 steps. Because we were like it's just over there; we'll just go over there to that Smithsonian and it's like an hour walk down the mall.

Beth [00:52:39] So Jane was in D.C. for the weekend. So she was there Friday to Monday and then she got home. Ellen and I were gone over the weekend as well. So we all had spring break, but condensed into that weekend before. And then we're all home this last week. I don't recommend that. That was not a great strategy for everyone's health and wellbeing. Because we all got back tired and then we were just here together. And I think it would have been better if we had just gone back to school, if we'd done that weekend and then headed back to school. This morning Jane was very happy to go back and Ellen not so much, but that's just how it always is.

Sarah [00:53:13] Was Jane on a school trip to D.C.?

Beth [00:53:15] Yes, the eighth grade goes to D.C. every year.

Sarah [00:53:18] It's crazy, we saw so many school trips, so many groups of kids. And Griffin's going to do that too in high school. I think they do it in their junior year maybe, but they just pile so much in [crosstalk]. And they're with their peers. I'm not sure how much they actually take in on those trips because they're with their buddies the whole time, and when the peers are around, the peers have the number one priority. So at first I was like, dang, I kind of forgot they went through high school. I wish I didn't plan this trip, but then I'm like, no way. They wouldn't have gotten-- they had to go to the floor of the house. They have all these really special experiences. And I'm glad we took our time. It was not a hardcore trip; although, we still stereotypically [inaudible]. Like got up at eight and came back at eight. My friend Haley, we stayed with, was like, "I was like should we call the authorities? Have they become lost?" She's like, you're gone for so long. I'm, like, yeah, that's how we roll. We like to go hard. But there were so many school trips there. We had a really good time. The boys are getting to be so-- I thought they were fun to travel with, but man, they're really getting so much fun to be around. They're hilarious. They make each other laugh. They make us laugh. The things they see and notice and the way they interact with each other; I'm just completely enamored with them right now. It's so fun.

Beth [00:54:38] Well, I can't speak for all school trips and children, but I know Jane came back excited about what she saw in D.C. She loved to go to Gettysburg. She said they had a wonderful, wonderful guide at Gettysburg and thought it was so interesting. And she did love being with her peers. This was the first time she had gone on a trip without us at all. She's in camps, but to go a city and tour things without us was new for her and we had no concerns about it whatsoever. She's very responsible, level-headed and came home with lots of great pictures and memories. So I'm really grateful to the teachers who organized those trips.

Sarah [00:55:15] Oh, Lord, yes.

Beth [00:55:16] That has to be a real situation, but I know there are good companies that they work with and they kind of got it down to a science now. But I appreciate the teachers and the people who chaperone those trips because I didn't want to, and I'm thrilled that she had such a good time and that you all did, too.

Sarah [00:55:32] Yeah, it's a great city. It was really lovely. And thank you to all the people who made it possible, particularly Representative Haley Stevens, my friend Haley who let us stay at her house all week, which was incredibly generous. And my friends that I saw took us out to dinner. And D.C.'s so different and so much bigger and better than when we were there. So it was a really, really fun all the way around.

Beth [00:56:00] Well, we really appreciate you all being here with us today as we discuss everything from the trade war to our family travel. Please do not forget that the link to our live show is in the show notes. If you'd like to celebrate our 10th birthday with us through a virtual ticket that you can watch live or whenever it's convenient for you, we'd love for you to do that. We'll be back with you for another new episode this Friday. Until then, have the best week available to you.

Amberlee Bratcher

I said this during the election and I feel it now more than I thought I could. Before the election I felt like I started my day with the message of, "There is a 50/50 chance an asteroid hits earth and ruins your life as you know it. And here's your local weather in 30 seconds." And we all just got up, went to work, sent our kids to school, etc. At what point are we not "crazy" people for just saying WTF and taking to the streets? I am not a protestor. Never have been. No shame to those who do and definitely can be powerful, just saying personally, it's never been my jam. But right now I feel a little nuts for just getting up and going about my day like nothing is happening around me, but also, my job helps support our family and my kids still have soccer on Tuesday afternoons.

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